When looking at my System, it was pretty obvious to me which reward to pick. I didn’t want to mess with people’s souls, I didn’t want a cowlick, and I did want to finally get out of the negatives for stats. I chose to receive a plus two to my Body, Mind, and Soul.
[Name: Yarm] [Age: 45] [Level: 15]
[HP: 110] [MP: 60] [XP: -10,267] [LP:0] [GP: 1115]
[Body: 1] [Mind: 9] [Soul: 4]
[Titles: Villain, Lockpicker, Charmer] [Skills: Cleanse, Spare Monster] [Items: Soundless Pick, Wall Compass, Lesser Mana Potion, 3 Acupuncture Darts] [Recipes: Tranquiliser] [Boosts: XP Boost (7 days left)]
When I did so, a new menu popped up on the sidebar. There was some glowing text that read, ‘Inventory’. Loftus had previously told me about this. I clicked it and saw there was a single square space for me to place something inside. I put my pouch of money into it.
As I tried to do so, the pouch entered the System and all the GP inside spilled out onto the floor.
Everyone at the table laughed. “Another Sonic moment has occurred,” a boy said while lifting his finger up.
I scooped up all the money that had fallen and gathered it into a pile. “What happened?” I asked Loftus. “I was trying to put my money inside my inventory like you told me before.”
Loftus explained, “You have to put only the money in. When you tried to insert your coin purse, the pouch was the first thing to touch the System screen, so that’s what got inserted.”
“Noted.” For all his downsides, at least Loftus was a useful teacher. I took the pouch out of the inventory slot and threw all my money into the System. “Has this happened to others too?” I asked the table.
“Yup. Is this your first time using your inventory?” a girl wondered. “Want me to give you all the tips and tricks?”
“That would be wonderful!” These nightly meetings were far more beneficial than I had initially thought. The people here were morally bankrupt, but they were also nice enough to help me out.
The girl started, “To begin, the best use of your inventory slots will always be expensive objects.”
“Right.” I nodded. “You wanna keep your possessions safe, after all.”
“No.” She chuckled. “Go into a high-end store and place pricey items in your inventory. You can steal anything you want and it’s almost impossible to get caught. If a guard questions you, let them pat you down. The evidence of your crime will be in your System, so they can’t arrest you. You’ll get off scot-free. I stole an orphan’s family heirloom today and sold it on the black market for thousands of GP.”
“It’s incredible how you lot can say the most heinous things without batting an eyelid.” I figured out pretty quickly that all the advice the girl had to offer was nefarious. She did give me several ideas though. “What are the limits on what you can put in your inventory? Can I put a person inside?” I wondered if it might be possible to place slaves in my inventory. That way I could temporarily shelter them until I could bring them to a safe place.
“You wanna put people in your inventory? Are you getting into human trafficking or something?” Normally I would believe a comment like that to be a sarcastic joke, but I knew it wasn’t. These people would consider kidnapping to be no worse than jaywalking. “Sorry to burst your bubble, but you can’t place living things in your inventory. Also, you must be capable of carrying what you want to insert. For example, you couldn’t put a giant boulder inside it.”
“That’s understandable.” The intricacies of the System were starting to make more sense to me. “What sort of stuff do you have in your inventory?” I asked the girl. “If you’re ok with sharing that is,” I amended.
“I don’t mind showing you. Here, take a peek.” The girl opened her System and allowed me to look at her inventory menu.
[Inventory: 3418 GP, Lesser Healing Potion, Nesting Doll, Bag of Marbles]
Wow, she had a lot of money, and an interesting variety of items. “Wait a minute! You shouldn’t be able to place any of these in your inventory!”
“What do you mean?” the girl asked.
“Look at this healing potion.” I pointed at a glass vial containing red liquid. “How did you place this inside your System? When I tried it with my coin purse, it didn’t work. Shouldn’t the vial have gone into your inventory while the liquid poured out?”
The girl looked confused. “No? A potion is completely different to a coin purse. It would be stupid if the liquid poured out.”
Well, that would be stupid, but it would also make sense considering what happened before. “Ok then, what about the nesting doll? That’s multiple different dolls all stacked inside each other. Only the first doll should be allowed to enter your inventory, right?”
“No. Wrong again. A nesting doll is a singular item composed of multiple dolls. If I could only place one in my inventory, it wouldn’t be a nesting doll, it would just be a doll.”
Her logic made sense, but it still seemed to contradict the reality of what had happened with my coin purse. “Fine! What about the last one then? That’s a bag of marbles! I couldn’t place a bag of money in my inventory, but you can place a bag of marbles inside yours? That’s clearly inconsistent.”
“I’m surprised you’re having difficulty understanding something so simple,” the girl said while avoiding eye contact. “A bag of marbles is completely different than a bag of gold pieces.”
I stared at her. “Oh, really. Explain the difference then.”
“You wouldn’t get it even if I did explain.” Her head and body started to slowly turn away from me.
I was sure that she didn’t know the difference either. She wanted to sound smart by explaining the System to me, but she didn’t fully grasp it either. “I thought you said it was simple.”
“It is.”
“Then tell me what the difference is. How is it that the System accepts a pouch of marbles but not a money pouch?”
“I’d love to tell you all about the nuances of the inventory System but I’m getting sleepy.” The girl got up and walked away to her bedroom.
“Goodnight,” I said as she walked away. “Can you believe that, Loftus? Some people just can’t admit when they’re wrong.”
“But she was right,” said Loftus. “A bag of money and a bag of marbles are both completely different. One is currency while the other is an item. You’re like a person saying coal and diamonds are the same because they’re both made of carbon.”
