Chapter 12: Appraisal Of Our Marks

The shop was empty, and there was a lady asleep in the corner almost falling out of her chair.

“Hello?” Asked Haruto loudly enough to startle the lady awake.

“What the-“ started the lady “oh, customers!” She exclaimed.

“You do magic appraisals correct?” Asked Sora.

“Yes, that’s my job. Do you need me to appraise something?” Asked the lady.

Sora gestured towards the gear everybody was holding.

They still didn’t know too much about it.

“Yes, we would like these four items appraised please.” Answered Sora.

“Oh, this is quite interesting! So you guys are limes little hero’s huh?” Asked the lady, clapping her hands together cheerfully.

“What?” Asked Sora, somewhat caught off guard.

“Hey there, didn’t expect to see you. How are you, Bell?” Said lime, popping up from the game screen.

“I’m doing pretty good, thanks. I already know you’re doing way too well. Man, love really is quite a scary thing. That smile gives me chills.” Said Bell, shivering.

“So should I appraise the items, or does that mess with your little plan?” Bell asked.

“I expected them to do this later, but I was planning on guiding them to your shop to appraise the items eventually, yes.” Said lime, who sounded quite happy to see an old friend.

“By the way, why are you in this world, I never asked that the last time we met.” Said lime, curious.

“It’s pretty peaceful here. My skills don’t make people suspicious of me, and I earn enough money without having to be violent or whatnot. It’s like retirement, I guess.” Said Bell.

“That makes you sound like an old lady,” said lime.

“I am old!” Exclaimed Bell, who clearly looked to be about 20.

“Oh, right.” Said lime.

“Sorry to interrupt yet another one of your conversations, lime. But you know her?” Sora asked, pointing at Bell.

“Mhmm, she lived in A world with us after reality shattered. My husband didn’t want our friends and family to die or get hurt, so he gave them enough power to survive. I’d say she has the strength of an actual demigod. She adapted to her powers quite quickly and can use them well. As I mentioned though, you might still run into one or two of our friends. They tend to gather in the same world.” Said lime.

“So we might meet more people like her?” Yui asked

“Yes, Bell do you know if anyone else is here?” Asked lime

“Let’s see, I think that Reina, Ryu, Qin, John, and Seoyoung are here. Other than that, I’m not sure. Some of them may have left, but I kinda doubt that.” Bell replied, counting off of her fingers.

“Wow, that’s more than I expected,” said lime.

“Yeah, it’s kinda weird, I think there’s something special about this world,” said Bell.

“Do you know where they are?” Asked lime

“Well, I’ve met up with little Johnny a few times. Still as annoying and endearing as ever. He is like the exact definition of a little brother. Other than that, I’m in contact with Qin who is usually with Seo, and Ryu is being cringy as always, acting stupidly secretive and being annoyingly good at it, acting like he lost his memory. I think he may be in contact with the underworld somehow. He insisted he didn’t know me when he came to the capital to pick some stuff up, but he seems to be living with a nice young lady in a village. I’ve heard a few stories that might have been about Reina, but I only know that Seoyoung is here, Qin told me about her. His skill set is pretty useful in a world without phones. Everyone is doing fine, though.” Bell replied

“That’s good to hear, I’m glad that they made it here alright,” said lime.

“Were you trying to bring them all here?” Bell asked.

“Everyone you mentioned I was indeed trying to bring here, yes.” lime affirmed.

“Ah. So you want them to train your little heroes then!” Bell laughed.

She cracked her knuckles.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“Well, let’s get these items appraised, shall we!” Bell said.

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Bell started by looking over Haruto's holy sword, checking the sharpness and durability. She used an appraisal skill to check its information. She found that the damage and the sword's sharpness and weight didn’t match at all, it clearly wasn’t a normal sword from the beginning but it seemed to distort some kind of dimension around it. She checked the abilities and raised an eyebrow

“What’s wrong?” Asked Haruto nervously waiting on his sword as if it were his child.

“This is pretty strong, I don’t know exactly what Evan did but even I can’t see all the stuff it can do. It is currently impure, however, so I can only tell that you can inject holy mana into it to increase its power. And that it’s a really strong sword. It’s also nearly Unbreakable, but I’m assuming that goes for all of your items.” Bell said, handing Haruto his sword.

“Alright, gimme your daggers nerd boy.” Said Bell, pointing at Sora.

“In what way do I look like a nerd?” Asked Sora as he handed her his daggers

“Your intelligence stat is almost equal to ¾ of Evan's, who literally made a machine to become omnipotent. It’s impossible to make that machine now, though, and that’s only the intelligence stat he had as a normal mortal without omniscience. So you are a neeeeerd.” Said Bell, while she looked over his daggers.

