The World of Tactics

Chapter Thirteen II: A Day At The Kabridge Capital

"The Kabridge Capital was situated on a long stretch of wilderness land and situated many towns and villages. Those lands are considered the fiefs of the lords that were established there. Throughout the regions within the administration of the Kabridge Capital, there are plenty of monsters that are commonly encountered. Likewise, threats such as monsters were recorded so that such threats are eliminated before the growing monsters become a problem for the villages and towns.

To the west, the common hostile monsters were goblins, wolves, orb hounds, bears, hangar bats, gigant spiders, night hounds, silent owls, long snakehead alligators, thousand-year turtles, man-eater fish, and such monsters. Almost all of the other monsters that are not mentioned are quite uncommon and have little chance of encountering such monsters.

To the east of the Kabridge Capital were the roughsand worm, floating eyes, grelims, ogre, orcs, land lizard, meat-eating plants, earth eagle, hahahaning hyena, thousand legs centipedes, and such monsters. Any other uncommon monsters are not mentioned and are not common.

To the north were the lycanthropes, lizardmen, goblins, wolves, gremlins, orcs, bears, hangar bats, mudmans, boarhogs, thunderbirds, kobolds, treants, and many other uncommon monsters.

To the south were the nymphs, witches, water witches, bloodsucklings, living undead, skeletons, banshees, floating wisps, swamp fisher devils, and many other uncommon monsters.

The list of monsters could go on and on, but the monsters that were uncommon around the region were either the evolved forms of the ordinary monsters or other uncommon monsters that intruded into the "

regions, and any sort of special or weird occurrences." -Noted by a logistic within the Karbridge Capital.

---

He did not have any plans of getting any weapons at the moment because the weapons on display are quite expensive. There were no weapons that were under one hundred gold coins. The price of the equipment was listed at more than one hundred gold coins. He felt like the seventy-eight gold coins were a lot. Compared to those, it was nothing. So, he quietly slips away from the blacksmith.

He knows why it was expensive and it was expensive for a reason. In a battle, having a weapon is a must to dish out a higher amount of damage. A bout usually involves suffering damage while dealing back damage. The only way around it was to have better stats than the opposite side to short bouts. A weapon is a must. In his case, he is just missing the weapon advantage after his training lance broke.

He has been itching for a better quality weapon, but not now. He still got to have a few gold coins in his pocket to keep his daily life running. If he rashly spends all of his gold coins on a single weapon, then he would not be able to keep up his daily life. He spotted a general shop and went there to buy some daily things. Most of the daily necessary things that he brought with him had been on the side of the stream from where he was trying to escape.

He bought some bar soap (five bars), a toothbrush, some green blackish toothbrushes (three bags), and paid for a total of twenty-four gold coins. Luckily, he got the toothbrush for free and a discount, since the toothbrush is barely worth a gold coin. This should last him for more than one month and over two months. He got out of the general shop, since there was nothing else that was worth buying, and joined the crowd.

He did not forget to secretly put the things that he bought into his inventory. He knows for sure that his inventory space is unique and it knew best if nobody else knew about it. The secret of his inventory could not be leaked at all and he did not want the unnecessary problems that came with the association of his inventory. For sure, this would be his only little secret until his day of death.

Even though he wanted to get to the barracks. The shops within the capital were just so captivating and interesting. It was especially so because of this next shop he found along the way. The sign on top has a simple name called: "It's Magic!" It was a magic shop and when the word 'magic' was involved. He could not stop his feet from turning and pushing the door of the shop open.

His first impression when entering a magic shop was bland. It was not wizardly and was filled with mystical things and weird artifacts, nor was there anything dark like that, and it looked quite normal. The magic shop was quite clean. There were many shelves in the middle, the walls, and a simple-looking counter. However, within the shelves were many square-off sections that either had a potion glass filled with some liquid, neatly stacked magic scrolls, and many other types of ingredients.

