Balthazar put the brush dowo the open bucket of paint and picked up his new wooden sign. Holding it between his two pincers, the crab looked upon his finished work and nodded.

  “Might have taken me an hour to write two words, but I think it looks pretty good,” he proudly said to himself.

  Carrying the pque across the newly roofed ptform, he opehe new gate at the entrand stepped outside. With great care, the mert hung the sign on the fence using the nail John had left already pced for him.

  “Perfect,” the crab said, as he took a few steps bad looked at the wooden panel with an open pincer in front of his eyes, measuring how straight the pt was.

  The finely crafted piece of wood spelled the new name for his trading post with crudely painted letters made by crusta pincers: Balthazar’s Bazaar.

  The crab wasirely sure where he had gotten the idea for the name from, but it just felt right and as if it had always been there in the back of his mind.

  He wondered if perhaps it came to him in a dream, but promptly decided that was silly, as he hardly ever remembered his dreams.

  Whatever it was, he was just pleased with his own crusta inspiration.

  Truly a genius to be hailed by his peers. If he had any.

  “Ah,” he sighed, “sometimes I almost feel bad that there is no one around that pare to me.”

  Turning around, Balthazar made his way out onto the road, looking for any potential ts.

  Looking north, he spotted a group of three young adventurers walking down from Ardville. One was a level 8 young man with a shortsword attached to the side of the backpack he carried over his shoulder, while the other two were both level 7, one a boy with a shortbow and light armor, the st a young girl wearing wizard robes.

  “Hello, adventurers!” he called out to the humans, with both pincers in the air. “How would you like to e in, check my new pce, and maybe sell or buy something?”

  “Huh?” the first one said, stopping in front of the crab with a hand holding his pack’s strap. “I know your pce. You’re the talking crab that trades stuff with people. I was just there st week. I already know your trading post.”

  “Oh yes,” said the mert, “but we’ve undergone some… renovations. We even got a roof and everything. And more importantly, this trading post now has a proper name. Balthazar’s Bazaar! Spread the word, let everyone know!”

  “That name sounds kinda silly,” the girl said, holding back a giggle.

  “And you’re wearing a pink robe and a pointy hat, so I’m not sure I’d take your opinion on what’s silly too seriously,” the crab threw back with a dismissive tone.

  “Hey! It’s meant to be white, but I actally washed it with some red socks. And what’s wrong with my hat?”

  “You guys should get ih the party and check out the inauguration offers,” Balthazar said to the group, ign her question.

  “Alright, why not?” said the oh the bow. “I like parties, and maybe there’s something wrabbing.”

  “Fihe first adventurer said. “Just a quick look.”

  “Excellent!” the crab said, before leading the trio dowh and through the gate.

  “Oh, nice roof,” the higher level adventurer said, looking up. “Makes the whole pce look nicer.”

  “Hold on,” the archer said, looking around the ptform. “You mentioned a party, but there’s no one here partying.”

  “What are you talking about?” Balthazar said. “You are here now, and you are a party of adventurers, are you not?”

  “That’s not the kind of party—”

  “Hey!” the crab shouted at the wizard girl, who was reag for a pte of butter cookies on a table. “What do you think you’re doing?!”

  “I… I thought these were for the ers?” she sheepishly said, pulling her hand back to her chest. “You know, like snacks for the inauguratios?”

  “Those are my snacks,” the annoyed mert said. “Why the hell would I give my pastries to ts for free?”

  “I thought you said this was an inauguration. Those usually mean you offer free stuff to yuests!” one of the others excimed with a shrug.

  “Free stuff? Are you nuts?” the incredulous crab excimed back. “I’m trying to inaugurate a pot run it into the ground. And stop eyeing my cookies!”

  Balthazar took the pte and moved it away from the girl, who pouted and crossed her arms, looking disappointed she couldn’t have one.

  “Alright, fine, whatever,” said the oh the shortsword. “We should be heading out there anyway, not stand around here all day eating cookies. So let’s just do business a going.”

  “Good,” said the crab, as he pced the pte on the ter and hopped onto the stool behind it. “Don’t want you wasting too muy time here.”

  “My guy, you went out there and called us in for your inauguration!” the bowman excimed, his arms thrown up in exasperation.

  “Yes, and now you’re here. Let’s trade so you scamper already. I didn’t want you to e in so you could loiter around all day. I got things to do, other people to trade with.”

  “Worst inauguration I’ve ever been to,” the grumpy mage muttered, her arms crossed, her expression still looking upset about the cookies.

  “Whatever!” the adventurer with the backpack yelled out. “Let’s just check the special offers and go. You two need anything?”

  “I fot t lock picks. Again,” the ranger said, while looking through his satchel. “Damn it, I ever remember them before we leave town. And it’s always when I don’t have any that we find those locked treasure chests.”

  “Alright,” the other adventurer said, turning to Balthazar, “crab, you got any lock picks?”

  “Sure. Here’s a set of ten lock picks,” he said, grabbing a small bundle from uhe ter and pg them on top of it. “How many you want?”

  “Just the one will do,” the oh the satchel responded.

  “Great. Are these covered by the special prices?” his partner asked to the crab.

