Short Story 2: The Struggles of Pelomas the Merchant

On a certain day during Allen and his friends’ first summer break, they had returned to their base to find a guest waiting for them. The servants informed Allen that the guest claimed to be acquainted with him, saying his name was Pelomas.

Did Pelomas really come all this way just to meet me?

When Allen dropped by the parlor, Pelomas sprang up from the sofa like a spring and bounded up to him.

“You’re here! You’re finally back! I’ve been waiting for ages! I’ve looked everywhere for you, you know!”

“Hey, Pelomas. It’s been a while.”

Apparently he came because he had business with Allen. Allen suggested that they discuss it over dinner.

Pelomas was one of Allen’s childhood friends who had the Merchant Talent. He was currently attending a commercial school in the royal capital. Just like the Academy, his school was also out on summer break at the moment, so he had seized the opportunity to come find Allen.

As Cecil and Keel did not know Pelomas, Allen introduced him to them. On the other side of the table, Krena and Dogora had already begun digging into the feast laid out by the servants with gusto. Cecil looked him over, then at Allen.

“So you still had other childhood friends. How do I put it... This one seems normal.”

How rude!

“How’d you even find me here anyway?” Allen asked out of curiosity.

“I went around and asked so many places. The Academy and the Adventurer’s Guild, for starters,” Pelomas replied, trying to convey just how much hardship he had gone through.

“Well, okay... What can I do for you, then?”

“That’s, well...” Upon being asked the purpose of his visit, Pelomas suddenly blushed and started fidgeting.

Unable to bear it any longer, Cecil cut in. “Well, out with it. What is it?”

Eventually, Pelomas managed to start talking, beginning with, “So, I, uh, went to ask Mr. Chester for permission to court Fiona.”

Chester was a man with significant influence in Granvelle City who owned the city’s biggest and most high-class inn. And Pelomas had gone to him with a request—namely, permission to court Chester’s daughter Fiona, whom he had fallen in love with at first sight, with the intention of marriage. The man gave this response: “Show me what you’re worth. If I determine you to be worthy of my daughter, then I’ll give you permission.”

Pelomas had the next three years—basically, until his graduation from the commercial school—to prove his worth. He was studying as hard as he could, but he had grown uneasy and thus sought out Allen for help. He finished his account by lamenting his failure to make any headway whatsoever over the past six months.

Fiona...is that Fiona, right? I never knew she had ties to Pelomas.

Allen knew the girl whom Pelomas was speaking of. He had saved her once when she was stuck inside a carriage and about to be eaten by a murdergalsh. Her father had rewarded Allen with gold coins, which he then used to purchase his very first mithril sword. Allen still recalled the memory fondly.

“Now I see how you’re from the same village as Allen!” Cecil exclaimed. She knew that Chester was a magnate who owned other high-class inns in the royal capital and multiple cities across Ratash. In fact, he had provided loans and other support to House Granvelle on many occasions.

In other words, Pelomas, the son of the village chief of a tiny frontier village, was attempting to win the hand of the heiress of a hotel empire.

“Is everyone you know like this?” Keel asked Allen wryly.

Cecil whirled on him. “Are you talking about me as well? Hmm?”

“Huh? That’s not what I said!” Keel protested.

Allen was glad to see that the two of them had gotten close enough to exchange this sort of banter.

“So, Allen...” Cecil turned back around. “What’re you gonna do? You’ll help him, right?”

“I...will? Uh, Cecil, you look really excited about this for some reason.”

“Of course I am! It sounds like fun!”

Ah, is this what I think it is? She wants to play matchmaker with Fiona and Pelomas?

Back when Allen worked at House Granvelle, Fiona had called on the mansion every so often. After Allen rescued her, the frequency of her visits increased to at least once a month. Allen knew that she and Cecil were on rather bad terms. Due to their differences—commoner and noble, rich and poor—he had witnessed their attempts to one-up each other many times before coming to Academy City.

After giving Pelomas’s predicament some thought, Allen came up with what he thought was the best way to force Chester to acknowledge Pelomas as a merchant.

“How about you open your own store and buy out Mr. Chester’s?”

“Huh? B-Buy out?” This bold idea of buying out the store from one of the wealthiest men in the kingdom left Pelomas at a loss for words.

It was true that anyone twelve years or older could open their own shop—it was simply a matter of submitting an application with the Merchant’s Guild. However, Pelomas could not imagine accomplishing what Allen had suggested within decades, and he only had three years.

“That sounds like a good idea,” Cecil agreed. “Since you’re a merchant, you should definitely open your own store. But you’ll need a name for it. ‘Store Pelomas’ just wouldn’t cut it.”

As she started brainstorming after summarily dismissing Pelomas’s name, Krena and Dogora chose this time to join the conversation.

“You should make it ‘Pelomas Meats,’ then!”

“No way, ‘Pelomas Weapons’ is better.”

Uh, why is Pelomas’s company being forced to specialize in only meats or weapons?

Sensing that no one was taking his problem seriously, Pelomas leaped to his feet and shouted, “Please stop it! I’m serious about Fiona!”

Oooof, it’s like I’m watching someone live out their adolescence right in front of me. If we were in my old world, Pelomas would be in seventh grade. Wait, huh?

As Allen was giving Pelomas a look of amusement and understanding, he suddenly noticed a heat haze rising up around Pelomas’s body, indicating that his friend had activated his Extra Skill.

