As if absorbing all this, nobody said anything else. While they continued for a while, after adjusting her direction a number of times, seemingly moving randomly. Within an hour, she found herself on a small dirt path. The thing he noticed most about this was that when she was walking, she was moving funny. He had only noticed it when they made it a fair distance from the village. At the end of the hour journey, she started to move in a strange manner. It was only when they reached the dirt path, he happened to look back and realized that the area she came from was filled with foliage and shrubs.
There wasn’t a single mark on her or the path they came from to indicate they had come from anywhere other than a nearby path connected or an outlet to the dirt path. It was a rather eye-opening matter to him. He had just thought of an issue that he finally gathered the courage to ask when he noticed what she was doing. It was only now that his curiosity was sated did he ponder one last time before asking, “Why is it that your father is different?”
She didn’t stop, she did however answer him, “You remember what I said about the dwarves?”
They hadn’t been together for very long, but during their travels, they had been talking a lot. While she rested, he would rest very briefly to let his consciousness stabilize. Without the complete ruins, he could only imagine that without mana storage and possibly something he guessed was some type of mana or energy converter to fuel his consciousness. Keeping himself busy was one of the ways he controlled the inside from spilling out. He read the information from the stone or talked to her, once in a while he would simply take in his new surroundings.
As one can imagine, being alone for so long, he happened to miss that connection with other people to a very large degree. Therefore, most of his time was spent talking to her. Else, he did something else. Making it difficult to recall all the information he did remember bits and pieces, they hadn’t talked very much about dwarfs, “All I remember is that they’re the best at the arts because of their dexterity. That, along with some miscellaneous information.”
Stopping for a second, she had to turn back to look at the boy, “Even if we didn’t talk very much about them, how did you forget all of it?” Seeing the confused look on his face, she couldn’t help but sigh as she turned back around. “It is a rather famous saying, so it is easy to remember. Dwarves are said to be king of the arts because they’re so open. There is very little they won’t accept. While humans on the other side will bitch and moan about the tiniest things. Elves just don’t care about anyone else, dragons are fickle and will pick a fight over small things. Goblins are close to humans but have a very strict hierarchy. Royals are closed off like the elves, so it is very difficult to get close enough to know what they’re like.”
Feeling the stare on the back of her head, she drew the topic back, “I also said that there are a few outliers. Every race has them. Elves have the worst outliers, as they’re a rather extreme group, therefore they tend to produce the most outrageous outliers. One such an example is the old man. He has never mentioned why he is down here instead of in the north in the elven forests. It seems to be a taboo, and outside I can’t find anything on it either. As a doctor the villagers can’t or won’t chase him out, but as you can see when he took me in they drew a line between themselves and him.”
“Why didn’t the two of you just leave? As a doctor, I am sure there are numerous places that would happily take you in.”
“I don’t know.” Her voice got a little small before she returned a second later as if she returned to normal, “I thought about the same thing many times. The place we are going to is one of the closest dwarves towns. My uncle is a dwarf and also the one that made my original daggers. The entire east coast is a huge trading hub, and this is part of the reason why they have and probably always will own the eastern coast. Because of their skills and openness, they don’t discriminate unless you do something really unforgivable. Even small and petty things are fairly easy to get forgiveness for by righting the wrong.”
He couldn’t see it, however, he could feel an emotional stirring in her, “When I was a child I spent a large amount of time with my uncle. The old man and I had a deal that if I can make enough money to open a level A account with any Adventurer’s Guild Bank without aid from anyone else. Or if I can become a Grade C, I could take the old man’s last name. Because of this, I used to use it as an excuse to runway and stay for long periods with my uncle. The dwarfs accepted me and because of my uncle even those that weren’t dwarves, they never dared say or act impolitely to me.”
With a heavy sigh, “The excuse I used was partly true. I wanted my uncle to make my weapons. Even if I didn’t like the village, the old man has and always be my old man. I have never given up on being a Grade C or opening a level A account. While open, it didn’t mean the dwarves don’t have pride. He was a bit against it, as he didn’t want me to do something dangerous. In the end, he gave me an ultimatum. He would make my weapons if I could pass a weapons knowledge test.”
“What can a test is that?”
“It isn’t real. It was just a bunch of seemingly useless information that is collected on a particular weapon from history. Useful bits like maintenance. In the end, it was the foundation to a weapon that allowed me to build a useful foundation on a particular weapon. Now I have the ability to have a fairly accurate judgement of daggers because of those tests. I am obviously no expert, but my hands with a whetstone could easily help me make a living. Maybe not a great one, but I definitely wouldn’t starve from doing that alone. You might not imagine it, however, it is very difficult to use, depending on the item use itself. It can change the edge of the blade, this changes how it will cut and what it shouldn’t or should be used to cut.”
