WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Alyo

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Surviving as a Warrior in a TRPG World ◈

Chapter 33: Loot (2)

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"Crazy...!! Healing magic?!"

Amazingly, the emerald seemed to be a component with the power to cast a potent healing spell once a week.

Gerik had always worried about the injuries he might suffer in fierce battles, so the effect thrilled him.

'Should I test it?'

The once-a-week limit bothered him a little, but thankfully, all threats were gone now.

Once he finished this mission, he would have saved up a tidy sum, and he planned to rest in Stonecreek for a while and order some equipment. Gerik decided to test the magic despite the limitation.

'Let's heal my palm.'

Gerik looked at his right palm, which had been torn open from roughly swinging his sword during the fierce battle.

'But how do I use it? Do I just think about wanting to be healed?'

He held the ring over the wound and tried several methods to activate the magic. For some reason, though, the ring did not react at all, and Gerik grew frustrated.

"How am I supposed to use 'Cure Serious Wounds'?"

The moment Gerik muttered the words Cure Serious Wounds, which he had seen in the status window, a soft green light began to burst from the ring.

"...!!"

The wound touched by the green light quickly closed. Before long, his palm had healed completely without a trace.

"So it activates when I say the spell's name...!!"

Unlike Guardian Barrier, which activated on its own whenever danger arose regardless of its owner's will, Cure Serious Wounds seemed to require the user to hold the ring over the desired area and recite the spell's name.

'It's like I've gained another life!'

After finishing his search of the underground workshop, Gerik searched all around based on the diary's contents, looking for a passage connected to the surface.

'Is that it...?'

After examining the area for quite some time, Gerik finally found an artificially dug passage, unlike the other spaces that had decayed or been damaged by time.

"Oh... There it is...!!"

As he squeezed through the obviously unnatural narrow passage, Gerik found a secret door leading to the surface.

'They disguised it as a tile to hide the passage when it wasn't in use.'

Once he arrived at the mage's workshop above ground, Gerik began searching it carefully from the basement up for any additional spoils.

Unfortunately, it seemed the mage had hidden anything valuable in the underground workshop. The aboveground workshop contained only miscellaneous daily necessities.

"I thought a mage would at least have magic items for sale..."

Rather than crafting and selling artifacts, the mage appeared to have run the workshop by identifying adventurers' items with the first-circle spell Identify Item.

'Well, if he could make as much money as he wanted using Rat Men, there was no need to go through the trouble of making magic items.'

Gerik had already figured out why the mage's shop was so modest, so he was not disappointed despite finding no more spoils.

After searching the workshop above ground and securing the key to the place, Gerik went back underground to gather his dead companions' belongings one by one so he could wrap up the Guild business.

'There's plenty of equipment in good condition. I'd be an idiot not to take it.'

It was an utterly unethical act, but Gerik had gradually developed an adventurer's mindset through his past experiences.

He also bore a grudge against his temporary companions after they had threatened and betrayed him, so he did not feel the slightest guilt over collecting their belongings.

Kagosh's bastard sword, Tarian's longbow and spear, Jensen's shortsword, and all sorts of luggage. The items began piling up at the workshop entrance.

Gerik even took Bruno's damaged chainmail, hoping to at least recover the value of the steel.

'The tower shield is nice, but it's solid iron, so it's way too heavy. I'll just sell this too.'

Bruno, the heavily armored Warrior who stood firm like a mountain, had left a strong impression on Gerik. He considered using Bruno's shield himself.

But after lifting it a few times, he gave up on the idea because it was too heavy and decided to sell it.

'Hmm... Should I burn the diary?'

A Guild official who read Owen's diary might question him about the emerald's whereabouts in connection with Skyler's Quintet, so Gerik considered burning it to destroy the evidence.

'No. I'll leave it alone and turn it in. I only got ten gold coins as spoils, and I can just claim I never found the emerald.'

Unlike Skyler's Quintet, which had been delivered by the Adventurers’ Guild, the emerald had originally belonged to Owen's master and had nothing to do with the Guild. Even if Gerik had acquired it, the Guild had no grounds to question him about it.

'The diary will make explaining the situation easier, so I should turn it in as evidence.'

The latter half of the diary even described in detail how the mage had become obsessed with the Plague God’s Rat Skull, squandered his fortune, and strengthened it. The Guild might conclude that the enthralled mage had sold the emerald.

'The others' belongings are too heavy, so maybe I'll come back for them later. It's an unspoken adventurer rule that the last survivor gets the belongings of fallen companions, so the Guild won't be able to make an issue of it.'

Once he had settled everything, Gerik opened the workshop door and finally headed for Stonecreek. The clear air that greeted him outside cleared his exhausted mind.

"Miss Receptionist. This is urgent. Could you call Ruben for me?"

The sun would soon set and the Guild was about to close for the day, so Gerik needed to make his report quickly. Rather than standing in line, he called to the receptionist from a distance.