“Hold on, why can you use that?!” Dogora, who had only recently learned to use it himself, made a face at Pelomas as if adding “when you’re just...you!”

“Oh, um, I’m sorry. I figured out how to activate it not long ago. It’ll, uh, settle down soon,” Pelomas said apologetically as he sat back down and took a few deep breaths. When he had calmed down a little, he explained that for some reason, whenever he thought about Fiona, his Extra Skill would activate on its own.

Allen, who had grown curious about what effects a Merchant’s Extra Skill would have, stopped Pelomas from deactivating it. “Wait a moment. What does your Extra Skill actually do?”

“Huh? Um...it’s called Libra, and it tells me how much things are worth.” Upon having his Extra Skill checked at his school, Pelomas had learned that it enabled him to compare the value of goods and to convert those values into various currencies.

“The value of goods, huh...” Allen rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then picked up a pen. “Okay, how much is this pen worth?”

Without hesitation, Pelomas replied, “One silver and twenty copper.”

Astoundingly, the price he gave was exactly how much Allen had paid for it at the nearby stationery store. Allen proceeded to point to several things, such as the molmo fruit on the table, and Pelomas accurately stated their prices down to the copper.

“How about these, then?” Allen took out a bottle and a red fruit from his grimoire’s Storage.

Pelomas was quite surprised from seeing Allen’s Storage at work for the first time, but he quickly calmed down and priced the bottle at two silver and the fruit at one copper before adding, “That bottle is filled with sauce made from that red fruit, right?”

Allen nodded. “That’s right.”

Just as Pelomas had guessed, what Allen had taken out was a bottle of a special sauce made from the red fruit that Cecil had once tried to pick while sitting on Allen’s shoulders. Allen and the head chef had developed the recipe themselves after much trial and error; the process involved drying the fruit before the head chef turned it into a sauce. It had a refreshing flavor that paired amazingly well with great boar meat.

Allen’s companions seemed confused about where he was going with this line of questioning as Pelomas looked at him, worried.

“Mm, I think this just might work,” Allen nodded with satisfaction. This skill is more than enough to be Pelomas’s ticket to demonstrate his worth to Chester.

Pelomas’s face lit up. “Really?! You mean it?!”

“Hold on, take it back a few steps,” Cecil cut in. “Explain what you’re thinking to us properly.”

“To sum it up, Pelomas has the ability to create new products without needing to do market research,” Allen replied before proceeding to elaborate on the usefulness of Libra.

The process of selling a product first required coming up with an idea, then turning it into a product, and then doing market research to determine the most appropriate price to sell at. This last step involved working out how much demand there would be and how much people would be willing to pay for it. However, Pelomas’s Extra Skill, Libra, basically eliminated the entire third step.

Understanding dawned on Cecil’s face. “You mean, as long as he has an idea for a product, he can start to profit off it right away?”

“Exactly. What’s more, his price would be even more spot-on than actually doing the market research. Normally, merchants might misread the market, or sometimes just never arrive at the right price.”

It took time and money to conduct market research, and there was always the risk of reaching the wrong pricing strategy. However, Pelomas’s skill effectively made it free, instant, and reliable. It was an incredible ability.

“Um, so...?” Pelomas sort of understood why Allen was getting so excited, but he could not see how it related to him showing Chester his worth.

“Here ya go.” Allen plopped a small pouch on the table.

“Wait, a hundred gold?!” As he still had Libra activated, Pelomas could immediately determine the number of gold coins within the pouch.

“Use this to open your store. Consider it your starting capital. Additionally, I’ll ask Viscount Granvelle if it’d be possible to license the rights to sell this sauce to you.”

“You want me to do what?”

“Use this money to hire people and establish a market for yourself. Start with one shop and expand it.”

Allen then went on to discuss the general plan going forward. An initial investment would be needed in order to turn what Allen had already developed—and whatever he would think up in the future—into manufactured products. As such, he wanted Pelomas to take the hundred gold to establish a business. Although this world was so hierarchical that unfettered competition could hardly be relied upon, Allen figured that he could get Viscount Granvelle, who now had connections to many different factions, to back this company. With the viscount’s support, not only would Pelomas be able to do business throughout the Granvelle fiefdom, but it was possible that he could establish a foothold in the royal capital.

Yes, yes, make your company large enough to eventually help me gather magic stones! I don’t mind fronting a little bit of cash to make it happen! And hey, a friend in need, right?

“Well, sounds like you’ve got a pretty fleshed-out course of action,” Cecil said. “All that’s left is to come up with a name for the store. Allen, do you have a snappy one in mind?”

“I-I suppose so,” Pelomas agreed. “Can you think of anything, Allen?”

Apparently, Pelomas was willing to give Allen the honor of naming his company. The rest of the Gamers looked at Allen expectantly, waiting to hear his suggestion.

Hmm... Well, we want this to become a store that sells products that people’ll want to spend their money on.

When it came to something that fully encompassed Allen’s vision of offering products so attractive and enticing that customers would be willing to spend any amount of money to purchase them, only one name came to mind.

“I think ‘Pelomas Whaling Company’ would be perfect.”

“Whoooaaa! I think I like that!” Pelomas exclaimed.

And so, Pelomas set up the Pelomas Whaling Company during his first summer break at commercial school.