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What started off as a serious discussion was very quickly littered into shattered topics that the two continued to go about without any direction. In the end, the two moved away from their original location and spent two days traveling to a remote looking town. While there were a number of caravans that moved through the path, only a very few of them even stopped. Only one out of the five they saw asked if she wanted to join them. In the end, Jessica politely declined, and the journey finally came to an end when the path started to turn to stone. From there in the distance, a town could be seen as the compacted dirt road slowly at first, before quickly cascading until not a single speck of dirt could be found as they reached a wall with very few guards on it.
Instead, those few guards had atrocities on the wall. They looked similar to large siege crossbows mixed with large machine guns with belts of ammo. It was not surprising they didn’t use normal ammunition, as the weapons were leaking some powerful and dreadful mana. He had yet to see what reinforced mana into an old weapon could do, but he alone had demonstrated that mana made common firearms from his old world utterly useless. The checkpoint wasn’t even that serious, either. In all, nobody showed any real care for the horrifying weapons on the walls.
He couldn’t help as he stopped once they made it inside, “Can nobody feel those things?”
Turning to see what he was talking about, Jessica looked up at the crossbows, “What is wrong with them? I only know that they’re extremely destructive and weapons of mass destruction. Most of westernmost eastern cities are equipped with such things. My uncle made those since he was going to settle down here. He also received numerous perks for that too. If you watch, anyone that radiates any mana will be strictly investigated. While they’re not willing to offend anyone if you watch, nobody will make it through like us. That is some of the splash effect from uncle.”
From her disregard of the items, he knew that they were held in containment or some type of restriction that didn’t allow outsiders to feel it. This ran parallel to the fact that he could feel the traps, even interact and interfere with them inside the laboratory. He suspected the reason why, but he didn’t want to bother too much. Turning around, he could see a happy smile on Jessica’s face. It was the look one showed when they opened the door, took off their shows and finally reached home. He only saw that face when she saw the old man.
With one last look, she ignored him. He often entered his own little worlds. She followed the familiar path as she pondered the expression he would show. Even when a village only held anywhere from five hundred to fifteen hundred people. Dwarves were king of the arts, this wasn’t an empty title. They had housing districts, but the majority of people living here didn’t live in the housing zone. They had their own studios. While there were different levels, the more money you spent the larger the studio and the higher the magic placed on it. Anything from noise to temperature control, was a long list of amenities that could be purchased.
When she reached her uncle’s shop, she couldn’t help but peek over to see his expression. Sure enough, he was throwing questionable gazes at her. It wasn’t that the shop was run down or shady looking. In fact, it was a very good-looking building, there just wasn’t a sign or anything. While it looked like a shop, it almost looked like just a fancy house. From outside, one could imagine the inside was at best a front room, a room in the back and a basement. Its size just didn’t add up when looking at the large buildings next to it.
Sure enough, she had higher expectations of the boy for a reason, “Does he do everything in the basement?”
It was a very good question. While the shop didn’t look all that big, the space the shop took up wasn’t exactly small. There was a garden and the space around was rather open. In fact, one could say empty. With a smirk, she teased him, “You’re right. Only, you’re also wrong.”
Her uncle had enough money from contracts he didn’t need to sell anything. In fact, he was more of a tinker than a smith. He loved to engineer and because of this he was always tinkering with something and didn’t like to be disturbed. His shop reflected that. It was tucked into a corner, and most people didn’t even know it was a shop to begin with. Those that did go in, were left happy with what they found.
Walking into the small short, it was as one could imagine. There was a single showcase room that lined the walls with a large array of items from weapons, armors, even trinkets from arm guards to various contraptions that were with obvious use and very obscure like body armor that went under the clothes. In one corner there were even machines that could do a variety of work to even some magic items.
The entire middle of the shop was completely open so that one didn’t need to move between any aisles and was easy to move between any two sections. Watching the boy’s face, she saw him glance at the surrounding items. One or two he would look at more than once but regardless. His eyes kept returning to the counter. With this, the question from earlier, combined, she was sure of it now. He had the ability to sense mana that was hidden or behind restriction covers meant to hide them.
The man behind the counter was a rather tall man with short hair. What surprised the boy was that his ears were pointed, and he had a bright smile on his face when he saw Jessica walk in. He didn’t disturb her, as she always did a once over before seeing the old dwarf.
“How is uncle?” She had a bit of a withdrawn smile that was hard to read.
“I am fine. Thanks for asking, how are you?”
With a more pronounced almost mocking smile she continued, “I am talking about Uncle Beast, It is far too soon for me to be calling you uncle. Don’t forget who it was that got you this job.”
With no longer the bright smile like he was upset, he spat out some heavy words, “Ah, fuck you and fuck him too…”
Without getting upset, she smiled more sincerely as she patted the tall man’s back as he started to release a theatrical weep and vent all his grievances as he laid his head down on the counter. This continued on for more than ten minutes. Most surprising was when he was done he sat back up with a slumped posture, but his face was completely dry as he had a reserved smile on his face. “Go on in, he is in the back.” In the end, that was all he said as they moved behind the counter.