Chapter 25

I should be able to complete it in a day or two. From the name of the monster, I can guess that the hide is made from actual iron, so I might have a hard time killing them with the bow. I will also have to go into the obsidian peaks to find them, which will be an adventure on its own.

With 605 credits, I can now buy some things from the closer town. Leaving this town immediately, I reach the closer town in only a few hours. It is late afternoon when I arrive. From a lumber shop, I can buy Support Beams to use in the mine. Each beam is a foot in diameter and costs 25 credits. After thinking for a while, I suppose I would only need to use supports if I was going to make the mine wide, which I don't plan on doing. I plan on going down to get more valuable ore, and hopefully in larger quantities. To be on the safe side, I buy three supports for 75 credits, bringing me down to 530.

With the new quest and a few supports for the mine, I get started on the return trip back to my house. I'm going to spend one day at home before heading into the obsidian peaks. If I can get home on the 31st, complete the quest on the 32nd, reach the far away town on the 33rd, I can spend the 34th and 35th in the town to sell my materials and buy more skills.

Just like I thought, I was only able to get home on the morning of the 31st day. On the way back, I was able to kill four wolves. I check my traps, and five of them have wolves in them. That puts me to 16 dead wolves in my inventory, and I leave the traps unset. I have all day to goof about here, so I start working on tailoring and sewing to create some leather armor for myself.

Sewing is a long task. I should get someone else to do this. Damn, now that I know slaves exist I can't help but want to start my slave harem! I probably need 100,000 credits or something huge to buy a person, though. I'll try to think of this like old America. In the late 1800's when slavery last existed, a slave cost about $800. Compared to that time, that much in today's money would be, like, 30x more, so $800 would be more like 24,000. I'll wait until I have at least 24k credits before looking for a slave market.

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I finish making Leather Boots and I put them on after taking my old shoes off. They feel really different, but I'll keep them. With a second wolf hide, I am able to make the leather for a set of Leather Leggings, and two more wolf hides to make Leather Armor. I choose not to make a helmet so I can have better visibility, even though I could just use x-ray vision to see through the helmet and make it full-face.

I drop my previous clothes in a corner of my house and walk outside in full Leather Armor. I can't feel the cold, but at least I feel a little more protected from whatever might try and attack me. The day still has a long way to do, so I decide to spend a little time in the mine. I don't need to mine at any particular time, but I think it would be best to smelt during the day, and I can travel to the Obsidian Peaks at night to increase the amount of monsters or animals I find.

Before I start mining, however, I take out the three wooden supports from my inventory. At the mine entrance, I increase the size of it so that the supports will fit. I have to make the supports a little smaller with my saw, but it is easy work and makes the entrance to the mine look nice. With that taken care of, I try to use my earth magic to seal the roof of the mine. I used my x-ray vision to see small cracks in the stone from when the load-bearing stone was removed, but nothing major that would make me want to run for my life. My mana runs out after a few seconds like I thought it would, and I proceed to enter the mine for a day of hard work.