The plastic bag in Saitama's hand rustled as he strolled down the street, empty except for a single sale flyer and a vague sense of hunger. The supermarket was just a block away, and they were having a discount on leek buns.
Then, in the blink of an eye—
The world shifted.
No sound. No flash of light.
Just gone.
One moment he was walking under a power line buzzing with summer cicadas, the next—stone buildings, cobbled streets, and the strong scent of roasted meat and leatherwork filled the air.
Saitama blinked.
"...Huh."
A medieval town stretched before him. Wooden carts rolled past, pulled by beasts that definitely weren't horses. People bustled in and out of buildings with hanging signs, speaking a language he somehow understood perfectly.
He glanced down. The flyer was gone.
He smiled.
A small one, but real.
"This is… just like in the manga."
It had been a while since anything surprised him. Longer still since anything made him feel curious. But this? This was new. Weird teleportation into a fantasy world? He'd read this one.
And his luck didn't stop there.
A subtle ding echoed in his mind, and with a simple thought, something appeared in the corner of his vision:
A translucent, floating menu—just like in the system manga he read.
[Merchant System Initialized]
Exchange local resources for modern goods.
Categories: Food, Tools, Electronics, Toiletries, Entertainment...
Saitama raised a brow.
He focused again, and a submenu popped open showing a bag of rice, soda, AA batteries, and...a high-end toaster oven.
He grinned. A little wider this time.
"I can open a shop," he said aloud, tone deadpan but amused. "Like in That Time I Sold Microwaves to Barbarians."
People passing by gave him odd looks. One kid tugged on his mother's sleeve and whispered, "Why's that bald guy smiling at nothing?"
The mother hurried him along, not looking back.
Saitama didn't notice—or didn't care.
He was already scanning the ground for anything shiny to kickstart his inventory.
This world had dungeons full of monsters and magic stones, right?
Which meant loot.
Which meant shopping.
Which meant…
business.
And for the first time in what felt like forever, Saitama felt just a little excited.
Saitama shuffled through the streets of Orario, drawing occasional stares—not because he was a stranger, but because he looked like he got lost on the way to a beach.
T-shirt, shorts, and sandals.
Not exactly dungeon-diving attire.
But he didn't care. His focus was locked on something else: money.
More specifically, converting his own.
The wallet in his pocket was modest—some bills, a few coins. Not much, but the design was sleek. Clean lines, vibrant color, intricate seals. Even the coins had that satisfying weight to them. His world's currency, though now basically worthless to him, looked like collector's items here.
And in a city where people paid thirty valis for a croquette?
"Pawn shop," Saitama muttered, spotting a weathered wooden sign with a tiny set of golden scales painted on it.
He stepped inside.
The air was musty, filled with the scent of old leather and metal polish. Behind the counter stood a tall wolf beastfolk with sharp amber eyes and a snout that twitched as he sniffed the air. His ears perked slightly at the sight of the bald human.
"What can I do for you, outsider?" the wolf asked, voice gruff but not unfriendly.
Saitama pulled out a 1000-yen note and a few coins, placing them neatly on the counter. "Trade," he said simply. "Currency from... a faraway land."
The wolf squinted at the items, then leaned in. He picked up the note carefully, claws not even scratching the surface. He turned it toward the light, eyes widening slightly.
"This is... intricate. Never seen paper like this. And these coins... the etching, the shine—" He flipped one into the air and caught it with practiced ease. "They look ceremonial. You sure this isn't holy money or something?"
Saitama shrugged. "Used to buy potato chips."
The beastman chuckled, tail flicking. "You people must really love your snacks."
Negotiations began.
Saitama, thanks to his earlier walk through town, already had a rough idea of food prices. He leaned on that knowledge, calmly suggesting the rarity and craftsmanship of his "exotic" money could be worth at least 40,000 valis.
The beastfolk scoffed. "30,000. Final offer. And I'm being generous."
