“How about one day for finding a blueprint at all? Then we could discuss further once we know what materials are needed and how much time it would take. One day should be enough to ask some blacksmiths if they have ever heard about what we need. At least it should be enough since we have event mounts and already know where to ask.”
Event mounts were a bit of a cheat when it came to moving quickly. Flying was simply faster than walking, there was no denying that.
Haven wasn’t too unfair with its travel times – if you had a flying mount, you could get from one side of the map to the other in roughly a day. If you used the official teleport stations as well, it was even faster. What might sound like a lot actually wasn’t, because Haven was its own country. It’s size was equal to that of a country in the real world and while event mounts were fast, there was only so much speed you could have before things got dangerous while flying.
They were going to move around in only a part of the map, so one day was enough.
“Sounds good to me!” Bloody stretched on his chair. “Are we moving out?”
He had been fidgeting around for a while now, which came with the beastman race. Elves were the type that could stay still forever, dwarves were comfortable repeating monotonous motions, beastmen were good with constantly moving and humans were the all-rounder as usual. Ice looked at the twitching ears and kept himself from touching them, a desire that often appeared when seeing the fluffy fur.
“Let’s all add each other as friends first. We can’t converse otherwise”, White Light reminded everyone.
“How annoying”, Absinth complained as she rolled her eyes. She still accepted everyone but also did additional movements that were suspiciously similar to what you’d do if you put people on silent mode to not get any blinking notification.
The moment they were done, Bloodless Sunset grabbed Ice’s wrist and half pulled him outside. He didn’t put any real strength into his grip, so if Ice had tried he could have freed himself even with his meager stats. Bloody wasn’t rude enough to actually drag him somewhere.
Little Droplet and Blackstone followed at a distance. Ice glanced back at them, relieved to have gotten the more peaceful group.
“Let’s go to Heath. He doesn’t live too far away and we might be able to get something out of him, especially if Blackstone comes along.” Bloody released Ice from his grip and instead walked around the Ice Emperor in circles. “You’re flying with me, right?”
Ice confirmed his words with a nod. Suddenly, he thought of another topic. “About Dead Rabbit…”
“Eh.” Bloody pulled a face. He started fiddling with his fingers and pouted. “That… We already took him to a dungeon… If I tell him about this, we won’t be able to get rid of him…”
Ice wasn’t going to say he liked Dead Rabbit, but the boy was alright. Most of all, he was Bloody’s little brother, so his patience level was much higher than usual.
“Your choice”, he offered softly.
The beastman placed his head into his neck, staring up at the cloudy sky for several seconds before motioning around, evidently to open up Dead Rabbit’s chat. “You have twenty minutes to get to the Fish Tree. If you’re not there by then or don’t know where to go, it’s not my problem!”
“Is someone else going to join us?”, Blackstone asked, having caught up. Now that they were standing, she had to uncomfortably look up in order to see Bloody’s and Ice’s faces.
“A tag-along. He won’t be of any help, but we could use him as cannon fodder if needed”, Bloodless Sunset mused. He had absolutely no qualms about using his little brother as a sacrifice to gain time. If the brat wanted to continue being carried by him and his guild, he had no right to complain! “He’s getting a lot of free stuff from me, he has to pay it back sometime.”
As the beastman spoke, he walked towards the edge of the city where he could summon his mount again. A couple of NPCs stopped curiously, but most here were used to the Foreigners doing their weird things. Little Droplet likewise summoned theirs; it looked like a winged fish, quite pretty with its shimmering scales and translucent fins.
“Took me forever to draw that one”, Little Droplet said with a soft laugh. “It was one of two water-type mounts during the event. If I’m a healer with this name, I might as well continue the water motive.”
Blackstone raised a hand to touch the fish, which was longer than a common human was tall and would be able to carry two people as long as they stuck together tightly.
Little Droplet got on and held out a hand to Blackstone, who thankfully took it.
On the other hand, on Bloody’s side it was Ice who first got onto the mount and then the actual owner. Blackstone and Little Droplet watched, a bit stunned to see how naturally Ice grasped the mounts reigns from behind the beastman. This was obviously not the first time that Ice had been the one to navigate it.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
So close to the capital, there were always players on their mounts flying around. It would always be a wild staring contest when two groups tried to figure out who would go where to avoid flying into each other.
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“You like children a lot, huh?”, Bloody asked, peering down at the kids that began running after them in excitement.
“They show their mood on their face”, Ice responded sheepishly.
“Makes sense. I think you’ll start liking my little brother, if that is important – he can’t lie when he’s excited. Like, at all. He’s bad at it.” Bloody snickered. “He’s the type to get all nervous over lying. Also, he idolizes you. He’s bought all your posters and stuff.”
Ice winced. “…Really?”
