Author’s corner: HELLO HELLO! More crafting(last time, srry. This is the last time for now.) and some cameos from my old works!

ANYWAY, these three characters that appear here (And before anyone say anything, no , she ISN’T a heroine) were from another old work of mine. Even the way and place they meet is the same, although adapted to fit more with this story.

ALSO, I made the folder on Google drive with my old works, although I announced in the last chapter, it was in a edit, so… Here you go: HERE LIES DEM OLE STORIES!

ALSO(2), NEW WEAPON TIME!

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I approached the desk where the old man was calmly drinking and said.

“I want to join the silver gauntlet.”

However, at the same moment I said these words, came another two voices.

“Is here where I enter the merc’s guild?”

“I would desire to enlist myself on the knights’ order.”

I blinked in surprise, after all, the three of us had spoke exactly at the same time. Curious, I looked at the two of them.

The one closest to me was a guy around my age and height. I think he is a human, since there isn’t anything too different about him besides the hair, that was white. He wore a long, white leather overcoat with a few details here and there in black. The right sleeve had been ripped off after the elbow, showing a plate gauntlet in his hand. His black leather pants were also a bit weary from continuous usage. I could see that he had two swords tied to his metal belts, but something about them made me feel slightly off.

Now, you are probably wondering why I thought that his hair was strange, right? Well, it’s simple. I would have to call his hair huge. It started with a ridiculous volume atop of his head, then it would stretch itself downwards, wrap around his neck once and then drop through his back. And for some reason there was a small backpack atop his hair, so yeah.

The second one was a girl, a draconid. She was a bit shorter than me and had a dark red hair. There were two horns on her temples that curved backwards. She also had a long reptile tail that ended in a tuft of white fur, something that happened similarly on her ears, that were about as long as an elf, but were covered in scales and with some fur at it’s tip. Her yellow eyes were kind of cold…

For her clothing, she had something elegant that wouldn’t be off in a noble’s party. She wore back-less dark beige silk blouse, with detached sleeves that she clasped as bracelets a little above her elbow, due to this I could see six small spikes doting her back. She also had a short black skirt that stopped around the height of her knees and long boots that came up to her calves. Her weapon was simply a red scythe around one meter long and with a blade around half a meter.

Kind of scary if I do say so myself.

As I inspected them, they inspected me back, then each other. As soon as we were done, we heard the sound of a chair being dragged on the ground and we looked at the source to see the old man lifting himself with a wide smile in his face. He had his whole body covered in a old cape, leaving only his white-haired head for the world to see.

By the way, all three of them were NPCs.

“Well! Look at what we have here, not one, not two, but three different people trying to join us at the same time! Isn’t this interesting?” He said with a hearty laughter. He is a bit more cheerful than the last old man I met. This old man picked some book from beneath the desk and then picked three sheets of paper. “Just fill these in for me.”

He gave each one of us the paper. It was fairly basic stuff like name, race, class, level and such. Kind of like a simplified version of my status plate. I quickly filled it in, but just as I was about to finish my paper, the guy at my side suddenly said.

“Hey, do I have to fill one of these for this guy?” He said while pointing towards the top of his head. The draconid, the old man and me looked at him confused. He then blinked and let out a long sigh, then he hit his own head lightly and said. “Wake up sleepy head!”

I thought that this guy might be mad in the head, but to my surprise, his hair actually moved by itself!

Rather, what I had thought that was his hair, was actually an animal that was sleeping on his head. The creature lifted it’s head and let out a yawn before looking around, then it jumped towards the table, where I could take a better look at it.

It had a serpentine-like body with a bit more than one meter of length and a dragon-like head without any horns. Two large wings sprouted from a bit above the middle of it’s body. However, instead of scales, it had a soft-looking white fur. The small backpack I had seen earlier was fixed in place by it’s wing.

The small serpent thingy looked at the three of us and:

“Sha!”

It hissed and slightly waved it’s tail as if it would wave a hand. Basically, it was greeting us.

It… Is kind of cute.

