The Insider System

Chapter 101: Reunion

Getting to the floor his room was on Lake opened the door into the hallway and saw a guy standing there similar to how Solomon had been the first time he had walked in. Lake already knew Wallace from the small amount of time he had lived with him so he greeted him. "Hello Wallace, how's the family?"

Wallace had a son named Sam that was the first person Lake saw after he arrived here; he had also been very helpful when Lake needed things, so if he was around now Lake would be interested in saying hi. One of the things Sam had given him he still used to this day, the satchel, and since he would be upgrading for something bigger soon he would probably return it.

"Oh Sam's fine, he's actually here if you'd like to see him." Lake had nothing going on now that he was going to be staying inside the guild, so he said. "Sure, let's go." On the way to Wallace's room Lake thought about what he would be doing until the fighting started. He guessed this would be a good time to go deeper into the dungeon.

It had the added bonus of allowing him to level up while he explored the dungeon to see if there were any secrets down there because at this point it could go either way with how his skill Treasured worked. There was no way he could differentiate between item, person, and place until he was close enough to see the mark's location with his own eyes.

In his many trips into the dungeon he hadn't gone past the safe part where the undead were still weak from just being born, he didn't know if born was the right word to use but he wasn't too sure how the ones in the dungeon formed, so when he went further next time some of the undead would be much older, so stronger as well.

Getting to Wallace's room, right next to his, they both walked inside. Lake saw Sam right away as he was at the table that was next to the door in all of these rooms reading a book. His back was towards them though, so Sam didn't see Lake and just assumed it was his father. "Dad, I don't want to read anymore. What else can I do?"

"You can start by turning around." Sam looked back after Wallace said this and when he saw Lake he said. "Who's that?" Lake had put his helmet on right before Sam turned around so it just looked like some cheap knight was in their room for some reason. Wallace didn't seem to understand how Sam could possibly not recognize Lake, so he looked.

"Quit messing around." Wallace laughed a little and moved like he was going to take the helmet off, but Lake beat him to it. Sam's reaction wasn't as excited as Lake had been expecting, but he didn't think it had anything to do with Sam not wanting to see him. It was probably not that big of a surprise because Sam had already known he was in the Alchemist guild.

"Lake, do you know if there's anything else to do around here other than read." There were a few things, but Sam was too young to go into the dungeon, so Lake said. "If you learn how to make potions there are." Lake was telling Sam he should keep reading in a subtle way.

Now that the happy reunion was over Lake turned to Wallace and said. "What made you join the guild?" He knew it had something to do with golems, but Lake wanted more info. "My grandfather was a member of the Mages guild, so I knew they would be able to help with my research."

It sounded like just enough info for him to stop asking, and he did. "Well I'll see you two later, there's a few people I need to see." Millie and Joy were who he was talking about. The main thing he wanted to know was if there would be lunch today because that was the only perk of being at the guild.

Then he planned to check on Joy to see if she was less restricted by the curse yet. He had seen some guards talking on the way up, so he thought that was a good sign. It looked like the panic inside the guild was starting to die down, and would stay that way till there was an army outside.

The panic inside was moving in an opposite fashion to what was happening outside. The benefits of living inside the biggest fortress on the continent he guessed. Feeling safe was usually enough to make you think you were.

At Millie's door Lake knocked and waited hoping for an answer, but when one didn't come he moved on. If she wasn't inside there was a good chance there would be no lunch today because the one meal she made took all her time to prepare.

Now he was going to see Joy next but he was already upstairs and she would be in the very bottom of the guild so he figured he might as well go to his room for a while. If he didn't it would make it seem there had been no reason for him to climb the stairs at all, and that he was dumb to do so with no goal in mind.

Inside his room Lake greeted his servants then had them help get his armor off. Once it was off he looked at the damage to the shoulder of the chest piece. It wasn't too noticeable because of how thin the gash was but he would still like to get it fixed. Deciding it wasn't worth the effort to do it himself he told Jason to do it.

It was an easy job if he was lucky someone around here knew Metal magic and could do it in an instant. Going into his bed area Lake looked through the different outfits he had, and chose the first one he hadn't been wearing for two days. Then he laid down, he had been too tired to care last night but the benches in the small carts were not as cozy as the ones in the big carts, and neither were as good as his bed.

Sadly he wasn't actually tired now so he couldn't actually sleep, but you couldn't appreciate a bed while asleep only while you were trying. You could also appreciate a good bed once you woke up and your back didn't hurt but since he had come to this world he hadn't had a single pain after sleeping.

Probably something to do with the Endurance stat and how Health and Stamina recovered faster when you were asleep. Lake let time pass as he pretended to sleep and after about 20 minutes or so, he got up and grabbed his bag. He ignored the ingot because he would probably need a Blacksmith to know what it was, and found the weird brown gem that he had stolen.

This was the item he had thought about the most since he had stolen it other than the dagger which he wouldn't be pulling out unless he was somewhere that no one else was. The dagger had a really strong aura so he was afraid that someone would notice if he took it out and ask him where he got it from because it was clearly something special.

Inspecting the brown gem its name came up as Sealing wax, and from that he realized this item was probably just a core that had a layer of wax on it for some reason. Lake went to scratch it off but stopped himself, maybe there was a good reason so he needed to think about it first before he did.

He thought about how he had gotten his hands on it in the first place. The person he had stolen it from had just been carrying it around so it was unlikely to be something too dangerous, but it was possible it was some form of weapon like you threw it and the wax would be damaged causing an explosion.

It also made him think of those blue dye things they would put into money when someone robbed a bank but since it hadn't gone off as soon as he opened the bag the first time it either meant it had been unable to sense him because of Trespasser, or he was just being paranoid for no reason.

Lake thought the best plan would to be to throw it next time he was outside the guild. If the wax was damaged from the throw he would be able to see what was inside if it didn't blow up. Next he pulled out the two small potions he had stolen from the same guy. They were both stamina potions so Lake wasn't too interested in them because he didn't need them with the much bigger one he had from the guild.

Getting up, Lake started to walk towards his door when one of his servants stopped him. "Your armor is on its way back up if you need it." Lake nodded his head and said, "Thank you." Sitting down to wait for it to get back, Lake thought he must have been right about someone in the guild that could use Metal magic to fix weapons and armor.

It was probably their job to take care of the guards equipment. Once his armor got there he put it on and headed down to see Joy. If she was back to normal he planned to enter the dungeon with her and that had been why he had needed his armor back. He would have still gone in if he hadn't had it but he wouldn't have gone deep like he wanted to.