Ren looked up from the throwing dagger she was tapping away at as Dren randomly burst into cursing. Glancing at his companion he felt his ears heat up. It had been three days since the incidents at Mike’s Bar and still at the most random of times the embarrassing moments popped into his head. Blowing the odd drink out his nose had been bad enough. But then, Kitty had fallen out of her chair laughing at him while mocking him for actually thinking she was serious. Already annoyed by this point, he had enough and retreated to his room. Then had avoided everyone for the last three days. Achieving this feat easily enough by never leaving the room provided to him. Was it a bit childish? Yes. But Dren didn’t care, he had more important things to do than put up with some annoying girl.

His seclusion had been worth it, even if he was mostly doing it to avoid the aggravating archer. A new set of armor was ready for Ren and he was almost done with his own. Other than a new set of boots, they took a bit longer to make. Once he was done with this, he wanted to try and make another storage pouch. That way he and Ren would each have one.

Ren had also made good progress on her weapon smithing, having churned out tons of throwing daggers made from the base quality metal imbued for both explosive power and pure empowerment. She was now working on a set from both explosive and binding power. Dren even had a few explosive and bleed imbued metals for her to try out.

Since Ren never slept and he only needed to about every two days now. They had made staggering progress. Sadly, for the amount of credits he had spent on resources their level gains weren’t that great. Doing this in a dungeon would have been better. But, they needed the gear replenishment now not later.

His primitive leatherworking had finally hit rank six and he felt it would hit seven by the time he was done with his armor. Enchanting had gained a single level from all the imbuing materials alone. Interestingly enough his control over enchanting had gotten to the point he was now imbuing bars of metal with his feet. As odd as it sounded, it sped things up. Until now he had held the items he was enchanting, if they weren’t being worn by him. It was this that gave him an idea. He only needed physical contact with an item. While Imbuing materials didn’t really take much mental effort. So by placing his bare foot on a metal bar, he could imbue it while his hands worked on making armor. He had tried imbuing more than one item at a time but found that while he could it wasn’t any faster. It was like the flow of resources sputtered as they flickered between the two paths at once. Still, being able to multitask even this much was great.

Ren touched the glowing throwing knife to a round metal orb attached to the small magical furnace and the blade instantly cooled. All the heat was sucked out of it. Most likely by whatever force the furnace utilized to prevent it from turning the room into a sweltering sauna. Other than the heated metal being worked on. None of Ren’s smithing seemed to produce much heat. Which was really nice as far as Dren was concerned.

With a grunt of satisfaction, he put down the pants he had been working on. “Everything but the boots are done now.” He stretched and let out a little gasp as his spine popped. Sitting hunched over for hours wasn’t great.

Each of the main pieces of his armor had been imbued differently, he was planning on mixing up the enchantments. Trying to get a bit more versatility out of it all. Standing up he watched Ren working on another throwing dagger. She was making progress but he didn’t think she would get high enough for what he wanted before they needed to head back to the Necropolis. With a sigh, he decided it was time to leave his room. Besides, Kitty had stopped coming by and banging on his door a full day ago. “Crazy woman.” He muttered. “What is her problem? There has to be someone else she can annoy out there.”

Ren glanced up at him for a moment before going back to what she was doing. “Ok. I’m heading out for a bit. Keep up the good work.” She let out a soft trilling sound but didn’t look up from her work. Even as she struck the now glowing metal he heard nothing from the impacts. While his stealth had finally hit level five, hers had advanced even faster. Letting her maintain her lead. Smithing turned out to be surprisingly effective stealth training. Though how the system made it work for muting the sound of the hammering while she could clearly be heard when she wanted, was a mystery to Dren.

Pulling two ingots of the best metal he had bought out of his spatial storage he exited the room. Cloak up and stealth active. The two bars were ones he had prepared for a set of daggers. One with Profane Durability and Darkness. The other with Profane Durability and Decay. With the reduction, he would be able to fit at least the bleed rune on both. Maybe even more depending on how the daggers turned out. Slipping out of the building and towards the crafter’s hall he hoped to find the same smith that had made the first batch of explosive daggers. Hopefully, they could make him two daggers with the imbued metals.

*****

Purifier Lily sipped the broth brought to her with cracked and bleeding lips. Her face was sunken and sallow looking while her hands trembled from just holding the small bowl. But she had finally purged her body of that cursed debuff. Even with her abilities, she had almost died. It had taken multiple healers exhausting themselves to punch through the heal resistance of the curse to keep her alive long enough for her own power to burn through it. She would need to find out more about this person called Scourge that used such a terrifying power. But it had all been worth it. Her people were safe and with only a few casualties. That Beast Tamer was a bundle of mysteries. Stories of the way he fought had been reported to her as soon as she was strong enough to sit and listen.

There were also the odd explosive weapons he had somehow created. Her best weapon smith assured her himself that the daggers he made, while possessing some strange attributes weren’t explosive weapons when he gave them to the Beast Tamer. It was just one of the many things that didn’t seem to add up. They were too strong for their level, rare class or not. Nor did they seem like a class that would rely on a companion. No one knew what to expect. But the brutally efficient fighting style he exhibited, wasn’t it.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Would he be even stronger with his companion healed now?” Her voice was hoarse as she spoke. Cara, her second in charge and the healer she left to watch over the spider girl's recovery looked up.