The old man who was still a bit surprised smiled wryly and said.

“I… Guess that this one is your pet or something, right? Then no need… you only need to register yourself, she counts as something like a possession.”

The guy nodded happily and went back to write everything down in the paper. The serpent looked curious at what he was doing and approached him to see it.

I finished my paper and gave it to the old man, followed by the girl the guy immediately after.

“Alright, now, let’s see what we have here… Arcus Evencid, Half-beastman half-human, level 15 Berseker, mercenaries… ” He looked at the guy and he nodded. Also, now that serpent left his head, I could see he had a slightly long white hair and a couple of dog ears atop of his head. “Then, we have, Elraira Terndeik, Draconid, level 18 Fire-bringer, for the knights, right?” The girl nodded. “Do you have a recommendation letter or will you take the test?” The girl opened a pocket in her skirt and gave it to the old man who read it intensively. “Oh, lord Alson, with this it’s easy for you to join.” He said with a smile, then he pocketed the letter. “And lastly, we have… Gondorrer Gravelheart. Golem, level…” He stopped and looked at me surprised, the other two also looked at me curious. “level 8, wanderer? For the mercs?” He said shocked. “Aren’t you a little too eager to join us?”

“It’s better to start early, right?” I said full of pride, the old man smiled wryly and slowly shook his head.

“Do you mind if I ask you what kind of battle experience you have?”

“Well… If we talk about that… I can only say that I fought level 5 wild dogs and level 10 to 12 red-claw lynxes ever since I started…” Hmm… Now that I think about it, it’s kind of pitiful, right? However, it seemed that this impressed the old man, as he widened his eyes.

“Then… Even from level one, without any kind of decent gear you fought with level 5 enemies? Is that right?” I nodded. “And why would you do that?”

“Well, there was this old man who gave me a challenge and I kind of got a bit too absorbed in it, so before I knew I was hunting them kind of like a madman…” This old man shook his head once again.

“And who, under the heavens, would send an unprepared, unequipped beginner to hunt wild dogs?”

“A grumpy old man called Wallace.” I said with a wry smile remind myself of the old man.

But as soon I said that word, the atmosphere between us suddenly froze, as everyone looked at me in sheer surprise. Well, everyone besides Arcus, who was about as confused as me. Even his serpent was looking at me in shock.

The one who spoke first wa Elrrair… Ellari… Elrali… EL, the first one to say something was El.

“Wallace… By Wallace you mean… Dragon General Wallace?” Her voice barely leaving her lips.

“Well… He did say that was his class, so I guess?” The three, minus Arcus, looked at me in sheer shock. “Then… Are you his apprentice?”

“Only when it come to skinning.” I said with a wry smile, they looked confused for a moment, then El, the old man and the serpent all sighed in unison, however Arcus turned to me and asked.

“So, who is this Wallace guy?” Once again shock ran through the other three, even the serpent started to use its wing to face palm.

“The old man Is ridiculously strong… It seems he was very famous in the past.” I said my honest impression.

“How strong?” He had a wild smile in his face as he asked it.

“Last time I asked him to throw me to the other side of the village because I was tired of walking!” I smiled with pride and Arcus looked surprised.

“That sounds fun!”

I like this guy.

By the way, it seems that the other three had already given up on any hope for the two of us and only stared in the distance.

After some time, the old man recovered and said.

“Anyway, if you survived all that, I guess I can put you in without any problem.” He put on his serious face. “Anyway, from now on, you are all new members of the silver gauntlet. Usually, I would dismiss all of you here and now, but I must say that I’m quite curious with how strong the three of you actually are, so I want to give you guys a challenge, what do you say?” What is it with old men and challenges anyway? I simply shrugged in answer, the other two seemed to accept too.

The old man nodded with a smile and said for us to wait here for a moment while he went to the billboard on the other side. Meanwhile I noticed that El had her gaze focused on the serpent all the time. Also having my curiosity stirred, I approached the animal.

“Can you understand what we are speaking about?” I asked it and it nodded.

