Chapter 59 - Loot...
A few minutes later Eldrian felt a bit rested, allowing him to focus on other things again. He first looked into his inventory, seeing the Alpha lying in there filling a large space. Seeing how much space it took Eldrian realized that he wouldn't be able to fit much larger monsters inside his inventory.
'I will have to learn what to harvest at that time. Luckily it isn't important right now. And that was so much more difficult than I had thought it would be. I likely won't be able to put larger stuff inside even if it could fit. I wonder if the difficulty is size or mass-dependent?' Eldrian asked himself the last part as he realized that he probably won't be able to drag the Alpha's body. He felt confident that the Alpha probably weighed close to a ton. He felt certain it would be over 500 kgs.
"Seems like you are already better, meaning it wasn't magic overuse. What did you do?" Melissa asked after seeing that Eldrian had started looking around again.
"You know that I am a Chosen right?" Eldrian asked, feeling like her action was too tame. Unless she knew this part and then concluded that it was something to do with Chosen.
"Yeah, I do."
"Well all of us have an inventory. I stored it inside of it."
"What is an inventory, do you mean a dimensional storage?" She asked curiously.
"Um, yeah I think so."
"Just how big is it?"
"Three meters cubed."
"Are you serious?" She asked in disbelief, getting a nod from Eldrian as an answer. She knew from gossip that the cheapest dimensional storage was over 600 gold and it was only half a cubic meter. Yet Eldrian was claiming to have one over six times its size.
"How do you have such a large storage?" She asked, probing for information. Eldrian seemed to be quite easygoing thus far, she hoped to gather some info. Thinking that she might be able to take it for herself. It was worth just too much for her to ignore it. If she could acquire it she felt certain to get over 10 000 gold.
"All Chosen have such a storages, well we just call them inventories." Hearing Eldrian's reply she quickly decided to drop the subject, feeling certain she would be unable to take it for herself if it was something given to Chosen by the goddess of life.
"You are very lucky to have such a useful ability." She said, deciding to think of it as an ability. Which helped her in believing that she would be unable to claim it.
"Yeah, I need to start using it more. It was quite difficult to use. Especially storing the Alpha's corpse."
"Well that makes sense, normally people have to be able to control mana to use dimensional storage. But you didn't just now. How did you use it?"
"I just willed it to happen, granted I felt some push back. But in the end, I managed to store it."
"So, you just willed it?" She asked, again in disbelief. 'Is it a soul relating thing then?' She asked herself while staring at Eldrian like he was an anomaly she wanted to study.
"Well, since the Alpha has been sorted I am going to go and search for more stuff. Bye" Eldrian said, feeling much better and not liking the look she was giving him.
This look plus the fact that he wanted to store weapons he found made him decide to go on his own. He knew it wasn't the most ethical thing to do, since according to the military rules/convention he was only allowed to upgrade. But he felt quite certain the weapons he would find as an upgrade were already taken yesterday. This was what he used to convince himself that it was alright if he took more than one weapon.
"Ah, okay..." Melissa said in a daze, staring at Eldrian as he quickly made his way through all the carnage. He completely ignored all the beasts' corpses only looking for weapons.
Walking up and down the field, Eldrian started wishing he could use Inspect. He felt pretty sure it would allow him to look at the stats of the items without having to touch them. He also wouldn't have to equip and unequipped each weapon, which took a few seconds each time. Adding on that there were hundreds of weapons, he felt like he was searching for a needle in a haystack.
But he also felt this to be quite normal, since good things generally don't just appear before people. They generally have to first do something which sets everything else in motion. In this case, he felt the something would be to either learn Inspect or go through the leg work.
As he walked through the battlefield he decided to only take items of Tier 4 or above. This was because he quickly found that all the weapons were Tier 3, with Tier 2 being rarer than Tier 4. At least this was the case where he was searching.
Other players were far less picky than him, taking each and every weapon they came across. Until their inventory became full, after which they had to start picking. Their inventory quickly became the problem since they were limited to only take 10 weapons total. They couldn't use the cubic inventory yet. When they tried the system told them that they needed to reach Tier 1 to unlock it.
Making them look at the empty space with greed, wishing they could fill it with the weapons.
