The Insider System

Chapter 82: Night Life

After Lake filled his stomach with as much poison as he could he ran back to the capital arriving a few hours before sunrise. Lake saw this as an opportunity to complete one of his other objectives: tracking down someone he could sell stolen goods to.

Lake wasn't the only one who seemed excited about this possibility either. Any time Lake thought about pulling off a heist, the Insider started doing figurative backflips.

Jumping from rooftop to rooftop Lake stopped once he saw a street with people. Getting a better look Lake could tell this was a bar or something and that was why so many people were here.

Plenty of people had drinks in their hands, so Lake found one that seemed shady enough to know the information he wanted. Jumping down from the rooftop, Lake landed behind the guy while using Mute.

Once Lake saw the guy hadn't noticed him, he turned of Mute, and got the guy's attention. "Hey I was wondering if you knew where I could sell this." Lake took out one of the items he had taken from one of the people he had killed in the forest. It was shiny enough to be worth something even though Lake didn't know what it was.

"What da?" Lake understood drunk speak pretty well so he said. "I don't know it isn't mine." The drunk guy seemed to understand because he started to laugh. He pointed towards an alley that was near the bar. "Dow dair." Lake would thank the man, but with how drunk he was Lake didn't know if he was even telling him the right thing.

Lake didn't directly go down the alley because he wanted more info first. Finding a good place to watch it from Lake sat down next to a broken glass. Lake thought he could test Mute out while he kept his eyes on the alley.

Picking up a piece of glass, Lake activated Mute and dropped the glass on the ground. Like Lake had expected it made no noise, so he did the same again, but this time throwing the glass much further. Not hearing a sound, Lake did it one more time to make sure.

Now that he knew he couldn't cause any sounds with it activated, Lake only had one more test: what would happen if he turned the skill off after the glass left his hand but before it hit the floor, and vice versa.

Running the test Lake found the glass made noise when it hit the ground. Then he dropped the Last piece and reactivated Mute before it landed to hear nothing. Lake guessed he wouldn't be throwing rocks to distract guards in the future, but this skill still had more upsides than downs.

Lake was fine with the extra hassle he would have to go through to turn it on and off when doing certain things. Done with his experiment, Lake focused on the alley, he needed to follow the next person who came from there to ask them some questions, so he couldn't afford to miss them.

...

Seeing someone finally leave the alley, Lake marked them but stayed where he was. There was no point in following them because they probably lived close to here, and he could just wait till he saw them get to their house. Once they were asleep, Lake would break in and interrogate them.

Seeing as he had some time to kill, Lake decided to pickpocket some people while they were walking home drunk. He saw it as easy money if they had any left, that was. Drunks were the type to only go home once they were out of money, so Lake knew he was going to get a few empty purses.

Now that Lake had decided to Level up as much as he could he switched to Pickpocket, and followed some of the people who had just left. Less than a minute later Lake had a pouch in his hand, but the fact that his level two job hadn't leveled up made him think there wasn't going to be much in it.

Opening it, Lake was happy to find a single coin. Adding it to his Lake dropped the purse on the ground and checked the Mark on the person to see if they had stopped moving yet. Lake guessed him thinking they would be home in less than a minute was hopeful thinking, so he went back to pickpocketing people.

...

[Level up] [Level up] Lake had yet to look in the purse he had just stolen but since he had finally leveled up and the fact it was twice made him think he finally got something good. The five or so before this had been completely empty, so he was starting to think he was wasting his time.

Deciding to make this one his last for tonight Lake opened his stats to see the very noticeable changes.

Race: Human Lv.8 ( 2/10 )

Job: Pickpocket Lv.4 ( 14/80 )

Special: The Insider Lv.0 ( 4/5 )

Stats

Health 80

Stamina 80

Mana 200

Strength 43

Endurance 15

Agility 51

Dexterity 51

Perception 83

Intelligence 114

Charisma 23

Free stat points: 63

Seeing his agility finally made it to where if he used Burst he would be able to move faster than a normal person with maxed out Agility, Lake felt a little better about what he was about to do, because the number of people who could catch him had just fallen drastically.

Opening the bag, Lake didn't find what he was expecting. He had thought it would be a nice amount of gold, but it was some kind of ring. It didn't have the feel of something magic, so Lake assumed it was valuable in the normal way, but to be sure he inspected it.

Jeweled Ring

Made with valuable materials.

Looked like Lake was right about it being a normal valuable ring with no magic attached to it. Lake was happy to have something to sell once he confirmed the alley was actually a place he could bring stolen goods. He could bring this ring to see what it was like inside before he brought a big haul.

Lake checked the Mark to see it was finally still. To Lake this meant they were probably at home, and hopefully asleep. It wasn't like there was tv in this world, so other than reading a book, what else was there to do at your house.

It didn't take long for Lake to find what street the guy's house was on, but once he got to the door he realized this wasn't a house but an inn. This made Lake think this guy wasn't going to have much info because he was new to town but it was still better than nothing.

The guy was a few floors up so Lake hopped onto the roof of the building next to the inn to see if he could get a glimpse into the room. Lake couldn't see the guy, but the fact there was no light coming from the room was enough to make Lake think the man was asleep, or at least in bed.

Making sure Mute was on, and that he had changed his identity, Lake, or Jon hopped onto the windowsill, putting his finger through the wood that was holding the glass in place, because of Mute him punching his finger through solid wood hadn't made a sound, Lake extracted the glass without shattering it.

Lake knew he could just break the glass to get in but on the off chance this guy was still awake, Lake thought a bunch of broken glass falling into the room was more eye-catching. Instead of sticking his head in, Lake used the corner of the glass like a mirror to check the room.

Seeing the guy was in bed with his back to him, Lake removed more of the window so he could enter the room. Once he was in the room, Lake set the disassembled window down, and walked over to the guy. Lake took a second to think about what he was about to do, because if this guy screamed he would have to run, so he needed to find a way to keep that from happening.

The best Lake could think of was to kidnap the guy before he started the questions but running through town while carrying a guy was a very obvious crime. While trying to think of a way to keep the guy quiet, Lake wondered if Mute would work. If he was the reason the guy was screaming, there was an argument one could make that he was causing the noise.

Of course this was hopeful thinking, but Lake still thought it was worth a shot. Lake took his knife out and slowly put it up to the guy's throat. When that wasn't enough to wake him Lake nudged him then put his other hand over the guy's mouth. Lake wanted to make sure the guy noticed the knife before he could try to make a noise.