The Major decides to continue the trade and gives me quite a lot of useful pieces of information. I do mean pieces, as she refuses to give me the full story. Nevertheless, I can piece everything together to understand the full story.
In return for the information, she manages to procure quite a bit of incendiary bombs. It does cost me some GPs, as I have to buy them from the Shop System, but the amount is not really worth mentioning.
"Do not try to pry them open to see what makes them go boom," I warn her. "Or they will actually go boom, and you will have a big mess on your hand. Not to mention on your conscience as well."
The Major accepts my words and distributes the bombs to her troops as a mean to halt monsters that cannot be stopped or killed with endless hails of bullets. They also do not have unlimited bullets to do that, but luckily, I can provide them with ammunitions for a price.
"We will take a rest here," the Major commands and orders her men to man the perimeters. She and her men can keep marching all day if needed be, but the civilians are different.
And there are quite a few civilians, hurdling together and supporting one another over the trauma of losing a love one to all sort of monsters and in all sort of horrific ways. But the interesting ones are the people who managed to gain a skill or two.
I offer the foods and waters in exchange for their stories, learning that the new System rewards solely base on repetition. Opening doors repeatedly will likely earn the person the power to unlock any kind of doors.
Seems useless at first, but it does have advantages when raiding dungeons. There are many treasures in there locked behind doors, thus having the power to unlock doors even if those doors are sealed by magic is extremely useful.
Almost all the skills the civilians gain are of non-combat type. This is because the civilian has not gained them through battles. Some do since they have to fight for their survivals before the Major shows up with her heavily armed men.
Speaking of her men, some also have gained powers like her, and needlessly to say, all of their powers are combat-orientated.
I also learn that no one has the same skill as another even if they have repeated how to gain that skill time and time again. This indicates that the System does not give the same skill twice. In other words, if the System has granted someone the Heal skill then it will not grant anyone that same skill regardless if they have healed all the sick people in the world.
Thus, since Jessica has gained the power to Restore, Alex will not be able to obtain it no matter what, and that is kind of a bummer. Of course, unable to obtain a Skill from the System is not the end of the world.
I wonder how many Skills a person can acquire from the System. The maximum number of Skills I can have is 12, and the maximum Skills per rank is 3. That means, I cannot have all 12 SSS-Rank skills even if I manage to earn that many SSS-ranks.
"There are people calling for help in that building over there," one of the scouts informs the Major.
"Thank you, soldier," the Major responses before calling some of the men to attention, including me.