Chapter 33 (continued)

Good heavens, they even sold garden gnomes here. Those things were basically hopping potatoes: ugly, dirty, and fond of making noise. I'd gotten rid of all the gnomes hiding in the flower bed downstairs from my apartment. Did people actually buy pests to keep at home?

Mel and I looked all around the magic pet shop, and the only thing that caught our attention was a slime. It looked to be in excellent condition.

"How much is this one?" Mel and I asked together.

The clerk's eyes lit up, and he said proudly, "Ah, this is the finest slime in our shop. Just look at how crystal clear and transparent its body is, how soft, springy, and smooth it looks. And its color is a rare orange, which looks almost golden in sunlight, symbolizing..."

"Don't bother," Mel interrupted. "Just tell us how much it costs."

"This one is fifteen thousand Federation coins! But given its condition, that's a wonderful bargain, and-"

"Fifteen thousand?" I couldn't help myself and cried out, quite rudely.

Mel stared too. "Isn't that too expensive?"

Exactly. Mel might be very rich, but that didn't mean he could just throw money around. That would be stupid!

"That's tens of thousands of times more expensive than processed slime mucus!" I said. "Even if it is a little better quality, it hasn't been processed yet! For fifteen thousand gold coins, I could buy a ton of the purest fresh slime mucus, all squeezed from live slimes on the spot!"

The clerk looked terrified too. He took a step back and spread his arms over the slime's box like a mother hen, shouting, "What? You're going to squeeze this adorable creature for juice? My god, are you sickos? Out, out! Sickos who abuse pets aren't welcome in my shop. If you don't leave, I'm calling the police!"

What?

Mel and I were thrown out in a complete daze. The clerk was still shrieking at the top of his lungs behind us, making the clerks and customers at the surrounding shops point and whisper about us. Mel and I resisted the urge to cast a silencing spell on him, but we still wondered, was his brain filled with slime mucus? An unprocessed magical ingredient sold for fifteen thousand? What would anyone buy it for, the pleasure of burning money?

The rich people in the capital were truly hard to understand.

Mel even frowned deeply as he looked at the other pet shops on the street, his gaze growing hesitant. After a moment's thought, he said to me, "How about we just go to the shop I know? Anna told me it's famous. It should be much better than a rip-off shop like this, right?"

A little later, Mel and I came out of that shop carrying a huge pile of things, completely satisfied. Still, this was obviously a live magical ingredients shop too, so how had it come to be known as a famous pet shop?

Their black widow spiders were big and cheap, and judging by the markings on their backs, they must have been highly venomous, perfect for making potent potions. Several of the large ones also had thick, sturdy legs with wonderfully long hair. We could remove the legs before crushing the spiders and collect the fine hair to use separately, which made them quite a bargain. The black-scaled toads from the western plains were plump too, and should yield plenty of juice. There was also a whole barrel of Balog Highlands caterpillar eggs, all very moist and sticky, and alive. We could just squeeze them when we got back. Oil was easier to extract from live eggs than dead ones, and combined with fresh sheep eyeballs, it made the best mixing reagent for concocting antidotes!

Even better, they had slugs! Mel and I bought their entire stock on the spot! Only their antennae were useful, but the antennae didn't sell for much. Since they weren't a valuable ingredient, it was almost impossible to find a merchant willing to raise them, yet this shop had a whole big box of slugs!

Mel and I were both delighted. This had been an especially perfect shopping trip. We were capable of looking for the ingredients in the wild ourselves, but what a hassle that would be, especially living in modern society. Ancient mages had plenty of apprentices they could send out to work, but I didn't want to throw Moli into the depths of the wilderness, because I would inevitably have to go out myself to rescue her. To be honest, I admitted I'd picked up some bad habits too. If I could buy something, it was more comfortable than running around getting it myself. For example, having Moli order food for me really was more convenient than buying it myself.

Unfortunately, the shop didn't have any Giant-Horned Demon Ox horns. Come to think of it, Giant-Horned Demon Oxen from the north might not adapt to the climate here, which would make their demon horns less hard.

Living things couldn't be stored in a magic space, and since everything we'd bought was fresh, we had to carry it in our arms. But that was a problem: we still wanted to see a movie, and we hadn't picked out our pets yet.

"Wow, you two really got away fast!"

A soft, light voice tinged with amusement rang out. We saw Luolan, the light priest, stroll out of a cold drinks shop, happily licking the largest size of jumbo ice cream cone.

I nodded in greeting. "Your Excellency, Priest Luolan."

He waved with a smile, twitching his pointed elven ears. "Shh. They're searching frantically over at the Capitol for 'the heroic archmage who turned the tide and single-handedly crushed the extremists' plot,' and here you two are on a date. I thought I was already first-rate at making a getaway, but you've even bought so much stuff!"

Mel might only have heard the first half. He nodded and said, "That's right, Xipei is amazing!"

I'd completely given up struggling. I couldn't stop Mel from praising me in all sorts of ways, regardless of the time or place, just as I'd been unable to stop Moli from putting on that horrifying demon makeup.

The most I could do was restrain myself from turning around and praising him in return. I felt that doing that in public wasn't very dignified, and wasn't quite mage-like enough.

Luolan clicked his tongue twice, then said to me, "The beautiful Miss Crow Angela asked me to pass on a message. She's gone out to investigate and expects to be back next month. Then we'll go with her and beat the crap out of the bastards she's scoped out."

"Mm, all right." I nodded, but I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something odd about the way Priest Luolan spoke. Was that how all elves put their words together? I'd heard they were all elegant and civilized, and that their harshest insults were "rude" and "I don't want to look at you." Yet whenever Priest Luolan opened his mouth, he used words like "bastards" and "beat the crap out of," which were extremely crude for an elf. It made me seriously doubt the Gazetteer of the Diana Continent I'd read before.

Mel seemed a little dazed too, but he didn't say anything.

"Priest Luolan." I suddenly remembered something more important. "Do you have your phone with you?"

"I do." He pulled his phone out of his priestly robes and tossed it to me.

I thanked him and called Moli, telling her to come over. Then we chatted with Priest Luolan for a while longer, and he recommended a few ice cream shops. After that, he said he had business at the temple and left. He had just gone when Moli hurried over, having driven there as I'd instructed.

"Put these things in your car for now," I said.

"Aaaaaaaaaah-" Moli let out an enormous scream, startling Mel and me into each casting a life detection spell. I thought she'd finally turned into a real banshee, while Mel had clearly thought she was under attack. I saw him make the preliminary casting gesture for Absolute Protection.

"Why are you screaming? That's very rude!" I scolded her.

Moli covered her mouth, tears glistening in her eyes. "Teacher! You actually bought the 'Dark Queen' pet spiders that are all the rage this year! Wow! Teacher, you're amazing, I love you so much! And you bought so many of them! That's wonderful, wonderful! Can I help look after them? Your apprentice will take the most meticulous care of these beautiful spiders!"

I frowned. "Silly child, what nonsense are you talking about? These are freshly bought experimental materials. Take them back and crush them while they're fresh. Remember to wear gloves, or it'll hurt a lot if the juice splashes on you."

The next moment, Moli looked at me with utter despair, exactly as she had the last time I confiscated her novel and assigned her homework.

She clutched her head and screamed, "Oh my god, Teacher, you're going to crush these adorable little spideys?"