"I am a merchant of the human race. My reason for being here is to conduct trade. I am also an envoy representing the Ashburn Kingdom. I bring greetings from my kind."
The words were simply true. The moment they left his lips, the fictional kingdom solidified in his mind—its borders drawn, its history implied. It was now a fact of this meeting, as concrete as the marble beneath his feet.
Vulnerability was a risk he couldn't afford. As much as he knew, Gentlets were human-like creatures that behaved like humans. With no backing, a Gentish scientist—if they had one—could simply decide to capture him and experiment on an "ancestor."
"The Council gladly receives your greetings. We are pleased and eager to trade with your kind." A pause, deliberate and measuring. "With that, we are inclined to ask some questions. First, as we do not see anything with you, what sort of thing do you intend to trade? Also, based on information we have, ancestors—or the human race, as per your claim—are forever trapped in dream bubbles. How did you manage to escape a dream?"
So dream bubbles had something to do with dreams, and ancestors were forever trapped in them. Did it relate to human dreams? Or was it just a strange phenomenon that occurred in this realm? That could wait. Now, he had business at hand.
The Bazaar had limits. He didn't yet know what he could trade with it. As for how he left a "dream," they didn't know either—so he could fabricate something.
His items of trade... he had some. He just didn't know what yet. He should have asked. Factoring the worst-case scenario, he could trade Nyx. No. He wouldn't trade Nyx. Not his lifelong companion. He would just trade information. But then, he would have to gauge what sort of information he could offer.
"Humankind are curious creatures, quite interested in information. For centuries, we have collected vast stores of knowledge as we wander between realms, trading and learning more about our world and beyond. For this reason, the first item of trade is information."
He willed his posture to remain relaxed, his expression one of polite, confident expectation.
"The human race has never encountered Gentlets anywhere in our various travels. Thus, we would be glad to learn more about your kind. In exchange, we would give you an equal amount of information about ours. If not interested, we would gladly pay your kind for said information. In addition, we have more knowledge acquired through years of exploration we would be glad to exchange."
If what Zane suspected was correct, the Gentlets would very much like to know about humans. With all the reverence given by the hunters, they would fall into his trap. He was also almost certain they had never left this realm. If true, then they didn't have information about his universe. With that information, he could earn currency—or more knowledge. He definitely wanted to know more about this realm. The Council hadn't replied yet, waiting for him to finish. Or had they seen through his lies? Definitely not. Not unless they knew more than they portrayed.
"The Kingdom of Ashburn is a highly respectable trading hub, known widely for its reach. We offer a variety of goods and services to our partners. We offer the city of Eryndor friendship and partnership."
Inhalation. A mouthful of air before the cherry on top.
"As for how I escaped a dream—I do not come from a dream bubble. I am but a visitor from the Ashburn Kingdom. Still, I would happily exchange information about dreams with your kind. Humans have quite an experience with these fleeting events."
A profound silence hung in the chamber after his declaration, thick and heavy as velvet. The hooded figures remained motionless, but he could feel the weight of their collective gaze—a pressure that was both physical and psychic. The shifting light from the dome seemed to slow, the colors deepening to something more ominous.
Finally, the voice boomed again, its resonance now laced with a new, sharp intensity.
"The City of Eryndor is happy to partner with your Kingdom of Ashburn. We accept your friendship. We anticipate exchanging information with your kind. Gentlets, very much like humans, are also curious creatures. Still, once again the Council is inclined to ask: where are the goods you plan to exchange with us? As we do not see them with you, our curiosity reaches its peak, and we must hold your claims with suspicion. For all we know, you might just be an impostor posing as an ancestor, going so far as to fabricate a human race entirely."
This Council could not be underestimated. They weren't as simple as he'd expected. What was he even thinking? Had they seen through all his lies? Where had he fumbled? 'Calm down.' They had not yet seen through his fabricated kingdom. They just needed proof. As they thought he'd created a fake race, that meant they didn't know of humans. They just needed to confirm his legitimacy. Calmness returned, a bright spark igniting in his eyes. He still held the narrative.
"Forgive my lack of clarity. It seems I was not precise enough. The Ashburn Kingdom uses portals to transfer merchandise once an order is made. Thus, it isn't required for me to carry all items of trade. I also do not know what sort of items your city needs. For that reason, I cannot place an order yet until I determine your requirements. Hence why I didn't bring anything with me. I clearly understand why you would doubt me, but rest assured—Ashburn is a very respectable trading hub with high integrity. Once Eryndor City identifies its needs, and if Ashburn has them, you exchange with items of equal value, and the deal is done."
He smiled, having delivered his pitch. 'Just believe it.'
«Nyx.»
He mentally called for his solitary aide. Right now, he urgently needed to identify what sort of thing he could exchange with the Bazaar. His reservations about mind reading be damned. He no longer cared if Nyx read his mind. He just wanted answers.
