Author’s corner: HELLO HELLO! The start of a new arc and some copy pasting from older works of mine!

ANYWAY, Fun fact: The name Eldor actually came from the same place I took the name Gondorrer. In the (draft) of the story, you had a city in the mountains called Eldorrer, where the biggest golem of all times was created, and his name was… You guessed, Gondorrer!

ALSO, all the books that Cyg talks about in this chapter are actually real and are in my google drive right now…

ALSO (2), the original idea behind this arc would be us seeing Gon preparing for the first hunt and then going after his prey, but while writing this chapter I decided to change it a little and make it a bit bigger. I’ll also be adding a few other characters from the same work where I took Gon and Eldor, just for the fun of it.

Have a good read!

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“Just let me confirm, boy, but you are going to Eldor, right?”

“Eldor? Is that the name of the capital?” I asked curious.

The dullahan laughed loudly while tightening a surprisingly simple saddle to the spiders abdomen.

“Well, there are many capitals out there, but the closest one is Eldor.” He looked back at me. “I’ll take your face as an yes.” He and the spider started to laugh at me, leaving me in an awkward position. “Okay, get up and just let Tex show you the way, boy.”

I followed his instructions and climbed upon the saddle… But…

“Isn’t this a bit uncomfortable? I mean… Nothing to lean on…” I spoke my mind out loud, but Tex started laughing again while Rakin smiled widely.

“What’s this, boy? Never seen an Impaler before?”

Huh? Impaler? What’s with that scary nam… Is it just me, or is this spider’s abdomen trembling…? Just as I thought that, suddenly Tex’s body trembled violently while something similar to a large and thick spike appeared right behind me. I wasn’t really worried about it piercing me or anything, since it’s top was flat, at most it would throw me out… But still…

I looked back surprised at how such a thing could happen. It’s like suddenly a part of it’s abdomen simply lifted, like a hatch or something, and made a wall right behind me! I turned towards Rakin surprised and he only smiled at me.

“Tex here is one of the Impaling spiders… They are famous for carrying their preys on the spikes they can make on their backs, but with little training they make wonderful mounts!” I widened my eyes in surprise… Geez, this sure is a cool mount… I wonder if I can get one…

I thanked Rakin one last time and left him with ten silver coins before telling Tex to start walking. When I leaned back onto the support spike, I found it surprisingly soft and comfortable. And you would be surprised on how stable it is to ride on Tex. Since he has six legs, he always keep four legs moving and two for support, so his body moves forward in such a smooth way that I can barely feel his movements.

If I had to say, it feels like riding a car with active suspension.

But there still was a long road ahead, so I took my time to fiddle with the menus. There were quite a few interesting, for example, I found out I could use the USB port to play some mp3 while in game, and there was also some kind of in-game Wikipedia called Adventurer’s guide, that players could write on at will. And it already came with some basic information like getting started, capitals, classes and such…

I should tell this to Yuu…

Leaving that aside, I decided to take a look on the page about Eldorrer, the place where I was going. This seemed to be the capital of the Rokard kingdom, and in this city, the main habitants were dwarfs, clockworks and golems, but any and all races were welcome there. It seems to be a merchant and industrial city, with lots of crafters, sellers, and they even export it to other cities. The only strange thing I found was the fact that the city’s area just seemed too… Small…

As I was lost on my musings and navigating the guide and somehow end up on an article of how to put mana into cooking.

After that, I also noticed that we have access to the game’s forum directly from here, so I started to look around, but since the game is far too new, the most we had were the usual rumors and trolling sections. Looking around, I found a part that was referring to my starting village. There were some wild rumors running around, like usual, but there was this one rumor that seemed to be everywhere.

An unknown player, nicknamed Green-eyes, the brutal, capable of killing level five wild dogs in one attack. He would attack any one on sight and was far too strong for anyone to fight against. His eyes were filled with madness and could see through anything.

Damn, that is one scary guy!

As I read the thread, I saw that in one of the last posts, there was a group of players saying that this Green-eyes had just relocated himself to the lynx forests, and said that he would brutally murder anyone who came in!

God dammit! I almost met with my death back in that forest! I really got lucky this time!

As I was musing about my rare bout of good luck, I heard something.

“… Is there any one else around here? No? Good!”

