After closing the house in the morning, I couldn’t store the core. I tried again and again without success.

Bummer.

I was worried this would happen because I had live people “at home,” but I hoped I was wrong.

Looking up at the sky, I told the system, “As a level ten ability, I want the ability to store living things in my Storage.”

There was no response, but I hoped it would eventually happen if I kept saying it.

I told the core, “Disguise yourself as a sturdy backpack.”

A nice brown leather backpack grew around the core, with shoulder straps and a strap around my waist. I put it on, and it was very comfortable. Good enough.

We got back on the road, and I continued to drive. After forty minutes, we reached the nearest town. What I loved about Lumis was that the towns and cities differed from each other. In Shimoor, the towns looked like carbon copies of each other, and the cities were very similar. Here, each town or city had its own character.

We arrived in a town lined with rows of stone houses, standing like soldiers with perfectly straight alignment and streets between them. The sight of the houses, made entirely of stone, including roofs covered with thin stone slabs that resembled tiles without a pattern, surprised me. When I asked for the town’s name, it all made sense—Ruchur’s Quarry. No wonder everything was built of stone.

My ATV caused an uproar, and half the town gathered, shouting questions at me.

“Where did you get that carriage?”

“Where can I find such a carriage?”

“How much does a carriage like this cost?”

And more and more questions. I realized I couldn’t trade here—nothing interested them except my ATV. After a quarter of an hour of incessant questions, and my only question receiving an answer was the town’s name, we continued to drive. I had no patience for all those questions. The residents weren’t happy that I ignored them, and some even cursed me. Two teenagers threw stones after me.

Assholes.

All the hubbub about my transportation got me thinking. How did the assassination squad reach the ambush site? And it was an assassination squad—they didn’t try to catch me. They aimed straight for my head. That thought made me pull a U-turn and head in the opposite direction.

I blew through the town again and headed to the ambush site. When we got close, the sound of axes reached me, so I stored the ATV. Rue and I turned invisible and approached on foot. On either side of the tree, teams of people were swinging axes, chopping away at it.

I stood, thinking about how to locate their equipment. There was no way they had arrived on foot and brought nothing with them. We went into the trees and wandered around for at least an hour without success.

“What John looking for?” Rue asked, tilting his head.

“Their camp or something,” I replied.

“John silly! Tell Rue what you look for.” He stuck his nose in the air, sniffed, and said, “Follow Rue.”

After ten minutes of fighting with the underbrush, Rue led us to a trail wide enough for a cart, but only that. After another five minutes of walking, we arrived at a clearing next to the trail with horses, carts, and two guards. Unsure if they were connected to our attackers, I quietly approached and eavesdropped on them. For over an hour, they rambled about unrelated things like girls and food, but finally, one said, “We need to get the gear ready to move. Lord Damarion said to wait only one day.”

As far as I was concerned, that was enough. I hit them both with a weak lightning bolt, knocking them unconscious, placed the core on the ground, and ordered it to open the house. Focusing with my senses, I felt my other guests. They were talking among themselves. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but they were awake. This was a problem. If I opened the door, I’d have to shoot them with lightning again, and I wasn’t keen on that.

I thought about it for a moment and came up with an idea. I went up to the second floor, to my bedroom, and ordered the core, “Open a chute at an angle to the room with the prisoners.”

The chute appeared, and I sensed one of them approaching and sticking his head in. That was a mistake. Two seconds later, one of his “buddies” collided with him, throwing him back, and fell on top of him. At least he cushioned the fall of his first friend and, a few seconds later, the second one as well.

To prevent them from starving, I searched through my Storage, found some less interesting takeaways, placed them on the floor, and instructed the core to move them to the prisoners’ room. I monitored with my senses and felt when the food appeared on the floor near the toilet.

I dare Mahya and Al to tell me the core isn’t sentient. It told them exactly what it thought of them!

