“Ok, so now that you have control over the ship, we will leave you to do your thing. Just make sure to control his alcoholic habits,” Kiefer reminded, passing the tablet over to his daughter while pointing to Rose. Having said that, Isana stepped over to hug Kina in her embrace, giving the top of her head a loving peck before letting go. Then, with a goodbye wave, Kiefer and Isana vanished into thin air.

As Kina began tampering with the controls to the super carrier, Rose was glued to a glass window - the only thing that separated him from his heaven. On the other side of the window was the refrigerated alcohol storage unit. Kina sneered, tapping a button, causing the steel doors to slowly shut behind the glass window, depriving Rose of even a glance at his beloved alcohol.

The giant turbines spun to life as a deep hum reverberated from the hull of the ship. Soon, it was kicking up waves and moving at a leisurely pace towards the demon continent. The hangar bays within the ship were busy with machinery droning away, welding, moving and replacing damaged parts to any harriers that were within its doors. Meanwhile, a ghastly grim reaper was whizzing through the corridors of the ship like a lost ghost. He was as old as time itself, but this is still the first of which he has seen such advanced and wondrous technology.

The supercarrier cut through the water quickly, covering ground faster than any ship on the planet. It did its job perfectly, garnering the stares and whispers of everyone who laid eyes on it. Naturally, when it chose to stop a mere kilometre off the shore of Mayheir City, the city’s docks was packed with sightseers who wanted to catch a glimpse of the hottest topic in town. It even attracted nobles and royal officials from the central district, its attention grabbing effects spreading as far as the walls that protected the city.

Naturally, everyone was even more surprised when only a single boat made out of an unknown material approached the docks carrying 2 people. Even the boat itself was odd. It had no oars to propel it, gave off a loud humming noise and sped through the water faster than a fish could swim.

As Kina placed her palm on the scanner to deactivate the engines, the motor died down quickly, leaving only the silent stares of the thousands of people packed along the docks. With a quick glance she could estimate the general population variety. The city residents were made mostly up of humans. Demi-humans and humanoid species such as elves, dwarves, various animal-men and even animals themselves made up about 30% of the population. From the way they were scattered evenly, Kina could tell that there was little to no form of discrimination against any specific race. However, there seems to be a distinct hierarchy separation between what looked like nobles and their guards, and the rest of the populace.

Almost everything they did seem to scream, “Look at me! Talk about me! I’m important!” From the colossal ship that blocked half the horizon, the speed boat, their weird attire, the never before seen birdman type demi-human, to the giant blood red sword that seemed almost too big for a young girl her size to carry. As Kina and Rose walked up the docks, they separated the crowd like Moses split the ocean. Everyone instinctively knew that these new and unknown people were inherently powerful, not only their strength but their background too probably. The guards at the dock did not even bother stopping them to check.

Taking a swig from a wine bottle in his hand, Rose scanned the crowd, and spotted a guard holding a lance. Raising his arm slowly, he thoroughly enjoyed being the center of attention, before finally pointing at the guard. “Hey! You. Bring me to the most reputable Jeweller in this outback rustic city,” he ordered, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. He had roamed all over Risea and accumulated a considerable amount of experience, including the art of acting.

“R – Right away Sir!, T- th- this way! Clear the road people!” the guard immediately stammered, not knowing who these 2 people were or why they had come to the city. He immediately led Kina and Rose towards one of the carriage drivers and even helped Kina climb aboard the tall carriage. This was one of the more lavishly modelled carriages with a fully covered cabin. The Carriage was even pulled by 2 large birds that strangely resembled a 2m tall dodo bird. They had large heads and beads that seemed like they could crush skulls in. This was one of the most expensive luxury rides in the city, with only the rich being able to afford these birds instead of horses. Naturally, the birds had a better burst speed and top speed than the horses.

“Take them to Mason’s and Thear’s Jewellery,” The guard ordered the driver, who nodded immediately. Without even requesting for payment, he took off, causing half of the crowd to quickly follow them like a group of fans following a celebrity. The docks that were originally packed like a can of sardines was now starting to thin out.

“I swear, I thought I would get used to how outdated and ancient these cities would be, but it still bothers me every time I’m stuck in these relics they move around in,” Kina complained just as the carriage ran over a pothole in the ground. The driver couldn’t help but look confused when he overheard her saying that. Mayheir was by far one of the most advanced and populated cities he had been to, and this young girl who was still in her teens was complaining about it being ancient and outdated? He could not help but imagine just where she must’ve come from to harbour such views.

“So what’s it like where you come from?” Rose asked, intrigued by her comment.

“Well for starters, we don’t have animals pulling our carriages around. Everything runs on either mana, solar or petrol, like the ship. And we have air conditioning, like everywhere. I wouldn’t have to tolerate this hot, humid and salty air if I had brought a car along. And the speed. Oh god the speed. Everything in this world moves so god damn slowly. Even I could run faster than this stupid carriage. And I would have, if I did not want to sweat in this heat. Back in my home city, we could move from city to city instantly, and between continents within a matter of hours, not days. You’ve seen it yourself, we got here on the ship within 8 hours, and that’s considered slow,” she continued.

