'This should be the place.' Rex stood in front of a two-story store nestled next to the city's southwest main street, his adventurer bag slung over his shoulder, heavy with loot. "Hand-Me-Down Armory," he read aloud, his eyes tracing the name carved into a wooden plank above the double front doors. He nodded to himself, 'This is definitely the place.'
A few hours earlier, after his run-in with those peculiar thieves, he had asked them what they planned to do with his stolen goods. Their answer was predictable—sell it, of course. When he pressed them for where, they pointed him to this very spot: the Hand-Me-Down Armory.
It was one of the many shops in Orario that dealt in 'refurbished' equipment. Adventurers looking to offload old gear or those who had 'scavenged' items from the dungeon would bring their wares here, selling them secondhand to the store for about half their market value. After repairs, cleaning, or restoration, the items would be resold to other adventurers at around 70% of their original price.
For adventurers saving up for something big or those unwilling to splurge on brand-new gear, this was the place to go, and as the thieves had assured him, it was a 'legal establishment.' This particular store was one of the largest in the city, thanks to one simple fact: they didn't care how you obtained the equipment. If you had it, they'd buy it. According to the thieves, anyway.
'Can't believe I didn't know about this place,' Rex thought as he stepped inside, the large first floor.
The shop was bustling, a well-organized chaos bathed in the warm afternoon sunlight streaming through the large windows. Beams of light fell across rows of refurbished weapons neatly arranged on racks along the walls—swords, axes, and spears gleaming faintly under a fresh layer of polish.
Larger weapons, like axes and greatswords, rested on sturdy wooden tables in the center of the room, while armor pieces—breastplates, greaves, and more—were displayed on mannequins. Their dents and scratches had been buffed out but still lingered as faint reminders of past battles. Adventurers of all races wandered the aisles, inspecting gear under the watchful eyes of shop attendants. The air was alive with the clink of metal and the hum of conversation.
'How the hell was Prime Rex an adventurer for five years and never heard of places like this???' Rex scanned the room, his eyes landing on a halberd resting against the wall. It looked almost brand new, the axe head and hook reflecting the light brilliantly, and the price written on the paper stuck to the wall next to it read; 'Only eighty-four thousand!?'
He nearly wanted to cry. He had bought a halberd that broke after a single day for almost 120,000 valis, and here was a similar weapon selling for 30% less. He could've saved forty thousand valis which would have been put into something else.
'This place isn't open twenty-four seven, right?' He nodded to himself. 'Yeah, I had no choice—'
"This place is open constantly, without interruption, twenty-four seven, the entire year..."
He caught a snippet of a conversation that seemed to have been targeted to him and sighed. 'How did Rex not hear about this after adventuring for five years, man?' Shaking off his frustration, he decided not to dwell on it and approached one of the workers, who had just finished assisting another customer.
"You're looking to sell some secondhand gear?" the man asked, eyeing the bag on Rex's back.
"Yes," Rex nodded. "Where can I do that?"
"Follow me," the man said, leading Rex to the second floor. They entered a large, empty room with nothing but a carpet on the floor. "Start arranging the equipment you want to sell. I'll get an appraiser." Without waiting for a response, the man left, closing the door behind him.
Rex wasted no time. He quickly laid out the equipment on the ground, arranging each piece neatly: eight normal daggers, three longswords, two broadswords, three short swords, one mace, one spear, and a crossbow. The armor was less plentiful, mostly leather pieces with a few metal items mixed in.
You might be wondering, how the hell did all that fit into the bag? Why didn't it rip? Well, adventurer bags—specifically the ones made for support—were designed to carry a lot of weapons and gear. If an adventurer's weapon broke mid-battle or something, they could quickly switch to another.
As Rex placed the last piece of armor on the ground, the door opened, and a bald dwarf with a chest-length, braided brown beard walked in. "Hmm," the dwarf hummed while stroking his bread, his eyes widening as he took in the array of items. "That's a lot of gear to sell at once."
"Well, I am..." Rex paused, "a 'scavenger,' after all."
