As I read, reread, read it one more time, and then continued reading the six panels in front of me again and again. I desperately hoped the content of the panels would change, yet no such thing was happening, and I started coming to terms with what was written In front of me.
[Debuff: If only I were a squid
Look at all those problems around you! You know exactly how to solve them, don't you? Unfortunately, your body just can't seem to keep up. If only you were a squid, right?
For having an intelligence score of over three times your Dexterity score you lose 50% effective dexterity]
They are all some variation of that, and I have three from both wisdom and intelligence, six in total. The most annoying part is that I did this to myself, it only happened after I went beyond three times the other stats. There are two possibilities of what having two minus fifty percent penalties could mean, either zero percent or twenty-five percent, and based on the fact that I'm still capable of moving ill wager it's the second option. Now the most important question is, what does effective dexterity mean? Does it only affect using my stats or something more? Based on the fact that after putting in my stat points it got very hard to grow my physical stats, I have to assume that It also means that my stats grow at a fourth the speed. Of course, this wasn't an impossible challenge by any means, it would be hard, require a lot of work, and tedious to the extreme as not only would it take much more work to grow my physical stats, but I will also have the luxury of constantly limiting my mental stats' growth. But even beyond just having to avoid listening attentively in class in order not to learn, thereby making the imbalance worse, I will also have to avoid training skills that are dependent on mental stats, thus no cool jutsu for me, leveling up should probably be my main focus, that and training my physical stats. But on the other hand, if I get this sorted before graduating, ill probably be fine, then I can spend more of my time making friends and learning skills, yeah, they do say that you need a healthy work-life balance after all.
Sitting in the academy, currently midway through my third week here, I decide to start expanding my friend circle, at least a bit, so at lunch, I dramatically rise from my seat, turn my gaze upon the crowds of eight- to twelve-year-old's and pick my target for our third friend.
"Naruto, today we will have your second lesson, how to expand a friend group, okay?" I declare while Naruto stares at me with what I'm sure is awe. You know, beneath the annoyance over me interrupting him halfway through his meal.
"sto' 'm e'tin'" Naruto franticly tries to persuade me to let go of him, however, I'm too stubbo- I mean, smart and convincing, to be turned down so easily.
Now we only must select a target, hmm, Hinata? No. While I'm sure she would be ecstatic if we told her she would be allowed to join us at the price of her kidney. I'm not sure she'll be able to stay conscious for long enough to be properly part of the group. Ino or Sakura? Not yet, too much fangirl to deal with right now. Kiba? No, he'll just add even more chaos to our group. Sasuke? N- or actually, why not? I mean sure, I might take some time to get through his stubborn head, but I think it's doable, besides, I can work on someone else at the same time so we can at least start trying to break down his walls now, right?
That leaves us with Shikamaru and Choji or Shino for target number two… hmm… ini mini miny mo… Shino it is!
Having empirically decided who the better candidates were, I walked over to Shino first.
"Hey, Shino! Do you want to join me and Naruto after school? We'll go eat free ramen, then ill painstakingly try to get better at cooking, and then when Naruto laughing at my constant failures gets me to a breaking point of annoyance, I'll chase him around the village. Doesn't that sound great?" I ask in an upbeat and happy voice.
"I agree to go with you, why? Because the two of you seem interesting and I wish to make more friends" he says in an almost monotonous drone, but I'm sure there's a kernel of happiness in there. Somewhere. Right?
Next, Sasuke, who was sitting close by. "Hey, Sasuke, want to join us too?" I ask, already practically knowing the answer.
"no"
I'm flabbergasted! Even after hearing how much fun we'll have, he still doesn't want to join? Oh well, better luck tomorrow, me.
Three hours later, all of us were on top of a one-story building, there is a general store underneath us. It is somewhere around halfway between the orphanage and the academy in a residential district, and it looks very much like a place you'd go to if you quickly had to get something without going too far. the store had three entrances, one through a window on the roof, one through the front door, and the last being a window to the back where I could only assume the store's storage was. we had all planned to prank the store together with no hesitation.
"I am not sure this is a good idea, why? Because we could get into trouble" okay, so maybe there was a bit of hesitation from Shino.
