WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Alyo

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◈ Surviving as a Warrior in a TRPG World ◈

Chapter 9: The Raiders (2)

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"Brr... brrr... C-cold..."

Gerik muttered through chattering teeth as he woke to his second morning inside the narrow, dark hideout.

'Thank god Lugos's sleeping bag is so good...'

The outside was made of waterproof leather, while the inside was stuffed with the fur of some unknown animal. Even after Gerik had humiliated himself by soiling his pants the day before, it had faithfully retained its warmth. Thanks to that, he had managed not to freeze to death in the middle of the forest during winter.

"Haa..."

Huddling up, he rubbed his arms and legs until the cold eased somewhat. The real problem was not the temperature.

Unable to turn over or leave the hideout, what he had heard the previous night kept resurfacing in his mind.

The voice that casually spoke of having killed a priest. The thick smoke rising from the direction of the village. The foul scent of disaster mingling with the cold air.

Nausea and helplessness surged through Gerik. He wanted to leave at once and see what had happened with his own eyes, but it had not even been a full day since they left. Walking out of the hideout carelessly would be like offering them his neck.

'They could still be there.'

He forced down his urge to go outside and curled himself deeper into the hideout.

Yet as he lay trapped there in silence, the conversation they had shared right in front of the hideout the day before brushed past his ears like a hallucination.

'...The goods were recovered, but two items were definitely missing.'

Gerik's gaze suddenly shifted to Lugos's pack, which he had shoved near his feet. Those "missing items" the raiders had pursued even as they turned a village to ashes.

'What the hell is in Lugos's pack that made them do all this...?'

Gerik slowly pulled the pack toward himself.

He barely managed to drag it to the entrance of the cramped hole, then carefully moved aside some of the camouflage leaves and opened it beneath the light filtering through.

'Oiled cloth, repair leather, camping gear...'

Having spent time with Lugos until recently and handled all his little errands, Gerik easily recognized the uses of the unusual items inside.

The gruff voice that had explained each item's purpose to him in the attic only days ago echoed in his ears, and Gerik's hands stopped for a moment.

'...Later. I'll think about it later.'

He had no time to dwell on such things, so he forcibly pushed the thoughts away and continued searching.

It was not easy to sort through the contents without making a sound in the dark, confined space. Still, Gerik persistently searched through the pack until he finally found a fist-sized object of unknown purpose.

'This is...!!'

Gerik recognized it as the small box Aron, the leader of Lugos's party, had shown Priest Osrik while explaining the situation.

'So they really did set aside half the items and leave them with Lugos.'

Gerik became certain that they had split up the goods and entrusted part of them to Lugos, following the principle of not putting all their eggs in one basket, to reduce the risk.

He needed to know what this object in his hands was, and why it had been exchanged for the lives of dozens of people.

'They said two were missing. That means I'm sitting on the very things they're risking their lives to find.'

Carrying these things on his back without knowing what they were would be the most dangerous choice of all. Gerik decided to open the box.

He carefully applied pressure to open it.

Once he peeled away what looked like sealing wax, he found, surprisingly, that there was no separate locking mechanism.

'Well... with a party as skilled as Lugos's, they could dismantle any lock anyway.'

Gerik understood why the Adventurers’ Guild had not piled on layers of security despite entrusting them with valuables.

'Lugos's party had decent skill, character, and reputation. That must have been why.'

If they wanted to, a party as capable as Lugos's would have had plenty of ways to steal the items and flee.

The Adventurers’ Guild seemed to have entrusted the goods to adventurers with a reasonable reputation rather than worrying about locks, knowing that they would either not betray them or could be easily tracked down if they did.

'...A ring?'

Gerik found a thin ring inside the box.

The slim gold band, covered in scratches, seemed to have originally held five gemstones. Only a small diamond remained now. The rest had been lost, leaving only the marks where they had once been.

'Those aren't scratches, they're letters...?'

Holding the box up to the light streaming through the leaves, he was able to inspect the ring more closely.

Then he realized that what he had thought were scratches were actually tiny, unfamiliar letters engraved into it.

'A whole village burned down over one ring like this?'

He did not believe the raiders could have killed so many people over nothing more than a damaged gold ring.

That was why Gerik suspected the ring was actually something far from ordinary. Wanting to examine it more carefully, he picked it up.

