Chapter 20: Acquisition
[Edited By: Arthur300000 and ArchmageNaoki]
[Delayed deathbricks joke]
*Beep* *Beep* *Beep* The alarm clock in my room rang loudly, the noise making me jump out of my bed half-asleep. However, I stumbled and fell because my flying pig pajama pants were down to my knees. The floor was cold and hard but my body is quite sturdy, so I’m alright. Yesterday I got too wild. Well, considering the three days of built-up stress, it’s very normal, I think.
The alarm clock in my room uses the energy from a small monster core, and I have no problems using it because right now I am rich! Well since I'm going home today let's remove the monster core from it. I’m rich, but money is money. One [small black monster core] costs a lot so let's not be wasteful here. The core still has the same color when I removed it from the clock. So only one night the alarm clock didn't use enough energy to cause any noticeable changes to the monster core's color. I peeked outside the windows after I changed from my pajama to my everyday clothes. It’s still dark outside.
Right now all my stuff is stored within my bracelet. Because the next week is going to be full of studying and training they’re going to allow use of the school facilities inside the city, otherwise, if I leave anything here, they’ll only collect dust. To be honest, I just learnt about this yesterday. Actually, my sister already told me “The school will rotate between assignment week and practice week-” when we were bathing together with all the women in my family... In my defense, anyone in that situation would forget about it, right? Well, if Sophia hadn't reminded me yesterday after dinner, I wouldn’t have remembered at all.
Additionally, yesterday we couldn’t tune those devices we got from the bandits because the room was already occupied. So we planned to get up early this morning. Any student can use the high school’s equipment tuning room, free of charge. However, it’s only available for student use from 6:00 AM to 8:00 PM. So, yesterday I decided to hit the bed early. Even though, due to my vitality, it took a long time to satisfy my built-up stress. Maybe after I’m back to the city, I should sneak out to buy some tools and toys to enrich my stress relief experience. With that accursed last line in my ID card out of my way, there should be no problems.
The hallway outside my room is dark. Because of my giddiness, I skipped to my sister's room and tapped her door then sang the “Do you want to build a snowman?" I think I got the note and tempo right but what I heard from her room were series of crashing noises and painful moaning. Was my singing ability so terrible? Maybe I should stop singing altogether. However, when she opened the door, she jumped at me and yelled. “Let’s build a snowman together, Kuro-Chan~!" The happy time in my sister’s hug was short lived because it was followed by the sound of someone banging the wall and yelling “I’m trying to sleep here!”
I wasted a lot of time in front my sister's room because I had to tell her that it was just a song from a popular movie in my former world. Otherwise, she would drag me outside to build an actual snowman. It’s too dark and cold out there, so no thank you.
We arrived at the equipment tuning facility a bit late, but my brother and Sophia were already there. I think they also want to see what is inside those storage devices. So, we began to tune those devices immediately.
“Is this really alright? I mean, aren’t these stolen goods?” I look at the mountain of items in front of me. I’m worried because those are obviously stolen goods. Well, I don’t think any of those bandits will own that fluffy pink dress, cute mirror or that make-up set.
“As long as we register all these items before leaving this room, there should be no problem. If someone claims ownership of these items, they will have to buy them from us as an adventurer fee. Moreover, if the item in question is a magic casting device, we have the right to refuse.” My brother said when he put the first item in the scanner and began the registration process. The item registration process took only 2 seconds. Even so, to finish scanning the entire mountain of stuff we looted it had taken more than three hours.
When we finished the registration process, the terminal of the register machine showed that the original owners of some of the items we looted from the bandits have already requested to buy them back. However, I decided to sell all of the non-magic device items. I don’t want to have its owner asking them back later. While I’m busying tuning all my newly acquired magic devices to my energy pattern, my sister kindly brought us the breakfast from the cafeteria. It’s typical ham and cheese sandwich, but for some reason, it’s a lot more delicious than what I had in my previous life.
The process is quite simple. We just leave the items we want to sell in one corner, and the school staff will take care the rest. We got less money this way, but it saves us from a lot of paperwork and troubles. So it's worth a bit of commission. I kept all the adventurer and military-grade devices and sold the rest. I was supposed to gain more than 40,000 credits from all those items. However, when I saw my teammates want to sell some of their adventurer grades and military-grade devices, I bought them all. Well, not all, I exclude those neon pink and heart-shaped items from my list. I don’t know why they need that much money, but you can’t buy those things again without the proper certificate, you know? In the end, I got a lot of those devices so that I won’t be lacking devices anytime soon. Some of the devices are too big for my body, but I buy it nevertheless. Because I might still be in my growth period, I think.