“Wow…” Rose was left speechless. He knew that Kina had come from an advanced world, but he never thought it would seem so miraculous and almost godly. The carriage moved swiftly through the roads in silence afterwards. Kina had a quick shut-eye and before long, they were making their way through the central district gates. It would seem that this special carriage pulled by the bird type monsters had a special privilege to traverse anywhere within the city.

“SQUUAAAWWWKK!!” the giant birds screamed out as the driver pulled hard on the reins, pulling the carriage to a slow stop. They had pulled up in front of a neat, white-walled building that seemed rather inconspicuous. In fact, as compared to the other more lavishly decorated and fenced up buildings around, this stand-alone building with no fences was dwarfed in comparison.

There was a single man standing next to the wooden door. Above the door hung the shop’s signboard – Mason and Thear. It did not even mention what sort of purpose the building served. The robed man leaned against his long staff lazily, eyeing the streets and yawning. The shop seemed to be empty, at least until the door swung open and a party of extravagantly dressed people came stalking out.

“We are here Sir, young Miss,” the driver informed meekly, eyeing Kina’s every movement as she held the giant blood sword in her hand. As soon as she alighted, Rose followed suit from his side of the carriage, putting the carriage between himself and the shop on the other side of the street. As he fumbled around his pouch before paying the driver a single small ruby for the trip, Kina had already made her way across the cobbled street and was staring at the door.

She looked at the man guarding the door and smiled, before reaching her hand out to touch the copper doorknob. However, she realised that there seemed to be a repulsive field preventing her from making contact with the doorknob, much less turn it to open the door. Looking at the guard with a confused look on her face, he merely shrugged, and returned to surveying the streets.

Enhancing her body, Kina pressed on. She had seen the people exit the shop effortlessly earlier and began wondering how they managed to get into the shop in the first place. Is this only an exit? Was there a hidden entrance elsewhere that she had to find? Forcing her hand with all her strength, her fingertips came within a millimetre of the doorknob before a single tiny blue spark jumped from the copper door knob to her finger.

*BOOOM!!!*

A loud explosion rang out through the streets as it caught Rose’s attention. Immediately fearing the worst, he dashed over across the street only to find that within the thick white smoke, Kina lay sitting on the floor on her bottom, her hair a mess and the blood sword lying on the stone floor a few feet from her.

Kina stood back up quickly, rubbing her left wrist to ease the numbing sensation that had spread through her hand. She bent down and picked up her sword again, this time with an ugly sneer on her face. She stared at the guard who was chuckling, still standing where he had been all this time.

“You can’t enter unless you have a letter of recommendation girly. The barrier stops anyone without the letter. Count yourself lucky that you still have your hand,” he spoke calmly.

“Where can we get that le – “ Just as Rose was asking a question, Kina had already leapt at the door, channelling her mana into the blood sword. Swinging her giant sword with her enhanced strength, the blade made contact with the barrier on the door, releasing a loud bang and a shockwave that made the guard take a step away from the door.

A series of loud bangs rang out into the streets as everybody poked their heads out to take a look at the commotion. It had been going on for a good 5 minutes. The guard had conjured up a stone wall in front of himself to stop the shockwaves from blowing his robes off, but he was still smiling nonetheless. The barrier was constructed by his mage party, the only 3 level 11 mages in the world. He was confident that it could withstand mere physical abuse.

After a while, Kina finally paused, no longer swinging her sword at the door. However, the frustrated look on her face was gone. Instead, she had a grin plastered on. She took a step back, bent her knees and held her sword horizontally at waist level, preparing to thrust forwards in a straight stab. Just as she thrust forwards with all her might, the small grey fox who had been sitting obediently next to Rose tilted its head up to look at her. Its ears twitched a split second before the sword made contact with the door.

Finally, with a single boom, the wooden door cracked and broke from its hinges, flying towards the interior of the shop. The barrier that had surrounded the building’s wall now had a sword stuck through it. Slow cracks formed from the puncture wound and within seconds, a shattering sound could be heard as the barrier spell fell to pieces.

The guard looked at Kina, his eyes widened in surprise. This young girl had actually used brute strength to break open his barrier, or so it seemed to him and anybody who had been observing the spectacle. However, only Kina and Kronos knew full well what had happened.

Through her numerous clashes with the barrier, Kina came to understand how the barrier worked. She noticed that at the moment of contact, the barrier strengthened itself at the point of contact exponentially while drawing mana from the other parts of the barrier. This caused the parts of the barrier aside from the point of contact to weaken drastically for just that split second. To add to that, Kina had also been experimenting by attacking the barrier with her mana through her sword in her numerous clashes, confirming that the barrier reacted not only to physical attacks, but also to magical attacks.

