Appraiser's Job Chapter 8: Purchasing an Appraisal

"I've returned."

"Welcome back, Little Io," greeted Mr. Hansel, who was examining some official doc.u.ments at the guild counter as I came in. "How wonderful, you've come back early. However, did you finish appraising those items from this morning?"

He was referring to the previously mentioned cursed sword and necklace.

I nodded while I put on the gla.s.ses that I had taken off earlier.

"I've finished it. Would you like me to bring them down to you?"

"Please do," Mr. Hansel said as he stood beside a man who appeared to be an adventurer and began speaking with him. Perhaps he was the person who had requested to have those items appraised.

I went up to my workshop on the second floor, picked up the items, and returned downstairs. On the opposite side of the counter I placed the items beside Mr. Hansel's neighbor one at a time.

"I am Appraiser Io Raton. Are you the person who ordered the appraisal?"

"Ah. It's bad to make such an urgent request, isn't it? At any rate, I just wanted a quick result," the man said while scratching his head and leaning against the desk. "So? How was it? The results of the appraisal…"

"Ah, about that—."

I reported to the man that the ring was a magic item and the sword was a cursed sword.

"Nnng," he groaned, furrowing his brow. "A cursed sword. That's bad luck; I had been thinking of using it myself as a just a sharp blade."

"If you would like to use it yourself, I would like to ask that you get it purified at a church."

"As to be expected, no wonder it wasn't that expensive." He did not say it in a very grand voice, but the church was going to be an enormous cost. It's not so bad when you have the earnings of a profitable adventurer, but for the common man or novice adventurer, this expense would be a considerable blow.

It was the general opinion that no one thinks to go and get themselves indebted to the church.

It appears that it was the same for this man.

"Since it cannot be helped, I'll just have to sell the sword! I want to ask if the adventurer's guild would buy the sword from me, but.."

"We'll buy it! Cursed swords are NO problem," Mr. Hansel said as he entered the conversation, putting away the official doc.u.ments back onto a shelf "There's a person who'll buy even a cursed sword. I didn't get to a.s.sess the color on the purchase a.s.sessment, but nevertheless, if you don't mind, I'll begin the process now."

"I'll leave it to you then."

"Understood. Please wait a moment, " said Mr. Hansel, taking the ledger sitting on the corner of the counter into his hands. Picking up a pen he smoothly filled in the requiremented details.  "What do you plan to do with the ring and necklace? If you want, I can process the purchase a.s.sessment for them at the same time. ."

"I'll use the ring myself. I wonder if I could ask for only the necklace."

"OK."

Putting the ledger with the finished entries on the counter, Mr. Hansel pointed at the cursed sword and necklace in turn, and said, "I'll discount the necklace because of the used state of the alexandrite. As for the cursed sword, it won't be given a very high price; however, my a.s.sessment does take into consideration that there is no problem with the quality. I'm thinking 21,000 galleons for the two."

The Galleon was a unit of currency, and with 100 galleons equaling 1 gold coin, it's an easy to understand system. There are three kinds of currency in this country: copper coins, silver coins, and gold coins. One galleon corresponds to one copper coin; ten galleons correspond to one silver coin. With 1000 galleons, a typical household could live for a month. If you think about it, you understand that the purchase a.s.sessment this time entails a reasonable amount of money.

Adventurers who put their lives on the line in the name of duty, are expected to make a lot of profit. To that extent, they are able to drop a lot of money all at once.

The a.s.sessment was beyond what I was expecting, and the man certainly did not object to the amount of money Mr. Hansel suggested.

Mr. Hansel took out a lockbox from the back of one of the shelves. He took out all the money in accordance with their previous agreement and stuffed it all into a leather bag.

"Now then, the purchase price of 21,000 galleons is….210 gold coins." He placed the leather bag now heavy with the weight of gold coins, onto the counter.

The man verified the contents of the bag, and nodded, accepting it. "Thank you."

"But of course. It's been a pleasure doing business with you."

The man bowed to the winking Mr. Hansel, then left the adventurers guild.

While staring at the backs of Mr. Hansel and his neighbor, I suddenly remembered something and thrust my hand into my bag. "That's right. Mr. Hansel, I've forgotten something! This is from Ms. Nanna. It's the payment for the silk thread."

"Ah. Thank you. What did Little Nanna say?"

"She said to please look forward to seeing the completed set of traveling clothes."

"Little Nanna, she's going to make them herself?. I didn't expect that."

I saw Mr. Hansel off as he went to put the cursed sword and necklace that he had just purchased into the guild warehouse, then tossed the money from the silk thread into the lockbox.

Three more days until the dungeon run.

Mr. Larsh did say that he would handle the preparation for my meals; however, it's useless if I don't do as much preparation myself as I can. It looks like I'm going to be busy after this.

​

Footnotes: 

​

T/N: The weekend was very productive! Enjoy the extra chapters. Next chapter will be this Friday.

Real talk: I've been translating -san as Mr./Ms. and -chan as Little. Would you guys prefer -san and -chan or keep translating them as is?

​

​

​

Credits:

​

​

​