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  “This… this is so good,” Balthazar whispered.

  Looking down from the ter, the baker nodded as he smiled. “I knew you’d like it. Nobody resist my freshly baked bread.”

  “I never knew bread could be this delicious.” The crab turo Rye with glistening eyes, the loaf of bread still held in his pincers. “I should have asked Madeleio make me some of this before!”

  Rye smiled with a frown of slight fusion.

  “Wait, you never had bread before?”

  “I did, once, long ago, before I was a mert, when an adveopped by the pond and sat down on a rock to eat his lunear the water. I kept an eye on him while he was eating, you know, to make sure he didn’t steal any of my favorite rocks or something. After he got ba the road, I noticed he left a bunch of breadcrumbs from his sandwich, but they were old and stale, nothing like this.”

  “You used to eat crumbs off the ground?” the young man said in a teasing manner.

  Balthazar g him with a scolding stare.

  “It was a long time ago. If yoing to be like that, I won’t tell you anything anymore.”

  “Well, I’m gd the famous mert crab enjoyed my baking,” said the man behind the ter, standing upright again and pnting his palms on the ter. “You’ll still have to pay for it, though.”

  Balthazar gnced down at the loaf of bread in his cws and sighed.

  Damn it, Balthazar, what is wrong with you? You’re no amateur trader, you should have knower than to accept a product before iating the price.

  After being done chastising himself internally, the mert pulled his little Bag of Holding Money and loosehe string keeping it shut, an act that alained him greatly when it was for s to e out of it.

  “Alright, fair enough, you got me this oh your bready ways, ing baker,” the crab bemoaned. “How much for the loaf?”

  “For a first time er, and because you’re such a special one, let’s say… two s.”

  “s? The hell is that?” asked Balthazar, frowning in fusion.

  “It’s… money? You know, s, currency, legal tender?” answered the equally fused seller. “I thought you were supposed to be a mert. How do you not know what money is?”

  “Of course I know what money is!” said the crab, pulling a couple of gold s out of his bag and holding them for the man to see. “This kind of money. Gold s.”

  “Those are s!” the baker said, shrugging in an exasperated bewilderment. “Gold s are called s.”

  Balthazar looked at his s, at the bread maker, at Rye, and then at his s again.

  “How did nobody ever tell me that?!”

  The archer shrugged in an apologetiner. “I don’t know. Maybe because you’ve been mostly dealing with adventurers all this time?”

  “So you also didn’t know these were called s?”

  “Well, no, I did, but most adventurers just refer to them as gold s. Don’t ask me why, I wasn’t born here, and I just got used to calling them by what everyone else around me did.”

  “s…” Balthazar repeated, staring at his two shiny s like he was seeing them for the first time again. “You know, I kinda like it.”

  “I just ’t believe you’ve gohis long being a mert without even knowing what the currency used all over Heartha was called,” said the baker.

  “Heartha? Who’s that?” Balthazar asked. “Another baker?”

  “You… you’re joking nht?” the bewildered man said. “Heartha, the name of the world we all live in! How do you not know that?! Have you lived your whole life under a rock?!”

  “Mate, I’m a crab, of course I’ve lived under a rock, and over too. They’re some of my favorite pces to be,” Balthazar casually responded. “And how was I supposed to know this world had a name? Going around giving pames is more of a human thing.”

  “I thought you read lots of books,” said Rye. “Did you just never e across the name before, in a history book, or something?”

  “I mainly like the ones with lots of drawings to look at. Or the ones with recipes.”

  The man behind the stall pinched his nose and inhaled deeply, like someone pushing ba ining headache.

  “Either way, misuandings aside, that will cover the loaf,” the baker said, reag out for the s in Balthazar’s pincer.

  Crab instincts kig in, he snapped his arm bad away from the man’s grabby hand.

  He may have lost much, but ohiill had was his business sense, and he would not part with two of his precious new s so easily if he could help it.

