Skip to content

Original novel

The Otherworld Skill General Store

Start reading →

Original title: 异世界技能杂货铺

The Otherworld Skill General Store — Story illustration
Story cover artwork · AI-created artwork, not an official cover of the original work.

Amano Yuu is summoned to a continent where skills can be bought and sold, carrying nothing but a single skill: "Open Shop." In a corner of the royal capital he sets up a general store, buying the junk skills no one wants and combining them into decks no one has ever seen. One day, a girl put up for auction places her only skill, "Loyalty," on the counter. Yuu says, "Loyalty isn't for sale. You yourself may stay on as a clerk." From then on, the little shop begins to rewrite the continent's prices and its wars.

Original fiction. Characters and events are invented.

Edited by: Huangguo Drama · Updated:

Stories

Prologue: The Shopkeeping Skill

When Amano Yuu hit the ground, the system gave him a single skill: Open a Shop.

No flame. No holy sword. No “+300% damage to the Demon King.” The description of shopkeeping was one line long: You may place a counter anywhere.

He set the counter against the wall in the farthest corner of the royal capital. The first day, no customers. The second day, a cat. On the third day the cat laid a rusted skill card on the table: 【Night Vision (Broken)】.

Yuu bought it. The price was half a fish. From that moment, the continent’s prices carried a tiny, irreversible gap.Chapter One: The Counter in the Capital’s Corner

Scrap skills piled in a wooden crate, like a winter nobody wanted.

Yuu fitted 【Night Vision (Broken)】 together with 【Tinnitus】 and got 【Hear the Footsteps in the Dark】. The first real customer was a thief. He paid quickly, and as he left he said, “People like you rewrite wars.”

“I only rewrite inventory.” Yuu dropped the copper coins into a jar.

The counter was low. Sunset stretched its shadow long, like a road leading somewhere else. Yuu did not take it. The cooldown on Open a Shop was “never closes.”Chapter Two: Loyalty, Not for Sale

When the girl on the auction block set 【Loyalty】 on the counter, the whole hall waited for a high bid.

Yuu looked at the card, then at her. “Loyalty isn’t for sale.”

“Then what are you buying?” the auctioneer sneered.

“Her.” Yuu wrote the words clerk wanted on the hiring board. “Pay is three meals a day and a place to sleep behind the counter. Keep your own skill card. Loyalty is worth more on a person than on a shelf.”

The girl’s name was Rin. When she took the card back, her hands were shaking, but her eyes were bright.Chapter Three: Prices and War

When the war started driving prices up, skill cards rose first.

A general came to buy 【Mass Inspiration】. Yuu shook his head. “Out of stock. All that’s on the shelf is 【Let the Soldiers Go Home to Eat】.”

The general flew into a rage and drew his sword. Rin stood 【Loyalty】 upright in front of the counter. The point skidded off the card’s face, as if it had met some other metal.

“We’re a general store.” Yuu pushed the tea across. “Tea is free. For war, please line up at another window.”

That night there was only the cat. It dragged in a new scrap card: 【Ceasefire (Three-Hour Trial)】. Yuu decided to stock it as the shop’s treasure.Chapter One: The Skill-Card Set

The skill-card set was Rin’s idea. Arrange five scrap cards by season, and they could play “light every lamp on a street at once.”

They tried it. The corner of the capital blazed like noon. The stall keepers thought sunrise had come early and steamed two pots of buns.

“We could sell this,” Rin said.

“We keep it.” Yuu slid the set into a drawer. “The shop has to stay lit, or customers can’t read the line that says not for sale.”Chapter Two: The Way Back Is Not for Sale

Someone came to buy a way back. The skill was named 【Return to Before the Summoning】. The price was a city.

Yuu looked at the card for a long time. Rin said nothing.

“The way back isn’t for sale.” He pushed the card across. “I have a shop open. A person with a shop open doesn’t need to go back to a place with no counter.”

After the visitor left, Rin set 【Loyalty】 beside his hand, then took it back. “Just making sure it’s still here,” she said.Final Chapter: The General Store Is Still Open

The general store was still open. The war had stopped three times, three hours each time. Stacked together, that was enough for a great many people to go home and eat.

Yuu read the description of Open a Shop once more. A line of small print had been added: The counter may be lit by someone you like.

Rin was in the back, counting through the wooden crate. The cat slept on 【Ceasefire】. Sunset drew the shadow out into a road, and this time there were two pairs of feet on it.

“Stock comes in tomorrow,” Yuu said.

“What are we stocking?”

“Things nobody wants, that still let people go on living.”

