Author’s corner: GREETINGS Fri… wait, wrong introduction…

ALSO, on very serious and important matter, let’s go to the results of the quiz. The answer to both answers were: DUN DUN DUN DUN… Shield slam is the skill that ignores armor! While it’s true that the long sword skill and Ignite weapons also do have said effect, The LS skill have two parts, being that only the second one ignore armors, while Ignite weapon is a SET skill. Piercing arrows is also a good contender, but it only ignores part of the armor. (Cookies go to thelazyauthor! (not me, btw. That’s the guy’s nick. Seriously))

ALSO(2), the second question that was supposed to be the easy one was: What was the first thing Gon saw Sol making/crafting. The one to get this answer correctly was Slo*cough*JohnPlume! The first thing he saw her making was a glowing blue liquid candy of sorts. While I do understand why people though it was an explosion, sorry, but that’s not the case this time, folks.

ALSO(3), @TralliE There wasn’t a single use of Wry in this chapter. Be happy!... Wait, I just used it now. DANG IT!

ALSO(4), About the lack of update last weekend: I had to go to a friend’s house on the Saturday and on the Sunday I was exhausted. I almost literally spent it the whole day laying on my bed doing nothing. I even missed classes the following Monday morning! (Luckily, the teacher also cancelled the classes, so got lucky.)

Have a good read!

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“…So, no funny tricks this time?” I asked Cygnas as I found her standing calmly on the login zone. The goddess wannabe simply looked at me with a shocked expression and covered her mouth as if in disbelief.

“What kind person do you believe me to be, master?” She said in a tone that sounded oddly offended. I simply shrugged.

“The type that would try and prank me at every chance she got maybe?” I said indifferently before blinking. “Hmm, now that I think about it, it’s no wonder only you got my samurai robot reference.”

“Master. Please, there is no need to go so low as to insult me.” She said angrily.

“Oi! Aren’t you insulting me now then?”

“It is only your imagination, master.”

We simply stared at each other for a couple of seconds as if trying to intimidate the other, before finally bursting into giggles. Done with our usual joke routine, I still raised an eyebrow curious, as she would only keep me here when she had something she wanted to talk about.

“I just thought that it would be nice to have you wait for the girls here a little.” She explained with a smile. “Since it should take them a few minutes to wash the dish and such, if you went ahead you might end up having to wait for them for an hour or so.”

“Point taken.” I replied with a sigh. “So, what do we do until then?”

Crossing my arms and looking at her in expectation, I saw as she simply kept on smiling to me before looking from one side to the other. Yup. She totally didn’t think that far from the looks of it. Sighing and shaking my head, I remembered something she complained about earlier, so I quickly decided to go ahead and do it.

After convincing her to summon a sofa for us, I opened the menu and checked around. Seeing a couple of options that I wouldn’t usually see in-game, I quickly scanned the choices and found what I was looking for.

“Weren’t you complaining that we didn’t get to watch tv with you?” I asked when I noticed Cygnas staring at me confused. Her eyes quickly shone with a strange excitement as she made her way besides me. “Geez, you really are a bit too easily excited, aren’t you? Well since we don’t have TV per-se, we’ll have to do with Netflix. That fine?”

“Hmm!” She said happily before stopping and blinking. “Ah, just a second.” She said suddenly before closing her eyes for a moment. A moment later a flash of light occurred and from it appeared a certain blue-furred fox.

Aura looked around confused for a moment, but after making eye contact with me she quickly ran in my direction and jumped on the couch besides me, resting her head on my lap while looking at me with expectation in her eyes.

Well, thinking about it, I haven’t been spoiling her a lot recently, so it didn’t take much longer for me to start petting her. That said, another thing caught my attention, as I stared at a certain cat who was looking at everything around him curiously.

“So… Why is Lieutenant also here?” I asked seeing as the military cat also approached the couch.

“Well, he said he was curious about what the other places looked like.” Cygnas explained. “So I thought that maybe I could bring him today.” I stared at her for a moment before shrugging. Not that it would make much difference.

“That said, now where would it be a good place to start…” I said while opening the catalogue of shows available for watching.

It was a surprisingly difficult choice, seeing how we would have to choose something that so many newbies to the pop-culture could enjoy, while also being something light and quick that we could drop once the girls arrived.

