Published: September 10, 2025
※This chapter contains cruel expressions. Please be advised if you are sensitive to such content.
“Sold out?! What’s going on?!”
“What do you mean what’s going on? It’s exactly as I said. The store’s stock is zero.”
At the Echigoya Trading Company’s shop, the red-haired Nel, who was working as a clerk, answered while defending herself with a tray from the spit flying at her from an unruly customer.
“When will you get more in?!”
“The next shipment is undecided.”
“What?! Then deliver it to my house as soon as it arrives!”
“No can do. We don’t handle delivery services.”
“Then set some aside for me!”
“Sorry, but candy can’t be reserved.”
“What?! I’m a customer!”
The customer, treated coldly by Nel, flew into a rage.
As he tried to grab Nel, the security guards of Echigoya Trading Company restrained him.
“If you really want some, why not buy directly from the explorers returning at the tower front?”
Nel called out to the former customer being escorted away by the guards.
The ex-customer seemed to take Nel’s advice as provocation and peppered the area outside the shop with a volley of filthy curses until he was out of sight.
“Another candy shortage, huh?”
“Yeah. Whether coffee candy or cola candy, just sell whatever we have.”
Nel nodded in response to Tifaliza, the store manager’s secretary and her colleague.
“They even put up a sign at the entrance saying ‘Candy Sold Out,’ but it didn’t seem to help.”
“Lots of people can’t read yet.”
Although learning cards, said to have originated in Seryu City, are gradually spreading, literacy remains low in the Royal Capital.
“Maybe we should ask Tama-sensei to draw a picture to show it’s sold out?”
A shadow stirred restlessly at Nel’s feet.
“A picture?”
“Yeah. Even those who can’t read can understand pictures.”
“Leaving it to a busy ‘Demon King Slayer’ is one thing, but expressing it with a picture sounds like a solid idea. I’ll ask the art dealer the company is friendly with.”
With that, Tifaliza said and left to make arrangements, while the shadow at Nel’s feet slipped quietly into loneliness.
Amid the bustling noise of the store, no one caught the faint whisper of “Too bad~.”
It seemed the cat ninja’s talents as a genius painter would have to wait for another opportunity.
◇
“Three is still tough, huh?”
“We can do it! We can take down three goblins!”
“Absolutely!”
Five boys, who had swapped their farming tools for clubs, were fighting three vanguard goblins inside the tower.
The vanguard goblins weren’t especially strong monsters, but neither were the boys, who had received no proper combat training.
Though wounded by the goblins’ claws, the boys kept swinging their bloody clubs at them.
“This is tough…”
“Hang in there!”
“If we take down three, maybe some candy will drop!”
“That’s right!”
“Yeah!”
In the tower’s lower floors, candy sold for a higher price than the demon core fragments, whose prices were plummeting.
“There!”
As the gritty battle neared its end, voices came from a nearby corner.
“Heh heh, I’ll take that wounded gob!”
“Second one!”
When a few men ran up, they swiftly finished off two vanguard goblins.
The boys were stunned by the sudden turn of events, and while they were distracted, the men grabbed the loot.
“Oh yeah! Got candy!”
“This isn’t a fragment, it’s a full demon core!”
Ignoring the boys, the men celebrated.
“Don’t steal from us!”
“Hey, those are our goblins!”
“What the heck!”
“Stealing?!”
When the boys protested, the men’s smiles vanished, and they brandished their weapons with intimidating expressions.
They wore well-used leather armor, and their weapons were the recently popular goblin swords and goblin axes.
“We saved you guys from those goblins trying to kill you!”
“…Sa—”
One boy tried to protest, “We didn’t ask to be saved,” but fell silent, intimidated by the bearded man.
“Dammit, it ran away!”