Something Keeps Appearing in My Subspace - Chapter 318

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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318. The Charity Gate (2)
“There! Over there!”
Following Elena’s directions, we made our way up a narrow path and came upon a merchant’s stall set up along the roadside.
“I… I can’t believe it.”
The old man let out a hollow laugh, and for good reason. A sizable merchant operation had set up shop right beside a rural path, their wares displayed on a makeshift stand.
No one in their right mind would choose to place a merchant stall in such a location. It had all the markings of the Gate’s design.
“Are you travelers heading to Berna Village?”
As we approached, the merchants greeted us with smiles and enthusiasm.
“You’ll need plenty of Moonlight Radish Grass—we’ve got it in stock!”
These were the same merchants we’d encountered inside the Gate. I was curious what other goods they might be carrying.
“We do need Moonlight Radish Grass, but don’t you sell anything else?”
“Other items are unavailable for general sale. We have special orders for other clients.”
Being part of a Gate mission meant we couldn’t purchase other goods. In fact, the stall displayed nothing but those peculiar dark-green plants.
There were crates in the back, certainly, but it wasn’t my place to pressure them into selling items they’d marked as unavailable.
“So this is Moonlight Radish Grass?”
“Indeed. The quantity here is enough to cure all the plague victims in Berna Village.”
The thought crossed my mind to suggest they sell it more cheaply in the village itself, but I held my tongue.
I couldn’t force losses on others. Besides, a place called Darkness Mountain seemed far from ordinary.
[Moonlight Radish Grass]
I examined it for confirmation, but since it was a quest item, no rank or detailed description appeared—only the name itself.
Elena had specifically mentioned we’d need this, so there was no risk of confusing it with anything else.
“What’s the total price for all this Moonlight Radish Grass?”
“One chest of Gold Currency.”
“Excuse me?”
“Excuse me?”
The price was outrageous. The merchant responded as if confused by our surprise.
“One chest of Gold Currency?”
These were absolute thieves.
“Isn’t that far too expensive?”
“Moonlight Radish Grass is difficult to obtain, and since Berna Village—where it’s desperately needed—is nearby, the market price reflects that naturally.”
For a moment, the Merchant of Venice came to mind. Though perhaps that wasn’t quite the right comparison for this situation. I’d read it long ago and couldn’t quite recall all the details.
From a purely economic standpoint, there was nothing wrong with their logic, but emotionally, they struck me as thoroughly unprincipled merchants.
“That’s too expensive.”
I nodded in agreement with the old man’s assessment. Though Gold Currency was plentiful in the Subspace, I didn’t feel right handing it over so easily under these circumstances.
That’s when Min-jae spoke up.
“What if the priestess was hinting at something?”
“Hinting?”
“These are disreputable merchants, after all. What if she was subtly telling us to punish profit-driven businessmen like these for the sake of charity?”
It seemed unlikely, but the possibility wasn’t entirely implausible.
“Let me check.”
I asked the merchants to wait a moment and made straight for Elena.
“Is it acceptable for us to take the Moonlight Radish Grass by force from unscrupulous merchants?”
After all, Elena herself had mentioned that the merchants were demanding an absurd sum.
As a priestess, there might be actions she couldn’t take directly, so she could have been hinting at it to us.
Elena visibly paled at my question.
“I beg your pardon? What do you mean—”
“Because they’re demanding that nonsensical price of one chest of Gold Currency, as you yourself noted.”
“That’s a dreadful suggestion. Merchants have the right to set their own prices—this is sanctioned by both the Empire and the Religious Sect.”
“Is that so? Truly?”
I wondered if her priestly position was making her speak indirectly, but her expression showed genuine displeasure.
“Absolutely not. Violence has no place in a Charity Gate.”
“I see.”
Min-jae’s disappointment was evident.
“So it wasn’t an option.”
“Now that I think about it, this looks like a trap. Nobody brings mountains of Gold Currency into a Gate. If we attack them out of laziness to avoid actual work, it’s a built-in failure condition.”