However, reply came into the imagery of an old classic that all generations should be able to enjoy. Smiling mischievously at the show I hovered the cursor over, I gave a brief glance to the cat that looked expectant to what was about to happen.

After nodding satisfied, I put on the show of the dark-blueish cat and the brown mice.

…

“But man, that was nostalgic.” I said with a smile while we arrived back at Lord Wich’s village.

“I can’t even remember the last time I saw that show.” Hanbei said amused while agreeing with me.

Looking to my other side, Yuu was still giggling at the show. Surprisingly enough, she seemed to enjoy the silly misadventures of Tom and Jerry, despite never watching it before.

“…I would never have expected you to ‘netflix and chill’ with so many girls at the same time.” Yami said with a fake shocked tone from behind me.

“…Why do I feel you just said something really perverted there?” I asked a bit dubiously, but she simply looked away with a mischievous smile. Sighing, I decided to leave the Ero-maid with her own thoughts before focusing on getting my way to the mansion.

After we started watching the classic cartoon, it didn’t take much longer for the girls to also arrive, but much to my surprise, they actually stopped to watch it with us.

We ended up watching three whole episodes with the girls before we finally logged in.

But I must say, the best part was Lieutenant’s reactions. When the episode started with Tom having the good life, he was actually quite happy and snobbish. But as Jerry came in and started doing his things…

I think that lieutenant is traumatized of brown mice now. Seriously, he was hiding behind the couch like it was some kind of horror movie by the end of the second episode. I’m so making a brown rat toy for him later.

On the other hand, Aura and Crys really enjoyed the show. I must admit being surprised that Cygnas hadn’t watched it before, but if she liked it, who am I to complain?

Anyway, back to the present. After logging in, we were in the cave just like when we left. With Lieutenant sent back to the place where he was, we found ourselves alone on the underground maze.

Using Crys as a guide, we quickly left, and at the exit we met with some dwarves who were already preparing to go back to their job mining. They greeted us with wide smile and gave me their thanks while we passed. From what they said, Ozzur and Lily had already spread the news around at the city of my victory.

And with the miners back, it also meant that the pebbles were back to roaming the mines once again, so they were a lot easier to find than before. That said, that certain specific pebble was nowhere to be found, and after a brief search without finding it, we decided to finally go back to the city.

“…I’ll miss the little scorpion wannabe.” I said out loud.

“Scorpion…?” Yuu asked confused while tilting her head.

“Yeah. The sprite with more legs, pincer and tail-like thingy. Didn’t it look like a scorpion?” I asked while drawing in the air with my fingers.

Yuu blinked for a moment before slowing her pace and peeking at my back confused. After a moment she widened her eyes and nodded.

“Ah. Now that you mention, Sprite-san does look like a scorpion.” She said with a surprised tone. But…

“Why did you look at my back?” I asked confused.

“Hmm? To look at sprite-san?” Yuu said as if it was the obvious answer.

“Look…” I said confused before stopping and looking over my shoulder.

Since earlier I was feeling a weight on my back, but thinking it to be my long-sword (I REFUSE CALLING IT A GREAT SWORD), I simply ignored it. But looking over my shoulder I didn’t see the scabbard sticking out as usual.

Thinking about it, didn’t I remove it after killing the spider so that the sprites could gather to eat? Then…

Blinking surprised, I quickly stopped on my tracks and started petting my back while searching for the source of the weight. Feeling as my hand grabbed something large and stony, I quickly pulled it back to my front and stared at the object in my hands.

“…Tek… Tek?”

What I found was a sleepy looking sprite that was using one of its claws to wipe away the area where its eyes would be if it were an actual scorpion. After a brief moment staring at me, the sprite finally woke up and raised the claw-like stones with a cheerful movement before waving them around.

However, it quickly stopped once it noticed the surrounding, and staring around in surprise and shock, it suddenly became scared and jumped from my hand to my shoulders, where it started trembling while looking around scared.

“What with that…” I asked confused before shaking my head. “Never mind. Since when were you there?” I asked it, and saw as it stopped and turned to me confused.

“It was clinging to your back since you left the cave, master.” Crys said amused. “Did you seriously not notice?”

