Chapter 30
As I listened to the students' conversation, I felt the muscles in my cheek twitch.
Damn, I got carried away and overdid it.
I was having fun testing the Item Box's capabilities.
I mean, being able to store things just by looking at them? Of course that gets you fired up.
Still, taking absolutely everything was overdoing it. No wonder it stood out.
…Well, I'm not putting it back.
"There's no food...? Is that really true?"
"Yeah... I checked several times myself. But they didn't look like they were lying. W-what are we going to do, Nishino? If this keeps up, we're..."
The student who had come to report it sounded extremely rattled.
Even through the wall, I could tell the bespectacled boy and the delinquent were rattled, too.
As expected, the only one who remained calm was their leader, Nishino-kun.
"Ohno, how much food do we have left?"
"Huh? Um... Well, if it were just us, I think we had enough to last about three days, but... we gave some to those people earlier, so..."
"Hey! Stop rambling and get to the point, you idiot!"
"Gah! S-sorry!"
The delinquent barked at the bespectacled boy, who was answering haltingly.
"Stop, Shibata. You have a bad habit of immediately starting to shout like that, you know?"
"...Y-yes, sorry."
"Ohno, take your time. How much food is left?"
"Ah...! S-sorry. Um, um... I-I think there's very little left... Maybe enough for one day at most..."
Everyone fell silent at the bespectacled boy's reply.
"I see... All right. The refugees haven't heard about this, have they?"
"Y-yeah, of course not."
I heard it loud and clear, though.
"Good. Whatever you do, don't let them realize it. If they learn our food reserves are running low, they might riot. Make sure everyone else knows that, too."
"U-understood."
With that, the student who had come to report it left the room.
"Whew... This has gotten troublesome..."
"Yeah..."
"Let's sort this out. Judging from the circumstances, the supplies disappeared sometime after the third supply run ended and before the fourth began. That would be about two hours. Under normal circumstances, it would be impossible to strip every store in this area of its merchandise in that amount of time."
"Yeah, exactly. But if that's the case—"
"Yeah. Then it must be the work of someone with a Skill like that. And judging by the scale, they're probably pretty high-level."
"M-maybe it was some kind of Skill like Item Box or teleportation magic? Skills like that show up a lot in web novels."
Yep, that's right.
As expected of the bespectacled boy. If you're an avid web novel reader, 'Appraisal' and 'Item Box' are the two Skills you really ought to know.
"They've really caused us a lot of trouble."
"Damn it, who the hell did this!? Stealing other people's stuff without permission!"
No, Delinquent.
That line is a total boomerang coming right back at you.
It doesn't belong to you guys, either.
"..."
"W-what's wrong, Nishino-kun? Why are you so deep in thought?"
"No... I just think the timing is too perfect, no matter how you look at it. For this to happen right when we accepted the refugees..."
"D-do you think that person did it on purpose?"
"Ohno, we haven't even established that the culprit acted alone. They could be operating in a group, like us."
"Oh, right..."
Nope. I'm alone.
"Besides, it could just be a series of coincidences. They might still be nearby."
"Are we going to search for them?"
"If possible. But... if they really did deliberately take everything, things are going to get troublesome."
"What does that mean?"
"Don't you get it? There's only one reason anyone would do something like that. It's the same reason we accepted the refugees. How valuable do you think food and daily necessities are in the world as it is now? Their value will only keep rising as time passes. If you use them effectively as bargaining chips, there will be plenty of people willing to obey."
"R-right..."
No, no, that wasn't my intention.
Damn, they've seriously gotten the wrong idea about me.
I hadn't even thought about anything like that.
I was just having fun testing the Item Box's capabilities and got carried away. There's no way I can tell them that...
"Either way, if food keeps getting stolen at this rate, we'll be in serious trouble. We need to secure a substantial amount of food as soon as possible."
"Are you going to expand the search area?"
"It's risky, but we don't have any other choice. I'd like to head out immediately, but unfortunately, it's already night. With monsters roaming around, searching at night is far too dangerous. Let's rest for today and start at sunrise tomorrow."
"Also, if the culprit's goal is to monopolize the supplies, there's a good chance they'll come here, too. Stay alert."
"Yeah."
"Got it, Nishino-kun."
That seemed to bring the discussion to an end.
The three of them left the break room and headed toward the sales floor.
Once the timing was right, I slipped out of the home improvement store.
"Phew..."
I let out a deep sigh without meaning to.
What am I going to do about this, anyway?
They've really gotten the wrong idea about me...
After that, I entered a building a short distance from the home improvement store and secured a place to rest.
I took some food out of the Item Box and had a late dinner.
Momo came out of the shadows, too, and I gave it some dog food.
I guess I'll go to sleep for today... I've had a tiring day.
I'll think about the home improvement store's supplies tomorrow.
With that in mind, I got into bed and tried to fall asleep.
At that moment, 'Enemy Search' detected something.
"...Hm?"
It was the presence of monsters.
How many...? Four in all.
They were heading this way.
No, more precisely, they weren't heading for the building where I was hiding; they were headed toward the home improvement store.
"Momo, we're heading out."
"Woof."
I left the building and headed toward the home improvement store.
I hid and watched. The monsters there were wolf-like.
That thing... It looks like the first monster I ever ran over and killed.
That was a Shadow Wolf, wasn't it?
But these are a size smaller than that one.
A lower-ranked version of a Shadow Wolf, then.
They seemed to be prowling around the home improvement store, as if checking what was going on inside.
"Grrr...!"
Momo let out a low growl.
Is it because they're dog-like monsters?
They looked extremely wary.
"What about the students...? They haven't noticed them yet?"
There were two guards at the entrance, but they didn't seem to have noticed.
It was already dark, so it looked like they couldn't see the monsters.
Or rather, doesn't anyone there have a 'detection-type' Skill?
Ah, if they did, they'd have noticed me, too.
What should I do?
I have a feeling this is one of those situations where getting involved carelessly will only make things more complicated...