Chapter 26

While I mine, I have a lot of time to think about things. Sometimes I think about poisonous gasses hanging around inside the mine, but for some reason, it does not bother me. Just like I am not affected by cold, or hunger, or sleep deprivation I am not affected by the lack of air in the mine. I also think about the items I have sitting at the house. There is the smelter, the iron anvil, the grind-wheel, and the tanning rack. I don't have any maximum capacity to my inventory, that I know of, so I could put them all inside of it so that nobody could steal them. I learned a while back that inventories were not something that only I had, and that people called Adventurers had them too. The class 'Novice' might have something to do with adventurers, but I'd like to think I'm just special. At once point, eventually, I will have to find out.

For now, I'll just pile everything up outside the mine. One pile for the stone I've already sent through the smelter, and one pile for the stone I haven't. I get about 10 cubic feet of stone removed at the end of the day, and I put it all down in one pile. It weighs a ton, but I'll have to smelt it later. I wonder about collecting obsidian from the Obsidian Peaks, but then I figure it would be foolish to think the mountains were actually made of obsidian.

After taking a good look at the pile of rock I took out from the mine, I place it all in my inventory. I also gather up the other tools I have laying around my house and put them in my inventory. I should think of a way to automate smelting stone to get the iron out of it, but it would take too long. I plan on leaving here eventually and start my career as an adventurer all over the continent.

Instead of smelting the stone I just got, I hit the road to the east. The party of people I met a while ago were headed to that holy sword of Nordas in the Obsidian Peaks, and I don't know any other way to get there. I can see on my minimap where the Iron-Back Devil Hounds are, but I can't see any ledges I wouldn't be able to climb.

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Along the road at night, I don't see any wolves in the short time it takes to reach an opening in the mountains. To the west of my house is a straight cliff, and to the southwest is an area where things become much rockier and steep, but the path now in front of me is winding between peaks of rock, gradually climbing upwards with stairs. I take to the stairs and wonder when the last time I saw stairs was.

Two hours into the hike, I pass a pair of travelers.

"Papa bless," I say to them as I pass.

"Nordas bless," They say, and we go our separate ways.

I continue on the path for about another hour before leaving to advance towards the nearest quest market. With my strength, dexterity, and ninja skills, I am able to reach the quest marker in a dozen minutes. The hound is a little smaller than the wolves I've been killing so easily, but the entire body is covered in iron, like legit iron armor. I don't see a single weak spot on its body, except for the head. Even though it is called 'Iron-Back', even the legs and tail have iron on them.

Before I even get out my bow and an arrow, the hound spots me. It probably smelled me with its nose, but I can't do anything about that now. The hound starts running in my direction, and I take my bow and a demon arrow from my inventory. I don't know much about demon arrows, but I hope it can pierce the iron protection. Before the hound is able to get close enough to bite me, I release the demon arrow at its head. The arrow zooms through the air and corrects its position to hit the hound directly in the head, impaling its skull. However, that doesn't seem to kill the hound.