I returned to Girai with more than I ever hoped to gain. Nilah was sleeping on my head. She fought well, we were just no match for Inyr but that’s fine. It seems he kills gods when he’s bored, he'd be in deep shit if we could beat him. I put Nilah on my bed and went to practice a move that I saw him use. Those balls of air that spun around and shredded whatever it sucked in. I want it! I started with using [Counter spin] and forming the air into a ball. That was easy. I made them self-sufficient and chucked a piece of meat into it. It was just swirling around in the sphere. No shredding. What if I combine it with [Pressure] and [Wind blade]?
There we go, it got ripped to pieces as if I threw it into a blender and I will call it such. Acquired the skill [Blender], Happy with my new skill I started to process the dragonbeard, I was literally splitting hairs. It needed a lot of precision but I have my Elgards eyes so it just takes time. I reached the day on which I was supposed to start sleeping which I badly needed as I have been splitting hairs for the last 2 days.
I woke up refreshed on day 117 and continued. It was a long and painful process but I finished splitting the beard and making wires on day 125. I made them extremely thin and they were extremely strong. Tests revealed that they had no danger of melting or snapping. I did create one weakness into them; I made them weak to a specific wavelength so that I could snap them easily when I wanted to. I wanted to start and read the manual of how to make an ancient relic magic katana when someone knocked on the door.
Nilah ran to the door and I picked her up before opening the door. It was someone from the Yttroz Industries.
“You have received 3 commissions. Jeremiah told me to also tell you when the deadline is else you will show up a week later or something and think it is normal.” He read something on his tablet. “All three commissions are due in exactly 65 days. It is possible to extend this deadline. The expected materials will be delivered to you tomorrow, any other materials you might need you will have to provide for yourself. Have a nice day.” He left a tablet behind. Hey, you forgot something.
“Oh, I didn't, it’s yours now, you can easily see what commissions you have on it, its due date, the materials heading your way, and their status, you can also request any extra materials on this. There is a menu with open commissions if you see something you want to make you can take them. The ones I brought to you were specific requests asking for your craftsmanship.” Ah, thanks!
I looked at this technological wonder and could easily find the data that the guy talked about. This thing is actually quite convenient. It is a bit like my Elgards eyes but then for humans. And uhh more mechanical, I guess. Let's see, the first request is a set of daggers that have small channels in them. This request is interesting.
So, this client wants to put a vial in the dagger's handle and the contents will seep through the small channels into the dagger and when the client stabs someone the liquid, which I assume is poison, will instantly be delivered. There was a list of poisons the dagger should work with. This list… I looked at the name of the client. 'Anonymous', you can't fool me Toxic Donkey!
Nobody has a list of poisons this long; I also recognized some highly uncommon poisons. What a dumbass, did he think I wouldn't find out? I will engrave: ‘For Toxic Donkey’, somewhere on it when I’m done. This shouldn't be hard to make. Now that I have my new wires, I could just make the daggers with some of these wires in and then pull them out when I finished the daggers leaving thin channels. I could finish this in 2 or 3 days easily. I put a tail on simulation duty to find the best and most efficient way to do this.
Next up. Another anonymous; A sword that fits my beauty… Are these guys messing with me? What is the point of being anonymous if their description will give their identity away? Let me guess, the last commission is from Vinny? Yup, at least he put his name on it. He wanted chainmail to hide his innate sturdiness.
Normally this is easy but he needs something strong enough that can mimic the toughness of a dragon. Actually, this is easy, he gave me a bunch of his scales and I also have scales I've gotten from Inyr. I will just make some dragon scale armor. Nothing beats dragon scales in mimicking a dragon’s sturdiness! So Toxic Donkey’s and Vinny’s requests were easy. Thalia’s request though… a sword that matches her beauty… I don't know anything about beauty… I needed to wait for the materials that would arrive tomorrow but I could start on Vinny’s dragon scale armor because I already had the key ingredient already.
I went through my archive and brought up the manual about dragon scale armor that I swiped from the time capsule. Yup, I have everything, the hardest material to get was obviously the scales which I had an abundance of. I didn’t know his size though. I tried to remember the last meeting with Vinny and estimate the dimensions. I think I got it. I made some peach ice cream before I started, gave some to Nilah and we started with the dragon scale armor. And before I knew it the door rang.
