7 - Treasure Spirit

After raiding the imperial treasury, I hurriedly made my way out before anyone noticed what was wrong. Plus, someone would notice the drunken guard who was about to start his shift wasn't around soon. Well, that probably wouldn't matter much, but it was better to be quick about these kinds of things.

The longer something like this dragged on, the higher the likelyhood of something going wrong.

I placed the two guards who had been guarding the door to the treasury back in front of the door. They were still knocked out.

Hurrying back to the ground floor, but making sure to not be seen, I made it back to the room near the backdoor where the drunken guard had been, but then I got an idea.

Going outside, I was careful not to get noticed. The guard outside was now awake.

I made some noise to lure him inside and knocked him out again without him seeing my face.

Placing him back outside, I took note of the guard's rotation and went out when I saw a blind spot, opposite of how I came in.

Instead of returning straight home, I went to a brothel and changed clothes back to normal with the drunken guard before dropping off in front near the brothel.

This would surely cause a funny misunderstanding.

Well, not that I'd be there to witness it, but it was funny to think it would be happening, nonetheless.

Giggling to myself, I left leisurely and went back home.

I climbed up through the window I had purposefully left open. It'd be like I was purposefully making myself suspect if I came back through the front door, so that was obviously not an option.

Sitting down on the bed, I looked over ghe spoils.

Gold and mortal treasures aside, I looked at the real good stuff.

Looking at it, I was most curious about the middle aged man in a suit.

Coming into the treasury, he looked startled to see me appear out of thin air, but after a moment of shock, he seemed to calm down again.

"Who are you? Where is this place?How did I get here?"

Interestingly, he didn't ask what I wanted, since I suppose that was pretty obvious.

"Calm down there. One at a time, good sir. All you need to know is that I'm someone who's collecting treasures. This place is my treasury, and you were brought here through means beyond your imagination."

At that, the man scoffed.

'A scoff? Interesting. As though contemptuous. Is being instantly brought to an unknown place not something worthy of his recognition?'

I was closely observing the man's every action, since for some reason, he, a living person, was regarded as a treasure by the compass.

"I have a method of finding treasures. That same method, for some reason, points to you. Tell me, why might that be?"

"By a method of finding treasures, you mean this compass?"

The man pointed to where the treasure compass was in the treasury.

'?!'

I narrowed my eyes. How could he tell just by a glance?

"Maybe. Maybe not. Answer my question and I'll answer yours."

"There's no use not telling me. I can tell. In fact, all the properties of the things in here, I can tell. The only thing I can't tell the properties of is this place I'm in, even though I can sense that it's a treasure too. I wonder, just what is this place?"

The man looked around casually at the treasury, paying no heed to my shocked expression.

He could tell the properties of all the items here?

'Isn't that exactly what I need right now?!'

Excited, I once again asked him why he would be classified as a treasure.

"You don't even know that much? I have to wonder how you came into possession of a place like this with such little knowledge...well, I suppose I might as well tell you. I'm a treasure spirit, a being that's made to manage mystical treasures.

The reason I can see the properties of every item here is because that is one of my innate abilities. Of course, there's a limit to it. Treasures to far beyond my level, I can't peer into. For instance, this room I'm in, or the door leading out of it."

'A treasure spirit! So something like this exists too. Great. Perfect! This is just perfect! I have to get him on my side.'

"Sir treasure spirit, would you mind helping me mana-"

"Manage this place for you? Sure. This is leagues better than that acursed imperial treasury. Can you believe that dumb prince actually activated the barrier treasure while outside, and then accidentally severed the connection? Complete idiot, really."

The man started saying some ridiculous things. It seemed like he had been starved of someone to talk to for a while.

Still, what did he just say? A prince had accidentally activated that barrier (hich mind you, was still active around the 9 artifacts, including the treasure spirit) and lost connection to it?

Didn't this essentially mean someone had locked themselves, and everyone else, out from using the treasures?

This...

This was both hilarious and yet frustrating.

I had resolved myself to figuring out a way to disactivate the barrier later at some point when I was still in the palace, but now, it didn't look like it'd be easy.

Still, it shouldn't be too hard.

More importantly, he said yes!

This was great news. The treasure spirit seemed to have a bit of an eccentric personality, and he was a bit rude, but those little things could be overlooked if he could really tell me what each treasure I had did!

"Is there an easy way to disable the barrier?"

