【Pawnshop Owner • Bauer Trick】
【Description: Bauer Trick runs a pawnshop in Gulf Town. He usually sells miscellaneous goods and buys or pawns items, and has a large second-hand warehouse.
He hated bugs, especially sea cockroaches, and clamored more than once about moving, but hadn't moved for over a decade until one day, he found himself molting...】
...
“A pawnshop...”
Wu Shuang used the Appraisal Spell on the insect-man and obtained its information. He hadn't expected that even after mutating to such an extent, it still wasn't considered a monster.
The system's judgment of monsters was still far too enigmatic, as was its naming of them, which was why no items had dropped after killing it. However, the description held great value, especially that second-hand warehouse—he definitely had to make a trip there.
He checked his surroundings against the map.
Facing south was the sea, and walking roughly one or two kilometers would lead to the coast. Even with the mist, the docks could be vaguely seen, as this was a gentle slope, and the entire Gulf Town was built upon it.
The terrain on the estate's side was higher, allowing one to look down and overlook nearly half of Gulf Town.
However, he couldn't find the pawnshop on the map; even after walking around the front courtyard, he failed to locate it, as named buildings were limited to the area around the estate.
Still, he unexpectedly discovered a tavern and a bakery, which could be considered a happy accident.
Places of business like these generally had far more abundant supplies; not a single one could be missed.
Next, Wu Shuang checked the time again—it was already past 3:00 PM—so he simply gave up on the idea of heading out to explore.
It would be good enough if he could clean up the estate's front courtyard today.
As for the corpses on the ground...
Wu Shuang looked at them for a moment, then turned his gaze toward the mansion behind him, a sudden idea striking him.
Perhaps he could find a room directly facing south to spend the night in; maybe then he could uncover the secret behind the disappearing corpses.
Feasible!
Wu Shuang stayed in the main front courtyard for two hours, during which he dispatched five more living corpses that ambushed over. He looted all the bodies on the ground and the living corpses that had rushed over, with Mia joining in as well. Together, they gathered nearly 2,000 Kingdom Gold Coins, over 1,000 of which were found on a single body.
Sensing the corpse had a special identity, Wu Shuang used appraisal on it and discovered it was an unnamed senior Hero. The appraisal result listed only a title and an ID serial number without leaving a name, though the number was very low—around the 38 billion range. The person might have died here many years ago, yet the money had remained behind.
When a Hero died, the money in their account would turn into a light orb, but once time ran out, it would likely scatter on the ground like ordinary coins.
Wu Shuang briefly evaluated the cause of death, feeling the person had been killed by the old knight; he had only found the upper half of the skeletal remains, with no telling where the lower half had flown.
Besides the money, Wu Shuang picked up several keys and collected quite a few melee weapons, mainly blades, swords, and axes, many of which were common civilian tools like scythes, kitchen knives, skinning knives, and hand axes.
He didn't have enough mana to inspect them one by one, so he could only bundle them up to take back for inspection—this was precisely what the Hero's Cabinet was used for.
Those of Decayed quality were thrown straight away, Crude quality ones were kept as spares, and anything of Common quality was considered finding a treasure.
The two returned to the mansion and stayed inside until nearly six o'clock. After eating dinner, they went out again before dark, this time bringing along several oil lamps, all filled with oil.
Wu Shuang had gathered all of these, but since their quality wasn't as good as the Windproof Lantern, he had piled them up unused; now, they came in handy.
They quickly cleared away the living corpses in the front courtyard, then made use of local materials—primarily the skeletal remains of the giant merman—inserting them into the muddy ground to serve as stakes or utilizing the skeletons directly. They hung the oil lamps up one by one, seven in total, lighting every single one.
“Great, this way we'll still have vision even after dark.”
Wu Shuang nodded and turned around, his gaze coming to a rest on a window on the fourth floor of the manor mansion.
There were changes there as well; dark curtains had been installed, and it was a large window that could serve as an escape route if necessary, which Wu Shuang had specially chosen.
The two returned, skipping the attic to head straight to this south-facing room on the fourth floor, shutting the door behind them as soon as they entered.
Wu Shuang then picked up wooden strips nearby and, using a hammer and nails covered with cloth to muffle the sound, began reinforcing and sealing the door to prevent living corpses from breaking in during the night.
As for the window, someone would be keeping watch at night anyway, so there was no need to worry about it.
Muffled thumping sounds echoed continuously.
Just as Wu Shuang nailed down the third wooden board, the sky abruptly switched to night.
Firelight quickly flared in the room as Mia used a match to light the lantern.
Wu Shuang continued hammering the wooden boards to reinforce the door, though with much lighter strikes. Only when all seven boards were nailed in place, turning the door into virtually a solid wall, did he nod with satisfaction and turn to look toward the other side.
He saw that Mia was already leaning against the window to look out, supported by her hair, while the lantern used for illumination had been placed in the center of the room to lessen the light spilling from the window.
“How is it?”
Wu Shuang walked over and lifted a corner of the curtain to look out as well.
“Quite a few living corpses have been drawn over, but they haven't attacked the oil lamps. They seem to... actually quite like the firelight.”
Mia whispered, her voice barely audible to anyone but Wu Shuang.
Wu Shuang saw it now as well; indeed, quite a few more living corpses had appeared on the muddy ground below.
Aside from a few hunched on the ground gnawing, with only the red glow of their eye sockets visible, a good number gathered around the oil lamps, staring at the firelight without any clear purpose, totaling over thirty in all.
This was indeed a phenomenon that hadn't been noticed before.
Living corpses wouldn't attack oil lamps; they were merely drawn to them, perhaps due to residual Humanity at work.
Furthermore, their eyes hadn't turned red. Illumination seemed capable of weakening the influence of the dark and pulling them out of their frenzied state, though whether it could suppress Near-Death Resurrection remained unconfirmed.
Wu Shuang watched for a little while longer, his eyes shifting between the two types of living corpses. Noticing the drifting particles of Humanity, a possibility suddenly crossed his mind.
Perhaps living corpses didn't actually like the dark or wish to be watched over by the Goddess of the Night; they simply had no choice.
Wu Shuang frowned, feeling more and more that this was the case the more he thought about it.
He let go of the curtain. He had initially worried that the living corpses would devour the bodies completely until nothing but skeletons remained, but now there was likely no need to worry. There were enough corpses that they shouldn't be able to finish them all, and perhaps they really would be able to observe how the corpses disappeared.
“Mia, you take the first watch and I'll take the second. Call me if you're tired, and don't keep staring non-stop—be careful of Humanity loss,”
Wu Shuang warned. Since they were quite far from the lantern, the rate of Humanity loss was fairly fast; he had only looked out for a dozen-odd minutes and had already lost two points of Humanity. Fortunately, he had plenty of Humanity now, over 130 points, though the color... remained yellow.
“It's fine. If I run low, I'll just come over and take a couple of sucks,” Mia replied.
“Are you a mosquito or something? I told you we need to conserve it!”
“Just kidding. I know, go to sleep.”
Wu Shuang sat for a moment. Sometimes he really couldn't tell if Mia was joking or serious; perhaps that was just her personality.
He lay down on the temporary floor bed made from soft cloth garments next to the lantern, closed his eyes, and drifted off to sleep shortly after.
Rate on N.U.