Hence, her plan came to fruition within her head. A single thrust to put the greatest pressure onto a single point of contact. Her mana threads slammed into the barrier first, mere split seconds before the sword came close enough to trigger a reaction. This had caused the barrier to weaken tremendously at the point where the sword was to make contact. Then, with a quick , Kina pierced through the weakened barrier, not giving it any time to respond to the sword tip that was puncturing it.

The time stop had only been for a split second, but it was long enough for Kina to successfully exploit the loophole, but short enough so nobody noticed her sword skipping forwards in position. The whole street was silent, looking at the busted door to Mason and Thear’s. Rose was shaking his head helplessly while Kronos had already made his way towards Kina. He leapt up onto her shoulder in a single bound, before climbing up onto her head and slouching, lying on his belly on her head, his chin hanging over like a cap. He was made of mana, hence did not weigh anything, and thus did not inconvenience Kina much.

“Hi,” Rose greeted the guard sheepishly. “Sorry for the commotion and the mess, I’m her teacher. I apologise for her rash behaviour. Could you point us to the owner so we can discuss some business deals?”

“Hi,” he replied, extending his hand to shake Rose’s. “I’m Marlin Thear, son of Renin Thear, guard of Mason’s and Thear’s jewellery. Your student is quite formidable I must admit. It took 3 level 11 mages to cast that barrier, but she broke it in mere minutes. I am thoroughly impressed. Please wait here, Mister Mason and my father should be down quite quickly, with all this commotion around.”

“Phew!.. That worked up quite a sweat. I’m just glad my sword held up against the abuse,” Kina chuckled as she came skipping to Rose’s side. Let’s go in and sell some jewels shall we?”

“You know, I understand that you father said to make ourselves well known, but isn’t this a little too flashy? What happened to Eril’s teaching? Did you forget all of it already?” Rose reprimanded Kina in a hushed voice.

“It’s alright, that won’t be a problem. At most people will only think I have monstrous strength. Plus, this is not even close to what I’m fully capable of. You know that strength is my weakest point right?” Kina laughed back, not the slightest bit deterred by Rose’s scolding.

Within moments, a well-dressed man in his 50s and a shorter stout dwarf came running down the stairs in the building, pausing momentarily to inspect the damages to the shop before their eyes traced the debris to the door and onto Kina. Their eyes shifted about, looking at Kina, then Rose and then finally onto Marlin.

“Marlin! Who did this?” the dwarf asked as he quickly and carefully stepped over the broken door, shattered glass and scattered gems.

“I did!” Kina announced proudly, holding her chest up high and swinging her giant blood sword.

“Little missy, why did you break down my shop’s door?” the dwarf asked, squinting his eyes in disbelief, scrutinising Kina from top to bottom before averting his eyes to Malin, who nodded his head slowly.

“Because I wanted to get in but it wouldn’t let me,” Kina replied as-a-matter-of-factly.

“I see. Well, next time, please try not to destroy my shop. Here, take this,” he said while smiling at the young girl who was taller than him. He proceeded to take out a small piece of parchment the size of a name card. It had a single rune written on it. “This should let you enter and leave as you please. Do keep it safe and make sure you don’t lose it.”

“Forrel, are you sure about this?” the other man asked as he came up next to the dwarf.

“Sure? Of course I’m sure. The barrier is there to prevent thieves from entering or leaving. This girl just broke the barrier, which means she can enter and leave as she pleases. The only difference the pass makes is that we won’t have to replace the door every time she decides to drop by. Here missy, take it,” Forrel explained, handing kina the parchment.

Kina accepted the parchment with a smile on her face, carefully inspecting it before taking out a large roll of translucent hard plastic with a circular rune on it. Placing her thumb on a small scanner in the bottom right corner, she activated the rune. Instantly the rune lit up and the plastic covered by the rune disappeared to form a dark hole where Kina placed the small parchment. This was the portal opening to her locker back on Aioa.

“So what business do you have with us today little missy? I’m Forrel Mason, and this is my business partner Renin Thear. We run a jewellery and enchantment business together. Do come inside so we can have a nice chat,” Forrel introduced himself.

Hearing that, Rose stepped forwards and bowed, before signalling Kina to follow the man and dwarf into the shop. Marlin stayed behind scratching his head as he looked at the debris inside the entrance. Shaking his head, he bent down and began picking up the pieces of the broken door, but not before shooting a fierce glance at the crowd that had gathered to observe the commotion. The crowd quickly dispersed after.

[[Within Mason and Thear’s]]

“Hmm.. these raw gems would cut up nicely. What do you think Renin?”

“They are a decent size indeed. A few of them have slight impurities within but we can work around that. I’d offer four and a half. What about you?”

“Four and a half thousand sounds about right. Do you have anything else?” Forrel asked, sweeping the pile of gems back into the leather sack that Rose handed to them.

