[TRAVELING] MERCHANT CRAB

  ©2026 HOST

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  ALSO IN SERIES

  Merchant Crab

  Merchant Crab

  [Traveling] Merchant Crab

  [Manager] Merchant Crab

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  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  1. The Town of Ardville

  2. Undesirables

  3. Crowns for a Crab

  4. Fanning Out

  5. Back on the Road

  6. Star Beach

  7. Killer Starfish

  8. Scroll of Character Re-Creation

  9. New Arrival

  10. The Gift of the Crab

  11. Swoop

  12. Tutorial

  13. It’s a Party

  14. Tudor’s Hall

  15. A Skeleton Party

  16. A Rich Diet

  17. The Very Hungry Slime on a Pillar

  18. A Crab’s Potential

  19. A Bit Too Real

  20. Cold, Dead Bones

  21. More Cold-Blooded Than a Crab

  22. Voided Warranty

  23. Undead Drop

  24. Catching Up

  25. Crossing Paths

  26. The Troll’s Toll

  27. The Troll’s Toil

  28. The Place That Once Was

  29. Condor

  30. Pie and Tea

  31. Hazy

  32. Shown Path

  33. Split Path

  34. Burdens

  35. The Peddler

  36. Peddling Water

  37. A Ghastly Proposal

  38. Zombie Hunting for Dummies

  39. Dead Zed Ned

  40. Rob the Courier

  41. The City of Marquessa

  42. Milk Beater

  43. Downright Embarrassing

  44. Margo’s Baking Boutique

  45. Mango Pie

  46. The Two Crown Tour

  47. Marquessa’s Baroness

  48. Marquessa’s Deal

  49. A Day in the City

  50. Pie Is Better When Shared

  51. A Night in the City

  52. Alley Cats

  53. A Crab Walks Into a Bandit Bar

  54. Skittering Through the Night

  55. Bread and Breakfast

  56. Not Quite Fit

  57. Wet Rag

  58. Druma and Blue’s Little Adventure

  59. Timely Rescue

  60. Criminal Crab

  61. Prisoner Crab

  62. Fugitive Crab

  63. Going South

  64. The Rat’s Tail

  65. Marquessian Thieves

  66. Escape Plunge

  67. Dip Thoughts

  68. Cabin Retreat

  69. Heist Plan

  70. Assault on Damask Manor

  71. Entry Hall

  72. Ballroom

  73. Mezzanine

  74. Guest Wing

  75. Master Bedroom

  76. Out of the Bag

  77. Gloating

  78. Disarming Charm

  79. Marquessa’s Key

  80. The Fruits of Your Labor

  81. Shell Away

  82. Balthazar’s Lair of Evil

  83. Low-Level Monsters

  84. Learning to Pinch

  85. A Fairy Deal

  86. Wizard Lair

  87. Baggage

  88. Reaching What You Desire

  89. Delivering Delays

  90. Hall of the Golemancers

  91. The Golem Forge

  92. Forging Friends

  93. Pebbles

  94. What Truly Matters

  95. Eye on the Prize

  96. Into the Dragon’s Lair

  97. Dragonfruits

  98. A Battle of Wits (And Pies)

  99. Home Sweet Home

  Epilogue

  Thank you for reading [Traveling] Merchant Crab

  About the Author

  Groups

  LitRPG

  PROLOGUE

  THE ROAD NOT SO FAR

  It was a bright morning despite the autumnal season, with hardly a cloud in the sky. The warm sunshine felt pleasant on the skin—or chitin—and the gentle breeze that blew from the plains caressed the senses like a whisper from nature.

  It was the perfect weather for a walk, and on the old road between the town of Ardville and a certain pond, a peculiar figure came along.

  Cardisoma gigas, also commonly known as a giant crab, or simply Balthazar to his friends.

  This magnificent specimen, with his shiny gray carapace and impressive pincers, was quite unique. For not only was he a talking crustacean, but also a merchant. Even more unusual for a crab, he was also gifted with a variety of friends.

  Three of those friends came along on the road with him on that particular morning: Rye, Druma, and Blue.

  As Balthazar walked up the road to the neighboring town, his shell filled up with questions, doubts, and worries. Despite having lived right next to it his whole life, this would be his first time visiting that place. Or any place outside his pond, for that matter. Everything felt new, exciting… and also a little scary.

  He was now a crab on the road, looking for a baker, but his journey had started long ago, when he was a crab next to a road, looking for a baker.

  To the untrained eye, it might seem like nothing much had changed, but that could not be further from the truth.

  Everything had changed.

