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Chapter 82: Pencilgton-sensei’s Lesson in PK Laundering, Part 1

「What was that just now? You let him borrow this thing?」

「Oh that’s right, about that. This thing is probably one of the best items in the entire game. If you accumulate enough money and sacrifice it to this thing, the power you get in exchange will allow you to best even the strongest of Unique Monsters.」

Pancilgton says while playing around with the golden scales of the device…… I don’t know about that “stronger than the Unique Monster” part, but I could surely confirm that this thing was the real deal.

「Umm…… How did it go again? Offer something of tremendous value and to balance it out you shall receive power of an equal value? …… Or maybe it was something different? Or maybe it was receiving just compensation for committed investment? I don’t know.」

Pencilgton played around with a separate window for a moment, and then the particles of light escaped from his body and got absorbed by the scale. Then after a moment, a small flower ornament and a small notebook appeared on the other scale in the flashes of the light that escaped from Pencilgton’s body.

「I was willing to sacrifice even my best equipment for the sake of our victory, but since we managed without that I didn’t want it to be taken away from me as penalty for PKK…… But I didn’t want everything to go to waste like that so I…… laundered the portion of it.」

「What’s “laundering”?」

「Hmm? Oh, basically, it’s a little handy trick to protect part of your valuables and property from being taken away from you by different penalties.」

If the player gets killed by another player, in other words falls victim to PK, all of the items that player had at the time shall be transferred to the person that killed that player. However, if the PKer does not collect the items that fell from his victim for a certain amount of time, the ownership of those items will cease to be at all. And every single item that was stored away because of that shall be automatically sold off by the system.

「There are two kinds of penalties for PK in this game: one is that your likability with the NPCs will start to drop and the second one is the bounty that is put on your head…… And those things can only increase with more PK you successfully commit. Incidentally, the bounty is always more or less proportional to the amount of karma you lose with the NPCs, but that’s beside the point right now.」

The bounty was the biggest problem here. Although the total amount of money that would be sold from your items would be deducted from it, you would still need a considerable amount of it if you wanted to get rid of it completely.

「So, how come you were able to afford such an awesome item?」

「I threatened the NPCs dealing with Second-Hand Items Sale.」

「I’m getting some serious flashbacks from that other game we used to play right now……」

Threatening the clerks that obtained your items to give them back to you to minimize the costs and save yourself from bankruptcy…… That’s what “Laundering” meant in this game.

「But it’s more complicated than it sounds. For example: if you were to just give your items to someone else for safekeeping, they would still get sold off.」

In other words, even if Pencilgton was to transfer the items to me or Katsu before the fight with Saiga-0, the items would still disappear from our inventories as soon as Pencilgton got killed. So the logic, “I give you these items so they are now yours, not mine, the criminal!” does not apply here.

「So what about that scale? Why isn’t it disappearing?」

「Because this item was not mine in the first place. Originally, this item belonged to the NPC Trading Guild “Golden Scale Company”. So even after I got killed, this scale would not disappear from my inventory.」

Now comes the laundering. If all of your possessions would be taken from you as a result of paying off the bounty, you could circumvent that condition by temporally relinquishing all ownership rights of the items in your inventory. It was a simple yet devilish method.

「This here “Prayer Flower Decoration” was brought here thanks to that transaction just now. In other words, up until now it was not on me. I even got something extra for some additional luck in getting it, and the ownership of the item was transferred from the scale to me. What’s more, when given to the scale the items are not present as a solid substance in the game world, so they are not treated as items per se, and you can get it back for a fee. That’s how it wasn’t affected by the process of taking away the items.

「I get it now…… So you just got this back with this operation just now.」

「I had to sacrifice about forty-levels worth of experience to get back some of my items and the “Book of Wezaemon”…… But the profits are well worth it.」

「Ah, about that…… The “Book of Wezaemon” is virtually useless. It’s only a strategy guide plus some backstory and lore.」

「Seriously!? Man, what is this sh*t!?」

I know that feel.

For a moment there Pencilgton looked as though his whole world came crashing down onto his head, but soon enough he regained his composure and started talking again about the topic that mattered the most right now.

「By the way, after the battle with Wezaemon I had almost no items left on me because I sacrificed most of my possessions to bring him down. What’s more, I deposited my main weapons with the “Golden Scale Company” as insurance that I won’t try to do anything shady with the scale. They will be returned to me once the balance on my account will be settled. So even if I’m in the red, I think I will manage it after a while.」

「Uwah, that’s not fair.」

So you knew something like this would happen and you decided to protect all of your important items from being taken away from you? Smart.

「By the way, just how big is the bounty on your head?」

「Roughly around five hundred million mani.」

「….. I won’t lend you any money. So don’t even ask.」

「And I don’t intend to ask you to lend me any. This is the amount I must return with my own honest work and effort. Otherwise there would be no point in that. Also, I know that you probably have your own share of troubles to look out for.」

Uhh…… I know that a positive attitude is important, but come on! This is five hundred million we are talking about here! Do you realize that, Pencilgton? This isn’t the amount that you can just “hope to pay off” that easily!

「I understand that you intend to use Wezaemon’s…… Unique Monster’s items to pay off the part of your debt……」

「…… How can you be so sure about that?」

But it was true. Perhaps by selling the items that were contained in “Inventory”, Pencilgton would be able to make his debt a little bit easier to swallow. Also, the loot from other unique monsters should also provide a hefty amount of money, provided you manage to beat them.

「That is why I have a suggestion for you.」

「You need someone who would be willing to buy the items from the “Inventory”.」

「Sanraku, you really think he would do something like that so easily……?」

「Let’s talk about that some other time, okay……? What I wanted to talk about now was, would you like us three to form a Guild?」