CH 290

Magic Items

While having some light chat with Sofia, we reached the sales floor again.

As always, there’s a lot of customers here but, let’s get on with my tour shall we?

“So Chris-san, what kind of item are you looking for?”

“I want things that can be used in battle. Something even I can use would be nice.”

“I see, I see. In that case, my recommendations would be the magic balls with support magic imbued in them, or the magic items that raise your abilities by simply wearing or carrying them.”

“Oh? Both of those things sound interesting to say the least.”

“The ones we have here are all top quality as well so you cannot go wrong with either in my opinion. Allow me to show you those in person.”

After hearing my request, Sofia instantly nailed down the things I would be interested in.

She must have the entire layout and item placement of the store in her head as she walked straight towards where these items were without looking around even once.

“First, let’s start with the magic balls. The ones over here are the magic balls with support magic. They are not as popular as the ones that have healing and attack magic so, we don’t have huge variety of them but……….I’m confident that we still have the best assortment in the entire kingdom here in my humble opinion.”

We were standing in an area that was surrounded by a bunch of crystal balls that could fit in the palm of my hands.

I had a casual look when I came here the first time as well but, as she said, it seems like there’s different magic spells imbued in these crystal balls.

Like Sofia had already pointed out, the support magic ones were definitely scarce both in terms of numbers and variety but, there were still enough on show that I was hesitating over which ones to buy.

They had simple explanations of the magic spells imbued in them written beside them but, it might be better to ask for Sofia’s help here as well.

“Sorry for asking question after question but, which ones do you think I should buy? I’m not exactly well versed in magic after all.”

“The simplest and easiest to use are the magic balls that raise strength or stamina. The agility raising ones are also very strong but, they do create a difference in your usual senses, so using them in a real battle without prior practice will often backfire instead.”

“Yeah, I’ll stick with the simple ones then. Since they are one use only, I can’t exactly waste them on practicing either, and considering the ease of use, these might be better——–right?”

“I certainly believe so. Of course, everyone has their tastes so in the end, Chris-san you should pick whichever you believe would work the best for you.”

“No, I mostly agree with what you say. So as per your advice, I’ll buy two of the strength and stamina increasing magic balls each.”

If they are highly effective, I could buy even more but……….it’s still undecided whether [Effect Spread] works with magic as well or not.

In my experiments, I had only used Esta’s [Fire] to get hit and try and spread its effect which obviously didn’t work, but maybe support magic is a different case, especially if it’s through a magic ball usage which is why I’m buying these.

The chances of it working might be low anyway, and even if [Effect Spread] doesn’t work, if the effect is good enough, I can always use it just for myself which is why I bought two.

“I think it’s a good choice! Then, next let’s move to the magic items sections.”

“Sure, lead the way.”

After putting 4 of the magic balls in my shopping bag, I followed Sofia to a different section of the store.

The place we headed to next was scarce in terms of customers, and there was a big glass showcase, with all sorts of items displayed in it. Though made of glass, these showcases still had quite the sturdy anti-theft measures in place.

I had a feeling when I heard about them but as expected, magic items were an extremely expensive commodity.

I heard it from Ralf during his explanations of the dungeon as well that sometimes from the high rank treasure boxes, you could get equipment with special permanent magic effect imbued in them.

“…………Sofia, you sure about this? I’m not that rich you know.”

“It should be fine I think! There’s quite a few items that are cheaper now because their effects are a bit vague and remained unsold for a long time. Chris-san, please look at the corner-most showcase over there.”

Sofia led me to the innermost corner of the area, to a showcase that looked a bit more dusty than the others.

Considering how the other magic items all cost dozens of platinum coins, these ones here were certainly much cheaper than those.

That said, these ones were still minimum one platinum coin in cost so………just about inside my range.

“From gauntlets, to rings, we have quite a different variety of things.”

“The ones in this case are all a bit peculiar but, my recommendation would be this necklace over here. It costs 3 platinum coins but it can not only raise a bit of your agility but more than that, it has a anti-poison effect as well.”

It supposedly gives a permanent boost by just wearing it and that agility increase was definitely enticing but…………the anti-poison effect was completely worthless to me.

More than that, if it worked with [Effect Spread], that would make my new thought out strategy of drinking poison and spreading its effect to my nearby enemies also completely useless.

This time, I’ll have to ignore Sofia’s recommendation and look for some other magic item with a nice effect.

If these work with [Effect Spread], even a normally useless effect could become a lot more useful after all.

In that sense, perhaps this showcase might be the most suited for me and………..Oh!

While I thinking of such things as I looked through the items, a magic item with a curious effect caught my eye.

“………..This ring that can dull your hearing. It costs 1 platinum coin?”

“yes, with the effect being what it is, the price seems about right………….just to make sure, this effects the wearer and not the enemy in case you were mistaken.”

It’s true, in any normal case, using an item to dull your own hearing seems kind of useless.

Maybe if your neighbours were too loud or something———it’d be useful there.

But, if I match this [Effect Spread] I can rob my enemy’s hearing as well.

Of course, I’ll lose mine as well but, just like with [Black Mist] I can use other skills to compensate for that and in fact, if I couple this with [Black Mist] I can rob both the enemy’s hearing and their eyesight.

“Alright, I’ve made my decision. I’ll buy this ring.”

“Eh!? Are you sure?? For a platinum coin’s worth of item, that effect really doesn’t seem worth it to me but………….”

“It’s fine. Thanks for showing me around today.”

“Ah no no. All I did was just be a guide for you………..but seriously, are you sure with this?”

Even after that, Sofia continue to look at me worriedly and asking if I was really going to buy that ring but, I ignored her worries and bought the magic ring I wanted.

I ended up buying a lot more expensive items than I expected, and if these don’t work with [Effect Spread], it’d be a waste but……… even for just experimentation’s sake, I feel like it was all worth it in the end.