Chapter 220 – No Pity for Thieves

The blacksmith I visited was busy, but he sent one of his apprentices to look at my current lock. Back in his workshop, she gave me a few choices.

“You only have a basic lock right now, so anyone with a bit of knowledge can pick it. There are many ways to improve it. The best security is to use an enchanted alarm, but it's very expensive. You also need to refill it every day, and it barely lasts the night.”

This was the issue with enchanted items and the reason why selnic products naturally emerged after some time. Having to constantly refill it was a pain, especially if you possessed many enchanted items. For people low in rank, it would even be impossible due to a lack of sel. On top of that, performance tended to be lower, too. One could only go so far with enchanted items, which wasn’t a limit for selnic ones, especially if they were plugged into the grid.

“What are the other options?”

“I can forge a better lock for you. Depending on how secure you want it to be, the time to make it and the cost will change.”

“What’s the price range?”

“Fifty silvers and two days for the cheapest. One gold and twenty silver for the most expensive. That one will take five days to forge.”

It still was less than what had been stolen, so it seemed to be worth it.

“I’ll go with the most expensive lock, please.”

“Alright. Come back in five days.”

And so I did. I now had a shiny new lock on the front door of my store and had two keys forged, one for me and one for Morph. However, as if to mock us, the shop was broken into two days later, completely ignoring the increased security. Three days later, it happened once more, totaling a loss of almost ten golds.

At that point, I couldn’t take it anymore. That thief was playing with us, and the guards weren’t making any effort to catch them. My patience had run out. I decided to take matters into my own hands. Whatever happened next wouldn’t be my problem.

For the following few nights, I hid inside the shop, sleeping as much as possible during the day to be able to stay awake. I had found a nice spot behind a shelf, which allowed me to hide myself while having a relatively good view of the whole interior.

For a few days, nothing happened. And then, on the fourth night, I heard noises at around three in the morning. My heart started to beat hard, to the point I felt like the thief could hear it. I listened to their quiet steps around the store, heading toward the storage room at the back.

Silently, and very carefully, I took a glance at the intruder. Everything was very dark, but the slight shine of the stars through the windows allowed me to get an idea of who I was dealing with.

Rank 3, shadow mage. My previous random guess was correct. Shadow affinity was relatively rare and was known for its ability to navigate from shadow to shadow. They could also use shadows to hide themselves, making them the best potential thieves on the affinity market. There were many stories about them, both real and fictional, almost all depicting them as legendary thieves and such. The fact that this one repeatedly targeted my store was proof that they were confident in escaping in case they were caught.

The Trading Union normally suggested that its members avoid fighting. Escape was always the recommended option. If there was a need for muscle, hiring mercenaries would do just fine. However, there was one exception to the rule, and that was when defending one’s possession. If the possession was static and immovable, like real estate, it was fine to fight to protect it. Even so, it was only if the chance of winning existed, meaning the opponent had to be at the same rank or lower.

Now that I knew I had the advantage in rank and that my presence was undetected, there was no need to hesitate. I sent three space cutters their way, blocking all and any escape routes. They didn’t react to the first attack, which managed to destroy their shadow shield. The second cut them in half diagonally, and the third finished the work by cutting them the other way.

“Arghhhh…!”

They let out a horrible shout of agony but died soon after, their internal organs spilling everywhere, and blood splashing the surroundings. After that, only absolute silence reigned.

I waited for some time, wondering if anyone would come to check the situation. When nothing happened, I lit a lamp and checked the result of my attack. As expected, the sight was gruesome, and it wasn’t something I wanted to look at for too long. As for the space cutters, they had run amok in the shop, destroying everything in their path. The damage was enormous, but it was the price to pay to get rid of the nuisance once and for all.

I had to hurry now. I first put any remnant of the intruder in my storage and teleported far above the ocean in Taifau. There, I gave it all to the fish and teleported back to the shop. I had a lot of work to do to clean everything. I started with the debris, removing everything that was damaged. Next was the blood, cleaning it up as well as I could. Finally, I cleaned everything around with a lot of water, removing as many traces of what happened as possible.

Many shelves, stands, and tables had been destroyed in the process. There was nothing I could do about it for now. It couldn’t be helped that Morph and the guard would see the damage in the morning. I would buy some new ones to replace what had been lost.

This whole episode cost me a lot of time and money. My shop was completely in the red because of that thief. I hoped to be safe for a while, allowing me to start earning money normally again.

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