The problem is, some devices don't come with proper accessories. Take this blue sword, for example, the strap and sheath were destroyed during the fight. While other pieces of equipment have their straps or belts, they are too large for my body. My brother said that I could still buy those devices’ accessories, even if I don’t have the proper certificate. However, I have a better idea. I will ask Marcus to build a custom made one for me. After the transaction, I view my ID card to ensure that I received all the money.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Name: Kuro Age: 15 years old
Race: Human Gender: Female
Institution: Royal Adventure High School
Class: 3B Score: 1740/4000 Points
Credits: 15,218 Energy: 9.364/9.364 KJuiz
I don't gain more energy at all, so I concluded that it’s only increased with more energy exhausting exercise. The score also didn’t increase because it wasn’t an assignment. The money I gain isn’t much because I spent a lot on buying those adventurer grade devices and military-grade devices from my teammates. However, it’s satisfied my hoarding tendencies, so I have no qualms about it.
It’s already lunch time when we’re leaving the equipment tuning room. I changed my storage device to the one that looks like a cute hair clip. I took this because it has 64 cubic meters of space inside it. It has the highest capacity of all the storage devices I looted from those bandits. It also comes with an item management system, so I don’t have to arrange the stuff inside the pocket dimension by myself. The system is like the in-game item menu, so it’s easy to use. However, the times to take and store items are still too long. It took around several seconds per item, depending on its size, so it’s just unsuitable for any combat situations where life and death depend on split-second decisions.
At lunch time, I’m busy registering my newly tuned communication device to the service provider. The device is so thin because it consumes energy directly from me. However, the amount of energy it uses is negligible with my regeneration rate easily keeping up with its consumption. The subscription rate here depends on how much I’m going to use. I subscribed to the full package that comes with the unlimited call, messaging and Internet thing. It cost 39 credits per month. However, I could only connect to those services when I am inside populated areas. So, if I got stranded or lost inside a forest or dungeon, this device is useless.
“I’ve finished with the registration, how do I add other people's address?” It took quite a bit of effort because someone was already using the name Kuro. I don’t want to add any numbers after my name, so I registered as "Kurololo."
“Hmm? Let’s see. It's Kurololo@-” Everyone in my team quickly typed my address on their devices. A few seconds later, my device asked me if I wanted to accept the contact or not. Of course, my answer is yes. Oi! If they’re always doing this for me, then I wouldn’t know how to add the address myself. So I ran to Vicky’s team and asked for their address. They were tidying up the kitchen, but they happily help me register their addresses. Especially Stefano, that dandy guy on her team seems way too happy about it. Well, the user interface of the device is nothing I used in my previous world, but after trying it for a while, I got the hang of it.
While Sophia and my siblings were chatting happily about what to do with the money they just got, I walked from the kitchen to Marcus's table and registered his entire team’s address to my device. It’s the first time in my life having these many people on my contact list. I also commissioned his team to make accessories for my newly acquired devices. However, Marcus red-faced said that he needed to take my measurement.
“It’s 22D-21-25. And I’m 135 cm tall.” I told him my three sizes. I saw one of his teammates has the nosebleed while Marcus's face himself became red like the shiny Dawnbringer… only a few people noticed this event because people had started to move outside.
"No- I mean- yes that helped. But I still need to measure more than that.” Marcus gulped loudly then he took out measuring tape with shaking hands, but Rebecca; a quiet girl in his team just took it away from him and measured me instead. Rebecca is so much of a tomboy girl whom I mistook her for a boy when we first met. She has sharp eyes, short hair, and a flat chest, so it’s quite easy to mistake her as a boy in that mechanic suit. After she finished my measurements, we talked about the design, my combat style, and preferences. The commission's cost is only 150 credits. It’s cheap. He said it’s because he will make only one set of belts and straps then the modify all other equipment’s sheaths and holsters to fit with the set of that belt and straps.
“Did you calculate the cost correctly?” I look at Marcus suspiciously, because of some of the devices, he needs to build the attachments, sheaths or holsters from scratch. So, I still think he’s undercharging somehow.
“This guy calculated only the bare minimum of the raw material cost.” Peter interjected. So, Marcus behavior is as I expected. I noted to myself. Do not leave money matters to Marcus.
“Well, if that is the case, I should pay you up front then.” I send 500 credits to Marcus’s ID card. Three times the material cost should be proper for the custom-made order. Considering labor, research, development, and practice cost this shouldn’t be too expensive. I also add 50 credits as the weapon maintenance cost, that he did for us in the forest. I don’t want to be in debt to anyone. From my experience, being in debt to other people always put me in the nasty situations, so I paid him in full.
“I will have finished it before next we-w-wait! That’s too much!” When Marcus noticed the amount of money, I paid him, he stumbled and tried to return the money to me. However, I quickly took my ID card back. Well, his reaction is understandable. 500 credits are about average income from the other groups.
"Kuro~. It’s time to ride the bus.” My sister called me from her table.
“I considered it a fair price, and I expect good results from you.” I smiled at him and walked back to my team.