“Ah, a trap designed to fail the Charity Gate?”
Regardless, with Elena explicitly saying that, attacking the merchants was no longer possible. The old man fell silent.
“Damn it. One chest of Gold Currency—how much would that be on Earth?”
“You’ve already made more than enough money anyway.”
“Still, damn it. If it were an A-Rank item, sure, but just grass? One whole chest of Gold Currency for grass…”
I hate wasting it, but if I want to profit properly from this Charity Gate, I can’t afford to be stingy about it.
“Better to move fast than grind through it. We don’t know how long this Charity Gate will last.”
“Fair enough.”
Since the gold in the Subspace was mine anyway, convincing the Guild members wasn’t difficult.
Besides, the thought of trekking out to that distant black mountain to harvest Moonlight Radish Grass felt tedious.
“Is this amount sufficient?”
“It’s not currency that circulates on our continent, but it’s genuine gold. More than enough.”
We managed to obtain the Moonlight Radish Grass from the merchants. Elena’s reaction was pure joy.
“To think you’d procure this so quickly. I thank you all for bearing such great expense for the sake of this charity.”
After that, there wasn’t much left to do. The village already had priests from the Charity and Compassion Order.
Handing over the Moonlight Radish Grass to them was the end of it.
“Once we brew the medicine and they take it, they should make a full recovery.”
Since the Gate was a Charity Gate, I asked Shin-hee to cast Healing Spells on the afflicted as well.
It wasn’t complete recovery, but with her Healing Skill now at S-Rank, it made a real difference. Everyone’s faces brightened.
“Thank you so much, Healer.”
“It’s nothing.”
Whether the healing would count toward any bonus, I still couldn’t confirm. With the work done, Elena led us down another path.
“We’ve given sufficient charity to Berna Village. Now let’s move on.”
“Where to next?”
The priest smiled at my question.
“That cannot be known beforehand. The nature of a Charity Gate is to help those in need along the path we walk.”
So there was no fixed endpoint at all…….
If it took too long, I thought it might be better to just fight through it quickly and move on.
Even if an S-Rank item dropped, lingering indefinitely inside this Gate felt off.
But fortunately, that turned out unnecessary.
“Huh?”
As we traveled, time seemed to accelerate. We stood still while the surroundings and landscape rushed past us.
The Gate appeared to be granting us this convenience.
“This is the place.”
And time returned to normal.
“It seems charity and compassion are needed here.”
Whether the priest possessed some special ability, Elena stepped forward alone.
“Give me a moment to assess the situation.”
* * *
“The village is in famine—there’s nothing to eat, they say.”
“Oh, is that so?”
“This is no cause for celebration.”
I’d felt a flutter of excitement at the thought that I’d stored Food Supplies in the Subspace, but quickly composed my expression at the priest’s words.
“Fortunately, there is grain at a nearby merchant’s post, but…….”
“Let me guess—it costs a fortune.”
“Yes.”
This time I was genuinely curious. You can’t grow Food Supplies yourself, and without money it’s instant failure? That seemed rather cruel.
But there was a way out, fortunately.
“However, if we eliminate the bandits blocking the merchant’s route, they’ll provide grain to us.”
“Bandits?”
“Yes. They’ve extorted tolls from travelers several times. They’re quite skilled, and when the Subjugation Team is sent, they vanish into the mountains, making them hard to track down.”
As I’d suspected, this Charity Gate had its share of grunt work too.
So we’d have to hunt down these guerrilla-style bandits in the mountains.
“That won’t be necessary.”
“Pardon?”
“I have more than enough Food Supplies.”
“But I don’t see any…….”
Seeing is believing. I opened the Subspace at once and withdrew the Food Supplies I’d brought.
“What in the…….”
The priest’s shock was natural. I’d brought a truly enormous amount. Since it was a high-level Charity Gate, I hadn’t known how much food would be needed.
Unfortunately, having so much food didn’t trigger any Hidden Quest revelation.
“You needn’t provide this much. Enough to see us through until the next harvest would suffice. This amount should be adequate.”
