Chapter 31: Let’s Go Shopping with the Exiled Marquise 3
How should I put it… if I can be blunt about the weapon shop Lana introduced us to.
“It’s run-down.”
“It is quite run-down, isn’t it?”
It was run-down.
Completely dilapidated.
So run-down it was amazing they even thought about doing business here.
If Lana hadn’t recommended it, I probably wouldn’t have even considered going inside.
Actually, I probably wouldn’t have even realized it was a weapon shop.
Erica looked at me as if asking what we should do, so I steeled myself and stepped forward.
Nervously opening the door, half-expecting it to break the moment I touched it, I found the interior surprisingly clean.
Or rather than clean, it was…
“There’s nothing here, is there?”
Erica said from behind me.
There were no weapons, no shelves, nothing inside the shop.
For a moment, I thought we’d entered the wrong place, but on the counter sat a wooden plate inscribed with “Torr Rosso Armory”.
Bewildered by the lack of displayed goods or even any people, I walked up to the counter.
There wasn’t even a bell to call for service. Thinking how truly empty it was, I looked down behind the counter and saw someone lying there.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”
The sight of the woman with glasses apologizing, wildly shaking her messy, overgrown, waist-length black hair up and down, was a little scary.
“I was so bored I ended up falling asleep. I’m terribly sorry for startling you.”
No matter how bored she was, I wish she wouldn’t sleep in a place like that.
I panicked, thinking I’d stumbled upon a murder scene.
“Honestly! I couldn’t sense any presence at all, so I thought you were a corpse,” Erica protested. The black-haired woman apologized again, whipping her hair around.
“Well, setting that aside,” Erica stopped the apologizing woman and continued.
“Do you handle weapons here?”
She glanced at the counter.
“Shopkeeper Torr Rosso? -san?”
“Ahhh, forgive my delay! Wasshi am the proprietor of Torr Rosso Armory, Tepe Torr Rosso. Er, um, you are customers? Is that correct?”
Wasshi is an unusual first-person pronoun. Her accent sounds close to a southern one, so perhaps she’s from that region.
“Yeah, we’re customers. We came to buy a sword.”
“Whoaaaaa!”
Tepe let out a strange cry in response to my answer.
What should I do? I want to leave right now.
“Waahhh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
Did it show on my face? Tepe clung to my arm.
Even though I was caught off guard by her surprising strength, I nearly lost my balance for a moment.
“It’s just been so long since I had customers, I got carried away,” Tepe pleaded with teary eyes.
“Alright, I get it, I get it.”
I wished she’d let go already.
Erica’s expression had turned slightly sour.
As a former Marquise, seeing such an ill-mannered shopkeeper must be unpleasant.
But far from letting go, Tepe started stroking my arm with her hand, muttering things like “Hoh,” and “Heh.”
Each time, her rather large chest pressed against my arm.
Even through the rough leather apron, I couldn’t help but be conscious of it.
Just as I was thinking I should shout at her to make her let go, Tepe lifted her face from my arm, which she had been staring intently at.
“Customer-san, you’re unusual. Your foundation is the Order Swordsmanship used by the nobility, and on top of that… your own style? No, is this Southern-Style Swordsmanship? You have very unusual muscles.”
Tepe suddenly pinpointed the origins of my swordsmanship.
Wait, was she looking at my muscles?
But still, can you really tell just from muscles?
It’s true that my current swordsmanship style was formed by learning the Southern-Style Swordsmanship, said to have been passed down from the south, from my master, on top of the Order Swordsmanship I learned at the academy, but…
“Oh, and what’s more, Customer-san, you’re almost purely a swordsman type, aren’t you? For magic, it looks like you can use Physical Enhancement quite strongly… but I perceive you’re quite poor at emission-type magic.”
It was scary how she kept hitting the mark about my characteristics one after another.
It’s not normal to understand that much just by looking at the muscles in one arm, right?
A feeling close to fear started welling up inside me.
“That is quite enough.”
Erica’s voice stopped Tepe, who seemed about to elaborate further.
“To speak of such things without the person’s permission is going too far.”
At Erica’s cold voice, Tepe let out another strange cry, released my arm, and bowed her head, repeating, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
I felt she hadn’t done it out of malice, and seeing her apologize repeatedly was pitiful—plus her hair kept hitting my face every time she bowed—so I tried to smooth things over by saying I didn’t mind, but somehow I ended up getting scolded too.
“What kind of husband lets another woman touch him all over right in front of his wife?” she asked.
Ashamed that I hadn’t considered that, given my role in this farce we were playing along with, I deeply reflected on my actions.