Saitama stared at him, unblinking.
After five long seconds of awkward silence, the beastman looked away.
"...Fine, I'll throw in a free cloth pouch."
Deal.
Saitama stepped out onto the street with a slightly worn brown pouch tied to his waist, the weight of 30,000 valis bouncing softly against his hip.
He smiled.
Not just at the deal—but at the possibilities. He could already feel the gears in his mind turning. A small shop. Modern goods. A few quirky things to get people curious. Word of mouth would do the rest.
"People here have never seen a rice cooker," he thought, tapping open his Merchan System as he walked.
"I'll be rich in no time."
He paused at a street corner, eyes scanning for a "For Rent" sign. Someone gave him a weird look as they passed—again, the sandals probably.
But Saitama didn't care.
He was officially in business.
Morning sunlight poured down over the busy market district of Orario.
Shouts of vendors filled the air, selling everything from bread to monster cores. Adventurers in mismatched armor moved between stalls, chatting about floor bosses or arguing over weapon repairs. The air buzzed with life.
And in one corner of the marketplace—tucked beside a cobbler and across from a lady selling handmade soaps—sat a modest little setup: just a clean woven carpet spread over cobblestones, a wooden canopy stall with a faded cloth awning to block the sun, and a single man in sandals.
Saitama.
He sat cross-legged behind his display, unbothered by the crowd or the occasional judging look from seasoned vendors. His shop setup was barebones—but it was functional.
A small wooden chest, locally bought for a few hundred valis, sat beside him. Inside, safely pulled from his Merchan System's pocket space earlier that morning, were his first products.
Nothing fancy. But smart.
He carefully arranged them on the carpet in tidy rows, each with a handwritten price tag:
Potato Peelers – 80 valis
Clothespins (Bundle of 10) – 60 valis
Nail Clippers – 90 valis
Can Openers – 100 valis
Plastic Spray Bottles – 120 valis
Toothbrushes (Single) – 70 valis
Pocket Mirrors – 50 valis
Comb (Plastic) – 60 valis
And next to his little lineup, a handwritten sign in clear, well-written common tongue:
"Max 2 units per item per person. Thank you for understanding."
He'd already thought this through.
If he let greedy merchants buy up everything, they'd resell at triple the price by lunch. He wanted regular folks to get their hands on the goods first. Let the novelty spread naturally.
Beside him, he'd placed a wooden bucket filled with freshly bought potatoes, their brown skins still a little dusty. One of them sat on top of a small chopping board. A demo unit.
Saitama yawned.
Then he heard the soft rustle of fabric and turned his head lazily.
A maid—probably from one of the upper-class homes nearby—approached with cautious curiosity. Her uniform was plain, but well-kept, and she had the look of someone who'd peeled more potatoes than she cared to remember.
Her eyes scanned the unfamiliar objects, stopping at the shiny metal peeler.
"What is… this?" she asked, tilting her head.
Without a word, Saitama handed her the demo peeler and a potato. He gestured with his hand.
"Try it."
She raised an eyebrow, clearly skeptical. But then she placed the potato against the peeler—and the blade sang softly as it shaved off the skin in a smooth, clean curl.
Her eyes widened. Then she gasped.
"By the gods… it's so fast! And I didn't even nick my thumb!"
She peeled the rest of the potato in seconds, holding it up triumphantly.
Saitama simply nodded. "Eighty valis."
The maid looked ready to buy ten.
Then she saw the sign.
Her shoulders slumped in visible disappointment. "Two units?"
He nodded again, expression calm but firm.
"Rules."
She gave him a narrowed look—clearly tempted to try coming back in disguise—but sighed and accepted her limited haul. Two peelers, a toothbrush (after a short explanation), and one spray bottle. She left reluctantly, but with a sparkle in her eye and a definite bounce in her step.
Saitama leaned back on one arm and looked up at the blue sky above Orario.
One sale down. Many more to go.