Huh? Was that Cygnas? Why would sh…

“MOOOORE!”

“HOLY!” I almost fell down from Tex, having to hold myself for dear life onto the spike behind-me. The spider turned it’s focus to me in surprise and was also shocked with the person floating above it.

“More! Where is the rest? This can’t be all!” Complained the goddess floating in front of me while holding a window in her hand and nearly shoving it in my chest. I tried to calm her down, but for some reason she was really distressed and kept begging me for something. “I know you have more of it somewhere! Just show me where and I’ll go pick it my self, just please…” And she just wouldn’t stop.

Annoyed, I picked the forum’s window, rolled it in a cane, and smacked Cyg in the head, making her fall to the ground. I shall name this, the window-stick!

Preorder now your window-stick! The perfect tsukkomi weapon, and earn the revolutionary window-ball as a freebie! The promotion is only valid during the duration of this commercial!

I turned back to Tex and gave him a light tap in the back.

“Go on, ignore the girl.”

The spider looked confused for a moment, and I noticed him focusing its gaze on Cyg one last time before walking on.

A few seconds later, Cyg blinks into existence in front of me again.

“Hey! That was mean! Why did you…” TOO MUCH NAGGING! SMACKED! “Hey! Why would…” Smack. “Stop tha…” Smack. “Why are…” Smack. “…”

“Calmed yourself?” By now she was already holding her head in her arms and looked at me with teary eyes. She slowly nodded before righting herself. “Okay, let’s start from the beginning. Hello Cygnas, what a nice day we are having! What gives me the pleasure of your visit?” I said in an overly pleasant voice.

“…Meanie…” I raised the window-stick making her shudder for a moment, then she put a slightly forced smile in her face. “H-Hello, Gon… It’s nice to see you!”

Much better! Now she even looks polite!

“So… Why would you pop out of nowhere and start shouting at me?” I ask going straight to the point, and soon her eyes shine up once again.

“Ah, yes… You gave me your stories for me to read… And now that I finished them I’ll be bored again! So I wanted you to show me where you are keeping the rest of them!” She said a bit too overly excited, I raised my eyebrows at her. Was she really that desperate for something to do? “All you have to do is tell me, and I’ll go pick the files on my own!”

“Well… I’m pretty sure those are all the stories I had…” She suddenly became shocked, then she fell atop Tex on her knees. For a moment the spider hesitated, but it still kept walking forward.

We stayed like that for almost a full minute. I don’t think I could ever get bored of seeing Cyg’s reactions… Suddenly, she lifted her head as if she had a excellent idea. She blinked towards me and held my hands.

“Then… Write more!” She said with shining eyes.

“How? I’m in here right now!” Once again she fell to her knees, then her eyes shone.

She closed her eyes and seemed to focus on something. I became slightly worried that she was doing this because it usually meant that she was doing something fairly big. And much to my surprise, as soon as she was done, suddenly a window appeared before me. It was similar to a forum window, but this one was completely clean.

I looked at her as she opened her eyes shining with pride. I raised one eyebrow at her.

“I made a special thread in the forum that only I have access to and will automatically send any post you make directly to your email. And it also have the same functions as a normal text editor, like grammar checking, vocabulary, and so on!”

“… So… You just pretty much hacked the forums so that I can keep writing… Because you are bored?”

“Yup!”

I looked at her in sheer shock. And here I thought that I did ridiculous things whenever I was bored… But I guess that Cyg just took it to a whole new level. I sighed in defeat as I knew that I could not simply try to run away right here.

“Okay… Okay… So which one do you want me to write?” She blinked in surprise, then became completely confused.

“Err… Well… I don’t know… Can’t you do all of them?” She said blinking innocently.

I look at her for a moment, staring at her for enough time so that she felt uncomfortable. Finally I sighed.

“How do you want me to write thirty different stories at the same time? Choose one at the very least…”

She widened her eyes surprised, then put herself to think again.

“Then… The one that the guys ends up in a school for demon kings… No, no no… Maybe the one from the museum… No… Dragoon academy… Not… Maybe that one from the soldier and robots with magic…” She starts to mumble around while thinking. I recognize most of the ones she mentioned as some of the stories I considered the best. In the end she sighs and look at me teary eyed. “I don’t know… Choosing is hard…”

Welcome to my life. Where I have so many ideas for story that I literally end up writing nothing…

As I was about to sigh loudly once again, Cyg suddenly stiffens and look at someplace.

