The following days went by in a flash as the increase in people meant that things had become a lot more active. In the short span of four days, they had managed to get far more done than Frank had on his own throughout his entire time in this world. That included everything from flooring in the rooms to insulate them from the ground whilst asleep, to setting up a small pseudo forge powered by Enelise’s fire magic.

When they had initially brought up the idea of making a forge to Frank, he thought they were joking around, as it sounded far above what should be feasible in their current situation. However, as Enelise insisted that it’d be possible thanks to her blessing, Frank relented, and they spent a day on making it. Luckily it turned out to be worth it, as already by the next day, Enelise and Philip were busy at work refining the rusty metals from the goblins’ gear.

While they had been expanding the cave one of the days, they had come across the fruit that Sylvia had plucked before the bear attack. It hadn’t grown mold yet, but it had become squishier than she remembered. After discussing whether or not they should try it, the general consensus was that it’d be better to throw it out and go look for some more instead. After all, it wouldn’t be good for one of them to grow sick.

Thus, Sylvia made her way back to the tree and grabbed a couple different colored fruits. The climb this time was a lot easier, not because her climbing skills had particularly improved, but instead because her stats had. Instead of heading back immediately, she chose to quickly scout around the area, just to expand her knowledge of the forest.

Having turned into Calysta to do so, it didn’t take incredibly long before something stirred her senses. As she approached, the noises became louder and more numerous. Eventually she got close enough to spot the cause, and their origin was enough to make freeze on the spot.

Through the trees, she saw around ten humanoid creatures, the shortest of which stood at least three meters tall, with the largest she could see reaching a good bit above four meters. All of them were incredibly ripped and had a yellowish green skin color. They carried simplistic clothing made of hides and wielded large wooden clubs. Of the few faces she managed to catch a glimpse of, they had tusks sticking out of the mouth.

While doing her best to remain as stealthy as possible, Calysta slowly but surely backed away until she judged she was far enough away. Then she turned into Sylvia so that the location would get stored in her racial ability, before making her way back home at a brisk pace.

Though she had calmed down quite a bit by the time she got home, the others were still able to tell that things weren’t alright. Sally was the first to greet Sylvia. “Welcome back Sylvia. Did you get the fruits?” Her brows creased as she got a proper look at Sylvia. “What happened? You seem to be bothered by something.”

“Yeah yeah, I got the fruits, but that’s a lesser detail.” She simply waved the question as she headed past Sally and towards the forge. While it was mainly intended for the blacksmiths, it had somewhat turned into the general workshop for everyone. “I have something I need to discuss with everyone.” With a worried expression, Sally followed after her.

Entering the forge, it didn’t take long before everyone noticed her and how serious she looked. “What’s up Sylvia? Did you run into something bad?” Enelise was the first to ask her. Over the past few days, Enelise was without a doubt the person who’d put in the most effort to spend time with Sylvia, followed shortly by Adam. “Yeah. That pretty much sums it up.”

That answer alone made sure that everyone’s attention was focused on her, or at least as much as possible for Philip and Enelise, since they were working with heat, they couldn’t stop as easily as the others. So, after Philip had handed over his work to Enelise so that she could use her magic to take proper care of it, all focus was on Sylvia.

“After getting some of the fruits, I decided to scout the area a bit, and I ended up discovering some monsters that made me freeze on the spot. I’m not entirely sure what they are, but I would guess orcs or ogres, as they were at least three meters tall, built like bodybuilders, had yellowish green skin, and fangs protruding from their mouths.” As she explained, the expressions of all the craftsmen turned increasingly afraid, and that’s when she noticed Korrak. Out of everyone there, he was actually shaking, and heavily at that.

“No. No. No. No. Why did it have to be orcs? Just why? Anything else would’ve been better…” A low ramble could be heard from him. It was clear that his terror of the monsters came from more than just having heard of them. “W-w-we need to leave ri-ight away. I-if they f-find us, we’re d-dead meat.” By this point, he was sitting on the ground curled into a ball with both hands on his head. “I should’ve never left for that dumb project.”

