Arc.fish

It was the beginning of May, and the tulip market was in full swing. Everywhere there were stalls where vendors were trying to sell their tulips, and hopeful customers trying to find the best tulips they could find. It was a nice day, with only a few clouds in the sky.

The Merchant hummed as he wheeled his cart around the market. He never missed out on any opportunity to invest money, but the tulip market held a special place in his heart. After all, the tulip stock exchange was the very origin of the stock market.

While walking around, he noted a bustling crowd. Curious, he pushed his way through to see what all the fuss was about. At the center, he found a blue-haired office lady, giving a tutorial on how to raise tulips as the gardeners around her furiously took notes.

“Hey Tutoreal!” The Merchant yelled, gaining himself a couple of angry looks from the crowd for interrupting the tutorial. ”Giving tutorials, as always!” The Merchant pointed out the obvious.

“Hey Merchant!” Tutoreal replied, glancing in his cart. ”Wow, you’ve already bought a lot of tulips! Are you sure they’re going to increase in value though?” Tutoreal asked him skeptically.

The Merchant smirked. “Trust me, I never lose a gamble.”

“Except when you do!” Tutoreal replied in a singsong voice.

The Merchant shrugged. ”Indeed, except when I do.”

As the glares of the gardeners surrounding them intensified, the Merchant decided it might be in his best interest to stop interrupting Tutoreal’s tutorial, so waving her goodbye, he moved on.

As the Merchant continued his shopping, filling his card with an ever-growing supply of healthy tulips, he came across Chloris. “Oh hey, Merchant! Are you looking for the best tulips?” She asked him excitedly.

“You know I am!” He replied excitedly. “I have an inside source that the tulip prices are about to skyrocket!”

Chloris grinned. “In that case, I know exactly the stall for you!”

As they approached the stall in question, the Merchant could understand what she meant. There were some seriously blooming tulips at the stall – along with a statue of Chloris.

“I’m guessing you helped out here?” The Merchant asked, gaining a shrug from her.

“What can I say? They were praying, worshipping – they even built a statue of me! How could I refuse?” She said with a smile.

“Chloris be praised for blessing us with such great tulips!” The stall owner said, immediately being shocked as the statue got a crack in it, courtesy of a pissed off Chloris

The Merchant laughed. “You still hate being called Chloris, don’t you?”

“Of course I do! My name isn’t Chloris, it’s Flora!” Chloris replied with a huff.

Deciding that Chloris wasn’t safe to be around when she was angry about being misnamed, he decided to leave her to her devices. After buying all the tulips in the stand Chloris had blessed, he moved on.

However, immediately afterwards, he happened to see Nuba walking around with a cheerful expression on her face.

‘Crap, that can’t mean anything good,’ he thought to himself as he immediately ducked behind some stalls to avoid her.

Nuba was definitely in a good mood. She saw some withering flowers, so she reached out a hand and spread some sunlight, bringing them instantly to full bloom, much to the joy of the stall’s owners. She came across a dog, so she picked up a branch and threw it to give it some entertainment. She saw a crying child, so she gave it a lollypop, gaining a huge smile from the kid.

‘Aah… I love the sound of chaos in the morning,’ she thought with a huge smile, as the tulips she had shone her light upon grew out of proportion and destroyed the stall they were in, the dog’s owners were desperately searching for it after losing sight of it, and the sugar in the lollypop was slooowly rotting the child’s teeth away. ‘Muahaha.’

The Merchant witnessed all this from behind the stalls and shuddered before continuing.

“Oh hey, Merchant!” A familiar voice broke him out of his anxiety. He turned to face Jarylo, eating candy, as always.

“Can I eat those?” Jarylo immediately asked, gesturing towards the huge collection of tulips in the Merchant’s cart.

“No, you can’t eat these! I have to sell these! Also, they’re tulips! Who eats tulips?!”

“I’ve always dreamt of creating tulip-flavored candy! And your tulips look like the perfect tulips to make candy out of!”

