Chương 5: Chapter 4

Lionel sat where he usually did, the back-right corner of the Guild hall, a seat the Guild had apparently long since stopped pretending belonged to anyone else. It gave him a clear, comfortable view of every adventurer in the room: each one a potential customer, or prey. He was talking to someone with a leather cap wrung anxiously in their hands, as Lionel wore his characteristic grin - the one he always had when a new stack of money was about to be made.

Corin watched as they spoke, then noticed Bran sitting on the other side of the hall. They briefly exchanged glances, Bran giving him a short, deliberate nod - perhaps the most recognition he'd ever gotten from him. Corin nodded in turn, trying his best to hide both his surprise and how much the gesture meant, and then saw the leather-cap-wringing man shaking Lionel's hand, something passing between their palms, before he rose and left the hall at once. Corin sat down in front of Lionel before he could react.

"Corin?" Lionel said, surprised.

"That hound fight yesterday give you a real taste of money? I thought you wanted nothing to do with me, especially after-""Well, I - quite unfortunately - want something to do with you now," Corin interrupted, letting out a long breath before speaking again.

"Ten gold of you, to be precise." Lionel's eyebrows raised." Ten gold? That's steep. Maybe too steep. What in gods' name do you want ten gold for?"

"I believe the way this works is I ask for money, and you give me it," Corin said, trying to project an air of confidence that was unfortunately entirely unjustified.

"I don't think reasons are discussed nor required."

"It's perfectly understandable for me to be curious," Lionel replied.

"Especially since I don't think you've ever had a single gold coin to your name."

"That's... fair," Corin conceded.

"But I'm in a rush. I'd much prefer to just get the gold and get out, thank you very much."

"Ten gold... that'll cost you," Lionel continued.

"A lot. Fifteen gold, to be precise. Payable at exactly the end of the week, and not a copper less." Corin hoped his gulp wasn't particularly perceptible.

"Is there any wiggle-room on that price?" Corin asked, a lot more timidly than he'd meant to.

"I am not much of a wiggler, I think you'll find," Lionel replied sharply - an apparently unifying quality among the elite.

"Fair enough. Can you give it to me now?" Lionel stared at him for a few seconds, sizing him up. He was used to a bit more haggling at the least, and drew his own conclusions about just how desperate Corin was. Lionel loved desperate. He smirked, taking out a heavy coin purse and placing it on the table with a notable 'thud'.

He opened it, revealing an untold amount of gold, taking out each coin with deliberate, practiced care - each one stamped with the same worn profile, some long-dead king whose name Corin really should know.

"Ten gold coins, for fifteen at the end of the week," Lionel said, slowly pushing them towards Corin.

"Remember, I know where your family lives," he continued, something almost tired in his voice.

"Believe me. I understand, better than you'd think, what happens to people who can't pay in time." Who can't pay in time. The rage hit Corin, sharp and immediate - then just as fast, he swallowed it whole. This wasn't the time for fighting; no, that would come later. For once in his life, he was taking a real risk he hadn't been forced into, and he wasn't about to throw that away over a threat he should have known was coming. He took the money and left, not deigning to give Lionel a reply at all.

Pushing open the Guild hall doors, he moved directly to the merchant's store, maneuvering his way in front of a level 33 adventurer who looked like he earned more on a single quest than in Corin's entire career - moving ahead of him perhaps specifically because it looked like he could easily afford the bag. Entering the store revealed the merchant once more trying to hide his displeasure at his repeat arrival, but Corin didn't bother to react. Instead, he just dropped the ten gold coins on the table.

"The Bag of Holding, please," Corin said, just as the other adventurer walked in behind him.

"I don't need a bag - well, I guess the Bag of Holding already is a bag, but I won't need a bag regardless - unless of course you think I should put the Bag in a bag..." He trailed off, the other adventurer shooting him a brief, bewildered look before stepping up beside him.

"I'll take one too," the adventurer added, and Corin glanced at him, then back at the merchant. Have two bags. Please. Please dear god have two bags.

"Unfortunately," the merchant said, gingerly taking the Bag of Holding out of the glass enclosure, "I only have one left. They've been very popular." The merchant held the bag in his hands, looking at both of them in a mild state of discomfort. They all exchanged awkward glances.

"Please," Corin said, trying not to appear too pitiful, "I asked you for this one specifically. And I was here first."

"Only because you walked in front of me," the adventurer snapped.