Based on the reaction of everyone else, it was clear to Sylvia that they were just as surprised by his child-like reaction. As she approached him, he suddenly began to hit his legs. “If only I had stayed in town, then they wouldn’t have been able to find me.” Before he could continue the self-harm, she grabbed both his wrists and pushed them into the ground with all the force she could muster, and she barely won the strength contest.

“Korrak, look me in the eyes.” It was almost as if he’d returned to mentally being a child, as his reaction was to look around him in every direction that wasn’t her eyes. “I said look me in the eyes. Now!” This time she left no room for discussion. Once his glace had slowly crawled over to meet hers, she calmed her voice, but kept the steel-like tone. “I will kill the orcs, don’t worry. I was chosen to be the leader, so you guys are under my protection. That includes me defeating enemies that appear.”

She forcefully softened her tone quite a bit and jokingly said. “Besides, I don’t want to let the exp go to waste, so I planned to eventually take them out anyway.” Ever so slowly, Korrak’s breathing was reaching a steadier rate, as he began to calm down. It was only now that she herself had the time to take a breather that she actually noticed that yellow, vertical slits had appeared in his eyes, and some brown scales had appeared around his eyes, wrists, and hands, showing clear signs of his racial heritage.

Based on his reaction, she honestly didn’t really have to guess a lot to get an idea of what had happened. The most likely event was that a large group of orcs had exterminated his home or something similar, probably when he was younger, and some PTSD was triggered which brought him back to that moment in time. Then she came up with something she thought was a pretty good idea. “You know what? I have something you can do to help protect yourself and everyone; you can build a defensive fortress that can withstand the onslaught of the orcs. Aren’t you a builder?”

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As her words sank in for him, it was as if a new light had entered his eyes. Even the scales that had begun to recede stopped and actually recovered to where they were just before. “Fortress? Yes… Yes.. Yes! I will do just that. Thank you, Sylvia, thank you oh so much.” With an almost crazy glint in his eyes, he got up, gathered his tools, and pretty much ran out of forge. “Oh boy, what did I bring into the world?” Sylvia muttered under her breath.

An arm then reached around her back and a hand was laid on her shoulder. “Good job Sylvia.” Enelise said softly. “I think you managed to bring him some form of closure, or at least a way to deal with his apparent trauma. Now I just hope that he doesn’t spiral completely out of control.” A soft sigh escaped her. Sylvia turned so that she faced the remaining five craftsmen. “Alrighty, I think a briefing on orcs would be fitting.”

After a surprisingly long talk, Sylvia had learned quite a bit about orcs and the others had gotten their fear under control. The long and the short was that orcs are restless hunters and would continue hunting a target for years if they first got a target; their racial ability makes them some of the best trackers out there, not to mention that they just have a naturally high sense of smell; most orcs out hunting are at least level 45, with a lot being over 50; it’s not uncommon for a hunting pack to have a leader whose level can be over 100; and village of orcs often have an orc chief as their leader, which is a monster that’s at least level 150.

Another important thing was that around level 50 is when monsters tend to match the average person of that level power wise, but after level 100 was when they really began to out scale humanoids at an increasing rate. This was somewhat made up for by humanoids’ classes, but in most cases, multiple people of similar level to the monster tend to be needed, which is even more so the case with variants, like the flame bear I killed.

“Oh yeah, Sylvia. I got a little something for you.” As Sylvia was about to take her leave from the workshop, Enelise called out to her. “I finished it while you were out today.” Sylvia noticed that she brought a metal tipped spear with her that she then handed over. “Not exactly my proudest work, but it’s a big improvement over your current spear.”

Considering the conditions under which the spear was made, Sylvia was plenty impressed with the result. The pole was completely straight and as smooth as it should be, and the head had the right size and was incredibly sharp, not to mention that it was mounted a lot better than on her stone one. Curious, she commanded the status to open.

Name: Sharp Steel Spear

Rating: Proficient

Quality: Great

Strength: +16

Vitality: +8

Endurance: +8

Mana: +5

Wisdom: +3

Any type of cut or stab is 30% more effective.

Fire can be generated at the tip with mana.

The tip can be heated at the cost of mana.

A good spear made by the proficient blacksmith Enelise. Despite the poor condition of the forge it was made at, the crafter's incredible talent made it a weapon other proficient blacksmiths would be happy with making with a good forge. It was even mana crafted with an infusion of the crafter's fire mana.

