A Person with Morals gets Transported to Another World [LitRPG] [Satire]

When my teammates left me, I felt a little loneliness creep into my heart. I hadn’t realised that I enjoyed their company to this extent. Though, the feeling wasn’t so strong that I had become reliant on them.

Now, how to spend the rest of the day, I pondered. A small peeve had been bothering me for a while. I was level 19 with 15,356 XP. The cutoff for level 20 was 16,000 XP. I was so close to levelling up to a beautiful and even number. When changing the volume of a TV, any person would stop at an even number or a multiple of five. Only a madman could stay at 19 without discomfort. Thus, I felt it necessary to level up to escape the unbearable oddness of my level.

20 was also a good level to remain at, because the threshold for the next level was 33,600 XP. It would take me a while to get to level 21 but I could get to 20 by sparing only a single monster.

I started exploring the forest that was close to the dungeon. It wasn’t particularly dense and there were many clearings, but it was vast enough to house many creatures.

Most of the trees I saw were humungous. There were very few young trees at all, but to fill the gaps, there were bushes and other flora. I explored the woods and kept my eye out for monsters.

I only needed to see one. Preferably one that was around level 15, which was likely weak enough for me to defeat alone, but strong enough to award enough XP for a level up.

I looked and I looked. For an hour, I saw nothing at all. There was a lot of wildlife, but no monsters. I didn’t see any creature with a HUD above its head. Were monsters so rare? I became acutely aware that I was close to the city and deep into human territory. It probably wasn’t too common to spot monsters here.

The Eastern Forest was at least a little further away and the woods were dense enough to provide cover, so that’s why monsters could be spotted there. But here, I imagined that any monster in this forest was eradicated upon sight.

I sighed and reluctantly opened the map menu to find my way back to the city. As I began the return journey, I saw a strange man. He was fat and he wore a top hat, suit jacket, yellow tie, and booty shorts. I shuddered just looking at him. I didn’t want to converse with a weirdo after what happened last time, so I changed directions. However, I stepped on a twig which caught the man’s attention.

The man started jogging towards me. “Hello! It’s nice to meet you, young adventurer. How are you doing?”

“Uh, good,” I said, hoping a withdrawn attitude might end this interaction quickly.

The light jog had taken the man’s breath away. He curled over and put his hands on his hairy thighs as he gasped for breath. When he recovered, he said, “Would you like to see something special?”

“Not really,” I said. I didn’t make eye-contact and acted as if the man was nothing more than a pebble by the wayside. Acting so detached felt strangely good. I understood Penrin a little more. I wondered if maybe I should change my personality to being more unapproachable. Though, I threw the thought away as quickly as I thought it.

He chuckled. “Oh, come on. Don’t be like that, child. I would really like to show you my special stuff.” He wiggled his thick eyebrows at me. His face was caked in sweat. Had such a short jog really tired him out so much? The excited look on his face made me think otherwise.

I replied, “What do you want to show me?” If I were to show interest, I was sure the man would never leave me alone. But if I were to show complete detachment, the man would take it as a challenge to keep pursuing me. I had to convince the weirdo that whatever he wanted to reveal would bore me.

“You want me to tell you?” he asked while smiling. “No. I think it will be better if I show you.” His smile widened enough to display all his teeth. He then ripped open the front of his suit jacket to reveal his bare body underneath. A hairy chest, a protruding gut, and a strange rash underneath his moobs. His body was disturbingly reminiscent of my own past body.

I couldn’t believe I was too gullible to realise from the vagueness and strangeness of the man. He was a flasher. He came to this forest to look for victims to show his bare body to. I should have assumed from his attire, but I was too gullible. This kind of person never did acts like this to anyone strong enough to physically retaliate. This was just another detriment of my new body. Though I was glad that I was the victim of his crime and not a real child.

“You sick pervert. I’m taking you in to the police and they’re going to put you away for a long time,” I said.

“Huh?” After hearing what I said, he suddenly became confused.

“Don’t play dumb. Do you think you can get away with revealing your body like this? I’m not going to be as easy of a target as you expect.” I was determined to bring this man to justice.

“I’m not revealing my body, I’m revealing my wares,” he said. His hands were still holding open his suit jacket, and on the inside I saw various items. “I’m not a pervert, I’m a merchant.” He flapped his jacket to emphasise the merchandise. “I wanted to reveal my special items to you. They’re useful for adventurers,” he said.

I looked at him, dumbfounded. Was this guy for real? Even if he was, why was he naked underneath? He could have at least put on a shirt underneath. Though, the more I looked at the man’s innocent expression, the more I believed he really was just a merchant. Was he too naïve to understand he was playing the part of an exhibitionist? No one could be that naïve, right?

