Chương 39: Chapter 36

Sobelle came back to a calmer village and also a repaired spear. Chael had given her an encouraging grin as she took the weapon from one of the men working at the kilns. She tested the weight and felt it to be right, at the same time, she couldn't help but notice that the weapon now had proper handles along the shaft.

Having a purely wooden shaft was something she was used to and that she was arguably even familiar with handling spears in such a way but at the same time; Sobelle felt that a proper handle on her weapon simply made it better. With a proper grip, she could do so much more than she previously did.

"Thank you." Sobelle held the spear with the care of a mother carrying a newborn child. According to the workers, she had only gotten her weapon for now but would receive all her other gear after a day or two.

"I can afford to wait, it isn't like the greenskins would be active right now anyway."

"Which makes it the prime opportunity to kill as many of them as you can right?" Chael said from beside her, making Sobelle sigh. The young merchant looked confused, "what? I'm right aren't I? If the goblins are inactive then that means that they are all vulnerable."

"Their Nogg knows how to make traps." Sobelle explained as she walked away from the kilns. Chael still looked like she didn't get it so Sobelle chose to explain some more, "and if he knows how to make traps, that means that he'd be rigging the area around his camp. There will also be walls and possibly even palisades." Right now, the Nogg was at his most dangerous and Sobelle could not afford to fight him in his own territory. What she needed was information, the right gear, and of course, a few more skills.

She hoped that she'd get a new attacking skill when her [Strength] reaches 20 points and that it would be useful against the greenskins.

'Well I guess any attacking skill will be useful, I will be fighting them frequently so it's only natural that I need something to boost my prowess.' Everything the Gods gave her also had some use, as even [Vibe Check] became useful when she needed to deal with the attacking villagers. Sobelle even believed it to be useless at first, now? Not anymore. She'd be sure to truly appreciate the skills the Gods gave her this time, even if it seemed useless at first sight.

"So the Goblins will be so much smarter this time around huh?" Chael summarized it quite well but she was also wrong in some aspects. Only the Nogg will be smart, all the other greenskins will remain feral and just as dangerous as before.

"Maybe you can trick them this time around? They do say that smarter people are easier to trick after all."

"Can I?" Sobelle hadn't thought of that before, but Chael's words made sense after she did. The Nogg now had a few tricks up its sleeve and he learned all of that from observing the village and Sobelle during the raid. Who's to say that he would improve upon the ideas he got?

"Yes you can, dad does it all the time. He says that a noble who knows more will be easier to trick because then their vast knowledge would actually reason that some items are pricier than the others." What Chael just said sounded a lot like gibberish to Sobelle, but maybe it was because she lacked context. Vast knowledge being bad was new to Sobelle so she decided to ask Chael to talk about it some more.

"Okay, uhm, let me see... Here's something that might make it clearer to you; nobles know the worth of precious metals, right?" Chael looked at Sobelle for affirmation so the latter nodded to get Chael to continue talking.

"Right, so, if you tell them that your work is partially made of silver, they'd believe you if you provide proof, whereas a peasant would just call you a sham and not buy your wares." If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. Was that how it worked? Could nobles truly be tricked into buying things they believed were valuable because in their mind, it was?

Granted, they would know silver is expensive, everyone does really, but would Sobelle say that someone was tricking her if they were to claim that an item they sold was only partially silver?

'I think I might.' was her conclusion. Of course she'd call a merchant a sham for saying he sold silver and then he showed her something made of iron. Why wouldn't she? If she bought the item and it turned out to be fake, then didn't that mean she'd lost her money to the man who tricked her? It simply wasn't worth the risk. And that was what changed between peasants and nobles; not their difference in knowledge, but whether or not they could afford to lose something after they were tricked.

Though at the same time, a vast array of knowledge definitely helped as well.

'But that goes both ways isn't it? And I think I need to know more about how people who don't know as much can be tricked, if Chael even knows how to do it.'

"What about tricking people who aren't as smart as nobles? Or tricking people like me?" Sobelle did not want to compare herself to the rest of the villagers but that'd mean she was only running away from the truth. She was not as smart as she wanted to herself to be, and what the Gods taught her were just a mere fraction of the large sum of knowledge the world contained. She was inexperienced and dumb, who's only really truly good at counting numbers and killing enemies.

She knew nothing of the wider world or how things like merchandise functioned.

"People like you are actually pretty hard to trick, I don't know how to count numbers as well as you and you're also pretty shrewd yourself." Chael's compliments passed Sobelle like raindrops on a leaf. It was flattering but untrue.

"I don't know how to count as well as you if you really think about it, I rely on an abacus but you only need your mind." That was because the Gods taught her how to do it, it was the only thing the Gods taught her so far. Of course she'd be better at it than Chael. But what about knowledge of locations? Of how some items were priced? Or where to go when on the road, how to know when you're heading in the right direction? All these things were something Chael was good at but Sobelle wasn't.

"That doesn't change anything." Sobelle argued and waited for Chael to do the same. If the young merchant ever pushed her point, then Sobelle would just stop trying to convince her otherwise.

"Maybe, but if you wanna trick peasants, then you need to use big words. Existing riches like silver and gold or gemstones are not something that will convince them, they believe it is far too expensive for the likes of them. And they don't really know how valuable those things are on top of that." Those were all true.

"So you invoke the spirits, you make metal carved with the name of the Expanse, or an amulet blessed by priests, or a sword with a story about how it was wielded by a competent man."

"And that'll make peasants more likely to buy the items you're offering?" Sobelle dug through her memories for all the times Chael's father came to her village. She remembered the old man talking to Creyla about how the seeds he brought her would make her fertile or how he failed to trick her father when he claimed that an axe he sold was protected by the great spirits. Back then, her father said that he didn't need an axe protected by myths, rather he just wanted a functional tool.

In the end, Saltor bought himself a regular axe with a normal price and not some blessed object that had needed twice the Levs.

"Yes. It'll make them more likely to buy them." Chael giggled mischievously while Sobelle wracked her brain to find a way to apply what she just learned to fighting greenskins. As there was a big difference between humans and Goblins, as well as selling items and fighting; Sobelle had to twist what she learned and use that to make her fights against the greenskins more efficient.

Tricking the Nogg, who believed himself to be smart after learning a lot of things from humans, required Sobelle to be in the same mindset as a goblin.... Who was currently scared of her. The Nogg may believe himself to be superior, but he was terrified of her and wanted her dead. She was a wall that the Nogg had to surpass before he would raid the village for the second time, it might even be reasonable to think that he'd raise Bulks and Hobgoblins before he made another attempt at her life.

'So what if I keep feeding him that fear?' [+1 Wisdom!] That was as good a confirmation as any. The Gods had given her another path forward; and that was to accept that either she was scared of the greenskin or they would be scared of her.