He didn't need a grand opening, fireworks, or flashy signs. Just a few good items, and word would spread.
And sure enough, within a few minutes…
Another customer approached. Then two. A crowd started to form, people craning their necks to see the shiny tools the maid had walked off with.
Saitama cracked a small smile.
This is kinda fun.
Thirty minutes.
That's all it took for every single item in Saitama's Shop to vanish into the hands of enthusiastic buyers. The clothespins were gone in ten minutes. Toothbrushes disappeared right after a local innkeeper realized they could upsell them to wealthy adventurers. The spray bottles? One alchemist bought two and walked off giggling like he'd just found a shortcut to immortality.
By the time the crowd finished picking the display clean, even the demonstration potato had mysteriously vanished.
The air buzzed with chatter, excitement, and only one question:
"When's he restocking?"
Saitama stood calmly, arms crossed, surveying the remaining sea of customers. The spot where his carpet and crates had been was now just a faint outline of dust.
"I'll be back in two hours," he said simply, raising his voice a bit over the noise. "With more stock. Much more."
Cheers broke out.
People were already making plans to drag their friends back. A few even offered deposits, waving valis in the air.
He just raised a hand. "No preorders."
They respected that. Kind of.
As the crowd finally started to thin, Saitama reached down and—with casual ease—hoisted the large wooden chest over his head. It wasn't just big. It was huge, and the clinking from within made it clear it was filled with the entire earnings of his first sale.
Nearby vendors paused mid-sale. One guy dropped a melon.
"Isn't that thing full of valis?" someone muttered.
"...That's gotta be over a hundred pounds…"
"Is that a teenager?"
Saitama just walked off, chest balanced like a lunchbox, expression as blank as ever.
Within the hour, he had secured everything he needed.
A solid wooden cart, roomy and stable.
A dozen sturdy boxes, perfect for product separation.
Some cloth wraps and straw padding to protect fragile pieces.
He pulled the cart himself—one hand on the handle, the other holding a boiled Jagamarukun he bought for 35 valis (hey, guy's gotta eat). No horse. No hired help. Just bald determination.
Finding a quiet alley, he parked the cart under shade and opened his Merchan System. The menu shimmered silently in the air, invisible to any passerby.
He started pulling out stock.
This time, he went big:
Potato Peelers – 80 valis
Clothespins (Bundle of 10) – 60 valis
Nail Clippers – 90 valis
Plastic Spray Bottles – 120 valis
Toothbrushes – 70 valis
Pocket Mirrors – 50 valis
Plastic Combs – 60 valis
Each item packed in a clean modern-style box—neat, labeled, protected. He filled the cart completely, item by item, stacking them carefully like a mobile convenience store on wheels.
When he finished… he'd spent every last valis of his 35,000 stash.
"Let's hope they weren't just hyped over the first-time thing," he muttered.
He returned to his market corner a little ahead of schedule.
The moment someone spotted him pushing the overloaded cart into place, a wave of energy surged through the marketplace.
The crowd was back, and it was bigger.
Not just regular folks this time. Several maids from the Loki Familia estate stood near the front, whispering excitedly. One even brought parchment and started noting item names for later inventory planning. A few adventurers tried to blend in casually, but their gear gave them away.
Saitama barely managed to park the cart before the first buyer reached him.
And just like that—the second sale began.
In one hour, everything sold again. Peelers, gone. Toothbrushes, vanished. Someone reportedly burst into tears of joy when they got a pocket mirror. Even a hardened dwarf trader declared the comb "a blessing from the gods."
And yet, the crowd didn't move.
They stood there, hopeful. Expectant. Some asked if he had anything hidden "in the back." One elf tried to bribe him with enchanted wine for just one more spray bottle.
Saitama sighed and stood up.
"You're all lucky," he said. "I'll be back tomorrow morning. With more stuff. And new stuff too."
They erupted again—like he was a pop idol.
