The Demon Prince goes to the Academy

Chapter 12

As I found out later, the Al Ligar district’s shopping district was notorious among adventurers. It was a place filled with unscrupulous merchants who nearly forced people to buy things, never refunded and charged them several tens of times of the market price.

Nevertheless, it was the largest shopping district in the Imperial Capital and most items necessary for adventurers could only be purchased there, so it was a notorious place that, alas, couldn’t be avoided.

Well, it was the same as the old Yongsan Electronics Market. Just a fantasy version of it.

It was a place novice adventurers were more scared of than dungeons. A place where it was common for people who wanted to start out as adventurers to give up on these thoughts.

The victims were mostly just teenaged novice adventurers who came here with their saved up pocket money.

Was it PTSD? I felt my whole body shaking.

That bastard who sold me MP3s. Are you doing well, I wonder?

You have to live a good life. If you just continue to live such a bad life, wouldn’t that be sad, huh? Wouldn’t it?

Let’s calm down.

Among these many gangsters, I had to find a proper magic tool shop to sell these scrolls to. No, well, at first that felt easy enough, but it seemed like the difficulty just rose absurdly high suddenly.

Somehow it felt impossible to do.

Just by knowing the fact that this was Yongsan.

There were many shops such as weapon shops, armor shops, tool shops, etc. however, I was looking for a magic tool shop. A magic tool shop was basically a place where a lot of money changed their owners pretty quickly, different from these other shops.

“What do you want? Don’t touch anything and get out.”

I couldn’t even enter most of the shops because the owners were afraid I might touch a scroll and activate it. I also didn’t look like an adventurer.

The first store owner was actually rather kind as he let me in.

Even though there were some who strangely let me come in, their reactions weren’t that good.

The merchant looked at the scroll that I said I was going to sell and frowned.

“……What’s this? Were you gonna sell these for money? Look at that brat. Don’t make a fuss and get out. Well, I can give ya two bronze coins for these.”

What?

Did all the gangsters collude or something? How could they slap me in the face like this? I wasn’t sure about 2 gold coins, but you wouldn’t even give me 1? Didn’t that guy have at least that much conscience left in him?

I didn’t say anything, grabbed my scrolls and left. They were just a bunch of crooks not worth talking to.

However, the response from the next shop was also poor.

“Haha, what’s this? It’s my first time seeing someone trying to scam me like this. Ah, what bad luck. Get out of here, bastard!”

There were some who kicked me out as soon as they saw the scrolls.

After getting turned down like this three times in a row, I realized that something was odd.

What did they mean, scam?

The next store treated me the same. I got sent off two consecutive times with the words “What’s with this nonsense?!”.

“What the hell do you think of people doing business here, huh? Do you think we wouldn’t be able to tell the difference?!”

.

.

“Don’t just doodle these weird things and actually learn how to draw.”

It was a rather friendly reply, but I still got turned down.

They looked at me as if I was some madman trying some weird scam by selling fake scrolls.

This bizarre situation was going on instead of the good and bad outcomes I was expecting. Everything that the Writer’s Advice hinted at went wrong.

Were they thinking that the scrolls I took out weren’t the real deal just because I looked young? Did they think these were fakes that just looked kind of similar?

I had to show them that they actually worked, but if I activated a scroll I’d just waste it. I couldn’t blow my capital like that. If I showed them and then asked for money afterwards, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t give it to me.

The next place I went to was more out-of-the-way.

“Ho-oh….”

The shop owner glanced at the scroll and his eyes lit up. I thought he was someone who could finally recognize these scrolls’ true value without being prejudiced.

To be honest, I was exhausted, so I just wanted to finally sell them even if he ripped me off badly. The man suddenly fumbled through his drawers and pulled out a scroll.

“Hey, you shouldn’t draw this, try doing these, these and these.”

He did recognize the value.

“If you can draw the same thing, I’ll give you five silver coins each. How about it?”

The only problem was that he saw value in me and not in the scrolls.

It seemed like that guy was misunderstanding something greatly, trying to make me mass-produce fake scrolls to sell.

I was almost flabbergasted by this devilish idea that transcended dimensions.

The owner kept on raising the remuneration even though I didn’t do anything, and in the end, he offered me 1 gold coin per sheet.

I had never seen such a vicious bastard before.

“Oh, come on! Fine! Let’s go 50/50! Okay? But you’ll have to rake in lots of money for me, got that? So young and already so ferocious…… Huh.”

It was tempting, but I wasn’t the one who drew these so I really couldn’t do it. However, I did feel in awe, seeing the eyes of that man coveting talent that I didn’t have.

He was such a crook that I almost genuinely wanted to punish him. No, well, scrolls were supposed to be used in emergencies. If the scroll turned out to be fake, that person trying to use it would most likely die, right?

You were playing with people’s lives here, you know? He was the top bastard among these petty thugs.

I ended up sighing and nodded my head.

“Sure, can I bring you the finished products tomorrow?”

Just looking at these complex shapes, it was probably impossible for me to replicate them here.

“O, ooh! Yes, yes! Can you bring it in tomorrow?”

“I might have to stay up all night.”