  “Of course. Everything is for sale at a special price,” answered the mert.

  “How much?”

  “5 gold for the bundle.”

  “Wait a mihe bow user interjected. “I bought some lock picks from here st week and they cost 5 gold for a bundle of ten too. That’s the same price!”

  “Of course it is,” Balthazar casually said.

  “How is that a special offer then?” the other adventurer asked.

  “All my prices are special offers,” the golden mert answered. “I have great prices every day.”

  “That’s not what a special offer means!” the annoyed adventurer said.

  “What do you mean?” said the crab. “My prices are the best around, so that makes them special offers. If you don’t like them, you go shop somewhere else.”

  “But how does that make them any different from any other day, then?!”

  “It doesn’t. I never said the special offer was just for today, did I?”

  “Gah!” the archer yelled. “Just fet it. Pay the crab so we go.”

  “Fihe other said, pulling five s from his pocket.

  “Pleasure doing business with you,” the mert said, pig up the s with his silver pincer.

  The young man threw him an irate gre as he snatched the bundle of lock picks off the ter.

  “Guys, wait,” the girl said from behind a nearby shelf. “I think I found a niew white robe.”

  The other two groaned in unison.

  “e on, hurry up, please! I bet the crab won’t eve us have any of his lemonade while we wait,” one of them said to her.

  “Right you are, boy,” Balthazar said, gripping the handle of the lemonade jar resting on the ter and sliding it closer to himself. “But take your time. I got something to, uh… check down here.”

  He pulled a random book from the shelf area below and ope over the ter. Pretending to look at its pages, the crab looked through his system notifications.

  [Items traded. Experience gained.]

  [[Lock pick x10] traded for [5 Gold]]

  [You have reached level 14!]

  Balthazar swiped through his notifications and menus while keeping an eye on the adventurers in the background.

  While they surely were used to doing simir things with their own systems, the crab felt ne to expin himself to them if they were to realize a crab was using a system and leveling up.

  Adventurers were already pestering enough as they were. There was o give them one more thing to bother him with.

  With eyes staring down at the book, but actually reading the text of the system, the crab pondered on his choices.

  The attribute point was not even worth stopping to think about. It went into Intelligence as always, because until someone or something gave him a strong reason to ge, he was going to tinue developing his intellect.

  Not that he was g in that department, of course, being the genius crab he knew he was, but there was always room for more brain power in his big shell.

  The more difficult choice was, as usual, where to spend his skill point.

  [Status]

  [Name: Balthazar] [Race: Crab] [Css: Adept Mert] [Level: 14]

  [Attributes]

  [Strength: 3] [Agility: 2] [Intelligence: 24]

  [Skills]

  [Charisma: S(+5)] [Medium Armor: A] [Speech: A] [Reading: B] [Fishing: C] [Imbuing: C] [Leadership: C] [Sshing ons: C]

  Tapping his with a pincer as he acted ied in what was written on the pages of the “Gazebo Catalog XXIV – 100 Beautiful Designs for Yarden” in front of him, Balthazar sidered whether he should raise the rank in one of his already taken skills, or look for a new one.

  There was nothing new he felt he that moment, and the crab had a natural dislike for most things new, but at the same time, he also couldn’t find a standout choi his list of skills.

  Perhaps improving Leadership once more could be a good choice, especially with the way he was slowly growing his sphere of influeh others. For someone who had spent most of his life avoiding being social, he found he was getting pretty good at being a leading crab.

  Without a doubt because of his natural talents, and not because of some silly system skills. It ure crab.

  The other option would be to save the point for ter.

  Except the little pulsing i in the er of his eye indig he had an u point really annoyed Balthazar.

  It was always the little things that got to him.

  “Heeeey! Helloooo?” the wizard girl called out, waving a hand in front of the mert.

  “Oh!” he excimed with surprise.

  Balthazar had gotten so lost in thought he had fotten about the bothersome ts.

  “You sleeping on the job or something, crab?” she asked.

  Trying to focus on both her fad the menus still in his eyes, Balthazar fumbled through the options and quickly selected his Leadership skill without any more thinking, bringing it up to a B and firming it, so he could close everything faster.

  “Nope, just lost in thought, was all,” he finally said, uncrossing his eyes. “You done pig what you wanted?”

  “You’re weird,” the adventurer said, with an expression of disfort. “And yes, I’ll take this, please.”

  She pced a folded white robe on the ter, while signaling for the other two by the exit to wait.

  “That will be 25 gold,” the crab said. “And try not to mix this oh colored clothing while washing. I don’t do refunds if the product is stained.”

  “Wait, so you’d do a refund if it wasn’t stained?” the adventurer asked, while ting s out of her purse.

  “No.”

  “Then why even say… whatever, not even going to ask,” she said, pg the s on the ter. “You know, your inauguration sucks. You should learn to value your tele and treat them better.”

  She gave the pte of cookies at the end of the ter o longing gnce before turning around and leaving with the rest of her party.

  The mert shrugged. Clearly, the traders in town spoiled adventurers far too much. He, however, saw no reason to try that hard. Where else would they go for trading around there? It was not as if he had any petition in his slice of the market.

  No one would ever be crazy enough to set up shop near his pond. Surely.

  H0st