Slave Harem in the Labyrinth of the Other World (LN)
Volume 1 - Ch 1.7

Chapter 1: The First Village, Part 7

Look, I know I must be looking suspicious as fuck right now, okay? I realize that and those looks of yours hurt me more than a thousand actual verbal insults would!

Painful! This is just too painful! Its like I am forced to relive the trauma of my chuunibyou years all over again! N-No, be silent, oh the forbidden power that dwelleth inside of my left hand! Even though you feel anger at those insignificant peasants making fun of your host, you mustnt unleash thine wrath upon this unworthy plain of existence if the equilibrium is to stay unharmed.. FUCK! I did it again! My dark history! The shameful past I was trying so hard to put behind me! Its all coming back to me!

Well? How is it, Michio-sama? Can you do it?

I would if I could, but unfortunately it looks like my inventory space is completely filled up.

That was obviously a lie, but at the current moment I couldnt come up with anything better, to explain what happened to my Durandal, so I just have to hope that its going to sound believable enough for them to lay off of me. And while were at it, where did that goddamn sword go anyway?!

Oh, then that is truly unfortunate. Tell me, Michio-sama, have you ever been to the city of Veil?

Hm? No, cant say that I did.

Actually, I will be heading there tomorrow at dawn to do my merchant business. If its alright with you, I could carry all of your equipment there on my wagon. The city of Veil has many shops that specialize in weapons and armor for Adventurers so it could be easily sold there without any problems.

The merchant offers. To be honest I was expecting him to buy all that crap off of me right away, but it looks like things wont be that simple. Nevertheless, if hes so graciously offering to do this for me then I should probably take him up on his kind offer.

Thank you very much. If you could do that for me, I would be much obliged.

Its a good thing that you dont have to use any complicated menus to hand your possessions over to other people.

Marvelous. With that said, here is your Intelligence Card from the Bandits.

The merchant presented me with a notepad sized card.

Intelligence Card?

I ask back at him, unsure of that that thing actually was.

It is a proof that you have defeated all those Bandits that dropped out of the body of their leader after the fight. With a group as large as they were, some of them are surely bound to be notorious wanted criminals, so if you present it at the headquarters of the Knights of Vale Order, Im sure youll be eligible to a handsome reward.

Is that so?

At first that Intelligence Card term sounded like more trouble than it was worth, but now that the merchant guy explained it to me in detail, the whole matter became quite easy to understand. This is a world with a medieval setting where bandit attacks are commonplace, so it would stand to reason that some of them gathered quite a lot of infamy to their name, resulting in sending wanted posters with their faces all over the kingdom. So this little card is the proof that the deed has been done that everybody seems to be aware of, huh? And I might get some dough out of it? Well, count me in!

Of course, after being killed, the same Bandits wont come back to life again, right? Right, of course. If this is the real world, then it must be like that. Only one life per person, no redos or respawns allowed.

Even though I more or less understood the principles behind the Intelligence Cards and how they worked, it was still a hefty amount of information dumped upon me all at once, so I couldnt help it but to feel a little bit overwhelmed. I examined the Card one more time just to be sure that I didnt miss anything important and then I proceeded with the inspection of my share of the Bandits equipment.

Most of it consisted of Copper and Bronze Swords, but my eyes were immediately drawn towards an Iron Sword. It looked to be at least one rank above the rest of the common trash, making it a rare weapon. Well shit. I actually dont want it to be rare. The rarer the item, the bigger the chance that someone is going to target me to steal it.

Looking at all the swords with Identify, there was one thing that caught me as strange.

One of the better looking Bronze Swords had an empty window. The rest of the Copper Swords didnt have any windows at all.

Is everything all right, Michio-sama? Has something caught your attention?

The merchant asked me as I was examining the Bronze Sword in my hand. Durandal also had windows like that, but they were filled with various skills. So could it be that this empty window is actually a skill slot?

This seems to be a good weapon, better than the rest of similar ones.

Oh, so you were able to figure that out? For someone who is not a Merchant, you seem to have quite a good eye.

