Chapter 35: Truck Grave

This side effect had become Anna's trademark when brewing potions.

However, in the middle of a desolate wilderness where one was neither near a village nor a town, being able to have an ample supply of healing potions was already an immense blessing; how could one ask for more?

Those who gulped down Anna's healing potions would often let out a wild roar, their eyes turning bloodshot as they threw themselves back into battle.

Those in the know understood that the users were using the combat to distract themselves from the agonizing sensations in their bodies.

Those who were unaware thought the individuals had entered a berserk state; many monsters were left stunned by the sight, and some were even so terrified that they turned and fled.

In the caravan, this had become a running joke. The familiar guards would tease Anna about it while simultaneously buying more healing potions from her.

The kind-hearted Anna would do nothing but apologize profusely, proactively offering discounts or throwing in a few extra bottles of potions for free.

By the time they were only halfway through their journey, Anna had already earned herself an old carriage and more than half a carriage's worth of miscellaneous goods and strange trinkets, becoming a merchant owner within the caravan—a development that completely took Gavin by surprise.

If you said the young priestess knew how to do business, her heart was far from black; she was constantly giving discounts and free gifts. With this method of operation, logically speaking, even if her family owned a mountain of gold, she would soon run it dry.

Yet, if you said she didn't know how to do business, she was now a legitimate merchant owner possessing a carriage full of goods—something he and Vic had failed to achieve even after traveling half of Faerûn.

"A big deal, Mr. Gavin, Mr. Gavin! I've discovered... I've discovered a big deal!" Anna shouted as she ran, pulling Gavin out of his daze.

Half of Anna's small head poked out from behind the carriage curtain, her round face flushed red. The golden curls at her forehead had escaped again, twitching mischievously, and her large eyes were sparkling with excitement.

The young priestess had been corrupted by those unscrupulous merchants; she had become addicted to business and would spout merchant logic wherever she went.

"What big deal?" Given the strange luck the young priestess had displayed, Gavin maintained his patience, preparing to hear whatever business scheme she was peddling this time.

"Hehe..." Before she could even start, the young priestess began giggling to herself. "I discovered this all by myself."

"Hmm, what did you discover?" Gavin asked suggestively; otherwise, this excited, silly girl might have counted everything from her head to her toes to explain it to him.

"Wagons... old, discarded wagons... the lizardman tribe that Uncle Bed and the others are trading with has a huge pile of old wagons... I looked into it, and the price is incredibly cheap... we can definitely afford to buy them all... then, Mr. Goblin and I can use *Mending* to fix them up, and they'll be usable again. Before long, we'll have our own caravan!" Anna was applying what she had just learned.

By the time this old carriage had reached them, it was barely functional. It had taken Anna and Vic three uses of *Mending* just to get it moving again, and another five uses to restore it to ninety percent condition.

The merchant who sold it to them had realized that the cost of repairing carriages was too high, and since they would need to use them frequently on the road, he decided to do them a favor by selling it to Anna at a bargain price.

Otherwise, did he really think the young priestess's pure innocence and kindness had moved those black-hearted merchants to feel too ashamed to swindle her?

The reason Anna hadn't been "packaged and sold" yet was entirely due to the overwhelming martial force they displayed—especially Vic, the goblin warlock, a caster capable of wielding third-level *Fireball*, who provided significant deterrence.

Furthermore, because Vic followed Gavin's every command—and though he wasn't a slave, his behavior suggested otherwise—the experienced old foxes among the merchants couldn't quite read Gavin. They assumed he was "playing a pig to eat a tiger," so they tried to stay close rather than provoke him or test his limits.

"What do we need so many wagons for?" This time, it was Gavin who couldn't keep up with Anna's train of thought.

"To sell for money! A well-made wagon is worth at least three hundred gold pieces. Buying them from those lizardmen won't even cost three gold pieces. That's a hundredfold profit!" Anna's mental abacus was clicking away rapidly.

"That's one way to look at it, but have you considered the transportation issue? Setting aside how long it will take to repair them, once they are fixed, how much will it cost to transport them? The second half of our journey will only get harder, especially once we enter the rocky lands where most paths are rugged and difficult. A single horse struggling to pull a wagon will be at its limit. We only have three people and three horses; at most, we can add one more wagon.

Your Uncle Bed and his crew are the type of people who would squeeze every drop of oil out of a bone. If there truly were a deal with a hundredfold profit, they would have devoured it long ago instead of waiting for you to find it.

If I'm not mistaken, this place is likely the well-known 'wagon graveyard' of this trade route. Whether traveling east or west, wagons suffer heavy wear and tear by the time they reach here. Some must be abandoned, or people search here for replacement parts to perform makeshift repairs before continuing their journey."

As Gavin poured several buckets of cold water on her, Anna, who had been in high spirits thinking she had found a treasure, immediately wilted like a frost-bitten eggplant.

"What are you standing there for?" Gavin beckoned to Anna.

"To do what?" Anna asked listlessly.

"To go see your 'treasure'," Gavin said with a smile.

"Mr. Gavin is teasing me again." Anna's mouth pouted so far it could have hung a soy sauce bottle.

"I am the most serious person there is; when have I ever teased you?" Gavin explained with a laugh. "It *is* a treasure, after all; the value of the wagons is real. It's just that with our current capabilities, we can't dig up this treasure yet. That doesn't mean we won't be able to in the future. For now, let's go and assess it."

"You're the one saying it's not worth it, and you're the one saying it is. Inside and out, you claim all the logic for yourself," Anna muttered under her breath while kicking a clump of mud.

"What did you say?" Gavin pretended not to hear her complaint.

"Nothing," Anna said with a long drawl. "I said Mr. Gavin is so clever, thinking of everything so thoroughly. Come on, it's not far ahead."

Anna led Gavin forward, stepping carefully to avoid puddles, unsure if they were mere water or swampy mires, as they had already entered the outskirts of the Tun Swamp.

This was their second day staying here, and they were expected to remain for at least three more days.

The lizardman village they had stopped at, named Green Marsh, was already showing the outlines of a small town. The lizardmen here leaned toward civilization; at least, unlike most of their kind, their first reaction to seeing humans was not to raise weapons but to communicate through speech. When they saw the caravan, their lizard faces were covered in smiles—smiles that were identical to those worn by the unscrupulous merchants.

News of a large caravan stopping here had reached the Tun Swamp yesterday. Since this morning, swamp-dwelling merchants, and even individuals, had arrived with goods to trade. These swamp races were not limited to lizardmen; there were also Bullywugs, Hags, Kobolds, Goblins, Crocodile-folk, and more.

As long as a race possessed intelligence, they had trading needs. Merchants wandering through monster jungles generally prepared for two scenarios.

If the monsters arrived with blades and malice, they would meet them with blades.

If they arrived with goodwill and goods, they would meet them with smiles and goods.

Is it not business regardless of who you deal with?

As long as there was profit, most merchants did not care who their trading partner was.

They also had their own rhetoric: their trade would maintain a balance of supply and demand. Without demand, the aggression of those monsters would decrease significantly, making their caravans safer and the surrounding people safer as well.

While it was a bit of an exaggeration of their own merits, there was a grain of truth to it.