Traveling with heavy baggage is not a problem for me. I can put them on the ground, tie them with a rope to my body, and then I just slip away to travel. There's no weight limit since I can just make the path slippery instead of myself and my baggage. The only limit is my mana which is something that I keep increasing every day.
The increase of mana from the red grass cigarette is not much. But it's still the same no matter how many times I smoke. I'm sure the number of cigarettes I smoked has reached three digits. Such a heavy smoker I am. Even Hal who is smoking the same thing didn't smoke as much.
Anyway, I carried more bags inside my backpack when I left the city. I will use them to store some money. Not all. It's still a place that is never discovered so it should be safe to store money and items there.
Now I'm near the hidden treasury. I stop sliding all the way here. I look at my clothes and they're not dirty at all. It's because even dirt, mud, and water will slip even from my clothes and won't get stuck. That's why I'm still clean.
There should be a hollow tree nearby. The tree is bigger than most trees here but not the biggest. Then I need to go into the hollow area of the tree.
I don't know which one it is though. So I knock on the trees one by one to find one that is hollow. And I finally found it after three hours of knocking.
The three is large. I look around the three a few times before finding out where the entrance is. It's up above hidden by branches and leaves of the tree.
The thief must have great physical strength because he could open a heavy door from the inside which was supposedly can't be opened from the inside. He could even carry heavy items into his secret place from the entrance that needs to be climbed. But he died because of his stupid habit after losing one of his arms.
Reaching that height is difficult with my physical strength. I have no talent in improving it but I still trained my body. But I have another way.
Using slip magic to manipulate friction, I increase the friction on my hands and feet. Climbing up is not a problem at all for me. It's a bit hard to control because at first only my skin is sticking to the tree and it's hurting me but as I continue to climb I know how to use my slip magic to climb more efficiently without hurting myself. Having talent is great. And knowing one is even better.
After making it through the entrance, I jump inside the hollow tree. Even though it's hollow, the wall is thick other than where I knocked it on the outside and few other areas. That's probably why the tree is still standing.
I wonder how old this tree is. Supposedly, you can see the age of the tree from the circle found in the trunk. But what if the trunk is hollow? I guess I'll never know.
In the inside, after looking around for a while, I find the secret door leading underground. I walk down the stairs and not long after I reach where the door to the treasury is.
In the game, the protagonist and his party members had difficulties opening the door because it's too heavy and it has been so long since the door was last opened. But I don't have such problem at all. I'm Using slip magic and even with the strength of my pinkie I can slide open the door.
Then disgusting odor can be smelt. It's so disgusting I feel like I can taste the odor. It's the smell of the dead body of the Legendary Thief. Well, his skeleton. The skeleton is missing an arm.
But does skeleton release foul smell? Maybe there are some money that has rotten already. I need to get all the fine money first. Maybe I'll just clean up this place and use it as my hidden base. Let's do that.
First grab the money that can still be used. In the game, I should be able to get about nine millions of Gs. That's a lot. Maybe because I'm here three years before the main story, there are still more money in good condition so I get about eleven millions. Nice.
Still, only money? The Legendary Thief apparently didn't care much about valuables so he just sold them all before storing the money here. He liked money in the form of, well, money instead of properties or valuables. At least that's what I get about him from cleaning up this place.
But I guess he's still using this place to store some items before selling them. That's why there's only one heavy item probably the last thing he stole. It's a painting. I don't know how much it's worth so I'll just use it as a decoration for my new base here.
Dying in a locked place like this, the Legendary Thief left behind a dying message. I never noticed it in the game because I can't clean up the place as the protagonist of the game. Just loot the money and left.
It's a message from him to anyone who enters here. It says something about his son. But that doesn't matter to me because the Legendary Thief has died a long time ago and his son should be long dead as well. Maybe his descendant is still alive but I don't want to look for them.
The message says mainly about how he misses his son. Well, that's sad. But he's already gone and all the things that made this place full of foul stench have been cleaned by me. I used slip magic to get them all out far away and burn them with fire to leave no trace. When I return here I'm out of mana so I camped inside the now clean hollow tree.
The door is easy for me to open and close thanks to slip magic. But maybe I still need to focus on my physical strength. I have been slacking off in my swordsmanship lately because I keep focusing on slip magic.
After a few days living in the hollow tree and training every day, I got bored. So it's time to go to the city. I don't want to camp anymore.
The next city is not far from here. It took me a few minutes to reach using slip magic. Can I change the name to slide magic because it's more correct since I used it to slide instead of making myself fall?
Well, my talent is slip magic so let's just keep it that way.
I pick a good inn thanks to the money I have and enjoy my time in the city. But I can't do that every day.
I'm still an adventurer. I don't need to raise my rank but if I stop taking mission for a long time my license will be revoked. That's why I want to reach C-rank first as an adventurer. From that, as long as I just do a mission once a year, my license won't be revoked.
I can reach B-rank and my license won't be revoked unless I do a horrible crime. But being a B-rank or higher means more responsibilities so I prefer to be in C-rank.
Even D-rank is fine but the limit of how long I can take a break before my license is revoked is just one month unless you're in the middle of a mission that somehow took months to finish. Being in C-rank has more privileges than in D-rank. People will look down on me less if they know I'm a C-rank adventurer.
So after enjoying a bit of my time in the city, it's time to take a mission. Just a simple one but will help greatly in getting recognition to increase my rank. Orcs hunting seems good.
I take the mission but my sword is not as sharp as before. Even if I only use it to stab fallen opponents, the quality has dropped. So I need a better sword.
I know where some legendary swords are but for now, a normal one is good. A normal longsword I can buy from a weapon store.
The price was many times higher than my previous sword but the quality is better so I should be able to stab more people. I mean enemies. Could be humans, could be monsters, and they could be demons. Though I don't think demons will appear at this time.
I go to the place where I can find orcs and kill them easily. Using slip magic to make them fall and stab their hearts or throats.
For this, I don't need to hide my magic. It's the most basic slip magic that everyone knows.
Some people saw me killing some orcs easily but they're not making fun of my magic. Instead it seems to me that they are interested in the magic. It is a magic that you can learn easily after all.
Most magic books are difficult to get. Books for slip magic are harder to find because slip magic is not popular. Maybe I'll help increase the popularity of this magic.
I return to the guild and show the receptionist the proofs of subjugation. Then I ask her a question.
"At this rate, how long will it take for me to reach C-rank?" I ask the receptionist lady.
"I think if you do this every day, it should be less than a month until you reach that rank. But I don't think it will be easy. It's not like orcs are everywhere. But if you take harder missions, you can reach C-rank faster," she says.
"Thank you."
That's good enough. And I have no desire to take missions every day. I still have many places I need to go before attending the academy.