“That’s all from me. Kina, do you have anything you might want to sell?” Rose asked, looking at Kina who seemed distracted by the pieces of jewellery on display.

“How much for this?” Kina asked, reaching into her pockets and placing a single skyrite shard on the table.

“Oh. That’s rare. I’ve only seen that a handful of times in my life. Unfortunately, that is not a jewel. You are better off taking it to the alchemists association. They will probably offer you a better price,” Renin replied honestly, lifting the shard against the window and inspecting it under the sunlight that was streaming in.

“How much can I get for it?” Kina asked again.

“I’m not too familiar with the market price, but last I checked a few years back, a shard this size will probably get you at least five thousand gold coins. It should be more now, what with the constant demon attacks and everything,” Renin replied once more.

“Fine then, that’s where we’ll go next I guess. How much does a house cost within this central district?” Rose asked, trying to calculate his expenses.

“Oh a small plot of land will cost about twenty thousand, with the building material fees and labour costs to build a house, that will be an additional thirty maybe forty thousand gold coins. If you do not intend to stay here permanently, I’d suggest staying at an inn rather than buying a house. Besides, not anyone can own a house in the central district. You have to get the status of a noble first. And to do that, you have to be considered essential for the city to keep running. Warriors and guards can be found everywhere, so despite your apparent skills, you are not likely to leave a big enough impression to be considered for a noble position by the city council.” Forrel explained.

“I see. Well gentlemen, I’d say this concludes our business transaction. If you would kindly hand us our payment, we would be more than happy to leave,” Rose announced as he stood up. “We have more trips to make.”

With directions from Renin and Marlin Thear, Rose and Kina quickly made their way to the alchemist association several streets down. Unlike the jewellery store which was quiet, the Alchemist’s Association was quite a bit more crowded. It was filled mostly by guards and mages. A majority of the guards present belonged to the personal security details of various nobles. A few of the customers present were guard captains for the city wall guards here to buy mana potions and healing slaves for their squads.

What was originally a crowded and noisy lobby quickly died down to a pin drop silence as soon as Rose and Kina walked in. It was rare to see an adventurer inside the central district, walking around without their employer. As everybody’s eyes landed on the Birdman, the girl and the floofy grey fox that was napping on her head, a single guard captain broke the silence by pointing at them and yelling, “Its them! From the large steel ship!”

Immediately, whispers radiated from every corner of the lobby as everyone started discussing with each other in hushed voices. Quickly, a single smartly dressed attendant scurried past the crowd and to the entrance where he gave a deep bow before introducing himself.

“Good afternoon Sir, young miss. How may I be of assistance to you?” he asked politely.

“I want to sell some of these,” Kina requested, procuring 5 of the smallest skyrite fragments from within her pocket. The attendant’s face did not seem fazed at all, maintaining his professional poker face as he picked up one piece and inspected it.

“Please follow me to a counter so I can do the appropriate measurements,” he requested before placing the fragment back in Kina’s palm and turning sharply towards one side of the lobby. Kina and Rose nodded in reply, following him up the stairs and into a separate room where people were selling things.

Once at the counter, the man proceeded to take out a set of weights and balance scales. Kina proceeded to place a small stash of fragments on the counter top which the attendant weighed out immediately. Then, taking out a piece of parchment, he began making calculations before finally settling on a price.

“For this stash of mana crystals, I can offer you ten thousand gold coins at most. It is only comprised of the lowest quality mana crystal fragments and cannot be used to make higher level potions,” he explained.

“I see. Can’t you do a better price? Say fifteen thousand?” Rose bargained, trying to get the most out of the deal.

“How about twelve?” he raised the price with a business smile on his face. It was clear that he had plenty of experience haggling with customers.

“That works,” Kina quickly agreed, extending her hand to shake the man’s hand to seal the deal. “I also have this, how much can you offer?” She proceeded to ask, taking out a single shard the size of a finger. This time, the attendant’s eyes widened in surprise since he rarely comes across such a rare commodity.

“This here is much rarer than the fragments. Just from the size alone, I’m prepared to offer you seven thousand gold coins for it. Is that to your satisfaction?” he asked, his originally surprised face returning to it former smile.

“I’ve been told it will be worth up to ten thousand,” Kina stated, pouting her lips a little.

“I’m sorry. The best I can do is eight and a half. Or if you’d like, I could give you ten thousand in house credits? You can buy plenty of mana potions, elixirs or healing slaves with that,” he counter-proposed.

“Hmph…” Kina chuckled at his proposal. She quickly took out a sharp knife before running the blade across the palm to produce a bloody red streak. However, as quickly as the cut formed, even before the blood could trickle out, the wound closed and healed without leaving so much as a scar. “Do you really think I need healing salves? And taking into account that I’m selling this shard, do you think I need mana potions as well?”

“Fine young miss, how about nine thousand?” He continued.

