Nihilea
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Chapter 29: Taste the Rainbow
🕑 Added 2024-11-02 21:01:37 +0000 UTCChapter 29: Taste the Rainbow
Unfortunately, bringing the fruit closer to my eyes didn't magically reveal any additional information. Maybe if I had the Farmer Class, it would have helped, but neither of the components of my Class specialised in fruit, and that left me with a problem. On the one hand, it was stored in a warehouse filled with food, lending a strong expectation that it was fit for human consumption. On the other hand, it was a strange looking fruit, one that I had no memories of ever seeing on Will’s table, and more importantly, why was I getting the sudden and inexplicable urge to eat it.
[Rainbow fruit stored.]
The urge vanished as soon as I stuffed it back in my inventory, far too quickly to be natural, and I decided not to touch that one for a while. Not until I had some expert advice, as to why a fruit would want to be eaten: how many how I sliced it, that sounded like some Grade A schmuck bait to me. Putting that aside, I did a final combing through the crates that were open and within reach, but found nothing too pressing to take. I wasn’t stocking up for a month-long expedition here, just grabbing a bit of spare food in case I needed to spend a few days alone, should the upcoming negotiations fail.
“Easy there,” I murmured, as Pumpkin hopped on my shoulder and settled down like a weighted blanket around my neck, clearly done with leading the way for the night.
[Dried fish stored.]
Packing away the last of the bounty he graciously provided me, I let myself back outside, before placing my hand on the door handle, and doing something a bit underhanded.
[Padlock (locked) withdrawn.]
By withdrawing from my pocket dimension in just the right place, I was able to lock the door again, as if it had never moved in the first place. I’d not bothered to do so at the tailor’s, since a missing lock would be consistent with the general mess I’d left behind to sell the evidence of a stroke; but in this latter case, the less evidence of my presence, the better. That was two out of three targets down, and so far, so good. I didn’t need guidance to reach the final building of the night, either, as it was somewhere I’d already visited before: the smithy.
True, it was a bit ungrateful of me, to go and burgle someone who’d taken time out of his day to explain the business situation of the Kingdom to me, but I needed access to more weapons, and beggars can’t be choosers. I’d left this heist for last, because of the three it was the one most likely to go wrong, and the faster I could get back to bed in the inn, the more airtight my alibi. It also helped that I’d visited just days ago, and bought a novice’s weapon for myself: hopefully, that would help deflect suspicion from me. Oh, I had no doubt that the truth of my actions would come to light, sooner or later, the key ways to tilt the odds towards later, by which point I would be out of town and far beyond reproach, leaving the locals with the bag: a strategy I’d employed successfully for decades, in fact, until the very end.
The smithy looked much the same as before, even down the front door: despite it being the dead of night, there was no lock in place, the owner seemingly confident enough to leave the door open. Ironically, that made me more cautious than anything else I’d seen so far, backing away a few steps and dropping to a crouch. I was on edge, because in my experience, those who deviated from the norm were the most unpredictable, and either the blacksmith was a fool for leaving himself unguarded, or he had reasons to be so confident in himself. The lack of information on his name tag only made me more paranoid, as he clearly had ways to conceal himself, much like I did, and I wasn’t sure as to what end it served.
[Dirt stored.]
After grabbing a contingency from the ground, just in case, I reached up to pry Pumpkin off of my back, which was a delicate exercise at the best of times. Thankfully, he seemed to be in a good mood after the previous round of pilfering, and let himself be pulled free without his claws making an appearance. Then, I wrapped one hand around his stomach, nudged the smithy door open with a foot, and tossed him through the opening like an American football. Pumpkin yowled in displeasure as he landed, even though he landed on his feet with impeccable grace, and I knew he’d make me pay for that later, but it was worth it, to test my target’s ears.
Hearing loss was a traditional occupational hazard for blacksmiths, the logical consequence of long hours spent at the smithy, exposed to loud hammering of hammer on anvil. As before, if he heard Pumpkin’s entrance and came downstairs to investigate, then all he’d find was a cat, and if not…
[30 EXP gained for throwing a cat as a distraction. Seriously, what is wrong with you?]
I suppressed a laugh as the System made its disapproval clear: I’d never have done such a thing back in England, but if Pumpkin was a regular alley cat, then I was a flying saucer. He’d already proved himself far too intelligent to fit the mould, and was levelling up as well, so here was surely far tougher than he appeared. I counted down under my breath for a full minute, as Pumpkin wandered around, testing his claws against various lengths of wood: nobody came downstairs, and indeed, I heard not a single sound of stirring from above.
Maybe I was just overthinking things, I reasoned, as I headed inside to join Pumpkin, beginning to examine the weapon racks. This is a town in the middle of nowhere, that hadn’t faced hardship in a generation, maybe security really was that lax.