Someone started chanting "Saitama's Shop," and to his quiet horror, it started catching on.
Rumors were spreading through Orario like wildfire. "The Bald Merchant" — a nickname quickly catching on — had apparently appeared out of nowhere, set up shop, and started selling mysterious genius-level tools that looked like something out of a magic-tech workshop… only they weren't magic, and they were dirt cheap.
By the time Saitama pushed open the double doors of The Hostess of Fertility, some eyes had already turned his way. A few patrons leaned in toward their tables, whispering behind mugs of ale.
"Is that him?"
"Bald guy, sandals, yeah that's gotta be him…"
"The potato peeler guy?"
"No, the wonder peeler guy!"
Saitama, completely unbothered by the attention, shuffled in, chest full of valis held with one hand like it was made of feathers. He found an empty table and sat down, adjusting his flip-flop in an oddly focused way that gave off profound NPC energy.
A cheerful catgirl waitress came up to him with a smile.
"What can I get ya, Mister Bald Merchant?"
"…Just the cheapest dinner you got," Saitama said, still thinking about inventory categories in his system.
Before the maid could leave, a heavy bootstep echoed through the pub.
Mia Grand, the famously scary and retired adventurer-turned-owner, approached his table with her arms crossed and a sharp glint in her eyes.
"You're the one selling those slicer tools?" she asked.
Saitama blinked. "You mean the potato peelers?"
She snorted. "Yeah. Half my kitchen's using them now. We got through prep in a quarter of the time today."
"…Nice."
Mia gave him a firm nod. "I'll have the kitchen bring you our best dinner plate. On the house. Consider it thanks for making my girls' lives easier."
A few minutes later, he was chewing his way through a massive dish of roasted meat, spiced rice, and seasoned vegetables — more food than he'd eaten in days. He had a neutral face as always, but internally he thought: Dang, this is good.
Later that night, Saitama paid for a room, lugged his chest up the stairs (again, like it weighed nothing), and passed out in bed with that weirdly calm satisfaction only he could radiate.
The early light filtered through the curtains as Saitama headed down for breakfast. A few of the Hostess maids were already cleaning tables or bringing out bread and soup to the early customers.
As soon as they noticed him, two of them — a dog-eared girl named Lina and a rabbit-eared one named Mimi — hurried over.
"Thank you for the mirrors!" Mimi beamed. "It's like magic, I can actually see my whole face clearly now!"
"And the peeler!" Lina added, "I almost cried from joy yesterday. You saved my fingers!"
They lingered a bit too long. Mimi tilted her head, giving a playful smirk.
"Sooo… mister mystery merchant… are you single?"
Lina giggled. "And not, uh, seeing anyone back in your hometown…?"
Saitama blinked slowly. "I'm single," he said honestly, chewing a piece of bread. "But I'm not dating. Too busy doing business."
The girls pouted in a clearly exaggerated way, and one muttered something about "the good ones always being taken… by capitalism."
Saitama just stared blankly at his soup.
The alley was quiet except for the occasional squeak of a stray rat and the rustling of wind between the tightly spaced buildings. Saitama sat lazily in the back of his wooden cart, one leg dangling off the edge, the other foot resting on a wooden box. His signature bored expression was glued to his face.
In front of his eyes, only visible to him, floated the transparent blue panels of the Merchan System.
[SHOP INVENTORY MANAGEMENT]
Balance: 90,000 valis
Refill previous stock [45,000 valis]
Add New Items
Confirm Purchase
With one hand propping up his head and the other casually tapping through menus, he refilled his previous inventory in bulk. The same essentials — peelers, clippers, clothespins, combs, toothbrushes, spray bottles, mirrors — flew from the void into neat virtual boxes before materializing into real-world crates, stacking up automatically in the cart with satisfying mechanical precision.
"Still had people begging for peelers. Guess I'll double that."
Then he moved on to new products.
