Chapter 6: Mule Carriage
The next day, Keith grabbed his things and swiftly left the place after taking the lock that was used to lock the door along with the keys. They were bought by him and not the landlord, so he took them with him.
"Locks are not cheap." he muttered as he climbed down the wooden stairs and hurried towards the main road closest to him. As he walked on the gravel roads while looking around, he felt like he had travelled back in time to the 1800's.
There were no cars or bikes. Instead, he saw a few stray dogs sleeping soundly in the middle of the roads. He ignored them and continued walking until he reached the main road. He looked up and saw that the sky was turning lighter.
'The sun is rising... I'm right on time.' he thought as he walked along the main road and after a few minutes, he saw a bunch of carriages lined up.
There were Oxen, buffaloes, donkeys, mules and horses silently standing while strapped to their respective carriages.
Different animals cost different prices and served different purposes too.
Oxen and buffaloes were used for carrying heavy loads, in short, they were equivalent to mini trucks back on Earth.
Donkeys could be used for both heavy loads or regular travelling, but there was a limit to how much they could pull.
Mules were the same as Donkeys, but cost more and didn't provide goods carrying services. In short, they were like regular cabs.
Horses on the other hand, were faster and only used to bring people from one place to another. They did the same thing as mules, but were faster.
Keith looked around and after a while, walked towards a man who was petting one of his two mules.
"I'd like to go to Auberg district. How much will you charge?"
The man thought about it for a second before answering, "It's pretty far from here. The journey will take around two days in total, so ten braks."
Keith nodded, "Sure. I'm the only one travelling, so maybe it'll be better for me to wait for someone who want's to go to Auberg and share the carriage with them."
The carriage driver nodded, "As you wish, but since we'll have to wait for someone else, I'll have to increase to cost to 12 braks in total. If you split the money, you'll still have to pay only 6 braks compared to 10."
"Okay." Keith said as he shrugged. The first reason to share a carriage was of course, to save money.
And the second reason was that he simply wanted to go to Auberg a little late.
After settling the deal with the carriage driver, he got into the carriage and closed his eyes.
With a mental command, a system screen appeared in front of him.
Revenge System
User: Norn Sambucha
Capabilities: Passively gathers information from the surroundings and creates quests to achieve a successful revenge.
System Tax: Copy of Norn's awakened ability or physical money.
Keith looked at the system tax and was pleasantly surprised. System Tax was basically what he would receive from Norn for giving him the revenge system. He could either choose money, or Norn's ability which he didn't really know about.
'He did a good job at keeping it a secret... it's either that, or even he doesn't know that he's an awakened.' he thought as he clicked on the system tax option and saw a new screen pop up in front of him.
[Please choose the tax you wish to accept.]
Without any hesitation, he picked the awakened ability and the moment he did, he felt a slight shock in his entire body. His head was the only thing the hurt, while the rest of his body seemed normal.
As the information about Norn's awakened ability entered his mind, he let out a slight smile.
'Danger Instinct huh.... it's similar to spidey sense in a way.' he thought as he looked around, only to feel no difference.
'A passive ability. Oh well, this thing could potentially save my life multiple times so it's way better than getting an ability to summon weapons or offensive animals. Survivability should always be my first priority.'
Keith's personal ability was to give systems to others, but through this, he could slowly amass multiple abilities and grow stronger in various areas. When he was stuffed with information of his past and his powers, he had learned a few important things when it came to the usage of the gacha wheel and the systems.
First was the limit to the number of people who could simultaneously use the systems and his current limit was one person. As he'd give systems to more and more people, this limit would slowly increase.
White systems were short term systems like the revenge system that he had recently received, and would disappear once the user was done with their tasks like accomplishing their desire for revenge. In this scenario, he could receive the tax right at the start.
Yellow systems were around the same level as white systems when it came to the "features" or "help" that they provided to their users, but there was a slight difference between them. While white systems were short term, the yellow ones were long term and could stay with the user until they died or until Keith let them have the system.
In this scenario, he could receive monthly taxes and these taxes could be in any form, such as money, physical strength, awakened abilities or a copy of a random item that is related to the user.
Next was the Orange systems and these were the same as White systems, but gave out overpowered abilities to the users.
Red on the other hand, was the same as Yellow systems. Long term systems, but just like orange, extremely overpowered.
As he thought about Norn and his system abilities, he silently made up his mind.
'If I get the chance, I'll actively help out Norn with his goals. The sooner he completes his revenge, the sooner I'll be able to use the gacha wheel again.'