“Someone is coming… I’ll think a bit more about it, then I’ll tell you later, ok?”

Before I even had the chance to answer, she disappeared in thin air. A few minutes later, I saw a small group of players leaving the forest that bordered the road. They all wore cloaks around their bodies and formed a line in front of Tex.

I had a bad feeling about these guys.

I probably should tell you guys this… But I hate PvP with all my strength. No reason whatsoever, simply don’t like it. And it was already bad in games with factions where you could know who was your enemy or not with only one glance, but in games like these, that you don’t have a clear definition of who is your enemy and who isn’t… Well… I became pretty much paranoid.

That is one of the main reasons why I usually avoid people and end up going solo. Yuu was a special case, because no one bad could laugh at a horrible pun like that, and just from one glance I could tell that she wasn’t interested in PKing.

But these people? Cloak hiding bodies and faces? blocking the path? Heck, why not buy a sign written ‘WE ARE PKS, PLEASE AVOID US!’ and carry it around?

I lean forwards and mutter some things to Tex as he slowly approach the group.

“Good morning guys! Having a nice day hunting?” I asked in a fake happy tone. Although I could not see their faces from beneath the robes, I could tell that the one in the front smiled.

“Good morning, friend… And yes, today is a very good day!” Said the guy. He was surprisingly big, being almost two meters tall and one wide; I could see a large axe behind him. “You see, we just got our new prey and were about to divide the spoils!” Suddenly the smile disappeared from his face. “Just to let me be clear here, but all of us here already got our classes, so you stand no chance against us. Leave all your items and we won’t kill you… this time… And don’t come saying that you don’t have money because we know how expensive these rides are, ok?”

I widened my eyes in fake surprise, then nodded unhappily, then I opened my menu and unequipped everything I had, leaving myself only with the leggings. Then I operated the menu and made the motion to transform the money into their lootable form of a small leather bag. The man and his group approached with a wide smile and extended his hand.

I hesitated for a moment, then slowly descended the leather bag upon his huge hand, but right when I was about to let go of the item, I stopped.

“If you don’t mind… Can I make you a question?”

“Hah?” He probably became surprised at my sudden question, but before he could react I went on.

“You are from the cyclops race, right? The one that gives the ‘one GOOD eye’ passive racial that increases your precision, right?” He blinked in surprise and nodded. “The same racial… That increases blindness effects by 50%?”

It took him a moment to understand my question, but I took this moment to turn my hand up and show him the leather bag.

Or rather, leather ball, filled with an eight of fire crystal, eight of chaos crystal and six eights of light crystal, all grinded to a dust.

All the group who was watching the scene were caught in the blinding blast, being left blind for at least thirty seconds. I had closed my eyes, so I wasn’t affected, so I took this time to throw all the items I had in my hand into the inventory, making their weight disappear and lightening me and Tex. Finally, I hit Tex backs and the spider jumped forwards with ferocious strength, opening a large distance between the group and us.

I laughed madly as the spider kept going forward in jumps rather than the comfortable smooth ride from before. I could hear Tex hissing in laughter together with me. Some shouts of rage came from the guys far back, but we simply ignored them.

Still, I had this feeling these guys wouldn’t simply let me go… Oh well…

To tell the truth, I was not expecting that plan to work at all… I kind of expected them to have some kind of counter measure or something… Or maybe even notice the trick…

All brawls, no brains?

GET TO MY LEVEL, YOU NOOBS!

Hah… Such a refreshing feeling…

After some time, Tex once again slowed to its usual pace, and we kept going on towards Eldor. The trip still took around four hours, during which I decided to write the story of what happened to me in the game and then send it to Cygnas.

She commented a smile in the post…

…

Oh well. I still had enough time for me to take a nap before reaching the city, so I laid my back on the support, and Tex was kind enough to make two spikes to hold my legs in place so I wouldn’t fall.

I really need an Impaling spider as a personal mount…

I woke up some time later when Tex started to hiss happily. I rubbed my eyes and noticed that It was considerably cooler than before. Not to the point of cold, still in a pleasant area of comfort.

