The Insider System

Chapter 406: Not My Problem Pt.2

After Lake told Millie he would use his skill again to see if he could sense her cousin the next time he left the spire he hadn't stayed for much longer. He didn't need to sleep yet, but Lake could tell by how she looked that Millie needed to, so sticking around could have possibly annoyed her.

Staying on Millie's good side was one of his top priorities until someone else could make better food than she could. "What should I do until it's time to leave?" Lucas and he wouldn't be going out for another ten hours, which was a lot of time if you were impatient.

After thinking about it for a while, Lake decided to get his map because he would probably forget to do it tomorrow until they left the city, and by then, Lucas probably wouldn't want to turn around being short on time.

Lake also felt seeing the people in town would be interesting because of what happened in the sky above them. The faces and the things they were saying should be good for him to hear since it would tell him how safe they felt, and he could use that information to decide if going out was a good idea.

He didn't think what he had just watched should affect them in any real way unless the giants had been told to go on a rampage now that the trade was over. He didn't think that would be the case, though, since as far as he could tell that would give the other gods a worse impression of the Demon Lord.

Walking into Lucas' office, Lake saw the man was working and didn't stop to talk since it would eat into their time later if he distracted Lucas for too long. On the elevator, Lake had his first real look at the conditions his servant was trying to bring him food through earlier. People were everywhere, and he was sure it was worse during the action as people tried to get to somewhere they could see outside.

Lake knew his servants were under the effect of the loyalty curse, so he was sure they didn't mind what he had done, but Lake still made a note that he needed to apologize to himself. Walking outside, Lake made sure to have his badge prominently displayed on his chest so any Demon Worshipers who saw him would leave him alone before he started walking towards the Adventurer's guild.

Once he had arrived, Lake was happy to find the guild was open because he had been slightly worried they would be closed, but the line that had formed made him think this wasn't worth his time. "Oh, I still don't have gold." Lake kept forgetting that he had used every piece of gold he had at the time to unlock Inner Vault including the extra thirty thousand that had been in one of the bags.

It hadn't mattered to him until now because he always stole the things he wanted, but he didn't want to steal something so cheap from one of the guilds out of necessity. Not being able to afford it was embarrassing, especially with so many sources of gold around him.

Setting Detector to look for gold, Lake got into line and started to look for a way to take a couple of coins from someone. Most people weren't looking at him because they were talking to the people around them about why they were here in the middle of the night, but there were still a few people looking his way now and then, so he made sure to get extremely close to someone before he did anything.

With his body blocking his hand, even if someone who could see it when it was moving so quickly was around, they would also need to be able to see through his body for him to get caught. After he had a handful of gold, which was like a fourth of the total amount he could have taken, Lake backed off a little but stayed in line behind the person he'd robbed so he wouldn't lose his spot.

Even if they noticed the missing gold, Lake didn't think their first thought would be that the person standing right next to them was the one who had taken such a small amount from them. They were much more likely to think they had somehow misplaced a bit of their gold because what thief would only take a little when the rest was in the same bag?

After a while, Lake finally made it inside and was able to see what was holding everything up. Three people in black robes were standing near the front desks, watching everyone while they talked to the clerks. At first, this had felt wrong to him, but he quickly remembered that now that the Demon Lord had control over the Holy Domain seeing things like this was probably going to become common.

It was still disruptive because it was making the people talking to the clerks choose what they were saying more carefully, slowing down each conversation. Deciding there was a possibility he didn't need to stand in line to buy a map, Lake tapped the person in front of him and asked. "Do you know if I need to wait to buy a map?"

"Actually," The man started digging around in his bag before saying, "I have an older one that I've been planning to get rid of. Would you like to buy it? It's missing a few of the newer places that have been discovered recently, but it's still worth around eight gold, and you can get it updated by the guild if you pay a few gold."

"How much?" He only had what he had taken from the man, but it was more than eight gold, so he should have enough as long as the guy didn't try to charge him for the time he would save not waiting. "I'll give it to you for five. If you choose to have it updated, it will still be one gold cheaper than having bought a new one." Deciding that was a good deal, Lake handed the gold over quickly before leaving as fast as possible because the man had gone to put the gold into his bag, and Lake didn't want to be there if he noticed he had lost money somehow.

On the way back to the guild, Lake started to look around with Mana Vision because he still had around nine hours left and didn't want to pass them all inside the guild building. There were things he could do, like brew a few other poisons for use in combat, but he preferred being outside of the guild as long as it was safe.

Lake was pretty sure the Demon Lord had no plans of killing everyone in the capitol now that he had seen the Demon Worshipers in the guild building doing almost nothing to stop people from taking jobs and receiving their money for jobs they had completed.

The Demon Worshipers seemed to want to make sure no one was planning to give out missions that they didn't like, which he felt was okay for them to do as the new leaders of the Domain. He was sure the Temple of Light had been doing something similar until now, and everything had been fine.

It would only be a few weeks until people got used to the new order, and things like that would stop happening as often, and before much time passed, it would be like how it had been when the Temple was the one in charge. The only sight difference was instead of having to worry about the Demon worshipers attacking the city and killing everyone, you would worry that they would kill everyone randomly.

Ten minutes later, Lake finally saw something that looked valuable and started planning a way to get to it. It was a bit weird to be trying to steal something just because he had some time to pass, but as long as it was worth a bit of money it could start his progress to the next million.

Of course, going to pull another big job like the one he had pulled in the Earth Domain would be the best way for him to make money, but he could do that after he and Lucas finished what they would be doing later.

It was a little soon for him to leave again, but Lake wanted his next mission, and he didn't think the Insider would give him one til he had enough gold to get its attention. Lucas probably wouldn't mind him going out either since he had told him about his ability to gather high-level items and had said he would give some to the guild if he found anything he didn't want.

Clearing his mind of extra thoughts and activating Mute, Lake jumped towards the wall of the building that held the item he wanted and used Ghost Touch to go through to the other side. Once inside, he quickly jumped again and landed right next to the thing he was here to take.

It had taken a while, but the new increase in Perception had finally started to show its effects. Yesterday, before he had gotten Mizzly's Bow, he would have had to slowly walk through all the walls in fear that he wouldn't mistime when to use Ghost Touch, but his increased reaction time let him move much faster without his eyes lagging. He had just jumped twice and moved through five walls right to where he was trying to go all while avoiding the person that was inside the building.