"We owe you, Stalker, big time," the guy Konrad had saved claimed on his knees. "We don't have much, but, um—a Sponge or a Spark? If you'd like either of those, feel free to take 'em."
What? Free artifacts?!
His eyes lit up.
But before he'd consult Dmitry about what kind they even were, the other Stalker scoffed.
"Why'd anyone need a Sponge after passing through the Garbage, man?!"
"Also, you promised to sell me the Spark, remember?" the one they called Walther added.
Konrad could only blink, still under the influence of all that adrenaline.
First, the shootout, then saving that man's life—
"Sponge's the low-grade version of the Crystal. Anti-rad artifact," the Captain whispered. "And the other one improves your endurance at the cost of making you weak against electricity."
Good. Now he had a walking, talking encyclopedia.
One that seemed upset with him for some reason?
"You dropped this, by the way," Dmitry shoved his Makarov at him. "Reloaded it for you. And here, looted a serviceable Kalashnikov as well. Three mags are yours. I'm keeping the rest."
Ugh. So they did loot the bandits.
Yes, yes, his kills. How could he ever forget?
After that mess, Konrad wasn't eager to take any of the weapons, but the artifacts?
Ah, but also. If those guys actually needed them—
His consciousness was already heavy as it is.
"We actually skipped Garbage when hearing the emergency," he told a partial lie. "But I'd rather not take either. If you'd let me hold them for a while to analyze each, that's more than enough."
Because, of course, he had a plan.
"Holding it? Were you injured, too?" a Stalker asked.
"No, I'm fine, but—let's say I'm curious."
For these people, these things were enigmatic artifacts. Things that shouldn't have existed, and made no sense whatsoever. But to Konrad, it was plain old magic.
Something he could analyze. Reverse-engineer. Even replicate with some luck.
If he knew the right runes, that is.
"Um, is it okay if I hold that Soul, too?" he pleaded, having had no time to inspect its mid-grade cousin at Sidorovich's place. "And, I guess, I'll leave the Sponge for last, to undo the radiation."
"Damn, bold of you to bypass Garbage," the healed Stalker noted. "It's like a rite of passage."
"Yeah, that old fat trader can talk about theory for good money, but for survival skills—"
"Your best bet is to enlist with the Wolves," the third finished.
Right. The Wolves
Konrad hadn't paid attention to their shoulder patches before, but they, too, wore the badge.
Their gear was an odd amalgamation of military and survival, though.
Like, it felt as if they had avoided camo patterns for some reason.
Meanwhile, their vest and carrier were both army surplus stuff. And, of course, the guns, too.
Actually, did they wear hooded raincoats? Konrad couldn't place that material.
But as if they were reading his mind—which he was sure they didn't—one of them pointed out.
"How did you even get this far without a decent chemical protection gear?"
"Um," Konrad mumbled. "By being careful?"
Not like he saw any chemical danger so far.
Radiation? Sure. But they couldn't walk around coated in lead. And if his plan worked, and they were lucky, he'd find a Crystal to deal with the radiation soon enough anyway.
But first—the Soul.
As before, it burned his fingers as soon as he touched it, but it was also warm and soothing.
An odd sensation, for sure, but he wasn't here for the surface stuff right now.
He wanted to dig deep and unravel the magic underneath.
If he could reconstruct the spell, he might have been able to learn basic healing magic at last.
That would have been the dream.
But reality wasn't that kind. He would have had to fill in too many blanks.
And the longer he held the artifact, the harder it was to concentrate on reading it.
One minute in, his head started to throb. Two, and his insides felt like melting.
By the third minute, his vision became blurred, static dancing before his eyes, and—
He threw up without any warning.
That's when those Stalkers finally intervened.
"Too much, he got radiation poisoning," Walther claimed, yanking the Soul away.
The other two immediately offered their own anti-rad artifact instead, both low-grade Sponges.
"Here, tuck 'em under your arms. Two'll clear your system faster," the one he saved said. "It's crazy how deadly even the healing artifact is if you're not careful. Might wanna lie down a bit."
Konrad took his advice to the heart.
He was out of breath, but the heat was leaving his body fast.
"Yeah, no kidding," he panted. "Sorry, and thanks."
He couldn't decipher the healing magic in that thing.
But the Sponges were much easier to analyze.
They resembled his Isekai Microwave in their structure. But there was also plenty of redundancy in their syntax. Inefficient runes. Things a normal human would avoid.
It felt like these things had actually formed on their own.
When the circumstances were right.
They were like tiny black holes, only affecting the radiation.
The gamma and alpha particles? Konrad had no idea about the physics of it.
But the fact was, they kept sucking radiation away from their surroundings.
And once they reached a critical mass, they'd never release it again.
The particles turned into a crystal—or in this case, only a 'Sponge'—and kept growing. He still missed a vital rune to try to replicate it, but the signature was strong and memorable.
With his basic mid-range search spell, he should have been able to find them with ease.
"Thanks, I'm fine now," Konrad claimed, stretching his arms once he handed the artifacts back.
There was only the Spark left to analyze, but he could tell its mechanics even by looking at it.
It was the simplest one so far, and he knew even all the runes making it up.
The fact that he never thought of using them like this was almost embarrassing.
Like when he tried to create tiny lightning bolts to charge his phone. But this artifact released regular pulses into the body, keeping it fresh and alert. Like caffeine, in a sense.
And yeah, no wonder it would make its user weak against electric shocks.
He could have replicated its effects to enhance his endurance. Hell, it should have come in handy when he had to run full marathons or fight in full armor back in Kasserlane.
"That is all, thanks again," Konrad said in the end, satisfied with the results.
"You sure you don't want to take at least the Sponge?" the guy he saved asked, seeming worried.
"We have an extra, and you saw how bad radiation poisoning could get," another Stalker added.
"Yeah, no joke," Konrad nodded. "But we'll head back to the Garbage, anyway. I'll find one for each of us before we move any further. And after we have spoken with Yuri, of course."
Because that was their original goal coming here, after all.
"You seem confident," Walther noted. "But finding these is no easy task."
"They're in the shittiest places, and invisible, too," the other one added. "Your detector won't help much, since their range is too short. Even the advanced one that Vasiliy had suck for this."
"Oh, that's fine," Konrad waved them off with a smirk. "I've no detectors anyway."