“... why would… why would you use treant wood to make a carriage!?” Wilma called out as we were getting ready for today’s travels. She was going to be in my carriage with me and Lua, Magical Exemplar was driving by the way. Alice, Ria and Agunan were in one of the golem carriages belonging to Mariina/The Sage’s tower.
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“Why not? It is better than common woods and I have a lot of it.”
“That is no explanation. Do you have any idea how much this carriage is worth?”
“Nope. As it stands, probably 500-ish gold coins or so. Actually, probably more.”
“Oh, so you do know.”
“I don’t think you have any idea how overbuilt this carriage is.” Lua told Wilma. “Brian has a habit of going overboard, and this thing is no exception.”
“... so it has more going for it, than just being built out of treant wood? I did notice that the wheels aren’t standard wrought iron either, but I’m not quite sure what they are made from.”
“Blood iron.” I just stated.
“... I suppose I could have assumed as much. But still, Miss Lucia and Miss Rhianna must be quite good at blood magic to be able to help produce blood iron.”
“I don’t actually ask them to do that. I just summon a vampire instead.”
“Eh? … could you repeat that please?”
“I can summon vampires.”
“...”
“Why so speechless? You saw me summon a magician earlier, well I guess she is a magic scholar but still. So what is so strange about a vampire?”
“... what are you, the demon lord?”
“Hey! That’s rude. I know demon means magic in some languages, so I’ll assume you meant magic lord, but still.” [Basically a joke about how in Japanese a magic lord could be interpreted as a demon lord.]
“I- I apologize, Lord Wood.”
“... don’t do that either. Just call me Brian, please. Well, outside of official situations, as those are a different case.”
“... I’ll… I’ll do by best, Lord Brian.”
… that isn’t much better either. But it might be too soon to ask her to drop the Lord, so I guess I’ll just deal with it for now.
“We have some monsters coming!” I called the other carriages, as soon as Laura gave me the warning of some incoming monsters. Well, Alice would have heard it as well, but still, sharing is caring. Especially when it is info about an incoming attack.
I quickly moved to the roof of my carriage for a better view, and got my sword out of Storage. I hadn’t yet moved to using the Red-Eyes Black Dragon Sword as my primary sword, because I was still getting used to it.
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Taking a look at the direction Laura indicated, I just about was able to spot the group of forest lynxes. Forest lynxes, have I actually mentioned them before? Well, either way. They are cat-like monsters, about the size of a regular tiger, and are D-rank monsters, like all other ‘forest’ monsters are. The pack that was attacking us seemed to be five members strong, so this will be no problem.
“Lord Brian. Allow me to take the front.” Wilma said. She had gotten out a the carriage and had pulled a large shield from her Item Box. It was a rectangular in shape, with a slight curve. Based on the look, it seemed to be bronze, with a steel edging.
While taking quick steps towards the monsters, she also pulled out a one-handed hammer from her item box. It had a spike on one side, and a striking surface on the other, and it seems to be made from steel. Judging by the size, the hammer head probably weighs about 5 kilos [11 pounds. Basically a sledge hammer, but one end has been turned into a spike.], or so, so it was by no means small for a one-handed hammer, but it wasn’t like those abnormally large weapons you sometimes see in fantasy series.
I almost called to her not to worry, but since an opportunity for her to show her skills showed up, it is just fine that she does. Maybe I should ask her to show her status screen? I could use some level ups on her. … Well, maybe not yet. Let’s get to know her a bit better first.
Alice and Ria also quickly joined us, Alice having her aluminum and steel swordstaff out, while Ria had gotten her gauntlets out of the magic fanny pack.
“Alice, Ria. Work with Wilma to kill the monsters. I’ll keep a lookout.” I gave out a quick order. I know Alice will understand what I want, as I can just send a mental message to her, but hopefully Ria won’t go too ham either. Some D-rank monsters really just aren’t strong enough to really be a threat to us.
The battle didn’t last too long, but it did give me some insight. First, Wilma is definitely much more of a defender than an attacker. She did quite well with her shield, but her counter attacks weren’t that great. Had that been me practicing with one of my shield wielding warrior monsters, I’d have gotten some choice words from my instructor. But still, she isn’t bad.
But after the battle… well.
“Your weapon. Show it to me, please.” Wilma asked Alice, with her eyes turning into hearts. “Your gauntlets too. I want to take a look.” She added, looking at Ria.