"Why the unnecessary pause?" the dwarf asked, looking up at the towering Chienthrope.
Rex ignored the question and instead asked, "How much do you think these will go for?"
He had already done the math, reducing 50% from the market value of all the items as given to him by Scavenger and adding them up together. However, his mental math wasn't the best, so he'd arrived at a rough estimate of 'around one hundred and fifty thousand.'
"I'd assume this is your first time doing this," the dwarf said, walking around him and pointing at a piece of armor. "We don't resell items with a Familia emblem."
"Really?" Rex looked down at a metal breastplate with a Familia emblem on the right breast. According to Scavenger's description, it belonged to the Ratri Familia.
"Most Familia emblems are embedded in equipment in a way that makes it impossible to erase or hide them without fatally compromising the item's integrity." the dwarf explained as he squatted down, removing the breastplate, a longsword, and a dagger from the pile. "Repairing that damage would be too expensive."
'Makes sense,' Rex nodded.
"As for the rest..." The dwarf began inspecting the remaining items closely, picking some up and examining them while making thoughtful noises. "I'll buy them all for one hundred and eighty thousand."
'Can I haggle here?' Rex wondered. He guessed not, since this was a legitimate business, not some street-side stall. But then again, it was a resale shop, and if this was anything like a marketplace... "Isn't that too low?" he asked. "How about we do two hundred thousand?"
"We don't do that here. This is some street-side stall," the dwarf said, looking up at him sharply. "If you don't haggle in the guild, don't try it in this store."
"Ah..." Rex nodded, 'Damn,' he thought as he asked, "You said the price was one-eighty, right? When will I get that money?"
"Follow me," the dwarf said, walking past Rex and heading for the door.
Rex picked up his now almost empty and noticeably lighter bag and followed the dwarf out of the room. They walked down the hall to another room, where Rex was told to wait outside while the dwarf entered. A few minutes later, the dwarf returned.
"Transfer the money out," he said, handing a pouch to Rex. "Unless you want to buy the pouch—"
"Nah, I'm good," Rex cut him off, quickly transferring the valis into one of his own pouches while counting it. Exactly 180,000 valis. "Well, then," he said, turning to leave. "I'll see you again." He headed toward the stairs.
"Stay safe," the dwarf called after him as he walked back to the room where Rex had laid out all his equipment.
Leaving the Hand-Me-Down Armory, Rex's next stop was the dungeon. He didn't want to walk past Babel just to head to the Guild building on the city's northwest street and then have to walk all the way back to Babel. Instead, he decided to finish today's hunt and spend the following day selling his current drops. After that, he would search for a smith to commission them to forge his level 2~3 equipment using the Infant Dragon's drops.
As always, he went straight down to the eleventh floor, cutting through every monster in his path with his claw. The creatures on the upper floors were no longer a challenge for him, and even if he was ambushed by a monster party on the 12th floor, he could quickly handle them with his flame breath. However, he had never ventured down to the 13th floor, even after passing the door that led there, but the 12th floor was enough for him to level up, so he decided to graduate to the middle floors at the same time he leveled up.
And that would be today.
You see, he had initially guessed he needed to kill thirteen dragons to max out all his stats. But after the stunt he pulled last time—trying to kill an Infant Dragon with just a dagger—Indomitable Will's enhanced growth kicked in, pumping him full of stat points and reducing the number of dragons he needed to kill down to two, maybe three.
Well, one, if he decided to do something reckless, like attacking an Infant Dragon unarmed and naked. Of course, he wasn't going to try that. He wasn't a masochist who would put himself at a disadvantage just for a few extra stat points.
'...' Rex moved silently through the fog, approaching a seemingly sleeping Infant Dragon while wearing only his boxer and with no weapon in hand.
Having decided that since this would be his last real fight before leveling up, he wanted to test all his currently acquired skills, magic, and physical abilities. It seemed logical. Besides, he was getting bored with the Infant Dragons due to its repetitiveness, so he wanted to make this fight more interesting and challenging.
