The Insider System

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As the hours passed and they made progress, Lake realized having both him and Lucas was overkill for every situation they ran into. It would have made much more sense for them to split up, but that was only true if they never ran into a problem that needed both him and Lucas.

"Lucas, how much more time do you have?" They were running toward the fourth journal of the day, but Lucas had drawn lines to three more dots after that, so Lucas probably had at least two hours left. "I want to get back before midday. I have a meeting with the guild leader of the Farmers Guild around that time."

That gave them closer to three hours, so Lake asked what he had been thinking. "Do you want to split up? With the map, you'll get to one more journal today if I head off to gather the items." It was pretty far from their current position, but one more journal was on the map, close enough that Lucas could get there before heading home for his meeting if they stopped going after the items around.

"Will you be fine without the map because I'll need it to find the journal's location?" Lake nodded before explaining. "The arrow will work just fine for me." Lake hadn't ever needed the map and only started to use it because it made knowing where he was going easier. "Alright, hand it over."

After Lake gave the map to Lucas, he was about to run towards the next item when he heard Lucas ask. "Will you be coming back today?" Lake could understand why Lucas might think he would stay out here for multiple days because most people would if they had his skills.

"No, I'll be back today." There was a tiny chance this wasn't actually true, so he added, "Unless something stops me." right before he ran away from Lucas. A few minutes after their split, Lake arrived at the location of the next item and used his list and Detecter to get the name.

Limb Guards Estimated Lv.40

Seeing the item was just something that would protect his arms, he knew in all reality it probably wouldn't give him Perception while inside Inner Vault, but he was already here and needed arm guards for the new armor set he was putting together, so he was definitely going to take the Limb Guards before he left.

Seeing a building next to the side of a road, Lake assumed he had arrived at the location of the Limb Guards and switched Detector to look for them instead of the arrow pointing at them. Seeing something start to glow, Lake switched to using Mana Vision and found the person wearing the Limb Guards at a table inside the building, surrounded by others.

Assuming this meant this building was an inn or something like it, he walked towards the door and entered. Once inside, Lake saw something he assumed was fate making a joke; the person wearing the Limb Guards was arm wrestling someone, and it looked like there was a line to go next.

He couldn't think of an easier way to touch the Limb Guards, so he went and stood at the back of the line to wait for his turn. While in line, Lake decided he had enough time to use Detector on his list to find a better target than just whatever was next closest item.

Twenty minutes later, Lake was walking out of the inn, having touched the Limb Guards after a round of arm weresing. The man with the Limb Guards was using them to hustle low-level adventurers out of their gold, probably relying on the stat bonus the item gave him to do it.

After seeing how many times each person lined back up after being beaten, he was sure the guy with the limb guards never needed to do much of anything else to make gold. He got it because the looks of the one wearing the Limb Guards made it seem that it would be easy to beat them, but Lake felt like losing a couple of times would make you realize something was up. The only explanation he could think of was everyone inside had a low intelligence stat, and it would explain this situation because he remembered what it had been like to have your intelligence in the single digits.

Once Lake was far enough away from the inn, he turned and used Mana Vision. As someone sat down to engage in a match, Lake summoned the Limb Guards to his hand, hoping the person he had just stolen them from would blame the one touching their hand for the disappearance instead of him.

Taking out his arrow, Lake oriented himself before running off towards the target he picked well inside the inn.

Field Helmet Estimated Lv.50

Grants longsight or something similar.

While inside, Lake had realized that because of how his skills worked in tandem, he could probably set Detector to look for things that would give him the stats he wanted while inside Inner Vault, and it had worked as he'd hoped. However, this item's description he'd written made it easy to guess that it would give Perception if he put it inside Inner Vault.

Meaning that he could finally just go after items that would increase his Perception as it was the stat holding him back. He could have probably found these items in other ways or assumed their effects as he had done with Mizzly's bow, but this method was much easier for him.

Of course, this didn't change that he was in for a long run to get to his next target, but it would be worth it as the next item he'd chosen was estimated to be level 50, like Mizzly's bow. He just hoped that it would need to be stolen because Mizzly's bow wasn't, and therefore, only gave half of what it could if the situation had been different. (f)reewe(b)novel

Mizzly's bow was still much better than the other items he had found around its level, so he couldn't complain too much with how bad getting an item like it could have gone if it had an owner.

He still remembered how it could see him even without a person using it, and he was sure this skill transferred to its owner from the stories of Mizzly he had read. A person like that would have been impossible to sneak up on, and this knowledge made him a little bit worried about this next item's owner.

His method of going under the ground would probably still work because even he had a hard time telling what was under him with skills like Detector and Mana Vision, but that was only because they needed to be activated. There was a good chance the person with the helmet would have a passive view of what was going on around them from wearing the item he was after giving them the advantage of not needing to know to activate their skill.

This might even include them seeing him coming from much further than he had ever experienced before, and once they saw him, there wouldn't be much he could do about it if they could tell he was coming right at them and there was no other reason for him to be there.

All of this was only applicable to the situation if 'Long Sight' didn't end up being an accurate way of describing what the helmet did, though, because if it was, simple obstacles should allow him to get more than close enough to the owner to steal the helmet from them.

Around thirty minutes later, Lake arrived at a town, and guessing this was the right place, switched Detector to look for the helmet before entering the city so he would see it if he was right about it being here. He didn't get far before he saw something start to glow on the left side of town.

Getting closer and using Mana Vision, Lake found the item seemed to be inside a building, and with no one around, Lake decided to just go right inside before anyone who might see him showed up and ruined this opportunity.

Once inside, Lake took a bit more time to look around and even used his skill Burglar Alarm to try and find the owner because he was worried they were here and he just couldn't see them with Mana Vsion for some reason.

When Burglar Alarm didn't show an owner, Lake started to get worried about who it might be, but remembering what happened when he was after Mizzly's bow, he used Detector to look for ownerless homes. When the building he was standing in didn't start to glow, Lake let himself get nervous and turned around to leave.

If this place had an owner and Burglar Alarm wasn't able to figure out who they were, he needed to try and find more information on them before he decided to take the helmet. He had a good idea of where to start as well, so Lake didn't think it would take too long to make his decision.