“No wonder I can never beat him in games that require intelligence.” Said Sora, slightly annoyed at god not telling him anything.

“Hey Sora, Where’s the item that Evan gave to you to help you in this world? This is a little less powerful than Haruto's sword, barely, but it doesn’t have the mark to connect you to the item. That means this item isn’t meant to be what you brought here.” Bell said, holding out her hand for the item.

“What? What do you mean by that?” Sora asked, confused.

“Well I mean, these daggers have the ability to control all fire and ice in a certain radius, which is powerful enough to be considered a summoned item, but it doesn’t have a mark connecting it to you as its owner. For example, all of the others can summon their item anywhere at any time, or let it disappear. These daggers don’t have a mark like that. It may be that it just wasn’t in your hands when you got summoned. Try calling for it, I’m not sure what it is but try feeling like you’re summoning an object that is deeply connected to you if that makes sense. Like reaching into your pocket and pulling out your wallet.” Said Bell.

“Um, alright,” Sora replied, starting to concentrate.

He focused on trying to make an item appear in his hand. Something seemed to fizzle in the air, and a loud noise shook the room.

Then a rubber duck popped into his hand from nowhere. Everyone stared at it with gaping eyes, in absolute shock.

“This isn’t a weapon, right? Please don’t tell me this rubber duck is what god gave me.” Sora begged.

“Wait wait, it could actually be something, let me appraise it, give it here,” Bell said, putting up her hands.

Sora handed her his rubber duck, and she inspected it.

Bell whistled,

“You got some pretty damn good luck, Evan must like you quite a bit to give you something like this,” Bell said with a serious face.

“It’s a rubber duck.” Said Sora flatly.

“It’s not a rubber duck. Well, it is, but at the same time, it isn’t." Bell said.

Sora looked at her funny.

“Hmm, try dispelling the duck.” Said Bell, waving away Sora's "Are you crazy" face.

“Fine.” Sora replied as the duck faded away.

“Resummon it,” Bell said.

“Wait what?” Sora asked.

“Just do it.” Bell sighed.

“Okay, fine.” Said Sora

Sora focused once more, trying yet again to summon an item from what only felt like an endless amount of space, this time he felt it more clearly, it felt like his hand brushed against something. He grabbed it. The air sizzled for a second. Then the room froze. What had popped out wasn’t a rubber duck. It was a sword, which felt like it was cold, so cold that it wasn’t cold because of the temperature. It was a more chilling, ominous kind of cold.

“What?!?” Sora shouted, his hand frozen to the point of almost becoming frostbitten. He dropped the sword, and he dispelled it as fast as possible.

“Well, I should explain what just happened. What you summon can either be something you have summoned before, or something similar to gambling for a new item. You can save around 3 different items to pull out whenever you want later right now, so if you choose to save the sword, just think about it being saved, it doesn’t matter what kind of saved you think of, storing it, whatever. You can always choose to pull one of those items guaranteed from one of the three you have saved, or you can take a chance and pull out some random item, from a pebble to a demonic level sword. They are just copies of the real item, an avatar of it you could say. You can pull Haruto's sword by complete chance, but it won’t disappear from where it was, it will be a copy. It will be a little weaker though.” Explained Bell.

“That’s a lot better than a rubber duck! So does that mean my mark connects me to a void or something?” Asked Sora.

“No, it connects you to another dimension that’s layered on top of this one. look, Evan put a super long, annoyingly detailed explanation here that I don’t understand. Basically, it’s connected to another dimension. Your weapon is an entire dimension full of copies of every object in existence, though there are some things it can’t pull. It has ranks pretty much, like rank F, rank E, rank D, rank C, rank B, rank A, rank S, rank SS, and rank SSS. The rank depends on what you pull.” Bell replied.

“That sounds like something he would do,” said Lime, sighing.

“That’s awesome!” Said both Haruto and Sora in unison.

“Alright alright, who's next?” Asked Bell

“I want to know what the details are of this wand,” Akari said, holding up her hand.

“Wand? That’s clearly a ring.” Bell said, pointing.

“Here, look.” Said Akari, handing the ring to Bell.

She looked it over, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh, dear. You weren’t kidding. What the hell happened here? You used your mana and your mind to twist your weapon into a shape it isn’t supposed to be, and materials and colors it shouldn’t be. It should be able to change the size, but how did you get it to be able to change like this!? It doesn’t even have the same mass as the original form! This is a mark, too!!” Exclaimed Bell.

“I just did this,” Akari said, picking up the ring.

The ring floated in the air, suspended by Akari’s magic. She poked it and prodded it, changing its shape by molding her mana. She changed its composition by mixing in different elemental manas, and its mass by converting excess mass into mana or mana into extra mass.

It was a sight to see.

It should have been impossible for someone of her level, of her age, to do.

But Akari did it anyway.