"You... why are so many people religious?" Alvin changed the subject.
"Hey, they promote theirs, we live ours, no one is in the way." the shopkeeper replied.
Alvin nodded. Regarding the church's attitude, he was very similar to the people in these small towns. "Why is this town so lively? It always feels different from the small towns I saw before?"
The shopkeeper glanced at Alvin with a smile, then moved his gaze out the window, looking at the melancholy forest, "Of course it's lively, the products produced there are the first to be sold here."
"It's so dangerous out there, why would anyone go there?"
"People are willing to die for money. Only the brave ones dare to go deep into the dense forest."
"for what?"
"Anything can be used, such as some precious ingredients for potions, or going in to catch some live monsters," the shopkeeper said.
"Monsters? You mean those cat people?" Alvin thought of the slave traders he saw on the street just now.
"Cat people? Cat people are considered the lowest level. They can be caught without going too far into the forest." The shopkeeper said disdainfully.
"Then what else?" Alvin couldn't help asking.
"Can we only catch cat people in the south now?" The shopkeeper looked a little surprised and a little happy, obviously he saw an opportunity for Alvin to popularize science.
"Then what are you catching?" Alvin asked following his words.
"In the past few years, we have been conch horses and ice and fire camels. We can catch one or two every month." The shopkeeper opened his chatterbox with a smile on his face. "The rare ones are like the two-headed unicorn. You only see one in a year or two.”
Hearing the unfamiliar names such as "conch horse, ice and fire camel, and two-headed unicorn", Alvin hesitated for a moment, not knowing what expression to use to respond, so in the end he just nodded slightly and dealt with it without showing any expression. What a shock. After all, he had fought against such terrifying monsters as the flying dragon and the giant ice dragon, so it was difficult to pretend to be interested at this time.
Seeing Alvin's calm face, the shopkeeper felt a little disappointed, and thought to himself: "That's right. He is a ruthless man who kills monsters all the way. He said that he might have seen these enemies before, and he might have killed them before, and he might even kill them again. I've learned a lot, but I'm just embarrassed to refute my own face at this time."
But Alvin finally gave him face and asked with a smile: "Old shopkeeper, I have never heard of what you said. What is this conch horse? What is the ice and fire camel? And this two-headed unicorn. Why is it so rare?”
When the shopkeeper heard Alvin's question, he smiled again. Regardless of whether Alvin really wanted to ask, he explained happily: "Young man, let me tell you, this conch horse is very interesting. Normally it looks like a white horse with a conch shell on its back. At night, it will shrink into the shell and sleep, and it won't wake up no matter how hard it screams."
"You mean you can't ride at night?"
"I can't ride it normally. There's that big thing on my back. How can I sit on it?"
"Then why did you buy it?" Alvin said with a smile.
"Pull a cart. Shouldn't this thing be too majestic when used to pull a cart?" the shopkeeper said, "How majestic would it be if those nobles rode in a conch-drawn cart when they went out?"
After speaking, the shopkeeper narrowed his eyes and glanced at Alvin, "In my opinion, Your Excellency, you are also a noble, right?"
"Can you tell me what title you have now? Or is it that you haven't inherited the title from your family yet?" The shopkeeper seemed to want to follow suit, "Also, the girl who came with you has a good background, right?" "
Alvin smiled noncommittally and didn't say much.
"I have never seen such a beautiful person in my life." The old shopkeeper sighed, then raised his drooping eyes and asked curiously: "That's strange. With your noble status, you can go to that mountain range. What are you doing there?"
"It's just a coincidence." Alvin said with a smile, "Oh, why does it involve me? You haven't finished talking just now. What are the ice and fire camel and the two-headed unicorn?"
"Oh, the Ice and Fire Camel, it looks similar to a camel in appearance, but one of its two humps is as cold as an ice cube, and the other is as hot as a soldering iron that has been roasted by fire." The old shopkeeper said to Al at this time Vin's interest clearly outweighed his enthusiasm for introducing these monsters to him.
"Then there's no way this thing can sit on people. Why don't the monsters you capture seem to be very practical?" Alvin naturally knew what the shopkeeper was planning to interrogate, so he kept changing the topic, "Those pairs of monsters are not very practical?" What about the head unicorn? Isn’t it also the kind of thing that looks good but has no use?”
"You can't always think about using these monsters as livestock," the shopkeeper murmured. He was still immersed in speculation about the identities of these two young people, and was a little absent-minded. "I also heard that some places caught them. Monsters can also learn to talk like humans."
"Parrot?" Alvin asked seriously.
"Hey, Your Excellency, you really love to tell jokes." The shopkeeper was teased by Alvin and came back to his senses. "You say you have the face of a goat, but you walk on two legs. Which noble bought it?" Not long after that, news came out that the monster had learned to speak human language."