[NEW ADDITIONS]
–Stainless Metal Bottles(for hot/cold liquid storage): 100 valis each
–Basic Glass Vials(for alchemy ingredients): 40 valis
–Medium Glass Bottles(for potion/liquid storage): 60 valis
–Food Storage Glass Jars(airtight, twist lid): 70 valis
–Simple Sewing Kits(thread, 2 needles, 3 buttons): 80 valis
–Basic Notebooks & Charcoal Pencils: 50 valis
–Cotton Hand Towels (3-pack): 60 valis
He raised an eyebrow at the "sewing kit."
"…This one feels like an old lady would buy it. Eh, why not."
With another flick, he confirmed the full batch. The system deducted every valis down to the last coin. The wooden boxes filled up with the new inventory, packed in modern cardboard boxes that stood out like shiny gems against the medieval alley stone.
By the time the sun was cresting above the rooftops, Saitama had filled the cart to the brim. It looked less like a traveling vendor's wagon and more like a portable general store.
As he wheeled the cart back into the open street, the roar of the crowd returned like a crashing tide.
"He's back!"
"It's the shop guy!"
"SAITAMA'S SHOP IS OPEN!"
A literal cheer erupted.
Even some Loki Familia members were there now, including a silver-haired elf girl from their support staff, Lefiya, who blinked when she saw the bizarre setup.
"…Is that a glass jar with a plastic lid?" she murmured in confusion.
A couple of sketchy-looking alley boys were already doing rock-paper-scissors to see who got to go first.
Saitama parked the cart in the same spot as before. With a single step up, he cracked his neck lazily, raised a hand halfway, and spoke with that same sleepy tone:
"Limit's still five items per person. Try not to punch each other this time."
People laughed, cheered, and lined up like it was a festival.
The last customer walked away cradling a plastic spray bottle like it was sacred glass. A crowd of disappointed shoppers lingered, having arrived too late to grab any of the "wonder goods" before they sold out — again.
Saitama scratched his cheek absentmindedly, surveying the now-empty boxes stacked like wooden skeletons on his cart.
"Come back in four hours," he announced flatly to the people still swarming his cart. "I'll bring more stuff. Bigger load this time."
Someone in the back yelled, "He's a saint!" while another gasped, "He's a genius inventor from the east, I knew it!"
Saitama, too lazy to correct them, just waved his hand. The crowd erupted in applause as if he'd just promised to slay a dragon with a toothbrush.
Unbeknownst to Saitama, not everyone in Orario viewed his generosity with kind eyes.
In the shadows of a narrow alley, three thugs huddled behind a stack of crates.
"He just sold everything again," growled a skinny man with a scar across his lip. "That cart of his has more valis than a low-tier Familia vault!"
"We should hit him tonight," muttered another, a dwarf with fists like bricks. "Clean job. In, out."
The third one, cloaked in shadows, only smirked. "No. We wait. Let him grow. Let him bring more."
Eyes gleamed. Plans brewed. Saitama remained blissfully unaware.
Back near his original setup, Saitama opened the glowing blue screen of the Merchan System with a thought. The interface hovered like an AR menu, only visible to him.
[Purchase Confirmed]
– Reinforced Wooden Cart 1
– High-Quality Wooden Boxes 12
– Restock: Usual Items (Bulk)
– New Items Added:
Mechanical Table Clocks – 180 valis
Metal Wood-Cutting Saws – 150 valis
Iron Nails (Bundle of 50) – 40 valis
He nodded as the newly ordered items shimmered into existence within the spatial inventory pocket.
Then came the second cart — sleeker, sturdier, shinier. Still wooden, but with reinforced joints and polished finish. Probably something a royal merchant would use.
He hitched the two carts together with a rope, climbing atop them like it was just another Tuesday.
A single passerby stared at the bizarre sight of a bald man in flip-flops pulling two massive carts by hand.
"Uh… are you an adventurer?" the boy asked.
"Nope. Merchant," Saitama replied blankly.