NOVEL WEB Chapter 27: Bounty
Ryoshu had finally returned to the bustling city. It had been almost a week since he had experienced the modern conveniences of human civilization. From basic needs like food to other necessities that normal people take for granted.
'Just great, I barely get back to the city and immediately run into the main characters. What terrible luck!'
Ryoshu sighed deeply as he recalled the recent encounter. Esther was still an arrogant, hatefully haughty character. But her contempt seemed reserved only for ordinary people like him.
With her friends, especially Haruki and Charlotte, she was quite pleasant. Though even from that brief encounter, he could see some underlying tensions in their friendships.
And the person who first came to his mind was the appearance of Volkov Katia.
'How can she be so beautiful... my heart nearly stopped beating!' - After this thought, Ryoshu placed his hand on his chest to feel his wildly beating heart.
Walking through a dark corner of the street, he deactivated his Stealth function. Then, Ryoshu temporarily stored his mask in his spatial ring. After that, he glanced at a completely shattered mirror that looked as if someone had punched it.
Ryoshu's ugly face appeared in the mirror, fragmented into multiple reflections of different sizes. He could see the burn marks from the explosion of that Lightning Slime boss.
He rolled up his sleeve and secretly examined his blistered hands after directly rushing into the explosion of that C-rank Slime.
'I look truly hideous...'
The longer Ryoshu looked, the more unbearable it became.
'From their perspective... It must be even worse because of my rock-bottom Charm stat...'
He quickly rolled down his sleeve, covered his face, and hurried away from the dark alley. Now he had to find a place to spend the night.
'Staying there for one night seems reasonable, right?'
----0w0----
Approaching the reception desk, Ryoshu encountered a muscular young clerk lazily scrolling through his phone.
Seeing him arrive, the clerk merely glanced up and returned to his slothful task without bothering to ask anything. Ryoshu inwardly sighed and said:
"I'd like a room for tonight."
The clerk languidly pointed to a panel with a code. Understanding, Ryoshu swiped his watch against it.
[Account balance: 1 RC]
Ryoshu felt dejected looking at his bank account while taking the room card from the rude employee. With that done, he immediately headed toward his room.
'Luckily I still have just enough money to pay...'
He took the elevator to the third floor and searched for room 310. Finding it, he swiped the card to open the door. Immediately, a high-end computer in the middle of the room powered on, as if waiting for someone to use it.
'Is there any better place than this?'
Ryoshu had decided to rent a room at an internet café for the night. As soon as he got to the room, he started thinking about how to increase his Charm stat quickly. Especially after the humiliation of being pointed at and bad mouthed by the female protagonist on the street.
He knew there were two ways: one was the traditional method of diligently working out and improving his appearance, which was effective but slow compared to the second method.
The second method was obviously herbs, or in other words, beauty potions. These would have immediate effects, and some potions could enhance beauty for extended periods.
In his hand, he now held two high-quality beauty potions. The one with the poorer design was D-rank, while the other was C-rank. Both had immediate and sustained effects.
He only remembered the effects of the D-rank potion.
'It will immediately increase Charm by 1.5 points when consumed... and then increase by 0.1 points daily until reaching 30... so based on experience, the C-rank should be 2... points and 0.2 points daily until 40, right?'
These were two of the rewards from the C-rank Temple that he had successfully conquered. Only now could Ryoshu use them because the restriction of the challenge had been increased in difficulty.
After drinking both potions, his body felt some changes. The transformation was rather quick... and left Ryoshu feeling somewhat disappointed. But he was still eager to see how much he had changed.
Suddenly, a pile of sand appeared behind him, nearly scaring the fragile maiden heart out of Ryoshu.
'Fumiya... you almost killed me, you rascal!'
Though he thought that, he didn't want to yell at the innocent kid. Ryoshu tried to stay calm while interacting with it.
"Fumiya? Did fighting wear you out? You've been fast asleep for hours. Haha. Anyway, I'm going to take a shower now. I'm really dirty here."
