Those Mercenaries had some nice stuff.
Of course there wasn’t anything that impressive considering they were only D ranked at most but they were still interesting nonetheless.
I’ve found that they were able to resist the paralysis thanks to a few rings they were wearing on their fingers.
[Minor Protection Ring (Paralysis, Poison) – Provides wearer with minor protection from paralysis and poison effects.]
Not bad, the fact that these were able to resist against [Static Bolt] and [Static Shock] was enough to prove its usefulness.
As for the ones who were affected by my paralysis spells, it was because they were wearing protection rings of a different kind.
[Minor Protection Ring (Blindness, Hypnotic) – Provides wearer with minor protection from blindness and mind altering effects.]
The fact that there was something to protect the wearer against hypnotic effects was a little worrying for me. That means there were magic or traps out there that could alter one’s mind… I should find ways to protect everyone against that as soon as possible. Maybe Mother can help?
You might also be wondering about this possibility so I’ll just go ahead and confirm that you can wear multiple protection rings and the effects should stack. I say this with relative confidence since I found the leader was wearing both of those protection rings on his fingers.
But I don’t know what happens if you were to wear multiple rings of the same protection? Would they stack with each other to increase the protection level?
My own guess is that they do not enhance it to a higher tier and are just made redundant instead.
Aside from those protection rings, their armours were also enchanted with some minor physical and magical defence on them.
It wasn’t anything particularly great, the enchantments were just increasing the durability of said armour against those kinds of attacks.
But since none of my companions wanted them and the armour themselves looked really plain, I planned to sell them off at either an armour store or the auction.
The weapons these Mercenaries had were all unenchanted unfortunately, so there wasn’t anything special about them.
Seems like this party in particular was focused more on defence than offence.
Edir’s party only had that guy’s light sab– I mean light enchanted sword while everyone else was using normal equipment.
Even Edir did not have any enchanted gear and when I asked her why, she gave me a perplexed look, “Umm… Mistress…It’s normal for low rankers like us to use normal equipment… Enchanted equipment is quite expensive after all… Even the simplest ones could cost a large silver coin at the very least… And that’s if you know where to get them that cheap…”
Huh… At least a thousand Creas then. But I pointed to the pile of dead bodies in front of us, silently asking if that applied to the group of people we just killed since they were also D ranked.
This time, it was Katsuki who spoke up, “If I may be allowed to hypothesise Mistress, this group of Mercenaries are able to afford such expensive equipment because of the kind of jobs they take. An Assassination job like this would have been worth quite a bit of money.”
“How much would that be?”
“Taking into account that the noble was not honest with the information and even withheld some things from them… I’m assuming that it could be anywhere between eight hundred to two thousand Creas.”
Woah… So even with this job they would barely make enough to buy one enchanted gear?
It may not look like much for a job like this but from what they know, their target was a nobody who went to a place where it would not be weird for them to be found dead. It was a completely risk free reward as long as you were smart about doing it.
And for more valuable or difficult targets, they would definitely be earning a lot more than this too.
If this group of Mercenaries do this all the time, then it’s no wonder that they were able to afford such luxuries.
Well, thanks to that, all their stuff are mine now~
With the equipment sorted out, that left the potions they were carrying around which included some lesser and minor ones. They also had a vial that Katsuki identified as poison, no doubt it was something they were planning to use on me while my back was turned or something.
As for coins, they had around three hundred Creas in total amongst them. Not a bad haul at all.
Heh heh… Maybe I should piss off more nobles and make them send more of these guys after me?
Except for the rings, I stored everything else in my Pack of Folding before I considered what I was supposed to do writing the rings themselves.
𝒐𝒱𝓵xt.𝒞𝗈𝑚
Obviously I would give myself and my party those Protection Rings since there was enough to be shared around.
In total, I had five Protection Rings that protect against paralysis and poison and four Protection rings that protect against blindness and hypnotic effects.
I gave one of each to Odeta, Katsuki and myself and I was intending to split the last pair between Lisa and Delmare. I would probably give the ring with the blindness and hypnotic protection to Lisa since Delmare was a Siren and should be resistant to negative mental effects.
Although that made me wonder if this ring was enough to protect against a Siren’s singing? Perhaps I should try it out when I get back.
As for the last Minor Protection Ring against paralysis and poison, I wanted to give it to Edir since I felt a little obligated to give her something after all that she had done.
Unexpectedly, she was adamant in refusing it.
“I… I can’t take this, Mistress!” She objected when I presented it to her.
I tilted my head, “Eh? Why not?”
This wouldn’t be seen as a proposal, would it? Because I’ve already given a pair to Katsuki and Odeta and they were really happy to receive them.
Odeta was practically jumping up and down while laughing about receiving new equipment and Katsuki may look unaffected but I could tell she was happy since her tail hasn’t stopped wagging ever since I gave them to her.
Edir shook her head, “I’m… I’m only a temporary slave… And I’m receiving so many benefits just by being here already… To want anything more would really weigh on my conscience…”
Oh… I get it.
Despite liking our intimate sessions, she still wants to be a free woman. What’s more, if she were to accompany me to complete the Dungeon, she could get a Dungeon clear reward as well before I release her.
If I were to give her something like this, she might feel obligated to remain as my slave and be unable to leave.
Well… It’s not like I had any ulterior motives when I was giving it to her but if that makes it hard for her then I’d just give this one to Lisa.
With that sorted out, we now have another problem on our hands.
I pulled out a small device that looked like a pocket watch and flipped it open to look inside it.
The device had a picture depicting night and day with the day half on the right side and the night picture on the left. A needle also sat in the centre which was currently pointed towards the left right now.
“Where should we camp tonight?” I asked.
We have a few options for this, of course. The first was simply making camp right outside the boss room since this was considered a safe zone, that meant no monsters would appear around here and we wouldn’t need to worry about them.
While this ensures our safety against monsters, it does not ensure our safety against other Dungeoneers looking to cause harm.
Another choice would simply be to find a relatively safe spot inside the maze of the Dungeon and set up camp there with each of us taking turns keeping watch.
The good thing was such risks were pretty much negated thanks to my Shadow Summons so we could just leave the watching to them.
Usually, Katsuki and I would simply find a spot and sleep if we had to spend a night inside the Dungeon so it wasn’t our first time doing this.
“I believe it would be a better choice to find another place, Mistress. I do not think that sleeping beside a bunch of dead bodies would be preferable to sleeping at another safer spot in the Dungeon,” Katsuki suggested.
Oh right… I actually forgot about that…
I guess that settles it, let’s just find a place somewhere else to set up camp.
“Could you find us somewhere with fewer monsters, Katsuki?” I asked.
She bowed her head, “Leave it to me, Mistress.”
She turned around and sniffed the air, waiting for a moment before she started leading us towards one of the corridors.
Thanks to Katsuki, we managed to arrive at a relatively secluded part of the Dungeon with no one in sight.
Except for a Dungeon Rat Knight that had been strolling around the area.
Odeta made short work of it, killing the monster by beating it up and leaving us free to use the spot however we liked.
The camping equipment was then pulled out from my Pack of Folding and both Katsuki went to work on setting up the place for the night.
As for me… Well…
It was a little difficult for me to help them with that since Edir went to work on pleasing me with her mouth again by diving underneath my skirt.
Mnngghh… I… Ohhh… That’s good…
How is Edir so good at this?! She barely met me for a day and she already knows how to make me feel this good!
Is this just a talent of hers or is that something normal in this World?!
Ahhhh… Not good… She’s making me turn into mush…
C… Cumming…