… I might have invited a weapons maniac into our party…
Well, that might be a good thing. I could use someone to throw ideas at. I did promise to make something that would be ‘the best this world has ever seen’, so just me thinking it is the greatest won’t be enough.
As our trip continued, I let Wilma take a look at our weapons. My sword, the mithril one, not Red-Eyes Sword, was first. She did like it, but did say the guard and pommel were basic, as was the sheath, so she told me that as a show of her skill, she would make new better looking ones for me.
But when it came to some of our other equipment, she was a bit more taken back.
“... what is this made of..?” She questioned as she looked at Alice’s swordstaff.
“It’s just aluminum.” Could she not tell that with her appraisal? How does appraisal work again?
“A-lu-mi-ni-um? … what is that? It isn’t a metal used by the dwarves.”
“... It isn’t?”
“At least I’ve never heard of it. How strong is it? Can I test it?” Wilma asked, as she pulled a forging hammer out of her Item Box.
“Absolutely not. Don’t hammer someone’s weapon.” I instantly denied her and pulled the swordstaff out of her lap, before hiding it away in storage.
“... I asked for permission, didn’t I?”
“Nope. You informed me that you wanted to do it. Had I not stopped you, you’d have hit it with your hammer.”
“...”
“Don’t try to deny it. I saw the look in your eyes.”
“My eyes look like that when I appraise something. It is normal.” Wilma tried to defend herself.
“Yeah. Still no. Hammering our weapons is banned.”
“... then perhaps you could get me some of this… a-lu-mi-ni-um?”
“I’ll get you some later, if you impress me with your work.” I used the old ‘carrot-on-a-stick’ to hopefully get Wilma to really show off her skills.
But still. Don’t dwarves really use aluminum? Apparently they don’t, or maybe it just requires skills beyond those that Wilma has, so she was never informed of it. Like maybe it is too advanced for most dwarves to work with, and you have to be a master smith before you can work with it? I think aluminum was one of the more difficult metals for humans to learn to work with on earth. It came long after stuff like copper, bronze, iron and steel.
Then what about titanium? It is even more advanced than aluminum, at least for humans, so can they use that. And didn’t Laura mention Star Titanium when we spoke about the ‘greatest metals’? Maybe normal titanium won’t even exist, and the only version that is known is that star titanium alloy? Is it even an alloy of titanium, or is it something else that just happens to share the name?
By the end of the day, we didn’t run into any other monsters, so it was time to set camp. For that, we could have had a problem, but thanks to Cailie, we didn’t.
Why do I thank Cailie, even if she is not here? Well, when she was with us temporarily, I only had sleeping arrangements for the five of us. But because she was a temporary party member, I thought that we should have more sleeping space. Sure we could all sleep in my carriage, if I could power the spatial expander for the night, but can’t do that yet. I’ll make some sort of linking device that can pull mana from HomeBase when I get that flower mana farm up and running there, and then we will be able to keep it on forever.
So yeah. Because of that, tents. And we only had 2. One was something Alice got from her parents, while the other was mine. Lua used to have access to Prime Rib’s tent, but that is with Alex, not with her. Because of us only having two tents, we would have to sleep together in some formation of 3 in one tent, and 2 in the other. It was either me with Alice and Lua, and then Agunan and Ria sharing the other, or just split between boys and girls.
… but most nights it was me between Alice and Lua.
So yeah. Because of that, the only place Cailie could have slept in outside of the town is in the carriage. One or two could sleep in it fine, even without the spatial expander. But still, having more tents would be better, so I made sure to pick up another few tents from HomeBase. Just in case we would have anyone that needed a good place to sleep. I have unlimited Storage and easy access to stuff like that, so why not?
Now, of course sleeping wasn’t all about sleeping. We would also be keeping guard against monsters. And now that there were six of us, we could do three shifts of two guarding at a time. We went with me and Wilma taking the first shift, Alice and Agunan took the second, and Lua and Ria would be last.
“What are you doing?” Wilma asked, as we were keeping guard.
“Carving a cup.” I just answered. I was making a wooden cup for Lua. This was my … fifth attempt. The others I had busted through the side or the bottom with, so I was being extra careful with this one. I could have fixed them with Storage, but I didn’t want to do that. I have the time, so why not try as many times as it takes? And it isn’t like I’ll run out of materials any time soon. I could fail a million times, and still have world treant wood left.