“Yeah! He was super jealous when he heard we are friends.” Bloody let his legs sway in the open air. His childish behaviour made him seem younger, even though he was half a year older than Ice.
It was still weird to hear the other call him a friend. Maybe because the last friend that Ice had had was the one who approached him because of the teachers.
If Ice wasn’t a solitary person in general, the loneliness would have been a heavy hit. Like this, he was very content having Bloody around. If Bloody decided one day that Ice was too boring after all… It was alright. He didn’t necessarily need people.
Still, they were starting to spend more time together recently. Especially the past weeks, and with the ongoing quest, it would be even more. He had to wonder if he wouldn’t get to attached to the other…
But Knightrider was Knightrider and Bloody was Bloody. Who knew how things would turn out this time?
Ice zoned off, staring blankly ahead. Bloody’s ear tickled his face, but he didn’t notice it.
The flight was pretty short.
Even from afar, it wasn’t hard to see a single large building, set apart from a little farmers’ village, and the blueish silver tree next to it.
Ice maneuvered the mount to land and Bloody took it back into his inventory, while Blackstone and Little Droplet curiously ran over to the tree to touch it. It was a normal tree, though – nothing special happened even if you touched or cut it.
Bloody approached the door instead, knocking heavily against it. Loud sounds could be constantly heard from the inside, which made it questionable if his knock would be heard at all… But entering a dwarf’s forge uninvited was a sure-fire way to get chased with a hammer.
It took a whole minute until the door opened, and even then the sounds didn’t cease. The one who opened the door wasn’t a dwarf, either.
Bloodless Sunset had lowered his head anyway in order to match the dwarf’s height, so he didn’t have to correct it by too much. The boy in the door frame looked to be about thirteen or fourteen, with adorable big eyes and soft skin.
His hair was black, and however he had done it, styled up so that it looked like there were two fluffy ears on his head. The boy stared up at Bloody in excitement. “Welcome!”
“Greetings”, Bloody said, a bit confused at the stare. He looked at Ice, who had met the boy during his last visit and wasn’t surprised.
It wasn’t an actual child.
The child was almost twenty and an apprentice mage. He helped out in the forge with his fire magic. It was an actual job – Heath was paying him for it. Because the young man – Illias – wanted to travel into the beastman territory one day, he needed money and practise, both of which Heath could offer him.
“How can I help you?”, he asked, eyes not moving from above Bloody’s face.
“Is Heath in? We’d like to talk to him about something. It’s kind of urgent – we are on a mission for Prince Altair.”
“Oh.” Illias nodded and turned around. He shouted, his voice echoing within the forge. “BOSS! There’s a Foreigner here for the prince!”
“What?!”
Heath’s angry shout could be heard even outside, calling over Blackstone and Little Droplet. Someone grumbled and cursed loudly, walking over.
A dwarf appeared in the door. Just like elves, dwarves did not cut their hair, and his was quite long. He was an older dwarf with black-brown hair and thick, callused fingers. Heath was wiping his hands on a leather apron and looked up. His frown loosened up the tiniest bit. “Hmm? If this isn’t the Ice Emperor. Brat, why didn’t you say it was him?”
Illias’ gaze finally moved away from Bloody, as if it was the first moment he noticed that there were other people at the door too. He didn’t even see the two other players approaching, too distracted by the beastman.
Heath sighed and scrutinized all four of them. “Interesting combination. What’s a youngling like you visiting me for?”
Despite being a Foreigner, the dwarf was instantly kinder at seeing one of his kind. Blackstone straightened her back – not that it made much difference – and placed her hand on her chest in an awkward dwarven greeting. “I… I am here with the Ice Emperor. We want to ask about something that we need for a quest that the prince gave us…”
She stumbled over her words, resulting in a slightly awkward sentence.
“For which prince?”
“Prince Altair.”
“Ahh… Well. Come in then.” Despite looking disgruntled at having been disturbed during work, the blacksmith did not reject them. He grabbed Illias by the collar and dragged him back inside, pushing him to the forge where the delicate man sat down with a pout. The soft song of a spell reached Ice’s ears and the fire crackled brighter.
“So? Whaddaya want?” Heath grabbed a pipe from the table and put it beneath his teeth without lighting it. He merely chewed on it, sitting down.
The Ice Emperor did not sit down and neither did anyone else. Within a dwarf’s forge, you only did what you were invited to do. If Heath did not ask them to sit, they couldn’t sit.
Maybe because she was their support player, Blackstone wanted to take over the task. She stood in front of everyone else and tried to be as courteous as possible. “We would like to ask if you have blueprints for climbing equipment?”
“Climbing equipment? Are we talking about scaling a wall? Or going up a steep path?”
“Scaling a wall.”
