When we got back; Maria and Irvine went to the inn to rest, they have expended a lot of energy from running and gunning the diggers.

"Sis! Sis! I can see your inventions everywhere!" [Mooly]

"Heheh. Thank you Mooly." [Angelica]

The whole village has been redecorated or should I say received an upgrade. We were merely gone for six to eight hours and everything and I mean EVERYTHING has changed, my imbued crystals were used pretty much on all of the stuff that you see every day.

"They really know their stuff." [Blake]

From small items to huge appliances, it is like a completely different village which is similar to Dalio of course!

This reminded me of the game Empire Earth, when you change periods, all of the cities that you own suddenly change in appearance. We jumped from medieval to renaissance... Sire! The age of discovery is upon us!

"How do you like the village now?" Russel inquires as I stare into the bustling alleyway.

"I am in awe at how fast you guys do your work." [Angelica]

"Heh, I told you so." Russel says as he wiped his nose with his thumb as he smirks.

These guys adapt really quickly. Sure they may have heard how to utilize my inventions but putting everything into use for just a few hours is outstanding! Even I myself took three days to get everything up at Dalio. Now I believe Russel on what he said about the dwarfs resourcefulness.

Using my imbued crystals some have already made inventions of their own. I see a dwarf fiddling on what seems like an air blower, he had a crude pipe attached with a handle and just below the handle is my magic crystal. He made an experimental model I see.

The dwarf looked down the pipe and powered up the crystal, then there came a sudden blast of wind from within, he may have used it in max output that it shaved his top hair off... dangerous...

Well, that is normal for experiments, we learn from our mistakes and oh, correction what flew was a wig. I bet that with just a few adjustments I can turn that into a gun, but screw guns. I was killed by it and I'm not planning on getting shot by one again or much so coerced into making them if I presented it in this world.

"Hey, do you want to see my forge?" [Russel]

"I had already seen what people do with them at Dalio." [Angelica]

"You sure about that?" [Russel]

We followed Russel home and to my amazement, his house is smaller than the others despite being the head of the village and also as the guild master.

"Sorry its a bit cramped, but make yourselves at home." [Russel]

"Such colorful stones." [Mooly]

"Umm... Mooly those are ores..." [Blake]

His house was filled with all kinds of ores and aside from the usual fire-imbued furnace, he also has a drum filled with my water imbued crystal and a blower that was wind imbued.

"I can understand the furnace, but why the drum and blower?" [Angelica]

"My dear, forging is a very delicate process even slight changes in temperature if not controlled it will ruin the weapon." [Russel]

Russel tells me that he uses the drum to change the temperature of the water depending on the status of the metal. For each quench, it hardens the metal and it, in turn, makes the blade sensitive to minor changes in temperature.

It is also the same for the blower, to help the air circulate inside the furnace, as it would pose as a problem if the pocket of hot air is concentrated in one place. Which in turn makes a weapon less malleable and more likely to break upon impact.

So forging mostly relies on temperature huh. Pardon for my lack of knowledge as during my past life most of the forging is done by automated machines, so minor details such as this is new to me.

"Hmm... Angelica, can you imbue two crystals for me?" [Russel]

"Sure, but what kind?" [Angelica]

"That rock one." [Russel]

"I haven't even made one of those yet... how come that you know about it?" [Angelica]

I know that he is the village leader and guild master, but only a few know about my earth enchant because I haven't used it as much.

"Seymour said to me that you showed it to him" [Russel]

That fat dwarf... I told him to keep his mouth shut.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"It should be a secret, but no worries I'm going to kill him later." [Angelica]

"You sound like you're not joking." [Russel]

"Would you be happy if someone told your carefully hidden secret to other people?" [Angelica]

"I'm not gonna lie. I would be furious too." [Russel]

"So I judge that you are tight-lipped about this correct?" [Angelica]

Russel uses his hand and pulls an imaginary zipper as he closed his mouth.

"Hahh... okay. Just tell Seymour not to spread it YET." [Angelica]

I imbued the two semi-low-quality crystals with my earth enchant.

"Tell me where are you going to use this for?" [Angelica]

"Oh, you'll see." [Russel]

He gave me a wink.

Make sure that I get amused lol...

He attached the crystal to a weird contraption. When he pressed a button, it made a clanking noise as it started running, it had a round stone attached to a machine that rolls the stone around, a grinding machine. Next, he placed the other crystal on a hammer.

"Is something wrong?" [Russel]

Russel asked me when I was staring intently at the hammer that he is holding.

"Would you want some lightning with that?" [Angelica]

"Lightning? But what does it do?" [Russel]

"Ah, forget that I said that." [Angelica]

So he wants an indestructible hammer {1} huh. I think the dwarfs are inventing stuff a bit too fast...