He could not name them all, but he was in luck because there was a small wooden plate sign that told what the names of the items and the ingredients were. He was also looking forward to seeing the magical staff, but instead, he found out that books were much more prominent and most of them were either duplicate with the same attributes or different elemental types of magic. He looked at one of the book's statuses and it reads:

[Fireball Tome: Might +2, Hit +80, Crit +0, Weight=1~2, Durability (Uses): 30/30]

[A magic book made by imprinting a working magic rune inside the pages. When the magic rune is used, the pages that could not withstand the raging mana will be destroyed. A revolutionary way of casting magic at the cost of vitality. Cost: 0HP. Not repairable. (Anima E)]

Then he moved to the next:

[Thunderbolt Tome: Might +3, Hit +75, Crit +0, Weight=1~2, Durability (Uses): 30/30]

And then the next:

[Wind s***h Tome: Might +1, Hit +85, Crit +5%, Weight=1~2, Durability (Uses): 30/30]

He was quite interested in magic books, but he realized that he could not use any of them. Overall, there were no magic tomes that required a rank of C and above. The ones that he saw required only rank E and D. This also means that to get stronger magic tomes, he either must attend a magic academy or something like that.

Still, even with magic tomes in hand. He will not be able to use it unless he has anima weapon mastery. A bit sad at the thought of not getting to use magic, but he realizes that as long as he gets the chance. He would learn how to use anima. For now, he backed away from the books section because a single book listed at least three hundred gold coins. Only the rich would possibly want to become a mage. He sadly backed away.

He moved to the next section and found something of interest and it was the soul core. He even saw some goblin's soul cores along with the price listing of twenty gold coins. The wolf's soul core was set at twenty-five gold coins. As for hobgoblins, it was set at two hundred gold coins. He also finds other types of soul core, like the kobold, finds a humanoid lizard, salamander, bear, tiger, zombie, skeleton, brownies, hound, orc, gremlins, wendigo, and the list stops there.

Sadly, the list does not have another evolutionary form of Uzi. Otherwise, he would have bought it right away. However, he did find the brownies and the wendigo interesting because of their description and their looks. That also includes the zombie and the skeleton, because he had not expected there would be two of those in the group of soul cores. All of the soul cores have a range from level ten to level twenty or so. There were only ten hobgoblins' soul cores, but Goon would have wiped the floor with them just in stats and potential growth.

Since they sell soul cores here, then he could also sell his stock of soul cores to this magic shop. This way, he could free up some of his inventory slots because the soul cores do not stack. This also means that he is wasting a lot of inventory space for every single soul core. He sells these now to enable him to store more soul cores that he gets in the future. To the counter, he went.

Nothing was easy at all because he had to pretend to put his hand into his ragged shirt and silently grab one soul core one at a time. After taking out all of the soul cores, except Goon and Uzi, his shirt was quite bulging. To contain the bulging soul cores, he had to wrap his shirt up to hold it in place. With a 'hup' sound, he smashes the soul cores on the countertop.

His action surprised the lady at the counter. Afterward, he went straight to business, "How much is all of this?"

The lady was a bit on the chubby side and, after the initial surprise, gave him a long stare. He felt a bit uncomfortable because of her stare as the time slowly went by. After ten seconds, the lady finally started to count the soul cores and did some mental calculations. He felt relieved after the lady stopped staring at him, but her silence was just too weird. Nothing could have stopped him from sweating a bit.

While the process was a bit slow, he gave the lady a curious scan of her status screen and it read:

[Status]

[Name: Mary [4]][Class: Mage (Grade 2)][Level: 29/34][Rank: 2][HP: 24/24]

[STR: 4(10) / [1][2][3][4][][][][][][] ]

[MAG: 12(20) / [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] [11] [12] [][][][][][][][] ] +2

[SKL: 9(20) / [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][][][][][][][][][][][] ]

[SPD: 5(20) / [1][2][3][4][5][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] ]

[LCK: 6(30) / [1][2][3][4][5][6][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] ]

[DEF: 4(10) / [1][2][3][4][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] ]

[RES: 10(20) / [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][][][][][][][][][][][][] ]

[Hidden: [CON: 7][MOV: 5][SKILL: [Magic Up][Magic User]][EXP: 99/100]

[WEA: Anima: B (Lighting), D (Fire), E (Wind)]

[Growth Rate][HP: 25][STR: 15][MAG: 35][SKL: 23][SPD: 12][LCK: 18][DEF: 17][RES: 33]

He would never have expected that a lady, Mary, in a magic shop would be this strong. Sadly, Mary's growth rate was slightly better than the average person and it leaned nicely on the magic side, which also fits her class. Even then, the two skills were quite something. The other thing that he found quite sad was that Mary had chosen to promote early, which had stunted her maximum levels to only thirty-four. Otherwise, with the six additional levels. She could potentially become even stronger than ever.

