The Insider System

Chapter 252: Polite

Dropping down Lake finally saw some boots that met his level requirements. Over the past few days Lake had been able to find out what people did and didn't spend their money on and it seemed boots were one of the things people didn't think were important. He could understand, how often did someone aim that low, so as long as the boots had good traction it didn't really matter.

Grabbing the boots, Lake put them in his bag and looked for a place to try them on. He needed to find out if this was the end of his search so it couldn't wait until later. Landing on a balcony that had a solid guard rail he could sit behind Lake kicked off his boots and tried the new ones on.

Lake was satisfied with the size but new shoes always felt weird after your feet had the chance to get used to the old ones and the fact these had been broken in by someone else probably wasn't helping. He was sure after a few uses of Burst the only feet in the bottom of these boots would be his though so it didn't really matter.

Seeing this as a good idea to break them in Lake stood up and activated burst before starting to run around. He usually liked to fly since it was less energy intensive but he was able to move much faster on his feet. If he decided he was fine with running into things he could go even faster but he didn't want to dent up his new boots just yet by running through a stone building.

Once he felt he had pressed the shape of his feet into the bottom of his new boots, Lake stopped and headed for the base. He wanted to go ahead and clean the other two pieces of new armor he had found so he could change into them without worrying about the smell. The helmet was the worst of the two but the chainmail had come from underneath the man's clothes so it had been pressed into rotting flesh for at least a few days.

Walking into the base, Lake went towards the place he was pretty sure they would have soap. Stepping in and seeing the two doctors Lake asked. "Do you have anything I could use to clean blood off of armor?" He could tell they were looking at his non-bloodied armor so he said. "It's not what I'm wearing."

After he was done talking he pulled the helmet out of his bag and showed them the inside. "The water we use to clean blood is this way but you should ask a water mage to do it. Next to life mages they're the best at cleaning." Hearing this, Lake asked. "Are there any around?"

Hearing a few names come out of the mouths of the two doctors Lake just cut to the chase and asked. "Where are they?" Once he was told Lake was able to predict the trouble of finding one person in the common room so he asked. "Can you bring me?" He was the reason these two didn't have any work at the moment so he felt like it wasn't too much to ask for.

Being led down the hall by the younger of the two, Lake walked up to the first person the doctor pointed at and asked. "Would you mind cleaning a few things for me?" he could tell they knew who he was so he was surprised when they said. "No."

"Might I ask why?" He figured it would just take a few seconds so he didn't get why they wouldn't jump at the opportunity to help him after all he did. "I don't gain my mana back very quickly and down here the water mana is scarce so I would have to use mine."

"How scarce is it?"

"It would probably take me a whole ten minutes to get one item clean." Lake didn't think that sounded correct and said. "Are you sure you just don't feel like doing it? Alright, can you just point out someone who can help?" He understood being lazy and since he could tell the guy was lying, Lake decided to just give up on them and look for someone else to help him.

The guy looked around and pointed at someone in the corner. Marking the guy in case he ever thought about this in the future when he wasn't pretending to be a good guy, Lake showed the helmet to the person in the corner and asked. "Would you be willing to clean this for me?"

"No problem." Around three seconds later the helmet was sparkling clean and Lake pulled out the chainmail. "This two please." Watching the water spin and spit out the clean chainmail, Lake wondered if he should maybe get around to learning a spell he could use to wash stuff. He would probably go with Life magic though because clean seemed to be a better way to do this since he didn't have to get wet to get himself clean.

That had been how he had cleaned himself almost every time he had the chance to in this world. One of his servants in the Alchemist guild had been a healer so Lake had just asked them to clean him every morning when he had been walking out the door. It would be nice to be able to do it for himself plus he probably wouldn't need health potions anymore.

He would also like to see what kind of skills a Life mage would get on level up. Something that gave him more health or made him heal faster would be nice. He guessed it would also be nice to be able to heal someone if he needed to. Thanking the mage for cleaning his armor, Lake went towards his room to change.

Taking his chest piece off Lake was about to put his chainmail on when he stopped and put his normal shirt on first. He didn't want the metal on his bare skin even if that was how you were supposed to wear it. Looking at how he looked now Lake decided he needed to get his hands on a jacket to put over his new shiny top.

He also looked kind of weird since his legs had plate armor that made it look like his legs were way bigger than the top part of his body. Grabbing the new helmet and putting it on Lake thought it made the problem even worse. Plus the new helmet was kind of flashy so everyone would remember what it looked like if he ever robbed them while wearing it.

He guessed this new jacket he was looking for should have a hood attached so it could cover his head as well. Leaving his room Lake saw a few people look at him but nothing crazy since he wasn't the only person walking around with a mismatched set of armor. Lots of the people that had been injured had to replace some of their armor and had gone to the bodies outside to do so.

After making it down the hall, Lake realized his new piece of chainmail made a lot of noise as he moved and guessed that would be another use his jacket would have when he found it. He wasn't worried about the noise getting him into trouble since he had Mute but it was kind of annoying to make this much noise every time you moved.

Wishing he had been able to find a nice leather shirt instead, Lake wondered if there was some kind of local taboo against wearing leather. He understood this was the Metal Domain but it seemed kind of ridiculous that there wasn't any high level leather gear. He bet if he was still where the Fighters Guild people were he would have been able to find some dead people from outside of the Domain who had come to work who were wearing leather that was at least level 30.

Seeing Wezz Lake walked up to him and asked. "What do you think?" Wezz gave him a good look before saying. "Each piece looks nice on its own but you need to cover up if you care what you look like." Starting to laugh, Lake nodded and asked. "Do you have any jackets or robes I can look through?"

"I'm sure you could find them if you tried." Thinking about what Wezz just said Lake knew he was right, all he had to do was set Detector and anything he wanted to find started to glow. "Yeah you're right, talking to you to get permission to take your stuff is a waste of time." His only real reason to say anything to anybody at this point was to be polite.

"Ok feel free to look around. You have my blessings." Getting the green light Lake started by setting Detector to look for clothes and went to the only place in the building that lit up other than the people. Opening the closet Lake pulled out what he thought to be dresses and guessed he might have to leave the building to get a jacket.