"Eleven gold and I'll take it now." Corin's stomach dropped. An entire extra gold coin. Something he absolutely didn't have." Ten gold, and," Corin said, emptying his entire coin pouch, "... seven silver, and 34 copper coins." The awkward glances between them burgeoned, as a brief, heavy silence fell over the store. The merchant sighed.

"Ten gold, seven silver, and keep your copper - God, I forgot that you people even use copper," the merchant said, handing the bag over to Corin.

"You did ask for it before, after all."

"There'll be more stock next-" the merchant continued, turning to face the adventurer - who had already harrumphed his way out of the store. The merchant let out another sigh.

"Doesn't pay to do the right thing," the merchant said, almost to himself.

"But you just did," Corin replied." And it didn't pay," the merchant replied in turn.

"Now please, take it before the regret starts to seep in."

"Thank you so so so so so much," Corin said, each subsequent 'so' apparently hurting the merchant more and more. He turned and pushed open the door, then stopped.

"Say, I didn't get your name," Corin said, glancing back at the merchant.

"With any luck, I'll be shopping here a lot more often."

"With any luck you won't," the merchant retorted, before his expression softened somewhat.

"It's Otho, though. Now please, leave me to my ruminations."

"Corin," he said simply.

"Thank you again." Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. He left the store, clutching the bag as if it were his very lifeblood - it technically was - and noted that it was completely weightless. He let his hand fall away, and it simply floated in the air. Corin allowed himself a moment of marvel that he now actually owned this. He spotted the adventurer further down the street speaking to another affluent-looking merchant.

The adventurer suddenly looked at Corin and angrily pointed him out to the man, and Corin figured he had more motivation to leave. He tried to do just that, and was instead angrily confronted by the adventurer." Twelve gold that cost me!" he shouted at Corin, who flinched.

"Said it was the last one in stock in town. You made me waste two gold for nothing!" Corin held the bag in his hand, briefly having a vivid visualization of opening it and the adventurer being completely sucked inside of it.

"I'm sorry," Corin started, sincerely as he could, "I did ask the merchant-"" Corin Vess," the adventurer interjected, spitting out the text on Corin's adventurer badge.

"I'll remember that name." He turned and stomped away, leaving Corin with the sobering realization that he'd just made an enemy of a man more than thrice his level - a thought he soon swapped out for the far more pleasant one of stuffing him into the bag. He suppressed that thought, eventually, and trudged off himself. It was already about noon by the time Corin reached the outskirts of the city, holding the Bag of Holding in one hand and his copper hammer in the other.

He was keenly aware that he looked like some kind of child-kidnapping hobo, and was immensely relieved not to see any other adventurers afoot to witness it. First, he wanted to check that he'd actually purchased a Bag of Holding, and not a Bag of Fuck-all. He took out all 34 of his copper coins, and poured them into the bag. It immediately sucked them into its black nothing-ness, the bag still remaining entirely weightless. Corin peered into it, but could only see darkness. Wait. Don't get too close.

This damn thing could suck me in if I'm not careful. Putting that unpleasant thought out of his mind, it was now time to test his theory, the theory he'd essentially staked his life on. The forest was rife with creatures, starting with some low level runts that he was perfectly capable of fighting one-on-one, but the further away he moved from the city the less capable he rapidly became.

Regardless, if he could just instantaneously store any living creature into his bag, then he wouldn't have to worry about their level at all, he simply needed to get close enough to them. However, he did not want to test that theory on some kind of level 100 Elder Dragon; any critter would do. There weren't many rats out in the forest, but dart frogs were quite common in the area, as well as salamanders, slimes. Bats too, but usually only at night.

His decision was soon made for him, when a fiery salamander made eye contact with him and seemingly decided that it was not fond of his continued existence, its Substrate description subsequently popping up thereafter: [Salamander - Lv. 2 {Common}] HP: 15 Threat: Trivial Salamanders were relatively easy to handle, as long as you knew their attack pattern - and thankfully, he did, courtesy of several quests he'd procured to cull them.

This soon proved true when a mini fire blast shot towards him, the salamander shooting him with essentially a weaponized burp. He dodged to the right, the fiery goop instead hitting the tree behind him, which started sizzling almost on contact. Now or never.

The salamander was apparently readying up another violent burp when Corin reached it, opening the bag towards it, attaching the intention of ' in' throughout - and the salamander abruptly was both there and not-there for half an instant, and then was very much not-there. Corin blinked at its absence, briefly glancing into the open bag and once more being greeted with murky darkness. [Salamander acquired!] Through no effort at all, he'd just put a live creature into a post-spatial place.