“Yeah… I didn’t.” I admitted. “So, why didn’t you guys tell me?”

“I thought you were kidding about that.” “I was sure Shishou already knew about Sprite-san.” “I never expected master to be this airheaded…” “Because it’s more fun this way.”

“Yami. Go to hell. The others, yeah, I see your point.” I said with a sigh before turning to the sprite. “So, we’ll have to find something to do with you since we won’t go back to the mine so soon. And I don’t think you’ll be able to go back by yourself.”

While saying that, the sprite stared at me for a moment before suddenly hugging my neck as if nervous. I sighed and ended up petting its head to help it calm down. Maybe I should send the little guy with a miner once they leave to work.

However, my thought was quickly stopped once a ring echoed in my head and a window popped up in front of me. Caught by surprise, I almost tripped while walking. At the very least it seems that I wasn’t the only one, as Yami full on splattered into the ground when Hanbei stopped to read the message.

The player: Eraxxus has become the first player to reach the level 50.

The player: Eraxxus has completed the first Chronicle difficulty quest [The unholy gale of change].

The guild: Kinectic cleared the first Dungeon break on [Ruins of Roldar].

Staring at the three messages for a moment, I finally shook my head and snapped out of my shock. So this is what people felt when I made that flood of announcements back during my crafting sessions.

“I’m gonna make a wild guess, but this Eraxxus guy is in the Kinectic guild.” I said randomly, to which Crys nodded.

“Yeah. That said, he isn’t the leader, if that’s what you are wondering.”

“So more like the ace player?” I asked and Crys nodded once again. Dismissing the window with a sweep of my hand, I quickly put myself back to walking towards the mansion. “So, what’s that dungeon break it said there?”

“That’s the hardest difficulty available for dungeons.” Crys explained quickly. “Think of it as the ultimate one-time challenge. After someone accomplishes said dungeon break, the ‘cursed ground’ that the dungeon is composed is undone and it becomes a normal zone.”

“Heeeh… And how difficult is that dungeon break thing?” I asked curious.

“Let’s just say… The monsters inside have no restriction when it comes to skill usage and their natures.” She said with a dangerous smile. Feeling a bit worried, I raised an eyebrow curious and she quickly cleared her inexistent throat and said. “First, don’t you find it odd that the boss stands in their room so quietly? There’s none of that.”

“Okay. Roaming bosses. That’s scary.” I said with a worried expression. “I still have trauma of a raid that they added a boss that roams the trash area.”

“I thought so.” She said with a smirk. “They can also take control of the minions on the dungeon and give them orders. Lastly, do you remember that they kept on to certain patterns when attacking?” How could I not remember. If it wasn’t for that we would probably still be fighting the damned robot… “Well, they are free to act as they will. Much like the world bosses you fought up to now.” Great. Now I’m traumatized.

“Wait, there’s a difference?” I asked surprised.

“Yes. To compensate how much stronger the dungeon bosses are their actions are more restricted to certain parameters. However, when dungeon-breaking those limits are also removed.”

“Ah… I understand. It’s not that the players are breaking the dungeons. But the dungeon that break the players spirit.” I said with a nod. Strange, suddenly that dungeon we did does not look as difficult.

Having our talk reach a traumatizing point, I finally sighed before making my way back to the mansion, as we were only a couple of minutes away from it.

“So, how though is a Chronicle quest?” Hanbei asked curious.

“Oh. Chronicle is one step above heroic quests.” Crys explained with a proud tone. “And the difference is about the same of a hero quest to a normal quest. Above it comes Historical quests, then Legendary, mythical and finally Titanic quests.” Wait… Doesn’t that means that my quest is somewhat insanely difficult. “By the way, besides Gon, only two other players have Mythical quests. Though theirs are a lot more serious than his.”

“How can a quest be more serious than the other?” Yami asked confused.

“Master literally asked Wallace to give him a difficult monster-related quest.” Crys sighed.

“Ah… I see… Yeah. Can’t be any less serious than that.” Hanbei said with a sigh.

“HEY! I WAS BEING SERIOUS!” I complained loudly.