“Shia!” It hissed with a smile.

“Heh… Aren’t you one smart serpent?”

“Shia-shii…” It looked away slightly embarrassed. I turned back to Arcus who was looking distracted at the room.

“So, how did you two meet?”

“Oh? You see, I live in a ranch where we raise little guys like Whishi.” He nodded towards the serpent. “They make great mailers when they grow up. When I decided to travel around, Whishi decided to come with me.”

“I see…” I said while nodding, and just in time as the old man came back with a small piece of paper in his hand.

“Okay, guys, I want to see if you guys can take this mission. If you do… I’ll give a prize to each one of you, what do you say?” he said while putting the paper in the desk. It was a job about a bandit group that was troubling the outskirts of the town, and the guard’s were paying for someone to clear one of their hideouts. Recommended level was twelve.

I frowned at the idea of having to hunt humanoids, after all, I came here to hunt monsters, but thinking about it, this is an RPG, even if I don’t want, sooner or later I will have to fight this kind of enemy.

“Oh, well, I’m in.” I said with a shrug.

“Sounds fun… I’ve been itching for a fight!” Arcus said while hitting his fist in his palm.

“It’s a good test…” El seemed completely indifferent. “I guess this would be a group test?” She asked the old man, and he nodded, then she turned to us. “So, when do we start?”

“Well, I can’t do it today because I have some lessons on blacksmithing after lunch… Is there any problem if we do it tomorrow?” I said and she shook her head slightly, and then looked at Arcus, he simply shrugged.

“Tomorrow, then. This same time?” She said coolly, both Arcus and me nodded slightly, then she proceeded to walk away.

Arcus and me looked at each other, and he said.

“Not a very sociable fella, is she?”

“But she did look cool.”

“Yup.”

We left soon after and each of us went our ways.

I strode around the city up to around lunch time, when my satiety bar dropped for something around forty percent, I took a bite of a yummy iron ore, like I had been doing every day, then started to make my way towards Melinda’s.

I arrived at the house just in time to see the Illusion… I mean, Torg knocking on the door. Melinda answered the door and shook her head, probably saying that I wasn’t there. Torg looked a bit disheartened and started to leave, but he saw me on my way. I lifted my arm in a greeting and a smile appeared in his face.

“I thought that you had ran away!” He said.

“Why would I do that?” I asked confused, he simply laughed and told me to follow him.

We went back to the main elevator and took it to one of the lower floors. And by lower, I mean, really low, below even the one I entered the mountain. When we left, we were underground, and all the streets were filled with blacksmiths.

And by filled, I mean, the whole area had a slight red tint due to heat-based illumination from molten metal.

Heck, I had the feeling that this is how cooked food must feel when you put it in the oven. The whole floor, no matter where we walked, was hot and stuffy. Even the ridiculously huge exhausting fans that appeared every one hundred meters were nowhere enough

to help with the situation.

And the dwarfs walked around like it was nothing. Bunch of freaks.

This is the only floor so far that there was nothing but dwarfs. Except for illusion who was a half.

By the time we arrived at the door of his house, I pretty much fell on the floor barely able to walk anymore. Actually, I’m pretty sure the only reason I haven’t died yet is because my health regen is a bit higher than the heat damage…

I’m a golem, for Cyg’s sake! Shouldn’t heat not bother me?

Heck, where is my cool drink? Why did no one tell me to bring a cool drink to this map?

Seeing me in my state, Torg laughed loudly and entered his house. Which, by the way, was made specially for him, since every door I could see was a bit more than two meters wide and two high. And he still had to lower his head!

He came back afterwards holding something in his hand, he lowered his hand next to me and passed whatever it was that he had. It was a small blue ring. Not understanding why, I still picked it up.

Ring of the cool breeze Def: 0 M. Res 0 Quality: Common Durability: 10/10 Description

A ring that protects the wearer from high temperature ambient. A necessity when traveling to hot places.

Is this…

A HEAT RES +10 AMULET!

Cygnas be praised!