"What the fu... Huh?"

The adventurers ahead in line frowned when some random guy tried to cut in and speak to the receptionist while they had been waiting their turn.

But when they turned and saw a blood-covered adventurer, they spoke to him in surprise instead of picking a fight.

"Hey, man. What happened to leave you looking like that?"

"Phew... It's a long story. I need to call someone over and make an urgent report. Sorry. I'm not here to register a commission, so please let it slide."

"Must be pretty urgent if you don't even have time to wash up."

Normally, they might have taught him a lesson or chewed him out for being arrogant. But the sight of a fellow adventurer covered in blood and worn down by exhaustion seemed to stir even the rough adventurers' sympathy.

"What is this about?"

Ruben hurried downstairs after hearing from the receptionist. He was bewildered when Gerik, who had gone along as a guide and returned alone instead of the experienced Bruno, came to the Adventurers’ Guild and requested a private meeting.

"...I'd like to go upstairs and talk. There's a good reason for it."

Gerik could not take out the Plague God’s Rat Skull in front of so many people, so he said he wanted to make his report somewhere quiet. Seeing his serious expression, Ruben agreed.

"Fine... What happened? And where is Bruno's party?"

Once they went upstairs, Ruben asked for an explanation, unable to make sense of the situation at all.

"First... Would you take a look at this? But don't touch it."

"...What is this?"

"It's a cursed artifact."

Gerik calmly began explaining what had happened that day. Ruben was dumbfounded to hear that what they had assumed was a simple Rat Man outbreak had actually been caused by a mad mage.

"Hard to believe, right? That's why I showed you the skull first."

After finishing his explanation, Gerik handed the mage's diary to Ruben with a tired expression.

Ruben took the diary and carefully read it while standing there for quite some time. When he reached the final page, he sighed and closed the book.

"...Wait here a moment."

Ruben had Gerik wait in the reception room, then went somewhere. Before long, he returned carrying a scroll.

"What's that?"

"An Advanced Identify Scroll."

A basic Identify spell could not reveal a curse hidden so deeply, so Ruben seemed to have brought an advanced scroll to determine whether the skull was truly an evil artifact.

Riiip!

The scroll tore apart, and a mysterious light began shining onto the skull. Interestingly, words about the Plague God’s Rat Skull began appearing on the blank sheet of paper beside it.

Even though it was advanced identification magic, it seemed less capable than Gerik's status window. Several details, including the artifact's name, were missing from the paper.

'I absolutely have to hide the fact that I can identify items with my status window.'

Gerik sensed that it would cause trouble if others learned he possessed a skill with greater identifying power than advanced magic.

So he swore once again that he would never reveal his secret to anyone.

"It slowly corrupts the user's mind and turns them into a slave of an evil being. This is truly dangerous."

Ruben even broke into a cold sweat at the thought that, if it had been left alone much longer, the enslaved mage might have summoned that evil being into the world.

"You've done well. The Guild will deal with this item safely."

With that, Ruben put the Plague God’s Rat Skull back into its sack and moved to take it away.

"Who said you could take it?"

"Hmm...?"

Ruben's expression darkened when the youngster before him unexpectedly refused to hand over the skull.

Gerik might have been frightened by that attitude in the past, but his intense experiences had given him more nerve. He stared Ruben down and answered firmly.

"I'm the owner of this item. You can't just take it without my permission."

"...But this is a cursed object! It should be destroyed immediately, so what ownership are you talking about?"

Ruben strongly insisted that the Guild had the right to seize the item, based on sound reasoning.

Gerik, however, seemed to have expected that response and come prepared. Without backing down in the slightest, he shot back.

"What does that have to do with me? Don't you remember the mission details? 'Rat Man Extermination,' or 'Rat Man Search.' I never accepted a retrieval request. If you want to take it, you need to pay for it."

"...What value could a cursed artifact possibly have?!"

Ruben argued that a cursed artifact could not be assigned a value and that the Guild had the authority to forcibly seize it because it was dangerous.

But based on the words of the traitor Jensen, Gerik answered that if he had truly harbored bad intentions, he could have smuggled the item out and sold it on the black market for at least a hundred gold coins.

"I brought this item here out of 'goodwill.' You shouldn't be treating me like this."

Gerik lowered his voice into a growl and threatened to spread word of the forced seizure to every adventurer in Stonecreek if he was not properly compensated.

"Are you prepared to handle the backlash? If you do this, adventurers will use this incident as proof and stop turning in anything that looks dangerous to the Guild. They'll smuggle it all out and sell it instead."

"...You."

Ruben's face reddened as this youngster threatened him. When he even let out a faint killing intent, Gerik took the initiative by reciting the bluff he had prepared in advance.

"What, are you going to kill me? For your information, I've already told several 'friends' everything about the current situation. If I go 'missing,' do you think those friends will keep quiet? It'll only turn into a bigger issue. People will say the Guild even murders people to silence them."

"..."

Footnotes:

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