“... what kind of wood is this?” Wilma asked, as she looked at a shaved off piece. “It is some sort of treant… but I’m not sure what? Is this elder treant? Or perhaps greater elder treant?”
FYI, elder treant is an A-rank treant and can come in variants like elder cotta treant, while greater elder treant is S-rank, and are usually a mix of multiple attributes.
“Well… I suppose…” I didn’t really want to admit that it was world treant wood, because… well, obvious reasons. “Yes… it is greater elder treant… just don’t tell anyone. Well, outside of my party, as they already know.”
“... how did you get some..?” Wilma asked quietly.
“I took it down myself.” I answered honestly.
“... you… but… it is an S-rank monster, right? … well, I guess you do have a dragon in your party, so…”
“It isn’t just Agunan. You saw a bit of it today with Alice and Ria, but my party isn’t exactly normal. We can take down S-rank monsters fine enough.”
“... I think that is a bit more than just ‘not normal’. You are C-rank in the adventurer’s guild, right?”
“Yeah. They did promise us a rank-up, if we go to a bigger city, but they just don’t trust us without some test or something.”
“... they did? I didn’t know the guilds do that…”
But you’d better get used to it, as it is not the most abnormal thing about us by far.”
“... I’ll- I’ll do my best to keep up.” Wilma said, getting some determination into her voice.
“Sure. You can start now.” I said, as I got my sword out of my Storage. I also got out a table, which she can use as a worktable. “You can work on my sword, if you want. Just try to be quiet, so you don’t bother others.”
“... will it be fine? Shouldn’t we keep guard?”
“Don’t worry about that part. I have it covered.” I said, as I quickly got a card out of my collection and summoned her. “Vampire Vamp.”
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“Because I’m a summoner. I can just summon a monster to keep guard for me.” And of course a vampire was a good choice, considering that it is currently nighttime, so it was a bit dark. “So with a vampire keeping guard, nothing will surprise us even if we don’t focus on keeping guard.”
“... I … I don’t know what to say…”
“Then don’t say anything. It isn’t something I expect you to get used to right at this second, but with time, I hope you will.” I told Wilma. “If you need anything, like paper for drawing designs, tools, materials or anything else, ask. I might have what you need.”
“Y-Yes.”
“... why would… why would you use treant wood to make a carriage!?” Wilma called out as we were getting ready for today’s travels. She was going to be in my carriage with me and Lua, Magical Exemplar was driving by the way. Alice, Ria and Agunan were in one of the golem carriages belonging to Mariina/The Sage’s tower.
Spoiler
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“Why not? It is better than common woods and I have a lot of it.”
“That is no explanation. Do you have any idea how much this carriage is worth?”
“Nope. As it stands, probably 500-ish gold coins or so. Actually, probably more.”
“Oh, so you do know.”
“I don’t think you have any idea how overbuilt this carriage is.” Lua told Wilma. “Brian has a habit of going overboard, and this thing is no exception.”
“... so it has more going for it, than just being built out of treant wood? I did notice that the wheels aren’t standard wrought iron either, but I’m not quite sure what they are made from.”
“Blood iron.” I just stated.
“... I suppose I could have assumed as much. But still, Miss Lucia and Miss Rhianna must be quite good at blood magic to be able to help produce blood iron.”
“I don’t actually ask them to do that. I just summon a vampire instead.”
“Eh? … could you repeat that please?”
“I can summon vampires.”
“...”
“Why so speechless? You saw me summon a magician earlier, well I guess she is a magic scholar but still. So what is so strange about a vampire?”
“... what are you, the demon lord?”
“Hey! That’s rude. I know demon means magic in some languages, so I’ll assume you meant magic lord, but still.” [Basically a joke about how in Japanese a magic lord could be interpreted as a demon lord.]
“I- I apologize, Lord Wood.”
“... don’t do that either. Just call me Brian, please. Well, outside of official situations, as those are a different case.”
“... I’ll… I’ll do by best, Lord Brian.”
… that isn’t much better either. But it might be too soon to ask her to drop the Lord, so I guess I’ll just deal with it for now.
“We have some monsters coming!” I called the other carriages, as soon as Laura gave me the warning of some incoming monsters. Well, Alice would have heard it as well, but still, sharing is caring. Especially when it is info about an incoming attack.
I quickly moved to the roof of my carriage for a better view, and got my sword out of Storage. I hadn’t yet moved to using the Red-Eyes Black Dragon Sword as my primary sword, because I was still getting used to it.
