In this territory, disputes could be settled through battle, and the losing side must act in accordance to the victor's order, provided that they did not perish during the fight. While this system sounds like it can be abused by stronger races and powerful individuals, the orders for the losing party must be stated before the fight, and both parties must consent to settling the dispute through battle first. Repeatedly declining battle challenges wasn't a great idea, however, since mysterious "accidents" often occurred to the declining party late at night.

With Amber's help, I had just won a fight against two delinquents that reportedly collected "protection" fees from merchants in the market district over the past month, and the order for these two for losing was that they had to give back all the money they took. As soon as they regained consciousness, all the merchants swarmed around them to collect their money.

Given the number of people gathered around the two, and the forcefulness of the merchants, it looked more like a gang beating from loan sharks to me. Oh well, it's not really my concern.

A few merchants who wanted to wait for the crowd to disperse came over to congratulate me and shook my hand, and I would exchange greetings and introductions with each of them. The goblins aside, shaking hands with the orc merchants who were far bigger than me felt weird. My hands were only as large as two of their fingers, so I suppose it was more of a finger-shake from my end. I was also quite worried that they would give a firm handshake that would crush my own hand, though the lingering strength boosting buff helped prevent that from happening.

"Thank you so much! They were taking half of our daily profits!"

"If you ever want fresh vegetables, I'll give you a good discount!"

"I'll be able to pay my rent this month thanks to you."

The merchants that came to me were genuinely thankful. Looks like I'll be able to save quite a bit of money if I ever need to purchase something from them. And I probably won't need to worry about anyone acting out of jealousy... for now, at least.

I asked the various merchants who came to thank me where to buy the alchemy ingredients I needed to craft commander Mavuto's supplies, and received very detailed responses about the stores' names, their locations, and their item price ranges.

Well, time to begin my shopping spree.

* * * * *

The closest stores with some of the ingredients I needed were the florist and topiary shops two blocks away. There weren't any herbalists in Sachiru town, so these were one of very few places where I could get specific flowers and herbs used for potion making. I chatted with Amber on the way there.

"What kinds of magic do you know, Amber?"

"I was mostly working in enemy territory, so I mostly spells that help with avoiding getting captured, such as Hypnosis, Paralyze, Blind, Slow, and so on."

"And your Hypnosis only works on males?"

"I don't know why, but all the spells that directly affect another person's mind or body seem to only work on people of the opposite gender…"

"Do you know any offensive spells?"

"None, unless you count claw sharpening as an offensive spell. I do know some basic defensive and healing spells, though."

If she ever took part in an adventurer party, I suppose she would be a back-line support. She could occasionally disable enemies from far away with Paralyze and heal party members, and use an escape spell if things ever took a bad turn. Maybe that was what she did on the other side of the border to earn some money, since the paper money used here was unusable there.

I don't know how useful she'd be for any other purposes, though, considering how a lot of spells she knew only worked on males… Well, I'm not an adventurer anymore, so I wouldn't need to think too much about that anyways. It's not like I'd be going on any expeditions or quests any time soon.

"You didn't do anything illegal that required you to escape from the authorities, did you?"

"None. Nobody ever had doubts about me, so I never had to do anything in the shadows."

"They didn't even ask where you were from?"

"Now that you mention it, it's rather strange that nobody ever asked."

Maybe people were so thrilled at having someone who wasn't human around that they didn't want to make her feel uncomfortable by asking personal questions. Humans did make up the majority of the population over there, after all, so any cute demihuman like her would have been a very welcomed sight. I knew a lot of guys that often fantasized about catgirls.

We arrived at the street with the florist and topiary shops after that short conversation. Since all the signage was written in the demon language, I asked Amber to point to the shops I was looking for.

There were only two such shops, so I just picked the larger of the two.

"Ah, you're that human who beat up the delinquents! Welcome!"

The shopkeeper seemed very happy to see me.

"Good morning."

I tried my best to keep a straight face at the sight in front of me. All the plants and flowers in the shop were shoved onto multiple piles. The piles were at the very least separated by plant species, but they looked no different than green haystacks with random flowers sprinkled on top.

Perhaps having figured out that I had a bit of culture shock, Amber whispered to me,

"In this territory, only the devils have an aesthetic sense similar to humans. For the orcs and goblins, they consider anything that isn't moss and grows naturally as a beautiful addition to their stone homes, so they simply decorate using heaps of random plants and flowers."

I feel like this is more of a dumpsite than a plant shop now…

"Feel free to grab anything you want. It's only ten doviti for every handful you pick!"

"Are we measuring with your hand size or mine?"

My hand was significantly smaller than an orc's, after all.

"Haha! Good question! Alright, I'll charge you two doviti for each handful. Your hand size of course."

The commander wanted me to brew strength potions, speed potions, major health recovery potions, and mana recovery potions - a total of 1000 bottles. If I were to fit all of these into crates that measured five handspans on each side, then I would need ten crates, each weighing almost twice as much as me. The concentrate that gets brewed is generally poisonous, so the potions need to be diluted in order to be safe to drink. Given the quantity of potions, however, I'd still need about six times my weight worth of herbs and flowers.

The plants and flowers were light, so it looks like I'll need around… three thousand handfuls.

* * * * *

"Your total is 6318 doviti. Since you got rid of those delinquents for everyone in this district, I'll discount that to 6000."

Even with the help of the shopkeeper and Amber, it still took us an hour to pick out the types and quantities of the plants I needed. My hands were horribly numb as a result, so it took a bit of time for me to take out my wallet and pay the shopkeeper.

"Do you by any chance offer a delivery service? I'll pay extra for that."

"Sorry, I don't. I'd love to help you myself, but I have to stay and keep an eye on this shop…"

"Then do you have any boxes or crates we could put the goods in?"

"I don't have any of those either, sorry. I do have some wheelbarrows in the back if you'd like to borrow those."

"You don't mind carting all these plants back to the shop, do you, Amber?"

"I don't mind. I'm your shop assistant, after all!"

"Alright, let's go bring the wheelbarrows inside."

I thought that the orc shopkeeper would at least have a wheelbarrow suited for human and demihuman use, but I was apparently wrong. His wheelbarrow was probably designed for orcs, so it was as tall as my chest level, and the two handles were so far apart that each of us had to hold one.

What was supposed to be a couple of quick trips ended up being a weightlifting session, with each of us having to lift the handles up to our head levels and slowly pushing the wheelbarrow back two blocks.

"On second thought, I think I do mind. Please don't make me do this tomorrow."

While it only took us six trips in total to get all of the goods back to the shop, each trip ended up taking fifteen minutes. My back was so sore from all the heavy lifting that I started to understand how old grandmothers felt. I really hope I won't need to do this every day…

"Sorry for making you work like this. It's already half past noon, so do you want to go have some lunch?"

"Sure. And let's not go too far. I don't think my back can handle that."

I just came to this town yesterday, so I didn't know any places to eat, nor could I even read the diner signs. I let Amber pick instead, and we entered a diner at the end of the street.

I couldn't read the menu, and didn't want to bother Amber with reading out every item, so I just made a random order. Amber simply smiled at me and did not order anything.

"I thought you were hungry."

"You ordered a large meal meant for orcs. It's impossible for you to finish even half the meal, so I figured I'll eat it with you."

"Oh, sorry about that. I hope I won't ruin your appetite with what they're going to bring out…"

"Don't feel bad. You ordered something tasty."

Minutes later, the biggest meal I had ever seen was brought to our table.