"Of course. It's just a measly weak barrier. Bombarding it with force will break it. However, the artifact will also break in the process. Well, of course, I could also just open it from the inside myself.

But I decided to give that idiot prince and his whole family a hard time about it since what they did to get themselves in this situation was really just so stupid. They deserved to suffer a little. I mean, imagine if they did something even more dumb? Like losing an artifact.

The ring accidentally falling off their finger and getting lost somewhere, for instance. Yeah, I can see that happening. Nope, woth such irresponsible owners, they need to be taught a lesson. So I refused to disabke the barrier for them."

'...'

Seemed like I had a bit of a headache on my hands. Well, not like he was completely unreasonable. I'd just have to keep him away from all the really important treasures.

Yeah...

"So, does that mean now, you can disable it for-"

"Nope."

"???"

"You haven't proven yourself to me yet. I'll help you out since I'm bored, but if you eant these treasures, you'll have to show me you can take good care of 'em."

Well, that made sense. Still, I could win him over with time. More importantly, I had to ask him about "those" first.

Bringing the quill and sealed book in front of the treaure spirit, I said:

"Could you tell me what these are used for? How do I open this seal? And what does this quill do?"

"The quill can be injected with certain energy types in order to help draw runes, magic circles, and so on. The book, it can be unlocked if you find the key."

'Runes? Magic circles?'

I was very confused. I had never heard of these things. There were tall tales of myth and legend about "magic", so was a "magic circle" just a...magical circle? Come to think of it, when I tried to open the doors and windows leading out of the treasury, I suppose some circles with odd inscriptions on them had appeared out of thin air.

Were those the so called "magic circles"?

Leaving these thoughts for later, I continued thinking about what the treasure spirit had said.

'A key...well that much was obvious to me too, but where do I get one?...'

"What are magic circles used for? Sealing things?"

I made my best guess.

In response, I got a look that said "are you an idiot or are you just that ignorant"?

"Wow. Ya don't even know what a magic circle is. I never thought I'd see the day. Well, no, I guess those imperial bastards back then didn't know either. Was that 600 years ago now or something?"

The spirit started mumbling about something, while not asnwering my question. I felt like I was being belittled here, but I didn't know what I was supposed to do about it.

Nothing to do about my ignorance but try and learn, right?

"By the way, what should I call you? Just 'treasure spirit' is a bit unusual, after all."

"Is it? I wouldn't know. Anyway, call me what you want. I don't have a name besides treasure spirit."

"Then I'll call you Tom. Is that alright?"

"Hmm, Tom. It sounds very regal. Surely it's a name fit for kings. Yes, I like it very much."

"...uh, haha, yeah, king Tom, totally, haha. Glad you like it...Um, so about magic circles-"

"Everything. They're used for everything you can possibly imagine. Now please don't say something stupid like 'are they only used for sealing?' in front of me ever again."

"...I see. How do you know all this by the way?"

"Memories in my bloodline. I was born with knowledge about things. Not everything, but I know a lot."

"Do you know what this place is, then?"

"Do you not know? No, I've not a clue about this place."

"I see. Then what about magic?"

"What about magic?"

"..."

"What?"

"Nevermind. Um, if there's magic, is there something like mages or something too?"

"Of course. You could become one, if ya want. Although I ain't teachin ya. Too much trouble."

"Oh...ok."

Well that was somewhat disappointing, but it was exciting to think of becoming a mage one day. I guess I'd have to slowly syphon the knowledge of magecraft out of him.

"What about those, the treasures you're protecting? Could you tell me more about them?"

"Sure. This here is a sword that's always sharp, and can launch blade beams loke that kama you've got over there. This is a shield that can erect a temporary barrier. It's like the barrier artifact, but less strong and has a shorter range, but can also be used as a normal shield.

This here is an armor set that can deflect the strongest of mortal blows. It can even withstand a blow from a 2nd circle magic spell. Well, it depends which one."

My eyes narrowed. I caught on to the words "2nd circle magic spell". I had no clue what they meant, but I'd make sure to remember them.

He continued.

"This here is a basic ring of charm, and it's what it sounds like. It can help give people a good impression of you."

He picked up something that looked like a weirdly truncated cube.

"Here's the barrier artifact. In addition, there's also three books, one of which is sealed by dark magic."

I couldn't take the books to read because of the barrier, but he showed me the titles.

The sealed one had no title. The other two were the following:

[Lavencia Knight Breathing Technique]

[Lesser Demon Summoning, Vol. 1]