  “Or!” Balthazar said. “What if we settled on a trade of goods to cover the cost of the bread?”

  The baker pulled his hand bato the ter and looked at the crab with an inquisitive expression.

  “What kind of trade? I never really caught what it is that you trade in, mert crab.”

  “Oh, he mostly deals in loot jun—”

  “Zip it, Rye. Let me do my work,” the shrewd crusta quickly said. “I am a trader of general goods, my good baker. A dealer of fiems and purveyor of quality treasures. I got a little bit of everything, and always that ohing you needed and didn’t even know yet.”

  The man cocked an eyebrow at the crab.

  “Well, I don’t really need anything right now, so just the two s would be—”

  “Ah, but like I just said!” interrupted the mert. “Always something you just didn’t know you needed yet.”

  Releasing orap of his backpad putting it down oreet cobblestones, Balthazar began quickly rummaging through its magically enhanced inner space, pincers searg for something that, most likely, not even the crab knew yet what it would be.

  “Aha!” he triumphantly excimed, pulling his arm out of the bag. “This is what you need!”

  Held in his raised pincer was a swrip and pommel with finely etched silver details, leading to a long and wide serrated bde with a shiny gold finish.

  “Why would I need a sword?!” said the man, shaking his head in disbelief. “I’m a baker!”

  “Exactly!” said the smiling crab, pg the tip of the on on the ter. “You make bread, and then what do you do with it? You e here to this market, and you sell it.”

  The man looked at the bde again and then at the crab, still fused.

  “And? What does that have to do with a sword?”

  “This sword is ented, my friend. Imagine how much your stall would stand out pared to every other b bread seller if you were the only one slig your beautiful golden loaves with an equally beautiful golden magical sword? People would gather around just to see it! Trust me, I am a crab who sells stuff to adventurers every day, I know how to impress ts!”

  The baker’s eyebrows rose as he pted the bde.

  “I mean… that does sound pretty awesome. I always dreamed of being a sword-wielding noble knight when I was a kid, but you know, I just ended up being a baker. A lot less getting stabbed this way. And it’s not like I even know how to use a sword…”

  Balthazar scoffed as he fully pced the sword on the ter.

  “Pfft, please. You’ve used a ko cut slices of bread every day, I imagine, right? Same thing! Just, you know, bigger, and more impressive! Try it out.”

  The maated for a moment, but the temptation clearly won him over as he picked up the sword a its bance. “Oh, lighter than I expected.”

  Reag into a nearby basket, the baker picked up a rge loaf and pced it over the wooden surfa front of him. With a slow and careful motion, the bde slid into the crust and crumb, produg a sizzling sound and some steam.

  “Woah! What’s this?!” the baker excimed, looking in amazement at the cut, revealing a crispy golden inside where the bde had passed.

  “Hah! I told you, the sword has a fire entment. You just made instant toast! Impressive, isn’t it?” the crab said. “Now imagine how spectacur you will look to your ts if you do that every day.”

  The baker took another, more enthusiastic stab at the bread, splitting a generous slice off the loaf, both sides perfectly toasted into a lightly brown, crispy surface that begged for a dose of butter on it.

  The man sighed, eyes still fixed on the sword, admiring its golden shine and the silver details of the pommel.

  “Oh, you crafty crab. My wife is going to kill me, but now I just gotta have this beauty. I’ll just have to vince her it’s a work tool. How much for it?”

  The crusta smiled, knowiill got it, even without a system, levels, or silly skills.

  “Of course it is a work tool, friend. And for a first time er, and because I like you, let’s say… 50 gold s. Plus the loaf!”

  The baker sucked in some air with a whistling sound.

  “That’s a lot of dough for a humble baker like me.”

  “Think about it, though,” the friendly crab said, “this is a on a lifetime purchase. You will tell the tale of this day for years to e. You hang this up as a family heirloom over your oven. Pass it down to your children and grandchildren. It will be your bread-cutting legend.”

