Soul Art Online
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Chapter 26: The Best Wingwoman
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- Arthas -
We walked to the Blacksmith's shop where Kurumi's brother was apprenticing.
A Blacksmith Class was quite rare for several reasons.
First, was that it was considerably harder to master than something like say Herbalist.
The reason for this is the higher cost of materials for making equipment when compared to the price of herbs when making herbal mixtures or pills. This also meant that in case the crafting failed, the amount of materials lost would be expensive in case of Blacksmiths. It also took a longer time to make one piece of equipment when compared to making a bunch of pills or herbal mixtures which also made it more probable to make mistakes in crafting.
Another thing to consider was demand. Medicines and consumables were always in high demand so people could either use what they made or sell them. This was not exactly the case with Blacksmiths. There were two reasons for this.
First being the kingdom we lived in was known for the Alchemists and medicines it produced. This meant that it was easier to get the recipes of the medicines for the Alchemists in this country.
Equipment… those were not easy to come by for players. The NPCs held most of the better ones so it was better for players to buy equipment from the NPCs rather than players. Therefore, Blacksmiths just had excess low quality equipment which they couldn't sell to get back any of their investment. One could also get the Blueprints from the NPCs but that needed a lot of reputation grinding and no one had time to do that.
For this reason, the Blacksmith class was extremely money draining in the beginning phases for players of this Kingdom and we had almost no players who continued to level this class up. The highest I knew of was someone at Level 14 Apprentice Blacksmith but even he had levelled it in combat and his Skills were all low leveled.
Obviously this changed in the later phases of the game when the players were of high enough level to go to other kingdoms to get better blueprints for equipment to sell here.
There was also the fact that it was incredibly hard to level the Skills of the Blacksmith class as making even one equipment took several times more time than making one pill and gave around the same experience gains. This problem just got worse as higher grade equipment needed more time to make.
That's why I was a bit surprised when Kurumi said that her brother was a high Level Blacksmith with maxed out skills.
We reached the Shopping District in the Outer City. The place was far busier now that it was nearing noon.
Kurumi stopped at a shop nearby to buy some food before walking again.
She led us to a shop slightly away from the center of the market. We had only walked around the central market area so we didn't see this place earlier.
"I'm back." She shouted as she entered the side of a Blacksmith's shop.
"W-w-welcome back!" A girlish voice was heard.
"Oh girl, you are back. Did you bring lunch?" Another rough voice, probably that of an old man, followed.
"Yup. Are you two taking a break?" She asked as she placed the packet of food on a table in front of her.
By now, we had a full view of the place too.
It was a modest shop. Nothing too fancy but nothing of low quality either. The place was very clean unlike the Blacksmith shops I had been to before.
There were two people inside, the first was Kurumi who had entered just before us and the other was an old man.
A quick Scan showed that he was a T5 Level 50 Master Blacksmith called Gustav.
I however couldn't spot Kurumi's brother anywhere or the owner of the other voice I had just heard.
"Oh, a customer?" The old man, Gustav, asked, looking at me.
"They are friends here to visit."
"Oh your friends? Take your time to look around the place, lad. Tell me if you like anything. Since you are a friend of my little apprentice, you can get a 5% discount."
"They have come from the Inner City, old man. Don't you recognise him? He's the winner of the Greenfrost Tournament, the same guy whom the Prince made a City Lord in front of the whole crowd yesterday."
"Eh! Wait wait, let me see him closer. Oh yeah, he does look familiar. I guess I didn't recognise him with a noble's clothes instead of a Knight's armour. Well I'll be. Who would have thought that your friends would be such a big shot?" He laughed at Kurumi and then turned towards me. "That was some great fight you showed yesterday."
I nodded. "I am glad you liked it."
"Ahahahaha you know what? I'll make the discount 20%. Just choose whatever you want to buy." He laughed.
…damn, did we buy stuff too early.
We could have saved quite a lot if we had waited for later.
I didn't even need to look at Rose's face beside me to know how depressed she was at the missed opportunity.
"Umm, we don't exactly need any equipment for now. We just purchased a lot of new gear a month ago at Sabaody so we are all done for now. I thank you for the offer though." I apologised and gave the man a bow.