“Oh, good! Yeah! I’ll give you the money as soon as I get it! The profit’s 50/50, so if they get sold, we’ll split the profits! You know there’s no business like this, right, buddy?”

You wouldn’t tell me even if you sold one, you bastard.

I left the shop with the scroll the merchant handed to me.

– You’re going to make me a fortune!

Hearing the sounds coming from behind me made me involuntarily sigh.

What’s with this?

Was that guy’s head only filled with greed? Was he the type of person that couldn’t see clearly ahead of him because of his own greed?

Anyway.

I got a Fireball Scroll for free.

* * *

I came to sell a scroll and saw the extraordinary profit of earning one scroll. Fireball was an attack spell, and unlike other novels who treated this spell as one of the basics, Fireball was quite a powerful spell in this world.

Why was a spell that created an explosion right in front of you only a basic spell?

I was a stubborn bastard, that insistent on not caring about historical facts.

However, these things bothered me.

Honestly though, I didn’t think that much about it.

Could anyone just carry a fireball scroll or something? Shouldn’t it be banned by law? Well, wasn’t this like selling rocket launchers like RPG-7s on the street? Weren’t these just fantasy versions of dynamite?

Medieval Fantasies were just dreamlands for terrorists.

I should have put various restrictions on magic scroll trading when I was writing about this. Back then I had no reason to worry about these laws and regulations, but now that I had to live here, I felt they were much too lax.

Of course, I didn’t create an entire set of laws for the Gardias Empire when I was describing it. However Imperial Laws should exist and it’s obviously going to be a huge amount.

It’s not like the parts I haven’t described didn’t exist, however this environment where anyone could just use magic scrolls certainly didn’t seem safe to me.

This was dangerous….

People seemed to think my scrolls were fake. I had no idea if they thought that because I was just some kid who didn’t seem like he’d be able to get his hands on scrolls at all or if there was some other reason.

I walked endlessly and finally found another magic tool shop on this street filled with gangsters. Maybe I should check and see if there was just a problem with my wares.

“Um…… Are you a customer?”

There was a disheveled person who seemed to have slept on the table, raising her head in this scroll shop filled with the smell of paper and ink.

She looked drowsy, not at all willing to do business.

“I’m here to sell magic scrolls.”

“Huh? Sell scrolls? You?”

“Yes.”

I took out the Fireball scroll and put it in front of her. The merchant woman unfolded the scroll and glanced over it, frowned and then hit my head.

-Bang!

“Argh! Why are you hitting me?!”

“It’s dangerous for a kid to carry things like these.”

The woman frowned and shook her head as if she couldn’t believe it.

“I usually don’t buy stuff like this, but I’d rather buy it off of you, so that you can’t carry this around with you anymore.”

She said something like “It can’t be helped so I’ll take it off of you”. What a gangster-like expression.

“4 gold. It’s useless even if you don’t want to sell it for that. I won’t return it to you.”

I got my hands on a lot more money than I planned on getting.

“Uh….”

“I won’t ask where you got this from, but if you’re caught carrying these things around, you’ll get scolded. You got that? I’ll remember your face.”

She wasn’t a gangster who made hard sales but one that forcibly bought things.

It was at that moment that I changed her name from gangster to kind beautiful shop owner inside my mind.

No, actually, scratch that. It should be Great Beauty.

Anyway, I sighed heavily.

“Tch, kids really don’t know how to be afraid of magic.”

It looked like she really bought it because this was something dangerous. Whatever, I got my money.

“Thank you.”

I bowed my head and tried to leave the shop. I had to buy some things with these. I had to be careful not to let it get stolen or to get ripped off. I also had a lot on my mind.

“Wait.”

The owner called out to me.

“You, come here.”

With a very languid expression on her face, she told me to come to her, then she came out from behind the counter and approached me.

“Why are you wearing a scroll book? Take them all out.”

It felt like I got caught red handed.

“Uh, I. There….”

It seemed like she’d take it all away, if I had any more dangerous magic scrolls. She dragged me to a chair and took away my scroll book.

“You picked something up someone lost, didn’t you? You didn’t even try to return it to the owner and thought about selling it, huh? You brat. You must be mad.”

She clicked her tongue while saying “What are kids doing these days?”. She seemed convinced that there was absolutely no way that I actually got these on my own. Well, the source was actually pretty questionable.

She pulled out a scroll, unfolded it, looked at it and frowned.

“……What’s this?”

She seemed puzzled, then she went to her counter and unfolded the Fireball Scroll I gave to her.

“…It’s true.”

It was at that moment, I realized that there must have been a good reason as to why so many merchants thought I was trying to trick and scam them.

The merchant unfolded my scrolls one by one, and gradually became speechless.

She sat next to me and gently wrapped her arms around my shoulders.

“Baby.”

No.

No matter how young I was, I absolutely wasn’t like a baby.

The woman’s voice was endlessly sweet.

“..……Ye, yes?”

“You have to be honest, okay?”

Also, she bore a sense of ingenuity that seemed to want to peer inside of me.

“Where did you get all these scrolls?”

“Yes……Yes?”

“This is the magic construction method used by demons. Why do you have these?”

A Writer’s Advice usually led to both good and bad outcomes.

I could definitely see now what they meant with that.