He had expected in the first place that there would be others within the capital to be as strong as his father, but this had brought him back to his father's growth rate. His father's growth was fantastic, as it was between his thirties and forties. There was only one to two stat that had a much lower growth rate. Even so, those stats' growth rate was not even lower than twenty. The same goes for his two younger siblings.

Hugo leans toward close combat while Savanah leans toward a magic class. He was getting quite a headache as Hugo's strength, skill, and speed stats' growth rate all exceeded forty. As for Savannah, it was quite the opposite as magic and resistance stats' growth rates all also exceeded forty. He just can not imagine what those two will become when they grow older and gain experience from battle.

His thought process stops when he hears a loud 'thump' on the counter. He curiously looked at what made that noise. It was a bag full of gold coins. Mary turned to him and said, "Look, dumbo. Stop making this lady blush."

His body shivered after Mary finished talking. He was not engrossed with her and the truth was, he was thinking of her status, which led to his father, then to his two younger siblings. He quickly grabs the coins and pretends to put them into his shirt while turning around as quickly as he can. When he was about to grab the door nobs, he heard Mary's laughter and quickened his pace. He feels uncomfortable being inside this magic store.

The moment he stepped outside of the door and shut the door. The bag of gold coins had already been emptied. He took the coins into his inventory while he left the bag of gold coins. Since he was lacking a small pouch like this, he strung the small bag onto his pants. He plans on putting the meat strips into this pouch at a later date and munching on the meat strips whenever he feels like it. He took a liking to munching on a meat strip. It makes him feel better.

He felt satisfied with the number of gold coins the moment the gold coins were pocketed into his inventory. He saw that his gold coins went up by one hundred sixty-five gold coins. It was quite the amount for him and his gold coins went past six hundred. He felt richer than before and this might be a bit dangerous, but the riches were also there. After thinking about it, it was just two harmless battles and the ones who attracted such battles at night were Dork.

He felt that he should reward Dork once he got back. It was because Dork deserves it. Even though Dork did nothing throughout the whole battle. It was just an afterthought since it was much more important to hand the letter to the barracks. So, he quickened his walking pace quite a bit and moved along the main road.

[Ford - Has been a butcher all his life and he just follows in the footsteps of his father, grandfather, great grandfather. In short, his family line has always been operating the butcher shop and he plans to keep it that way.]

[Sunny - He had seen his father's knife skills and had been learning since the day he could remember. All-day, every day, he has been learning the trade of a butcher and has learned from the greatest person. He admired his father's butchering skills and wanted to become such a figure later in life. He strives hard to learn everything from his father and becomes the best butcher in the capital.]

[Mark - Son of the greatest thief within Kabridge Capital. His home was confiscated by the thugs and he was pushed out into the streets, never to return to that place again. However, due to vague memories, the only thing he could remember from his father was the tricks and tips from his father. Though his skills are incomplete, he was able to make a living from [Pilfer]-ing within the commoner's sector and sector. He only remembers being inside the house one day expecting his father would come home soon, like usual. He becomes hungry over time and he has to resort to stealing things like his father's to survive. Later on, he becomes an important asset to the main character.]

[Mary - Through a series of coincidences, her magic talent was founded and she was sent to become an apprentice of a mage. At that time, she did not know the reason why she was there or her reason for being there. She could only vaguely remember that she had a father and a mother. After then, she lived her hard life living as an apprentice under the roof of that mage. She was treated harshly by her master and life was tough. There was barely enough food to go into her stomach and she was quite fragile and bony at that time. After she becomes a true mage, herself. She kept it a secret until she was sixteen before she planned her escape. It might be due to the slight difference in age as she was in her sprouting stage while her narrow-minded master's old age. During her escape, she had to coldly retaliate as her old master hurls a fireball at her. It was a standoff she did not want to remember. She remembers that she had only the decrepit Lightning Tome that she made herself. And, she zapped her master to death. On rainy days, her back scar aches. Ever since then, she has developed an unusual habit of never becoming as skinny and as bony as before.]