Chương 33: Loot

Immediately a flood of information entered my mind about the new function of the Skill and how it worked. Essentially, I could give one of my Minor Simulations one of my Limbo State Skills that had been formed via Skill Shards. That Minor Simulation would take that Skill with them, and with the increased combat power, they should survive longer. Turns out the Simulations weren't actually me, but rather Timothy and Mila themselves, meaning they had their own minds and thoughts, not mine.

It also meant they only had their Skills and not mine, including their stats—the stat part was a little complicated. Whenever I started a Life Simulation, I would enter a person that had the exact amount of stats as me, meaning Mila had as many stats as me at that point in time. Same for Timothy. We had the exact stats. This, however, also meant the Minor Simulations didn't grow with me. Rather, Mila still had the same Stats I had when I was just Level 1. I guess I should have known that.

The new addition to the Skill allowed me to add a Skill to that Minor Simulation and increase the Minor Simulation's combat effectiveness. Now, the new function was not just good news. Should my character die with the Skill, I would lose the Skill. And from what I could see, death was always certain within those Simulations. It was then that new information entered my mind. Turns out the Skill could be used three times before it would get destroyed.

Now, the question was, could I get 33-34 Skill Shards in one Simulation, or would I waste the Skill? I decided to take that bet. The next day, I began with Minor Simulation again. Once again, the options for Minor Simulation were shown to me. 1: Mila, the farmer 2: Timothy, the martial artist I almost automatically chose the second option before I froze. What if I gave Mila the Unarmed Combat Skill? Timothy already had some amount of skill, but Mila had nothing.

What if instead of forcing him to use the Sword, which he had no idea how to use, I gave him the Unarmed Combat Skill? I didn't think long and chose option one. Usually, I would have been able to read the Minor Simulation immediately, but this time a new line of text formed in front of me. Do you wish to grant Mila one of your Skills? Yes. And with that, Mila was granted the Unarmed Combat Skill I had just formed. You have chosen Mila, the Farmer. Your village is overrun by bandits.

You toss your sword away and fight the thin and round man. Your overwhelming skill allows for an easy win, leaving you without injuries. You decide that instead of hiding, you save your neighbor's family. A group of bandits has just broken into their home. You ambush them from behind. Your fist strike breaks the neck of one of the bandits. Your next strikes are as lethal as the ones before. You win the fight with minor injuries. The family thanks you profusely. The wife and children cry tears of joy.

The man looks at the ground in shame and walks away. He comes back with a pair of leather gloves that have spikes at the knuckles. He says they were a gift to his son before he died. Now he wants you to carry on his legacy. You deny. The man insists. You hesitate. His wife and daughter insist too. You accept eventually. You ask for the son's name. It's Jason. You promise to make use of Jason's gift. With the bandits dead, you give the weapons to the family and tell them to flee to the forest.

You want to fight the bandits and take care of them. Then you see how many bandits there truly are. Hundreds. You decided to flee with the family. Inside the forest, you stay hidden until you hear the cries during the whole night. Anger fills you and the man whom you saved. You both decide you can't sit still. You decide to ambush the bandits. The man gets injured on the 6th ambush and dies on the 8th. He asks you to take care of his family. You agree.

In your anger, you kill a couple more bandits before taking the family and fleeing. You flee for days. You eat roots and herbs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Only after a week do you arrive at a new village. They take you in but question you. Angry, exhausted, and naive, you tell them everything and every little detail, including the family heirloom you have been gifted. You see the greedy looks of the villagers but think nothing of them.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. You live peacefully for a week in the village. Then at night, somebody breaks into your home. Neither of you expected each other. The robber drives his dagger into your chest, with a surprised look on his face. He curses under his breath and flees. You succumb to your wounds. You are furious you couldn't keep your promise to the man. You die. It's over. Fuck, reading this was stressful.

Mila was really, really making me angry with his decisions, and a couple of times I was scared he was going to die. Who decided to deny a pair of gauntlets when your life literally depends on it?! Then that naive idiot decides to share the news of all of his loot? How could I not be angry? This simulation could have lasted much, much longer if this Mila guy was just not an idiot. I wanted to cry. He should have just kept quiet.

However, my imaginary tears are quickly wiped away as I glance at the things I have received. You have gained: Unarmed Combat [Common] - Forty-three Hiding [Common] - Five Jason's Gloves - [Common] A pair of gloves dropped out of thin air. They were a dark brown leather that obviously had seen some use. At the knuckles, there was a metal plate, and on that metal plate, three evenly spaced spikes protruded outward. To my surprise, they actually weren't sharp but rather rounded at the top. Interesting. I whistled.

Equipment like this usually only dropped from Dungeons. Or, well, crafters could create them. Equipment with a Rarity Grade also usually came with a few extra stat points. Unfortunately, I didn't have the Analyze Skill or similar. I strapped them on and immediately felt a little stronger. However, the increase in stat points was not shown in my Status sheet, so I could only guess. Common Equipment usually doesn't give out a lot of points, though.

Nor do they have any other secondary effects, so there was no need to hire an appraiser. I also doubted our Town had one. My eyes landed on the amount of Skill Shards I had gathered and widened a little. 43 Skill Shards. In one run. Holy shit. That was a lot. Even if it cost me 100 Skill Shards, I was sure this was worth it. I repeated the process two more times—then the Skill broke. The second time, Mila died together with the man when ambushing the bandits. I gained 37 Unarmed Combat and 3 Hiding Skill Shards.

