“ARE YOU SELLING these items, my friend?” the man asked, with a tone of familiarity. Nero, due to his poor eyesight, just smiled at the blurred figure of the man and nodded, affirming the latter’s inquiry.

“Do you find something you fancy, sir?” he then asked.

The man paused, then said, “You don’t seem to recognize me, young healer. You can’t be a merchant with such a murky memory of people, even of their faces.”

He squinted, but the figure was still incomprehensible to him. Considering the man was just short of two meters away from him, he realized how poor his eyesight really was. He admitted then, “Sorry, sir. I have a poor eyesight. Anything beyond half a meter away from me gets blotched and… You might need to come closer to me, so that I may recognize you.”

The man chuckled then. “You can’t hide your indifference, friend. But, no worries, no worries. I don’t mind. Might as well introduce myself.” Then he took out a card from within his brown vest and handed it to him as he told his name, “Philip Morgan. A merchant.”

Only when the merchant, “Philip”, leaned to hand him the card, of white color, was Nero able to see clearly his thin face and brown complexion, thick grey brows and mustache—only then he remembered who this middle-aged man was.

“Oh. You’re the merchant from yesterday, aren’t you?” he asked. “How was the girl? Did you help the family you aggrieved?”

“Aggrieved! What profanity!” The merchant was astonished, or at least he seemed to be, as he chuckled thereafter. “Yes, yes. I am he. And I paid for my ‘aggrievances’, of course.”

“That’s good to hear,” Nero said, nodding.

He then read what’s on the card, engraved thereon information about the merchant. It says:

==================

Philip Morgan, Merchant

Morgan Trade

Chief Officer / Owner

Flocom string code: AE05-0412-MRGN

==================

“Now that I remember,” the merchant said, straightening his back, “you did have a pair of eyeglasses yesterday. What happened?”

“I broke it,” was Nero’s simple answer. The merchant seemed to wait for further details (Nero couldn’t tell exactly though, just a hunch), but he couldn’t just spill all the events that had transpired yesterday, could he?

Philip, cutting off the budding silence, then asked, “What’s with these…random items?”

“I’m disposing them,” he answered. “I’ll be leaving for Breeston for good; can’t carry unnecessary items, you know.”

The merchant crouched and picked some items, especially the incomplete inventions of Amé, observing them, weighing them on his gloved hands. Nero, looking at how thick the merchant’s clothes and how covered he was, got sweaty just by thinking how hot it could have felt, especially under this blazing summer heat. But the middle-aged man wasn’t sweating. At all. He was about to use his Sirilion’s Eyes…just because of mere curiosity to see the man’s soul. But he was distracted when the merchant talked.

“So, you’re not just a healer,” he said, “but an inventor as well. Though these…they’re incomplete…”

“No, no,” he shook his head, “my uncle…my late uncle made those; he’s an aethersmith. Everything he used, the tools, the materials, those incomplete inventions, everything here—they are all…they were all his.”

The merchant nodded, then went silent. Too bad Nero couldn’t see his face, whether it was pondering to buy some of what he’s selling or looking for a chance to finally excuse himself.

So to be sure, he asked, “Anything to your liking, sir Philip?”

“How much are you selling these?” the merchant asked.

The question made the young healer a bit excited, even thinking: I might be a good merchant! But he frowned immediately, saying: “I don’t actually have an idea how much these things are, sir.”

The merchant pondered for a bit. “How about I pay 10 Plates for all of these?”

“Plates? You mean, Platinum Plates?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll pay 10 Platinum Plates for all of these?” Nero was shocked. Is that how much all of these junks cost? But…well, he didn’t know a thing about valuations of this type of items. Maybe they were really just that valuable. “Sure. I’ll sell all these items for 10 Plates.”

The merchant presented his hand, which Nero shook, as a sign to close the deal.

The payment was at Philip’s manacart (which doubled as a moving store), so Nero asked Lion to help him pack the items and carry it.

When his flocom used its barrier, Philip, who was a bit stoic since earlier, now seemed genuinely perplexed, his eyes widening and brows almost flying off his face.

“What in the world… Is this a new flocom model?” The merchant was so confused and amazed at the same time, asking the young healer yet not looking at him at all.

“Yeah…I think so,” Nero answered. “My uncle gave it to me…”

“I knew it!” he exclaimed, even clapping. “That’s why it’s green, and not shiny at all. What superb design…and great functions! What is this? An almost invisible cart? My flocom,” he pointed at the black glossy sphere floating beside him, “though the newest model, can only release a small net, and can only carry as much as 10 kilos at most. Can you tell me where you bought it? Oh, you said your uncle gave it to you…that’s unfortunate…”

After thinking for a while, whilst still walking towards where he had set-up his moving store, Philip made another offer.

“How about I’ll pay you another 10 plates…no, 20 plates,” he said, “now for that green flocom of yours. I’ll give you a total of 30 Platinum Plates for everything, including your flocom.”

Nero almost choked. That’s a lot of money! And something he never dreamed of having. But he wouldn’t sell the last gift his vanishing uncle gave him. “Sorry, sir. Lion’s not for sale.”

“’Lion’?” Philip furrowed his eyebrows. “You even gave it a name…”

“I didn’t give it to him,” he clarified. “My uncle’s the one who named him. But, anyway, I can’t sell him.”

The merchant looked at his flocom greedily, but ultimately didn’t pursue anymore.

After handing him a leather pouch containing 10 pieces of Platinum Plates, which amounts to 20,000 Pirasos, Lion brought the packed items inside the merchant’s manacart.

Nero then offered all of his other possessions—the furniture, even the tents—to Philip. But the merchant wasn’t interested in those. He still offered to buy Lion, though. Of course, the young healer refused again.

With that, the first day of his disposing the items left by his uncle came to an end with a rather unexpectedly good note. And, since he received more money that he anticipated he would have, he decided that come tomorrow he would just donate everything else to the town hall.