Chapter 17.
"Ah... That was a good meal!"
With a happy face, Lisbon rose from his seat as he rubbed his belly.
"Excuse me. I’d like to order some extra wheat bread and jam."
The whole wheat bread was worth three pelks and the jam was ten. Based on how he was ordering food soon after he’d finished eating, it seemed that the extra food was for his sister who had gone up to her room without eating anything.
It seemed that his sister, Alice, had a pickier palate.
The waitress brought over a loaf of white wheat bread and a small wooden container of some jam. Lisbon handed her six refined iron coins plus an iron coin, then topped it with two extra iron coins as tips.
I don’t think the waitress really did anything to receive tips, but I guess this is where Lisbon’s sucker personality shines.
After a brief conversation with the owner of the inn, Lisbon handed over a key to the owner at the front desk only to receive another. He then gave the new key to me.
"This is for Room 305. It’s a double room so go ahead and unpack your bag first. I’ll be back after checking on Alice."
I grabbed the key and acknowledged with a nod. I reckoned it would be a while before he returned since he had to first placate his irate sister.
While I went to Room 305 on the third floor, Lisbon stopped on the second floor. I unlocked the door and went in.
Two single beds filled the entire room.
I swiftly undressed and took a shower using water made out of magic. Magic was simply so convenient. Even though there was a whirlpool of water flowing between the two beds, neither the floor nor the beds were wet.
I ended the shower quickly and got rid of the water. Then I blew away the water on my body.
Ah, that felt refreshing!
For the last three days, not to mention a shower, I had to constantly monitor the water I had remaining to drink. It definitely felt more comfortable now that I could use magic freely.
It was as if I had grown another set of arms.
I sat on the bed and began unpacking. I needed a bag in the forest since I couldn’t open my pocket space, but now its only purpose was appearance. Still, it could look suspicious if I were to head to the Archipelago without a bag, so I decided to pack mine with light items and store away all the heavy ones into the pocket space. It was also a lot more convenient to take out items from my pocket space than a bag.
The volume of the bag became noticeably smaller after I put away a lot of items into the pocket space. I decided to bring out my blanket from the pocket space and stuff it into the bag.
The bag finally looked packed again.
I recalled the military commander from my past life who had taught me this and I once again realized how past experiences could prove handy in unexpected situations. What’s more, I could also fold some newspaper or boxes into the bag, but I was doubtful whether I could find something like that in this village.
After roughly filling up my bag, I looked inside my pocket space. It was well organized, so there was no need to rummage through it to find an item.
When I was first creating the pocket space, I had pictured a game inventory in my mind, so I could immediately tell at a glance what was inside.
I looked through the list of items inside the pocket space to see if there were any ogre-bones or other items to sell.
Orichalcum ingots, Mithril ingots, Adamantium ingots, all kinds of demon byproducts, the magic tools I made...
As I looked through the list, I managed to find some ogre by-products. If I recalled correctly, I was six when I put these by-products inside the pocket space.
It was around my sixth birthday when I created the pocket space, so this seemed to be one of the items I had put inside to celebrate the creation.
Good job, past self!
If everything went smoothly, it seemed that I would be able to forge the identification card and sell the rest to the market.
Knock, knock!
Sucker entered the room with a knock. He was holding a big bag in one hand.
"Ah-ha-ha, I was a little late picking up the bag from the other room. Sorry."
Lisbon unpacked his bag with a smile.
"Huh? Did you take a shower?"
"What? No."
"Really? Your skin is really smooth as if you’ve just taken a shower."
This was why I didn’t like suckers that were observant. Let’s change the subject.
"Now that I think about it, we don’t know anything about each other except for our names."
"Oh, that’s true. How old are you?"
"Sixteen."
"What? Sixteen? You’re older than I thought. You’re the same age as Alice. She is sixteen and I’m twenty.”
After telling me his age, Sucker started talking about everything from his village to what he had been doing up till now.
To summarize, Lisbon was the second son of a viscount. His big brother was inheriting his father’s estate, and so he was headed to the Archipelago to become a knight. His sister was talented in magic so she was heading to the capital to enroll in a magic school.
Yet, as if he had a few senses still remaining, he didn’t inquire about me. I had prepared a few fake stories in advance, but it seemed like they weren’t needed.
Fatigue, accumulated over three days, started to overwhelm me as I listened to his story. I could feel my voice drooping as I responded to Lisbon.
"Good night, Den."
“...Yes, good night... Lisbon.”
-o-
Ring, ring!