And Nyx responded, his voice a cool thread in the storm of his thoughts.
«Eternal patron, your servant heeds your call.»
'How are you hearing me if you can't read my mind?' The question was a flicker, instantly suppressed. Urgent matters first.
«What sort of things can I exchange with the Bazaar?» he projected, the thought shaped with desperate clarity.
«The Grand Exchange deals in all things, patron. But your current privilege is limited. You may only exchange physical items, provided you possess sufficient information about them.»
A wave of relief, cold and sharp, washed over him. Nyx could hear him. Physical items? With information? The concept was bizarre, yet it clicked into place with the eerie logic of this entire system. It wasn't about having the object in his hand; it was about knowing it intimately enough to offer its concept to the Bazaar.
And in that moment, he understood. He wasn't a merchant carrying a pack. He was a merchant carrying a lexicon. His first trade wouldn't be an object, but a definition. A blueprint. A memory made manifest.
He turned his attention back to the Council, the nascent plan already crystallizing.
"To demonstrate my kingdom's goodwill and capability," Zane announced, his voice cutting through the heavy silence, "I will make a preliminary exchange. Not of information, but of a tangible artifact from Ashburn. If you would provide me with a single, simple item—a fruit, a tool, a piece of cloth—I will show you the mechanism of our trade."
He met the darkness beneath their hoods, his own gaze now gleaming with a light that was not entirely his own.
"Let the first trade begin."
Silence stretched thin in the air as Zane waited for a response. He was equally curious to see what he would exchange. After all, he had never exchanged anything with the Bazaar save for the Bazaar itself. Did he have to imagine the item? Explain it? Or just…
A glassy, spherical orb the size of a fist floated down from the rostrum, moving until it rested before Zane, gently hovering, held by unseen forces. Inside, a dagger with a brown leather hilt lay suspended. Zane was busy staring when the voice reverberated once again.
"That is a Tier 1 item memory. What sort of memory can you exchange with that?"
'A Tier 1 Memory?' The orb was clear and impossibly smooth. He peered at the dagger suspended within—Not a hologram, but a solid, spectral thing. So, this was the memory he had been hearing about. What exactly was it? Being able to comprehend a language without ever learning it was tricky. But from what he understood, memories were recollections of the mind. How was this a physical object? Did it have something to do with actual memories?
Maybe the system could appraise it. It had random capabilities like instant language comprehension. He would not be surprised if it had appraisal capability.
But, what exactly activated appraisal? Or even exchanging?
Touching?
That had to be. His right hand moved forward, his fingers folding around the orb. This was when gravity remembered it existed—the orb feeling slightly heavier. The force holding it in place disappeared.
Yet, nothing. No system panel appraising the orb. What triggered it? Was there no appraisal function?
«Nyx?»
His voice rang in his head, directed toward his eternal aide.
«Your servant heeds, eternal patron.»
The familiar enunciated sound reverberated in his mind.
«How can I exchange this item with the system? Also, can the Bazaar appraise the item?»
He really hoped the Bazaar could appraise it. How in the world could he exchange an item without knowing what it was? The Bazaar must have the capability for appraisal.
«You can exchange the item through mental command. You will instinctively be aware of what you can exchange with the system. As for the appraisal, you need to hold the item with both hands. The system will naturally appraise it.»
Great. It could appraise the peculiar orb. Really wonderful. His left hand moved, grasping the orb, holding it with both hands.
Immediately, a familiar panel appeared before him.
Mistake.
The Council should not see the panel—or the Bazaar. It was a secret hidden. A secret not meant to be revealed.
Wait. Did they even see it?
In webnovels, system panels were mostly invisible. Was his the same? As far as he could tell, the Bazaar was not your ordinary webnovel system. Maybe the Council could see.
«Nyx, can the Council see the panel?» He just had to ask.
«The interface can only be perceived by the eternal patron.»
Zane let out a sigh of relief. His secret was only his. He could not risk anybody finding out he had the Bazaar. Eased, his gaze fell on the panel, eyes flashing. The panel always conveyed interesting information.
『Article Revelation』
○ Anamnesic Demesne
「A captured world of glass and ghost, where remembrance sleeps in crystal coast. Shatter the sphere, the past unchained, a single memory regained.」
○ Oneiric Relic Of Filial Piety
「A sire's gift in fable lost, a blade outmatched by greater force. No edge it holds but love's design. A final, cherished, fading sign.」
Quite splendid, this memory was. It was an actual memory, obtained from a lost dream. How could dreams even be lost, or memories acquired from them? This was both blessing and curse. For one, he held such an otherworldly item—two items, to be exact. An orb that stored memories and the actual memory: the dagger. The dagger could only be released when the orb shattered. But with an exchange system, he did not have to shatter it.