“That’s better. We’ll take it,” Rose cut in finally, smiling as he shook the man’s hand. The attendant quickly swept the pile of skyrite fragments and the single skyrite shard into a tray lined with velvet before hurrying to a window where he deposited the precious cargo. He returned moments later with the money. As with the jewellery store, they were given the money in the form of gold-plated cards, each one worth 500 gold coins. Each card was half a centimetre thick, measuring 10cm by 4cm.

“Hey, what’s that there?” Rose asked, pointing at a board hung on the wall on the opposite side of the lobby, noticing it just as they were being ushered out by the attendant. There were plenty of people crowding around and pulling pieces of parchments off the board.

“That’s the request board. We are the Alchemist association. We require a wide variety of herbs and medicinal plants to compound and produce the potions that we do. Those that can be farmed and produced are easily acquired and we let the branch offices collect them. However, some of the more powerful potions require plants that can only be found in the wild, and even some wild animal or in some cases, demon parts. We put up requests for such items and young nobles come to try completing the request for the reward and prestige.”

“Shall we go take a look at it?” Rose asked Kina who had begun to show interest in the request board after hearing about it. With a single intent, she blinked to the other side of the room, which visibly stunned the attendant. Rose simply shook his head as he slowly walked over to the board where Kina was stretching her neck to catch a glimpse of the board from behind the crowd. Then, she stuck her blood sword into the wooden floorboards with a determined look before diving into the crowd. It took a good 10 minutes of squeezing, ducking and tugging before Kina managed to get in front of the crowd. She began inspecting the requests on the board.

*******

Trading 10 stalks of Red Viper Vine for 3 Premium Healing Salve. 20 points.

Buying 1 Seven coloured Lotus for 500 gold coins. 15 Points.

Buying 3 Grave Lindwerm Roots for 600 gold coins. 25 points.

Buying 1 Haze Rabbit Fang for 1200 coins. 45 points.

********

The list went on endlessly as Kina scanned through the hundreds of requests that were pinned onto the board. One thing that intrigued her though was the inclusion of a point system, along with a ranking board that was situated right next to the requests board.

“What’s with the point system?” Rose asked the attendant who had followed him to the requests board.

“Completing requests awards points to the person based on the difficulty level. People who complete requests are considered to be conferring merit to the city by helping it in its war against the demons. The top scorers are given special statuses within the city and naturally, given privileges as well. For example, the top 3 contributors are given a mansion within the central district by the city council. You can try but, it’s quite difficult even making into the top 100. Most of the quests require a person to venture deep into the woods where demons roam.”

Looking at the scoreboard, Kina studied the points that the current top scorers had. The top scorer had over 8000 points under his belt. The lowest of the top 100 had 500 points. Returning to the request board, Kina made a quick calculation based on the most common request seen. Averaging at 15 points per request, she would have to complete at least 500 times to make it to the top. And then, a single request caught her eye.

Buying 1 small vial of fresh Demon Broodmother blood for 1000 gold coins. 500 points.

The certain request seemed really old and tattered, as if it had been taken down and put back up several times. It was clear that whoever put up the request had changed the rewards several times, with the original reward being only 200 coins and 100 points. It had been scratched off and replaced with a higher reward 3 times.

Tiptoeing to barely reach the piece of parchment, Kina grabbed the corner and ripped the parchment down from the noticeboard. There were too many requests pinned up for anyone to notice which one Kina had taken. Squeezing her way out of the crowd was easier than getting in, but it still took some time and effort on her part. Finally out once more, she handed it to the attendant who looked at her sceptically.

“Young Miss, this is a really high difficulty request. Are you sure about this?” the attendant asked while looking at Rose for affirmation.

“I’m sure. Just tell me where to find the vials,” Kina replied confidently. “And also tell me what a demon broodmother is and how it looks like.”

The attendant could only shake his head in pity. Right in front of him was a promising young talent and she was throwing her life away. She does not even know what a demon broodmother is and yet seemed strangely confident in completing the request. He could foresee the head of the Alchemist Association increasing the rewards once again after news of the death of another adventurer got out. He knew the head Alchemist needed the broodmother blood to concoct a lifesaving elixir.

“This here is a picture of a broodmother. And the vials cost 1 gold coin per 50 vials,” The attendant said, showing Kina a hand drawn picture of what looked like a spider with a bulging pulsating pus filled back. A small human was drawn to show the scale of the demon, with an adult human measuring up to 1 digit of its legs.

“I’ll get 50 vials then,” Kina retorted, tossing him a single gold coin while stashing the picture of a broodmother within her pocket.

The attendant nodded and went into the storeroom, emerging moments later with leather belt with glass test-tube-like vials tied of both sides. 25 vials on each side of the leather belt, Kina retrieved it from the attendant and then bowed, before leaving with Rose.

