Cecil and the rest arrived at the Ironforge smithy. As usual it was bustling with activity. The clanging and the yelling was already something that Cecil and Lucia were used to. Ainz and everyone else however were fascinated at the scene of so many forgers working their iron.
They wanted to continue looking, but Cecil and Lucia were already on the move. Ainz and the rest could only follow after them. They bypassed the smithy and headed to the housing area behind it. The group bumped into Radon just as he was walking down from his private smithy room.
"Boy, you're here!" Radon greeted to which Cecil only responded with a nod.
"Mhm."
"Uncle Radon!" From behind Cecil, out popped the brightly smiling Lucia.
"AH! My niece! You've finally come to pay your uncle a visit, ahaha!" Radon came over and gave Lucia a tight hug.
Lucia only responded with a giggle. Everyone behind the two was just watching the renowned blacksmith spoil their friend like a grandpa would to his granddaughter...
"...I'm not surprised anymore."
"I'm too tired to be surprised."
"I know right..."
"..."
The four behind only laughed it off. They immediately stepped forward, wanting to introduce themselves to the number one blacksmith in the kingdom.
"Oyah? You 2 brought guests! Come, come, come! Let uncle here take a good look at you!" Radon said and began scrutinizing the 4 kids.
"Hey, aren't you–" Radon said skeptically after seeing Elizabeth.
Elizabeth quickly stepped forward and bowed towards Radon in greeting, "My name is Elizabeth Arks! I'm Lucia's classmate from class S and Lucia's my best friend! Please take care of me!"
"Oh? Best friend huh?" Radon smirked meaningfully at the girl.
"I'm Aquafina Neftersea! I'm also from Lucia's class and I'm also her best friend and roommate!" Fina introduced quickly.
"I'm Velicia Darkclaw! I'm also Lucia's friend and we're from the same class~"
"Ainz Bernstein! I'm these two troublemakers' friend. I'm from the same class and I also happen to be Cecil's roommate!"
"WAHAHAHA~ since you're all these two's friends then you also have my thanks! Thanks for taking care of these two troublemaking kids! I'm Radon by the way, you could say that I'm these two's uncle!"
"More like gramps..." Cecil said under his breath.
"I HEARD THAT YOU PUNK! WHAT PART OF ME DO YOU THINK IS OLD?" Radon roared.
Cecil took a serious look at the dwarf and said seriously, "Hrmm... everything?"
"WHY YOU!"
"Uncle! Where's auntie?" Lucia quickly asked on the side.
"Oh! My wife's upstairs! You kids just came at the right time! Your aunt's still fixing lunch so wait a bit alright?"
"I'll head upstairs and help out then!" Lucia quickly turned around and dashed up the stairs.
"Ohoho~ a meal made by my lovable niece... it's been awhile!"
"It's only been a month..." Cecil retorted.
"Oi, you... can't you at least act a little bit more lovable like Lucia?"
"Heh."
"Pfft..." Fina involuntarily snickered.
Elizabeth and Velicia also started giggling. Only Ainz was foolishly staring at the two old and young men bantering together.
The mood was good so Cecil brought up the reason why they came.
"Gramps, our party just hunted a demon hawk king and we were able to secure an abundant amount of top quality materials from it. Think you can craft something good from it?"
"Heh! So this is the reason why you came back, huh!" Radon said dismissively.
"Oi, Cecil!" Ainz called out, feeling a little uneasy at his friend being so straightforward with the request. This was the Kingdom's best blacksmith, so he thought that it was rather rude coming unannounced and just dropping an order on him without going through the proper procedures.
"Well, whatever. Lemme see it." Radon waved his hand.
"Alright, come on guys. We've got that demon tree wood, so let's leave it to Radon to craft something good for us."
"...is... is it alright? We're not being a nuisance are we?" Fina asked worriedly. She didn't want to be too imposing to the kingdom's number one blacksmith. Since he was a famous blacksmith he was bound to be busy.
"No worries girly. If it's a request from my niece's friends then I'll get it done in a jiffy!" Radon reassured.
"O-Okay... Thank you very much uncle Radon!" Fina bowed. This prompted the other 3 to bow as well.
"WAHAHAHA~"
Radon roared happily at Fina's way of addressing him. He motioned for them to follow him up to his private smithy and on the way, he asked Cecil with a wide smile, "So these kids are your party members huh?"
"...yeah. Our party, Little Kings, will surely grab the first place spot in the year-long tournament!"
"Haha!"
They quickly arrived at Radon's private smithy and Cecil quickly took out the materials he harvested from the Demon Hawk King. The 4 crown plumes, 180 iron-like feathers, 6 sharp talons the Hawk King's beak, and last but not least, the 10 long tail feathers which apparently was the most important material besides the monster core.
