The Girl Who Lost Her Bag
A petite girl rose from the disheveled bed.
She was bigger than Kancho, but even so, she looked no older than five or six years old.
"What are you doing?! Reveille... Gulp!"
I yanked Kancho back.
Then, with an awkward motion, I raised my hand.
"Hello."
"Hewwo."
Where most people would have freaked out or screamed,
The girl waved her hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Her eyes still half-lidded with sleep, her chubby cheeks puffy.
Unlike Seira or Dark, her class wasn't easy to gauge.
The girl climbed down from the bed and approached, looking up at me.
"I have to follow the master, but I lost my bag."
She pulled out her empty pocket to show me.
"If I put it in here, it's all done."
"Then just steal the most expensive stuff!"
"Ooh."
Was it Kancho's advice that struck a chord?
The girl grabbed the hem of my pants and tugged me toward her pocket.
'Wait, what? Suddenly?'
After fumbling around for a while, she wiped the sweat from her forehead.
"Whew. It won't fit. I was trying to put in the best one."
"Me? But Seira and Dark are here too?"
"Commander? Why am I left out?"
"And Kancho too."
I met the girl's sparkling eyes.
Golden irises with a strange aura about them.
The girl, who had been staring straight at me, finally spoke.
"It'll get way better later!"
She said something whose meaning I couldn't grasp, then flashed a big grin.
I smiled back and pulled the Flick's subspace bag from my inventory.
"Ooooooh!!"
Her reaction was immediate.
She leaped up and hugged the bag tight.
I pried the dangling girl off and helped her put it on.
"This bag is amazing!"
"It's yours. You can have it."
"Thank youuu."
Ding!
[The girl who lost her bag and was feeling sad has obtained a new bag!]
[This is mine too, that is mine too, yours is mine! Mine is mine! The girl's greed for possessions defies imagination!]
[The sleepy collector Momo's eyes sparkle only at the moment she discovers an item worth collecting!]
[Momo will gather items for her master anytime, anywhere!]
Ding!
[A new card has been added!]
[Jinhyuk]
Class: Collector
[Unique Trait]
Card Collector
Current Cards Held: 4/5.Seira Kinkaiton.Kancho.Dark Castro.Momo.
[Momo]
Master of Collection.Class: Collector.Rank: Unique.Level: 80.Can evolve to the next rank upon reaching Unique max level of 120.
[Unique Traits]
Right to Plunder.Aura Suppression.Value Assessment.
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[Unique Skills]
Sleight of Pocket.Pickpocketing.Hands Faster Than Eyes.
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.
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[Possessed Treasures]
Golden Eye.
[Motto]
Everything Has a Price.
I checked the status window and rubbed my chin.
Honestly, I couldn't quite get a read on her.
She was a different case from Seira and Dark, whose roles and abilities were clear-cut, or even Kancho.
"Master, this is a gift."
What Momo held out was a mini-gun that looked like something a child would use.
It felt oddly familiar for some reason.
"It looks just like mine!"
"Kancho, didn't you lose yours?"
"What are you talking about? It's right on my back... Huh?"
Kancho patted his back and looked at Momo.
"When did you take it?! That's mine!"
Kancho rushed over and snatched back the mini-gun, letting out a sigh of relief.
He hadn't even noticed that his signature yodeler's hat, which he always wore as a symbol, was gone.
I swallowed hard.
Just like I'd seen in the status window, she might not be much help in combat.
But in other ways, she seemed like she'd be overwhelmingly useful.
"Nice to meet you, Momo. Take good care of me."
"Yeah!"
I took her tiny hand and shook it up and down.
"No pickpocketing our stuff."
"Yeah!"
"And give Kancho his hat back."
"Yeah!"
Momo handed the hat to Kancho.
Only then did Kancho's face twist in horror.
A pickpocketing so skilled that even a yodeler hadn't noticed—definitely top-tier.
"Oh, and no pickpocketing outside the tower either."
Jin Yoonho had said that when he handed me the bag.
Whether weapons, armor, or potions, items usable outside were under strict management by the Hunter Bureau.
It was to account for the influence that tower-infused items could have in the outside world.
Take Flick's subspace bag, for example.
A kind of inventory that bound itself to the user once placed inside.
In other words, the moment something went in, only Momo could take it out again.
If she set her mind to it and swiped something into the bag, it'd be the perfect crime.
"Yeah! I don't steal much!"
Her reassurance didn't inspire much confidence as Momo gathered her things and headed out of the cabin.
"Let's eat this before we go."
She sat by the lake and laid out all sorts of food ingredients.
Mostly expensive-looking stuff like lobsters and king crabs.
"You only eat the good stuff, huh, Momo."
"It's all free, so it's fine."
I glanced back at the market we'd passed earlier.
I sent a silent apology to the merchants who'd lost their lobsters and king crabs.
Chop chop chop chop chop, bubble bubble bubble, sizzle sizzle sizzle.
A flurry of sounds rang out.
