EP1. The Beginning of Everything (1)
EP1. The Beginning of Everything
“Oh, are you awake?”
Shaun’s world is colored with emeralds.
But when he woke up from his sleep, he realized that he was mistaken because Levy’s eyes were so close.
“Why are you so close? You were surprised!”
“Because it’s rare to see Shawn sleeping! Why did you sleep so late? Did you do anything without sleeping last night?”
Sean didn’t do anything in particular yesterday. Instead, he felt like he had a good night’s sleep today. Come to think of it, he seemed to have had a dream, but when he tried to recall it, it was right after it happened, so he couldn’t remember what it was about.
“Don’t think about going overboard, don’t you come out quickly?”
At that, Levy pulled her body from across the bed with a strange laugh. Then, in Sean’s field of vision, Levy’s appearance was visible at a glance.
A beautiful girl with shiny blonde hair and bright green eyes.
Shawn, who has lived in the village all his life, has not seen many people, but he admits that Levy is her unusual appearance.
“So, what brought you here so early?”
“You’re coming so early, it’s been a long time since the sun went over the crown of your head?”
‘You mean it’s already that time?’
Sean admitted that he overslept on rare occasions.
“Anyway, what are you here for?”
“Well, a peddler came to our village early in the morning! Let’s go out and see what they’re selling!”
‘Aha, that’s why Levy is so excited today.’
Paul, Levy’s father, runs the only general store in the village, but since the size of the village is so small, if he occasionally stops by while on his way to another city, the entire village takes an interest in the peddler.
But what good would that be? The important thing is that they are still children.
“If we go, there won’t be anything we can buy, right?”
Sean said, naturally expecting that Levi would have no money, or at least not enough money to buy the supplies she brought from the peddler.
But Levy said, confidently raising her shoulders.
“hehehe. Shawn, aren’t you surprised?”
Sean was puzzled.
There’s no way Levy has money. No way… ?
Isn’t Levy stealing the old man’s money?
Levy took a look around Sean’s house, where no one was there, and carefully took something out of his pocket.
And I showed it to Shawn. Shaun frowned and looked at what Levy was holding in his hand, and it was a small silver coin.
“Oh my God…!”
“Hey, this shiny silver coin belongs to Levi!”
“Levi, I am really disappointed in you.”
“Huh…? What’s the matter? Shawn, where are you sick?”
Sean hoped that Levy would confess, but when he saw Levy pulling away, he realized he couldn’t help it.
Because no matter how close you are, wrongs need to be corrected.
“Levi, go to Mr. Mister right now and apologize. Then I’ll just pretend I didn’t see it.”
“Yes… ? Aha! Shawn, you idiot. Did your father give you this money?”
“…Really?”
But how much money does the old man have, that expensive silver coin?
Shawn’s doubts were not resolved and grew even larger.
“Shaun, did you really think I was a bad person who would steal? I’m disappointed! Hing hing.”
Then Levy covered his face with both hands and pretended to cry. Of course, knowing it was a joke, Shawn decided to pursue something more pressing than that.
“No, he just gave you this big money?”
“I’ll use this money to pay for what Dad ordered. And with the money left over, we can buy anything we want!”
Sean’s question was resolved, but apart from that, I started to worry about Uncle Paul’s notion.
No matter how much it is, is it okay to entrust such a large amount of money to them who are still young?
“Now, is that enough? Let’s get out quickly!”
“Okay, don’t pull on me like that. Let’s go slowly. Ahh!”
Levi was so urgent that he grabbed Sean’s arm and ran out without a break.
Sean, too, grumbled in words, but left the house along with Levy.
***
Outside, as Levy said, her sunlight was shining brightly.
The town was simple but lively, as Shawn knew it.
And the two boys and the girl were walking down the street hand in hand.
“Shaun, what shall we do after we go to the peddler?”
“Well, it’s not too late to decide that at that time.”
“Well, how about going to the back mountain and having a contest to see who picks up more acorns?”
“You did that last week too.”
“What does it matter what you did last week! Then it doesn’t matter because I didn’t do it this week. Yes?”
Sean couldn’t bear to tell Levi, but the acorn picking game felt childish and boring. Why did Levy like to pick up acorns? He even wondered.
But Sean didn’t know that Levy would enjoy anything other than picking acorns if he could just play with him.
“Oh! Arrived. There he is!”
Looking at the place Levy pointed to, there were several wagons loaded with goods standing there, and villagers gathered around them to see what was being sold or buy what they needed.
‘It’s quite big, isn’t it?’
It was almost the first time, Shaun thought, that a peddler of this size had visited the town.
Usually, when a peddler comes, it is normal for a wagon to come, and sometimes there are only peddlers who come on foot without a wagon.
The reason is that the village is so small and above all, because the village is out of the way, even large peddlers do not go through this village on their way up.