“The materials have arrived!” Oh, that was fast, I thought they would arrive tomorrow!
“Yes, that's what I told you yesterday… make sure to rest enough…” 4 guys loaded materials into my workshop. “I see you have already started, wait is this?” The guy looked at the dragon scale armor that was almost halfway done. “Dragon scales? How did you? I will notify the client that this might get expensive… I will appraise it when you are done…” Oh, you’re that appraisal guy from last time! Did you get a haircut or something?
“No… I didn't change my appearance…” Oh, ok.
“Also, don't come to Gittrian within the next week, let the clients wait a bit… I think I need to notify Rubert…” Noo! No! I will take it easy! I promise!
“Ok then, good luck.” Phew, we don't want to deal with Healerguy, right Nilah? Nilah seemed to dislike the thought of Healerguy catching us. I agreed with her. I finished the armor before I had to sleep and I finished the daggers 2 days after I woke up. I think I did a pretty good job.
Now this sword… what does Thalia like? Baths, can't put that in a sword, sand, I’d rather not put that in a sword. What else does she like? Immortality, can't put that in a sword either. I realized that I actually don't know anything about her. Oh, she loves jewels, rubies specifically. How about a sword with a ruby edge adorned with some jewels? She is extremely rich so she can surely afford this.
I went back to the bath idea. What if I make the sword hollow? She can fill it with water and whenever she’s in the desert where there is no water, she has some to use her water magic on. But hollow swords aren't a great idea unless… If I enforce it with some dragonbeard wires it should become strong yet flexible and it wouldn't matter if it's hollow.
Now to check if it is actually a good idea. I made a simple hollow sword out of iron and measured the volume. This wouldn't be enough to be worth it. Unless… I looked at my dimensional box on the table. If I just shove a small dimensional box in it, she can still store the water in her sword. I would need a small dimensional box though. I left 2 clones behind to start testing various shapes and sizes that would fit her the most and set up preparations while I got ready to set out. I needed to get a small dimensional box from somewhere. There were 2 candidates. Gittrian or that auction in Saluk, the sand city. I created another shadow clone and sent him to sand city. The shadow clone tugged on the [Dimensional Anchor] and returned to the jungle. I headed outside and went to Gregory to take more boats to Gittrian.
“You don't have to keep asking me, just take them when you go to Gittrian you are the only one who can take more than 3 boats anyways.” Ok. I took 15 boats and headed for Gittrian. Nilah stayed behind this time to help the shadow clones. I arrived the same day late in the evening and went to the Adventurers Association and got a room. It deviated from my normal schedule but I can't do whatever I want here so might as well sleep during the night.
The place where I would find what I'm looking for is a mall close to Aurum. It has stuff only the richest people can buy. It didn't take long to find a store that had what I was looking for. It had dimensional boxes of all sizes. one of the smaller ones had a holding capacity of 200 liters.
Not a lot if the goal is to store items, it is a lot if the goal is to store water. 6 gold though, isn’t this daylight robbery?
I purchased the overpriced item and headed toward Yttroz Industries Headquarters. I needed to talk to Jerry or Barusu and successfully sneaked into the building. Locating Jerry’s office was a piece of cake. He was having a Teleroad conversation. I stepped in after he was done.
“Whoa, I guess you finally managed to sneak in successfully, Don't tell me you already finished the commissions?” No, not yet, I have a question. I told him about the properties of the material I was looking for.
“Hmm, I can't think of any material that fits those properties off the top of my head, I will discuss it with Barusu if he has time, is there anything else?” Uh not really, just a question, why did 2 of my clients go anonymous?
“Well one seemed to do that to annoy you and the other one did it to feel like she wasn't bothering you but it seems you already found out who they are…” Their requests were… let’s say unique to them so I could tell.
“I see, well you still have enough time to complete the commissions.” I know, I will probably be back in a week.
“Can you use your tablet to indicate when you will arrive in Gittrian so that we can notify our clients? We will hold on to the items if they can't be available at that time.” Alright, I will also come with a lot of junk… regular items that need to be sold.
“That is fine, you can leave the regular items in the boats that you bring but I would ask you to bring the commissioned items with you to the headquarters.” Ok, thanks, Jerry. And you need to take a holiday sometime!