Alvin thought of those leopard men, and he thought that as long as he got along with them for a while, they would soon be able to learn part of the human language. "Some people in this town go to the dense forest to hunt monsters from time to time. The monsters living there must hate humans very much." Alvin thought to himself, "No wonder you can see red wine bottles in there, it should be These people brought it in.”
"Then why your place is so busy because there are merchants selling monsters waiting here?" Alvin then asked.
"Isn't that right? In addition to the businessmen coming and going, you see, those idle mercenaries on the street are just waiting to fill the gaps in the demon hunting team. There are also many thieves hiding in the dark, specifically targeting those with money. Merchants who come to buy monsters. People from the church only started coming in the past few years," the shopkeeper said.
"Are they really just here to preach?" Alvin thought that the Guangzheng Church had always coveted those Luo Jing, so would these churches in the north also have this motive?
"Otherwise, what else could there be?" The shopkeeper looked at Alvin in confusion.
Alvin did not discuss this topic any further. He stood up and walked to the window, enjoying the bard's singing. "This bard's song is quite interesting."
The group of missionaries, nuns, and priests who had just been involved in the confrontation had already left, leaving only some common people still gathered around the minstrel, listening to the sound of the piano and singing intoxicatedly.
"That's interesting. This guy's eyes light up when he sees a girl. Is there any girl in this town who hasn't been molested by him?" the old shopkeeper said bitterly, "You don't know how to play the piano. What’s the use of singing songs?”
For some reason, the old shopkeeper suddenly lost his manners and started to use vulgar words again and again.
Alvin glanced at the girl who was still waiting in the back room, thinking that the bard probably teased other people's daughters a lot.
At this time Onian finally changed her skirt.
"Wow, girl, you are so beautiful!" the shopkeeper's daughter exclaimed when she saw Onian coming out of the fitting room. She covered her mouth with her hand, not wanting her screams to sound too rude.
Even though Alvin is used to Onian's thrilling charm, he still has to admire her ability to easily control such a dress. This is a typical country girl style. The upper body of the dress is a simple ivory white waisted shirt, and the two cuffs have a folded design, which looks quite fashionable. The lower half is an ink skirt, covered with a brown diagonal skirt. The overall lines look simple and bright. After Onian put it on, a fresh girlish scent hit his face, and he could even imagine her wearing this dress spinning and dancing in the green fields and on the ridges of the fields.
"I've been picking and choosing, but I don't particularly like anything. There are only a few sample clothes in the store." Onian looked at Alvin and said helplessly. But that's how women talk and mean. They may look satisfied, but they say something else.
Alvin was not the kind of person who could not hold back his temper, and he did not offer any exaggerated words of praise, but the admiration in his eyes was clearly caught by the shrewd old shopkeeper.
"Then let's take this one. I feel like time is slowing down while you wait." Alvin said, and then he turned around and asked the shopkeeper how much these clothes cost in total.
"A total of three hundred and twenty runis." The old shopkeeper said with a smile on his face.
This smile reminded Alvin of the old man who sold his staff in the "Lu Zheng" equipment shop, "Why are these old guys just staring at me and knocking on it alone? Are they bullying me for being nice or something?"
At the same time, he also complained: "Did this guy secretly go through my purse while I was changing clothes? How did he know that I had less than four hundred runis left on me?"
Onian noticed a flash of embarrassment on Alvin's face and roughly guessed what was going on. A trace of embarrassment appeared on Aonian's own cheeks. It was probably the first time in a princess's life that she had no money to pay the bill. She was originally a princess who never had to worry about money. After she went into exile, Alvin always took care of her, so she didn't have to worry about this issue. But things are unpredictable. Who would have thought that the two of them would be inexplicably dragged to the north during the fight with the ice dragon.
But it was still thanks to the black mist that it didn't take away the money that Alvin had brought with him. If that had been the case, he would have been in an unimaginable embarrassment.
"How about..." Onian opened her mouth, but her words were blocked by Alvin's crisp gesture of paying.
Alvin, who put noble etiquette first, calmly ordered a pile of Looneies and placed them on the counter without even paying back the price.
The old shopkeeper nodded and smiled, and asked his daughter to take stock with his eyes.
Alvin took Onian's hand and went downstairs and out of the store without looking back.
"There's no money." Not long after he left the door, Alvin said in a declared tone, as if the country's finance minister was making a statement to the king.
"I know." O'Nian laughed heartlessly at Alvin's serious tone, as if she had forgotten the predicament just now, "What should we do?"
"What can we do?" Alvin turned to look at her, "Find a way to earn money."
So the two of them asked around, but they didn't expect that there was actually a painting supplies store in this town.
