Chương 72: Bigger On The Inside!

"How is this backpack as good as a spatial artifact?" Damion questioned, looking over the bag to see if he could tell what secrets it contained.

"I did not say as good as a spatial artifact. I said the next best thing," Leland tutted.

"True spatial artifacts require special materials from Ferocious and Demonic Beasts that have a natural Spatial affinity. This bag, however, has spatial enchantments to make it able to hold more, but not actually create a separate pocket dimension."

"What?" Damion said with a confused look.

"The bag is an artifact, that while not a spatial storage artifact it can hold a great number of things inside, it stretches the space inside, instead of creating its own space," Leland tried explaining again, though Damion still looked like he was trying to figure out what Leland meant.

"It is bigger on the inside!" Leland's shout caught Damion's attention and Leland began pulling things out of the bag and Damion finally got it. Rope, first aid kit, potion kit, blankets, stakes, self-filling canteen, a compass and finally a shielded fire pit. Several of the items Leland pulled out of the bag, should have filled the bag entirely and Damion had a hard time believing it all came out of the bag, despite seeing it firsthand.

"I have rope," Damion said looking at the items Leland had pulled out.

"But this rope, is an artifact. If you tie it off and climb down a cliff, you can channel your magic and untie it from the bottom." Damion just looked at Leland, unsure what to say. Having that function on a rope sounded useful. However, Damion did not understand why, after climbing down a cliff, he would not want to climb back up. Though he supposed it was possible, if someone was chasing him.

"What does the shielded fire pit do?"

"The shielded fire pit prevents the light from the fire spilling into the surroundings. This way you can make a fire, even cook on it, but the light won't attract unwanted attention."

"How much is all this going to cost me?" Damion asked.

"370 gold," Leland said with his characteristic smile.

"Here," Damion stretched out his hand with his payment card. Such a sum was not easy to come by, and it was even harder to see it go so quickly. Half his wealth spent, Damion left Leland's and went to Saung Adventurer Supply and stocked up on rations from Gerrard. Luckily the rations did not cost much, and Damion did not feel like he was going to cry when he left. After depositing his belongings at home, Damion set off to the Adventurer Association in search of new missions.

Now that he was an E Rank knight, he hoped to find E Rank missions that paid better. The goal he set for himself was to find a mission to kill E Rank Ferocious Beasts since he needed 10 E Rank beast kills to complete his current quest for E Rank Beasts and luckily, he also needed 10 of any rank to complete his original kill quest. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

If Damion was able to complete both quests at once, he would get 200 experience, which was also the amount needed to level up the Magic System. It was Damion's hope that leveling up the Magic System would allow him to fully unlock the system before turning 18. The number of available missions for E Rank surprised Damion, unfortunately they were largely escort missions.

While Damion would like the chance to visit the various towns listed as the destinations, Damion did not think his mother could handle him being away for possibly weeks at a time. When Damion found an extermination mission he was quite excited, that was until he realized it was a mission he had seen the first time he was taking missions. It was to kill 25 Aerico. Either there were a lot of these plague beasts in the Benault Forest, or no one was taking the mission.

Damion understood no one wanting to take the mission. The reward was only 10 silver, split between the entire team of adventurers. Aerico varied in Rank from F to D Rank, but were very easy to kill, they were slow ambling Ferocious Beasts, but they held no value in materials for artificers. Most people called them cursed beasts or plague beasts. They looked mostly humanoid, but diseased, and they spread that disease everywhere they went.

People would kill them whenever they came across them, but people seldom sought them out since they were more of a pest. As easy as they were to kill, the risk of fighting them was high, because the cost of using a healing potion or antidote if infected by an Aerico made no one want to take the mission. The potential cost far outweighed the reward. Sighing to himself, Damion accepted the mission and took a look at the map of where to find them in the Benault forest.

The map showed they were near the southern tip of the forest. As proof of his success, Damion had to return with the right ear of each one he killed, after the ear was collected he had to burn the body to minimize the risk of infection. With the information in hand and a mission to complete, Damion headed out to rent a ground car for the morning. He could leave today, but it was past midday, and he thought a fresh start in the morning would be better than having to stop and camp halfway to his destination.

The next morning Damion set off. This would be the first mission he would be undertaking alone. And he was feeling quite nervous. The escort missions he had taken, he had either Ethan or Arica as a companion, to make sure he did not do anything overly foolish. Today, he was on his own and he was fervently hoping he did not screw up. The drive to the edge of the Benault Forest was uneventful, but quick, thanks to the ground car.

Damion figured with the cost of the rental, and possibly using up some of his rations and healing potions, he was going to be lucky to breakeven on this mission. Of course, what he was really looking forward to was the experience from completing his quests. Now that he was off the road and following the edge of the Benault Forest to its southern end, the speed Damion traveled had slowed down, but he kept the ground car going as fast as he could.

Shortly before lunch time Damion arrived at the area marked on the map and stopped his ground car. The Aerico were inside the forest, and he could not drive the car in to hunt for them. At least he knew what to do with the ground car. When he and Arica were on their survey mission, they had to head into the forest to search for the measuring plate, Arica had shown him how to lockout the controls of the ground car, to prevent anyone from stealing it.

This really was not an issue for them before, since they did not go but a few meters into the forest most of the time, but now it was useful information for Damion. With the ground car secured, Damion headed in for his hunt. Damion left his pack and most of his supplies in the ground car, he did not believe he would be going too far from it and he did not want to lug everything while wearing his armor.

The bag Leland had sold him was quite useful, but Leland neglected to mention the bag's biggest drawback, while it could fit a remarkable number of items inside, it did not reduce the weight of those items.