Radon exclaimed in surprise seeing the materials, "Well, kid... you sure got one hell of a harvest!"
"What can you make with these?"
"Hrmm... 4 magic robes from the feathers...as for the beak and talons... I'd probably be able to create some knives, daggers, or even claws, but if you had some good quality wood I might just be able to create a staff."
"Wood? Veli! Take out the demon wood."
Velicia quickly took out the cut up pieces of wood from the tree that grew the Millenia Sky Plums.
"Oh! Good quality wood alright!" Radon said while grabbing one of the large pieces of wood and inspecting it.
"Do you have the hawk king's blood and monster core?"
"Here."
Cecil waved his hand and 10 large vials of blood dropped onto the table as well as a basketball sized green monster core.
"Good, very good! I'll go ask my enchanter friend to help prep the orb for me... by the way what kinds of runes do you want engraved on the staff's body?"
"Here, use these. These are the ones that I was able to improve during my free time in the academy." Cecil plainly took out a scroll that was filled with his recent improvements on rune engravings.
"You never cease to amaze me boy!"
Cecil shrugged and began arranging all the materials into a neat order on the table.
"Alright, you kids can come again at the end of the week! I'll have the robes and staff ready for you. By the way, who'll be the one using the staff?"
"What element would the staff enhance once it's finished?"
"Hmmm... judging by the monster cores type... I'd say wind and... Maybe earth and wood since the wood is greatly imbued with these two types of mana."
"Ainz, it's for you then." Cecil said while turning his head to look at Ainz.
"What? Is that alright? I mean... we could just sell the staff for money y'know?!"
"Nah... Why let our water flow into another field?"
"What?" Ainz asked, puzzled at the phrase his friend just said. It was an idiom from Earth, so he obviously wasn't going to understand it.
"Never mind, you'll use it since you're the only 'pure' mage in our party and you can handle those 3 elements."
"...thanks."
"The robes will go to Fina, Lucia, and also to you too Ainz."
"What? But I've already got the staff?!"
"No worries man. We're a party, remember? Besides, the robes will probably enhance your wind magic to some degree as well as add better protection for you guys. I can't use it since I'm the vanguard. Same goes for Eli and Veli, right?"
"Yup~"
"It's just as Cecil said... so just take the robe and staff gratefully Ainz," Elizabeth said plainly.
"Don't worry Ainz we'll just deduct the cost from the monetary rewards that we'll distribute later!" Fina said with a smile.
"...alright. Thanks everyone!"
"Ahem." Radon cleared his throat and gained the attention of everyone in the room.
"About the talons... what should I make? Daggers or what?"
Cecil eyed their only brawler in the party. "Make claws from them, we're giving it to Veli."
"Eh? Me?"
"Yeah... it's not like we could make daggers from the talons. I mean what for? We don't have anyone in the party specialized in daggers... Although I could use them, but I already have my sword and spear."
"O-Okay then... eheheh~ thanks everyone!"
"It's nothing. This is what you deserve Veli!" Elizabeth smiled. "Let's not feel bad, alright? Later in the future as we complete more quests, we'll be getting more equipment. We risked our lives for the materials, so let's just take what we get gratefully without feeling burdened!"
Everyone in the party nodded and Cecil continued, "Well, it looks like us two won't be receiving anything this time Eli. Let's wait for our next hunt."
"No problem."
Once everything was finalized, Radon began ushering everyone out of the room as he said, "Lunch is probably finished by now, so just head down to the dining room!"
"Alright." Cecil walked out of the room and everyone else bowed to Radon before following suit. As they were heading down, Cecil passed by the dining room and continued on to the ground floor.
"Hey, Cecil! Where are you going?" Velicia called out to him when she saw that Cecil had only passed the dining room.
"One sec, I gotta go see Silver."
"Silver?"
"Hey guys~ food's ready! Come and eat!" Lucia called out from inside the dining room.
The aroma of the food was pretty tempting and everyone walked into the room to begin lunch. Cecil returned to the dining room not long after and had his lunch beside Lucia. Once the group finished eating they thanked the Ironforge couple and were just about to walk out of the smithy only to stop at the sight of the large white wolf slumbering on the floor, blocking the exit with its large body.
"WHAT THE? A MONSTER?" Ainz said and quickly took out his wand from his spatial ring.
Fina jumped back and was prepared to cast an Ice Rampart only to see Lucia giggling.
"Hey, don't be so alarmed! That's Silvy!"
Silver opened his eyes and raised his head, his large blue eyes observed the 4 unknown people who were standing next to his master and mistress, and after sizing them up, he let out a powerful roar.
"ROAARR!!!"
