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Volume 8 Chapter 1 Part 5

「I guess I kinda have good hearing then, just like you said.」

 

「To answer your question then, I have indeed received some fresh shipment of armors, it’s just that I haven’t gotten around to putting it on display just yet. If you want to have a look at it though, it’s all still at the back of the shop. So what do you say? Care to check it out?」

 

「Can I really do that?」

 

「Yes, of course. Come with me, please.」

 

The Armor Merchant guides me to the back of the shop without any reservations, which I found to be quite strange, but as long as he’s willing to do so, then I’m not going to question him any further.

 

I walk behind the counter and proceed even further, onto the deepest part of the shop where there were many different pieces of equipment lined up.

 

「There’s quite a lot of equipment here.」

 

「That’s because I purchased all of these just today, and they only just arrived.」

 

「Was this equipment sold to you by a certain family or something?」

 

「Apparently so. That must’ve been the case here, since otherwise it is simply not possible to get your hands on so many pieces of outstanding equipment all at once. The family which sold that equipment to me was supposedly quite an influential one, but it has met an untimely end quite abruptly. They were one of the many ones that tried to broaden their sphere of influence through the excessive use of force, and as it is always in such cases, that very excessive use of force proved to be their undoing. You didn’t hear it from me, but word on the street is that the strongest warrior of that family died, but not in your ordinary way. Supposedly, the guy was offed in a duel that he himself demanded.」

 

The strongest warrior of the family? Died in a duel? Is it just me, or does that story sound strangely familiar? Now, where have I heard it before…? Oh yeah, he’s probably talking about the Baradam family, the one to which Sabo and Roxanne’s acquaintance belonged.

 

「Their strongest warrior was killed in a duel? So, if that is really true, then what is going to happen to that family now?」

 

「Now that they have lost their strongest member and no longer possess enough fighting force to maintain the position that they have gained for themselves, they are going to have to pay for their domineering attitude and treating everyone else as if they were beneath their notice. They seemed to have raised a lot of funds through debts but they never repaid those debts and kept pushing the date of their repayment forcibly, to the point where those debts have now grown quite enormous and almost impossible to pay off.」

 

Man, talk about a harsh situation. So whoever that family was, it seems that the biggest problem that they had was their attitude towards others in general. It’s good to learn that they finally get their comeuppance for being all around assholes, and I had a feeling that this might have been the case with them instead of their attitude towards Roxanne stemming from their enmity towards her exclusively.

 

Both Roxanne’s acquaintance and Sabo were arrogant and so full of themselves that their inflated egos could probably easily fill out the entirety of a spacious room, so they got what they deserved by losing to Roxanne and me, and as much as I don’t like the Baradam family for how they treated Roxanne, at the very least I have to give them credit for being in possession of some really high-quality equipment. Among all the pieces of armor that were present there, the ones that caught my attention the most were the Damascus Steel Forehead Protector which had four Empty Skill Slots embedded into it and a Dragon Hide Leather Jacket that had three Empty Skill Slots embedded into it.

 

「And what is this thing right here?」

 

「That is Alba.」

 

「This piece of clothing increases magic power of the wearer and greatly increases his magic defense. It’s an equipment worn mainly by Priests, Monks, Mages and Wizards.」

 

Alba seems to be a type of equipment that is supposed to be worn on the body. This one before me has two Empty Skill Slots embedded in it. It’s my first time seeing this kind of equipment.

 

The armor merchant told me the name of the equipment, while Sherry offered to explain the rest of the nuances associated with it to me.

 

「Alba is an equipment made out of a material called Holy Silver. Because making it requires expansive use of vast amounts of Holy Silver, it is considered a high-tier equipment that is rarely available for sale on the market. The equipment of this class can include various types of clothing such as loafers that are mainly focused on their fashonability, but from what I can see, this Alba right here seems to be focused on sheer performance rather than anything else. 「Magic Defense」 is a great Skill to have if you’re going to have your vanguard members fighting against the monsters that primarily tend to be using magic attacks, so much so in fact that even those who typically don’t have Jobs that are focused on using magic tend to wear it. That is how practical of an equipment this is.」

 

The Armor Merchant is trying to sell the features of that equipment pretty damn vehemently. Well, I have to agree with him on the thing that the increase in my magic power would definitely be pretty attractive. Not to mention that it does have Empty Skill Slots on it as well.

 

「Hmm… if that’s how you put it, then I think that I’m going to buy them after all.」

 

「Thank you very much for your patronage. It’s a pleasure doing business with you.」

 

Pretending to be fooled by the Armor Shop Merchant’s marketing, I expressed my desire to buy that equipment from him.

 

Aside from that one piece of equipment, the next two that are definitely worth mentioning are Dragon Leather Shoes and Dragon Leather Gloves, both of them with one Empty Skill Slot each. It might not look like much, but I ultimately decide to buy both of those pieces of equipment anyway, since it’s a rare opportunity.

 

I bet that if I have Sherry fuse the right Monster Skill Crystals with them, they are going to be even better than they are now. That is why this purchase absolutely cannot be considered as a waste of money, even if it did cost a substantial amount of Nars. But this is a long-term investment, and that is simply how it works with investments: if you think that they are all supposed to give you a result right away, then maybe you’re not fit to be making investments at all. After all, everybody knows that the most worthwhile investments are the ones that take a substantial amount of time to give you a return that’s going to be that much greater.

 

Tens of gold coins have vanished right now like it was nothing? Well not to worry, because with the equipment that I have bought right now, we are bound to get all of that and even more back in the future.

 

Besides, if I’m ever going to want more money, I can always go and sell the Magic Crystals that are currently in my possession.

 

Currently, I have one Green Magic Crystal and one Yellow Magic Crystal in my possession. The Green Magic Crystal is the one I have been working on. Since it has been some time since I have obtained it and started accumulating magic power in it, I am expecting that when the time for the slave auction finally rolls around, it should probably turn Yellow by that time.

 

As for the Yellow Magic Crystal, it is a result of merging all of the Magic Crystals we have obtained from the members of Heinz’s gang. The only downside to it is that I have no idea how much magic power should currently be stored within it, since we have looted it from the defeated Bandits, and as far as I know, there is no way to check the exact amount of magic power stored within Magic Crystals, or at least there’s no way that I would know about.

 

It may contain magic power equivalent to two hundred thousand defeated monsters, or it may contain the magic power equivalent to nine hundred thousand defeated monsters. At this point in time, pretty much every guess should be a fair game here.

 

Now, if only I could accumulate the amount of magic power equivalent to one million slain monsters in it, that would set me up perfectly.