The Search for Daniela’s Armor II

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My first impression upon entering the place was ‘dark.’ I assumed that they sold items that would change color if exposed to sunlight. The little light that did appear through the windows made the dust glimmer in the air.

 

There was armor in rough piles all over the place. It looked like one of those ‘hoarder’ rooms you see on tv. But it kind of made sense here, seeing as they sold antiques.

 

I navigated my way through the piles, careful to not knock anything over, until I found Daniela in the back. She was talking to an elderly man who was likely the owner.

 

“I have a feeling that I will find a good gauntlet here.”

“I see. I see…”

“However, there are too many to search through here. If you could at least show me where to look.”

“I see. I see…”

 

This guy she was talking with…he might just be senile…

 

We moved to a corner and discussed our plan of attack.

 

“That owner is no good.”

“That sounds a little harsh…”

“It is no good at all.”

 

Daniela was in a rush and it caused her to be sharper than usual.

 

“Still, there is no mistake. I can find good armor here. My intuition is telling me this.”

“Really? Well, I don’t doubt you, but…”

 

I looked around the room.

 

“It’ll be back-breaking work trying to find anything here…”

“That is why I asked the owner, but it does not seem…”

 

Daniela looked through the cracks in the pile next to us and saw that the old man had dozed off. She shook her head.

 

“Daniela, let’s split up and look. There must be a pile of gauntlets somewhere.”

“Yes… Alright, we will do that.”

“Wait, Daniela. Take this…”

 

I took out a clean cloth from the hollow bag. Daniela took it and tied it around her face so that it covered her mouth and nose. It was to keep the dust away. I tied one around my own face.

 

Then we nodded to each other and went our separate ways. I turned my back to the entrance and went to the left side. Daniela took the right. At the same time, I moved some of the armor closer together so that there was a clear space in the middle of the room. We would need a place to test the armor when we found them.

 

“…Hmm. That’s good enough.”

 

I made a clearing of about one square meter before starting the search.

 

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I started at the far edge. The armor had to be handled carefully as I rummaged and shoved my arms into piles and piles.

This went on for several hours. My back hurt from prolonged bending and so I stretched my limbs and started to walk around the store. I had been moving things around at random, and yet somehow the place seemed a little neater than it had been at first. Perhaps I had been organizing things without thinking about it.

 

“Considering I had to organize products once, maybe this is some kind of disorder I developed from my old job…”

 

I couldn’t help it. These movements had been carved into my very soul, and I didn’t even know what I was doing most of the time. Oh, well. I better continue organizing…I mean, searching.

 

There was no ‘gauntlet corner’ anyway. There weren’t any kind of corners in this store. Everything was scattered in every direction. Shields popped out of armor and gauntlets popped out of boots… That’s probably why I had started tidying up.

I thought of such things as I concentrated on searching once again.

 

A few more hours passed. Quite a few gauntlets now lay in the small clearing I had made. And as it was getting late, I wanted to stop here for the day…

 

“Asagi. You should have a magic lantern. Take it out.”

“You’re going to continue…?”

“Aye.”

 

She said, looking quite serious. She was serious. Which left me no choice but to stay with her…

I took out the lantern and hung it up in the store. And with that, the dark interior lit up brightly. It made me wonder why we hadn’t used it in the beginning. As it wasn’t sunlight, it shouldn’t affect anything here.

 

And so it was overtime. This time I checked the right and Daniela went to the left. Perhaps we had missed something. The lighting seemed to help too, because we found gauntlets in places that we had already searched before.

The search did not finish until midnight. The old man had left his counter at some point and gone to bed. He was like some kind of zombie who was dictated by an old routine…

 

“Hahh…I’m tired…”

“We can come back tomorrow and inspect them with the Appraisal glasses.”

“Yeah… I doubt the old man will clean this up.”

 

It was evident from how scattered things were, that he did not care. And he wasn’t likely to start caring now… And so we left the store and returned to the inn. But first, Daniela asked some wind spirits to lock the door.

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Isekai ni Kita Boku wa Kiyoubinbode Subaya-sa Tayorina Tabi o Suru Jack of all Trades