The Merchant considered the profit opportunities of tulip-flavored candy for a moment, before shaking his head. “Not today, my friend. These tulips are going to make me money! You wouldn’t make candy out of money either, would you?”

He immediately regretted his words as Jarylo’s eyes lit up. “Oh my gosh! Money-flavored candy! Can you imagine what a rich flavor that would be?!” Jarylo hadn’t even finished his sentence and the Merchant was already gone.

‘For fish’s sake, he might ACTUALLY make candy out of my money!!’ He thought to himself as he sped across the market, pushing his cart as fast as he could.

He stopped short, however, when he came across another familiar sight – Anthea and Jiutian, engaged in a fight over who could bloom tulips the best.

“You’re not even a weather deity or flower deity! How could you possibly be better than me!?” Anthea said with an arrogant smirk.

“Oh yeah?! Well I am a deity of war! And everyone knows that blooming flowers is basically warfare!” Jiutian responded aggressively.

“Is not!” Anthea said incredulously.

“Is too!”

Seeing an opportunity, the Merchant approached them cheerfully. “Ladies, ladies! I have an easy way to settle this argument!”

The two turned to him curiously as he continued. “I have some tulips here that are already doing great! But I’m sure you two could make them bloom even further, couldn’t you?”

The girls faced each other for a moment, Anthea with a huge grin, Jiutian with a deep scowl, before they turned back to the Merchant. “Let’s fight!” They said at the same time.

Jiutian went first. “Let’s start small! Sunny Day!” She reached out her hands towards the sky, the sunlight intensifying specifically on the Merchant’s cart, the tulips looking slightly better than before.

“Humph, is that all you’ve got?” Anthea retorted. “My turn! Sunny Side Up!” She also reached her hands towards the sky, causing some of the clouds in the sky to be replaced with sunlight, increasing the growth of the tulips even further.

Jiutian got even more irked. “Alright, then how about this?! Solar Tank!” A huge Solar Tank materialized in front of them, causing some of the crowd around them to flee in terror.

“Hah, what are you going to do with that?! Destroying those tulips won’t help you!” Anthea taunted, but she gasped as Jiutian smirked.

“Who said anything about attacking the tulips? I see some more clouds in the sky, I’m sure these tulips would bloom better without those! So go! My Solar Tank! DESTROY! THE! CLOUDS!!!”

“JIUTIAN THAT MAKES NO SENSE-” Anthea cried out, but a huge explosion followed as the tank fired at the clouds in the sky, obliterating them and leaving only a clear, sunny sky.

“That’s it! Bloom them, bloom them more!!” The Merchant cheered. He could already smell the money he would make from these tulips. However, he would quickly come to regret his hubris.

“Oh yeah? Then how about this!” Anthea cried out, as she revealed an “Increase Solar Power” card.

“No, Anthea, stop!! If you do that-” the Merchant cried out, but it was too late. The entire market filled with sunlight, a comfortable glow washing over everyone present.

All the tulips present at the tulip Market spontaneously burst into full bloom. Everyone present cheered. Everyone except the Merchant.

“NOOOOO!!!” the Merchant screamed in anguish, as the flooding of the market with brightly blooming tulips caused the tulip stock market to collapse.

“That’s what you get for being greedy!” Anthea said, sticking out her tongue, before grabbing a blushing Jiutian’s hand and running off, leaving a sobbing Merchant behind.

As the Merchant laid on his knees with his cart full of – now worthless – tulips, he felt a hand patting him on the back.

“There, there,” Tutoreal comforted him. “I will give you a tutorial on how to invest your money more wisely, so don’t cry, okay?”

The Merchant’s crying reduced to sniffles. “You will? You mean it?”

“Yes Merchant, I will.”

“Even though you already know I won’t learn my lesson?”

She patted him on the back a bit more. “I know.”

“Okay then,” the Merchant said, wiping away his tears. “Thank you.”

And with that, that year’s tulip Market came to a close. Some people won. Some people lost. And some people lost everything.

Perhaps next year, things would be different. Or perhaps not. Only time would tell.

The end.