Interspecies Trader

It still wasn't a big issue since there was a good way of handling the problem. A good slap by someone higher in rank usually solved it. And if it didn't, a few more slaps would. It was the scientifically recommended way of dealing with it.

Unfortunately, I couldn't do that to her. Plus, I wasn't sure if that was the reason or if she was just a very positive, optimistic, and delusional person.

I took a better look at her now that she was right in front of me. She was the same height as me, or maybe slightly taller. Overall, she looked close to a human, including her face, except for a few things. Her skin was grey and its texture was seemingly different from a human's elastic skin. At first sight, it felt like it was smoother and more solid, a bit like leather. The top of her head was probably where the differences were the most marked. Her forehead was adorned with two horns, a large one in the front and a smaller one behind it. Behind those, she was hairless, and her ears had a shape unlike those of humans, rounder with some depth to them. Her eyes were black and small, contrasting with a massive pair of breasts, visibly bulging through her top.

Considering the difference of power between us, she was pretty much harmless to me. I didn't sense any threatening intent from her either. I decided to switch strategy and go for the opposite effect. I wriggled my hands around to show her how impressed I was.

"Wow. I guess you're confident in your strength?"

"Of course! Hm… Your hand movements are weird. Your clothes are strange too. Are you coming from far away?"

Right after taking a pose to show me her arm muscles, she finally had a good look at me.

"That's right."

It was best to stay vague in cases like this.

"And your species… I don't recognize it. What are you?"

She was feeding me precious information without even realizing it. I now knew there was more than one non-human intelligent species out there.

"…What do I look like?"

"I'm not sure. With those ears, maybe some sort of monkey sub-species? Are you a mutant?"

I had no idea what she was talking about but decided to trust her.

"You got it right! Even your brain is amazing!"

She nodded proudly as if it was a matter of fact and I continued by asking her this time.

"What about you? What species are you?"

"Huh? Can't you tell? I'm a rhinoceros. Are there few of us where you come from?"

"That's correct. It's my first time seeing your kind."

"Interesting. Alright, we're done with the presentations now. What are you doing here, so close to the dome?"

Here was the critical part.

"I'm a trader looking for opportunities. I was in the area when I heard sounds coming from here so I came to check it out."

"So far out in the middle of nowhere? There's nothing here, you know?"

"I know now. It wasn't the best idea to come here. But, what about you? Why are punching the dome?"

"I'm in the middle of breaking it, duh."

This made me speechless once again. A rank 2 earth sorceress was trying to do what? Breaking the dome I estimated would need a hundred of the top 1000 people from my old world going at it together to barely scratch it? What the heck was she talking about?

"T-that's a great idea. Just by curiosity, how long have you been at it?"

"Three days."

"…Right."

Maybe she wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer.

No matter. There was a way to handle any type of person in the world. As a future trader, I was trained for this. This Selva girl seemed to be receptive to praise so I chose to make it my main interpersonal tactic with her.

"Your willpower is incredible. To think you've been doing this for three days. You must have great endurance too. As expected of the future strongest in the world!

My mouth was spewing praise faster than she could react. Yet, my words resonated well with her. By the end of my tirade, she was smiling so widely that her teeth were showing. I didn't know what a rhinoceros was but those looked relatively similar to human teeth, which reassured me a little.

"You have good eyes for a rank 0! Hahaha!"

"Hahaha! Thank you, great sorceress!"

We laughed stupidly for a while until she felt she had enough fun.

"Okay, you can go on your way. I have a dome to destroy."

She took a combative pose toward the innocent orange dome again. As she turned around, I was surprised to see a small grey tail extending from a hole in her pants. It had unequal thickness, being large close to her butt and thin at the end, with a patch of hair at its extremity.

I somehow stopped her before she sent the first strike.

"Please wait. I have a favor to ask."

She turned my way again, curiosity on her face.

"A favor? Speak."

"As I said, I come from a faraway place. I don't know where the closest town is. I'm also a defenseless rank 0 merchant. Would the great sorceress be kind enough to escort me to civilization?"

She looked at me, half pensive, half annoyed.

"Hm… Fine. It's the duty of the strong to protect the weak. It's a shame to leave without accomplishing my goal but it can't be helped. I'll escort you to Geola."

"Thank you so much, great sorceress!"

"Call me Selva. I'll call you Tila."

It sounded more like an order than a recommendation but that was fine with me.

"Yes, Selva."

She nodded again.

"Good. There's no better time than right now. Let's go immediately. Follow me. We'll be there by the end of the day."

This was great news. This meant I would reach civilization before long. As long as I put my eyes on the place, I could teleport to it any time in the future. I would have a direct city to town teleport between the inside and the outside world. This would also allow me to go back to Suuru's place before night, which was my promise to her.

Selva dynamically walked in the direction of the forest and I tried my best to follow her. It was in times like these I appreciated having trained physically even though I was a mage. As a sorceress, whose method of increasing in ranks was by fortifying her physique through sel, her pace was fast and she wouldn't tire easily, contrary to me.

Technically, I didn't need her help to find civilization. I could just teleport in the air in all directions until I found something. However, I would be stupid to waste such a great opportunity. I had a whole day to spend with an inhabitant of the outside world. The amount of information I could extract from her would no doubt prove to be invaluable.

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