The reason for their greed was how good the weapons all were. It was rare to find Tier 2 items, and if they found any then it was most likely dropped from other players. This was because it was the highest tier of weapon they could have afforded to buy. Yet here Tier 3 weapons were common, while they also found a Tier 4 or maybe even a Tier 5 every now and then.
A typical Tier 2 weapon costs around 10 silver. Normally a group pooled their money to equip one person in armor and the rest just getting weapons.
When they stumbled upon a Tier 4 weapon they felt their day being made. They knew that the price for a Tier 3 was around 40 to 60 silvers, having learned this when they wanted to buy better items for themselves. They had no idea how much a Tier 4 was worth, but they believed it would be over a gold.
Yet most of the players also realized a crucial fact, which was that they couldn't sell the weapons they picked up. Well, they couldn't sell it to NPCs, as this game was far too realistic. They felt certain that they would get caught and punished if they were to try this.
Eldrian also realized this part, which was why he focused on Tier 4 or higher, unless he found the weapon itself to be to his liking.
In the end, he managed to get around two Tier 4 swords, a single Tier 4 staff, and one Tier 4 bow. He didn't find any Tier 4 shields, having taken a small round shield and a kite shield of Tier 3 in the end. Wanting to pair it with the shortsword he had found.
Other than those he also found one Tier 5 sword, but it was, unfortunately, a greatsword. He didn't plan on using a greatsword as he wanted to focus on polearms for his two-handed weapon. He felt the greatsword lost on many fronts when compared to polearms.
Rather he would want the shortsword he had to switch tiers with the greatsword. Since he would be able to pair the shortsword with a shield, when he was with others and his space was limited. Or if he was in a cave or building, which would also limit his space.
He had taken the Tier 5 weapon since he felt certain it was worth a large amount of cash. But he didn't know how to go about selling it. Even so, he decided to take it, since he could figure out how to sell it later.
Other than this he had picked up as many arrows as he could. He had stored all the weapons in his slot inventory and the arrows in his cube. It had taken some time in the start, since he had to focus where he wanted them to go inside the cube, but by the end of the day, he managed to do this part within seconds.
Looking at his loot a smile grew on Eldrian's face. While most of it wasn't of immediate value to him, he felt certain he had struck gold. Also making him realize that the players who hadn't come today would be so spiteful.
His slot inventory wasn't completely full, but Eldrian decided to not be too greedy. Feeling that he had gained enough for today.
His cube inventory still had a crazy amount of space. But he felt that the pile of arrows he had inside it was more than enough for him. At least he didn't think he would run through them anytime soon.
Happy with his gains Eldrian headed to where the soldiers were depositing weapons and monster parts. Nearing the place he saw that they were filling a bunch of crates, each with a specific type of thing inside. Either monster claws or a specific type of weapon.
Looking at this Eldrian saw that a few soldiers stood guard over the crates, taking note of who delivered what.
'They either ensure no one steals stuff, or more likely they take note of who brought what. Probably going to give that person a reward for working hard and following the rules. Else I can't understand this system, people wouldn't follow rules so easily' Eldrian thought to himself, unsure if he should also offer to help.
He felt that there must be something that kept the soldiers in line, because they weren't acting like the players. Who had filled their inventories with stuff and then decided to call it a day, or in some cases keep looking for something better.
In the end, Eldrian decided not to help them, he was tired and didn't feel like doing more. Thus he decided to try and find a nice place to rest, which was harder than it would seem. Most of the old blood from the battle should be dry by now, yet most of the blood Eldrian found was wet. He quickly realized that this was likely due to the harvesting which was happening. In the end, he walked out of the battlefield area, which took a few minutes. Finding nice green grass there he lied down and stared at the clouds for a bit.
Growing bored of the clouds he moved on to the forums. Surfing the forums for around an hour, finding that other players who had similar quests were doing the same as them. While those with bounty quests just went on as normal.
'I feel like everyone who died will be royally pissed when they hear about all the loot they missed out on.'
Finally, the soldiers started heading back, Eldrian almost missed this as he had to leave the forum to 'wake' up his avatar. This was because the forum feature was quite invasive, requiring him to enter a daydreaming state. Which also blocked most of his senses.
Looking at the soldiers he was surprised to see carriages being pulled by cows. The carriages were carrying the loot crates while the soldiers were walking around them.
Seeing that they were heading home Eldrian stood up and followed. Not wanting to stay alone in the fields. He felt he might just become unlucky and get attacked by a lone animal.