“The shop changed a lot,” Mathew muttered under his nose once he finally shook off the shock of his failure.

There were several reasons why Mathew was in such a rush to raise the level of the merchant.

First came the need for weapons. And given how many floors Mathew’s group still had to conquer before getting to the bottom floor, buying something durable was a must.

Then came the endgame of Mathew’s plans. The monsters. And to defeat them, punny humans like them could only rely on the might of their weapons.

‘That is, as long as we don’t out level those monsters first,’ Mathew thought, tightening his fists before taking a proper look around the shop.

Yet, before he could as much as figure out the logic behind the way it was set up, the young man raised his eyes towards the densest part of the smoke before asking again.

“Can you appraise my weapon now?” he asked.

This was the third of the big reasons why Mathew was so eager to push the merchant hard. Because from the looks of things, the ax that he wielded was actually of an even higher class than the one he could buy before. Otherwise, the merchant being unable to appraise it wouldn’t make any logical sense!

And then, Mathew froze.

‘Wait, how could I even use my own logic and impose it on the logic of the system?’ he thought, noticing his second mistake.

Mathew didn’t know the rules on which merchants operated. He didn’t know and could ultimately only guess whether or not his idea would turn out to be correct or not.

“Cost of appraisal, fifteen cores,” the mechanic voice of the merchant announced. This time though, just like at the beginning, there was no emotion behind it whatsoever.

“Deal,” Mathew threw another fistful of cores into the air. And while some disappeared in the same flashy manner as before, roughly half of them remained suspended in the air, free for Mathew to pick up.

‘At least it’s not scamming with the price,’ Mathew thought, waiting for the reveal.

“Status of the user’s weapon updated on their log,” the voice announced before disappearing. Something about the air’s quality changed as if the world twitched… But Mathew couldn’t really pinpoint the cause or location of this strange occurrence.

“User’s log?” Mathew muttered, lowering his eyes and resting his chin on his hand as he thought. “Only one thing makes sense here,” he concluded before raising his eyes and finally taking a moment to look around the new shop.

The tables from before were nowhere to be seen, replaced by a row of seven shelves. They looked exactly like the furniture of your average convenience store. In fact, if not for how varying the wares on the shelves were, Mathew could think he actually entered a small shop instead!

The quality of the place was also better.

The sacrificial chamber now turned into a box Mathew recognized from hundreds of magnas that he read in the past. It was as if it was stolen from some Japanese shrine, with five solid walls and a set of rails covering the top.

Mathew moved up and approached the first of the shelves.

“Supplies,” he muttered, moving over to the next one. “Clothes, weapons, information, tools… and what exactly are those two?”

Mathew took a closer look at the last two shelves. Even though they were brimming with items, one of them was greyed out, while the other one housed an impressive collection… Of some strange, colorful stones.

Mathew then leaned forward and looked at the plaquettes arranged to mark every last of the displayed items.

“Zombie bait, Zombie repellant, healing ground, empowering stage,” Mathew mouthed out several of the names before raising his eyes and looking at the items themselves again.

Yet, they were still the same colorful stones as before.

“Maybe those are some kind of buffs? Special abilities for the user to purchase?” Mathew muttered only to shake his head and move back towards the two shelves that interested him the most.

“Chainsaw, gauntlet, cleaver, and handgun,” Mathew counted out the new weapons that appeared in stock. This time, however, not a single one was named with gold-bearing letters.

‘Oh right,’ Mathew shook a little when the sight of weapons made him think of something. ‘Now that my ax is appraised…’ he thought before raising his head back towards the shadows.

“How much would my weapon cost?”

For the first time during all of Mathew’s interactions with merchants, the voice didn’t come right away.

“Three hundred seventy-five cores,” the voice finally appeared, a clear annoyance perfectly noticeable in its dissatisfied tone.

‘Woah,’ Mathew took a step back before raising his hand and looking down at his weapon. ‘It’s that powerful?’ he thought, baffled by the discovery.

He heard from one of his surviving classmates during the first run of the apocalypse that a golden fireman’s ax could be bought from the merchants. That’s why he was so happy to get one for free. And now, it turned out that the weapon he simply picked off the wall was worth nearly four hundred cores?

‘If that’s not a jackpot, then I don’t know what else could it be,’ Mathew thought, a satisfied smirk raising upon his face.

“How much do handguns cost?” Mathew asked before eyeing out the shelf with the weapon.

And then, he noticed something that he had missed before.

‘Something is stuck in the back!’ Mathew called out, leaning over the shelf to check it out further.

“A hundred cores,” this time, the robotic voice of the merchant appeared to be in quite a panic.

“How about those machetes in the back of the shelf?” Mathew asked, recognizing the item.

This time, he no longer bore a smirk on his lips. This time, Mathew’s expression turned devious instead.

‘You wanted to make me think I lost all the items from before?’ he thought, raising one of his eyebrows before shaking his head and taking on a natural expression. ‘Well, there is no point in flexing this discovery in the merchant’s face. Let’s just play it cool,’ Mathew decided.

He already suffered the consequences of angering the merchant. And even if its options to make Mathew’s life were limited, there was no point in incurring merchant’s wrath just for some self-satisfaction.

“Twenty-five cores,” the voice replied, once again appearing to be completely emotionless.

‘Does it hopes for me not to notice the pattern?’ Mathew thought, only to ultimately ignore the topic and throw the rest of the stones from his pouch into the air.

“I want three machetes,” he announced. And after a quick explosion of bright light, Mathew’s new weapons appeared on the floor right beside him.

“Now then,” Mathew turned his head towards the other shelf that caught his interest. “Could I maybe hear a little bit more about those scrolls?”