Bro, I'm not an Undead!

"What would you like?" Frock's voice resounded within the small space where a lot of different kinds of equipment were neatly placed on racks and holders.

Skullius looked around as he searched for anything useful in the brightly lit space he had been taken to from a trap door within an empty house after following Frock around the strange neighbourhood for a full ten minutes.

There were armours, swords, bracelets, necklaces, gems among other things, hung or laid somewhere.

Frock wore a grin as he waited for Skullius to splurge again, hopefully on a useless item.

'And I thought this day wouldn't get better!' he thought.

After having the extensive conversation with Skullius, he had been too annoyed to consider showing him this stash, but as it so happened, the strangely-faced young man didn't have any lack of charity. He was willing to make a dozennaire in a single day!

Bless, Quintess!

The young man in question walked around the room, looking at the armours with a frown as he had a hack that proved to be exceptionally efficient in helping him pick up the more unique and useful items.

'What's all this worthless garbage? There isn't anything unique here at all! Even Aikil's sword is better than some of the swords in here,' Skullius complained as he moved around.

The way he approached an item and went on to pass over it with a frown made Frock feel nervous.

Suddenly, this supposed idiot seemed like an expert appraiser who could see the value of items with nothing but a glance!

'Was I wrong? Is he actually an expert who was scamming me this entire time?! No! That's impossible!' Frock struggled with his thoughts.

"There's nothing I want here. Do you have anything useful?' Skullius asked while turning to Frock.

The man withdrew his earlier obvious con-attitude and assumed a more neutral one.

"Well, if it's items that are above common that you're looking for, you might want to come with me."

Frock waved further into the room and touched the wall at its end, pushing it to reveal that there was a door that was masked through unknown means.

Skullius was surprised as he saw this, following Frock into another slightly larger room where better looking stuff could be seen.

Some of it was even closed off behind sheets or glass as the thing that immediately drew Skullius' attention was a dark blue shield in the corner.

It was shaped like a kite with grove designs on its face that looked quite neat. It's surface was concave, looking a bit bloated as that appeared to be an intentional design feature.

Skullius walked up to it and checked its details.

~~~

[The Keep]

<Uncommon>

A shield created with the duty to keep its wielder safe at all costs. It spreads its belly to tank damage for the wielder.

-Defense-

350-400

-Durability-

600

-Special Effect-

None

~~~

Naturally, this shield wasn't anything special but Skullius wanted it.

He wouldn't use it in its original form, but he wanted to subject it to [Unbound] to gain a powerful weapon to use!

The original item's rarity didn't affect the skill, [Unbound] so Skullius wasn't too concerned to with finding something better.

During his latest big fight with Jackpot, he had realised that he needed not just a weapon for offense but one for defence as well. At least one he could whip out when he was facing a heavy hitting attack.

Such a convenience was something that his Apostle Red Rage had as a skill and this was part of the reason he wanted a shield of his own.

"I'll take this," Skullius said.

Frock narrowed his eyes.

'Why would he choose something like that? Among all the things here, that's one of the least valuable in terms of usefulness. Heh, he's definitely not an appraiser as I assumed it seems.'

Frock visibly relaxed as he then went on to charge.

"That'll be ten golds."

CLNK!

Skullius gave Frock the required coins without saying anything else as he then took the shield from where it hung and stored it in his spatial ring.

Frock's gaze lingered on Skullius' ring for a moment. He had obviously seen it when the Discount Human was pulling out gold coins earlier but now that he had a closer look at it, he noticed that it wasn't as luxurious as he thought it would be.

He was still under the impression that Skullius was some high noble's child with thick pockets and had assumed that his ring would be a rare one at least but it merely looked to be an uncommon one.

With that, he lost interest in it as he had plenty of these.

Heck, the entire city was flooded with these!

Skullius continued to scroll through the items within the room until his eyes landed on something that he decided he would buy at all costs!

~~~

[Mana Band]

<Rare>

Increases mana by 250 (white).

~~~

The description was short and concise.

It summed it all up.

Skullius searched for others like this but couldn't find any, which made him feel a bit dejected.

"I see you've taken a liking to this band. Do you want to buy it?" Frock said.

This young man had finally spotted a unique item.

Something that could actually increase mana.

He didn't know what method Skullius used to find it or if it was just luck but he was glad that it seemed he would be selling it off today.

The truth was, while this item increase mana, its basic use was for those with white cores, making its marketability among mercenaries difficult.

If someone with a blue core used this band, then the effect would be divided by 10.

"How much is it?" Skullius asked.

Frock pretended to mull it over as in the end..

"150 gold coins."

"What?!"

"Yes!"

Skullius frowned.

Even though he didn't have an appreciation of trade and money, he knew that he was probably getting screwed over.

There was a lesson to be learned from this experience.

Socketholes were to be appreciated in moderation.

The amount of coins he had left weren't enough. They definitely didn't reach a hundred.

Skullius couldn't bring himself to leave this item behind though.

He would probably be able to find other such items but when and how was the problem. He would have to figure out where what could be found in the whole of Inhone City and that would probably strain his five day limit in Inhone City. However that was tracked.

Besides, there was the issue that he had a little over an hour before he transformed back into Penetrator form!

He had to act fast!

Since his gold was insufficient, Skullius searched for something else of value he could trade with and after a few minutes, the Discount Human pulled out...

A dead core!

Frock was shocked to beyond shocked when he saw Skullius casually pull out a dead core.

It even belonged to a Tier 3 beast!

"Where did you get that?!" Frock asked as he sweated.

Many false assumptions were beginning to gush into his mind from this one thing before him.

"Does it matter?" Skullius asked. "I can pay with this right?"

The look on Frock's face told Skullius quite a lot as he then went on to take advantage of the situation.

"This seems to be more valuable than I thought. So, I guess I should grab a few more things right?"

Frock merely nodded as he watched Skullius grab a few more valuable items on top of the mana band.

After everything was done, Skullius handed the core to Frock who didn't know how to respond anymore.

His over-calculating mind could only continue to make guesses.

'I might have been playing with fire! Who just happens to have the dead core of a Tier 3 monster on them?! And uses it for trading for stuff like this on top of that!' Frock frustratedly grumbled.

He didn't let out a peep as he lead Skullius out of the room and back into the street where Skullius immediately rushed off to his next destination, leaving him behind.

The Discount rushed over to reach a certain Inn that he had passed by when he had been roaming around earlier.

He had heard the boisterous chatter of a few men as they talked about how the living conditions had improved from the place, which instantly gave Skullius the idea to find shelter.

The outside of the Inn didn't look so bad as the large building with a mix of wood and masonry looked quite sturdy, an aged wooden sign swaying above the doors with the words "Beefy Bosom Betsy's".

Skullius merely gave it a glance before entering, the cheery atmosphere with commonfolk as they laughed, cackled and loudly called as they ate making Skullius have the feeling, that this was vaguely familiar.

His eyes roamed until they reached the position of a certain woman behind the counter who also looked at him in the same moment...