  He now had friends, a family, even. He had purpose, plans that went beyond the next nap under the sun. Not only that, but he had found people and things he cared about, beyond just his collection of shiny stuff.

  He had learned that sometimes you only value something after you lose it.

  And it all started when the curious crab decided to touch a strange scroll.

  On that fateful day, anyone who might have been watching that unassuming pond in the middle of nowhere, next to an old road leading to who knows where, could not be faulted for missing its main inhabitant’s presence, half-buried under the sand and water, casually bubbling away as he sunbathed.

  Balthazar, the biggest crab in that pond. And also the only one, making him the winner of that competition by default. Which was fine by him, because he liked it that way. No one else was around, other than the tiny fish in the water, but they were neither friends nor competitors, merely his next meal whenever the crab felt peckish.

  The proud crustacean also had visitors now and then, but none of them were ever invited guests, because if there was something Balthazar did not want, it was someone disturbing his peace and quiet.

  Birds were one such type of visitor, and they most certainly did not care for the crab’s wishes of solitude. Loud, messy, and irritating, Balthazar detested them with great fervor. Especially when they would swoop down and steal his food, or even worse, soil his impeccable shell right after he was done shining it.

  The other type were humans. More precisely, adventurers. Also loud, often messy as well, and almost as irritating, this unique type of biped seemed to always be in a hurry to get to their next destination in order to do… something. What exactly, the crab did not know or care to find out, so long as they’d do it far away from his home. And for the most part, they usually did.

  Yet still, every so often, there would be those who’d stick their nose into the crab’s little slice of heaven, as if looking for something to do or loot. Most would quickly leave once they concluded there was no treasure to take or monster to slay, but sometimes there would be one who’d test Balthazar’s patience.

  That day had been one of those times.

  Down the road came a man, huffing and puffing, with his loot bag bursting at the seams. At first, the crab tried paying him no mind, but then the callous human did the one

thing sure to set any peaceful crustacean off: he stepped on the half-buried crab as if he were just a stone on his path.

  In crab culture, this is considered a grave disrespect.

  So, naturally, as any proper crustacean would, he responded with a swift pinch.

  What followed, as any of Balthazar’s attorneys would remind you (had he any, which he doesn’t, because he’s definitely innocent), was entirely the human’s fault.

  With the loot came the fall, as the extreme weight on his shoulders threw the adventurer off balance once he felt the snapping claw of karma wrap around his ankle.

  “Well, serves him right!” declared Balthazar as he let go of the man’s leg.

  With his head meeting the rocks below, that one adventurer’s days questing and looting were over, leaving behind a mess of random items scattered all over the crab’s home, spilled from the stuffed pack.

  Among them was one that caught the innocent crab’s eye: a rolled-up scroll with a peculiar appeal to it.

  Ever the curious one, Balthazar dared to touch it, and with a fright, his entire life would never be the same again.

  A mysterious system, strange stats, skills, and levels—everything came barreling through the crab’s life like a speeding truck, and he did not even know what a truck was!

  Soon enough Balthazar found himself cleaning up not one but two dead adventurers off his front door, because for some odd reason those bothersome dunces could not stop dying all over his property, and what was worse, the strange new system in the crab’s eyes insisted on crediting him for the deaths.

  On the bright side, they were leaving behind all manner of interesting trinkets and baubles, none more captivating to the crab than the ones he would come to know as coins. Shiny and golden, their glint appealed to the creature on a spiritual level. He loved and coveted them. A deep urge compelled him to acquire more of the beautiful circular things.

  But that would not be the crab’s only source of desire for long, for soon after Balthazar had his first taste of something that would forever change his view of the world: pie.

  Sweet and delicious, the heavenly meal was also the very first time the crab traded something with humans as he let go of a useless greatsword with a magical glow in exchange for a slice of two-day-old pie.

  An excellent deal he would forever remember fondly as one of his finest.

  This seemingly small action would lead to a chain of events that changed not only Balthazar’s life but the lives of many more in his world.

  With the newfound goals in life of acquiring precious coin and delicious pie, the clever crustacean put in motion the plan of starting a mercantile business from his backyard, trading all the random junk he got from those silly adventurers to other equally silly adventurers at a profit, all while using that as a way to find the one he had learned could create the elusive pastries he so desired: a baker.

  With the aid of his new accessory, a fancy monocle he had retrieved—and definitely not looted—from one of the fallen adventurers, which allowed him to inspect and see information on both items and other beings, Balthazar carried on building his pile of junk and treasure.

  Soon enough the merchant met Rye, a young archer adventurer, who involuntarily volunteered by the crab’s decree to go to the nearby town of Ardville and find the maker of pies.