It was mid noon by the time Kina and Rose left the alchemist’s association, with plenty of money in their possessions. They first settled at an inn nearby and had a sumptuous lunch. Rose ordered several alcoholic beverages but grimaced each time his tongue met the drinks of this world. In the end, he returned to sipping from the bottle of wine in his hand.

Lunch was finished relatively quickly, with Kina and Rose heading upstairs to settle down in their respective rooms. After Rose unpacked his small sack of belongings, he headed next door to see Kina arranging her folded clothes in a wardrobe drawer.

“So what do you want to do now?” Rose asked, sitting down at the round marble table and emptying his pockets. He began counting how much money they had acquired earlier that day.

“Well, I don’t really see the need to rush things. I think we should gather more information about the broodmother before we head out. Finding and tracking it shouldn’t be a problem. I have my mana pulse as well as the harriers for scouting,” She replied casually, continuing to take things out of her locker scroll and placing them inside the wardrobe.

“twenty four, twenty five… Well, we have a little over twenty-five thousand gold coins. Why don’t we do a little shopping? I know you have nigh impenetrable skin and godly recovery rate, but it’s still better to have some form of protection. If it were not for your strength, I doubt anyone would be able to cut you like you did to yourself earlier. Also, I want some new weapons. I left all my old ones on Yurza because I wanted to test and learn to use new and exotic weapons.”

“That works for me as well. I think I’ll just get some light leather armour. Having those bulky metal armour is so unfashionable and restrictive,” Kina agreed, sweeping up all the currency cards on the table and stashing them away in her locker scroll. “I’ll hang onto these since it’s safer with me.”

Getting directions from the inn keeper to the nearest weapon shop did not take long. Soon, the duo was out of the blazing afternoon sun and inside a rather respectable equipment shop. Rose was perusing through the various weapons on display in the shop. The quality of weapons could be easily distinguished just from the way they were displayed. Low quality weapons made by amateur smiths were lumped together with second hand almost defective weapons in wooden barrels. Better works were hung on racks and walls. The really expensive ones though, they were hung on the wall behind the counter within a metal cage that was affixed to the wall. These were kept under lock and key.

While Rose was busy looking through the weapons, Kina had been the center of attraction on the shop floor. The giant blood sword received many approving looks from fellow warriors within the shop. There was even a shop attendant who had approached to see if she was willing to sell her sword. Failing at negotiations, he tried asking for the name of the blacksmith who had crafted the sword, but the name ‘Kiefer’ did not ring any bells. Kina quickly picked out a few pieces of light leather armour, paid for them and kept them before continuing to look around.

Picking up a short sword from a rack, Rose inspected the blade as well as the handle before frowning and returning it to the rack. He’s been through over half the items in the shop but none had caught his attention. The best he’s seen were barely passable, while most of them could not even be called swords in his personal opinion. Deciding that he would not waste any more time with these pieces of garbage, Rose walked directly over to the counter where he cast his gaze on the weapons hung within the wall cages.

There, his face turned from a frown into a grimace, as he realised why they were kept so securely. There were 3 items on display behind the counter. A lance, a Falchion, and a short sword. The reason they were kept behind the counter was not because they were well made, but because they were expensive. He did not even bother looking at the lance because he was biased against weapons without slashing capabilities.

The falchion’s design was essentially flawed. He could tell even from afar that the workmanship was horrible, with an uneven sharpness along the blade’s edge. The tempering and hammering wasn’t done right as the tip of the blade seemed too thin to be practical against platemail. The only reason it was even so expensive, with a price tag of 4000 gold coins was because the hilt and handle were adorned in a plethora of shining gems.

Same with the short sword, it was poorly made, but had runes inscribed onto the surface of the blade to enhance its strength. There was a large red gem embedded in the pommel, which Rose assumed served to provide with sword with a fire type enchantment. However, for him, it was basically useless since he was already so adept with swords that the blade would have taken the target’s life even before the enchantment took effect. The runes were there only to make up for deficiencies in the crafting process, covering up mistakes made by the smith which resulted in a weaker structural integrity.

“Hi, have you found something you like? You’ve been in looking around quite abit,” a cat girl with fiery red hair and bright blue eyes greeted him.

“No not really. Most of these weapons are so poorly made they are a disgrace to the art,” Rose complained bluntly. It’s been a while since he was this annoyed, the last time being back on Yurza when he did not have any access to alcohol for a week. “Are these all the weapons you have?”

The catgirl was quite taken aback by his comment. Poorly made? These weapons? Did he not know that this shop had contracts with some of the best smiths and enchanters in Mayheir? Their shop may not be the best, but they were definitely not far from it. And yet here this birdman was, complaining that their weapons were not up to standard.

“I’m sorry about this sir. We usually have better products on display. If you could wait around for a while longer, we should be getting our next shipment anytime soon,” She replied courteously, her smile failing to hide her annoyance as her brows twitched.