However, there is a small problem. I dont know how to acquire and equip skills.

Skill. Skill Slot. Grant Skill. Assign Skill.

I mumbled to myself again and again nothing happened and nothing changed, as expected. Ah well, not like I hoped for it to go any different than all those other times when I tried to use spoken commands only to end up severely disappointed. For now I should just finish appraising and maybe consider another character reset to see if anything can actually be done about that.

If you are wondering about the skill slots, then allow me to explain. They can be created by the blacksmiths when they fuse them from the corresponding Skill Crystals. Does the sword youre holding have any skills assigned to it?

No, I dont see anything like that. The slot is empty.

That is unfortunate, but nothing to fret about.

So it looks like Im going to need those Skill Crystals in order to add skills to the weapons and I will only be able to do so at a blacksmith, or perhaps Ill be able to do it myself if I obtain the Blacksmith Job.

All in all, this isnt a bad sword, so I think I might do just that.

Michio-sama, are you able to tell if a weapon has a skill attached to it or not?

The Village Chief inquired.

Generally, yeah. I think you may call it, An Adventurers Intuition.

Since Identify id a Bonus Skill, very few people should possess it, so I think it would be wise of me not to mention that I have an ability like that.

If that is the case, then can I trouble you with looking at the rest of them with your discerning eyes? It would make our lives that much easier if we could pick the best ones possible for the purpose of defending ourselves and selling the ones that we wont need.

I guess I can do that, but dont blame me if therell be something that I wont be able to understand.

You have my eternal gratitude, Michio-sama. Well then, lets get to it right away.

And I followed after the Village Chief to inspect the rest of the weaponry. Looking through all of them took me some time, but when I was finally done I could tell with absolute certainty that no other weapon aside from the ones that were assigned to me had any skills or skill slots on them. It was the same for all the armor and a bandana that were found among the things Bandits dropped when they died.

Huh? A bandana? Was that the one worn by the Bandit Leader? I mustve missed it in the heat of battle.

Or maybe not. Thinking about it now, it doesnt have to be a part of Bandit Leaders equipment at all!

Just now, all the finer details began coming back to me. Such a Bandana was not worn by the Bandit Leader, but by some of the common ones which were named Bandana Bandits. Just a common piece of cloth worn by the most common of small fries. It totally makes sense. If a Bandit wears a Bandana, he Becomes a Bandana Bandit, otherwise he would be a simple Bandit with no distinguishing features whatsoever. See? Completely logical not!

This is a world of a game, so there must be some kinda hidden gimmick to it. So, my dear, Bandana, what are you, exactly?

What is this Bandana right here?

I think it is the common one worn by Bandits.

But contrary to my expectations, the merchant didnt impart any useful knowledge to me.

Huh? What is it doing here. If memory serves me correctly, none of the Bandits wore something like that.

The Village Chief said something truly outrageous. None of them wore it?! But but that would mean that my own memory lied to me or did it, really? Maybe there really werent any Bandana Bandits in the group that attacked the village and it was just a trick of my mind which was quite high on adrenaline at the moment it all transpired? But that would mean that someone has deliberately placed it here. Or that it was simply a rare drop and I was just lucky enough to get it during the very first tutorial battle.

Its funny, isnt it?

Back when I was still living in Japan (it feels weird to phrase it like that when you consider the fact that I left it literally a few hours ago, but whatever). Throughout my old life I was mostly a loser who used to cry himself to sleep every night, I didnt like to stand out and get into fights. But this world is not modern Japan. In this world, if you underestimate even the smallest of threats, you might pay for it with your life. I am the perfect example of that. I dont know how I came here but I did, and using my cheat-like weapon I have ended the lives of many people who probably didnt expect theyd die today, thus saving the village and its inhabitants from what would probably be a morbid end (even though saving the village wasnt my intention in the slightest, but telling them that would be too much of an arrow to my own knee, so Im just not going to do that.)

Anyway, I think Im getting off topic too much, so let me get back to it before things get any weirder than they already are.