Spoiler
[collapse]
Taking a look at the direction Laura indicated, I just about was able to spot the group of forest lynxes. Forest lynxes, have I actually mentioned them before? Well, either way. They are cat-like monsters, about the size of a regular tiger, and are D-rank monsters, like all other ‘forest’ monsters are. The pack that was attacking us seemed to be five members strong, so this will be no problem.
“Lord Brian. Allow me to take the front.” Wilma said. She had gotten out a the carriage and had pulled a large shield from her Item Box. It was a rectangular in shape, with a slight curve. Based on the look, it seemed to be bronze, with a steel edging.
While taking quick steps towards the monsters, she also pulled out a one-handed hammer from her item box. It had a spike on one side, and a striking surface on the other, and it seems to be made from steel. Judging by the size, the hammer head probably weighs about 5 kilos [11 pounds. Basically a sledge hammer, but one end has been turned into a spike.], or so, so it was by no means small for a one-handed hammer, but it wasn’t like those abnormally large weapons you sometimes see in fantasy series.
I almost called to her not to worry, but since an opportunity for her to show her skills showed up, it is just fine that she does. Maybe I should ask her to show her status screen? I could use some level ups on her. … Well, maybe not yet. Let’s get to know her a bit better first.
Alice and Ria also quickly joined us, Alice having her aluminum and steel swordstaff out, while Ria had gotten her gauntlets out of the magic fanny pack.
“Alice, Ria. Work with Wilma to kill the monsters. I’ll keep a lookout.” I gave out a quick order. I know Alice will understand what I want, as I can just send a mental message to her, but hopefully Ria won’t go too ham either. Some D-rank monsters really just aren’t strong enough to really be a threat to us.
The battle didn’t last too long, but it did give me some insight. First, Wilma is definitely much more of a defender than an attacker. She did quite well with her shield, but her counter attacks weren’t that great. Had that been me practicing with one of my shield wielding warrior monsters, I’d have gotten some choice words from my instructor. But still, she isn’t bad.
But after the battle… well.
“Your weapon. Show it to me, please.” Wilma asked Alice, with her eyes turning into hearts. “Your gauntlets too. I want to take a look.” She added, looking at Ria.
… I might have invited a weapons maniac into our party…
Well, that might be a good thing. I could use someone to throw ideas at. I did promise to make something that would be ‘the best this world has ever seen’, so just me thinking it is the greatest won’t be enough.
As our trip continued, I let Wilma take a look at our weapons. My sword, the mithril one, not Red-Eyes Sword, was first. She did like it, but did say the guard and pommel were basic, as was the sheath, so she told me that as a show of her skill, she would make new better looking ones for me.
But when it came to some of our other equipment, she was a bit more taken back.
“... what is this made of..?” She questioned as she looked at Alice’s swordstaff.
“It’s just aluminum.” Could she not tell that with her appraisal? How does appraisal work again?
“A-lu-mi-ni-um? … what is that? It isn’t a metal used by the dwarves.”
“... It isn’t?”
“At least I’ve never heard of it. How strong is it? Can I test it?” Wilma asked, as she pulled a forging hammer out of her Item Box.
“Absolutely not. Don’t hammer someone’s weapon.” I instantly denied her and pulled the swordstaff out of her lap, before hiding it away in storage.
“... I asked for permission, didn’t I?”
“Nope. You informed me that you wanted to do it. Had I not stopped you, you’d have hit it with your hammer.”
“...”
“Don’t try to deny it. I saw the look in your eyes.”
“My eyes look like that when I appraise something. It is normal.” Wilma tried to defend herself.
“Yeah. Still no. Hammering our weapons is banned.”
“... then perhaps you could get me some of this… a-lu-mi-ni-um?”
“I’ll get you some later, if you impress me with your work.” I used the old ‘carrot-on-a-stick’ to hopefully get Wilma to really show off her skills.
But still. Don’t dwarves really use aluminum? Apparently they don’t, or maybe it just requires skills beyond those that Wilma has, so she was never informed of it. Like maybe it is too advanced for most dwarves to work with, and you have to be a master smith before you can work with it? I think aluminum was one of the more difficult metals for humans to learn to work with on earth. It came long after stuff like copper, bronze, iron and steel.
Then what about titanium? It is even more advanced than aluminum, at least for humans, so can they use that. And didn’t Laura mention Star Titanium when we spoke about the ‘greatest metals’? Maybe normal titanium won’t even exist, and the only version that is known is that star titanium alloy? Is it even an alloy of titanium, or is it something else that just happens to share the name?