Kancho, Seira, and Dark sat around, watching her.
I furrowed my brow.
With five years of bachelor living under my belt, I could tell.
This girl had skilled hands.
"Done!"
When she lifted the pot lid, perfectly steamed lobsters and king crabs emerged.
Momo quickly portioned them out into our bowls.
I took a bite and nodded with conviction.
The party had gained a cook.
Floor 29 of the Tower of Despair.
We were one bend away from the castle stronghold occupied by the ogre brigade.
Seira and Dark charged ahead first, sweeping the front lines.
Kancho was blasting ogres emerging from side paths.
I followed behind with my soy sauce demon blade, picking off any stragglers one by one.
Once things were mostly cleared, I turned back.
Step. Step. Step.
Momo strolled leisurely, as if out for a casual walk.
"Grraaaaaah!"
An ogre warrior hidden in a building rushed past Momo toward me.
I dodged the axe and swiftly severed the ogre's neck.
'Figures.'
This wasn't the first time a monster had ignored Momo.
At least five times that I'd seen.
It wasn't that her small size made her invisible.
The monsters simply couldn't perceive her, even when she was right in front of them.
As if her presence was so faint she'd turned invisible.
'It wasn't my imagination.'
Even my own presence detection didn't pick up Momo.
To find where she was, I had to scan around diligently.
It was probably the effect of her unique trait, Aura Suppression.
"Hm?!"
Spotting something, perhaps, Momo quickened her pace as she walked.
She pulled out a mini pickaxe and shovel from who-knows-where.
She rapidly dug beneath the ruined ramparts.
I approached Momo and opened my mouth.
"Momo. Anyway, stuff from this floor can't be..."
I meant to say it couldn't be taken out.
But I stopped when Momo shoveled up a raw gemstone and stuffed it into her bag.
[The collector Momo's Right to Plunder trait activates! Momo has stolen ownership of the item from the tower!]
'Pardon?'
I stared in blank amazement.
'You can steal it like that?'
Afterward, Momo's digging continued.
She dug up the ground here and there, pocketing gemstones.
"Whew."
Once she'd gotten it all, Momo stood and wiped the sweat from her forehead.
She glanced around, then walked over to a fallen ogre whose breath had stilled.
"Master, do you need this?"
Momo pointed at the ogre and asked.
I nodded, and her hands blurred into motion at impossible speed.
In the blink of an eye, the ogre was reduced to bones, completely disassembled.
She neatly packed it into her bag and moved to the next corpse.
I alternated glances between Momo and the rest of the party, who were finishing off the last ogre brigade in the distance.
Momo wasn't just wandering and playing around on a stroll.
She was fighting a fierce battle too—just on a different battlefield.
Ding!
[You have cleared Floor 29 of the Tower of Despair!]
[Player's level has increased! Current level 35.]
[You have obtained 50 pieces of low-grade ogre warrior leather! Heavily damaged from combat, so the overall grade is low!]
[You have obtained 27 chipped wudium fragments! It's hard to get full price for them!]
Our combat style was so rough that this was the usual reward I got after clearing a floor.
But.
"Master. I picked up everything."
Thud! What Momo set down was different.
[Momo has presented the items she collected from Floor 29!]
[You have obtained 92 pieces of top-grade ogre warrior leather! Rotten parts trimmed away, only the best-conditioned sections processed! You can get a good price for them!]
[You have obtained 60 intact wudium fragments! Excellent preservation condition!]
[You have obtained 17 gold teeth from ogre shamans! Polish them up well, and you can resell at a premium!]
[You have obtained 20 jade stones lightly dusted with dirt! Dug up by Momo; process them into pretty accessories!]
'Oh, damn.'
I scanned the pile in front of me and picked up an ogre shaman's gold tooth.
One common complaint from players on the tower site was why the system didn't reward the obvious gear monsters carried.
I'd thought the same myself, eyeing the equipment on monsters now and then.
How great would it be if I could just rip it off and take it?
And today, that wish came true.
Momo could directly harvest items from monsters.
We'd always had to take whatever the tower deigned to give.
That was the academic consensus on Tower of Despair rewards—and today, I'd broken free of it.
"That's way more than usual."
"This'll fetch a pretty penny, won't it?"
Seira and Dark, returning, rubbed their chins with appreciative hums.
Meanwhile, Kancho came sprinting up in a panic.
"Master! Big trouble! Someone turned all the ogre corpses to bones... Eek!"
Seeing the heaps of leather and meat, Kancho yelped and stumbled back.
The most astonishing part was the absurd speed of the collection.
What would've taken all day for anyone else, Momo had demolished in moments.
[The collector Momo's skill: Hands Faster Than Eyes.]
'How fast is that?'
Cold sweat trickled down my back.
It was far beyond just having "skilled hands."
And a moment later.
Heh.
A smile crept onto my lips.
It started somewhere.
Jingle. Jingle. Jingle.
No doubt about it—the sound of money.
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T/N:
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