“Hooh. You guys going up the mountain? That’s no place for a dwarf, youngling. Too dangerous, too cold. Too high up.” Heath scoffed.
“I know, I won’t go all the way”, Blackstone tried to appeal to him. “We probably need that equipment to reach our destination.”
“I’ll be honest. That kinda stuff is a bit troublesome ever since the war. Had enemies climb up the castle walls. There’s no need for anyone to own it, so people didn’t like seeing the blueprints around.” He fiddled with his pipe, small eyes narrowing further. “I mean… I could draw you one. But why should I? No offense, but if you kids cause trouble with it, the guards are gonna come running to me. What’s in it for me that I would take the risk?”
“But we are doing this for the prince!”
The dwarf clicked his tongue thrice. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. You are on a mission for the prince. How do I know that the equipment is related to that? How do I know you’re not gonna use it for other stuff? Look, I know the Ice Emperor’s a good guy and all… But I don’t trust the rest of you. Except for the youngling – ain’t ever gonna see a dwarf climb somewhere. But the beastman and the brat?”
“Heath”, Ice said in a voice so soft that it was barely audible. “I’ll vouch for him.”
Heath stopped tapping his finger against his pipe and raised an eyebrow. His gaze wandered to Bloodless Sunset, who stood right at the Ice Emperor’s side. His expression became one of contemplation.
“I-I’ll vouch for Little Droplet”, Blackstone tried as well.
Heath humpfed. “Two sets, for you to hold alone. If anyone in your group misuses it, there will be a debt to pay. Twice the debt if the one you vouched for is at fault.”
Ice nodded to show he agreed. He knew that ultimately, what Heath wanted was for someone to take the full responsibility. As the leader of the group, it was natural he was the one who had to do it… He should free up two inventory spaces to make sure no one else could touch the equipment before he gave it out.
“Very well. As for payment – you’re going to the mountains, no? I want gold out of that mine. A hundred kilos.” Heath twirled his beard with a delighted grin. “The gold of the ice mountains… I am looking forward to its properties.”
Bloodless Sunset involuntarily pulled a face. A hundred kilos, meaning eight bars. That did not sound like a lot when you considered a whole mine, but the mine was new.
Every new mine was strictly under royalty’s control for at least three months. It would be hard to take gold off their hands when their first priority was creating all kinds of fancy items out of the new material.
The ores and minerals in Haven all had properties depending on where they were mined. That meant that, for example, the iron ore you could find near the desert heated up quickly and was easy to form. This kind of ore could be moulded even by beginners, but it needed a colder environment if you wanted it to keep its shape.
The gold mine on the mountain was new, so obviously it would have properties that neither the players nor the inhabitants of Haven knew about yet.
As a blacksmith, Heath was of course more than interested in acquiring the new material.
“So as long as we get you the gold, you will make us two sets of climbing equipment, right? We need to be able to scale a wall made of ice”, Bloody repeated.
Heath scoffed and went back to chewing on his pipe. “I know what you need, beastman.”
“How long would it take you to make the sets? We only have limited time.”
“A day.”
At that moment, everyone fell silent and had the same thought. That blacksmith actually had two sets lying around somewhere, didn’t he?
No one called him out on it, however. Heath was a crafty person and he held grudges. If the price was right, you could get most of the things you wanted out of him.
Author’s Note
Another cameo. I’m realizing I switch between writing spell, chant, etc. I hope no one minds. I also realized I have to check some stuff I wrote before because I think I’m adding accidental inconsistencies in some places…
Little Theater
Bloody: “Mom-in-law, Mom-in-law!”
Mom: “………….”
Bloody: “Moooom-in-laaaaaaw……. What can I do to make you talk to me?”
Mom: “Well, if you had the ears and tail from the game…”
Bloody: “….Genetical engineering, here I come.”
Ice: “Mom likes dogs?”
Dad: “Mom likes dogs.”
Bloody’s twitching ears and fluffy fur!!! TOUCH THEM, ICE!!!
OOH so Ice is sitting on the back, hugging Bloody and holding the reins??? ;P So Bloody’s tail is….squished between them? ;P
»Ice looked at the twitching ears and kept himself from touching them, a desire that often appeared when seeing the fluffy fur.« I feel you, Ice. And Illias obviously too with his hair style and all that staring lolol (And the mother xDD)
What a sly dwarf, wants all that “forbidden” gold :’D
Thx for the ch ٩( >ヮ<)۶
thanks for the chapter <3
…touch
fluffy ///
thanks for the chapter 😀
Why do I have a feeling that someone will misuse the climbing equipment? Not our family’s MC and ML, obviously, but someone who I have high suspicions of. Or maybe I’m just being paranoid 🤔 oh well.
Thank you for the chapter, enjoyable as always.
Thank you for the chapter 💜