“Come here Shawn! If you have something you want to see and buy, tell me, okay?”
“Okay. But have you decided to buy something?”
“No! I’ll have to check it out now!”
Sean, who had been absentmindedly watching the peddler for a while, went closer to the wagons at Levy’s call. There were a lot of various items there, befitting a large-scale peddler that was difficult to see before.
However, among them, there were a lot of unique types.
Swords, bows, armor, etc. Although there were a lot of things that were worn out, there were a lot of equipment to use in battle.
Seeing that, Shawn talked to the merchant who was managing the goods.
“Hey, Mr. Merchant!”
“Hmm? What the heck, you kid What’s going on?”
The merchant seemed to be ignoring himself vaguely, but instead of paying attention to that, Sean asked his own questions.
“Why do you sell so many weapons and armor? My town wouldn’t want to buy something like this.”
“I don’t think equipment will be sold here either. Little boy, this village is only passing through, and the goods here are sold in Laes.”
“Raes?”
I’ve never heard of the name Raes.
I definitely remember it as a city that comes out if you walk for about a week from here.
But it’s so deep, and even though it’s a city, it’s not that big, so no peddler has ever passed through the village to go to Laes, so I didn’t expect them to be going there.
“Yes, Raes said there have been a lot of monster attacks lately.”
Monster! Sean had never seen a monster in his life.
That’s why the village was originally peaceful, so the monsters seemed like something out of a fairy tale.
“Words haven’t spread yet, but it’s probably worth what it’s called because of the lack of supplies right now. Well, that will be for a little while, and soon rumors will spread and adventurers will be swarming in Raes.”
My God, adventurers! Sean didn’t know why, but it felt like his heart was pounding.
When adventurers gather in Laes, doesn’t that mean they go through this town as well! Thinking that he might actually meet the adventurers he had only heard about, Sean thought that it would be nice if the adventurers would come soon.
But Levy, who was listening from the sidelines, didn’t seem very interested. No, rather, it must have been that he was afraid of the word monster, and before he knew it, Levy was holding on to Sean’s sleeve. Come to think of it, Levy has been like that since before.
Once upon a time, when the two older children were younger, Sean’s grandmother, now deceased, sat Sean and Levy down and told them old stories.
So Sean always liked stories about adventurers defeating monsters.
On the other hand, Levy didn’t like hero stories very much. Rather, Levy really liked things like the love story between a man and a woman that Sean was bored with.
After thinking for a while, Sean asked the merchant man.
“So there are no adventurers yet? If there are no adventurers, no one will buy equipment, right?”
“There are no adventurers, but there are soldiers. The city’s guards are probably in a frenzy because they lack equipment to fight monsters. Well, even if it doesn’t sell, wouldn’t the adventurers who come later need equipment? So it won’t matter.”
Certainly, even if Sean thought about it, the merchant’s words made sense.
I thought to myself that I was an idiot for coming this far to sell combat gear, but I’m sure there was a good reason for that.
“Come to think of it, I said earlier that no one would buy equipment in this town, right? You’re wrong. Kid.”
“Yes?”
“There was a guy who bought equipment here too.”
“Really? In my town?”
“Yes, he asked me to hang out in front of the sword. Well, I don’t know how much such a cheap thing will help.”
Who are you? In Sean’s opinion, there was no one in this town who could use a sword.
Uncle Joe, a hunter, also mainly uses a bow and also bought a hunting knife a while ago, so he couldn’t buy it again right away. In the first place, the sword here looked like it could not be used as a hunting knife.
When Shawn got lost in his own doubts and stopped talking to the merchant for a while, Levy, who had been listening to the conversation between Sean and the merchant, took the opportunity to speak to him this time.
“Uncle!”
“Hmm…?”
The merchant couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the girl she hadn’t seen behind Sean.
Because she was still a little girl, but her appearance was so beautiful. It seemed to the merchant that he had never seen a girl of this size even in the big cities he had been to.
When she grows up, she will surely become the most beautiful woman in the world. The merchant thought involuntarily.
As a result, I had a bit of a dark greed about how much money I would get if I sold it as a slave, but since heading to Laes was an urgent priority right now, I decided to put that thought aside for a while and answered the girl’s call. .
“So, little lady, what are you going to do?”
“I heard that if my father gave me this silver coin, I could buy anything I wanted with the extra money!”
The merchant thought about the girl’s words for a while, then remembered a large middle-aged man who said he would make a deal with him early in the morning and come back to pay later.
‘A rabbit-like daughter like this came out of that bear-like father. You did well to give up her greed. Otherwise, that bear-like man would mercilessly kill me… Uh!’
The merchant praised himself for his wise judgment for a while, but soon put his nerves aside and decided to answer the girl’s words.
“You’re going to buy something with the extra money? Well, it doesn’t matter to me, but there won’t be any products that a child can buy.”
