Chapter 12 Window Shopping

Hearing the words that came out of Leon's mouth, Jonas and Louie could not help but look at each other for a bit, murmuring something as they glanced at Valyr with a hint of pity on their faces. Noticing this, Valyr looked at Leon, who was in the midst of splitting up the village into far more specific sections.

Snapping his fingers to catch his attention, Valyr went ahead and asked him a question. "Is there a specific reason why you're giving me the southeast section?"

In response to those words, Leon looked at Valyr for a bit before looking at the two other people with them. After looking back and forth between the two sides a couple of times, a dry smile appeared on Leon's face as he told Valyr, "Although I would prefer not explaining it to you, seeing as you've probably noticed something weird about the two when I said you're going to patrol the southeast section, you deserve to know a bit."

Glaring at Jonas and Louie for a bit, he returned his attention back to Valyr as he explained. "The southeast section is an initiation of sorts for any person that has been newly inducted to the village guards. However, this only applies to those who decide to participate in the night patrol. For those who decide to participate in the day patrol, a different section is instead used as the place for initiation."

"Now, you might be wondering, why the initiation?" he said, prompting Valyr to lightly nod in agreement. "Consider it the main way the guards find out if other guards can actually do their job properly, or if they're just there because of the prestige a village guard gets."

"Just like the section chosen for the day patrol, the southeast section for the night patrol is chosen as the spot for initiation since, more often than not, a great portion of the problems in the village arise there. Though, that's not to say other sections don't have problems of their own."

"Does that answer your question?" asked Leon as he concluded his explanation. Seeing Valyr nod in response, he lightly nodded as the four of them talked about the specifics of where they were going to patrol for the night. After reminding each other once more about the time they were to return to the barracks, the four of them went their separate ways, with Valyr heading to the part of the village Leon demarcated as the southeast section.

While walking along the streets that made up the southeast section, Valyr quickly noticed that most of the people along the streets were heading in the opposite direction, their somewhat hasty steps having purpose in them. As for the remaining few, they did not have to walk as far, with their houses being somewhat near to where they were by the time Valyr walked past.

Surprisingly, even as the surroundings began to dim, a few of the people stopped walking for a bit and came up to greet him, thanking him for the work he was doing to keep the people of the village safe. Hearing their words of sincere gratitude, a light smile was plastered on his face as he continued to walk around the streets, his steps gaining a slight bounce to them.

Nevertheless, seconds turned into minutes, and minutes turned to hours. Before he knew it, the moon was already up high in the sky.

At this point, only a few people still walked along the streets aside from him. Some of them were somewhat intoxicated, making Valyr inwardly shake his head as he told them to return home as soon as possible. Then, there were those whose movements seemed somewhat suspicious, prompting him to tail them for a bit, only to find out that they would enter a house not long after. Listening to the sounds that faintly resounded behind the walls of the house those people entered, Valyr could not help but scratch his head for a bit before starting to walk in the opposite direction.

"Hmm. Leon made it seem like patrolling over the southeast section would be difficult, but it's not really much of a problem," he muttered to himself, noticing that he was the only one walking along the streets at some point. Taking a look at the sky to check the moon's position, Valyr decided to do one last sweep of the streets, wanting to make sure that there were no more people on the streets.

Thankfully, by the time he had finished checking, no other people aside from him could be seen on the streets, making him let out an inward sigh of relief as he took a look at the moon's position once more. "Judging by its current position, there's only around an hour or so before we can head back to the barracks."

Rumble…

Feeling his stomach grumble once more, a wry smile appeared on his face as he sat down on a nearby porch. "I should also probably get something to eat once I get back."

"In any case, what can I do to pass the time…" Valyr muttered to himself, eventually thinking of checking the contribution point shop, which he now had access to after joining the village guards. With a quick command from the system, a small screen appeared before him, with tabs at the top to separate the items that could be bought from the shop into various categories.

"Weapons, armor, accessories, skills, and items…" Looking at the five tabs at the very top of the screen, he decided to check the skill tab for now, thinking that the equipment he had at the moment was more than enough for the current him.

In an instant, a plethora of skills were shown to him on the screen, with a short description of the skill's purpose, as well as the cost to buy it with contribution points accompanying each one.

"There's a lot of offensive and defensive skills here," he could not help but say, clicking his tongue from time to time at the prices each skill commanded. "On the other hand, there are lot less utility and support skills here."

"Fortunately, they have [Analysis] available," he said sometime later after scrolling through the list for a bit, bringing up more information about it as a second screen appeared beside the first.

Ding!

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[Analysis]

Rarity: Common

A skill capable of identifying monsters and items. Increasing the skill's level allows the user to gain more detail into what they're identifying.

Prerequisites: [Guard] rank

Cost: 200 contribution points

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"200 contribution points… with each night patrol giving me 20 contribution points, I'll have to toil away at it for 10 days straight," he muttered, keeping a mental note of the price as he continued to scroll through the list. "Huh. To think they actually have a rudimentary healing skill available."

Ding!

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[Inferior Heal]

Rarity: Common

A skill capable of healing light injuries. Increasing the skill's level allows the user to heal more grievous injuries.

Prerequisites: [Veteran Guard] rank

Cost: 1500 contribution points

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Looking at the prerequisites needed for him to buy the skill, Valyr could not help but click his tongue. "Aside from the fact that I need to raise my rank to [Veteran Guard], the fact that I would have to toil at it for over 2 months already makes me not want to get it."

"I wonder what other skills I could get from the shop that I could use…" Just as he said these words, his ears picked up a sound coming from nearby, prompting him to stand up as he grabbed the spear behind his back.

Rustle… rustle…

"Who goes there?!"