Silver's roar made Fina and the other 3 flinch in response, but he didn't do anything else after that. He just let out a yawn, got up and stretched his body before casting a spell. A large magic circle formed underneath him and illuminated his entire body. Once the light died down from the spell, a small and chubby, dog-sized wolf came walking towards the group.
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"WOOF!" Silver approached Cecil and barked cutely.
"..."
The spell Silver just used allowed him to readjust his body size. He was currently in his 'pet'-form where he was small and chubby while the previous large and majestic form was his battle form. Cecil bent down and picked up Silver before turning to his party members and introducing the 'small' guy, "This is my pet dog and friend, Silver."
"HOW'S THAT A DOG?!" Ainz screamed while pointing at the small wolf currently in Cecil's embrace.
Ainz was still a little shaken from Silver's earlier roar, but the girls, however, were currently eyeing the cute pet-form Silver with sparkling eyes.
"C-Can I hold him? N-No, can I at least pet him?" Fina asked hopefully.
"Here."
Cecil passed Silver over to Fina and she began smiling brightly after receiving the chubby ball of fluff. She began petting Silver and she even rubbed her face against his fur.
"Waahhh~ so soft~"
"...crap."
Cecil looked away while covering his face with a hand.
"W-What's with this cute thing?" Lucia exclaimed while hugging onto Fina while Velicia crowded around the two, taking in Silver's cute figure with curious, sparkling eyes.
"...Fina and that dog...what a deadly combination..." Elizabeth said while she tried to tear her eyes from the cute spectacle.
"Like. I. Said. HOW IS THAT A DOG?!!" Ainz once again asked, but to his dismay, he was completely ignored.
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The next day arrived pretty quickly, but Cecil and his party didn't go to class as it was the weekend. At the moment, Cecil and Ainz were currently at the Ironforge smithy and the two were checking out and making adjustments to the carriage that their party had bought yesterday using the money they had earned from the quest.
"Hey... Cecil... what're these rings, iron balls and spiral things for?"
"Those? Well, just make sure you put them together the way I showed you! It'll help stabilize the carriage so it won't shake so much when moving. Although magic can help, but there's a limit to our mana and needlessly using mana to stabilize the carriage just doesn't sit well with me."
"Oh...okay. As usual, you come up with the weirdest of things... by the way, since I'm doing this... just what the heck are you doing?"
"Rune engraving... of course, we could swap if you want."
Hearing the foreign topic, Ainz groaned, "Ugh, never mind then."
"Hey you two! We're back!!"
Hearing the familiar voice, Ainz yelled back, "Great! Now come help me!"
Velicia came over and glanced at what Ainz was doing, she was a little intrigued seeing him fiddle around with the wheels of the carriage.
"What can I do?"
"Uhm... here, can you put this and that together like shown on the paper? Should be easy right?"
Ainz handed Velicia a piece of parchment and she took a look at the drawings on it. She could see that it was a step by step drawing on how to put together the contraption that Ainz was currently working on. It looked pretty easy so she sat down and began helping him.
Lucia came over to Cecil and said, "We retrieved the additional rewards from the monster materials. It's a total of 117,600 credits. Big Sis Mimi helped negotiate with the guild, so we were able to get more!"
"Really? Well, we should thank her with something the next time we visit the guild."
"Absolutely!" Seeing Cecil busy with engraving runes all over their carriage, Lucia offered to help. Fina also helped out since she was somewhat familiar with rune engraving. The runes they were engraving on the carriage was something that Cecil created and called 'air conditioning' and 'heating'.
Once again, it was something incomprehensible to the group, but all they knew was that the runes engraved in the interior of the carriage functioned to cool or heat up the carriage's cabin. There were also defensive runes that Cecil had already finished engraving all over the exterior of the carriage, but there was so much that the group didn't bother trying to ask him about it.
All Cecil was doing was adding some convenient features from Earth's vehicles onto their carriage, so that their ride in it would be more comfortable. He also had Lucia and the rest keep some of the feathers from the ordinary demon hawks, so that he could create some cushions for the seats inside the carriage. The group finally finished the modifications of their carriage a little bit after noon, so they had a rather late lunch.
"So, what quest did you guys pick out?"
"It's a low-tiered platinum ranked quest. Should be easy, it's only a monster subjugation quest. The monsters are the Armamite Golems in the Alka Mountains. It's a bit faraway but, with Silver we can probably arrive during the night." Lucia replied.
"Did you already buy our supplies?"
"Fina took care of them all ready."
The girl in question was currently carrying pet-form Silver in her arms and feeding him. She had already finished her lunch, so she was now feeding the party's mascot. Yesterday, they had decided that Silver would be their mascot and they even made a custom insignia for their party that was in the shape of a wolf head.