He stopped about forty meters away when the creature opened its eyes, the second membrane sliding across its gaze. Its red eyes locked onto Rex, and with a low growl, it rose to its feet, a guttural roar ripping from its throat:
"OOOoooooooo!"
'It's always the same sound,' Rex thought as he took a deep breath and settled into a boxing stance. Or what he thought was a boxing stance. He had never learned hand-to-hand combat. 'Shouldn't I have learned that before coming to fight this lizard?!'
He pushed the thought aside, focusing on the dragon. Like many before, the creature inhaled deeply, raising its head as it began charging its breath attack. Rex did the same, drawing in a deep breath, his chest expanding as the air from his lungs mixed with the magic in his throat, turning into flames.
Then, both exhaled, and twin jets of fire burst from their jaws.
The dragon's searing crimson breath fanned out in a broad torrent, thick and tumultuous like a river of molten lava. Rex's flame, a blazing mix of orange and gold, shot forward in a narrower, twisting column, glowing intensely bright at its core and flaring wider the farther it traveled. Where they met, the two streams collided with a deep, booming roar—a shock of raw energy that manifested in a sudden, swirling orb of flame.
In an instant, the orb ballooned outward, arching high into the air and slamming into the 12th floor's ceiling while also expanding sideways, burning everything in its path. A massive wall of fire, nearly twenty meters wide, erupted, with sparks and glowing fragments spewing in all directions, igniting patches of grass. The clearing lit up as though under a sun, the wall of fire casting rippling shadows across the room.
The Infant Dragon's eyes widened as it stared at the hellish barrier before it, the reflection of the blazing inferno dancing across its gaze. Even Rex was surprised by the outcome of the collision, his feet sliding back against the heated due to the sheer intensity of the clash.
Yet neither could back down. Rex fed more air from his lungs and magic into his burning breath, and the dragon did the same. In that heartbeat, a second wave of force rippled through their clashing streams, meeting in the middle and unleashing a shockwave that blasted outward in a fiery explosion.
Rex stumbled back, coughing as the impact broke his fire breath, with the dragon staggering as well, cutting off its breath with a snort. A gust of scorching wind whooshed past them, igniting some grass around him and clearing all the fog in the area. Between the duo, where their flames had met, was a black smoldering line that stretched up to 10 meters on each side, with trees and grass around them burning.
Rex spat out a bit of ash, rotating his shoulders before forming his fists. The Infant Dragon snarled, lowering its body into a preparatory stance, its tail swishing behind it.
"Kaio-KEEEN!" Rex roared as he activated Strong Body.
"ROOOOOO!" The Infant Dragon let out an echoing roar, and then they lunged at each other.
———
The dungeon room was eerily silent now, the thick fog that usually shrouded the area completely gone. Blackened, charred trees stood amidst the devastation, with the ground covered in smoldering grass and cracked soil, the air filled with the acrid scent of ash and burnt vegetation. Wisps of smoke curled upward from the charred remains, drifting lazily in the still air.
Rex sat heavily on the snout of the dead Infant Dragon, his chest rising and falling as he caught his breath. Light scratches crisscrossed his arms and torso, and a few bruises were already forming on his ribs and shoulders. Though none of the injuries were severe, they stung nonetheless.
The dragon beneath him, however, had fared far worse. Its once-pristine scales were cracked and shattered in multiple places, the result of Rex's relentless fists. Its face was a mess of deep scratches, one of its eyes ripped cleanly from its socket, leaving a bloody, gaping hole. Claw marks covered its snout and jaw, and its throat was torn open, dark red blood pooling beneath it, staining the ashen ground. The creature's massive body lay motionless, its tail curled limply to one side.
Rex exhaled slowly, his breath shaky as he wiped a streak of blood from his cheek. He glanced down at the dragon's lifeless form, his claws still tinged with its blood, then smiled faintly.
"I guess it's time to move on from you, eh?" he mumbled as he retracted his claws and stood up. "I almost feel sad. This is the end of an era." He placed his hand on the dragon's head and muttered, "Scavenge."