Now normally I would just have abandoned the prank at this point, its only fun if everyone wants to do it, however in this case, I was not here solely to prank a jerk. I also planned to repossess some of this man's wares, not a lot, just a couple of rough sacks and a lot of rope. I didn't really want to steal from this guy, I mean, sure he was a giant ass, but he was an ass out of misinformation and grief, not malice. But I needed a training method that would push me to my absolute limits which the academy, while good for preparing children for the genin squads and real teaching from their jonin sensei, just didn't give, so I had to push forward.
"Come on, please! It will be so much fun! And he kept hiking up the prices for Naruto so it's for a good cause" I spoke trying to get Shino to join in on our crusade for justice, and no matter who says otherwise I was not begging.
"I think what we consider a good cause is different, why? Because this seems more like petty revenge to me" Shino futilely tried to resist our cause.
"Even if it is revenge, we are just going to move everything in his store a couple of inches, no big deal. Besides, we won't get caught, I have the perfect plan" I try once more to convince him that our plan will work.
"fine" Shino sighs.
"Great! Now here is the plan, Naruto, you will stay as far away from us as possible, the shop owner will probably watch you so Shino and I can move everything a little to the left, everyone got it?" I explained my master plan to them, and while Shino didn't look completely sure for some reason they still nodded, and the plan was set in motion.
"NO! get away from my shop, you monster! I allow you to come in here, and what did you do? YOU ACCUSED ME OF HIKING UP THE PRICES! Dammed demon!" as the pathetic man child continued to scream at Naruto, not even allowing him to enter. I suddenly realize that we cannot enter through the front door after Naruto as originally planned, so I had to come up with a new plan, and quickly.
But how? I could barely even slowly climb up to the roof before because of my atrocious stats, never mind doing it in a hurry and getting down through the window silently. The window to the back was also simply too high up for me to lift myself to, but there must be a way! I just need to think of something…
I feel someone tug at my shirt and look back to see Shino looking at me with what I can only assume is anger… somewhere, on his face. And I suddenly remember that Shino is, in fact, there. And while he isn't a physical specialist or anything close, he is decent, and compared to me, decent is incredible.
"Shino, I need you to go in through the back window, grab a rope, and throw it up to me at the roof window, got it"
"Grab a rope? I thought we were only playing a prank, not stealing" he says with a barely noticeable note of doubt in his whisper.
"We are don't worry about it, it'll just be part of the prank that he has to get the rope down, no worries," I say with a reassuring smile while guilt starts clawing at my insides.
He nods and scampers off to the window, I quickly signal Naruto to keep him occupied, take a rock from the ally where the window and the way up is. I ascend the building by jumping on the trash bin then continuing to the roof while focusing on stealth instead of speed. Once I reach the top, I take my rock and repeatedly smash the padlock securing the window until after a couple of tries it finally breaks. After doing so, I look down to Shino who stands there, ready to throw the rope and after catching it, I hurriedly bind it to the handle of the dumpster and rappel down the rope.
"You go move things in the food section, I'll take the general items section, we need to pay close attention to the man and do this fast. When we're done we'll split up and meet back at the academy in half an hour, that way he won't catch both of us, Understood?" I whisper to Shino, and after a quick nod of confirmation, we split.
I go to the general section, where all the items I needed were located, and start moving the shelves in this or that direction until they formed a zig-zag looking pattern. After naturally getting to the rope's area, which was really just five different types of rope, I grabbed a lot of them, took them over to where the hemp sacks about half the size of my torso were, swiftly stuffed them into the sacks, and threw them through the roof window until there lay two full sacks of rope and one sack full of more sacks on the roof. Then I continued as if nothing had happened.
After finishing my portion, a bit quicker than Shino's as his portion was larger, I left out the back window as even though I couldn't get in, getting out was easy as it was right over a table meant for paperwork, he probably hoped to get a breeze while sitting here at the desk.
I briskly walked out to the bin, untied the rope, let it fall down in the shop in order to keep Shino from realizing that I was actually stealing. Then grabbed my bags and waited on the roof while watching out for Shino, but as I waited, I overheard the shop owner and Naruto.
"Wai-wait! Where are you going?" Naruto yelled, and a feeling of panic started settling over me.