He then left the room after temporarily storing some unnecessary clothes in the cabinet.
After that, he went down to the bathroom on the first floor to get ready for a shower. Ryoshu hadn't bathed with shampoo or conditioner for many days. At the bathroom, there were two signs with two color schemes: dark blue for men and light red for women.
'I have the ability to turn invisible, right...? That pattern looks... somehow familiar... but I don't want to go to jail... at all.'
Taking off all his clothes and putting them in the basket, he took the opportunity to look in the mirror. Ryoshu saw that his face had become slightly less horrific. To be precise, it looked slightly more appealing than a trash can... So he still needed to return to his previous stats before he could look considerably better.
All over his body were scratches, bruises, or third-degree burns, but his wounds had healed remarkably quickly compared to before.
'Definitely due to my high Regeneration stat and that Title... especially after it leveled up again because I defeated that damn boss. It must be Glorious rank now, right?' - Ryoshu still had no information about the two functions below, but he guessed the top one affected his miraculous Regeneration ability.
But without the system panel, tracking skills was truly difficult. And there might not be any technology that could assess his Title.
'But with that Title of mine... I should heal quite quickly. And if it's hopeless, I'll find healing potions... though they're rather expensive.'
But after calculating the days needed, it would take nearly twenty days to return to his former stats.
'Well, I'll just have to wait. Later I'll get more potions beyond D and C ranks... F and E would work too, but they'd wear off quickly. If possible, B and A would be perfect.' - Ryoshu pondered while putting his clothes in his ring.
He got into the bathtub, which was completely empty. Perhaps it was too late, and no one else was awake to use the bath at this hour.
Ryoshu stretched out in the tub and enjoyed this peaceful atmosphere. Of course, Fumiya also took advantage of this rare quiet moment to come out and relax with its master.
After bathing, he left the room and bought a bottle of milk with half of his remaining money. Now he had only 0.5 RC left.
Ryoshu walked back to his room, drinking milk and thoroughly enjoying himself after days of intense fighting. He was about to let Fumiya try the milk when suddenly a voice called him from behind.
"Ah, Amemura! Good evening."
Fumiya, though quite surprised, immediately burrowed into his shirt and transformed into a normal pattern. After the sand had finished its task, he slowly turned to look at the person who had called him. A series of memories ran through his head again.
It was the girl he had met the morning he was evicted from the apartment.
"Um, hello..." - Ryoshu replied with some hesitation.
'Why is she here? Especially at this time?!'
Then she suddenly asked him.
"You're staying here too?"
"Yeah, I'm staying here until the school opens the dormitories."
"I suppose..." She seemed to be choosing her words carefully, "it's tough out there?"
"I'm fine, a few days ago I was even living in the forest." - Ryoshu boasted with an extremely proud face.
"Are you joking?" - Her eyes widened as she laughed.
But then she suddenly realized her action was a bit impolite, so her face immediately showed regret.
"Ah, sorry. I just found it a bit funny when you said it so proudly. So... was it fun out there?"
'She's quite cute, isn't she? But I'm 22 years old, for God's sake, don't be fooled by appearances again, you idiot.' - Ryoshu restrained himself from acting like a girl-crazy fool.
He silently thought for a moment, then continued:
"It was a great experience. But I think I need to go to sleep now. That adventure has completely exhausted me."
"That's too bad. Well, we'll talk again sometime. Goodbye, I'm heading back to my room too."
The petite girl waved gently at him with a pretty smile on her lips. That made Ryoshu feel a bit regretful that he would likely not see her again.
"Yeah. Goodbye, see you next time."
"We'll see each other at the academy next time, right? It's coming up soon."
"Alright."
"Huh? What? How do you know where I study?"
She impressed the young man with her suddenly radiant smile.
"I just guessed, but why are you reacting so surprised? You're very obvious, Amemura."
"What's going on?" - He stood frozen in place.
She ran ahead of him and before going up the stairs, didn't forget to look back at him with a beaming smile and pink cheeks.
"Amemura!"