After taking care of the guards, I turned to check the rest of the loot. There were twenty-one horses, two carts, and two wagons. One cart contained only barrels and the horses’ tack. When I examined the barrels, I found that ten contained water, and four had food for the horses.

The second cart contained spare weapons and armor, folded tents, blankets, and wooden crates with metal boxes. When I opened the first box, I discovered a meat stew with vegetables inside. The stew was still hot.

Hmm, interesting.

I examined the box with my senses and felt nothing. There was no spell on it, and when I examined it from all sides, there were no runes or anything else. I checked another box and felt a spell on it. As soon as I opened the box, the spell dissipated. I examined the third box, focusing on the spell itself. There were familiar parts—I had felt them in the Restore spell—so I guessed it had to do with time, but I couldn’t make sense of it. This aspect was confusing and strange. The feeling I got from it was of “nothing” or “nonexistent,” yet there was “movement” in it, or perhaps “motion” was the better word. The “nothing” was also a concept—there was something there, but it felt like “nothing.” Confusing and unclear. I put it aside to examine later.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Meanwhile, Rue ate the stew from the metal boxes I opened, huffed, and said, “John cook better.”

I laughed and replied, “Thanks, buddy. We’ll keep those boxes to feed our prisoners.”

The wagons were more interesting. The first wagon was relatively narrow. Inside was a narrow bed with drawers underneath and a straw mattress. The drawers held only clothes and some weapons. In front of the bed was a table attached to the opposite wall, with a chair and some papers on the table. The top page was a drawing of my face.

I checked the desk drawers and found only papers. I skimmed through them but found nothing interesting—just shift times, salary details, and other documents related to the management of the guards who attacked me. And they were indeed Lord Damarion’s guards.

The salary breakdown made me think—if there’s a salary breakdown, where’s the money? I searched the whole wagon and found nothing. Besides the bed and table, there was a barrel of water, another crate of food, and another crate with camping equipment.

The second wagon was much wider, with two beds on either side, both with feather mattresses instead of straw. There were drawers under these beds as well, but they only held clothes—more luxurious than in the other wagon.

This one belonged to mages?

Besides the beds, there were two boxes with higher-quality camping gear, a water barrel, and another crate with food boxes. Both wagons got a thorough search, even using Luck to hunt for valuables, but nothing turned up.

Given that they surely brought money or other valuables, I wondered where it could be. I facepalmed. Before, I didn’t examine the bodies I stored. Looting corpses didn’t sit well with me. As Al kept saying, “It would be undignified.”

I told the core, “Open the deck.”

When the deck was open, I placed all the bodies on it and told it, “Absorb everything and then return all their stuff.”

I got back a large pile of clothes, armor, boots, and several pouches of money. After counting the money, the total was four gold and thirty-one silver, in silver and copper coins. Besides that, I got four rings. Three were gold, and one was black, like obsidian, but not exactly. I told the core to absorb everything except the money and rings.

I identified the black ring:

Manawell Band

Improves regeneration by twenty percent and reduces the cost of spells by twenty percent.

Not bad.

The other rings looked like plain gold bands, similar to wedding bands from Earth, but when scanned with mana sense, they were clearly not ordinary. In fact, they were bursting with mana.

I identified them. Two were:

Small Void Band

Stores items in a total volume of one cubic Migur (1.36 cubic meters).

The third was:

Medium Void Band

Stores items in a total volume of three cubic Migur (4.08 square meters).

Nice!

I tried to look inside the rings, but no luck. I remembered that in a book I read, the MC smeared blood on the ring to bind it. So, I pricked my finger, smeared some blood on the ring, and tried to look inside again. Nothing.

Hmm, annoying!

I tried flowing mana into the ring—still nothing.

How the hell do you operate this thing?

Maybe Appraisal has the answer?

Small Void Band

Value: 100 gold

I grumbled to the ability, “That doesn’t help me!”

Rue sat there, head tilted, watching me.

“Do you know how to turn it on?” I asked him.