[Skyler's Quintet]

『Type: Ring (Damaged)』

『Grade: ???』

『Effect: Guardian Barrier (3rd Circle), ???, ???, ???, ???』

『Note: Want to become a great thief who can loot even a dragon's lair? Then cover yourself in items that can fool even dragons. That's all there is to it. - Great Thief Skyler -』

'?! I can identify artifacts too, not just skills...!'

Gerik was once again reminded that he possessed an ability the people of this world did not.

He turned the ring over in his hands with a grim expression.

'Since it has lost the powers corresponding to the four missing gems... it looks like the gems act as the core of its powers...?'

Thanks to the instincts he had developed from playing fantasy games in his previous life, Gerik quickly grasped the item's condition.

'It seems valuable, but it's damaged and can't display its full powers. I don't think it's important enough for the raiders to go this far over it.'

Gerik found it difficult to accept that they had committed such atrocities over an item in such a damaged condition.

For that reason, he instinctively guessed that this ring was not at the heart of the incident. He stopped examining it and opened the other small box to check its contents.

"...?"

A shabby key of unknown purpose lay alone in the box, catching Gerik completely off guard.

Still, he had just learned that touching an item allowed him to identify its use, so he put aside his bafflement and picked it up.

[??'s Dimensional Key]

『Type: Key』

『Grade: Legendary』

『Effect: Opens a door leading to ??'s ??.』

『Note: Praise ??'s mother. Weep for her kindness. She always loves you.』

"Dimensional... key...?"

It was a shabby key engraved with an unknown woman, but the single word "Legendary" on the status window made Gerik catch his breath.

'A Legendary item...!?'

The damaged ring was no ordinary object either, but Gerik was certain it was nothing compared to the shabby key in his hand.

'This was it. This is why everyone...'

For a moment, Gerik was speechless at the thought that dozens of lives had been exchanged for a palm-sized piece of metal.

'But if it's a Legendary item, they should've assigned more guards or entrusted it to a stronger party. Why leave the transport to just five people in a party that isn't even officially Silver Plate?'

The careless method of transport, so mismatched with the item's importance, left Gerik deeply confused.

He desperately tried to reason out why this had happened.

'There has to be a reason... Did they not know how important the item was? Or did an insider conceal its importance so they could steal it?'

He considered several possibilities, but there was too little evidence. No answer emerged.

Unable to reach any conclusion, Gerik eventually gave up and carefully packed the key away in the pack. Then he picked up the ring and thought.

'There's no one I can return these to, and nowhere I can safely hand them over right now. Take them to the Guild? That would be the same as telling those bastards where the items are.'

The answer was clear.

For the time being, he had to bury the existence of these items as a secret known only to himself.

Most of its gemstones were missing, leaving its capabilities diminished, and its exterior was damaged enough to look unimpressive. Even so, the countless delicate letters engraved across the ring gave anyone who saw it the sense that it was no ordinary object.

Gerik wanted the magical ability called Guardian Barrier engraved on the ring, but decided he should not wear it for the time being.

'If I walk around wearing something like this, I'll definitely get attacked.'

He placed the key and ring back in their boxes, hid them deep inside the pack, and tightly fastened the leather straps.

As he silently gripped the pack, the fact that not a single person in this vast foreign world knew him finally sank in.

Complete isolation.

Just like when he had waited alone for death in the bleak hospital room of his previous life, a terrible loneliness became cold air and wrapped itself around his entire body.

Part of him felt bitter and lost, but he could not stay curled up in a hole and cry his eyes out.

Gerik pulled out the map Lugos had given him from the pack.

Then he pointed to Stonecreek, the base for novice adventurers Lugos had recommended while he was still alive.

A place on the outskirts of the Demonwild Forest, where the threat of stronger monsters was relatively low, and roads made supplies easy to obtain.

'I'll start there.'

He would not take any foolhardy risks. He would establish himself firmly as an adventurer there and build enough strength to carry his own weight.

As long as they were pursuing these items, he might meet them again one day. When that happened, he refused to be someone who could only curl up in a hole and tremble like yesterday.

Gerik folded the map and tucked it into his clothes. His instincts screamed at him to leave immediately, but he remembered Lugos's final instructions and forcibly closed his eyes.

'At least three days. Got it? Promise me.'

Gerik firmly suppressed his careless impatience and pulled the sleeping bag up to his chin.

* * *

The second night passed, and morning came again.

'There's a small village along the way, so if things get desperate, I can stock up on supplies there...'

Fortunately, as he considered his journey ahead and his future life, making plan after plan, time passed fairly quickly. It was difficult, but Gerik somehow endured until the next day.

Footnotes:

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