I asked him, “What sort of goods are you selling?” When looking at the items hung on the innerside of his coat, I saw no real theme. It was a random assortment of junk.

He giggled. “I’m glad you asked. I sell stuff of all sorts. The catch is that each item costs only 10 GP.”

That was suspiciously cheap. I knew that if something sounded too good to be true, it probably was. “Why are you selling your merchandise for a pittance? Are your goods faulty, used, counterfeits, or all three?”

The man’s belly jiggled as he stifled another laugh. “Nothing like that. Why are my goods so cheap, you ask?” He licked his lips. “Let’s just say you pay in more ways than one.” His laughter became boisterous and scared birds out of the surrounding trees.

“Oh, ok. Well, I’m not interested,” I said as I turned to walk away. His vague explanation unsettled me.

Suddenly, the man’s laughter disappeared, and a worried expression formed on his face. “Wait. Are you really just going to walk away? My stuff is really cheap and of great quality. Are you sure you don’t want anything?”

I nodded. “I’m sure. If you’re going to be all cryptic and creepy, I’ll pass on anything you’re offering.”

“Ok, ok. Fine. Don’t walk away, please.” He waved his hands in the air frantically gesturing for me to stay. “I’ll admit it, all my wares are cheap because these items are cursed. I sell cursed goods for cheap, ok? Please don’t leave me. You’re the first customer I’ve had in ages.”

I sort of felt sorry for the man. Though, selling cursed goods surely wasn’t an upstanding profession. However, it did intrigue me. My eyes scanned over the stuff attached to his suit jacket. There was jewellery, crystals, ceramics, and other knickknacks. I even spotted something that looked like a massage wand. “What’s that?” I said as I pointed to it.

“Oh, this?” He blushed a little and blurted, “This isn’t for sale to children. It’s a toy for adults, alright?”

It was surprising that there were adult toys in this world, and even more surprising that they could be cursed. What would a curse even do for an item like that? I then spotted a black coin that the half-naked merchant was selling. “What’s that?”

He looked to where I was pointing and then pulled forth the coin. “This, you ask? This is a cursed coin.” He let out a creepy chuckle. “When you flip it, there’s a 25% chance it lands on heads and a 25% chance it lands on tails,” he said.

After a pause I urged him, “Go on. What about the other 50% of times? What happens then?”

“The other 50% of times, there’s a 50/50 chance it lands on heads or tails.” He smiled.

“That’s no different from a normal coin!” I shouted. “Enough. Hand it over to me.” I snatched the coin from the man’s hand. I then went into my status page to see if it appeared there when in my possession and it did. I clicked on it for a better explanation.

[Cursed Coin: When this coin is flipped and it lands on heads, you will experience misfortune. When it lands on tails, nothing happens.]

So what was even the point in flipping it then? I suppose I shouldn’t have expected to benefit from a cursed item, but even the monkey’s paw at least granted the wish it was given. “I guess I’ll buy this,” I said. There wasn’t any real reason that I wanted it, but it was too cheap to pass up. Plus, I schemed that maybe I could get Loftus to flip it.

“Excellent choice.” The cursed merchant wrung his hands together as I gave him his 10 GP.

With the transaction made, our interaction was thankfully over. As a final parting gift, I told the merchant, “What’s that?” I pointed to above and behind one of his shoulders. This caused him to instinctively turn his head in that direction. The pressure point on his neck became vulnerable and visible to me. I pulled out a needle dart and threw it into his neck. The moderate homing effect, combined with my moderate dart skills, caused the needle to fly into the merchant’s Life Pond.

The merchant’s heavy body collapsed to the ground with a thud.

“Sorry,” I said to the unconscious merchant. I wasn’t going to allow someone who tried to secretly sell cursed goods and someone who flashed me to roam free. It was my duty to bring him to justice, for the sake of protecting future victims.

A part of me was really glad that Newmill and Penrin weren’t here. I didn’t want their young minds to be corrupted by this degeneracy.

I grabbed the merchant and began dragging him to the guard post at the city. Except that I couldn’t move the man an inch, so I went to the dungeon entrance and got someone to help me drag him.

A strong fellow agreed to help me, and the half-naked merchant was carried to the guards at the southern gate. I reported his crimes and I was awarded with 400 GP because the merchant was a wanted man. The guard even showed me his wanted poster.

Doing the right thing was nice, and it was even nicer to get paid for it. I offered half of the reward to the strong fellow who had helped me, but they denied my offer. They were glad just to have helped detain the nefarious man.

My pockets were stuffed happily with a grand total of 1219 GP.