Question was, what exactly could he exchange this memory for? He simply could not fathom anything of equal value. He did not even know the value of the memory.
The dagger was a memory and at the same time real. He had never encountered something like this. Good thing it was physical. Meaning, he could exchange it with the Bazaar. Also, could the intimacy value be factored?
What could he exchange? A phone? No. Electronics were definitely out of reach. He did understand how they functioned, but not intimately enough. The Bazaar needed information. A weapon. Yes, a gun. He'd studied guns before. He knew how they worked.
Would a gun—revolver—be equivalent to the memory orb and dagger? Guess he would have to find out.
An image of a revolver bloomed in his mind, not as a picture, but as a memory. Not his own, but something deeper—an archetype pulled from the collective understanding of mechanics and finality.
He did not imagine a model or a caliber. He conjured the essence of it.
The weight, first. Then…the dense, sobering heft of steel that sat in the palm. The cold, midnight blue finish, a colour that felt less like a color and more like an absence of light, drinking the warmth from his soul.
He visualized the grip. The hard, checkered walnut, each diamond a tiny promise of control, biting into the flesh of the hand with familiar, stern authority. He traced the curve of the trigger guard with his mind's eye—the smooth, cold circle where a finger rests, waiting.
Then, the heart of it: the cylinder. The precise click of the latch, the smooth, oiled swing as it arced out on its crane, presenting its six dark, vacant chambers. Each one was a mouth, a silo, a potential waiting to be filled. He then envisioned the act of loading—the heavy, brass-jacketed certainty of the cartridges, the solid thunk as each one seated, a sound of commitment.
He pulled the hammer back in his mind. The four distinct clicks were a staccato poem of impending action. The final cock was a silence so profound it was a sound in itself. The cylinder was locked now, a sealed fate. The single-action pull was a breath held, a thought away from catastrophe.
This was not a tool. It was a system. A perfect, circular logic of cause and effect. Six chances. Six irrevocable decisions. Its beauty was in its terrible simplicity. There was no magazine to jam, no complex feed ramp. Its truth was geometric, its consequence absolute.
He offered this memory to the Bazaar. Not the metal, but the idea of the metal. Not the function, but the philosophy of the function. The weight, the cold, the clockwork certainty, and the final, thunderous silence it promised.
The interface shimmered, the text solidifying.
『The Equilibrium Shifts. A Barter Is Garnered』
『Boons』
✧The Requiem Of Senary Ruin
✧16 Exchange Fragments
『Sacrifice』
✦Anamnesic Demesne
✦Oneiric Relic of Filial Piety
In his hands, the glassy orb and the spectral image of the cherished dagger dissolved into motes of shimmering light. They flowed away from him, toward the rostrum, and were gone.
And in their place, a new weight materialized. Cold, dense, and familiar.
He was now holding the memory of a revolver. And the Bazaar had found it to be a fair trade. No, not a fair trade—there was balance. Fragments of exchange remained from the barter. So the memory orb and dagger were worth more than a revolver… What would the Council think of this trade?
Before he could offer it, he grasped the revolver with both hands. Couldn't miss a poetic entail.
『Article Revelation』
○ Requiem Of Senary Ruin
「Six chambers, six silences held in the trust of steel, a wheel of fate turned to dust. A single action, a breath in dark, speaks the only law. A convoy of destruction held in speed.」
Splendid.
"The Kingdom of Ashburn offers this exchange to the Council. Behold, the Requiem of senary ruin"
Straightaway, the revolver parted from his grasp, pulled by unseen forces toward the center of the semi-circular rostrum. Halfway though, it changed trajectory, moving toward the rightmost wing of the rostrum.
A brief silence echoed in the hall, filling the entirety of the chamber with anticipation before—
"Your Kingdom of Ashburn appears to be adept in craftsmanship. You truly are an ancestor. The item provided is not a memory, rather an entirely different entity. The Council would be glad to study this rarity. It is similar to ones ancestors bear in dreams, though not a memory. Quite astonishing. Your demonstration has satisfied the Council's curiosity."
A brief pause. A different cadence.
"The Council has decided to grant you a place of residence in our City of Eryndor. The Council would also assign you a Rank 3 Knight of Eryndor to act as your guide in Eryndor and discuss our partnership with Ashburn Kingdom. Feel free to join our guilds as you are here. May you have a spectacular time. You may take your leave. Meeting adjourned."
The voice never changed, but Zane noticed the manner of speech had shifted. It then returned to normal during the brief pause. Had he just been talking to separate people? Made sense…
The platform beneath his feet descended, disrupting his thoughts for a moment before it all flooded back.
Rank 3 Knight… A guide?… Liaison? or a watchful warden?
The game, it seemed, was far from over.