Money Can Buy Everything

031: Development Begins

On the dimly lit streets, groups of players huddled together.

The light was dim, but one could still see the exhaustion on their faces. Although they had black bread and dried fruits, and could sleep on the streets, the game aimed to simulate Sword Art Online realistically, so these makeshift rests wouldn't provide enough recovery.

Even if it wasn't displayed in the status bar, this makeshift rest couldn't alleviate players' mental stress.

Or rather, players needed various forms of mental pleasures to release their stress. Things like bathing and enjoying good food. Huddling on the street, making do, couldn't be called pleasurable.

Except for the deviants, of course.

Momo smiled and walked alone on the street, out of Tolbana, beginning his hunting life for the day.

On the second day of the game, very few players dared to venture out of the city, especially at this time. Monsters' attributes would increase at night, elites and bosses would be active, and carelessness could result in death in the wilderness.

In a death game like this, who would dare to take such a risk?

Momo naturally wouldn't. Although he had Kirito's combat experience and dying in the game wouldn't mean real-world death, he couldn't afford to casually die and get kicked out of the game.

Once Momo entered the wilderness, the sun was rising, spreading its warm light over the land, signaling the end of the night.

Momo had calculated the time.

His level was still LV1, but LV2 was not far away. With his LV2 Wild Boar Set, even though the equipment attributes were mediocre, once he put it on, it would boost his stats several times over.

Thus, Momo didn't stay in one monster-spawning point but kept walking, clearing the wild boars along the way.

Finally, Momo leveled up to LV2 and donned the Wild Boar Set. The monsters around him turned into LV2 Long-haired Wild Boars.

Compared to regular boars, the Long-haired Wild Boars had slightly boosted attributes and dropped fur, which was a necessary material for basic crafting skills, making their drops quite generous.

This was a characteristic of the entire Aincrad's 1st and 2nd floors, almost like a beginner's stage. The monsters were basic and didn't have many skills, but their drops were abundant.

Flipping his Fang Short Sword in hand, Momo gazed at a distant long-haired boar with a tail, assuming a starting stance for his sword technique.

"Hunt begins!"

...

The entire morning of hunting yielded Momo quite a harvest of boar skin, boar meat, and about ten pieces of fur. Unfortunately, there was only one piece of equipment, the Thick Hide Small Shield.

The LV3 equipment was still plain and unremarkable.

Nevertheless, Momo was quite satisfied. LV3 was still a distant goal, and since he was learning Kirito's sword techniques, he planned to consider selling the shield.

Morning passed, but Momo didn't plan to continue hunting. Instead, he chose to return. Along the way, he spotted a few scattered groups of players hunting boars in teams.

Several people attacking a single boar, everyone was clearly a bit nervous, fearing danger. However, the fact remained that even if the boar chased after someone for three minutes, it wouldn't kill them.

It would take these players a while before they mustered the courage to venture beyond the Starting Street.

...

"Hey, innkeeper, I'm here again!"

"Oh, it's you, young man! Welcome. But you know, the money you spent on bread yesterday, no matter what, we can't refund it. Take it as a lesson, don't spend money recklessly."

The round-faced bakery owner spoke sternly, but a hint of cunning in her eyes and the fact that she had charged Momo 9 col for bread didn't escape his notice.

"No worries!"

Momo bought several jam-filled pastries and a 50 col strawberry cake, making the innkeeper's face light up.

"Innkeeper, how about a deal? You teach me cooking skills, and I'll pay you 50 col. I promise I won't use cooking skills for business on the 1st floor."

Momo proposed the trade after numerous conversations with the innkeeper, a condition he had tested the waters for.

"Transaction successful."

"Well, alright, I can see you're an honest kid. You've done business with me several times, unlike other outsiders who are stingy. I'll reluctantly teach you. However, my skills are quite limited, so I can only teach you a LV1 skill."

"That's enough, thank you!"

Momo respectfully bowed to the innkeeper like an elegant nobleman, leaving other players pointing and whispering, some even chuckling.

"Why are you being so polite? Oh my, it's the first time someone has shown me this much respect. Alright, I'll take you as my student. I can't just leave it at that. Here, take a dozen pumpkin candies, they're for you."

Momo accepted them with a smile. A dozen pumpkin candies for 12 col, a price of 10 col, but they didn't provide satiety; they were just a snack to satisfy one's sweet tooth.

The players around, who had been mocking Momo, were dumbfounded. After he left, they rushed to the bakery, awkwardly displaying various forms of courtesy, turning the round-faced lady's face completely black.

"Guard, guard, there's trouble here!"

...

"Alright, kid, you did come after all, not bad. Remember, don't let others find out. If you can supply steadily, we can make an agreement."