When she heard her name being called, she raised her head and gave the two an 'okay' sign.
"Alright, let's get this over with then. We have to get back before the school day when classes start again."
"Okay~"
The party quickly finished their lunch and boarded the carriage. The interior of the carriage was really luxurious. It was also the largest 6-wheeled carriage that was available for purchase, so the cabin space was almost the same size as their dorm bedrooms. It was spacious enough for everyone to sleep together side by side on the floor.
Cecil added a small modification and raised the ceiling of the carriage a level higher. He added some boards to the top where they could store their excess luggage that didn't fit inside their spatial rings. It also acted as a separate sleeping level. This was where the two boys would be sleeping. As for the girls, they would be laying down their heads on the floor of the carriage once they spread a futon over it.
He fastened the modified harness over Silver and once it was firmly secured, Cecil leaped onto the driver's seat and told Silver to head out.
"Alright Silv! It's your first adventure with the party so let's set off!"
"WOOF!"
-------------------------------------------------------------
A suspicious group of people were currently tailing behind Cecil and co.'s carriage. Cecil of course had already long sensed them, but he honestly didn't care. It's not like they could keep up with Silver's speed once he began dashing out into the open road.
Unlike the domesticated monsters that were pulling their cages, Silver was a unique monster that could use high tiered spells and combat skills. Not to mention Silver was intelligent enough to understand human speech and he could somehow communicate with Lucia.
So, if they did try to chase after them, their speeds wouldn't be able to keep up with Silver's and if they did force the issue, then their carriages will have first broken down even before Cecil would feel the need to do anything. Once the party's carriage had exited the gates of the city, Cecil smiled and told Silver, "Alright Silv, let's have these pests eat our dust! FULL SPEED AHEAD!"
"ROOOOAAAARRR!!!"
Silver roared in response as a large green magic formation appeared under him and a large gust of wind began to blow all around his body and the carriage behind him. He then lunged forward and shot off into the distance, dragging the carriage behind him. Cecil was caught off guard and he was sent stumbling backwards into the carriage's cabin from the driver's seat.
"UWAAAHHH!!! OUCH!!"
Cecil hit the back of the carriage after being thrown into the cabin. Thankfully, he had installed a door there, otherwise, he would've been thrown out of the carriage. He looked around at the rest of his party and noticed that it wasn't just him who was surprised and caught off guard by the abrupt acceleration. Everyone else inside the carriage was also startled, but they all had different reactions.
"LIKE I SAID. THERE'S NO WAY HE'S JUST A DOOOOOGGGG!!!" Ainz screamed while tightly holding onto his seat.
Elizabeth was quiet and was stably sitting on her seat. When Silver had abruptly accelerated earlier, she used her wings to quickly stabilize and hold her body firmly in place. Velicia was wrapped inside one of her wings, so she was sitting stably as well. Oddly enough, Lucia and Fina were leaning out of the carriage's cabin and poking their bodies out on the driver's seat, screaming and laughing happily.
"NAHAHAHAHAHA~"
"KYAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"
The two were enjoying the wind blowing in their faces as they watched the scenery pass by them very quickly.
Far behind them, the group that was trailing the party had stopped just outside the gate and were staring dumbfounded at the carriage that was now far off into horizon. Just how in the heck were they supposed to complete their missions if they had already lost their targets right from the start?
"...let's just head back?"
"But..."
"You wanna follow that? By the time we finally see them, they'd probably be already on their way back to the academy..."
"... damnit... this is SO unreasonable!"
"*sigh* Tell me about it... let's just head back and report to the president that we couldn't chase after them. They got a modified carriage and the humongous monster wolf with them..."
"Tch, fine..."
The group could only head back dejectedly. It wasn't only them. But, many similar groups who were lying in wait could only turn back at the unreasonable sight of the carriage that, in only 10 seconds, had disappeared far off into the horizon.
There was one person however that didn't want to give up. It was a male fat tigerkin with black fur. He was wearing heavy plate armor and was shouldering a mace and shield. He was pulling on a stubborn land basilisk that had large backpacks mounted on its back while shouting, "M-Milady!!! Please waaaiiiitttt!!!"
The fat tigerkin jumped onto the land basilisk and urged it forward, but it only thrashed about which caused the fat boy to fall off its back.
"GAHACK!"
He glared angrily at his mount and yelled, "I'LL FEED YOU TO THE BIRDS IF YOU DON'T MOVE!!!"
The basilisk only snorted in reply, and then it began walking off into the distance. This caused the boy to fume with rage. He chased after his mount and jumped onto it once again, only for it to thrash about once again and throwing him off its back. The duo continued on this way until they disappeared into the horizon, heading in the same direction as Cecil's carriage