"Even if you are a demon, I still can't yell at a kid forever, even a demon kid," the man said tersely and with what I think was a bit of regret. But that didn't matter right now. What did matter was that Shino still hadn't gotten out
Thankfully, Shino noticed that that the yelling had stopped, not so thankfully, however, was the surprising yell that came from the owner once he saw the place. Shino must have only been halfway through the window because when the owner came into the back room, I heard him yell for Shino to stop. I knew what I had to do. Even if Shino is an athletic eight-year-old, we've only been in the academy for a month, there was no way he could manage to escape, he didn't even want to do this. So, I closed the window in the roof, dropped my stolen bags to the floor, hoped the owner wouldn't find them, and went down to the ally, and further out into the street after making sure Naruto had already left and waited for the owner.
As the owner came rushing out, he immediately noticed me "hmm? What are you still doing here?" he said with a scowl on his face.
"I wanted to see the look on your face, even if I get caught it's definitely worth it," I say, trying to sound as smug and self-satisfied as possible.
"Well in that case I hope it's still going to be worth it after you've helped me fix the place," he told
And so, we started cleaning the place and after a short bit of time, he decided to try starting a conversation.
"Why were you even doing this, to begin with?" he asked
"well, you were mean to our friend," I said curtly, still not completely sure where he was going with this conversation.
"Your friends with that demon?" he asked heatedly
"He isn't a demon" I snapped back
it was quiet for a minute, while we contemplated each other. I had grown rather fond of Naruto, even though we hadn't known each other for long, he was already a great friend, so it was really starting to bother me how quickly everyone just dismissed him as "the demon".
I studied the owner, he had black hair and dark eyes, he was tall and broad, with a gruff look about him, he wore a wedding ring on his finger it looked old and worn but still meticulously taken care of.
"it's a good trait to have, loyalty, that is" he abruptly started after we had worked in silence for a while
"I'm not sure what you mean," I said, trying to sound confused, but even I could hear how defensive it sounded.
"I know you aren't the one I saw, your shirt is a different color, you could have gotten away but took the fall, that's good," he said gruffly
I hesitantly opened my mouth to ask a question "why are you so mean? to Naruto, that is"
"Honestly? Deep down, I know it isn't really his fault. But, well, something happened twelve years ago, I was a shinobi at the time, retired right after mind you, but during that something" he took a pause and I silently encouraged him to continue "my wife and newborn child died, and he was, related, to the something, somehow, and I just- just needed someone to take it out on. I know it wasn't fair, and tell the de- your friend, that I apologize and that he can come here and ill give him a fair price from now on, okay?" he finished.
"Yeah, I'll do that" I responded quietly.
"What am I doing dumping all my problems on a kid," he said to himself with a self-deprecating chuckle "go join your friends, I'll finish up here," he told me.
I nodded quietly, as the heavy atmosphere wasn't one that left room for arguing.
"What is your name?" I asked from the door.
"hm? Oh, names' Arima Dai" he said and I left.
On the way to the meeting spot, I went through the prompts I had gotten during the heist.
[congratulations! You leveled the skill, [persuasion] to level 5
You might not have a silver tongue just yet, but at least you have a dirt taste bud]
[congratulations! You leveled the skill, [deception] to level 7
You can lie as well as any 5-year-old, just wait until they ask who took the last cookie, no one will believe you when you say it wasn't you, but at least you can say it!]
[congratulations! You gained the skill, [acrobatics]
You have finally proved that you can jump short distances and climb very slowly, so congratulations 3-year-old! Oh, wait, your eight? Well, that's sad]
I finally arrived at the academy and see Naruto and Shino waiting there for me.
"HEY! ANNO! YOU OKAY? DID YOU GET CAUGHT?" Naruto yells as soon as he sees me however Shino swiftly covers his mouth.
"Shut up, why? Because screaming if he got caught for everyone to hear tells them there is something to be caught from" Shino hisses through his teeth.
"Hey, guys! And yes, I did get caught, but no need to worry, he's actually not that bad. By the way Naruto, somewhere in our talk he apologized and decided to give you fair prices from now on." I told him with a happy smile.
"Uh, how did you manage that? I mean, we just pranked him" Naruto asked while looking severely confused.
"doesn't matter, it's his story, not mine. Anyway, it's getting late and I'm going to bed so see you tomorrow" I say with a yawn as.
"wait" I hear Shino say "I want to join you from now on, why? Because while it was an interesting start, it was fun to be around you" Shino says with a complete deadpan.
"Well," I say with a smile "glad to have you"
After that I quickly grab my stolen bags drop them in the forest near the orphanage for tomorrow, and head to bed after a long and exciting day.