He blinked a few times, looking confused. For a moment, I thought I’d broken my dog. After ten seconds, he shook his head.

I sighed deeply.

What else could it be? Blood didn’t work, mana didn’t work… maybe spit? It made no sense, but it was worth a shot.

Of course, that didn’t work either. Luckily, the ring wasn’t sentient, or it would’ve laughed at me. I scratched my head, trying to figure it out. I remembered Lord Damarion giving his guard a ring like this before I made my deal with Adi. He put the ring on without pricking himself or channeling mana.

Worth a try. I slid the ring on and felt a small prick on the inside. Suddenly, a new awareness appeared in my mind. I couldn’t immediately see what was inside the ring, but knew I could look.

The first small ring contained:

* A small pouch containing herbs, silver powder, and mana crystals.

* One folded set of enchanted robes to protect from heat or cold.

* A slim leather-bound book that burned in my hands when I tried to open it.

* 2 Health Potions and 5 Mana Potions.

* A Coin Pouch: 25 silver coins and 10 gold coins.

When I put on the second ring, nothing happened. It took me a while, but I figured I had to take off one to put on the other.

The second small ring contained:

* A compact, leather-bound spell book with notes on basic enchantments and elemental spells. Unfortunately, nothing interesting, just notes about aspects.

* A pouch with mana crystals.

* A lightweight traveling cloak with minor magical resistance.

* A small bag containing dried medicinal herbs.

* A short wooden wand with basic enchantments for amplification.

* 3 Health Potions and 3 Mana Potions.

* A Coin Pouch: 15 silver coins and 8 gold coins.

The big ring contained:

* Armor Pieces: A spare pair of gauntlets and greaves, crafted from light steel.

* A longsword with minor enchantments for durability.

* A small leather journal with notes on guard schedules and orders from Lord Damarion. The orders were, “Kill that bastard and capture his wolf for me.”

* A bedroll, a small tent, and a basic flint-and-steel kit.

* Two heavy pouches: One with 97 gold coins and the other with 450 silver coins.

* Three metal food boxes.

* A tube containing maps of the surrounding region.

It was nothing exciting but a nice enough compensation for my wounds during the battle.

I didn’t feel like messing with the carts and wagons. I stored everything from them, then pushed them onto the deck and told the core to absorb them. While I was doing this, an idea came to me. Once the core finished, I said, “Disguise yourself as a wagon. Create all the normal spaces inside.”

The house folded into the core, and three minutes later, a wagon that looked just like the mages’ wagon stood in its place.

Yes!

It took me almost an hour to figure out how to connect the horses to the wagon, but in the end, I got it. After attaching the wagon, I put the bridles and reins on the horses. At least I knew how to do that from our riding lessons on Earth. The setup here was slightly different, but similar enough not to be a problem.

I asked Rue, “What do you think, buddy? We have two options: keep riding the ATV and store it before every town we come to, then continue on foot. Or go with this wagon and horses, but we’ll have all the comforts of home everywhere.”

Rue looked at the horses and said, “Horses slow.”

“Yeah, it’ll be slower. But on the other hand, you’ll be able to watch TV while traveling between towns.”

He cocked his head to the side, thinking for a few minutes. Then he said, “Horses. If Rue not like slow, sell horses.”

“Yes, boss!” I said with a salute, and Rue rolled his eyes at me.

I tied the horses to the back of the wagon, Rue went to sleep on his beanbag in the living room, and I led the horses along the trail until we connected to the main road. Just before reaching the main road, I ordered the core to change the wagon’s appearance and adjusted my glamour.

When we returned to the town, I sold five horses, and we continued on our way. I didn’t want to stop there long, remembering the stones they threw at me. After leaving town, I whipped the reins to see what speed we could reach. It was definitely slower than the ATV. The ATV easily hit 45 km/h, while the horses only managed about 15 km/h. I suspected Rue would want us to sell the horses after a town or two.

Oh well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.