Upon seeing the stats, Sylvia felt like she had to pick her jaw up from the floor. “60 stats plus multiple effects!? Calling it an upgrade is a large understatement; it’s a complete and utter overhaul. Just using the weapon will be like getting five level ups for free.” The mix of amazement and disbelief in her voice brought a small smile of satisfaction to Enelise, she also took note of the fact that Sylvia only counted it as six levels.

“I am an expert after all. There are only two ranks above this, three if you count the one in legends. If items of this level weren’t this good, then civilization would’ve been wiped out millennia ago.” Sylvia simply nodded along as she explained. “Anyhow that spear is just intended as a temporary weapon until I make something of proper quality.”

“This is absolutely amazing, Enelise. I’m sure a spear like this would cost quite a bit in a city.” All reaction the comment got from her was a shrug of her shoulders. “It probably would, but that’s quite irrelevant currently, though it’s not like it’s all that good for my standard.” With a friendly smile, she continued. “Besides, your strength is my protection, and you did save me back there, so this is the least I can do.”

“Hmm. I suppose that is true. Regardless, thanks a lot anyway. I’ll go and practice with it to get a better feel for it. After all, if it does end in a fight against the orcs tomorrow, it’d be best to be used to the weapon.” With that said, Sylvia made her way out of the workshop to the sound of Enelise saying, “Good luck with that.”

By the time evening rolled around and they had finished dinner, Sylvia brought forth the fruits she’d picked earlier, which she had completely forgotten about due to the orc stuff. Thus, there was now a red, an orange, a yellow, a green, a cyan, a blue, and a purple fruit on a table before them.

“Alrighty, we finally get to try these.” Philip said, as both him, Adam, and Sally looked at them gluttonously. Enelise, Corrin, and Sylvia weren’t quite as excited, but they were all curious about what they would taste. Korrak just looked like he didn’t really want to be there and had only stayed because everyone else practically forced him to take a break.

Using a half-finished knife that Philip was working on, he swiftly cut each fruits into seven pieces each. He found that each fruit had a unique texture, of which the most noticeable definitely was the one with a green peel. As he cut into it, it felt like the fruit was resisting his attempt by moving along with the movements of the knife. By the time he’d made the seven cuts, the seven slices had begun to stick together, making them hard to separate, though he eventually got it done.

If it hadn’t been for Adam remembering that he’d heard about this kind of fruit before and that they were edible, then every fruit having a different color and texture would’ve made Sylvia want to throw the entire batch out, as she lacked knowledge on what was ripe. In fact, she was actually a little annoyed with herself that she’d previously not thought about that when she picked the blue one.

With decent confidence in it being safe to eat, she reached for one of the green slices and ate it in a single bite. The consistency felt quite familiar to her right away, but it took a bit before she realized what it was. After chewing a bit on it, she recognized what was familiar about it, and that was that it felt like chewing bubblegum. Once she realized that, she couldn’t hold back a light chuckle at the memory.

The others looked over at her, a little curious at her reaction. “Is there something funny?” Enelise asked. To which Sylvia just waved her off. “Nah. It just brought back some memories from when I was a kid. That’s all.” That explanation seemed to bring a satisfactory end to everyone’s curiosity.

It was only once she had recognized it as gum that she really took note of the taste, which was quite unique. The fruit tasted like someone had an avocado with razzberries and blackberries on it. Luckily, she liked all three, so the taste was actually quite nice. As she continued to eat it, she noticed that it was slowly dissolving in her mouth, and that it was the juices from it that tasted like the berries, while the gum part tasted like the avocado.

The evening continued in a similar manner for the other fruits, with each having their own unique texture and flavor. The red one was by far the most noticeable, as that actually behaved like chewing gum. It was somewhat hard at first, but as she chewed on it, it softened up into the gum texture, and unlike the green one, this one didn’t dissolve. She actually tried to teach the others to blow bubbles; the fails and successes of which made the evening even more enjoyable.

Once everything was over, a lot more time than expected had passed, so everyone made their way over to the sleeping quarters and went to bed, though it took a little convincing to make Korrak realize that his body needed rest, especially after how he’d been pushing himself continuously for almost half a day at this point.