Klinsmann's Leather Panties

"......I'll grant you this. For something you claim to have gotten on the third floor of the Labyrinth, this is an absurd haul."

Jerik let out a long sigh over the junk I'd spread before him. He had moved past surprise into simple acceptance.

"An ability that improves items, you said?"

"Yes. Hunt the ordinary way long enough, and now and then a much higher-grade material turns up. The odds are low, though."

"So that's why you learned butchery? And why you came out this late?"

"......Yes."

"Figures. No way a Summoner's ability amounts to nothing more than getting better at appraisal. There was a hidden ability, wasn't there?"

"Yes."

That was true in a different sense, and the lie pricked hot in my chest.

"A very dangerous ability, though. You wouldn't have known until you started hunting in the Labyrinth, would you?"

"......No."

"So you hunted even longer because of it?"

"Yes. I wanted to see how far it would go."

"Hmph. Of course you did. So then...... that orange Ability Stone from back then, too?"

"......Probably."

A lie, once started, naturally gave birth to another. But if it was enough for Jerik to accept, the problem staring me in the face was solved for the moment.

"......Well, damn. If the Royal Palace found out, they'd drag you straight back. Raise you just enough, then run you in endless circles on a floor where you can farm high-grade materials. You'd be perfect for it."

Ugh.

"......Yes. That's why I hesitated."

Even that was an optimistic guess.

"Right. You did well not running your mouth. As for disposing of these items...... I can handle them once or twice without it showing, but I can't keep doing it forever. I don't enter the Labyrinth these days."

"I know."

"What you need is a buyer who'll take the goods with no questions asked, and people like that usually gouge the price. You know the sort. Black-market dealers."

"......I've heard of them. Merchants tied up with some villain organization."

"Yeah. And with bastards that dirty, it wouldn't be strange if they sold your information whenever it suited them. The money gets shaved down, and the danger piles up. Getting tangled with black marketers is pure stupidity."

The more I listened, the worse it sounded than I'd expected.

"That said, letting an ability you actually have go to waste is even more ridiculous. You can't throw good items away on purpose just because they came out too good."

"......Of course not."

"Hmm. Honestly, the best way is an exclusive contract with a highly trustworthy merchant, and handing the goods over through him......"

"Do you know a merchant like that?"

"The thing is, a trustworthy merchant is about as plausible as a rich beggar or a kindhearted murderer."

Jerik looked troubled.

I don't think it's quite that bad. His distrust of merchants did seem excessive, but this was no time to argue the point.

"Anyway, I'll sell them for you this time. From here on, though, we'll have to find a merchant we can trust. You look into it on your own as well."

"......Yes. Thank you."

And so Jerik disposed of my goods. On junk alone, I cleared an income of more than three hundred gold — and that was after I'd held things like Mana-Condensed Dew back for my own use. I handed half of it over to him.

"What's this?"

"Payment for saving me and taking me in. I know it doesn't even begin to be enough. If you'd think of it as nothing more than room and board, I'd be grateful."

"Hmm. This much would cover thirty years of tuition at my hall. Well, I'll count it as paid in advance."

His answer was as good as a declaration that he would not be accepting tokens like this again.

Then I'll repay you some other way.

I only nodded, making a different promise to myself.

"Floor four. You planning to train more before ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠you go?"

"No. I'll rest a day, then head out right after."

"Right after? Tomorrow, then?"

"Yes. I've confirmed that my current specs are more than the lower floors can handle."

"......All right. That works too. Be careful."

"I will."

And so, the very next day, I entered the fourth floor of the Labyrinth — the highlands. Twelve days later I returned, once again hauling junk I had butchered diligently and synthesized.

My level had not risen, as expected, but in that time my footwork, spearmanship, and circulation method had each climbed by one. The random stat from the clear reward luckily landed on Magic and rose by 1, and I secured the Perfect Clear reward of one level-up point as a matter of course. On top of that, Butchery jumped by a full nine, slamming into the ceiling of an advanced skill in a single trip. That alone was astonishing.

Why is it rising this fast? Give me enough targets, and even the highest grade shouldn't be hard.

My trait was simply too efficient with the Butchery skill.

Whatever. Good. This is good.

It wasn't only the risen abilities. The junk I had synthesized over those twelve days came to nearly four hundred gold, and the top-grade red Mana Stones (Common) I had gathered numbered twenty in all. Those alone were worth two hundred gold.

If orange Mana Stones went for three hundred gold instead of thirty, I would have synthesized them and sold them too.

I walked on, nursing a daydream so rich it was fit to burst. If Jerik had known the thought I was having now, he would have been even more appalled than if he had known the one I'd just finished — because I intended to invest most of the fortune I had earned this way in buying panties.

I had often told people about it. When I fell into this barbaric world — setting survival aside — the greatest inconvenience was the matter of daily necessities. Put broadly, it was nostalgia for the manufactured goods of modern Earth, and among those the things fighting for first and second place were shoes and underwear.

The shoe problem I had already dealt with. Underwear remained.

I've endured this far too long.

How uncomfortable was the underwear of this insane world? For one thing, the very concept of underwear in my size did not exist. You wore something like an enormous pair of linen sack-trousers cut for huge men, then folded the cloth at the waist layer by layer and cinched it with a belt. Tie it too loosely and it slid down the moment you moved. Tie it too tight and the coarse cloth and cords bit into your skin until you bled, or chafed you raw.

And then there was hygiene. A rough fabric that could not even be imagined absorbing sweat — poor ventilation was the lesser problem. The real misery was relieving yourself, and wearing the things for any length of time.

Especially the cleanup......

That particular problem was horrifying even to think about now.

......Ugh. Enough of that.