No equipment or anything else. On the third run, I survived as far as before, but it seemed that Mila was still an idiot and got robbed. I got 40 Unarmed Combat Skill Shards this time and 4 Hiding ones. Also, with that Simulation, my Unarmed Combat Skill that I gave Mila just shattered. At least I heard a shattering sound, and then it was just gone. So in total, that was 120 Skill Shards for Unarmed Combat and 12 for Hiding. Hmm. Minus 100 for the Skill for the next runs, that was 20 Shards profit in three runs.

Usually, I only gained one to three Skill shards per run and around 13 for all ten of my Simulations. Now I gained 20 in three. I looked down at my hands. And I gained a pair of Common Grade gloves. I think you can imagine who decided to give Mila Unarmed Combat again for the next three runs. Me. The runs went as before, and after deducting the cost of the Unarmed Combat Skill, I was left with 18 Skill Shards over. I repeated the process one more time.

I gave Mila the Unarmed Combat Skill, he used it, died three times, and I was left over with 21. With that, I had run Minor Simulations nine times and sacrificed three Skills. I had one left for today. I gave Mila the Skill again and clasped my hands. This time, I had my eyes closed and prayed to whatever god there was that I would get some loot or similar again. I didn't. Mila died again, fighting the robber. At least this time he killed him. Welp, I still gained 40 Skill Shards with that again.

Minus the 33 it technically cost, I made a profit of 7. So, in one day I gained 66 Skill Shards of profit that I could use fully on myself or my town. It meant that on average I could gain 2 Skills every three days. So, around 110 in one year. I could gain one hundred and ten General Skills in one year. It didn't sound like much considering my army would need at least twice as much so every one of them had a General Skill.

But just the amount of money I could sell these Skills for could probably alleviate all of my citizens from tax. That's just how insane that was. Also, if I managed to equip a bunch of Wood Ranks with General Skills... the compound effect would be insane. They would practically have an Uncommon Grade Class for Stone Rank guaranteed if they actually used these Skills to increase their combat power. Or what would happen if I merged all of these 110 Unarmed Combat Skills into mine? Would I get an Epic Skill?

In one year? Or would the Skill reach level 200? Then there was also the loot... I slapped my cheeks. Hard. I had to wake up from my dreams. For now, I had to survive the beastwave. Then the pests. Then the Demonic Cultists... oh, there were also the Nine Mountain Bandits. Yeah, now I definitely understood what the System meant: Blessings and Curses were part of the same coin. I stood up from my bed with motivation flowing through my veins.

I took a cold shower, promising myself to investigate Fort Barthorn to see if they got some kind of heating system. Anyway, once I was done with that, I left my room, ready to eat breakfast. It was then that a surprise guest appeared at the bottom of the stairs.

"Samuel," I said, slightly surprised.

"Good morning. What brings you here?"

"Good morning, my Lord," he bowed. I asked him many times not to.

"There are two mages who applied to the army. I have already confirmed their classes." My eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"Mages?" I said.

"As in spells and magic? And you say two people have got that Class?" Samuel nodded.

"Bring them here," I said.

"Tell them they are invited for breakfast." Samuel nodded again and sped off. My surprise was understandable. Mages were rare. But they were exceptionally rare in rural regions. And even rarer in places where the Mana Density was as low as in the Barren Lands. Around one in one thousand combat Classes had the Mage Class available. This meant that I technically should have zero mages. And should have zero mages for a long, long time. Especially in the Barren Lands.

If they got the Mage Class, this meant they had talent—great talent, very likely. And I got two. The statistics could, of course, be skewed. For example, somebody with the General Skill Mana Manipulation was practically guaranteed a Mage Class. It was also why most nobles had the Mage Class. They could buy themselves into it and sling spells from behind. I thought back to my two mages. I had two.

"Could it be?" I mumbled. Immediately my mind went towards one possibility I didn't think I would encounter so soon.

"I have to test it. How interesting. Even if they don't have that... it would simply mean they were very, very talented mages. Or I am very lucky... we shall see." When breakfast was prepared, Samuel entered with a curious duo. Immediately I could tell they were siblings: a young man and a young woman. They were both pretty good looking, and their noses were practically the same. Both of them had dark brown, almost black hair, but the unusual thing about those two was their eyes.

In a certain lighting, the man's eyes would glow red, while the woman's in blue. They both wore regular clothes not fit for a visit to a lord. Hmm. Their parents should have informed them... either they were very poor, forgot, or their parents died. Considering the famine, I leaned towards all three.

"These are Amy and her brother Andrew," Samuel introduced them. Both clumsily bowed.

"They are a pair of twins. I have known their parents for years, alas..."

"It's a shame what happened," I nodded at the two, then turned to Samuel, "Please leave us alone. I think we have a lot to discuss." Samuel looked surprised but complied. He left promptly. I motioned for the two to sit in front of me, and after looking at one another, they sat down. I could tell they were nervous. I could also tell that the girl was able to hide her nervousness much, much better than the guy. I ate my food. Two hot, steaming porridges with pieces of meat stood in front of them.

Next to the food was a cup of tea. Sebastian was so kind as to provide a few leaves for the housekeepers. After seeing me eat and not speak, the two joined me. I didn't like playing the scary lord, but I had to do it. It wasn't until five minutes into the meal that the boy spoke up.

"What did you call us for?" His sister watched me carefully, as I wiped my mouth with a napkin. I put it carefully back, then took a sip of tea.

"So, what kind of Trait do the both of you have?"