  For you see, despite Balthazar’s ardent desire for pies, he still firmly believed that going out into the world was for suckers, as clearly shown by all those foolish adventurers he’d watch all day. The smart ones, like him, knew best to just stay in your turf, your comfort zone, and have the world come to you, on your terms.

  And so it was, the baker came down to the pond, and Balthazar finally met the one responsible for the mouth-watering delicacy he had been dreaming about since that first day: Madeleine.

  Like butter on one of her pans, the young girl slowly softened up the hard-shelled crab with her sweet personality and equally sweet pastries as he began seeing that perhaps not all humans were complete nuisances.

  With coin in his pocket and pie in his stomach, things were going smoothly for the aspiring merchant, but he was still alone as the sole resident of that pond and its expanding stock of adventurer junk. Not that he would ever admit to that being a problem, not back then, at least. No, solitude suited him just fine.

  But a helping hand or two with all the hard work around the place sure would come in handy. Especially considering that was the one thing he lacked: hands.

  Enter the goblin. Not a foul, nasty goblin throwing rocks off the cliffs above the pond, like the ones Balthazar was used to seeing sometimes. Or even a lone goblin that came willingly through the road. No, this goblin was not on the crab’s doorstep out of his own will, nor was he there to be hostile. This goblin, small, frail, and scared, came along with an adventurer. Not an aloof and goofy adventurer like all the others, this one was worse, much worse. A dark mage with silver in his hair and malice in his eyes, the human had captured the goblin and enslaved him with a magical collar, making the creature his pack mule to carry his loot.

  Balthazar had always cared little for anyone who wasn’t himself—in great part because there had never been anyone else but himself in his life—but seeing the small creature in that sorry state, the hurt in his eyes, and the cruelty of someone who’d inflict it on someone else compelled the crab to do something about it.

  Were he one of those reckless adventurers, always thinking themselves the heroes, this would have been the part where he’d put his claws up and gotten into an honorable duel with the dark mage.

  And he would have likely been a dead crab.

  Thankfully, the merchant was a shrewd businesscrab, and with a few waggles of his tongue, he soon convinced the mage to trade him the goblin in exchange for some old spell tome the crab had no use for.

  “Crab free Druma from evil man,” the goblin said while devouring the beef jerky the merchant offered him. “If crab give Druma meat, Druma follow crab now.”

  And just like that, the crab found himself one loyal assistant called Druma, and the small goblin who was too weak to remain in his tribe found a new home with the merchant, and soon after, all the meat pies he could eat from the baker.

  Not all would be sunshine and pastries, however, as more fiends would soon cross paths with Balthazar. None likely as despicable as the merchant master of Ardville, Antoine.

  The irritating little man and his irritating little pencil mustache came strolling down the road one day. Pompous and with his nose held high, the local merchant presented himself to the crab, who could tell from afar what kind of nuisance was coming his way.

  “I am Antoine, and as you must know by now, I am the largest trader of goods in Ardville, owner of Antoine’s Emporium, as well as the local master of the Merchant’s Guild.”

  “Never heard of you,” Balthazar casually said, much to the man’s ire.

  The back and forth continued as Antoine attempted to intimidate the crab, while Balthazar kept on greatly enjoying frustrating the arrogant merchant.

  “I assure you, if you ever were to visit the emporium in town, you’d understand how none of… this can really compare to a proper fine establishment. Not that the guardsmen would ever allow you through the gates, of course. Any unpleasant creatures attempting to enter the city would promptly be dealt with.”

  “Oh no, how will you ever go back home now,” Balthazar said in his most casual and in no way sarcastic tone.

  After being thoroughly served by the crustacean, the begrudging guildmaster eventually left, but not without ill intentions, and as the crab would soon learn, Antoine was going to be a major pain in the shell.

  Thankfully, Balthazar would not have to face all those adversities alone, as his group of close friends continued to grow and become stronger. One could even say, as strong as stone.

  As used to seeing weird adventurers every day as the crab was, one particular old man still managed to stand out as one of the strangest to ever visit his pond. The elderly man was a wizard, and as Balthazar would only much later on learn, his name was Tweedus.

  Highly energetic and quite outspoken, Tweedus did not seem to play with a full deck, and yet the crab could tell the loony old man had power like no other adventurer he had met before.

  After much rambling and shouting, the wizard departed just like he had arrived, out of thin air, leaving the crab two mana potions lighter but one Golem Core richer.

  At first, Balthazar was unsure what to do with the strange artifact, but after some pondering and book reading—a habit the crab had recently picked up and grown quite fond of—he set out to try using the odd orb on a boulder near the water.

 

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