He couldn't believe it.
The healing magic he was chasing for so long—
It was at his fingertips now.
But before he could grab it, Sidorovich took a step back from those thick bars with it.
"Not so fast, kid," he half-grunted, half-laughed. "You think I'd let you touch my Meat for free?"
"Your—what?!" Konrad yelled, stumbling back, too. But in his case, he bumped right into that hefty door still open behind him. "Man, you gotta watch your wording," he complained.
But the old trader would only shrug.
"What can I do if that's what Stalkers call it?" he said, turning the strange artifact in his hands. Saying that word in this context didn't sound well, either. "It looks like meat, so they call it Meat."
"It does look like a piece of some poor bastard," Dmitry noted, rolling his shoulders, and—
Wincing.
He definitely had a cracked rib or two.
But odd as it might have sounded, Konrad thought it was the perfect opportunity.
"If it can actually heal people," he said, "prove it on Captain Bandera."
And for a moment, the trafficker seemed eager to do that, too.
Before his peddler instincts took over.
"I said, not for free. This is a medium-grade healing artifact, which means it's very sought after. Researchers buy these for twenty thousand. I can't have you play with it for fun."
"Hryvnia?" Konrad asked, calculating if he could trade it for a magic crystal or two.
He needed those later, but to have an actual healing artifact—
"Hahaha, no, kid. Dollars. American ones," Sidorovich rebutted, and their jaws dropped.
Yeah, no trading for that much.
And when he cross-checked the pricing with the peddler's thoughts, he didn't even inflate it.
Ugh. Sure, it made a lot of sense.
A piece of flesh that could actually heal people?!
"I still want to try it," Konrad claimed, his brain kicking into a higher gear. "We have a wounded, and I'm going to pay you for your information anyway. I need to see how this thing works."
If at all.
He didn't add that last part, but the trader already scoffed.
With the face of an old fox smelling business. Okay, that might have been a good sign.
"And here I thought you only cared about your friend, Strelok."
Konrad rolled his eyes.
"He's not my friend. But the Hero of Kyiv is," he claimed, nodding towards Dmitry. "And as you can see, he's hurt. You claim to have a healing artifact and could do some good—"
Sidorovich sighed.
"Fair. For a thousand extra hryvnia."
A peddler through and through.
But once Konrad nodded to the offer, he handed over the artifact.
With a face as if they were pulling his teeth.
"He doesn't have internal bleeding, though, right?" the old man asked, right as Dmitry stepped closer. "This thing—how do I say it? It speeds up natural healing. But the bleeding, too."
That gave them a pause.
Konrad didn't see signs of it, but he couldn't be sure. And the Captain had no idea about his X-ray vision, either, so of course, he'd be reluctant now. Still, he wouldn't back down.
Curiosity won.
"Should be fine," he said as he took the Meat—that did not feel like touching an actual piece of flesh at all. "How does this even work? Like, what do I do with it?"
Did it need an activating spell? But it was already leaking mana.
Where did it come from in the first place?
"It's enough if he holds it. Nobody else should touch it when he does," Sidorovich said. "And no need to put it against the wound, either. It heals everything, except illnesses, I guess."
"Any downsides?" Konrad asked. A bit too late, after he already handed it over to the Captain.
It was a strange sensation, but not a terrible one.
Except for the buzzing and the burning in his fingertips, long after he let go of that thing.
"Apart from the bleeding?" the trader asked, pondering. "Well, like with most other artifacts, this will irradiate you completely over time—"
And Dmitry almost threw it across the tiny office, had Konrad not stopped him in time.
"You should have told us BEFORE," he complained.
But there was no denying it.
Even after he held it for a few seconds, he no longer winced at every movement.
"I mean, it comes from the Zone," Sidorovich scoffed. "What did you expect? Now, now, fret not, I have more. This artifact is very popular with rookies, too. It's called a Crystal."
And he had yet another peculiar thing in his hand, this time a big, pink crystal formation—
That emanated cold, even from that far.
"What does that one do?" Konrad asked with suspicion, but tried to reach it anyway.
"It neutralises radiation. Like, erasing it without a trace. And the good part is that it comes from the nearby Garbage, with beginners dying to get their hands on one. Well—in the literal sense."
Garbage? He thought of that word before, and Konrad figured it was a place.
But it was nearby, too? And these things were out there in the wild?
"Once he healed, touch this to take care of his radiation poisoning, too," the old man offered with a kind smile. It turned out to be fake. "For another five hundred hryvnia, of course."
The bastard.
But Konrad figured the prickling, burning sensation was from the radiation as well.
"What else's out there?" he asked, scrambling for his money. "And how did your Stalkers even find out about these? Or like, what does what and how?"
"Lucky accidents," Sidorovich said, rubbing his palms at the sight of the banknotes.
They must have been lucky indeed.
Like Konrad, who had enough cash left over from Kyiv so he didn't have to stay irradiated.
"Scientists came to examine the Zone after the second disaster. In secret, of course. They offered good money for explorers to bring back any junk they could then analyze."
"So the Stalkers didn't decide to become one on a hunch?"
It made a lot more sense now.
"It took 'em a while to sort out the crap. Find out what these do and catalogue like fifty different types," Sidorovich said. "But now we know where to find what kind, how they look, etcetera."
And he was willing to bet he would charge more money for the information than he had.
But the old fox surprised him this time.
"I can give you a list," he offered before Konrad even started to haggle. "A small photobook with a picture of them each, what they do, where to find them, and so on. Free of charge."
"You what?" he asked, more shocked by hearing that term than by those prices earlier. "Free?!"
"Well, it's business," Sidorovich said. "You're looking for Strelok, and he's deep in the Zone. The road there has plenty of dangerous anomalies—and valuable artifacts in them."
"And you want us to bring them back to you," Dmitry noted, handing back the Meat.
That wasn't even a question. But neither was the result of his treatment.
He held it—and the Crystal—for about five minutes, and he was healthy as a nut. Twisting his torso left and right, reaching towards the ceiling, or doing squats, he didn't wince at all.
"Optimistic, I know," the old man grinned. "But it's more lucrative if I bet on your survival."