"We're home~" Iina announced as she put her basket on the floor beside the door.

A middle-aged man stepped through the door behind her before putting his basket on the floor as well. His name was Luus, Iina's grandfather who live in the same house. He was slightly shorter than Iina, with a little hunch in his posture. While there were wrinkles on his face signifying the passing of time, his red eyes that shined like rubies at the center of white marble gave the impression that he still had many more years left.

"Welcome home, Iina and Grandpa Luus. Did you get anything good today?" Serena asked while sweeping the dirt floor of the cottage.

"Un, we got lots of iron ingots, rubies and diamond fragments. We got a good deal on the ruby, but iron was a bit more expensive than usual," Iina answered, looking a bit depressed.

"Are they all for crafting?" Serena asked while looking at the ingots and gem fragments in the basket.

"Yes, but there isn't much profit in making amulets and accessories these days."

"That's because everyone's making the same thing nowadays. Too much supply and and not enough people buying them. To make matters worse, the khalis merchant only comes once a month and only brings two wagons," Grandpa Luus explained.

Serena knew of the khalis, of course. Back in the game, the khalis were the minions of Ikhlis the Mother Goddess, 3rd in ranking. Ikhlis herself was weak and offered no challenge one on one. The only problem fighting her one on one was due to fact that she had an annoying unique ability to spawn strong but short-lived khalis minions every five seconds. So it was never truly one on one.

What made Ikhlis truly formidable though was her minions, the khalis. It was often said that Ikhlis showered all her love towards her minions. One could even call them the chosen of god, their god, at least. The khalis, also called Children of Ikhlis, looked no different from a normal human. However, that was the only similarity.

The khalis were stronger, more athletic and more capable than a normal human side by side. They could also learn and cast any magic available to Ikhlis. Even divine magics were possible for them. They were the kind of race that had only advantages and not even a single weakness. In fighting Ikhlis, the fighter must finish the battle quickly as khalis as a race has a telepathic link to Ikhlis. The moment they sense Ikhlis in danger, whole cities will leave everything behind in an attempt to save Ikhlis.

Serena remembered the only time she fought Ikhlis. She remembered the notifications popping up one after another as her whole region map started being filled with hostile khalis from all directions. Within minutes, her whole region map were almost completely filled by hostile khalis. As the red dots representing hostile units approached within ten miles of her battleground, she fled the scene and had to sacrifice the mycras who went to battle with her. Serena still had shivers every time she recalled that battle.

"Then why not make something else?" Serena asked.

"Something else? Such as what?" Grandpa Luus asked.

Serena thought it was strange that they hadn't thought about it. They were mycras after all. Crafting was their forte, it was in their blood. Mycras had no value other than their crafting skills. They had Strength 7 out of the maximum 20, but strength alone couldn't win battles. The only reason that Serena's mycra army could stand toe to toe with the other battle-specialized races was their high quality, personalized equipment.

"Why not forge weapons, shields or armour? The mycras are a race of magic crafters and blacksmiths after all."

Both Grandpa Luus and Iina laughed hearing her words. Grandpa Luus even smacked his own legs as he laughed. It was only when Grandpa Luus coughed his lungs out that both of them stopped laughing as Iina brought him a tankard of drinking water.

"It's not that we don't want to make weapons, shields or armours. We're just not allowed to," Iina answered while rubbing Grandpa Luus's back.

"Why not?"

"It's the law. Only the central towns are allowed to craft equipment of war. The fringe hamlets are only allowed to craft farm equipments and trinkets. We're also not allowed to hold weapons unless we're part of the border guards and we're not allowed to bring our weapons home even when we're one of the guards."

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"Not knowing this simple fact proves you're not from around here, Serena," Grandpa Luus chuckled.

"But why does the law forbid you from doing that?" Serena asked.

"It's been like that since the Kafri Revolution. The revolutionists, they call themselves the Unifiers after they won, took over the central valley and made unreasonable demands. The rest of us who didn't want to comply to their demands left the central cities and settled at the outskirts of the valley."

"What were their demands?"

"Renounce Aelrea and unite under the flag of the United Mycran Kingdom."

"Excuse me?"

Renounce me? I created you ungrateful bastards from iron, clay and fire. You're removing your creator now? Oh, this makes me rage.

Serena could feel blood rush to her head. If this was a western cartoon, she would be blowing steam out of her ears. They were her creation, yet, they pushed her away. Serena felt like punishing them with the 8th Heaven's main cannon, like she had done to her enemies many times in the past. When she recalled 8th Heaven though, she started cooling and calming herself down.

She did play as Aelrea in AGO. She did create the mycra as Aelrea's minions. However, that was in AGO. When she arrived here, to this world in the game, she wasn't Aelrea. She was just Serena, a normal sixteen years old school girl. It was entirely possible that there was another Aelrea in this world, the real Aelrea, instead of the Aelrea that she created as her avatar.

Grandpa Luus took another gulp from his tankard. "So that's how the numerous hamlets came to be. But after that, the central cities came to our hamlets with armies and demanded us to surrender all our weapons and forbade us from making weapons or other tools of war."

"And that's how we're reduced to making accessories and trinkets. But what can we do? We can't fight them," Iina shrugged.

"Didn't anyone resist when they took away your weapons and made that unreasonable demand?"

"Of course, my father fought them and they defeated him handily. It didn't even take more than five blows. My mother said they were too powerful. Their strength was unmatched, their speed was faster than the eye could see and their reflex was as good as a mountain lion. My father and the other residents were no match for them. We never fought them since."

"But Aelrea did create the mycra to be strong so that the mycra can hammer rare metals with ease. How could your father lose in less than five blows?"

"You forgot, Serena. Ever since Aelrea was slain, we as a race lost much of our power. That was why we had to run away from our homeland in the north. Even the great hero Lasrios could only fight at half his power as he fought to protect our race on our exodus through the plains, the rivers, the mountains and the great swamp. But these soldiers, my mother told me they fought as if they still had the blessings of Aelrea, no, they were probably stronger than mycras with Aelrea's blessing."

"What makes you think that?"

Without saying anything, the old man Luus got to his feet. He walked up to the door, but when he couldn't hear either of them getting up, he gestured for Serena to follow him. They walked a fair distance up the mountain behind the cottage.

Serena noticed that she had not run out of breath even once. If this was the world outside the game, she would've been wheezing by now. At her father's insistence, Serena enrolled at a nearby kendo dojo where she learned shinai and naginata techniques, so she was slightly more fit than most schoolgirls. That however, didn't give her the stamina and strength of a mountain climber. She deduced it must be the mycra's racial perk, Strength 7, fulfilling it's purpose because just like her, Grandpa Luus also climbed the mountain with ease.

"This is where my father breathed his last breath," Grandpa Luus suddenly stopped while pointing at the ground.

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," Serena said, empathizing with his loss.

"That's not what I brought you here for, Serena."

"Then?"

"Look behind you. That was the one blow that killed my father."

Serena turned around. Her eyes went wide at the evidence before her. It was a hole, a large, deep hole. A hole with walls so smooth all the way throughout, so deep that if she were to focus her sight, she could even see the sky on the other side of the mountain.

Forget the mycras, even the marble giants would find it hard to do this in one blow.