Just as soon as she finished her sentence, the bell on the door rang as someone swung the door open, carting in a fresh batch of weapons that still stunk of smoke and oil from the workshop. A young human boy still covered in soot pushed the cart past the counter and into the back of the shop where a few shop attendants were preparing to clean the weapons with rags. The cart of weapons clinked and clanked as it made its way past the customers before settling down in a thud.

“You! What do you think you are doing!?” a loud yell resounded from the back. Rose tilted his head and snuck a peek, as did Kina. There, the same boy who had been pushing the weapons into the store was held up by his wrist by a burly man twice his size. In his dirty soot covered hands was a black dagger.

“Get out of here right now! Don’t let me catch you trying to sneak your works into the lot without the permission of your master again! We have a reputation to uphold and I WILL NOT sell the works of an apprentice.” the man yelled as he flung the young boy out the back room onto the shop floor. Visibly crying, the young boy quickly gathered the 2 daggers that had been knocked out of his possession and turned to leave the shop.

“Wait boy,” Rose called out quickly, chasing after the boy who had left the shop. The young boy sniffed, before turning to look at Rose coming up to him. He did not reply, merely looking at Rose with his watery eyes and a confused look on his face.

“Let me see those daggers,” Rose ordered, his eyes locked onto the 2 daggers tucked away inside the young boy’s inner pocket. As the boy handed him the daggers, Rose’s eyes lit up. “What’s this?” he asked, lifting the thin rope tied to the ends of the daggers’ hilt.

“A – A rope… so you can throw the dagger and pull it back…” The young boy stammered. “It... it’s a stupid idea... I know…” he continued, his self-confidence sinking even lower than before.

“No kid. It’s a brilliant idea! And those daggers, did you make them yourself?” He asked, watching the boy nod his head. “Kid, you are going to be a brilliant smith one day. Your daggers are not perfect, but they are as close to it as a dagger can be. It is so much better than the other weapons in the sword. It is aerodynamically shaped like a throwing knife, and yet still sturdy enough to be used like a regular dagger. How much are you selling them for?”

“Ah... umm… 5 gold coins?” he meekly asked, before quickly changing his mind. “If it’s too much, 2 gold coins will be enough.”

“Pffft!!” Kina could not help but stifle a laugh at the scene. She came up next to Rose and looked at the boy and his 2 daggers. “Rose, is it really that good?”

“You have no idea. I will need your help tweaking it a little, but it will serve me quite well. Gimme a card,” he hastily replied, extending his hands and motioning for kina to give him some money. Kina unrolled her locker scroll and retrieved a single gold plated card with 500 gold coins from within her locker and handed it to Rose.

“Here boy, keep this,” he said while tucking the card inconspicuously within the young boy’s inner pocket. Then, he took the daggers from the boy and cut off the ropes on each of the dagger. “Boy, do you know where I can buy some orihalcom?” He asked.

“You should ask the miner’s guild. My master’s workshop buys their materials from the miner’s guild. I can show you the way if you’d like!” he replied enthusiastically, his hands patting down on his chest over his dirty apron and woollen shirt to feel the gold plate.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Let’s hurry up and go!” Rose urged as he spun the boy around and gave him a light shove from behind.

[[Later that night]]

“I still can’t believe you spent so much money on orihalcom. I’m sure if you asked my dad, he would have enough to spare,” Kina complained, looking at the 5 dull rusty orange ingots on the table.

“Oh just shut up and do it already. Besides, who knows where your parents are shacking up right at this moment?” Rose quipped back, eagerly watching Kina pick up the orihalcom ingot.

Imitating her father, Kina proceeded to pump mana into the orihalcom bars, causing them to turn a bright green colour. Within an hour, Rose was smiling as his each of his hands gripped a dagger. The double edged daggers now had a green lining along the blade’s edge on both sides. It was an orihalcom lining to reinforce the blade as well as make it sharper. From the end of the handles, there was a thin orihalcom chain, 2m long on each dagger, with the other end being attached to wrist shackles which Rose wore.

“Wonderful. Simply wonderful. The orihalcom is as hard as adamantium, so I won’t have to maintain the blade’s edge that often. And the added weight makes the balance of the weapon just perfect. Orihalcom chain makes it almost indestructible. If only I could add gravitite into it to make the chain weightless as well…” Rose sighed as he stroked the daggers, his eyes mesmerised by his new weapon. “What do you say we go out and do some training my dear student?”

“Sure. I’ve got energy to spare, might as well work up a sweat, where shall we go?” Kina shrugged, not opposing his idea.

“How about we start our broodmother hunt now? Let’s go down to the bar. It’s still pretty noisy downstairs. We might be able to find someone who knows a little about what we are up against,” Rose suggested, sheathing his daggers onto each side of his belt, winding the thin chain around the shackle to just the right length. As he lifted his arms to test his new weapon arrangement, the chains dangled from his wrist down to his belt with just a little slack. Walking normally gave a constant light klinking noise as the chain rattled against itself.