I jumped out of my bed at the sudden sound.
Where am I?
At first, I couldn’t recall due to the drowsiness, but I soon came to my senses and remembered Sucker and how he had provided me with a place to stay.
Ring, ring!
I quickly turned off the ringing alarm and looked at the slumbering Lisbon on the other bed. Fortunately, he didn’t wake up.
It was currently 5:45 a.m., and since I went to sleep around 9 p.m. yesterday, I had slept for almost nine hours.
I changed the alarm to 7 a.m. I had set it this early because I was on the run, but now there was no need to wake up so early.
It was still too early for sunrise, so it was dark outside the window.
What should I do now?
Should I leave since I don’t want to be indebted to this sucker anymore, or should I stay for a while longer?
After some hesitation, I took out some ink and a pen from the pocket space. I didn’t want to be indebted to him anymore, so I decided to secretly leave.
Since it would be rude to leave without saying anything, I decided to leave behind a letter.
-Thank you for the warm meal and the bed.
One line would do since it wasn’t like we had known each other for a while. I would pay back his grace when we had a chance to meet again.
I grabbed my bag and silently sneaked out of the room.
Lisbon showed no signs of waking up even as I closed the door.
I thought he was a bit dense for someone who wanted to become a knight, but he was now a stranger to me.
I quietly left the inn and then climbed up the roof of a building to avoid people. The back alley would have been just the same, but I decided to climb up the roof in case I ran into some gangsters.
Based on the reaction I had received from Lisbon and the village guards, it seemed that I looked young for my age. Just like how Asians seem younger in the eyes of Westerners, it was possible that people from my village seemed younger than people in the empire.
Unlike people from the empire, everybody in our village did look like Asians with black hair and black eyes.
I sat down on the roof and started forging the identification card with an ogre-bone and a knife I had taken out of the pocket space.
Chip-chip-chip... No!
My hand slipped and left a big knife mark on the ogre-bone I had been carving.
I put the failed product into the pocket space and started over from the beginning.
Chip-chip-chip!
I didn’t make any mistakes this time, but the edges were a bit bumpy. I took out another ogre-bone.
Chip-chip-chip!
The weight seemed a bit too light this time.
Square, square, square, square...
Dammit!
At this rate, I reckoned I might end up turning all the remaining ogre-bones into garbage. If I spent four hours on the roof trying to forge the ID and failed, it meant that I had no talent in this field.
In the end, I concluded that trying to forge the ID card by myself in the first place was the problem. This kind of work should be left to experts, not me.
I should start looking for someone who could forge identification cards like this. Someone like this probably had connections to underground organizations, so it was probably a good idea to change my appearance.
"Transformation!"
My current appearance would have had people looking down upon me, even making it easier to apprehend me should my fake credentials be exposed. To prevent that from happening, I transformed into a hirsute, middle-aged man with brown hair and a scar on his face.
This spell simply shrouded me with a holographic illusion rather than actually changing my body. Therefore, I had to be careful to prevent people from touching my face or moving too fast since that could cause a shattering noise.
For now, I decided to go catch some guys who might be chewing gum in a back alley. After about 10 minutes of looking through the back alleys, I managed to find five gangsters clumped up together.
In case they were innocent citizens simply gathered together, I bumped into one guy on the shoulder as I walked past. Although it was intentional, the narrow alley made it difficult to go past the quintet without some physical contact.
"Hey, Old Man! You have to apologize if you accidentally hit someone."
The one that looked especially savage spoke to me.
I thought I’d changed my appearance to a middle-aged man. Did I make a mistake? It was also possible that he was just saying that for the sake of it.
The gangster grabbed his left arm and said, “Oh no, I think I may have broken my bone."
The place I bumped into was his right arm.
"Give me 3,000 pelks for the treatment."
3,000 pelks was one silver coin and 20 refined bronze coins. It was an amount exceeding the monthly budget of a family of four.
While this idiot I bumped into was grabbing his left arm with his right hand, the other four gangsters behind him started giggling.
"Look at how scared he looks!"
"Kkekekew, I know right!"
They seemed to think that I was scared because I wasn’t saying anything.
The idiot I had bumped into started walking towards me and said, "Hey, Old Man, hurry up and give me the money."
What’s this situation?
Is he trying to act cute?
Then I guess I could give him a light pat.
Bang!
He looked less savage than the three-headed dog back at the village, so I just tried to give him a light pat. However, I failed to control my strength and blasted him into the wall.
Uncle really hadn’t been exaggerating about the bending spoons.
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