That wasn’t what I was saying at all. “Ah, whatever.” Ultimately, it didn’t really matter is the System made sense or not. I had to live by its rules regardless. I moved on to the next area that I wanted elucidated: the crafting menu. I opened it up and clicked on the only recipe I had.
[Tranquiliser: When injected into a creature's bloodstream, inflicts the Drowsy status effect. (Mind)]
I already knew that. “Loftus, how do I craft stuff if I have a recipe?”
“Oooh, you got a recipe? Nice! What is it?” he replied.
I didn’t want to tell him, but I had to play nice to get the information I wanted. “It’s a recipe for a tranquiliser.”
“Ahh…” He seemed disappointed.
“What’s wrong?”
“I thought if you had a recipe for a sword or some armour, I could get you to make something for me.”
Fat chance that I’d ever do that. “So, how do I craft stuff?”
“Double click the recipe and it’ll give you the ingredients you need to make it. The quality of what you craft is determined by the quality of the very first ingredient listed and the corresponding stat level. Look at my System for example.”
[Present: Gifting this item to others will raise their affection for you. (Soul)]
[Ingredients: Flower + Box + Ribbon]
“Woah, this seems pretty good,” I said.
“You’d think,” Loftus sighed. “Flowers are really common so I could mass produce these presents. However, common flowers are considered low quality, so the presents they make don’t raise affection by much. I need to find rare flowers or buy them. Though, it seems a waste of time and money when I could just raise affection with my devilish charm.”
I made a mental note to not accept any giftbox from Loftus in case my feelings of hatred towards him were lessened. I looked at the ingredients for my own recipe.
[Ingredients: Herbs + Water + Vial]
So, if I were understanding things correctly, the strength of the tranquiliser would depend on my Mind level and the quality of herbs. With this, all the points I had in Mind became a little more useful. My Charmer title and Lockpicker title both scaled off of Mind too. My ‘build’, as the others called it, was starting to come together.
The other Earthlings at the table were leaving a little at a time. It was quite late and everyone wanted to call it a night.
“Loftus, do you know where I can get some strong needles made? Do I have to go to a blacksmith or something?” I asked.
“Needles? Why would you need those? It would be cheaper to just buy some at the market rather than getting them custom made.”
“I need to use them for acupuncture and battle. The ones from the store are too weak. I want needles that can withstand combat.”
Loftus tilted his head from side to side as he contemplated what answer to give me. “Normally I’d recommend you to the blacksmith I frequent. However, since it’s needles that you want, one of us Earthlings has a recipe for them.”
“Really?” I asked. “Who?”
“His name’s Oh-Tackoo. He’s in that room over there.” Loftus pointed at one of the bedroom doors. “You can go in and ask him to make you some.”
“Great. I’ll ask him in the morning when he wakes up.”
“Oh, he’s awake right now. He sleeps during the day and wakes during the night.”
“Is he a night owl or an insomniac?”
Loftus covered his mouth and gagged. “Sorry, I don’t want to talk about him anymore. Just thinking about him makes me nauseous. I’m off to bed. Go see him at your own risk.”
Was this man that scary, I wondered? The way he had Loftus frightened worried me. If he were the violent type, it would be hard to even get him to listen to my request. Merely thinking about it would do no good. I had to meet this individual myself.
I went over and knocked on the door. “Who is it?” a deep voice replied.
“A customer,” I answered.
“Give me five minutes.”
I heard much rustling from behind the door while I waited. It was hard to imagine what Oh-Tackoo was doing from the strange sounds he was making.
After five minutes had passed, I entered. I immediately wished that I hadn’t. The stench in the room was ungodly. I wanted to hurl up every meal that I’d had for the past week. How could a room possibly smell this bad? Even a corpse would have a better scent. I pinched my nose and continued inside.
The room was filled with dolls. The dolls were all made of different materials and were different sizes. However, they all depicted the same person: a girl with an eyepatch, a pirate hat, and red hair. It was creepy.
“Nice dolls,” I said cautiously.
“Thanks,” replied the owner of the room. He was a boy wearing clothes covered in stains and food crumbs. “If you’re wondering, she’s my kami oshi.”
“Cool…”
“You see, I’ve been watching Senchou since her debut. Even though I can’t understand a word she’s saying, we have a bond. If I had stayed on Earth, we would’ve gotten married eventually.”
“Ok…”
“I’m not being parasocial when I say that. We were truly destined to be together, but this world stripped me away from her. I’m currently trying to use the System to send her supercha—”
“Listen dude, I just came in here to ask you to craft me some needles for battle. Can you help me with that?” I noticed weird stains on all the dolls. I wanted to get away from this weirdo as fast as possible.
“I can do that. All I require is 100 GP and some iron ore. The better the quality, the better the needles.”
“Where am I supposed to get ore from?” I asked.
“Try a mineshaft.”
Oh great, now I had to become a miner. I was seriously considering just asking a blacksmith for help instead. “Do you know a place where I can just buy iron ore instead?”
“Yeah. I can sell you some.”
I slapped myself in the face with my free hand. Couldn’t he have just factored that into the initial price? “How much?”
“500 GP.” I paid and the dollmaker used his System to craft me the needles. “Ooh, lucky you. These ones have a nice prefix.”
“Prefix?”
The dollmaker clicked around on his System and then showed me it.
[Sturdy: Very difficult to break.]
He explained, “When crafting certain items, there’s a chance for them to get modifiers. Sometimes they’re bad and sometimes they’re good. You got lucky with these.”
I was given a set of Sturdy Needles.
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