Other dramas

No same-genre drama for this story. These are other dramas on the site, not an adaptation of it.

  1. Dangerous Temptation: His Secret ObsessionSponsored · Trending Now · All Episodes
  2. Chronicles of the Divine Maiden of Qiongming
  3. The Double Life of the Huo Family's Young Madam
  4. The Abstinent Boss Spoils the Rookie Actress

One more story

  1. English text available

    The Lawyer's Late Return

    When the lights of the firm go out, she finds her partner still waiting downstairs. The unsigned agreement keeps them silent the whole way, until she admits that what she truly wants is not to win or lose, but a chance to be heard in earnest. The car stops at the gate of the old park. They decide to walk first, and talk about tomorrow after.

    Start reading →
  2. English text available

    The Unfinished Spell After School

    In an empty classroom at Star Lantern Private High, Shirasaki Rin draws the same magic circle every day—one corner always missing. The afternoon the class monitor, Aoba Toru, pushes the door open, he sees the glyphs light for the first time, and sees her cry for the first time. They say that once the spell is complete, this after-school will end. Unwilling to let the bell cut the two of them apart again, the boy decides to become the puzzle piece that stays missing on purpose.

    Start reading →
  3. Forbidden Desire: Claimed by the Alpha CEO

    Drama · Suspense · Featured · Watch Now ↗

    Uncut Edition · Exclusive

  4. English text available

    The Transfer Student of the Colossus Nation

    High schooler Kanzaki Eiji falls asleep on the train. When he wakes, a skyscraper the colossal beasts use as a stepping stone fills the window. Here, people raise their cities between the spines of beasts and treat courage like a traffic law. He meets Roki, a lancer girl in the middle of special training, and an instructor built like a bear. All Eiji brought from home is a folding umbrella—until a blade that does not belong to this world slides free from its ribs.

    Start reading →
  5. English text available

    The Elf Senpai's Gardening Notes

    The gardening club has only two members. Its president, Tsukimi Kaze, tends a whole season of night-blooming flowers in the greenhouse—blooms she never shows to anyone outside. One evening the new member, Nakamura Haru, stays late to water them and watches her take off her hat. It is not an ornament. It is a real pair of elf ears. Kaze says, "An elf whose ears are seen by a human must make the one who saw them part of the garden." Haru is sure he is about to be planted in a flowerpot. Instead, he is simply pulled in to write the observation notes with her.

    Start reading →
  6. English text available

    Failed to Become a Normie Again Today

    Upon entering high school, Kurose Yota swears he will shed his otaku identity and become the kind of normie who says “Where should we hang out?” after class. The plan collapses on the third day of term—Amami Rika, top of the school, hauls his limited-edition figure back from beyond the rooftop railing and declares, “From today on, I’m supervising your normie training.” And so Yota’s high school life becomes a public execution.

    Start reading →
  7. English text available

    The Counter Miss Is Actually a Legendary Summoner

    Hiiragi Makoto, the desk clerk of the adventurers' guild Amber Pavilion, has been voted the most hopeless receptionist in the city. No one knows that after work he lets the slumbering golden dragon Oro out of his ring for a walk. When an S-rank subjugation order falls and the guild faces total ruin, the young man who only stamps forms and brews tea takes off his nameplate—the legendary Summoner King, long thought missing, has been sitting behind the window filling out timesheets all along.

    Start reading →
  8. English text available

    The Failing Prince's Year of Frames

    Five years after the empire fell, Prince Klaus buried his name and enrolled at the new kingdom's Frame Academy. He meant only to be an ordinary failing student, yet at the entrance ceremony he blundered into the women's baths and came face to face with the reigning princess, Lina. Worse still, the slumbering frame Dawn Eclipse chose him as its master that very night. Within a year the failing prince must win the frame duel at the academy festival—or the remnants of the old dynasty will use his childhood friend as kindling.

    Start reading →
  9. Dangerous Temptation: His Secret Obsession

    Modern · Passion · Top Pick · Watch Now ↗

    Trending Now · All Episodes

  10. English text available

    The Confession Was Where the Penalty Game Began

    After losing a round of truth or dare, Kirino Aoi is sentenced to confess to Nanjo Makoto, the most unremarkable boy in class. She thinks that once the words leave her mouth, the game will be over. But Nanjo nods. From the next day on, he waits for her at the school gate, remembers that she hates cilantro, and holds out an umbrella the moment she wants to run. The penalty game never ended. It only changed its name to love.

    Start reading →
Feedback & wishes

What should we make next?