“I don't want to hear that from you!” Jerry said with a tired look on his face. I hope they're not overworking him.
The streets were busy as always. It was such a different scene than anywhere else I've been. Some things have changed since the last time I was here. They attached some big screens on some buildings. It was giving news flashes and weather reports. Uh oh. Some archaeologists have found something that was hidden well, it seems to be sealed. They have hired an expert on unsealing but he refused to unseal it. I saw a small news snippet and what do you know? It’s Greg. I guess asking him to unseal stuff is a good call. It does seem he’s in the ruins where I sealed that Dimsha. I think he recognized my handiwork and realized that messing with this is a bad idea. Unfortunately, the archaeologists want to know what’s sealed away.
I wonder what happened to the creature that was in that room. More random news, some flood in the Aquini kingdom, the Igrini kingdom still being in a dispute, some group of people demanding independence, and some idol group breaking popularity records. Mysterious killings in small and big cities, freak weather, the state of Jarn kingdom, and all kinds of random news. I could see that Gittrian was slowly being rebuilt. Yttroz Industries did its best to not inconvenience anyone. It might look completely different in a year or 2 years or 5 years. I arrived at the dock and took 15 boats and headed back home. I couldn't beat my 7-hour record because I had more boats.
The boats were moored and it was in time for dinner. Not that my shadow clones or Nilah would cook or anything. The shadow clone that went to sand city dispelled himself because he got tired of the sand.
I got back to work and I finished on day 139. It wasn't as easy as I thought because beauty is subjective. But I could say that the end product was truly beautiful. The dimensional box was embedded in the handle of the sword because I went for a thin short blade. A short sword would fit her the best. The edges were made out of ruby. I had more than enough rubies lying around so this wasn't hard to do. I dyed the metal black and decorated it with gold and silver. It looked dangerous yet beautiful. Now I just had to put a simple enchantment which made the water enter and leave from the tip of the sword and not the back.
I tested it out, it was a bit heavier than I expected but it didn't feel bad as the sword had a good weight balance. The sword was extremely sharp. I engraved my trademark on it. It reminded me to do the same for the others, I added: ‘for Toxic Donkey’ on the daggers in fancy writing. All were done. Time to slack!
I notified Yttroz Industries that I would arrive in 5 days and relaxed for 5 days. I spent most of my time on the resort-like B2f and eating self-made ice cream. Nilah seemed bored though. I sent her to the training floor and let her fight some monsters.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
My relaxation came to an end when Nilah came to the tropical floor and started jumping on me. Hey, what’s up? She ran to the elevator so I checked the date.
Oh, it’s time to go to Gittrian already? Time flies when you’re doing nothing.
I got up and got ready to leave. Everything was wrapped up and ready to go. 15 boats were taken this time to Gittrian. These were all boats full of stuff I crafted and needed to get rid of.
The cargo got registered and I went to deliver the new equipment after arriving in Gittrian. The building seemed relatively empty.
I met up with the appraiser and he inspected the items beforehand. “Let's start with the daggers. Masterfully done. They still seem quite simple, 2 gold will do for these, now let's see that armor…” The client had provided the scales himself so you can ignore those.
“Ah... I see, well in that case 3 gold will do, otherwise…” I wondered if Vinny even has enough gold. “And let's take this sword out of its sheath, shall we? I love the scabbard.” He took the sword out and was perplexed. “What… how did you even get the idea of making this?" He looked at the sword. “It’s bewitching. Give me a second, it will be hard to pin down a price if I’m distracted.” He sheathed the sword and looked at the scabbard. He typed something on his tablet. Then he took it out again. Ah right, I also embedded a small dimensional box in it so the user can store water in it. She is a water user.
“Yes, I know… So, it even has a dimensional box… This item is worth 88 gold… I assume you already knew that she was rich.” I nodded. “Now only one could make it today. We kept an eye on the river to estimate when you would arrive.” The appraiser snapped his fingers and 2 people came to collect the sword and the armor. I guess that means only Toxic Donkey is here. We entered the room.
“Surprise! You didn't think it was me who put up this commission eh?!” What? Toxic Donkey? Oh no I didn't know! How could I?