The one mercy was that a magical civilization existed here as well, so there was a substitute. Its only drawback was that it was extremely expensive. Of course, I was not about to spend the money merely for the convenience of underwear. The Magic Tower of Bartus mass-produced them, and relative to their grade they were the cheapest artifacts in the city. That was the real point of the investment.

"Uh — four hundred pairs of Klinsmann leather panties, please."

"Sorry? How many pairs?"

"Four hundred."

"You do mean that artifact, yes?"

"I do. The artifact panties made here at the Magic Tower."

"......Ah. Yes. One moment, please!"

These were a special case: goods sold in person by the Magic Tower in District 1, close to the Royal Palace. More precisely, because the Tower produced them itself, buying them here was cheapest. They were one of the few daily necessities the Magic Tower sold directly. Attendants from noble houses, the main clientele, came often enough that they didn't fleece you just for being a Novice. Of course, a Novice bulk-buying a consumable that ran a gold apiece — there probably wasn't another one of those besides me.

Thud.

"Here, here they are. Will you be paying by check......?"

Right. A consumable made for nobles alone.

"No. Cash. Four hundred gold."

Thud.

I first glanced over the heap of panties the Magic Tower's apprentice mage had hauled in, then handed him the money pouch.

"Ah. One moment."

While the apprentice counted the gold coins, I counted the panties. Fortunately neither side found anything amiss, so I took the goods and went straight back to my room.

"You said you were going out to buy something important?"

"I bought it!"

"Oh. So you're nearly ready for the fifth floor?"

"Yes. Almost."

"All right. Tell me when you're ready. I'll see you off."

"Yes, sir!"

I took my leave of Jerik, stepped into my room, and immediately pulled the panties out.

Check Additional Information.

A low thrum.

Nothing special. Of course there isn't. Ah — right. Klinsmann. This was the man who made those Ability Stones back then, wasn't it? What kind of person is he, anyway?

I was briefly curious about the man who had produced this high-grade consumable. But the part that actually mattered started now.

"All right. Let's do this."

I tossed twenty pairs into the Goblin Basket first. A moment later — a glint.

"Oh!"

"Hmm."

A grade-up off twenty pairs was exactly what I had expected, and constant purification was the effect I had hoped for. Defense on top of that exceeded expectations. The problem was that the penalty had not disappeared. My imagined best case had been the penalty vanishing, even if that meant no defense.

It only increased by the combined time of the twenty pairs. In that case...... ah. If I keep synthesizing, does the time keep stacking? Then even with the penalty, this might be fine.

With this alone I could wear them for forty days. And hygiene management had changed into purification — past the simple stage of wearing them in comfort at all times, with something extra besides. Defense had appeared as well. Better than I had hoped.

If I take it one more stage like this, how much better will it get?

Glint. Glint.

On that single thought, I upgraded them twenty at a time, twenty batches in a row, then dropped those twenty upgraded pairs back into the Goblin Basket. Quite some time passed.

What. Why isn't anything changing.

About an hour later, just as the wait was starting to gnaw at me — a flash. In the light, a single pair of panties remained inside the basket.

"Oh......!"

The result exceeded expectations. Super Rare, no less — two full grades above Finest.

Powerful constant purification, and powerful defense.

The plate armor I wore was generally reckoned at about 10 defense. If an attack option on an item meant the original material's attack plus that much Strength, then defense meant the original material's hardness plus that much defense on top. In other words, Defense +30 meant that so long as I was wearing these panties, I was in no real danger from any ordinary attack. And then there was Powerful Constant Purification (Rare).

An effect beyond hygiene management. I can hope for that much, can't I?

Part of it was a splurge born of longing for modern civilization. But I had made the investment knowing from the start that a downgraded version of purification magic had been applied under the name of hygiene management.

Surely, with the word powerful stuck on it, it won't stop at mere purification.

Defense I had never even imagined had attached as well. There was still a duration, but it was 19,200 hours — the combined lifespan of all four hundred pairs. Eight hundred days.

When the time starts to run out, I can just synthesize more.

It would cost money, but I might as well consider the penalty gone. The fatigue recovery option was good too. Limited to the speed of recovering from fatigue, it was the same as Stamina having risen by 30. Too excellent to call a bonus.

"Perfect!"

At once I tore off the underwear I had grown sick of. I flung aside that medieval undergarment, little more than a coarse ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠wrapping cloth, and when the panties settled onto me with a neat snap, fitted to my size, I felt as if I might float off the floor. The cool clarity that spread through me the moment I put them on was extra.

"Good. So good."

The words slipped out on their own. In this crude, barbaric world, a pleasure beyond even the comforts of modern civilization — the liberation and catharsis of a sensation flipped from one extreme to the other.

Unreal.

The thrill running through my whole body could not be put into any better words. And the identity of this coolness, the thing sending my mood soaring, was obvious.

Powerful Constant Purification.

If I was right, it would be a great help to my exploration of the Labyrinth from here on.

A jackpot. A real jackpot.

Once again I was grateful for the luck of finding the Goblin Basket. To draw something like this out of a noble luxury good.

Wait. Aren't there a few more noble luxuries? Something small enough to fit in the basket......

Even in the midst of satisfaction, greed stirred, and I was turning a new idea over when—

"Charr! You've got a guest!"

A guest? I cocked my head at Jerik's voice. Not once had a guest of mine ever come here.

"Charr!"

"Yes! Coming! I'm getting dressed!"

I threw my gear back on over the greatest underwear in existence and shuffled outside. A thug with a cold look on his face was grinning as he offered an unbelievable greeting.

"Oh. Scrap Metal. Mr. Woo? Been a while, huh? You remember me, right?"

"......Kim Hyun-shik?"

A face I had not expected in the least.