Chapter 14
I had come to a shop in the shopping district that sold items for adventurers.
〈Heal Potions〉, 〈Smoke Bombs〉, and 〈Decoy Dolls〉 lined the shelves.
〈Heal Potions〉... In other words, they were items that restored your health when you drank them, but in 〈Magic World〉, they were somewhat cumbersome to use.
Depending on the item's quality, you had to drink a fair amount for it to have a sufficient effect.
It took a little time to take one out, put it in your mouth, and drink it all.
That left you wide open for quite a while.
To make matters worse, the HP recovery after drinking one happened gradually over time, so it often wasn't fast enough during a fight.
In short, you couldn't just use them repeatedly in the middle of a fight and brute-force your way through.
Healing Skills were much the same; most of them left you wide open, one way or another.
Even so, there was no reason not to stock up on ways to heal before heading into a Dungeon.
“Three 〈Heal Potions〉, please.”
I called out to the woman running the shop.
“Sure thing. That'll be 72,000 Gold.”
They sure weren't cheap...
But if I pinched pennies here and ran out of healing items at the worst possible moment, it could easily cost me my life.
I couldn't afford not to buy them.
“I wanted to ask you something. Where can I buy a 〈Skill Book〉? I haven't seen one in any of the shops I've checked...”
Yes, my main goal was to find a 〈Skill Book〉.
A 〈Skill Book〉 was an item that granted you an entire Skill Tree, rather than a single Skill.
There were no 〈Skill Books〉 for Class-exclusive Skill Trees like 〈Oath of Heavy Armor〉, but you could acquire general-purpose Skill Trees like 〈Beginner Swordsmanship〉 and 〈Attack Boost〉.
Generally, though, each person could only have up to three Skill Trees, so you'd have to erase one of them.
Any Skill Points you'd invested in it would disappear, too.
What I wanted was the 〈Skill Book〉 for 〈Smoldering Fangs〉.
Frankly, for a Heavy Knight, everything up to acquiring 〈Smoldering Fangs〉 was basically just the tutorial.
Without it, you were going nowhere.
The Skills from 〈Oath of Heavy Armor〉 and 〈Smoldering Fangs〉 worked together in an unusual way, allowing you to deal several times more damage than an attack-focused Class once you met the right conditions.
A fully developed Heavy Knight wasn't a defensive Class.
Even calling it an attack-focused Class didn't quite fit.
It was more like a human weapon that could unleash one powerful attack after another.
Of course, you could switch your equipment and adopt a defensive style, too, but...
I wanted to get it as soon as possible, but the 〈Skill Book〉 for 〈Smoldering Fangs〉 was a rare item.
Few Classes used 〈Smoldering Fangs〉, so it shouldn't cost that much, but the real question was whether any shop had one.
“Ah... You really don't know much, do you, customer? Are you perhaps a first-year adventurer who only recently acquired a Class?”
“Hmm...?”
“Buying and selling 〈Skill Books〉 is prohibited. The people who find them are allowed to use them themselves, but otherwise, the Adventurers' Guild buys them and passes them on to nobles and the Church.”
My shoulders slumped.
“N-No way...”
Trying to get a 〈Skill Book〉 for 〈Smoldering Fangs〉 to drop on my own was honestly unrealistic.
Even in 〈Magic World〉, trying to get a specific item from a rare drop was considered a grueling ordeal.
People often said you only ever got those items by chance when you weren't trying to, and that they stopped dropping whenever you were hunting for them. That wasn't just true of 〈Magic World〉, but of games in general.
Especially in this world, which had become reality, it was physically impossible to keep going into the 〈Dungeon〉 several times a day.
Compared to the game, I'd sensed that the nobles' power in this world had grown absurdly strong.
No, but... I never imagined something like this was happening.
Damn nobles.
Though, technically, I was one of them.
If anything, there was a good chance that the 〈Skill Books〉 collected in Rondalm were monopolized by my own family, House Edvaughn.
“Ah... I suppose it can't be helped. We're not supposed to tell just anyone about this, but I'll make an exception. Consider it a bonus with your 〈Heal Potions〉. You should go here.”
The shopkeeper chuckled, sketched a simple map on a piece of paper, and handed it to me.
“What's this...?”
“It's a place that deals in items from corpse looters. They also sell 〈Skill Books〉 illegally.”
“Illegally...?”
I knew what corpse looters were.
In other words, they were adventurers who scavenged the bodies of the dead.
Normally, though, you were supposed to report those belongings to the Adventurers' Guild and turn them in.
“It's more or less an unspoken agreement. The Adventurers' Guild knows about these shady shops and lets them be. If they became too public, they'd have no choice but to crack down on them... But there are adventurers who can't make a living without looting corpses. And even if you follow the proper procedures, most of those belongings end up in the pockets of nobles rather than in the hands of the bereaved. The nobles buy up 〈Skill Books〉 for next to nothing and hoard them without even using them. I guess they see it as a custom, and since they benefit from it, they have no reason to change things. They don't know how hard adventurers have it.”
“I-Is that how it is...”
...It hurt to hear that.
I hadn't known any of this for fifteen years.
Maybe because I'd spent all my time training with the sword, I'd become utterly ignorant of the world.
I'd been infatuated with that arrogant bastard of a father until my memories of my previous life returned, and it was undoubtedly because my perspective had been so narrow.
Looking back, everyone in House Edvaughn except its head had been living like slaves.
If my memories of my previous life hadn't returned and I'd gone on to become a Sword Saint as expected, maybe I would've naturally become just like my father.
That thought sent a chill down my spine.
Maybe it was normal in this world to accept the tyranny of the head of a noble house, but I was truly glad I'd escaped that way of thinking.
“And of course, don't tell House Edvaughn or the city magistrate about this shop.”
“Of course.”
I couldn't possibly tell her I was the count's son.