“Damn, you suck at lying, how did you know?” I showed him the list of poisons he mentioned and pointed at the rare and specific poisons. “Oh, right.” I see you’re good friends with Io.
Io was assaulting Nilah trying to pet her and Nilah was having none of it and kept running away. “I noticed what you meant, she’s special, but that's why I love her.”
Oh, you two are?
“Yeah, I know what you’re gonna say but it’s my choice! Also, I made her a bit less annoying! It was a lot of work though…” Must have been rough, how is Esher? Io stopped chasing Nilah. She walked to me and put her hands on my shoulders.
“Agnis! You must help us! Someone killed them, all of them! We’re trying to find him but we can't find even a trace of him!” Io started to tear up and Kyle seemed to have a hard time in this situation. Wait what are you talking about? What guy?
“I went to the place you told me about, the Loud Sun. I [Silent Melded] inside and the only living person that I found was Io, who was crying, the rest of the assassins all got murdered, with daggers or shadow magic. The person Io identified as Esher was… crushed to a pulp… Io described the culprit as cocky, he had black hair, and a black suit, and claimed that he found the place and said he was quiet in the night or something.” Esher, is dead? I tried to process what was going on. I put my hands on my face.
The culprit was covered in black, that doesn't say much, unfortunately. You said he found the place and he's quiet during the night? Well, if he got there then that makes sense… wait, Io can you say word for word what he said? Not your interpretation.
“He said something like I’m the founder and I’m Silent Night or something.” I got a flashback of my heart almost getting pierced. Kyle, we have a problem. I just realized something. I’m so stupid. If you ever found a guild that was named Silver Torrent, who would you think the founder was?
“Well, you of course… wait are you telling me? Wasn't he in jail?” Ugh, I told you that I broke my friend out of jail, right? That’s where I met the Silent Night, he almost killed me with the skill that gave him his name.
“I guess that part was not so relevant to your adventure but it would have been nice to know, so we’re basically trying to find the best Silent Night alive?” Seems so, but I believe in you, put that guy in the dirt and change the role to Toxic Donkey.
“Well, we’ve been looking for him for months now. The only traces we find are the corpses he leaves behind. We know it’s him because of how he kills them but he leaves no mana traces behind. Also… I think he’s looking for you.” For me? Why?
“Most of the people that he killed were imposters pretending to be you or resembled you… What did you do?” Fail to kill him, I guess. I was in a hurry though… I will let you know when he finds me.
“I know you're strong but make sure we get to you while you're still alive… “ I currently spend my time in Girai but I do make sure all my tracks are covered, besides when I go up and down the river… I should go easy on that, I guess.
”Ok, we will keep an eye on the area. According to my latest information he is somewhere around Jarn Kingdom so you should be safe for a while.” Alright thanks, but everyone is gone eh… he better hope he never finds me.
“Hey! I’m still here!” Yeah, I’m glad you survived Io, anyways these daggers work as you requested, I even signed it for you.
“For Toxic Donkey… so you really knew it was me…” Yup, now go have fun with your girlfriend
“I wish you would settle down… where is Thalia?” No clue, I completed a commission for her but she's not here.
“Oh, she put one up too?” I thought you 3 put them up together.
“I guess it’s a coincidence I put one up as soon as I heard that a blacksmith named Silver Torrent had appeared. An adventurer had made a name for herself in the most recent Sichar tournament that ended 24 days ago. Her sword skills were graceful but her sword stood out. It took her enemies by surprise with its versatility. Her team didn't win but it left a deep impression. After that, she revealed where she got it from.”
Appraiserguy stepped in. “You have no idea how many requests we have to decline, so far, these 3 have cleared the background check, it also helped that they are acquainted with you. Jeremy also tells us to make sure we don’t overload you because you don’t tend to rest a lot.” Hey! I just finished slacking for 5 days!
“5 days in how many years?” Shut up Toxic Donkey!
“Rude, anyways thanks for the daggers, I will make sure to put that asshole in the dirt with these.”
“Mr. Toxic Donkey, you’re forgetting the payment.”
“Ah right!” The appraiser was completing the payment procedure while I watched Io trying to catch Nilah. Io sure got quieter. I guess Kyle is having a positive effect on her. He has a little bit of experience dealing with dragons so maybe it's that.