“I see.”
That marked the second charity.
I checked the merchant anyway, wondering if they sold anything else, but they had only grain.
“Hmm.”
What struck me as absurd was that this trading post was the same one we’d encountered before.
I could confirm it by the trading post’s emblem and the face of the person attending to us—identical both times.
“……Don’t tell me this is a Gate that’s ripping us off.”
That was Mister speaking.
“Surely not.”
“True enough. If you didn’t want to pay, there’s always the option of doing manual labor instead. It wouldn’t be that.”
And so the Charity Gate repeated itself. The third time, we handed Cloth to a band of vagrants in a frigid region.
Since the trading post’s request was annoying again, I just bought the Cloth with Gold Currency. They took far more than what good clothes should’ve cost.
The fourth involved an old woman and her grandson living alone in a house deep in the mountains. To cure the ailing grandmother’s illness, we needed Medicinal Herbs again.
They claimed it was incredibly rare, so rather than search for it myself, I bought it straight from the trading post.
“Heh-heh, thank you. Using our services so frequently—we’re honored.”
Funnily enough, it was the same trading post every time. I was beginning to suspect they had some sort of connection with the Charity and Compassion Order itself.
The Gold Currency in the Subspace was still plentiful, but each time I spent it, the feeling was distinctly off.
“Is this really a shakedown? What if the Hidden Quest is actually to expose the misdeeds of the Charity and Compassion Order?”
That came from Mister, and even I felt tempted by the theory. But the risk of attacking them was too high, so we couldn’t pursue it.
The fifth came from a village devastated by catastrophic flooding.
We could either cut Lumber from the mountains to make materials, or buy from the trading post—and this time there was a different opinion.
Han Chul voiced it: that buying from the trading post might actually be wrong.
“Since it’s a Charity Gate, shouldn’t we actually be performing the charity ourselves?”
In other words, his point was that only if we participated directly in the charity would the reward be set higher.
The nearby trading post was the easy route—the path to weak rewards.
“I can see where you’re coming from, but……wouldn’t we run out of stamina if we kept going like that?”
The problem was time. If we hadn’t used the trading post, we might still be searching for Moonlight Radish Grass.
The same went for hunting other Medicinal Herbs, and even just the trading post’s requests were taxing—like hunting bandits waging guerrilla warfare in the mountains.

“If you want to see the end of the Charity Gate, I think moving fast and pushing through is the right call.”
The Gate had said we could exit ‘whenever we wanted.’ But I believe this Gate has an ending. It can’t go on dispensing charity indefinitely.
It’s a tedious sequence of tasks, but at the end of the Charity Gate, the Gate’s final reward should be waiting.
Most hunters probably couldn’t reach that stage. Even if the time ratio between inside and outside the Gate adjusts, that doesn’t apply to our time.
I’m confident no one comes out of this Gate loaded with Gold Currency the way we do.
“Let’s give it a shot.”
I intended to push forward until the Gold Currency we had in the Subspace ran dry.
“You’re really going to spend all of it? Are you sure?”
“Money is hardly scarce right now.”
Whenever we subjugated Gates, I sold off the Gate’s Gold Currency. Beyond that, our other earnings were astronomical.
Worry over money felt distant now. We could afford to spend it all if we wanted.
-The seventh Subspace has more Gold Currency anyway.
Just as Chun-bae had mentioned before, this place was full of Gold Currency that had lost all value in a ruined world.
“Let’s try it.”
My reasoning was that a Gate consuming this much resources and time would have rewards beyond imagination waiting at its end.
The guild members agreed with this assessment.
“That’s fair. This Gate isn’t ordinary. The process is a bit much, that’s all—if only the trading post had changed, it wouldn’t have felt so bad.”
“Then let’s not overthink it. Let’s see how far we can milk this. And what else it gives us.”
Well, if we’d wanted to clear this quickly, we should’ve stopped the Charity Gate right from the start.
I want to see exactly what reward awaits at the end. The stranger the Gate, the more special the reward should be.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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