In a corner of a small alley, a burly butcher with a triangular cleaver hanging from his waist exuded some authority.

"Okay, okay, I definitely won't spread the word about you buying wild boar meat and selling it as domestic pork."

"How... how did you know?"

Momo had learned about the selling price of pork today, which made him understand what kind of task and shady dealings the butcher was involved in. Although wild boar meat was expensive in reality, it was the opposite in this game.

Wild boar meat was tough and a bit gamey, but this butcher seemed to know how to make it taste like domestic pork.

The market price for wild boar meat was 20 col per piece, while domestic pork was as high as 40 col per piece. The butcher was secretly buying wild boar meat from players for 20 col each, earning the difference.

It was likely that there was a way to trigger a hidden quest with him, which you could either expose or accept bribes from afterward. However, Momo had the Trading Authority and chose to establish a trading relationship with him directly.

"You... Let's discuss it, kid. I'll buy your wild boar meat for 23... no, 25 col each, and I can only buy 50 pieces a day. This is my limit! You seem like a flexible guy, so how about we let bygones be bygones, and we help each other out?"

The massive giant of a butcher, holding onto Momo's slender shoulder, bent down and showed a sly smile. This stunned Reimu.

"Is this guy really an AI?"

"At the very least, he has an AI recognized as a trading partner to the extent of Trading Authority. He possesses cognitive and judgment abilities. He probably lacks emotions compared to humans."

Momo responded in his mind. It wouldn't affect the game, so he activated his Trading Authority and established a supply-demand relationship with the butcher.

50 pieces of wild boar meat per day, 25 col each.

With 18 pieces of wild boar meat he had just hunted, totaling 450 col, Momo went to the bakery, set up a stall, and made a surprising announcement.

"Level 1 chef buying wild boar meat for 11 col each. Quick, I only need 32 pieces!"

As the first person to set up a stall in the game, Momo immediately garnered everyone's attention, especially since he was offering 11 col per piece for wild boar meat, which left all the players bewildered!

Buying wild boar meat was one thing, but offering more money than it was worth?

What was he planning to do with the meat? Did he trigger a quest? Where did he learn cooking skills, and where did he get the funds to buy wild boar meat?

A series of questions flooded the players' minds, and their response was swift. In just a few minutes, Momo had completed purchasing 32 pieces of wild boar meat, then he smiled and bid farewell to the crowd, entering the inn. This left the players who were following him disappointed because they couldn't figure out where Momo had obtained the quest.

Entering the inn, instead of going to his room, Momo left through another door on a different street and returned to the waiting butcher, selling the wild boar meat.

With 800 col in his pocket, Momo's assets instantly exceeded 900 col.

However, it was only a temporary affluence. After completing the transaction, Momo went to the blacksmith's workshop and saw the gloomy-faced Dark Elf.

"I've told you, I dislike you. If you're not here to buy something, leave immediately. You're not welcome here."

"Oh, come on, don't be mad, master!"

Momo shamelessly approached her, saying, "Actually, I'm here to give you some col, master."

At the mention of the word "col," the dark elf blacksmith looked puzzled. "Go on."

"Master, you craft a lot of basic equipment to sell, right? Well, you have me as your apprentice now. You can leave the basic forging tasks to me. I'll only make weapons with a 100% success rate, guaranteed not to mess up. This way, master can rest properly, right?"

The dark elf's expression remained unchanged. "So you want to become an apprentice? Apprentices work for free, I've told you, I dislike you, so being an apprentice is out of the question!"

"Master, you're joking. How could I become an apprentice? I'm here to help you because I admire your superb skills. How about this? Each time I help you complete a weapon, I'll give you 1 col as a guidance fee, how does that sound?"

The dark elf's expression grew stranger. "You want to be my apprentice and still pay me?"

"Yes!"

"You're a strange outsider. Fine, I'll leave it to you. If you fail, you'll have to compensate double. Since you have the money and want to pay for the work, it's up to you."

"Thank you, master!"

Momo's face lit up with a brilliant smile. He picked up the hammer and the anvil, sweating as he forged LV1 weapons from iron series. Each time he forged a weapon, he had to pay 1 col, and the skill proficiency would only increase by a paltry 1 point.

If you prepare the materials yourself, you can increase your proficiency by 10 points. However, the accounting isn't as simple as that. If you spend col to buy the materials, you would need to spend 100 col for the materials to gain those 10 proficiency points. This means that early-stage blacksmith players help others forge weapons for free using their materials to increase their proficiency. They rely on repairing weapons to earn income.

Even though you don't spend any col in this process, you still need to sit on the street waiting for business, and the efficiency is self-evident.

By this calculation, Momo's efficiency is ten or even a hundred times greater than those waiting-for-business blacksmiths!