The moment stretched out into infinity as Simon stared at the two bound captives. His mind was a kaleidoscope of thoughts and emotions, a tempest of roaring fervor. Breathing was a struggle. If someone had asked him a question right then, he wouldn't have been able to speak.

  None of that rose to the surface. None of it showed on his expression. An outside observer may have praised his commendable poker face, but no. It was merely that he felt so many things at the same time they were canceling each other out.

  All that remained was a crushing tightness in his chest.

  "Springwater Village won't purchase them," Ebris explained. He glanced at Simon, as if waiting for an outburst. When that never came, he continued addressing the other...merchants. "Rural villages take a hard stance against our profession. It affects them the most. And their coffers are barren, anyhow."

  Simon's gaze hadn't shifted from the two captives. He kept running through scenarios in his head, imagining how he could save them. Summon a weapon. Cut the ropes. Hold off the merchants as the father and daughter ran.

  Except his best weapon in Inventory was a broken sword, and he was the lowest-Level fighter here.

  "That's a problem," Relia said, frowning. "Waiting until Caelryn City to sell them would eat into our profits."

  "Why so?" asked Lucette. Lucette, who had invited him into her carriage. Lucette, who had cheerfully regaled him with escapades of Caelryn City. Lucette, who had offered him warm broth just minutes prior.

  Relia pointed at the older male captive. "He's sick. Not sure what with, but he needs medicine – and more rations than normal. We'd have to use extra supplies on the trip there, then somehow find a buyer willing to take him off our hands."

  I have the Glove of Minor Power, Simon thought. Plus my demonic arm. In a battle against four higher-Level opponents, that's worth...not enough. Not even close. What if–

  "Let's just kill him."

  Simon practically gave himself whiplash with how fast his head turned. The fourth merchant – Torben – had spoken up for the first time.

  "Girl is young, healthy, pretty," the man remarked. "She'll fetch a high price. The father? Too old and frail. Damaged goods. No one'll want him as a workhorse. Keeping him alive is a sunk cost."

  He patted the sword attached to his belt. "Cut the throat, leave the corpse. Give the Fell Beasts a meal so they bother us less."

  Both captives made noises beneath the thick gags covering their mouths. The woman's gaze shifted from hatred and loathing to one of wide-eyed terror.

  Ebris and Lucette exchanged a look. After a couple seconds of consideration, they nodded. "Very well," Ebris proclaimed. "I'll trust your judgement on–"

  "Wait."

  Simon didn't raise his voice, nor did he cry out in righteous anger. He spoke with a calm, collected tone, as if was disagreeing on which restaurant they should go to for dinner. "Is that necessary?"

  Relia blinked at him. "I'm sorry, but who are you?"

  "Simon Cobblestone."

  He threw out the name like a grenade for Relia to deal with, turning away from the woman as her expression twisted with shock. Simon faced Ebris, who seemed to be the nominal leader of their crew. "Killing the man is pointless. If you don't want to sell him, then just let him go."

  Ebris shook his head. "Shouldn't do that." He had adopted the gentle, infuriating tone of a man explaining difficult truths to a boy who didn't know any better. "If he survives, he could return to exact vengeance on us. It's happened before."

  "Wouldn't survive anyway," Torben interjected. "We aren't giving back his portable Orb. Beasts'll make short work of him."

  Right. Fell Beasts. Without the protection of Warding Orbs, escape was likely to end in a visit from the Red-Eyed Hunter – or something even worse.

  Which still might be preferable to what awaits them in Caelryn City.

  Simon forced himself to nod at Ebris and Torben, as if that was the most reasonable stance he'd ever heard. "Okay, but that still doesn't answer why you're killing him. What's wrong with leaving the man be?"

  "He'll cut into our supplies," Lucette replied, in a soft voice that made Simon want to scream. "Rations and medicine aren't cheap."

  "Then let him starve."

  They hadn't been expecting that. As the four merchants gaped in surprise, Simon shrugged, his shoulders aching from how tense they were. "If the man is a resource sink...just don't spend any resources. The problem will resolve itself soon enough. He and his daughter can live out their last few days as family."

  He gestured towards the bound woman. "I'm sure she would be grateful to have additional time together. So grateful that she wouldn't cause any trouble whatsoever on the road to Caelryn City." The words almost prompted bile to rise up from the back of his throat. "A handful of generosity can buy an ocean of gratitude – isn't that right?"

  Simon locked eyes with the woman, silently urging her to play along. Eventually, after several nerve-wracking seconds, she slowly nodded in assent.

  "There you have it," he affirmed. "Leaving the man alive is a net positive for our crew."

  Relia scoffed at him. "Our crew? And just who are you to–"

  "Easy now," Ebris warned. "Emotions are running high. Let's revisit this when you and Simon have been properly introduced."

  "I don't need an introduction to spot a two-bit charlatan." Relia's glare turned vicious. "What did he tell you? Ardyn's distant brother, I presume?"

  "Cousin," Simon casually put forth.

  "Ancient One take your soul, liar. Ardyn would've told me if he had a cousin."

  A tiny bit of Simon's self-control irrevocably fractured. "I think there's plenty Ardyn never told you, Relia."