Anyways enjoy your new equipment, I need to check something. The appraiser kept talking to Kyle while I headed over to Jerry’s office. He didn't seem to be there, I went to Barusu’s office, also not here. Where are all the useful people?! I found an important looking guy walking around.
Hey, excuse me, I'm Agnis Hourai and I'm looking for Jerry or the CEO.
"Oh, I know who you are, they are not in Gittrian at the moment but maybe I can help." I told him about the type of material I'm looking for. "Hmm strong enough to withstand the effects of the ambient mana under high speeds. Let's visit our material expert." We took an elevator to the 5th floor and walked into a workshop. "Good afternoon Verno, Agnis here has a question for you." I told this dwarf what I was looking for.
He stroked his beard. "Hmm, I’m sorry to say this but no such thing exists, any material that comes close to your description would break after several uses. If you find something that meets those requirements, please sell it to us." I see, it did seem like a tall order, I was just hoping that there might be a solution.
"I'm sorry, you might have to resort to highly non-traditional methods." Thank you Verno
"I'm glad I could help." He continued working on chipping blocks of stone. "We will keep looking for something that meets your requirements." The important person and I took the elevator down. It's fine, this was one option I might be able to solve this, so don't worry.
"Ok I will relay this to Jeremiah when he returns, have a nice day." He got off on the 2nd floor and I continued to the main floor. I could leave this building via the normal exit! Is what I’d like to say but I still had to dodge curious staff and guards. When will they forget about me? I went to the dock and got 5 boats. I dropped the boats in stealth and covered myself and the boats in illusions and headed back home. Nilah had been quiet since I left the room with Kyle and Io. I reached after breaking my personal record. 6 hours and 37 minutes but I wasn't happy about it.
The sun had set and I sat down in my house. Esher is dead… and it’s my fault. Well actually it’s that Silent Night's fault and I don’t have any control over his actions but still… It feels like it’s my fault. Nilah seems to have noticed how I feel way before I reached home. Kyle said that the Silent Night was looking for me. I assume it's for revenge? Maybe getting beat by a kid rubbed him the wrong way. It probably did. I thought about the inevitability of death under humans. One day I will have to deal with this when Kyle and Thalia die of old age or in their line of work. I can't keep blaming that on myself.
Even though I can interfere it doesn't mean I should. I wouldn't be different from those stupid gods if I did. I took a deep sigh. Esher was an assassin, he knew his line of work was dangerous. Any mission can be your last as an assassin. It would have felt different if he died in action. But he got killed by a supposed ally, that is what I can't accept. I won't show this guy any mercy if he finds me, although I don’t think he is mine to kill. Kyle or Io should get the kill. Preferably Io, she had known Esher for way longer than I did. I don’t know how I feel about letting a killer run free if he finds me first though.
Maybe I should send him packing and let them finish him off. Various situations popped up. I decided to let these thoughts rest. I needed to come up with a way to create a material that sucks in the ambient mana before it starts to become dangerous to my sword or make it unaffected by mana. I started to look through ancient manuals but none had what I was looking for. I guess I was on my own. It’s both scary and exciting. Some clues and methods seemed helpful. But I tried to go for the easiest solution first. I made shadow clones and started crafting swords out of metals that had a high mana conductivity. I started to cheat and used my 9t mode in an illusion bubble to speed up these things. I didn't rest and finished a set of 18 swords in 6 days. I imbued them with frost magic as I swung them like I normally do.
This didn't seem to work. They were fine by just swinging but if I tried to cut something they shattered. How about infusing them with frost magic while creating them? This posed a challenge because it killed all the heat. Is there a way to cold forge this? I will need earth magic and specifically the branch of metals which also requires a lot of studying and experience… That option is out. I can infuse a special oil with frost magic and soak the sword in it so it gains similar properties to the frost infused oil.
The oil froze… Why am I even surprised? I kept trying different ideas that all failed. I got some commissions in the meantime which I completed quite easily. I didn't have time to bring them to Gittrian so I sent them by a special boat. They had to send a water user to Girai specifically to pick these up. Since I finished all the 5 commissions, I could give him all 5 of the weapons I made. I sent more regular armor pieces and weapons with normal boats.