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183. A House
🕑 Added 2024-10-04 14:00:03 +0000 UTCSitting on his doorstep, Ike checked all the skills he’d taken out of the treasury. Most of them were useless skills. Skills for counting, transferring money around, skills of that sort. The kind of skills a town full of traders would find incredibly useful, but which Ike found kind of worthless.
Well, not worthless. I’ll sell them for a profit.
The only two combat skills in Shopkeep’s treasury were a low-rank sword skill, inferior to River-Splitting Sword, and a skill for throwing knives. He considered the knife skill. He didn’t have any throwing skills yet, but did he really need one? Would he ever need to throw a knife? It seemed relatively useless.
He put his mana into it, sensing the skill. It was perfect. No flaws in the skill itself. It didn’t feel like more than a Bronze-rank skill, but then, it was for throwing knives. He couldn’t expect it to be a high-rank skill.
If I could combine that with my lightning skills, or with one of my other elemental skills, though, that could be awesome. Ike considered for one more second, then absorbed it.
The skill easily vanished into his body. He opened up his skill menu.
[Name: Ike | Age: 17 | Status: Nm | Rank: 3 [Homeowner]]
Skills: Common: 8 | Bronze 5 | Silver 3 | Gold 2 | Rare 2 | Unique: 6
Common: All-Around Runner Lvl 9 | Razor Handling Lvl 9 | Spear Handling Lvl 4 | Axe Handling Lvl 4 | Sword Handling Lvl 9 | Bow Handling Lvl 1 | Primitive Crafting Lvl 9 | Self-Cleaning Lvl 1
Bronze: Throwing Knife Lvl 1 | Sensory Enhancement Lvl 9 | Mana Manipulation Lvl 6 | Lunam Manipulation Lvl 0 | Aether Manipulation Lvl 2 | Solam Manipulation Lvl 0
Silver: Flurry of Kicks Lvl 4 | Chlorophyll Lvl 3 | Exsanguination Lvl 1
Gold: Shockwave Punch Lvl 6 | Ice Armor Lvl 5
Rare: River-Splitting Sword Lvl 9 | Mountain’s Weight Lvl 1
Unique: Lightning Dash Lvl 9 | Lightning Grasp Lvl 9 | Lightning Clad Lvl 4 | Lightning Caller Lvl 4 | Body Reforging Art Lvl 1 | Tempest Lvl 2
How narrow is this knife-throwing skill? He drew out the invisible wolf’s tooth dagger, then stopped. He looked at the invisible knife. Yeah. I uh. Probably don’t want to throw that one.
Reaching back into his storage ring, he drew out a bejeweled golden dagger. He activated the skill.
Information flowed into his head. He understood the weight of the dagger instinctively, and clutched up on his grip to hold it at the best spot. Turning, he chose a point in the middle of the pond-depression and loosed the dagger. The skill guided his hand, wrist, and elbow. The dagger flew true and struck the center of the pond, exactly where he’d aimed.
Ike nodded, raising his brows. Not bad. It was a skill for throwing blades, and it did exactly that. He tried again with his sword, then with a dinner knife. Every time, the skill guided his body to throw it perfectly. The skill struggled with the sword, and that toss went awry, but the rest of the blades landed exactly where he’d meant them to.
Satisfied, Ike walked over and retrieved his blades. He slid them all away. I’ll leave the rest of the skills in my storage ring. I’ll sell them at the next town. I don’t need a bunch of useless accounting skills.
“Hey! Ike.” Wisp’s head popped up over the wall between their houses.
“What’s up?” Ike asked, looking over.
She scrambled over the wall and hopped down on his side. “You like your house?”
“Yeah. It’s… amazing,” Ike said.
“It’s kind of boring and stone, but sure,” Wisp said. She shook her head. “I need to do some decorating.”
“Oh, I was just doing that, too…” Ike trailed off. “You mean with your webs, don’t you.”
“What other kind of decorating is there? Webs make a home. Webs are a home. My home needs webs!” Wisp exclaimed. She shook her head at Ike disbelievingly.
“I can’t say it doesn’t make sense,” Ike agreed.
“You want some?”
“No, no. You should decorate your house before you worry about mine,” Ike said demurely.
“It’s no trouble. I can spin ‘em up wherever,” Wisp said.
“Do your house first. Your house first,” Ike repeated.
“It’s free. Free loot! My thread is very valuable, you know. People paid good money to harvest it from the forest, back in the Abyss,” Wisp announced proudly.
“Did they?” Ike asked, squinting.
“They did! But not to me, to some human mage who decided he was going to sell my hard work without paying me. I caught on and ate him, and then no one wanted to deal with me, for some reason.”
“Probably because you ate the first guy,” Ike offered.
Wisp clicked her tongue. “Humans are way too picky about a few little snacks. He was stealing my shit! Was I supposed to just let him, huh? Humans understand might makes right, so why are you so picky about eating people?”
“That’s… well, it’s a line most people will never cross,” Ike said.
“They should. Humans would benefit from a little bit of cannibalism.”
Ike snorted. He shook his head at her. “This is why you’ll never make it in human society.”
“Yeah, like you’re so good,” Wisp shot back.
“I’ve never eaten a single child,” Ike bragged.
“I haven’t, either,” Wisp said sadly.
“What, really?”
“Unless you count my fellow siblings, but that was kind of an every-man-for-himself situation. I’ve never eaten a human child. They’re too hard to catch. They hide in their cities, out of my reach.”
“Have you tried?” Ike asked, not sure he wanted to know.
“Maybe.”
Footsteps echoed down the street. Ike and Wisp looked up. Shopkeep approached, a smile on his face. “Have you two chosen your houses?”
“Yes. These two,” Ike said.
“Wonderful, wonderful. I’m glad to see you two so happy.” He turned and gazed outward, away from the city. Over the walls. Out beyond the forest. “Maybe soon I’ll have a city full of citizens again. A real city.”
“I hope so, as well,” Ike agreed.
“If you two move on, I hope you’ll bring stories of this place with you. Tell everyone about this peaceful city,” Shopkeep said.
Ike nodded. “Of course!”
“I don’t think so.”
