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Chapter 39: Exploring the museum
Uriel made sure to carefully study the carvings on the pedestal beneath the smartphone. Reading modern day words like 'smartphone' written in an ancient language should have been difficult, but somehow it was pretty straightforward and this left him pleasantly surprised to say the least.
[Artifact] Samson smartphone: The latest and most advanced smartphone created by the Samson company, due to its high price it was considered to be rather luxurious. Not many people were able to acquire it before the company's downfall, making it a rare find.
[Passive] While not stored inside the museum will provide useful notifications.
[Passive] It will keep functioning even inside the museum.
[Passive] It will slowly recharge its battery while stored inside the museum.
"This is incredible!" Uriel repeated, still mesmerized by all the useful abilities of his newly acquired artifact.
Now that he possessed four artifacts the exhibition room didn't look so empty, in fact, Uriel wondered how many more artifacts will he be able to store since the distance between each pedestal was considerable. This wasn't unusual in museums, the most important artifacts would always be showcased far from each other to give them the proper spotlight.
There was the swiss army knife, the revolver, the smartphone and... a magazine?
'What's this about?' Uriel thought inwardly as he had already forgotten about the magazine he picked up at the luxurious office when he was searching for a fire extinguisher. What he saw left him perplexed, it was a feeling so powerful he actually gasped. The magazine was... pornographic.
[An old magazine] This magazine is a 'Lewd Ladies' collector's edition, it reflects the values of the pre-apocalyptic western society in which the image of women was commodified for young adults. Promotes the objectification of women with the intent to satisfy male desire.
[Active] Provides accurate measurements of feminine figure. Must be stored inside the museum to activate it, triggered by eyeing someone with lustful intent.
'What kind of crap is this!? I have no use for something as dirty as this!' Uriel was discombobulated and because of his mental state, he couldn't keep focus and was thrown off his museum.
Back to reality and facing the dimly lit room again, Uriel was left astonished by his finding. It wasn't just a magazine but a pornographic one, still, his trait considered it worthy as a cultural object and he couldn't deny its possible worth because it was a collector's edition.
He didn't like the fact that he needed to keep it inside his museum, but just the thought of taking it outside to sell it made him blush brightly in embarrassment.
"Why are you blushing up? Huh? If you're thinking on doing something dirty to me because I'm helpless I'll kill you as soon as I recover." Medusa said with a raspy voice and a faint smile adorned by a thin thread of dry blood.
"Medusa, you're awake!" Uriel quickly stood up to check up on her, his companions right behind him.
Medusa was in an awful state, she was covered in bruises and small cuts and her clothes told the tale of the dire battle she fought against the skinwalker.
"Don't move! There's a plastic tube coming out of your lung." Luna hurried up to stop Medusa from sitting up.
"What!? Why didn't you take it out? I can probably recover from a wound like that." Medusa cringed at the thought of a foreign object sticking inside her internal organs.
"Take it out? I put it there, you were drowning in blood so I had to pierce your lung and drain the blood." Luna replied.
"That is disgusting..." Medusa couldn't bear the thought, but she knew she owed her life to Luna. "But thank you, I guess."
The group's morale went up a notch after their wounded companion woke up and they put her up to date with the events that transpired after she fell unconscious. She didn't seem too troubled by Atomic's death, but what worried her the most was the fact that she wouldn't be able to move and that Miss Dragonfang still haven't replied to their messages.
"Can we contact the city?" She asked.
"We could, but it's not our decision. If we ask for help we won't be keeping any of our loot and we'll probably be indebted to whoever rescues us." Sam replied.
"But we're in danger and..." Medusa tried to rebuke, but she was left oout of breath before finishing.
"Yes, we are in danger and I'm scared, but what good would it do to us to go back in heavy debt? I'd rather die here."
The fact that requesting for help meant paying a hefty sum was new to Uriel, after all he didn't really know much about independent incursions because of how fast he was recruited. He was eager to go back, but what good would all their effort and pain if instead of being rewarded they would end up punished?
Suddenly, it wasn't that much of a surprise why so many people died during incursions. Most likely, many people before them faced similar odds and took the wrong choice. But he also could see the wisdom in that. If there weren't any consequences to asking for help from the city they would receive calls everytime an incursion went south and people would become more daring and not even a city as large as theirs had the resources to clear a lost city on their own, let alone if it was just to save a bunch of kids playing hunter.
After drinking some water, Medusa asked Sam to look outside through the window in case he was able to spot miss Dragonfang or any sort of activity. The young student was reluctant to comply because his trait was as much a blessing as it was a curse.
Yes, he could see pretty much everything if he focused properly, but even the weakest creature was horrifying.
Uriel went back to his museum as soon as he could, and in a much better mood than before. He thought of different ways he could make use of his artifacts, not the dirty magazine, but the actual useful ones.
Like his revolver, possessing a ranged weapon that can appear or disappear at will was an incredible advantage against humans and cryptids alike. It was capable of inflicting a lot of damage to cryptids which was strange because pre-apocalyptic weapons were supposedly useless against such creatures. As if that wasn't good enough, he could acquire ammunition just by storing the gun inside his museum. It would have been the perfect weapon for him, if only he had any prior training with fireguns. Still, all he needed to do was get some practice and become better at shooting.
Then came his swiss army knife, it had already proving its worth by making it possible to acquire the Magnum with the lockpick, but it also possessed different tools and the knife was so sharp it was good enough to perform a surgery on an ascended apparently.
Finally, his smartphone. This was a tricky one because although it didn't seem to be that useful in battle, it could prove to be his best artifact yet. Just the fact that it was able to work properly even inside his museum meant that he would probably still be able to use it even in the presence of cryptids but more importantly, there was a strange app on it called 'system'. At first, Uriel thought nothing of it, but after fidgeting with his phone for a while he noticed something incredible, something that changed the way he perceived his trait entirely.
>System:
Rank: [Evolved] Human with mutated cells that can store and tap into flux energy.
Title: [Dumpster diver] Acquired by rummaging through trash looking for something useful. [Scavenger] Acquired by salvaging resources from a lost city. [Thief] Acquired by stealing from a corpse.
Trait: Museum
Available exhibitions:
Pre-apocalyptic (4/6)
Stat points:
Strength: 4+1
Speed: 2+1
Flux: 1