The bag was still completely weightless. Now, he had no idea if the thing would be alive or dead when he took it out, but it was valuable either way. However, more valuable animals were, in turn, a whole lot more valuable. Corin delved deeper into the forest, that knowledge taking the fore in his mind, keeping him moving forward with excited purpose.

He'd encountered two dart frogs and a hornet along the way (who were almost immediately safely snuggled into his bag) when he encountered something of immense value, and immense danger: [Direboar - Lv. 17 {Common}] HP:??? Threat: Near-lethal Fortunately it still hadn't noticed him, so he could- No, no. It had noticed him. It had very -noticed him. Every instinct told Corin to turn and run, an instinct that would almost certainly result in his very-timely death.

Instead he narrowly won a fight against his lizard brain and opened the bag as wide as he could as the thing charged at him, unsure if it would even hold it - and was promptly, incredibly both happy and surprised to see that it, in fact, did. [Direboar acquired!] That thing was worth 20 silver at the least, and that was as a messy corpse. Double if it were alive. Enough of those could potentially pay off the bulk of his debt on the same day he'd acquired it.

Corin held the bag, feeling the immense weight of it - the immense weight of its value, regardless of the fact that it was completely weightless otherwise. Now, those direboars usually hung out in groups... Corin had three more direboars comfortably - at least, some part of him hoped comfortably - lodged into his bag, as well as two more fire termites, but not before one had burned his ankle. He moved more cautiously now, realizing that he wasn't 100% sure of exactly how the bag worked.

He knew there was a limit to its storage, but he didn't know if it was based on weight, slots, or some other incomprehensible metric. This irked him (actually terrified him) since he didn't want to find out that the bag was full the hard way; especially since if he found it out the hard way against a high-level monster, it would also almost certainly be the lethal way.

With that in mind, he very carefully visualized the copper coins he'd put in it at the start of this endeavor, and pictured them moving out as he lifted the back end of the bag. 33 copper coins tumbled out of it, one curiously missing, and he methodically picked them up and put them into his coin pouch instead. Thereafter, he considered turning back and calling it a day. He knew that he only had a limited amount of time with the bag working this way, so he didn't have any time to waste.

He'd already taken a big risk today, and he'd have to ride that risk to the end. Still, he decided to not store any more low-level creatures into the bag, since they'd potentially fill it up through whatever metric the bag had. This left him either having to fight or flee from whatever weak creature he came up against, and he was not particularly good at either.

He reminded himself that he'd managed to kill two Gutter Hounds yesterday, and then reminded himself, further, that without Bran, those Hounds would have ripped him apart completely. As if responding to his calamitous thoughts, three fire termites appeared from the damp, chewed-out wood that surrounded him. His copper hammer was perfectly capable of squishing them - though they were perfectly capable of eating him, too. It was a fair fight. Corin hated fair fights.

He managed to squish two of them before flinging the third into his bag, its pincers inches from his groin. A good trade, he figured, though he was now even more concerned about the storage space (or lack thereof). [Fire Termite Pincer x2 acquired] He pocketed them without a second thought and moved deeper into the forest, taking each step as quietly and cautiously as he could, until he crested a small hill and found a clearing with a nest of some kind at its center.

He slowly approached, peering over the edge to reveal four eggs, each shimmering a sheen of gold. Griffin eggs. Griffins shouldn't be this far south, but rumor had something bigger moving in up north, chasing them down here. Each egg was worth a gold coin at least. And a griffin is worth your life. Corin didn't need to think twice: take the eggs and go. He'd already have half his debt paid off; and he'd still be alive, which was a big plus.

Without a second more of hesitation he scooped them up into the bag, the bizarre there-and-yet-not-there vision of them flashing before disappearing. Corin breathed a sigh of relief, then turned to leave - then was thrown into darkness. He looked up in confusion, thinking that there'd been an eclipse; soon finding out that something else was blocking out the sun entirely: [Griffin - Lv. 28 {Rare}] HP:???

Threat: Lethal A screech broke out that almost burst his eardrums after the griffin had noticed the absence of her eggs, and he ducked just as it swooped at him, both its claws and its beak missing him by centimeters. It turned with unnatural speed and looped back towards him, the single beat of its wings stripping the trees bare behind it. He desperately lifted the bag and held it open directly at its head, the way he had every time before. And then, quite suddenly: [Bag of Holding – FULL: No space remaining]