The merchant showed the items in the wagon to the children and continued talking.
“As I said earlier, most of the items in this wagon are either combat equipment, food, or herbs. Your parents have already bought most of the miscellaneous goods that were left, so it can be assumed that you guys have nothing to play with.”
At that, Sean and Levy felt nothing but disappointment. Of course, Sean was not very disappointed because he expected something like this from talking with the merchant, but the girl was different.
From noble mtl dot com.
‘I thought there would be something amazing…!’
Levi, who had been looking forward to buying something from the peddler all day, suddenly felt depressed. But what made Levy even sadder than that was that, in Sean’s eyes, she wondered if she looked like an idiot when she was excited about her expectations.
I felt like I was about to burst into tears. But Levy didn’t want to show her tears to Shawn, who was right next to her, so she tried to hold back the tears that were about to come out.
Even though Levy’s efforts were overshadowed, Shawn, who saw him, couldn’t help but notice Levy’s feelings.
Sean felt that her head was cramped as to how to appease Levy.
Anyone could see that Levy seemed offended, so the merchant also noticed him and pricked his heart for no reason.
‘They say it’s easier to win a man’s heart with a beautiful woman than a piece of cake!’
Even though the girl named Levi was a young girl, or rather, it was because she was a young girl, she was a merchant who felt more sorry for nothing. So the merchant said to the girl.
“Little boy, how about this?”
The merchant started taking out an item from the depths of the wagon.
Sean, who was suffering from her head, and Levy, who was sniffing, also showed interest and turned their attention to the merchant’s hand.
What the merchant took out was none other than a book.
But there were a few problems with that book, actually a lot.
There are already scorched marks on the outside of the book, and only a few pages remain, as if almost all of them were burned.
Seeing that, Sean was very disappointed.
‘What is it? You wouldn’t have a book like that even if I gave it to you for free, so you’re trying to sell something like that?’
The merchant took one look around, as if it were a big secret no one should ever hear, then crouched down and quietly whispered to Sean and Levy and began an additional explanation of the book.
“Actually, this is a very precious book that cannot be bought with even a single gold coin. Because, this book is not an ordinary book…”
Can’t you buy one gold coin?
Of course, it is true that books, which are exclusive to the high class, are somewhat expensive, because most of them, except for the nobles and some intellectuals attending universities, do not know how to read, but even so, books are books.
Silver coins can suffice for most books, and even if they are expensive, Shawn doesn’t know the details, but one gold coin should be enough to buy 50 books.
Since there are several books that my grandmother has been collecting from old times at Sean’s house, I know the price of books to some extent, and above all, gold coins are worth that much money.
Sean decided that the merchant was overcharging them, and asked.
“What the hell is that book about? You can’t buy it with a single gold coin?”
“Don’t be alarmed. This book is a magic book!”
Spellbook! Sean and Levy were startled by the merchant’s whispers, but Sean soon calmed himself down and thought.
Of course, Sean has never seen a magic book since he was born, and it is understandable that if this book is really a magic book, it cannot be bought with a single gold coin, but the important thing is that this book was completely burned and only a part of it remained.
Even Shawn, who knew nothing about magic, was pretty sure he couldn’t learn any magic from this book.
And more importantly, there is no way to check whether this book is a spell book in the first place!
However, the merchant continued to boast about the magic book, whether or not he knew Sean’s heart.
“This book was something I really struggled to get. How much money, time and effort was poured! This book tells you three of the most basic magics that wizards can learn. I’ve been thinking a lot about how to do this, but I’ll give it to you guys at a special low price. How are you?”
This is a ridiculous deal. No matter how expensive it is, if it is not useful to me, it is no different from a defective product.
‘That’s obviously a scam!’
Sean thought so and tried to refuse firmly.
But Levy was faster than that. As soon as Levy finished listening to the merchant, he said with joy as if he had received a birthday present.
“Good! Oh yea!”
Saying that, Levy took the piece of paper that was in the merchant’s hand before Shawn had time to stop it, and he cherished it and loved it.
“Hey, mister. Don’t you have anything to do? Got it?”
The merchant also felt relieved when he was able to handle the magic book, which he had been uncomfortable with for no reason.
Actually, I couldn’t tell the children, but when I met the wizard by chance and asked about the book, he said that the very important part had already been completely burned, and the remaining part was no more than a piece of paper with no value.
It’s good because I’m able to deal with things I don’t need, and I’m happy because the girl is happy after getting rid of her sadness.
The merchant was delighted, saying that he had done a business where no one was losing money.
But Shawn was different. He felt a vague feeling that was hard to put into words.
I think I should say no to Levy since it’s obviously a fraud, but seeing Levy jumping around with such joy, I couldn’t bear to say that.
Sean couldn’t understand Levy at all.