"Sabaody eh… yeah, I can see why you would be done. That place is… expensive for sure but no one can deny that it also holds some of the best products out there. Anyways, you are a Lord now. You shouldn't bow to us commoners. It won't look good on you."
…
"I was just doing what was necessary. I was a commoner too. Politeness is not something that would ever look bad on anyone."
"Hahahaha well said. I like you already. Much better than most of those stuck-up nobles."
This man really had no filters.
"Anyways, we are joining a Guild." Kurumi spoke up, breaking the awkward moment.
"Oh, will you be moving away from Greenfrost then?" He asked, probably wondering if her brother would be leaving his apprenticeship.
There was no way we were going to do something that foolish. Gaining a Master Blacksmith to directly teach someone would require high skill and a large amount of grinding for reputation. Leaving all that… no way.
"No. He wants to conduct business with Greenfrost, and I can stay here to represent the Guild." She informed him. "He can still continue his apprenticeship."
"By the way, where is your brother?" I asked, looking around and not finding anyone around there.
"Oh… he… is a bit shy. I told you that, didn't I?" She replied awkwardly.
I mean, she did say that, but she didn't say exactly how shy he was, but what did that have to do with that now?
"Well, I have to invite him to the Guild, so I need to know where he is."
She turned around and looked at a box beside the old blacksmith with an awkward look on her face, making all of us look at the box.
"H-h-hello-o." A girlish voice sounded from inside the box once more.
I was taken by surprise, but now that I was looking closely, I noticed two eyes peeking out of the box.
…
"Umm… he is a bit anxious around strangers. Give him some time; he will come around to get to know you better and come out." She said, looking a bit embarrassed.
I didn't know what to say. This was the first time I had encountered such a situation.
Was this the so-called hikikomori?
Severe social anxiety was a psychological problem. Many people took to online gaming as a solution to escape having to communicate with the real world.
This kind of situation, while uncommon, wasn't exactly unheard of. In fact, it was increasing more and more as life became more stressful in some countries.
But what could a person do if the world they escaped to became the equivalent of the real world? How would a person survive then?
Suddenly, several of my doubts became clear.
It suddenly made sense how he had managed to max out all his Blacksmithing Skills. It also made sense how he could grind the reputation with a blacksmith to learn from him.
This guy… he had been stuck inside a shop the whole time.
"That's… fine." I tried to use Scan looking at the eye in the box.
To my surprise, it worked.
Boy in the Box
…
…
…
…
Seriously…
That's your IGN?
I did, however, add him to the Guild.
"Welcome to the Guild. We have one more member with us, but she is busy taking care of some business right now. I will bring her to visit next time. Today, we have several other appointments for the day. In case you need anything, you could message us in the Guild Chat. Our main Guild Base is in Llyne, and you can talk to the members there too. Talk to any of the officers or admins of the Guild in case you have any doubts. Even just joining the Guild gives you bonus experience gains due to our Guild's Blessings. This will be especially good for people who level up using production classes." I added, taking another look at the box.
There was something about the whole situation that was familiar to me; I just couldn't recall what, but I knew that it wasn't bad.
"Oh, when can we go out to hunt?" Kurumi asked excitedly.
"Hunt… yes. We can go out tomorrow. I haven't hunted in the last few days either due to the tournament. I need to catch up with my level quota too."
This is something I had asked Sir Ralph, and he did point me towards some of the places where the Knights of the Knight's Academy hunted.
While the tournament did give me far more than I had expected. My skills had risen considerably, and the new Skills I had gained due to the references were more or less broken; I hadn't been able to raise my level in the past few days.
This was making me very uncomfortable. I didn't want to miss out on the first T6 Player Achievement either.
Veena, Rose and I were going to go there tomorrow for hunts and try to get some levels in. Kurumi joining us would only help out more.
Maybe when we get back, we can go to Loguetown or maybe Sabaody to level up? I will talk to Shiroe about this.
We talked to them for a bit and got ready to leave early.
It was near sunset, and we had dinner in the evening with the Prince of the Country. I couldn't afford to be late there.
"I will contact you about the hunt tomorrow. Get ready around nine in the morning."
"Alright, I will wait." She waved us goodbye, and we left the place.
The journey back was quiet, but Rose did seem to be in a good mood so it was all good.