The Insider System

Chapter 71: Spree Pt.1

After a while Lake saw someone he was pretty sure he could steal from with little trouble. It was a dad and their child walking a few people ahead of Lake. The reason Lake was pretty sure the man wouldn't notice was his kid was one of those ones that liked to point at everything they saw and say what it was, and the father was indulging this behavior like it was cute.

Moving up behind them Lake waited for the child to say something and for the father to look at it and say it was indeed what the child thought it was. Right when Lake was sure no one was looking he reached out and grabbed the pouch of the man's belt.[New job unlocked Pickpocket]

Successful Lake slunk away into a nearby hiding spot. Lake quickly grabbed the four gold coins that were in the bag, and dropped the rest on the ground when he saw none of it was worth anything. After that he pulled up the details on his new Job. Lake wanted to be able to plan out what he needed to do to make sure it only hit level one and nothing else.

Pickpocket (U) Lv.0/10

On level up:

Agility 1

Dexterity 1

Free 3

Exp conditions:

Theft of money or valuables

Bonus Exp conditions:

X6 Theft

Skills from job:

Lake was happy to see this job gave mainly free points because he didn't think there was a limit, and they were nice to have in an emergency. This job also gave two of his lower stats so he wasn't too worried about how many levels he ended up getting which was a good thing because he had no idea how much Exp theft gave.

Lake guessed he could just steal one gold from someone to see how much Exp it gave, but it was much easier to just steal from the next person he saw that was distracted. Getting back onto the road, Lake quickly identified another victim. Lake switched his job to Pickpocket, and slowly walked up behind the woman that seemed to be focused on the person she was about to rob.

Right when she reached for the bag in front of her, Lake did the same. When Lake tried to take it off her belt he realized it was triple knotted so it took some finger magic to get it off her belt before she could notice. This was the first time Lake appreciated the skill he had gotten when his Dexterity had hit ten Green Fingers Golden Hands.

It had definitely helped with how much work he had had to do in such a small amount of time. The only thing was he hadn't leveled up from taking this bag, and that made him think there was nothing in it, so he just dropped it and ran. It had felt light so it must have been empty and it wasn't worth digging through, because he could see someone up ahead that was obviously a much better target.

If he had hid to look through that bag he would have had to chase this guy down later. It was much easier just to move on, and not waste time with a bag that hadn't even given him 5 Exp.

As Lake was moving on, the person he had stolen the last bag from turned around to see their decoy bag had somehow been detached from her belt. She was in the middle of a getaway, so she didn't have time to stop and inspect what had happened.

It was impossible for it to just fall off on its own, so the fact it had clearly been removed by someone else made her think this was a warning from a better thief that she was in their territory. She just thanked her luck that they hadn't done something worse to her, and moved away from this part of town.

Not caring at all what had just happened between him and the thief, Lake had finally gotten behind his next victim. Lake was just walking slightly faster than the foot traffic so no one would pay any attention to him so it had taken almost a minute to get behind this guy. This guy was stopping to pick up garbage every now and then.

Lake wasn't sure if this was this guy's job, or if he was looking for something, but every time he bent over it left his pouch in a very vulnerable state. Lake just pretended to bump into the guy when he bent over and continued to walk. [Level up] [Level up] Without stopping Lake pulled up his stats and the two new skills he had just unlocked.

Race: Human Lv.7 ( 2/10 )

Job: Pickpocket Lv.2 ( 3/20 )

Special: The Insider Lv.0 ( 3/5 )

Stats

Health 70

Stamina 70

Mana 190

Strength 15

Endurance 15

Agility 49

Dexterity 49

Perception 83

Intelligence 114

Charisma 11

Free stat points: 23

Skills

Don't Give This Job Any More Unique Skills (U) Lv.1

Skills in use can be targeted and stolen if you're able to get your hands to make contact.

Lake stopped reading after the first skill because the name had made him laugh, but thinking about it could come later. He wanted to see if their institutions meant he was only getting one Unique skill.

Fast Hands (L) Lv.1

Your arms and hands move five times faster.

Consumes Stamina (1 per second)

Seeing this job indeed only had one Unique skill Lake wondered why whichever insider had thought it was so important to keep it this way that they had left institutions. Lake could really only think of one reason, but it didn't really fit because if they were trying to make sure everyone got the one Unique skill that meant it would be fine to have two Unique skills, because you got two when you reached level one in a job.

Not wanting to worry about it anymore Lake moved on to appreciating how awesome the new skill he just got was. Lake knew Skills gave off some sort of aura when you used them because Lucas had been able to sense it when Lake had used Treasured, so Lake guessed he would be able to use that as a way to take skills from others.

The only problem was he wasn't able to sense skills yet. After thinking why that might be, Lake could only think of two reasons. The first being Lucas had some item that let him do so, but the second and more likely of the two was it had something to do with how high Lucas's stats were.

Lake could see this being the result of your Perception being over 100. Lake bet Stats gave very special abilities once you got them past what a mortal should have. Lakes Perception was his second highest stat but it was yet to break 100 so he had no way of knowing if he was right for now.

Thinking about it some more, Lake wondered if he even really needed to be able to sense it. All the skill said he had to do was make contact. Maybe Lake could just wave his hands near someone while he was fighting them and hope for the best. Odds were he would be close to someone he was fighting anyway, so he wouldn't really have to go out of his way to test this.

The only real downside was he would look silly but maybe they would laugh hard enough that he could kill them after he was done. Lake was keeping his eyes out for more people to rob as he was thinking all this and he finally found something. It was a store with a giant window filled with displayed items.

Lake guessed this was the same as robbing someone considering someone owned the store. The only problem was all these items were much bigger than the small pouches he had been taking. Lake knew this would be a lot easier if it wasn't the middle of the day so he just marked the store.

Lake hoped he would find a place to sell stolen items in the next few days and could come back here and do a real robbery. Lake found the petty theft fun in all, but it wasn't really anything that could get his heart pumping like breaking into a store. Lake added finding a person willing to buy stolen goods to his list of things to do, and went back to what he had been doing.

Lake looked ahead and saw multiple people he could steal from if he was to use his new skill Fast Hands and seeing as he needed to test it out anyway Lake just chose the closest person. Lake had been untying the pouches instead of cutting them loose as a test to see what his limits were, and now he needed to see what he could do if he used his new skill.

Lake flexed his fingers and activated his new skill. Walking over to the person Lake had their pouch untied so fast he hadn't even seen himself do it. Lake guessed that it made sense, if you multiplied his agility by five it would be much higher than his Perception. Lake wondered what would happen if he was to use Burst as well.