Time rewound to twenty minutes ago.
Apart from shopping, Takatsuki and the others actually had another purpose for coming out together this time: to buy grimoires.
As promised before, Takatsuki alone used two grimoires obtained from the Loki Familia, and then he would go to the market to buy other grimoires.
After all, their Familia could be said to be a "small Familia," and their daily expenses were not very high. Even hoarding more money wouldn't have much significance.
Moreover, Takatsuki's Nen to earn money meant there was no need to worry about these hundreds of millions of Valis.
It could only be said that Orario's prices were extremely unbalanced. If it weren't for the Guild and the Gods secretly controlling the market economy and preventing people from inflating prices through reselling, Orario's market economy would have collapsed long ago.
Even commercial Familias actually only produced and sold their own goods. Rather than commerce, it was more like manufacturing. Orario had no pure merchants.
The Guild did not sell grimoires, but they were still sold among the common people and in the black market of Orario.
But when Takatsuki and a few others arrived at the black market where grimoires were sold, he realized that he had misunderstood.
In the original setting, or rather, in the anime, when Bell obtained the grimoire given by Freya, it was disguised as an item lost by someone else, and it was said that the book was too precious and rare.
In the anime, it was mainly to highlight how much of a bargain Bell got, but in reality, grimoires were just valuable.
"This guest, if you need a grimoire, you can buy it as long as you have enough money, but as for the price…"
The shopkeeper gestured to Takatsuki.
Two hundred million Valis…
The grimoire was said to be over one hundred million, and the other party directly quoted a price nearly double that, which undoubtedly raised suspicions of gouging.
"This is too exaggerated. Although grimoires are not sold often, they shouldn't reach this price, right?"
"Hehehe, this guest, you must be buying a grimoire for the first time. Grimoires, you see, are said to be priceless but have no market, but in reality, it's just to inflate the price."
Perhaps because it was the black market, the merchant didn't care about exposing the rules of the normal market outside and secretly told Takatsuki, "Grimoires are things that can only be compiled by powerful mages. And these kinds of mages basically have their own Familias. Even if they write a grimoire, they basically only supply it to their own Familia, and not many are put up for sale."
"However, there are still many people secretly selling them. Although the quantity is not a lot, it's actually not small."
"The gimmick of having no market value in the market is actually just those auction houses deliberately controlling the outflow of grimoires, because that way they can earn more money."
The black market vendor chuckled and said, "I won't hide it from you, generally speaking, the final transaction price of grimoires sold by auction houses is between 150 million and 180 million, but they use the gimmick of limited quantity, only selling one after a long time. But it's different here. As long as you can afford the price, I can get you as many as you want."
As expected of a black market merchant, he saw at a glance that Takatsuki and the others wanted to buy more than one grimoire, so he used some true information as his bargaining chip.
However…
"Then who compiles the grimoires? The grimoires compiled by different mages would have different effects, right?"
As mentioned before, grimoires are actually compiled by mages, and they are written word by word using magic power, which can then stimulate the potential of magic.
Therefore, it is obvious that grimoires compiled by mages of different magic levels would have different effects.
But it was clear that the other party had no intention of revealing this.
"How could that be? A grimoire is just a one-time item in the end, and the effects are all the same."
This was a lie. Although the other party's expression was normal, everyone could see through it.
However, Takatsuki was not very good at bargaining. Even though he knew that the other party's grimoires were poorly made and would have worse effects than ordinary grimoires sold outside, he had no clear evidence to lower the price. The other party had been in the black market for so many years and must have faced many such situations.
"Takatsuki."
At this moment, Bronya poked Takatsuki's back.
"In this case, leave it to Bronya."
Turning around to look at Bronya, who still maintained a stoic expression, Takatsuki chose to trust Bronya. After all, he knew his own bargaining skills. If he didn't know the plot and didn't have a cheat, he wouldn't be able to compare with this girl who was four years younger than him, after all, she was a genius who could single-handedly kill adults when she was less than ten years old.
Watching Bronya step forward to talk to the black market merchant, Takatsuki was about to say something to the others when a series of explosions sounded around them.
Dozens of man-eating plants, similar to those seen on the 59th floor, emerged from beneath the surrounding floor tiles and began to indiscriminately attack the nearby shops.
"Everyone, be careful! These are monsters that appeared in the deep levels; they will prioritize attacking those who use magic power!"
There was no need to say more. While Takatsuki protected Hestia behind him, Kiana and Mei had already drawn their weapons. The spatial cutting of the Authority of Void and the lightning-wrapped Moon Hidden Katana slashed across the monsters.
The defense that was impenetrable to Bell was cut open like mud under their attacks, falling to the ground.
"Takatsuki, you go too. I'll protect Hestia."
Fu Hua stood beside Hestia and said to Takatsuki. The latter nodded, switched his character card to Fire Demon, and then unleashed flames at the man-eating plants on the ground.
"See, if it weren't for Bronya's companions, your shop would have suffered significant losses."
Watching the three people quickly deal with the monsters, Bronya struck while the iron was hot, speaking to the sweating black market merchant opposite her.
The three of them attacked simultaneously, quickly dealing with these man-eating plants, but Takatsuki realized that the situation seemed to have become very serious.
He used his Observation Haki, which had a range of several kilometers. Within those few kilometers, there were dozens of locations where monster auras appeared, and in some underground or corner areas, there were also some strange monster auras.
Ignoring the auras that might have been the work of the Evilus, Takatsuki focused only on the monsters that had already emerged from the ground and begun to attack Orario.
"Hestia-sama, there are many monsters appearing everywhere and attacking. I'll go deal with them."
Although it wasn't his business, Takatsuki didn't want to just watch these monsters destroy the city.
"Mm! Takatsuki-kun, you go! Be careful!"
"Understood, Hestia-sama!"