Storm I: DanMachi - Chapter 11

Traveling through the plains, black forest, rocky road, and I got hungry because that’s what they are called. We came from a village in the plains nearby a mountain’s foot, and now we’re traveling by a horse carriage since we don’t only carry weapons with us, but we also carry some magic items to sell on the way if there are any rich and spoiled young master who wants to show off to his crush so we can get more money from them.

Or.

Or just outright steal their wealth from their treasury due to me learning how to lower my presence, and add the Repetitive Action which brings out the potential of every moves or anything like sneaking or lowering one’s presence, I became literally invisible to other people if they can’t detect my near non-existent presence due to the effect of Repetitive Action.

I can just outright steal their belongings right in front of them.

But I will only do that to those who pisses me off, insulting my family, or they are toxic and are a pest that should be eradicated. After all, I didn’t earned my Degree for nothing.

As we were on the way, we decided to stop on a village. The village was not much, but it has the atmosphere of a normal and happy village with a little bit of danger lurking around. Basically, a Starter Village like in some games.

We walked inside an inn where we saw a girl around my age behind the counter, based on physical age rather than chronological nor mental age. Chronologically 8, Mentally 36, Physically 11, Appearance 12.

“Mama! A shady man and a mean-looking boy came!” the girl screamed.

We sweatdropped at her answer. I understand if it is Kane, but me? I’m not that mean, she just said ‘mean-looking’ and that’s it.

Do I really look like mean?

“Pft! She said you looked mean! HAHAHAHAHA!” he laughed heartily.

“Yeah yeah… Yours is much worst, being called a shady man. That makes you worst than I am, that also makes you look like you’re abducting kids.” He coughed to the side, intentionally.

“Erm…” a woman came in with an apologetic smile, “I’m sorry if my daughter made you two look bad. Anyway, welcome to Darc’s Inn!”

“Well, hello there! Me and my apprentice came here to stay for a day as we were traveling towards Orario. And since we’re still quite far from Orario, we decided to take some stops on nearby villages to rest. Also, do you have stables for horses as well? We needed them to be well fed, after all, they’re my horses.” Kane spoke in a friendly manner.

“We do have stables for horses. So, how many days you want to stay? It’s 600 Valis for each night with 3 meals a day.” the Inn Owner said with a smile.

“Well, we’ll take it. Only one night, and then we’ll only needed 2 meals, one for tonight and the other is for tomorrow in the morning as we will leave that early.”

“Oh? Is that so?” Kane nodded at her and she game them the keys to our room.

He gave her a thousand Valis and told her to keep the change.

We split up since he wants to check out the west part of the village, which seemed like it is the side where wealthy people lives, while the east side of the village was the slums. Well, I expected it, but why would there be a slums in a village? That’s a good question! They don’t have a church because almost all gods have descended and they don’t really need to pray to them as they can’t do anything while they are in Lower World or what they call as Gekai.

Walking through the poor side of the village, my eyes saw something that is a quite rare scene, or maybe not. A rich kid was bringing lots of things to a girl who seems to be annoyed at him and save seems to not like those gifts. Well, it’s time to sell my wares.

“Excuse me.” I said, but he didn’t seem to hear me. “Um… Excuse me!”

“What?!” He looked at me as if I was a pest.

“Would you like to take a look at my wares?” I asked, pointing at the bag I am carrying.

He just raised his eyebrow. Doesn’t he know of merchants? He’s probably a spoiled brat and he doesn’t even knew of merchants.

“I’m a merchant.” I said.

“What’s that? Some kind of higher person living in a slums?” As I expected, he doesn’t know what a merchant is.

“Pft! Hahahahahaha!”

Oh yeah, other kids are also here as well. The kids seems to be friends with the cute girl at which they also knew of merchants while the spoiled brat doesn’t.

“Oi! What’s funny?!” he asked in a very rude way.

“It’s common knowledge to know about merchants.” said one of the kids with a smug face because it made the rich boy go embarrassed.

The kids laughed even more. But the rich kid talked to me.

“Hey, you!” I looked at him with a raised eyebrow, “Show me what you call as ‘wares’, right now!”

As a merchant, even though it’s not needed, I mastered the art of poker. You will not be able to read me using my body movements or able to see any facial expressions in me because I managed and mastered the said art.

I showed him lots of things, from weapons, magical items, and even earrings that grants protection to some degree.

He chose a necklace with red gem and gold frame to hold the ruby, and golden lace. It looks expensive, but it was only 3,000 Valis. It is one of the mistakes I made, but it doesn’t mean they are defective.

“That, sir, is a necklace that raises one’s luck and fortune.” which also does the opposite when the person who wears it is a bad person.

“I’ll buy this! How much?!”

“It’s actually free! You can have it, sire!” I said as I placed the necklace back in its box.

“Really? Then, I’ll take it!” he said as he reached for the box in my hand.

Meanwhile, I’ve been stealing all and anything valuable in his person while I’m giving him the box. Then, he also checked the necklace if it is there. He’s quite smart, but not perceptive as I stole his belongings while he was busy looking at the necklace.

I left after he finished checked it. It was quite satisfying to see how he reacted when I suddenly disappeared, including the other kids as well. Only one of them paid attention, and it’s the girl. She tried to follow me.

Yare yare~

“Ah! I lost him, darn it!”

Well, no need to thank me ’cause I ain’t gonna come near you or the troublesome rich kid will approach me through misunderstanding.

