29 The Retired [Armed Merchant]’s Laid-back Journey Across the Continent 71

1 unlock every friday

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"The 'Rip-off' business retires today! We're setting off on a journey aboard the Transcontinental Railway!" "You got it, boss!"

Armed Merchant—a term that refers, quite literally, to a peddler who is armed.

As both merchants and adventurers, they appear in various locations, weighing needs and business opportunities against the risks involved.

Sometimes in unexplored territories, other times deep within a labyrinth, and ultimately, even on the desolate Demon Continent.

One such Armed Merchant... a man known in the Adventure City Alanis as the "Rip-off Shop," has disappeared.

Rumored to be "avaricious, wicked, and devoid of human warmth," he was the city’s biggest pariah. His name is Rodi.

For the last ten years, he was a famous Armed Merchant in the Adventure City, but one day, he simply stopped showing up.

While whispers of his imprisonment or death circulated, Rodi himself had boarded the "Transcontinental Railway," heading for the frontier pioneer city of Sardin on the western edge of the continent.

The reason being, after a certain incident, he was handed a business suspension order by the Alanis Merchant Guild... and he decided to use that opportunity to retire from the dangerous life of an Armed Merchant.

The stepsister he needed to provide for had become independent. The Adventure City, where his own bad reputation ran rampant, was an uncomfortable place to live, and if he stayed, he might only get in his stepsister's way—thinking this, Rodi decided to commit to the grand journey he had always longed for as a way of settling into retirement.

However, his disappearance was slowly causing ripples throughout Alanis.

Rodi, of the so-called "Rip-off Firm," had actually been functioning as a safety net, solving the labyrinth's various dangers in exchange for coin.

There was no other Armed Merchant like Rodi who would appear in the labyrinth's depths... the most dangerous territories. His absence was gradually turning into a source of major anxiety within the Adventure City Alanis.

Having lost both their supply lines and their safe zones in the deep levels, the adventurers gradually became passive, and the production of labyrinth resources—the lifeline of the Alanis economy—began to drop significantly.

Viewing the situation gravely, the Alanis administration arrived at a single answer: to announce the reinstatement of Rodi's business rights.

Even though the man himself remained nowhere to be found.

Meanwhile, Rodi, the former proprietor of the "Rip-off Firm," was using his natural skills and experience to solve little troubles and problems at every stop on his railway journey.

The Alanis administration and Merchant Guild are moving to bring him back.

Just what will happen to Rodi’s retired slow-life journey?

Part Merchant, part Adventurer. A Warrior and a Mage, an Alchemist and a Thief.

The story of an all-powerful, peerless, retired Armed Merchant aiming for his ideal retired slow life... begins now!