  She stilled. "Like what?"

  "Like how he lov–"

  Ebris grabbed his shoulders and pulled him back. "Lucette and I need to have a private talk with Simon." He looked at each person in turn. "Don't touch the cargo. We'll decide what to do with them later."

  They led him to the other side of camp, outside of Relia and Torben's range of hearing. It was a short walk that lasted roughly a thousand years.

  Once they'd picked a spot, Ebris and Lucette stood awkwardly side-by-side, facing Simon. They seemed to crumple under the weight of his unblinking gaze. "You have questions?" Lucette offered.

  Simon said nothing. He didn't trust himself to speak just yet.

  "Ardyn never told you," Ebris began. "About our method of trade, I mean. He wanted to keep you at arm's length from the business."

  "You attack people." The words felt like they were being spoken by someone else. "You take their things. Take them."

  Lucette answered immediately. "Yes. That's how we've survived."

  She didn't sound guilty. It was just a statement of fact. If anything, the only thing she sounded concerned over was how Simon would respond.

  Realizing that jolted him out of his fugue. You're acting irrational, he told himself. Gather intel. Assess the situation. Make plans. That's how you handle unforeseen dilemmas. Get to it, and stop wasting time.

  "I assumed you were merchants." First step was to ensure they didn't excommunicate him. Had to talk normally. "That's what Ardyn led me to believe."

  "We consider ourselves as such," Ebris clarified.

  Titles like bandits and slavers thundered in Simon's mind. "Right." He tapped his pointer finger on his thigh. "For how long?"

  "Fifteen years or so. Weren't always in the business, but it's given us a better way of life than anything before."

  Simon started to wonder how many people they enslaved each year. That, multiplied by fifteen, would measure the extent of the unfathomable suffering they had wrought.

  Stop it. Stop feeling so betrayed. Did you forget that the sole reason you draw breath is because you stole a name from a dead man? If you weren't dear cousin Cobblestone, you'd have ended up abandoned – or as their newest piece of cargo. They were never saints to begin with.

  He knew that.

  He...knew that.

  So why...

  "Do you need time alone to think?" Lucette asked.

  Simon had no choice but to accept. He wasn't in any condition to navigate this conversation. "I do."

  Ebris nodded. "We'll speak to Relia on your behalf. She's not usually so thorny as this. Ardyn's death has affected her deeply – a pain that I'm sure you are quite familiar with."

  "Water under the bridge." Simon paused. "As for the father–"

  "Not to worry. We don't see any harm in leaving him be."

  It was an olive branch. They didn't care one iota about whether the man lived or died. Just whether agreeing would help Simon come around to their way of thinking.

  One day to resolve this. The man had been in captivity for a day or two already. Relia and Torben wouldn't have fed him. Simon also knew full well how badly malnutrition and dehydration affected a person's body. If the man was ill on top of that...

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  One day. At most. After that, he might be too weak to recover.

  "Thanks. I appreciate it." Simon gave them a stiff thumbs-up, then moved to walk away.

  "We'll be here if you need to talk," Lucette said. Another bright smile was decorating her face.

  Simon bit back a hollow laugh. Just half an hour ago, their kindness had warmed his heart.

  Now it simply burned.

  --

  Both carriages soon turned in for the night. Ebris thought it best for everyone to cool down, catch some sleep, and then tackle the next day with refreshed mindsets.

  It took immense willpower for Simon not to sneak over and try freeing the captives.

  His attempt would have failed. The slavers were alternating watches throughout the night. To ensure that the captives survived, Simon would need to steal a portable Warding Orb, gather enough rations for two people to subsist on for at least a few days, and then remove their bindings. All while not being seen or heard. When he had absolutely zero proficiency in stealth.

  Impossible.

  That cold logic did little to prevent the alluring call of 'What if...' from replaying in his mind, over and over and over.

  Needless to say, he didn't sleep a wink, laying pensively on a cot inside Ebris and Lucette's carriage. His time was instead spent on devising a plan of action that might realistically succeed.

  It didn't take long. Steps naturally fell into place as the moonlit night passed by, like puzzle pieces that were meant for each other. No other plan he could envision possessed the slightest hope of succeeding.

  However, it was predicated on an all-important question. One that he was still figuring out.

  Why is Identify so inconsistent?

  Simon believed that there was no such thing as a perfectly impartial analysis. Aside from 'hard science' disciplines like mathematics, everything was open to interpretation. With the right name, an unknown vagrant could become a fast friend. Slavers thought themselves merchants, and villains thought themselves heroes.

  People couldn't even agree on the sanctity of a life.

  So he couldn't entirely fault Identify for being inconsistent. It didn't need to tell him an object's whole life story. Just a smattering of relevant information would've been greatly appreciated.

  Such as warning him a bit more clearly that he was traveling with monsters.

  But it wasn't always like that. Identify had informed him that Stuart's meat was toxic. It could predict the remaining lifespan of a Warding Orb. The bizarre properties of the Red-Eyed Hunter had been plainly revealed to him – no problem.

  What was different this time? Why hadn't it revealed who Ebris, Lucette, and the others really were?