Then, walked around more and sold some more of my wares. All in all, I earned at least 10,000 Valis, excluding the money from that rich kid. The Rick kid have exactly 36,169 Valis. Well, those numbers seems ŀėwd. This might be a sign that, that rich kid would turn into a rapist who buys women for self-pleasure if I didn’t have him that necklace.

I’m pretty sure the girl would not want it and reject the gift.

“Are there any problems with my wares?” He asked them as if he was an idiot, but I knew better than that.

“There’s no problem with them. The qualities are that of Orario’s.” said the man who was outside the encirclement as he seems to be the boss.

“Then, why not buy it?” He asked with a smile.

“Why should I buy it when I can just get it from you?” he said as he gritted his teeth and said, “Get him and all of his wares!”

Yare yare~~ now I know why big time merchants have minions working under them. Some are unorthodox, and we are one of them.

He calls himself the Merchant Warrior while I call myself as a Craftknight. Yes, I was a fan of that game, but it’s absolutely one of the things that is a good choice as a job in a world like this.

The only problem is, a Craftknight masters the weapon they forged. They don’t fully sell all the things they get. They also don’t rely on Falna as they trained their body.

Their promises are stronger than any metal on this world. Their determination are tougher any metal. They also have summon beast to help them forge weapons. But I don’t have one yet.

Anyway, time for some action.

I came running to the side of Kane as if not knowing what is happening, and of course, acting like I don’t know what is happening.

“Hey, Kane! Why are you being surrounded?” I asked. And no, we don’t use honorifics to each other.

“Um, kiddo. I’m kinda in a pinch here! Can you lend a hand? Or should I ask, can you lend your fists?” Kane asked with a smirk.

I shrugged and just said, “Troublesome… But I’m gonna fight anyway.”

I raised my fists with a boxing stance, Kane took Muay Thai stance, and the side characters called ‘thugs’ and a mini-boss called ‘Rich Villager’ all took out weapons. Most of them holds a knife, and some just their fist with the mini-boss holding a sword.

First of all, they are clearly inexperienced in holding knives, but the boss does seem to have small amount of experience in swordfighting. A dozen of them uses a knife, 4 of them unarmed but they seem to pack a punch, and the mini-boss using a sword. 17 in total.

Four thugs with knives came to us at once. I took care of the other two while I took the other two.

A dashed forward and one of them tried to slice me up, but I only weaved to the right, out of the way of the knife and landed a left deadly body blow which almost push all oxygen out of his body if not for me holding it back.

Without stopping, flowing like a water, I sent the other upwards when I appeared in front of him right before he could even react with a gazzle punch.

Gazzle punch is a good way to send them flying upwards. Well, it doesn’t mean it’s my favorite attack.

4 down, 13 to go.

“What are you idiots looking at? Attack them!” the mini-boss spoke to his minions.

But at least, one thug was smart enough, “With that kind of strength? I’m outta here!”

I salute you. You saved yourself from a 6-month long recuperating time in your bed. Well, 12 to go.

All the remaining dozen attacked us, and I don’t need to explain how Kane fought, he’s already experienced so it’s hard to explain.

7 for me, 4 for Kane. Wow, this is child abuse.

I first dealt with the first 5 who uses knives. They encircled me first before one of them tried to stab me.

Slipped in landed a jab on his face, though it seems like what I did was a slight uppercut as I am not that tall.

6 down, 10 to go.

Then, another one tried to stab me from behind, but I dodged by using the thug that I punched and jumped over the unconscious body as the knife that was intended to stab me was stabbed into the man I just sent to sleep.

“D-damn you! You killed my brother!”

“…”

Stupid. Are really random villains with a sibling ends up killing their own and then blame the kill to the protagonist who didn’t even do anything? Well, it’s certainly like Saitama vs. the Giant and the Scientist, but the scientist was useless aside from being all brains than brawn.

“You could’ve stopped your attack, you know.” I told him.

“You’ve already killed him with that punch!”

“Yare yare… He only fell unconscious at that punch…” I paused a little before asking, “You’re an airhead, are you?”

He got angry and tried to stab me. Keyword, tried. They would never be able to hit me with their low street-level mastery of knives.

I dodged, but I didn’t took off my attention to others who tried to stabbed me from behind, and two who tried to squash my face using each of their fist.

One way to get out of this? It’s nothing fancy other than pulling then to each other, and they all buŧŧed heads with their own allies.

12 down, 4 to go.

The other two remaining who are facing me tried to run away. So, I threw rocks at their heads and knocked them down. And Kane took the last one, leaving only the boss. Ehem, correction, mini-boss.

15 down, 1 to go, the other ran away smartly.

Kane initiated the talk, “So, give up now?”

“No! NEVER!” He rushed forward at Kane while screaming, “HIYAAAAAAH!”

A vertical slash coming at Kane. Seeing as Kane didn’t move, he thought he got him. Well, there are some people who are too stupid.

Kane caught the blade as if he was playing rock-paper-scissors and used scissors to catch the blade. And like a scissor, he cut the blade in half with his fingers.

He turned tail and ran away.

“I’ll come back and get my revenge! My familia will not let you go!”

And there you go, classic mini-boss who keeps interfering the protagonist’s journey but is still alive until the final boss. I just knew it, and they mostly end up like this.

“Coward!” Kane yelled at the escaping bollock.

And then, we headed back in the inn and ate our meals.

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[Vault of Information]

Silver’s favorite color is midnight blue which he usually have on one of his clothes; a midnight blue trench coat over a black long-sleeved shirt, brown pants, and dark gray boots.