Finding ourselves before the gate to the Lord’s house. It didn’t take us more than a couple of seconds of wait before the guard opened the gate and made a motion for us to come inside. We wasted no time entering the house while receiving some satisfied glances from the maids and butlers working in the area.

Feeling a bit confused, I asked one of them where I could find Lord Wich, and after hearing about the second floor study we waster no more time into reaching it. Knocking on the door and receiving the permission to go in, we all entered the study.

“Ah. Gondorrer. It’s good to see you.” The lord said with a slightly cheerful tone. I didn’t miss Ozzur sitting on a nearby table while doing something with his notebook. “Your friend here told me that you already finished the job and that you should come in a couple of days.”

“I see.” I said while looking at scoops, who acknowledged me with a nod before going back to doing what was most likely his work. “Well, its as he probably said. The spider is down, the mine is free, the sprites are fed and my plan for a mount destroyed.”

“Plan for a mount?” Lord Wich asked confused.

“Yeah. You see, when you said that the monster was an Impaler spider, I had this idea of getting an egg for myself then raising the small spider into a worthy mount like Tex. But thanks to a certain cowards sprite I lost my chance.” I said while looking at the sprite that tried to hide itself on my shoulder.

“I see... Indeed. Impalers do make for great rides. Had one myself a few years ago.” Lord Wich said with a slightly nostalgic tone. “That said, wild Impalers aren’t exactly friendly and they can be a bit overprotective of their eggs.”

“You don’t say…” I said with a clearly fake amused tone while staring at the small sprite on my shoulder. “Anyway, I at least got myself some good crafting materials, so I can’t really complain, right?”

“I see. Still, you did your job as promised. And just as we were finishing the summons for the army, so I guess some discussion about rewards is in on the way.”

“Oh. Speaking about rewards…” I said while looking at Yuu. “We reached a consensus on the whole thing about the ship.”

“I see…” Lord Wich said while nodding and making a motion towards the chair.

I sat down and started explaining him all that we learned about the housing system for players. While he looked interested in it for a moment, he let me finish before making any questions, so I quickly told him my intentions. If possible I would want a terrain near the mines and the forest.

The reason for that would be because the forest gave a small bonus to skinning. It wasn’t as good as the plains, but since there weren’t any nearby plain, I had to do with the forest. It also included a big bonus to lumbering, but since that was one profession I lacked, it would be a bit difficult for me to find use in that.

Having it be near the mine would also give me a mining bonus and easy access to some basic ores.

That was the negotiation about the airship trade. The following one was about the quest.

Since the forge would be something I had interest in buying for my house, I asked if it was possible for the reward of the mine-clearing to be the construction of the forge on my lands.

“This one might be a bit difficult to guarantee you.” Lord Wich said with a conflicted expression. “While your service have been great, a forge is a bit difficult to build and resource expensive too.”

“Oi. Did I hear someone talk ‘bout a forge?” I heard a familiar voice coming from the doorway.

“Oh! Sam! Nice to seeand what the hell is that?” I asked shocked.

“What? Never saw a dwarf in jammys’ before?” Asked the dwarf wearing yellow pajamas and a yellow sleeping hat, those pointy ones with a pompom on top. Heck, he was even holding a pillow in his arms.

“Not really.” I admitted.

“Anyway. If it’s a forge yer want, mah boys would be happy to give yer a hand there.” He said proudly. “They be wantin to build somethin’ for some time already. I dun think any of ‘em will complain about having to work for yer for a bit.”

“Nice!” I said satisfied before turning to Lord Wich again. “So, I guess we have a deal?”

“Yes. We have a deal.” Lord Wich said while giving me a handshake. “That said, if you could give me one day to sort out the available lots…”

“No problem.” I said with a nod and prepared to move on to the next matter at hand. However, I was quickly taken over by Hanbei.

“Also, is there any news of the sea calming down or something?” Asked the cat-girl.

“Sorry, but the undines are still agitated, so the captains are still reluctant to set sail.” He explained with a worried tone.

“I see… And don’t you have any idea of what that might be?” She asked curious.

“No. All we know is that the sea should not be sailed under any circumstances. If I were to say, they had never been THIS anxious before. At least not as far as I can remember.” He said with a heavy sigh. “Commerce has been kind of slow because of that, so I even had to cut some costs to make up for it.”