“That boy is…” Her eyes had an odd look in them. “Something else. I swear several times I thought he was eyeing where to place a dagger in me. But he really seems to care for that Ren girl.” Cara shook her head. “In many ways, she is just like her master. She is cute as a button even if she isn’t human. But she sometimes looked at me just as he did, like she was deciding to kill me or not. It could be unsettling.”

“Mike’s niece has taken a liking to the boy I hear?” Lily croaked.

Cara snorted. “Oh, she has. But I’m not sure the dense fool realizes what is going on. Plus that girl has her own problems interacting with others. I’m not sure if we need to worry about finding them kissing or trying to kill each other. Probably the former if she has her way and sadly the latter if he doesn’t catch the hint soon. I believe he is currently avoiding her. Seems she took her teasing too far again.”

Lily sipped the broth for a while longer, letting the rich warm liquid soothe her sore throat. It was cooked by Cara herself who had picked up the cooking skill. Made with health regeneration as the buff. “What do you think of the boy? Of what we should do about him?”

Cara paused stirring the small pot of broth and her brow creased as she thought. “Killing him would be a problem. With our main combat forces back, it should be doable. But there would be casualties.”

Lily snorted. “I hadn’t planned on killing the boy.” Cara gave her a look with one eyebrow raised. “Well, not if we didn’t have to. He doesn’t seem like a troublemaker. I’ve had people watching him. Besides, based on the reports I have he did us a great favor.”

Cara nodded then hesitated. “But we made him quite a bit stronger. Even if his level hasn’t changed near as much as it should have.” Her tone carried a hint of her true concern with those words.

Lily sipped the broth before speaking again. “You think he has a way to hide his real level?” It was something they had talked about even before she started purifying the spider girl. Both of them had upgraded identify abilities. While they were used for specific purposes, identifying debuffs for the purifier and better health evaluation for Cara. Lily had sensed that something was off before. The power she felt from the boy didn’t match his level. While Cara was able to get a more accurate measure of the health and defensive abilities of those she scanned. She confirmed that as far as she could tell, he possessed an impressive health and defensive attribute. Far too much to be paired with the other high attributes he displayed. Either his rare class gave a staggering amount of attributes. Or something else was going on.

“I don’t think he is a Beast Tamer. Some rare form of assassin maybe.” Cara finally said. The idea of someone being able to hide their status information was known to them. So the idea one could fake it entirely wasn’t too far fetched.

Lily nodded having thought the same based on the reports. Assassins were rare because most possessed so little health they tended to die in a single hit. But if one could be as tanky as this Dren seemed to be. While not losing any of their lethality, it would fit the description of his actions based on her reports. Mostly. There were still some abilities she just couldn’t comprehend. How he had incapacitated Taylor and slowed George. Or caused an entire wave of monsters to just fall over dead without lifting a finger.

“We should cultivate a friendly relationship with them if possible. Or at the very least not antagonize them.” It was Cara that spoke up before Lily could utter the same words.

“I agree.” She sipped her broth and then spoke out thoughtfully, her voice already more stable. “Should we teach that Katherine girl how to flirt properly?” She smiled at Cara’s questioning expression.

*****

“Two daggers designed just like the starting ones?” Barry the weaponsmith’s voice was still as gruff as before when asking the question while eyeing the two ingots.

“Yeah, I’ve gotten used to the design.” Dren pulled out a roll of silk twine and prepared leather. “Can you use these for the handles as well?”

Barry eyed the materials with a squint and Dren saw his expression shift slightly. “Oh yeah. I can use it.” He took the materials and examined them closer before squinting sideways at Dren. “Where did you get these materials? The leather is some from the Monster Surge, but it's been altered somehow. Same with the metal.”

Dren gave him a small shrug with a smile, yet his eyes took on a cold appearance. “I just stumbled across them.”

“Yeah yeah. Keep your secrets. I got a ton of experience just making them throwing daggers with the other odd metal. If I make these I should get a level. Hell maybe two.” The man licked his lips while gazing at the materials in his hands with unmasked avarice.

“So you can do it?” Dren asked slightly uncomfortable with the way the man stared at the materials. Any second he expected him to start caressing them in unsettling ways.

With a grunt, they broke out of their trance. “Yeah, Sure. Give me half a day.”

“How much?” Dren wasn’t sure how much it would cost to have them made. He wasn’t broke exactly but compared to what he had once had. He felt like it.

“Free of course. You are providing high-end materials that will net me a ton of experience. Hell, if you can get more. I’ll pay YOU to let me craft stuff for you with them. Using the basic crap from the system store gives shit for experience.”

Dren was relieved. That explanation made sense to him. His enchanting leveled up faster when he worked on more advanced items. While he had grinded out most of his levels just imbuing materials. Even that was much faster using the profane runes vs the basic ones. Agreeing to come back in half a day Dren thanked the man before leaving the crafting hall. He was just about to activate stealth when a sharp whistle sounded out from nearby before a familiar voice shouted. “There you are.” There was no doubt in his mind he was the one they were shouting at.