Looking at such a cute scene made him blush. However, he had to respond quickly before being exposed.
"What is it?"
"Sleep well, okay?"
Then she disappeared like a mischievous child, leaving a dazed Amemiya in the hallway.
His small heart had been teased by a girl to the point where he could feel it thumping loudly.
Ryoshu leaned against the wall to hide his face, which had turned as red as a gac fruit.
'That girl... is just too damn bold...'
----0w0----
After returning to his room, Ryoshu began to research stock market services online to prepare investments for the future. Meanwhile, Fumiya was flying around the room, admiring something.
'I remember some promising Guilds for the future... with a bit more capital... paying that 80,000 RC wouldn't be so crazy anymore.'
He immediately found their official website and looked through their shares. Ryoshu kept scrolling while writing down the names of those Guilds in his notebook.
'Good... I'll need them later. Now I need investment capital to buy shares first.' - He immediately thought of his valuable Mana Crystals.
Ryoshu accessed underground websites to search for black markets. When selling to the black market, there would be no taxes or fees. But it was quite risky if the police discovered he was trading with illegal websites.
While browsing an illegal site looking for buyers interested in Mana Crystals, he suddenly saw an urgent wanted poster. On it... was a face concealed by his own Stealth Mask.
And it was insane that his head was being offered for a price that was far from cheap.
'500 million RC...? Is everyone in the Volkov family crazy?'
Even his favorite character, Volkov Katia, he couldn't deny that she had some issues.
'500 million RC could pay tuition at the prestigious Spiral Academy for 6,250 years!!! Or more simply, it could pay one year's tuition for all students in the school with over 1,000 scholarships left over!'
His head began to spin at the enormous sum. But what Ryoshu found even crazier was:
'And all 500 million is just for a unique treasure... I probably shouldn't stand out too much for a long time. I need to hide my white mask identity. But the main character group already saw it, didn't they...? Katia has seen it too...'
Ryoshu began to pull at his hair in frustration. He blamed himself for being so careless. Picking a fight with a prince would never come cheap. He just didn't expect it to be this expensive.
'I can only gamble on the relationship between the two cousins... for now, I need to continue preparing.'
He returned to the business of selling crystals. And after some trading, he had earned a bit of money.
[Account balance: 199.2 RC]
'Excellent,' Earning nearly double the amount he had ever possessed in just a few days was quite an achievement for him. Ryoshu couldn't help but feel proud of himself, 'But this alone isn't enough... I need to earn much more money in a short time.'
However, this amount of money wasn't worth risking his life for. Adventurers at all levels must accept risks, but lower levels receive less money. And originally, without the ring, he would have died twice already.
That was just with C-rank monsters, and he had already struggled so much. What about B, A, or even S ranks and above? He absolutely dared not think about it.
'That crazy prince must be at least B-rank... no, A-rank at minimum.' - Ryoshu shuddered again at his faster-than-sound speed. If not for the entity that had been watching over him all this time, he would now be a pile of ashes.
'It further proves that... to survive in this harsh world, I need to become even stronger. And now, to grow quickly, I need money... no, a lot, a lot of money to be precise.'
Spinning in his high-end gaming chair, Ryoshu pondered methods to make money without risking his life. At times, he even considered robbing a bank with his invisibility ability.
However, upon reconsideration, it was quite risky and mainly unethical, so he immediately dismissed the idea.
Spinning a while longer, Ryoshu stared into empty space and continued thinking. But the more he spun, the more foolish he became, and started muttering nonsense in his head.
'Spin... spin... spin... Wait, spin?'
"Ah! I've got an idea! But I can only implement it tomorrow. Time to sleep, Fumiya!!!"
Upon this command, Fumiya, who had been flying playfully around the room, lay straight down on the bed.
He also followed suit and lay on that large bed. And according to his description, the bed was extremely comfortable. Fumiya also wrapped around him as usual. After that, Ryoshu buried his face in the soft mattress and didn't forget to turn on some music to help him fall asleep more easily.