As I looked around, I saw that we were scaling a fairly high hill, and when I looked back I could see a large plain of hills coming and going. Turning my attention back to the front, I could see that we were reaching the top.

And then I saw it. The capital…

One freaking huge of a capital…

I stared wide eyed at the scene before me. When I read that Eldor was the capital of the dwarves, I kind of expected it to be some houses inside the mountain and what not, but this? This is plain overkill!

They, LITERALLY, carved the mountain and made a city within it.

No, it isn’t a door that takes you underground where their capital is. The very MOUNTAIN was carved into floors, and each floor had streets and building coming and going. There were easily more than one hundred floors, and from the distance I would say that they had around… six meters each? Heck, from here, if I looked close enough through a street, and at the right angle, I could see the other side of the mountain!

It’s like one of these concept of cities in a skyscraper that appears every once in a while in the TV, but only taken to the next level!

Oh, yeah… Blimps… Did I mention them?

THERE. ARE. FREAKING. BLIMPS!

Or something that look like a ship between two blimps, but you get my point…

They were all docked near the top thirty floors. There were hundreds of them.

After a while, Tex began to move again, this time with more speed, towards the city. At first I though he was just choosing some place at random, but I noticed that it was actually taking me to a building right in front of what seemed an entry gate. As soon as we got there, he crouched down to let me jump off.

I got back to the ground and put my equipment back on. Then walked towards Tex front and patted him, then I took a piece of dried meat from my inventory and gave it to him. He ate it happily and then hugged me with his claws once again, before hissing good bye and darting away back to his home.

I watched the spider disappear much faster than when we came here, and then turned to the building besides me. If I had to guess, it was a custom of sorts. Since the doors were open I decided to come in anyway.

Inside was pretty bland, being a room with some empty chairs and a person in uniform, waiting behind a table. When I got in, the person lifted his head and I could see that he was actually a clockwork.

Clockworks are these steampunky robots, made of metal with lots of pipe, springs and steam. They actually looked really cool if you are into it, and I was tempted to make one, but… Golems, you know?

This one had his body made of a dark brown metal that kind of reminded me of rust, his head was a large cylinder with two round glasses for eyes and a complex mechanism for a mouth.

He smiled professionally at me and beckoned me to come over.

“Greetings. Traveler. First time in Eldor. I take?” Ooh, he talks funny! I like him. His voice kind of reminded me of those little alien guys from toy story, although a bit deeper.

“Actually, yes. I took a ride from Aria village, and my mount dropped me here, so I thought that I probably should come in to check in or something…”

The clockwork looked at me and I saw the corners of his mouth being bent upwards by a few pistons. Then some pipes leaving his head chimed repeatedly while steam left them.

It… Kind of looked to me that he was laughing.

“No. No. Nothing of the kind. This is. Information booth. Help you get around.” He said after some time. I nodded surprised.

“Then, better yet!” I said as I took the seat in front of him, then I extended him my hand. “I am Gondorrer Gravelheart, pleasure to meet you.”

He slightly stood up and took my hand.

“Rusty. Rusty Blackjoint. Pleasure, is mine.” He sat back on the chair. “How can I. Help you. Gondorrer?”

“You see, I want to learn leather working, and a friend recommended me to search for Melinda. A Half-human half-garuda.”

Rusty seemed to think for a moment, then he took a piece of paper and a fountain pen and started to draw something in the paper, his movement surprisingly fluid for the way he spoke.

“Melinda. She stays. General Industries sector. Floor 16. Take main elevator.” He handed me the paper, and I saw that it was a simple, but extremely well made map. “Anything. Else?”

“Actually, yes. Where is the biggest library I can have access here? I need to do some research for my objective…” Rusty nodded and picked another piece of paper.

“Library. Commercial sector. Floor 42. Same as before.” He passed me the other map. “Please. Tell Nova. I say hi. Nova. Librarian.” His pipes suddenly chimed loudly, and he slightly looked away.

Is he… Embarrassed? Could it be that he and that nova… Oh ho!

“Yeah, you can leave it to me, I’ll tell her that you are asking her for dinner tomorrow…” I said with a teasing smile, his pipes chimed even louder.