  The baker’s eyes glistened with possibility and the metallic refle of the bde in his hands.

  “You’re right. I ’t let this opportunity pass me by. I’d spend the rest of my life w about it. You’ve got yourself a deal!”

  Putting the sword down, the man reached behind his ter arieved a purse. After some quick digging through it, he pced five s on the wooden surfa front of the crab. “Here you go!”

  Balthazar stretched his eyestalks up to look at the money on the ter.

  “I said 50 gold s, pal. I don’t want just five s.”

  The baker looked at the s and then at the crab, visibly fused.

  “Yes, I heard your price, and that’s what I’m paying you. Five 10 s, adding up to fifty s.” He looked at Rye. “Do crabs not know mathematics?”

  “No, I don’t think you get it,” the crab said, shaking his shell. “I want fifty s as payment. Five is less than fifty.”

  “Balthazar,” Rye hesitantly said. “You do know there are 5 and 10 s tht?”

  “Sure, but why would I want fewer s? I like to look at my big pile of money and see lots of them.”

  “Because that’s very impractical to store and carry?!” excimed the befuddled baker.

  “Wait,” said the adventurer. “So all this time, the reason you’ve been making every adventurer pay i amounts was because you wanted everything in 1 s? I thought you just didn’t have ge!”

  “And I don’t,” said the crab. “If you’re buying something from me, you’re the one giving me gold. I’m not going to give you the goods and also s iurn.”

  “That’s… that’s not the point of giving ge…”

  “Look,” the increasingly exasperated baker interjected, “I want the sword, but I don’t just have fifty 1 s lying around. Eae of these is worth ten of those because they’re bigger and heavier, either take them or we ’t have a deal.”

  The crab g Rye. “I never had this kind of problem with adventurers.”

  “Well, yeah,” the archer said, “that’s probably because we always have tons of those single s from all those pots and chests we find in dungeons. I always wondered why they only ever tain 1 s…”

  Balthazar looked closer at the s. He liked having as many of the shiny pieces of gold as possible, because it made him feel richer, but these were also bigger. The crab also liked bigger. Just like with pies. Bigger and heavier was good.

  Perhaps, as with so many other aspects retly, it was time he opened himself t doing things differently.

  “Fine, I’ll settle for these,” said the crab while swiping the s off the ter and dropping them in his money bag. “The sword is yours.”

  “Yes!” the baker quietly said in a childlike joy, before pig up his new bde and swinging it around with a smile on his face.

  “That retty good deal,” said Rye as they walked away from the market stand and back through the bustling crowd ireet.

  “For me, it was,” Balthazar said, while breaking another piece of bread from the loaf and tossing it into his mouth. “Those swords do terrible damage, the entment is stupidly weak, and their bdes are as dull as chatting with a barbarian. I ever sell that junk to any adventurer above level 2 or 3. The bde isn’t even real gold! All they’re good for is cutting bread, so… good for him!”

  As the crab and the human wandered back through the market, Balthazar admired the architecture all around him. Used to the wilderness and only knowing human civilization from books, the crusta didn’t expect to find himself so impressed by the fiails of it all.

  The houses, some wide, others taller, with their thatched roofs and colorful walls of cy. Windows with people on them high above, watg those who passed, or chatting with their neighbors about the weather. The braziers spread around every er, their coals still warm with a dying glow from before dawn.

  After the shock of the first tact with a real town had worn off, Balthazar was beginning to realize that this busy bubbling of people and activity might actually suit him a lot better than he ever expected.

  As much as he liked his spad solitude, these filled streets, like rivers full of fish, made his ercial instincts sizzle with excitement for all the thrilling possibilities.

  P on what shop he wanted Rye to take him to first, the crab started sidering that maybe, just maybe, he didn’t hate being surrounded by other people as much as he used to.

  Unfortunately for everyohis was also the same moment when Balthazar saw a strange shadow growing on the ground underh him, and as he looked up, all he had time to see was a human figure falling from a baly above and straight onto him.

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