Chapter 189

189

“I have my good weapons in the back of the store…perhaps they are not treasures, but I keep them to sell to Adventurers like you.”

The blacksmith walked with his hands in his pockets. His shoulders were slouched and he talked in a laid-back voice.

“Ahh…sorry. I’m Shiki. I own this place. What’s your name?”

“I am Asagi. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Ah, let’s not be so formal…yes, here they are.”

He opened a door to reveal a mountain of weapons. Even I could tell at a glance that they were of high quality. We had done well to come here…

This guy sold good weapons and was making money, yet was so preoccupied in his craft that he didn’t have time or the desire to renovate the building…yes, it was such craftsmen that made the best weapons.

“This is amazing…”

“You can tell then? Well…even I’m aware it’s something these other craftsmen are incapable of.”

He smiled thinly. It was as if he was very proud but too tired to fully express his emotions…

“A spear, was it? …Over here.”

He started to walk again, and so we followed after him. There was a wooden rack with a number of spears leaning against it.

The head of the metal spears glimmered prettily. Simple, yet crafted with great attention to detail.

The spears made of monster materials were more wild in appearance. Some of them looked deadly even in areas that weren’t the spearhead.

“Hmm…hmm…”

“See anything you like…?”

“I definitely want one made of ore.”

My greatsword was from a monster. My one-handed sword was metal. I wasn’t really sure about the shortsword. It was fun fighting with the greatsword, which had a strong water attribute. I could only create water blades with it now, but perhaps there would be other things I could do if I used Jack of all Trades, Master of None. But I had been mainly focusing on using the greatsword, so hadn’t learned much about using weapons with attributes.

My one-handed sword was made of hard metal known as ‘armor ore.’ You could use it quite thoughtlessly and it would not break. It was also easily maintained if taken to a smithy. I usually did it myself with a whetstone when I had the nightwatch, because I was cheap. And I had no problems with it so far.

As for the shortsword, I had not had much opportunity to use it. It was just a backup weapon. However, when I did fight with dual blades, I noticed that it was very easy to handle. It did its job when blocking enemy attacks and also cut right through enemies when necessary.

And so I had been using these three weapons…but I had not yet used an ore weapon with an attribute yet. My one-handed sword was made of ore but had no attribute. It was just a hard weapon, which was appealing in its own way.

Therefore, I wanted my next weapon to be a spear that was made of iron and had an attribute.

I had been thinking about this for a while.

“I see…iron ore and attributes. Asagi. What attribute do you favor?”

“Ice and water. Also, fire does appear on my status…”

“It’s probably not much if you already have ice and water…”

Shiki chuckled to himself. Well, he wasn’t wrong. It took a lot of energy just to boil some water. It wasn’t very efficient for me.

“So ice or water then…”

“I own a greatsword that has the water attribute. And so I’d want an ice-type spear.”

“Hmm? You have a greatsword…?”

I only had the Glampanzer on my belt now. The greatsword was in the hollow bag.

“Want to see it?”

“Aye. And your one-handed sword as well… Wait, the spears first. There are three ice spears over there.”

Shiki pointed at them. One was clear like glass. Another was translucent and white. And the last was a pale blue color.

“Mind if I take a closer look?”

“Aye. Do it to your heart’s content… By the way, Asagi…”

“Alright, just wait a second. I’ll show them to you.”

He looked at me impatiently as I unsheathed the Glampanzer and also opened my bag to take out the Ashikirimaru and the Schwartz Tempest.

“That’s a good bag.”

“It’s not bad.”

I had used it for quite a while now. It looked older than…I mean, it’s vintage appeal was only growing.

I handed him the weapons and then took out my appraisal glasses.

“Poor eyesight?”

“Well, a little. I don’t actually need them, but as these are good spears, I want to see every detail.”

“Of course…I’m glad to hear it.”

He smiled lazily as he looked back at the swords he was holding.

“Well, I’ll be over…at that counter, looking at these. I’d like to take my time, so you do the same.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

And so we parted ways. Perhaps it was just me, but he seemed ridiculously happy… Well, I had to focus on what I was doing now.

“Let’s see here…”

I looked at the glass-like spear first.

‘Blue Frost – Alloy of mithril, ice ore and water ore. Boosts ice magic attribute. Small boost to water magic attribute.’

Hmmm. So that’s what happens when you mix mithril, ice ore and water ore. There were magic properties in mithril as well, but I didn’t know much about that.

Still, there were two other promising spears to look at. I would look at the translucent one next.

‘Cocytus Lance – A spear made of Cocytus ore. Small boost to ice magic attribute. Small boost to water magic attribute.’

Hmm? I never heard of this ore before. I focused on the word ‘Cocytus ore.’

‘Cocytus ore. Ice ore after it has been combined with water ore. This rarely occurs without the help of mithril.’

So that meant the two ores had mixed together as some kind of effect of the mithril. It was the power of mithril, I guess.

And this Cocytus ore. Apparently, it had happened without the help of mithril. So it was done naturally? It must be very rare then.

I was weak to such marketing terms, but this was not the time to jump to decisions. I looked at the third one.

‘Icicle Star – A spear of ice crystal and meteoritic iron. Boosts ice magic attribute.’

It sounded quite interesting, especially the ice crystal.

‘Ice Crystal. What happens when ice ore is exposed to the blue dragon vein. Has the effect of raising the power of the ice attribute.’

I see. Ice ore that has soaked up blue magic. And then we have this meteoritic iron…ore that has fallen from the sky. A spear made from two different accidents…frightful indeed.

“Hmm…it’s going to be a hard decision…”

“You cannot decide then?”

“Woah!? Since when were you here…”

“Since the beginning…?”

She called to me out of nowhere. I looked behind me in surprise to see Daniela standing there and wearing her appraisal glasses. She hadn’t said anything all of this time, so I had assumed she had left to look at something else.

“So I guess you’ve seen what they’re made of? To be honest, I’m not sure.”

“Well, they are all made of rare materials.”

And they were all quite expensive, it seemed. Daniela indicated the price tags with a thrust of her chin.

‘Two-hundred and sixty,’ ‘three hundred,’ ‘three-hundred and fifty.’ I would not be able to buy all of them. Well, I could, but I didn’t want to. While I assumed we would have five thousand in gold soon, there was no guarantee it would be exactly that amount. As someone who had worked the night shift for so long, I wanted to have plenty of money to live on without having to worry. It’s a sad life living with a light wallet…

“There was a saying about getting what you pay for, but these are all expensive. I don’t think there’s much point in basing my purchase off the prices at this point.”

“But being costly is no guarantee of quality. Well, these do appear to be quite good.”

Yes. That’s why I wasn’t sure. I was so unsure that I felt like I was going to get sick.

“Hmm… I don’t know if I want to fully dedicate myself to ice alone.”

The greatsword only had the water attribute. I had tried using Jack of all Trades, Master of None to simulate using other magic with it, but nothing had happened.

“I like the idea of multiple attributes.”

“So that leaves you with either the Blue Frost or the Cocytus Lance.’

A spear made with the power of mithril and a spear made with the power of nature. Hmm. It was a tough decision.

“Perhaps you should try using them then.”

Yes, that was true. You could only tell so much by their names. And so I went to Shiki to ask him about it.

When I went to the counter, I saw that Shiki was inspecting the swords excitedly from every angle. There was no hint of his prior drowsiness.

“Hey-hey-hey-hey-hey, Asagi…! What is this!? This is incredible!”

“Uh, yeah. Well, they’re pretty amazing.”

Not as amazing as your sudden transformation, though.