I appeared back in my room, taking a moment to catch my breath and process everything that had happened. Zerallia had just tried to kill me, that wasn’t something I expected with a contract in place. From the initial system information, it seemed that there were items out there that could delay the system’s intervention.
Something like that must be expensive…very expensive and very powerful. The system had even said the device was forbidden at Zerallia’s rank and tier. Just how powerful was Gary if he was the one behind all this? Was he feeling a bit worried about my progress? I suppose that it would be easier for him to just eliminate me now, while he was at full power and with all his resources at his disposal.
I was sure the system was going to prevent him from intervening directly, but that wouldn’t stop him from hiring people like Zerallia. He could not only hire but I had to also consider that he was able to force others to do his bidding based on the contracts he had out there. Who wouldn’t want to take a crack at killing me if it meant they could break a contract on their soul?
It’d be easy to just tell myself to be more careful, but there was really no way I could predict what contracts were legit, and which ones were ambushes. There was also the question of Professor Dalzrin. Did he know about Zerallia’s antics? Was he working with, or being exploited by Gary?
I would have liked to dismiss him as a suspect given his prior treatment, and the fact he gave me the amulet which may have even saved me from Zerallia’s attacks. The system directing me back to him to collect my rewards also seemed to indicate that he wasn’t involved, but this summoning contract had already shown me the system wasn’t infallible.
Immediately walking over to Professor Dalzrin’s office to collect my rewards and demanding some answers wouldn’t be very smart. I wanted my loot and rewards, but not before I was as prepared as I could be if the professor turned out to be involved or at least had been coerced into working for Gary. Even if he was under Gary’s control, I didn’t think that he’d risk directly attacking me on campus. Dalzrin was in a rather comfortable position here at the academy and had been here for too long to just throw it away on a public attack.
The odds were good that Dalzrin was one of the good guys, but I still needed to prepare for the worst. All my useful consumables were gone, and my reusable items were all on cooldown. I needed to restock before facing Dalzrin, and that meant a journey into town.
In addition to restocking my consumables, I wanted to have a friendly ally at my side. If Dalzrin was compromised by Gary, he would be less likely to pull something if another staff member was present. Melody was the only one I could trust with this. She knew my story and there was little chance that she was working for Gary, after all, she had probably already passed up dozens of chances to kill me if she had wanted to.
The question was whether or not she’d be willing to risk getting involved, and if I should even ask her to assume the possible dangers involved. I counted her as a friend, but did she see me the same way? Back on Earth, there weren’t too many coworkers that I’d have risked death to help, but this new life was a different one, and deadly risks were more common than they were back on Earth.
“All right, before town, I need to see what Clancy has for me,” I said. Melvin sent me supportive feelings, reminding me that he was still at my side, or more accurately, on my armor.
“Thanks buddy, you probably saved me out there. I’m sure those fire spells that Zerallia used would have caused more damage if you hadn’t taken some of the hit. You’ve earned double treats when we head into town,” I told Melvin. He sent me several images, pretty much covering all the food carts we’d come across in town.
Before I called Clancy, there was one new thing for my class that I’d unlocked after the fight. I pulled up the information on the Equipment Beads, to see what those were all about.
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Equipment Beads are a class feature of the Contracted Summoner. You earn these randomly when completing contracts. The difficulty of the contract, your Reputation score, and your performance on the contract will affect the chance of one of these items being issued as a reward.
Each bead may be used to bind 1 piece of equipment to 1 of your minions. This will allow the equipment to be permanently attached to your minion until you wish it to be removed or replace it with a more powerful item. The equipment will survive the summoning and unsummoning process, and as long as part of it is still in existence, the equipment will be rebuilt upon completion of the contract.
Once bound to a minion, the equipment cannot be used by any other. At your current Tier and Rank, you may only have a maximum of 1 piece of equipment bound to each minion. As you climb in Tier and Rank, the maximum equipment limit will increase.
That was a very nice upgrade for my class. Currently, my minions had solid gear, and their weapons and armor would improve automatically as I grew in power. Where I could see the Equipment Beads coming into play was with other gear and accessories. There were a lot of items out there other than weapons and armor, and those magic items could make a big difference in my minions’ power.
It was too bad the system had left all my rewards, including the one Equipment Bead I’d earned so far, with Professor Dalzrin. That seemed to be a further indication that he was in the clear, but I was still going to take all the precautions I could before visiting him. With the new class upgrade out of the way, it was time to see what Clancy had to offer.
I activated the Merchant Cart Vendor Recall ability and a new portal opened in my room. Clancy pushed his heavily laden cart out of the portal and waved in greeting. Seeing my minion reminded me that I should probably have my other minions summoned and ready to defend me as often as possible. While I could call them up quickly, it wasn’t instant, and they might spot a danger before I was able to.
“Hey Clancy, how’s business?” I asked as I summoned Elida and the drone.
“Not bad at all, Rico, not bad at all. Let me get your cut and the items I’ve found for you,” Clancy said, pulling open a drawer at the back of his cart that he sorted through. He pulled out a small bag of coins, and a sack of other gear which I immediately checked.
Your minion has earned you 31 gold, 22 silver, and 88 copper coins.
You have received the following items from your minion.
- Summoning figurine, Cloaked Horror Tier 1, Rank 9.
- Summoning figurine, Dwarven Hammerer, Tier 2, Rank 4.
- Summoning figurine, Strangler, Tier 2, rank 6.
- Bands of Storage.
While Clancy patiently waited, I examined the figurines and the Bands of Storage, remembering that I had asked him to track down a storage item that was less cumbersome than my pack. The cloaked horror figurine looked like a flying manta ray, and despite its relatively low tier and rank, I was curious to see how it fought.
A dwarven hammerer wasn’t too hard to figure out, it was a figurine of a stout dwarf in chainmail that was holding an oversized two-handed hammer. The last figurine was a bit strange and disturbing. It was a humanoid wearing raggedy clothing and possessing abnormally long arms. Each arm had oversized hands with long, spindly fingers. It was a creature I’d rather not meet in person unless I was the one summoning it.
The Bands of Storage turned out to be a pair of leather wristbands that could be used to store a decent amount. I could fill the equivalent of a small bedroom’s worth of volume inside them, which meant I wouldn’t have to lug my backpack around everywhere I went.
“Thanks, Clancy. You’re doing great out there. I’m a bit shocked you still had over 31 gold to give me even after buying all this,” I told him.
“What can I say, business is good, and I’m starting to build up a clientele in town. I suspect things will get a bit better before evening out to a consistent sales volume,” Clancy said.
“Anything I can do to help?” I asked.
“No sir, I’ve got everything under control. The town is safe enough and I haven’t had to worry about thieves or competitors causing trouble,” Clancy explained.
“I’ll let you head back then, if you don’t need anything from me,” I told him. Clancy just smiled, tipped his hat, and walked into the portal that had opened to return him and his cart to where I’d pulled him from.
“Melvin, I think we’re ready to do some shopping,” I said, looking out my window to see that the sun was setting, and not much time must have passed during my summoning. I’d been in combat from the get-go, and while it seemed like a long time had passed while it happened. In reality, I doubted our fight had lasted longer than five or six minutes.
With my new storage bands equipped, my consumable figurines squared away, and a healthy pile of coins to work with, I left for town.