"Anyway, have you prepared payment?" Sheepy translated for Hali.

Ack, I guess him not planning to pay for the expenses was expected. Good thing I already had what I needed in my inventory.

"I don't have money."

"What? Not even the ground dwarf currency?"

"Nope."

"Seriously? I'm kind of lacking in funds." Haliton put his hand to his face.

"Well, the repairs aren't for anything important. You don't need to pay for any of it!"

In the end, what I picked was just cover in case he found it fishy.

"No no! That's what people say when they actually need something and don't want to admit it!"

"Uh..."

"I can handle it! Don't worry! It's not... expensive." Haliton's face was grim.

From his expression, I was pretty sure the cost was not something his wallet was okay with.

"No, seriously. You don't have to!"

"I'll pay for it!"

I floated the bits of scarp out and shut the doors, then started to drive towards the exit quickly.

"Wait, what are you doing?" Haliton seemed confused.

"Leaving."

"You can't just leave the damage unrepaired! What if you break down all of a sudden?"

" It really is nothing major!"

"You swear on your creator?"

What a weird question... Well, not that I knew which factory built me.

"Uh, yes?"

Hali seemed suspicious, but he dropped the matter. I couldn't tell if that was somehow enough to convince him (some sort of culture thing?) or if it was just his wallet.

"Oh, by the way, I don't need you to help me find my way back home."

I didn't want him to keep following me around, trying to help me "return home".

"What? Then how will you find your way back?"

Urgh... I racked my mind for a random reason.

Sheepy, translate "my compass suddenly started working again"!

Huh? What the heck is a "compass"?

Seriously? I guess it would be weird for a sheepy that learnt speech from listening in to know what a compass was... People probably don't talk about them much. Especially when around sheep.

Oh well. My reason was pretty dumb anyway. Since when do compasses break down and suddenly work again? The only component was a magnet!

Nevermind, not important.

"My navigation device suddenly started working again, so now I can find my way back!"

"Really? That doesn't sound right to me..." Haliton mused. "Wait? Did you secretly use the parts to make repairs right there?"

What the heck? I technically didn't, but that was too on the nose!

"No, I didn't. I swear on my creator!"

That promise seems to work on him.

The dwarf heaved a sigh of relief.

"That's good then. They have a device that secretly records the weight of things that enter before and after! I'd be in trouble if you secretly did repairs..."

Seriously? I felt very lucky. I wasn't sure if the eating function increased my weight when it was for upgrades, but if I could have gotten in trouble if it did.

[Upgrades only change your weight after all the requirements are met, starting the upgrade. Assuming the improved material has a different weight, though that is almost always the case.]

Okay, good to know.

"If you didn't repair it, that could be a problem. Are you sure it won't break down again?" asked Hali.

"Uh... It didn't break? I just forgot to turn it on."

"What?!"

I spent quite a while reassuming the dwarf that I would be fine. Somehow, my dumb excuses and ad-libbing eventually convinced the dwarf to let me go off alone. It would really be annoying if he started following me around!

I decided to head towards the hilly area where Biggie's den was since I figured it'd appreciate it and I didn't have anywhere else I wanted to go at the moment.

When I was was far away enough, I took out my spoils from the scrapyard, random broken weapons and tools and started munching on them. They actually tasted pretty nice to my surprise. There was a lot to eat too, which was a lot more satisfying than the microscopic amount of time I got to enjoy the sandwiches.

[Black Iron upgrade complete!]

[Max Lv 10 -> 20]

[DEF 5 -> 7]

[HP 50 -> 60]

[+1 Skill Point.]

I felt a strange sensation, as if all my parts were being replaced which somehow didn't feel that bad. I could sense that the metal under my coat of paint was now jet black.

In the end, I decided to only pick black iron scrap. I was really tempted to go for some of the better metals, but stealing didn't feel right to me in the end, so I figured I should just take the cheap bits. Besides, what if they noticed if some more expensive metals suddenly went missing?

No... Who was I kidding? It was just me being soft. Most likely, no one paid that much attention to random bits of scrap anyway.

Well, hopefully, I'd find some way to get better metals legitimately by the time I reached Lv20. I really didn't want to steal from another scrapyard again... They were definitely not places I enjoy being in.

By now, the skies were pitch black. I could only see the moon and stars shining gently. Was it midnight?

[11:49 PM]

Oh, you could do that?

I didn't know why that surprised me.

[It's literally one of the basic functions of a tablet.]

Eh, whatever. I decided to just go into sleep mode till tomorrow. Sheepy and Biggie were already asleep anyway.

"Those two dwarves with that vehicle..." one of the scrapyard staff mused. "Don't you think it was fishy that he just left without getting anything?

"I don't know. Maybe they didn't think the parts were good enough? They must be rich if they could afford a vehicle like that!" said a bald one beside him.

"Hmm... I'm still going to take a look." said the one with hair. "What if they used some sort of storage artefact to steal stuff?"

The bald guard paused for a moment, then laughed heartily.

"Seriously? That's like a king stealing trash from the slums!"

The haired dwarf shrugged.

"It's boring here sitting around here anyway. I'm gonna take a look!"

"Less fun than a game of cards?" the bald one raised his eyebrows, picking up the pack of cards on the counter.

"How many rounds have we played anyway? I should be asking you how you aren't sick of playing yet!"

"Hump. Do as you please."

The dwarf opened the gate and wandered into the scrapyard with a lantern in hand, whistling cheerfully. Perhaps some people would find it creepy to be at such a place near midnight, especially the scraped heads of golems with lifelike human faces staring with soulless eyes here and there, but he was long used to it after working here for years.

But as he looked around, he found something odd.

"Weird, didn't there use to be a DiscountForge sword here?"

Since most of the dwarves were here to find salvageable parts for their machines, the broken weapons were often ignored unless they were made of good material for reforging. As such, he remembered the ones that stayed around for pretty long. He was also pretty sure he would remember if someone was actually weird enough to buy those.

As he followed the trail left by the truck, he found more and more missing weapons he remembered. He was stunned for a moment before he ran back to his post.

"Gorrick! They actually did it!" he panted.

"Huh?"

"I can't believe it! They stole some parts with a storage device! And useless black iron weapons at that!"

Gorrick the bald dwarf snorted.

"Haha, very funny."

"I'm serious!"

The two guards decided it was probably fine for them to leave the post irresponsibly for a few minutes, then walked into the gates together. When Gorrick realised his friend was actually telling the truth, he laughed.

"By the gods! What the heck?"

The two dwarves reported the incident to their superiors the next day.