Dwarfs are truly terrifying, it may have been the reason why the dwarfs have advanced so much and so quickly, because of their openness and willingness to change. I wished that we humans should be the same, but some are wary of change and that's what kept us from advancing so much.

I was somewhat thankful that the dwarfs aren't a militaristic race because if they were, I cannot envision how we humans would win if a war ever broke out between us...

Two weeks have already passed. It turned out that the dwarfs are so grateful for my crystals that they made an effort to procure more of them for me, the amount that they gave me can keep my shop in stock by one to two months. I had also asked Russel to make a delivery quest for adventurers who planned on going to Dalio as an extra security measure.

I needed to keep the stocks resupplied or else I may have to close shop... and I wouldn't want that because I am worried that Mrs. Helen will have no source of income. I doubt that my parents will let that happen to her and if it did, they will most likely offer her a job at the city hall.

In those same weeks, we took some quests and they weren't all that hard. Mostly it is just subjugation quests and some are only to check on the condition of the tunnels.

Today there was a quest regarding the investigation of missing livestock. The animals were said to have disappeared inside of their enclosure at the tunnels.

The way Pilapil village raises their livestock is quite unique in which they have different tunnels designed just for them, think of it as an ant farm, but with cattle, pigs, and poultry... They have feeding, nursing and store/sleep areas for the animals.

What's unusual about the disappearances is the animals had been gone without a trace, no tracks, blood, and bodies were ever recovered. Also, there wasn't any hole or entry near the farm area which added more to the question of what exactly is happening to those said animals.

Quests like these make me quite skeptical. There are a few times when adventurers were asked to do a quest and are often murdered by the ones who requested them.

I'll tell you of a certain incident that we heard from the guild clerk once. There were three male adventurers consisting of a scout, swordsman and a magician. They had been asked to hunt down a beast that had been stalking and attacking workers at a nearby residence.

It turned out that it wasn't a monster, but the owner who had a screw loose. As from the account of the one who had survived but has since been retired, he said that the owner of the residence was very nice and showed them around the place and told stories of when and where the incidents had taken place.

After a day of no leads, the owner asked them to have dinner with him and they all had a feast with huge slices of meat, he said that the taste was excellent and out of this world, but they didn't know that the food was drugged and they all fell asleep.

When he came to, he said that he and his magician friend were shackled to the wall in the basement. He saw that his friend who was the swordsman was already dead... he was cut into chunks on the table and currently the owner was putting each part into multiple containers. The owner, upon seeing that he had awoken decided to mock him and spill the whole story since he said that they were going to die anyway.

He said that the owner, using the monster story as cover, attacked the workers who he hired at his residence and after killing them, stored and kept their body parts as food, but because of the recent string of murders he committed it made the people wary of going near his place which forced him to look elsewhere to get his resources... and what he chose as the food delivery service is... the adventurers guild...

He knew the workings of the guild and since most adventurers came from far away places, there is little to no chance that people would ask for a search or there is nobody who knew about them, since they all come and go. The owner also said that they were the third batch of adventurers who came to him and that the meat they ate came from a female adventurer who was very pretty...

When the survivor heard about it he vomited and tried to wake up his still-sleeping friend beside him. As the magician woke up he quickly shouted at him to use magic to attack the owner but... the magician had his hands amputated by the owner when they were asleep. The survivor said to use cast magic instead and... the magician looked at him crying and said in jumbled words "Aym zowwy..." His tongue was also cut out...

You cannot use most magic without your hands because you needed them to aim your spell. Cast, on the other hand, can be used to do certain area spells, but the problem is you need to pronounce a spell correctly in order to conjure it...

The crazy owner said "Looking for this?" as he raised the tongue that was stuck on the fork as he showed them a twisted smile. The magician desperately begged him to give it back, but the owner just laughed at him hysterically. The survivor saw his friend being injected with something which made the magician unable to move and he saw it all...

The same thing the owner did to his now-dead friend. Cutting and opening up the magician who was still alive unable to move, the magician looking at him with tears running down his face as if begging him for help, but he couldn't do a single thing...

He saw the life of his friend slowly slip out of his eyes until he had passed...

When his turn came he begged and begged for someone to save him. It was as if God had answered his prayers and a large group of knights barged into the basement cellar, the knights upon discovering the sick acts the owner was committing, killed the owner and they had saved the survivor.

He was already traumatized by what happened and decided to quit being an adventurer shortly after the incident...

I hope that a day like that would not come to us. For I fear that I may lose my sanity if that had happened to anyone in my party...

References.

{1} Thors magical hammer the Mjolnir.