“Oh. Cygnas. Please. No. Still. Not intimate.” Oh, so now he is trying to deny it…! I laughed heartily at him for a moment, and he hid his head in embarrassment between his hands. After I calmed down he also righted himself. “May I make. Recommendation?” I looked at him curious as he took another piece of paper. “Silver Gauntlet. Mercenary guild. Knights order. Good way for. Easy Jobs. Also. Commercial sector. Floor 42.”

I widened my eyes and nodded while taking the third map and thanking him. After that I teased him once more with putting him in a date with Nova and such and left in a hurry when he started to throw some books at me to hide his embarrassment.

After that, I quickly walked through the gates and found myself inside the huge tower of a city. Taking my time to see the houses of carved stones, the many dwarfs, golems, clockworks, humans, beast man and so on, people of varied faces and shapes, I could only marvel at how real everything looked.

Awakening myself from my daydream, I quickly took a look at the map. For starters, I guess I should go to Melinda and learn my craft… Maybe even get a hint on a good blacksmith... AND IF SOMEONE TELLS-ME THERE ISN’T A GOOD BLACKSMITH IN A DWARVEN CITY, I WILL BURN THIS PLACE TO THE GROUND!

As I walked what appeared to be the main road, I noticed that it took straight to what seemed a round building, right in the middle of the mountain. Rusty’s map said that was the main elevator, and was the only one that actually linked all the floors together.

When I got there, I was greeted with actually was a wall that surrounded one of the sides of a ridiculously huge platform that could easily carry a whole ship up and down. But inside the walls were smaller elevators for faster access.

These elevators were actually disks that were made to float with a mix of magic and steampunk technology, so they had no need for actual steel cables or such.

Taking one that was reading itself to go to the general industries sector, I climbed aboard together with other passengers. The ride was smooth and considerably fast, taking in account that there were easily twenty or so floors between these two.

Getting out of the elevator, I looked around and found out that I was on the first floor of the sector, so now I had to get one of the countless smaller corridors to get to the floor I wanted.

Luckily, Rusty’s map covered even this, so I quickly found it and went to the sixteenth floor.

Following the map, I passed through a few streets filled with all kind of workshops, going from carpentry to jewel crafting, painting and masonry. Strangely enough, I didn’t see any blacksmiths…

Leaving that aside, I took my time until I reached a two storied house, where the second floor was halfway through the next cities’ floor.

I must say that, all this time walking, I find that the city is actually pretty cool. I thought that the fact that being inside a mountain would make it hot and stuffy, but the fact that the cities crosses from one side to the other, makes it so that there is always wind, no matter where you go, so it keeps the air inside surprisingly fresh.

Taking my thoughts away from winds and things of the like, I approached the door and knocked on it. It took some time but the door was opened by a girl.

She looked a bit older than me by one or two years. She had a red hair cut short right above her shoulders, but what seemed to be a couple of feathers mingled with the strands atop of her head. There were a large pair of wings on her back, and feathers covered from her forearm all the way to her hands. The same happened on her legs, but instead of feets, she had a pair of claws. She was wearing a leather vest atop a linen shirt as well as baggy leather shorts.

Overall, she kind of gave me this older-sister feeling.

“Hmm… Did you come here to buy my goods? Then sorry, because I’m closed right now…” She said with a slightly apologetic tone.

“I didn’t come here to shop. Rather, I was told that you could teach me leatherworking.” She widened her eyes in surprise by my words, but then frowned slightly.

“I’m not exactly taking disciples… But who sent you?”

“It was Wallace, your father.” I told her seriously. But she suddenly burst out laughing.

“My father? That old, grumpy and needlessly strong short tempered hermit? Please… You have to use a better story than that!” She was laughing loudly for a good while, but I couldn’t do anything about that. If I was in her situation I would probably have the same reaction, so I took the feather that the old man gave-me.

“Here, he told me to show you this.” For a moment she looked doubtful on what I had on my hands, but then she jumped at me and grabbed my wrist to take a better look, then she turned to me.

“This is… Really his… What the hell did you do?” She looked at me with uncesseary intensity, so I could only answer awkwardly.

“Well… You know… Hunted some dogs or something?”

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(living) Author's corner: O.o, first full in-game chapter without a single table! GO ME!