TN: For title, first appeared in Chapter 7.
During this time, I stood at the counter waiting, and several customers came into the store one after another.
"Sorry for the wait. That's 25 Denarius total."
The baker quickly prepared the wheat flour I needed. I paid the full price at once and, after leaving the bakery, raised my right hand.
A chain shot out from my sleeve, wrapping around the wrist of a seemingly innocent passerby in the crowd.
"Sir, could you please return the 233 Denarius to its rightful owner?"
"What...?!"
"You used the [Theft] skill on me."
While waiting for the wheat flour, I hadn't turned around, but I knew what had happened in the store. On the surface, several customers had come to the bakery to buy bread, only to find the baker absent and leave. But in reality, someone had used the [Theft] skill on me and stolen 233 Denarius from my pocket.
Those accomplices were all nearby. Seeing their companion caught by me, they all showed unexpected signs of panic.
"Hey... what do we do now that we've been discovered..."
"We screwed up, we screwed up. How are we going to explain this to the boss?"
They were working as a gang. The original plan might have been for someone to distract the baker and me, then carry out the theft. After all, there were no surveillance cameras or anything, but since I happened to have my back to them and the baker went to the warehouse to get wheat flour, they went ahead with the theft directly.
"You... how dare you falsely accuse an innocent person...!"
The man's face immediately turned red as he tried to argue with me.
It seemed he wasn't planning to admit it.
But it was really strange—there was no reason for thieves to target me based on my appearance. As they say, you have to consider the owner before beating the dog... wait, why does it feel like I'm insulting myself? Anyway, that's roughly the idea—stealing from a noble's servant obviously meant disrespecting the noble.
A male adventurer stepped out from the crowd nearby to defend me.
"Confessing can reduce your punishment. Don't be stubborn—hand over this maid lady's Denarius."
Another handsome guy.
I've encountered so many handsome players today... am I having a lucky streak with romance?
However, the thief who had been avoiding eye contact just moments ago froze when he saw the handsome adventurer, then suddenly became defiant.
"I didn't steal anything! You're slandering me! I... ugh?!"
Critical hit—this time, I didn't miss.
I forgot to mention, my left hand can also use chains.
Hitting the thief's forehead triggered a stun effect. His eyes rolled back, and he collapsed to the ground in a twisted heap. When I approached to look, I discovered he was actually an adventurer, too.
Guards noticed the commotion here and began maintaining order by pushing through the crowd of onlookers. One guard came to me.
"What happened?"
"He's a thief."
The game world had its advantages. In reality, thieves often turned the tables and refused to confess, but in the game world, all items had "records." Items obtained through theft didn't immediately belong to the thief—they were tagged as [Stolen Goods] for a certain period, allowing the victim to search for their lost items or guards to investigate and return them to their rightful owner. The duration of the [Stolen Goods] tag depended on the item's value—the more valuable the item, the longer the [Stolen Goods] marking lasted.
I showed the guard the ownership record of the 233 Denarius, which clearly recorded that it had been stolen by that adventurer a short time ago and was now returned to its rightful owner.
"Good, caught red-handed."
The guard nodded, indicating I could leave without needing to file a report.
The game allowed attacks on theft attempts, so even though I had knocked the thief unconscious, the guards wouldn't say much about it.
The rubbernecking crowd immediately scattered like birds and beasts—this drama wasn't even juicy. They'd barely gotten a few bites. Only that handsome male adventurer stood there bewildered, with a sense of... not believing his role had ended so abruptly.
"Thank you for your assistance."
"Ah? Oh..."
[Congratulations! Affection +0]
After thanking him, I continued shopping for other items.
I needed to speed up. Players had the real world as a near-instant channel for spreading information, so news of my arrival in Hurst would quickly spread among players. I had to buy everything I needed before they completely surrounded Hurst.
I crossed wheat flour off my list. The second stop was the tailor shop.
"Tailor shop" was a general term for clothing stores—both men's and women's clothing were purchased at tailor shops. Some commoners chose to buy fabric and weave at home, as they often worked on farms or in manual labor and weren't suited to wearing respectable clothes from tailor shops.
I also decided to buy some fabric to sew clothes for Lily. Her clothes were no longer wearable, and I didn't have a smaller-sized maid outfit, so I could only make Lily a set of clothes by hand.
While this saved me from the embarrassment of entering a lingerie store, it meant I'd have to personally sew a loli's panties... somehow this felt even more embarrassing?
But thinking about it again, my [Tailoring] level was Lv. Max—there was nothing that couldn't be handled with quick completion.
"Excuse me."
I entered the tailor shop, and the shopkeeper was actually an elderly man in his sixties.
"Oh? Here to buy clothes? If you're looking for custom work, my son went to participate in a weaving competition and won't be back for a while."
The old man stood up, rhythmically pounding his back while greeting me with a professional smile.
"Weaving competition?"
"You don't know? It's Count Montefeltro's request—gathering the finest tailors from throughout the county for a weaving competition. The winner will receive premium fabric from Count Montefeltro's collection to sew a wedding dress for the Count."
"A wedding dress? Is someone getting married?"
I instinctively thought of Chris. Count Montefeltro only had one daughter—Chris—but I hadn't heard Chris mention anything about this.
The old man shook his head, surprised that I didn't know about this.
"It's for the kingdom's Third Princess."