As soon as I equipped the ring, all the heat I felt simply vanished, and I could easily lift myself again. Feeling refreshed, I followed Torg out of the house and he showed me his smithy. There were three forges here, where two were already lit up, as well as a few anvils, cooling water and so on.

He passed me the skill before we would start by putting his index finger on my forehead

Torg, the Blacksmith has taught you the Crafting Skill: Blacksmithing. Skill: Blacksmithing [lvl 1]

0% Allows you to work with metals to make weapons and armors.

You can use the system help to create your items from now on.

You have received a few beginners recipe.

He told me to go to the smaller forge, and by small, I mean the normal sized one, and he started by having me dump all ore I had in the ground, then he took all of them and threw it in the furnace.

Meanwhile, I started to put some necessary protection as thick leather gloves and an apron.

In a process a lot faster than what I was expecting, I saw as the molten iron started to drip from a pipe beneath the furnace into a crucible. However, while there was a lot of red-hot molten iron dripping, I could also see some black spots gathering at the top. I didn’t need much of a guess to know that these were probably impurity and I had to remove them.

Torg stopped the flow of iron for a moment and passed me something that kind of reminded me of a long shovel and nodded to the impurities. I took my time to take away these impurities and throw them on a small bucket.

Following that, he had me take the molten iron from the crucible and pour it into ingot-molds. I managed to get a bit more than eight ingots from the crucible. We repeated this process until all the ore in the forge had been used.

For now, I had something around one hundred and thirty ingots to use, and my blacksmithing was already on level two with halfway to three! I separated around fifty or so of the most pure ingots to make my good equipment and went to work with the rest.

I started with making a few daggers for weapons. The process was fairly simple since I only needed one ingot per dagger, so all I had to do was heat the ingot again in the forge and then hammer away. In this step I could feel the system helping me.

I made a few daggers and even a short-sword just to get the hang of it. Some of the daggers came as good equipment, and it had the same damage as my actual sword. This is saddening.

Then I went on to make some armors. I had Torg teach me how to make scale-mail.

We started with picking an ingot and then putting it for a long time in the forge until it almost became liquid, we took it out and used an thick scissor looking instrument to cut the melting iron in smaller shapes around the size of two coins.

I repeated this process around five times, and I had many of these coin-looking thingies, from there, we went to hammering one of them into a more decent shape to be called scale, then used a tool to pierce a hole into one of it’s side. I was afraid that I would have to repeat this process to all of the other fragments, but Torg showed me that I could use a skill to copy the scales shape to the other with a relatively low loss in quality.

Now that I had a good amount of scales, we went to the part where we stick them together. We used a premade mold made of a really thin leather in the shape of a glove. I used a thread to link the scales to the leather making sure to always cover the holes where the lines passed with the next scale.

It was a bit more tiring than I expected.

Torg then said to me that, from all blacksmithing armors, scale is the hardest since it have some repetition, but have no short cut. Chain-mail is easier because many steps can be cut with the help of Cygnas (system).

But I was satisfied with my work. Although my actual chainmail have better status, it still left me happy.

I used the remaining ingots to train scale-mail making until I was satisfied. As the afternoon started to come to it’s end, I started to work on my good gear.

First, a shield, since the one I have right now is a bit on the weak side.

It took me twelve ingots to make a shield with the thickness I wanted. I made it fairly simple, giving it a kite shape. I made it with many different plaques nailed together atop of a wooden frame so that I could easily exchange it’s pieces if needed. There were five pieces, the central, the upper and the lower left, then the upper and the lower right.

Next, I made myself a sword, using ten more ingots that I hammered into a good density, then gave it a simple shape of a straight sword with a slight groove in the middle. I heard that this makes it easier for the blade to slide out after stabbing an enemy. For the hand guard. I used two more ingots. Giving it a slight upward curve, so that if I were to parry, the enemies attack wouldn’t simply slide of the guard and hit me.