  Hours later, he'd finally come up with a hypothesis he felt confident in. The answer seemed simple yet complicated, and it would influence how he utilized Identify moving forward.

  Fact: Identify could provide information that Simon was completely unaware of. This had been confirmed on numerous occasions. Simon couldn't have known precisely how long a Warding Orb would last, or that one of Kirkelas' titles was the Sealed Demon of Ruination. Those details were too specific.

  Fact: Identify had never told him anything that, theoretically, he couldn't have guessed himself. Even if the guess was one-in-a-million. Sure, it'd informed him that a nondescript glove was actually an Artifact of power...but he'd been looking for weapons and tools at the time. And a title like 'The Sealed Demon of Ruination' was just a string of words that sounded appropriately diabolical. With a run of exceptional predictive luck, he wouldn't have needed Identify at all.

  Hypothesis: Identify's output was directed by his own biases and assumptions. It focused on whatever key details he thought would be the most crucial to learn.

  If he was concerned that Stuart's meat was inedible, then Identify might confirm that guess for him. If he believed that a Fell Hunter possessed unnatural abilities, then the Skill might inform him of those abilities. It could even throw in some freebie info, like explaining how the Sanctuary Tree used to be part of a larger grove, as that was still related to how confused he'd felt over finding a lone tree in the middle of a wasteland.

  But it didn't tell him that Red-Eyes would flee at the sight of his demonic arm. Simon hadn't considered that as a possibility at all. Although seemingly omniscient, Identify couldn't create a brand-new interpretation of the world for him.

  And what had he thought when he first saw Ebris and Lucette's carriage?

  'It resembled an old-timey caravan that settlers would've taken on the Oregon Trail, or that merchants used in the games he'd played.'

  Settlers. Merchants. Quaint concepts with harmless associations. Their clothes had only reinforced the notion of them being respectable folk. People he could treat with a normal amount of caution.

  The idea of them being bandit slavers had never crossed his mind.

  Thus, Identify rolled with his interpretation. While it couldn't present outright false information, it also didn't need to correct anything, as technically, he hadn't been wrong. These were indeed merchants...of sorts.

  My fault. Simon grit his teeth. If I'd been suspicious of their true activities – even just a fleeting thought – then Identify probably would've warned me. I got lured in by smiling faces, veneers of compassion, and a hot dinner. Didn't look below the surface. Didn't want to.

  To be honest, he was surprised at himself. Judging a book by its cover was a rookie mistake. He'd been disappointed enough times by people to know better than this.

  In a flash, Simon jolted upright, the thought echoing in his mind. Disappointed.

  Hmm.

  Before doing anything else, he glanced at Lucette, sleeping soundly in the corner. Identify.

  Name: Lucette Drenoka

  Description: A merchant of sorts. Armed, dangerous, and won't hesitate to defend herself. Views family as sacrosanct, and those outside the family...not so much.

  Estimated Level: 8

  Exactly the same. Apparently, one of Identify's quirks was that its Descriptions wouldn't update after being used. Or maybe there were hidden conditions to update it that he wasn't fulfilling? Either way, he couldn't use it to gather new information about the slavers, who'd all been immediately subjected to Identify when he met them.

  But the slavers weren't the only people here.

  Doing his utmost not to make a sound, he crept over to the side of the carriage interior. Simon gently cracked its door open, peeking outside.

  The second carriage belonging to Relia could be seen on the other side of camp. She was on guard, watching the captives in case they managed to untie themselves and make a run for it. The captives themselves were still bound with ropes, lying motionless on the caravan's floor.

  And luckily, they were in view through a small window on the side.

  I'd rather not be disappointed by people again so soon. What he discovered wouldn't change the first half of his plan, but the second half...

  Well, it would be nice to know if he'd been sticking his neck out for secret serial killers or something. Wasn't too late to pivot.

  Identify.

  Name: Katarina Cartier

  Description: Fled from Caelryn City to seek a better life. Partially for herself – but mainly for her father. May end up returning in chains. Refuses to give up hope. Over the years, she has grievously injured one person in self-defense, but has never killed.

  Estimated Level: 5

  Name: Gerold Cartier

  Description: Fled from Caelryn City to seek a better life. Partially for himself – but mainly for his daughter. Things were looking up until a slaver caravan found them on the road. Over the years, he has killed three people, all of them in...mostly self-defense. He regrets the more violent times of his life. If left untreated, his illness will prove fatal.

  Estimated Level: 3 (13 when healthy)

  A daughter and a father, two souls bound by blood, supporting each other when no one else could. Both had endured harsh times up until now. One had killed – but in self-defense, and he seemed to be trying to leave his past behind.

  That was more than good enough for Simon.

  He was just about to close the door when the young woman – Katarina – opened her eyes.

  She stared across the camp, her intense gaze drilling into his. It was a look that rang louder than any scream. Without speaking a single word, she beseeched his aid, pleading for him to come over and help them escape.

  Guilt pierced Simon's chest as he gingerly shut the door. It stung, but his plan wasn't ready. He couldn't do anything for them.

  Yet.

  He peered at another section of Ebris and Lucette's carriage, locating his target among the cluttered items.

  Identify.