Trotting down the stairs to the bar, a familiar smell of mead and rum filled his nose. Had it been the old him, he would have immediately started drooling. Now however, he could only sneer at how bad the alcohol tastes as he took a swig from his rationed bottle of wine from the carrier. Kina followed behind closely, her giant sword hanging from her back. They squeezed through the crowd of drunken guards and politicians, heading towards the counter.

The bar was bathed in a warm yellow and orange light provided by the ample amounts of flaming torches hung on the walls and a brightly lit crystal chandelier on the ceiling. It was just after dinner service and the place was at its peak in terms of customers. As Kina and Rose wormed their way through the sea of rowdy drunkards, they would occasionally bump into a stranger. A quick apology was always welcome, except the one time that Kina’s large sword collided with the mug of a person about to take a drink.

With a loud clang, the metal mug fell out of the man’s grasp, landing on the floor and spilling its contents. Despite all the noise in the bar, everyone clearly heard the mug drop and turned to get a glimpse of the commotion. However, as soon as they saw the ‘victim, the whole bar turned silent as they quickly averted their gaze away from him. He was after-all, Lord Zassler, the top scoring adventurer on the alchemist association’s chart, the most fearless man they knew who would brave the demonic forests for weeks on end to complete a request.

“Oi. You think a mere apology is enough for spilled beer?” He asked in a menacing tone, standing up to tower over Kina. At his full height, he was 2.4m, which was normal being a half-giant hybrid.

“Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t know that you liked to drink piss from a mug. How about I go get you some more from the latrine?” Kina retorted sarcastically. Rose who was next to her could only shake his head and think to himself, “She really did learn a lot from Eril.”

Hearing her snide reply, everyone scurried to get away from the visibly fuming Zassler. An area cleared around Kina, Rose, Zassler and his companion as the bar continued its dead silence. All conversations came to a screeching halt as everyone tensed up, ready to flee should there be a scuffle.

“Girlie, you better watch your mouth, you don’t know who you are dealing with,” Zassler’s companion warned from the side as his hands hovered over the sword hanging on his waist.

“Pffft… can you believe these idiots Rose?” Kina laughed, her hand reaching to her back and grasping the handle of her blood sword. “It’s just a beer, asshole. How about you let it go and I don’t have to kill you?”

“I see. So you like to do things the interesting way too huh,” Zassler laughed as he grasped the handle of his great battle axe.

What happened next went by in a blink of an eye. Zassler drew his battle axe and swung down on Kina with all his half-giant might, while Kina similarly drew her blood giant sword and blocked his attack head on. A small shockwave expanded from the point of contact as Kina’s sword chipped the blade of Zassler’s axe.

Seeing that Kina was not even pushed back slightly, Zassler’s companion drew his sword. However, what he saw next forced him to come to a stop. A bright green tint flashed past his eyes, blinding him temporarily. His eyes refocused almost instantly, only to see a green chain hanging in front of him. Rose had flung one of his daggers, embedding it in the nearby wall, but not before trimming the companion’s fringe and leaving a red streak on his forehead. The cut wasn’t deep, but a miniscule amount of blood trickled down his forehead. It was a warning. He turned to look at Rose who was nonchalantly chugging down a bottle of wine.

“Do you want to forget what happened? Or do you want to keep going until your axe is nothing but a pile of scrap metal?” Kina taunted.

“Hmph! Fine, I’ll let this go this time,” Zassler snorted, before sitting back down in a chair that seemed almost too small for him. Rose gave a quick tug and the dagger returned, catching it in midair.

“Let’s go Rose. I got what we came here for,” Kina whispered as she hastily made for the door. Rose shrugged and followed behind, before realising what Kina meant.

Holding a book in a mana rope, she smiled at Rose before turning and heading towards the brightly lit lamppost. Rose shook his head, wondering where this thieving girl learnt her skills from. Together with Kina, Rose flipped through the book entailing details and notes written by Zassler himself on plants, herbs, animals and monsters within the forest. Finally, they landed on a page with information on the broodmother.

“Low combat ability… toxic miasma… metallic swarmlings?” Kina read through the page quickly. It would seem that this specific demon has almost no combat abilities. However, it uses a thick miasma of toxic gas to protect itself while spawning minions of sorts from its back to do her bidding. No one has seen a live broodmother before, only dead ones that have died from accidental misfire during clashes with either Mayheir city or other demons.

“Should be easy enough. Let’s go get some fame and fortune shall we?” Kina chuckled, looking to Rose for his approval. Rose merely coughed, and then nodded as they began to head out towards the city walls.

A series of short teleports led them straight to the gates within minutes, but left Rose in a questionable state. On the verge of throwing up, Rose gulped down his vomit that had made it up to his throat, flinching at the burning sensation it left within. They made it past the thick wall through the gates with ease, with the request parchment from the Alchemists Association doing most of the job.