CH 3

Skill: 【Concealment】

Description: Allows the concealment of presence, magic, and various objects you possess. The more proficient you become, the less likely you are to be noticed and the more sophisticated your concealment becomes.

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This was my new skill. Pretty useful, huh? Now there were two main ways you could use this.

The first way was so you could get in and out of places without anyone noticing.

After all, it was an overpowered skill prepared by the game so that Amy and the others could escape from the Pursuers of the Imperial Army.

Without this, there’s no way they could have sneaked in out of town and go to dangerous places unnoticed.

The next thing really cool thing it can do is obscure the contents of the guild card. After all, with an overpowered skill like this, it could lead to some problems.

If people knew about this, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some people who would want to kidnap me to raise me as an assassin or something like that.

After testing the skill, I found out that when I used 【Concealment】I’d become nearly imperceptible. Something like that feeling when a rock suddenly falls around you.

I know this because last night when I got home, I tried it out with my mother.

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The experiment was simple: I just used 【Concealment】at home and sat upright on a chair in the room and waited for my mother to come home.

When she did…

“Allen, I’m home! Time for dinner.”

Our house was on the fifth floor of a run-down apartment that was illegally extended. It was just a small studio room with a kitchen and a shared bathroom. I should have been immediately seen when she came in.

“Allen? Where are you? I can’t believe him. Leaving the lamp on and suddenly going out like this.”

She mumbled while putting down the scrap vegetable soup, hard bread, and dry meat she bought for dinner.

Then she tried to pull on the chair I was sitting on—

“Huh? Was the chair always this heavy?”

Confused, she went around the table and pulled a seat on that side.

“Mom?”

She looked around the area, startled. but no matter what she did she couldn’t find me.

Even though I was sitting right in front of her, she still couldn’t notice me.

I hop off the chair I was sitting on and go around to her side of the table and lightly tap on her shoulder.

“Oh, huh? Allen? How long have you been there?”

So the skill works something like that.

“Hehe. I was here since you entered! Anyway, here’s what I got today.”

I gave my mother some of the money I earned from cleaning up random ditches.

As you could see, we were really poor. So I wanted to help my mom even if by just a bit. After all, she was my one and only family.

“Thank you. But you don’t have to push yourself so hard, you know? Just as long as you study properly, okay?”

“Yeah, I know. The lessons are easy to understand, though, so it’s fine!”

By the way, the school I was going to was a place where you could learn how to read, write, do basic arithmetic, and learn this world’s history three times per week for free. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning you could take classes for 2 hours.

Since I had memories of my past life, I didn’t need to take any classes other than for subjects unique to this world like history. But I couldn’t relax on my studies either because I needed to enter the Royal Academy in the future.

Now, time for my next goal. This time, I needed to go out of town. There was said to be an ancient labyrinth near the outskirts of Lurden, there, I need to enter and find the『Scroll of Appraisal』.

Of course, an eight-year-old child wasn’t simply allowed to waltz in and out of town. Especially since it was out of town, there was a chance for demons to appear. We were close to the Royal Capital though, so it was highly unlikely, but other things like getting mugged by bandits and thieves could still happen.

This is where 【Concealment】comes into play. Using this, we sneak out of town, stealthily enter the ruins, and get what we want all without anyone noticing.

Incidentally, this 『Scroll of Appraisal』was supposed to be an item that the game’s protagonist, Amy was supposed to obtain.

She got it by chance during her first year’s summer vacation when she visited the ruins as a research project with the person you were aiming to date. So if we can find the scroll there, we can then again confirm that this world and the game’s are one and the same.

Don’t make light of it though, this【Appraisal】skill doesn’t just appraise items. To put it simply, this thing was also really overpowered.

As the name suggests, this skill could be used to appraise items. That in and of itself is already really good, but where it really shined was when you paid real money for ‘magic stones.’

Using those you could identify the names and skills of those weaker than you, detect treasure chests in dungeons, detect traps, find out enemy weaknesses, anticipate enemy actions in battle, and even find the correct thing to say in a conversation and the right answer to a final exam.

Magic stones drop from defeated monsters, but in the game, there was a really limited amount of magic stones you could get so in order to show off its really overpowered features, you had to pay real money. Basically, this was the game’s micro transaction system. But in this world it’s an indispensable part of the plan to break through the future scenario.

Now, let’s get back on topic. So I came to the town’s entrance while hiding with the 【Concealment】skill…

As expected, no one seems to notice me. I joined a group of people heading out, but no one said anything.

The guards don’t seem to have noticed my presence either.

Now let’s try entering the town again. Ordinary people use the gate I just came out of, but there were two other gates besides that. One for the merchants and one for the nobility. I went around to try and enter the merchant’s gate.

I wasn’t even going to try entering the noble’s gate. If I was found out, let’s not even talk about 8 years from now. I wouldn’t even live to see tomorrow.

I walked a bit further and reached the gate where a few merchants were lined up. They were handing some sort of paperwork to the guards and were having their cargo inspected.

I walked straight through the gate. No one said anything. They didn’t notice me at all!

As expected of an overpowered skill for a hero. Excellent.

Though, after testing for a bit more, I found out that if I activated the 【Concealment】skill while someone saw me, the skill would activate, but they would still be able to recognize me. However, if I was able to escape their line of sight, the skill would then take effect and the wouldn’t be able to notice me anymore.

Feeling better after making sure the skill worked, I left town and walked towards the ruins.

From here on out, there will be demons. Let’s brace ourselves.