By the end of the day, we didn’t run into any other monsters, so it was time to set camp. For that, we could have had a problem, but thanks to Cailie, we didn’t.
Why do I thank Cailie, even if she is not here? Well, when she was with us temporarily, I only had sleeping arrangements for the five of us. But because she was a temporary party member, I thought that we should have more sleeping space. Sure we could all sleep in my carriage, if I could power the spatial expander for the night, but can’t do that yet. I’ll make some sort of linking device that can pull mana from HomeBase when I get that flower mana farm up and running there, and then we will be able to keep it on forever.
So yeah. Because of that, tents. And we only had 2. One was something Alice got from her parents, while the other was mine. Lua used to have access to Prime Rib’s tent, but that is with Alex, not with her. Because of us only having two tents, we would have to sleep together in some formation of 3 in one tent, and 2 in the other. It was either me with Alice and Lua, and then Agunan and Ria sharing the other, or just split between boys and girls.
… but most nights it was me between Alice and Lua.
So yeah. Because of that, the only place Cailie could have slept in outside of the town is in the carriage. One or two could sleep in it fine, even without the spatial expander. But still, having more tents would be better, so I made sure to pick up another few tents from HomeBase. Just in case we would have anyone that needed a good place to sleep. I have unlimited Storage and easy access to stuff like that, so why not?
Now, of course sleeping wasn’t all about sleeping. We would also be keeping guard against monsters. And now that there were six of us, we could do three shifts of two guarding at a time. We went with me and Wilma taking the first shift, Alice and Agunan took the second, and Lua and Ria would be last.
“What are you doing?” Wilma asked, as we were keeping guard.
“Carving a cup.” I just answered. I was making a wooden cup for Lua. This was my … fifth attempt. The others I had busted through the side or the bottom with, so I was being extra careful with this one. I could have fixed them with Storage, but I didn’t want to do that. I have the time, so why not try as many times as it takes? And it isn’t like I’ll run out of materials any time soon. I could fail a million times, and still have world treant wood left.
“... what kind of wood is this?” Wilma asked, as she looked at a shaved off piece. “It is some sort of treant… but I’m not sure what? Is this elder treant? Or perhaps greater elder treant?”
FYI, elder treant is an A-rank treant and can come in variants like elder cotta treant, while greater elder treant is S-rank, and are usually a mix of multiple attributes.
“Well… I suppose…” I didn’t really want to admit that it was world treant wood, because… well, obvious reasons. “Yes… it is greater elder treant… just don’t tell anyone. Well, outside of my party, as they already know.”
“... how did you get some..?” Wilma asked quietly.
“I took it down myself.” I answered honestly.
“... you… but… it is an S-rank monster, right? … well, I guess you do have a dragon in your party, so…”
“It isn’t just Agunan. You saw a bit of it today with Alice and Ria, but my party isn’t exactly normal. We can take down S-rank monsters fine enough.”
“... I think that is a bit more than just ‘not normal’. You are C-rank in the adventurer’s guild, right?”
“Yeah. They did promise us a rank-up, if we go to a bigger city, but they just don’t trust us without some test or something.”
“... they did? I didn’t know the guilds do that…”
But you’d better get used to it, as it is not the most abnormal thing about us by far.”
“... I’ll- I’ll do my best to keep up.” Wilma said, getting some determination into her voice.
“Sure. You can start now.” I said, as I got my sword out of my Storage. I also got out a table, which she can use as a worktable. “You can work on my sword, if you want. Just try to be quiet, so you don’t bother others.”
“... will it be fine? Shouldn’t we keep guard?”
“Don’t worry about that part. I have it covered.” I said, as I quickly got a card out of my collection and summoned her. “Vampire Vamp.”
Spoiler
[collapse]
“Because I’m a summoner. I can just summon a monster to keep guard for me.” And of course a vampire was a good choice, considering that it is currently nighttime, so it was a bit dark. “So with a vampire keeping guard, nothing will surprise us even if we don’t focus on keeping guard.”
“... I … I don’t know what to say…”
“Then don’t say anything. It isn’t something I expect you to get used to right at this second, but with time, I hope you will.” I told Wilma. “If you need anything, like paper for drawing designs, tools, materials or anything else, ask. I might have what you need.”
“Y-Yes.”