Finally, came the chain-mail chest. This one went to whopping twenty other ingots, and took by far the most time of all the other equipment. Skipping the whole scale-shaping part, let’s go straight to the outcome. It’s final design had a longer hem than my previous one, going up to my upper thighs. I made this to eliminate the space between the leg armor and the chest armor, but since it would end up bothering my movement, I made a reverse v shaped dent in both the front and the back. I also made some small holes in around the waist level so that I could pass the belt through it so it won’t shake too much. Finally, even if only to look cool, the scale piece right in the middle of my chest was a lot larger than the others, being almost the size of my open hand. I also gave it some short sleeves to protect my shoulders.

Pratical Soldier’s Kite shield

(requires level 5) Block value: 72 Magical block: 10 Quality: Common Durability: 40/40 Description

A shield made with practicality as it’s focus. Although a bit heavy, it compensates by being a bit sturdier. (Made by Wargon)

TGH+3, VIT +2

Balanced Soldier’s sword

(requires level 5) Attack: 15-17 Extra: (none) Quality: Good Durability: 30/30 Description

A simple, yet effective sword. Good for any situation.(Made by Wargon)

AGI+2 STR+2 THG+1

Exquisite Chest-mail of the Warrior

(Chest) (Scale-mail)

(requires level 8) Def: 16 M. Res 5 Quality: Good Durability: 40/40 Description

A simple yet exquisite piece of armor made with mobility in mind.

AGI+2, TGH +2

Sweet, sweet gear. I’m in love with it! Now I only have six ingots left. So, what should I do with it?

Maybe another weapon?

That’s… Actually a good idea, but what should I make? I want something different from sword and shield. Talking monster hunter, what are my options? There is… Great sword, long sword, hammer, hunting horn, lance, dual blades and bow. These are the weapons I can make with some simple crafting techniques, the others all have some kind of tricky mechanism that I won’t be able to do for now.

I guess I can let go of both swords and the hammer for the sheer lack of material. I still don’t know how to make a hunting horn, so that too goes away. Lance? Same as the swords… That leaves me with dual swords and the bow, but I already played with dual blades earlier… So…

But can I even make bow with metal? That is actually a good question.

I go for Torg and ask him.

“Well, with your actual skill… I don’t think so. The iron you make isn’t flexible enough to bend but still keep it’s original form. There is actually a skill that gives the metal that property, but you only get it when you advance blacksmithing to intermediate…” He explained me, so I sighed loudly. He saw me doing this and smiled widely. “You know, I could use the skill for you!”

BEST TEATCHER EVER!

I proceeded to smelt the six remaining ingots into three parts, two that were long and wide, and a shorter, round one. Then I started to mold the two longer ones into a slight curve for the bow. I asked Torg to use the skill on these two, then proceeded to meld the three together under the high heat of the forge. Having done this, I had mostly finished the bow, and needed something to use as bowstring. Torg gave me a bowstring from his depot.

Now I had the back bone of the bow that would keep it together, but still needed something to snap it back to its original shape after letting go of the string.

But I had a plan. I bade my farewell to the big dwarf and ran my way back to Melinda’s place. Torg let me keep the ring.

Letting the incomplete bow besides me, I picked the leather of one more striped lynx and quickly cured and tanned it, but I didn’t remove the fur from it. Finally, I measured it against the bow and cut it so that I could barely cover the bow with it.

After that, I put the hide on the outer part of the bow and studded them together. Now, the lynx leather would offer the elastic power needed to launch the arrow forward.

To tell the truth, I wasn’t sure whether that would work, but…

Iron Bow of the Black Lynx

(requires level 8 Attack: 2-20 Extra: (none) Quality: Good Durability: 20/20 Description

A bow made with iron and black red-claw lynxes. Boast of flexibility and power.

AGI+8 Armor penetration +10%

IT WORKS! IT’S ALIVE! (imaginary thunderstorm ensues.)

But… Why that ridiculous difference in maximum and minimum damage? Is… This really a functional weapon?

By now, it was already night time once again.

Seeing I still had the whole night ahead of me before having to meet El and Arcus again, I decided to go to the field and test my new gear on some unfortunate rabbits.