“Things sounds tough for you…” I said a bit worried, but seeing how there isn’t much I could do to help, I quickly shook my head. “Anyway, speaking of undines, where is our undine?”

“Ah, yes.” Lord Wich suddenly nodded. “About Lady Lily, she is resting in one of the guest rooms with your young Wyvern. Now… About your cat…” As he said that, he suddenly trailed off with an awkward smile.

“Eh… The little furball been’ playing pranks.” Sam said with an amused tone while grabbing what looked like kettle and pouring a cup of whatever it was for himself. “But… I heard some strange things from the maids when comin’ here now.”

“Oh?” I asked curious. Something even stranger than usual for Lieutenant?

“Ahh… Seem’s like he went on a fixin’ spree some time ago.” He said as if confused.

“Fixing… Spree?”

“Yah. If what the lass told me is true, seems like he found a mice-hole an’ panicked. Then came back with some wood, hammer and nails. Now he’s been goin ‘round the house sealin all holes he find on de walls.”

While imagining the scene, I couldn’t help but hold back a laugh. From the looks of it, the trauma was a lot worse than what I expected. While imagining the scene of Lieutenant panicking, I decided that I had my fill for the day and nodded.

Asking where Lily was at the moment, I thanked Lord Wich and Sam while noticing how the Lord gave his brother a long and harsh look thanks to his clothing.

Still, seeing how there was one last person who was still in the room that I didn’t talk to, I made my way towards Ozzur and tapped his shoulders.

The mummy jumped startled and looked at me in shock for a moment before making a stupid-sounding: ‘Ah’

“Wargon… What is…” He let out a long yawn. “…it?”

“…This might seem odd for me to ask. But aren’t you a bit too tired to be working?”

“Tired? There is no such thing as a tired reporter!” He said with a strange motivated tone. “Not when I have so much material to go through. See what I should tell and what I should hide…” He suddenly blinked before turning to me and making a motion with his hand. Not long after I noticed a small friend-notification window popping up.

“I think this might be of your interest, but your glowing eyes are literally red from exhaustion, you know?” I said while absentmindedly accepting the request.

“That is but your imagination.” He brushed it off while going back to his notebook. Not that he had much persuasion when his writing hand was trembling.

“Master, you do know you are partly responsible for his state, right?” Crys said disappointed near me.

“I have no idea what you mean.” I replied dodgy.

“Well, he found one of the most prominent figures in Insania at the moment. Except that it turns out that said person is a bit crazy and he have no idea how to explain this to people without sounding offensive to you.” Hanbei said from the side.

“I’m pretty sure the word he’s searching for is Eccentric.” I commented.

“I am not sure, but that message we received is pretty big too, right?” Yuu comented.

At her words, Ozzur’s head finally slammed the table heavily and he started mumbling curses while threatening to break the pen he held in his hand. The worst part, with him being a mummy I couldn’t help but have this feeling that I might be cursed for real.

Y-yeah… Thinking about it, with him being in the news industry, that announcement would probably make things even worse for him. And thinking about it, he was awake all the time he was there with me, and taking in account that it should have been past midnight with him living in the USA...

Suddenly I started wondering when was the last time he actually slept.

“Ermm… You know what. I’m going to leave you with your work while I go craft myself some gear…”

“Craft… Gear…?” Ozzur said while spinning his head around like a badly oiled machine. “…Scoop?”

Feeling creeped out by his intense glare, I took a step back, to which he replied by trying to follow me and trip to the ground, falling face first.

Surprised, I thought on going to help him up, but much to my surprise he literally dragged himself towards me with one hand while protecting the notebook with the other. Running away from the horror movie scene, I left to go call my apprentice so I could start showing her some Gon-style crafting failure.

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Author’s corner: As we all know, Gon have an unofficial relationship with walls. Which mostly ends up with him going through one of them in an extremely comical way to the point that he even earned a title for it. So, for those keeping track, how many times did Gon get launched through a wall? (Either partially or completely)

And for bonus question: Speaking of titles, Gon have received many interesting titles through his time playing. However, there was one title that was made entirely as a joke(and for those people who ask, it doesn’t have an actual use). Which one was it?