Like before, he received an average of 2.5 stat points. He also gained the physical property Dragon Scales, which he rejected. Additionally, he acquired the magic Fire Breath and a skill for Fire Immunity, but nothing changed when he accepted them. Not that it mattered.
'Now,' he called up his stats.
— — — — — — — — — —
Rex Magnus
Level 1 (Can Level Up)
[Strength] SSS1499 | [Endurance] SSS1499 | [Dexterity] SSS1499 | [Agility] SSS1499 | [Magic] SSS1499
[Skill]
"Scavenger"
— Harvest stats, skills, magic, properties, or treasure from corpses and evaluate quality. (Skill: Powerful Body, Body Furnace), (Magic: Blue Papilio Powder, Fire Breath), (Physical Property: Sharp Retractable Claw, Nictitating Membrane)
"Indomitable Will"
— Grants immunity to mind-based attacks, enhances physical and magical growth through trials, enables multitasking and rapid skill mastery, and in dire moments, suppresses pain, boosts mental fortitude, and significantly increases all stats.
— — — — — — — — — —
As he thought, all his stats were maxed out.
How did he know it couldn't go past 1499? Because his endurance had been at 1498 before fighting the dragon, and—ignoring the extra points given by normal Falna and Indomitable Will—he gained 2.7 points in endurance after absorbing the dragon's stone. Seeing as it didn't go past 1499 confirmed it was definitely the maximum stat point he could achieve per level. He couldn't go any higher than this.
Rex closed his eyes and took a deep breath before exhaling with a short burst of fire. "I haven't even spent an hour in the dungeon, and I'll already be returning." He didn't see any point in wasting more time as a level one. Best to level up now and start a new chapter in the middle floor.
"Now the question is," he mumbled as he picked up his drops, which were only scales this time. 'Should I stay with Soma or leave for something else?'
The first thought that came to him was obviously to leave and join the protagonist's Familia, Hestia. But after what he did a few days ago—leading the minotaur to Bell—he doubted she would accept him into the Familia. Sure, it had helped the white-haired boy level up, but it had also nearly killed him. No goddess would let that slide, especially not someone as protective as Hestia.
The next thought was to join the Loki Familia, but after a moment of consideration, he decided against it. It wasn't because they wouldn't accept him—any Familia with half a brain would take him after seeing his status, except perhaps those who thought he'd bring trouble. The reason he decided against it was simpler:
It would be too easy.
Yes, that was the reason. The moment he joined the Familia and they saw his stats, the captain or some other high-level executive would probably take him down to the deep floors, where they'd just kill monsters and let him absorb their magic stones.
He'd quickly max out his stats as a level two, and then they will babysit him as he goes to obtain his high-rank excelia. He will just be riding the bus with the executives as the drivers, and it wouldn't even take him a month or two to reach level 6 or 7. It would feel artificial and bland.
Sure, he could say, 'I want to do my own thing', but would they accept it? He didn't remember much about Loki, but he knew that, unlike the Freya Familia, which focused on individual strength, their Familia emphasized team strength.
'Speaking of Freya...' He thought as he started wearing his clothes. 'Should I... Nah.'
He didn't have to think much about it. It would be more or less the same, with Ottar as his babysitter. Besides, from what he remembered of the show, he didn't particularly like her character and would rather stay clear of her.
'I could even join Goibniu or Hephaestus to get free personalized gear,' he nodded at the thought. 'Maybe even Miach or the Hathor Familia. Prime Rex liked goddess Hathor... Should I just stay in the Soma Familia?'
He didn't hate it in the Soma familia. The quota made sense since the familia needed money to run and he didn't get bothered by anyone. He does his own thing and people stay out of his way, so the familia was quite good for him.
'Haah.' He sighed. "To leave or not to leave, that's the question."
[Author's Note: To leave or not to leave, that's the question. The next chapter will decide everything about the future. Really considering if he should leave Soma or not. Maybe he could reach some kind of agreement with Zanis or maybe even outs the guy. But then he will have to do all the Familia captain work like paper works... Don't know.
Anyway, thanks for reading. Might take tomorrow off to catch up with some college work, just a heads' up.]