Chapter 225: Neglected Wounds Fester and Curse

Bilac: "……Haaah…"

It was a full-bodied sigh from Bilac after hearing my report about how "one thing led to another and we went and beat the crap out of Ctarnidd!"

Bilac: "You're idiots, idiots. I always thought ya were, but… haaaaaah…"

Sunraku: "Even if you say that... right, Emul?"

Emul: "Hai na. Even in Ruluiath, Sunraku-san was acting like usual, but this time it really was an accident, wa."

Bilac: "…So? Ya came all the way here, so I s'pect ya went and broke a whole buncha stuff again. Lemme see."

Sunraku: "Well, we were at it for seven days straight… Everything except Duxram, Blade of Aspiration, is beat to hell."

Duxram is definitely a weapon that suits me perfectly, but even so, I can't land critical hits 100% of the time. If you keep cutting down fishmen and mermaids endlessly like a zombie game, you're bound to miss crits, and we fought through fierce battles against oarfish, orcas, anglerfish, and more.

Aside from Duxram and the Gilta Brille gauntlets, which got trashed during the Ctarnidd fight, everything else is worn down to the breaking point. Bilac inspected the weapons I showed her by manipulating her menu. Just as expected, she grimaced heavily at the "Broken" Gilta Brille.

Bilac: "…Well, pickin' a fight with that there Ctarnidd, I get that it was a life-or-death struggle, but ya really went and busted 'em up good."

Sunraku: "Honestly, with the system… I'm pretty sure these are designed to break eventually."

Bilac: "That means don't push 'em to the point where they break!"

Come on. If you're a guy, you want to crank it to 100%… no, 120%. It's about romance. It's about dreams. Thirty percent of a human is made of that stuff. Otherwise, there'd be no gambling or games in this world.

Sunraku: "Anyway, I want you to make some new weapons. I've got a ton of materials… I mean, a ton."

Bilac: "Hmph… I don't mind that, but ya got the money?"

Emul: "This person looted every last piece of treasure from Ruluiath, wa…"

Sunraku: "It's a lot. Probably enough to build a castle."

Better not tell Elke. She'd casually overcharge me.

I start pulling materials out of my Inventoria. And pull out more. And more. And more. And more. And more. And more. And more. And more. And more. And more—

Bilac: "Wait, wait, wait, wait!!"

Bilac: "Would ya wait!!"

Sunraku: "There's still more."

Bilac: "Just how much fightin' have ya been doing..."

There's a "number that makes you anxious." For living things, I mean. Specifically, when you have monster materials and you think, "I want to make a weapon or armor with these, but do I have enough? Should I farm more?" It's not exactly a collector's mentality. It's the destiny of the loot-grind category. The player is synonymous with slaughter until they gather the "minimum" required number needed to craft every piece of gear set by the game's systems.

For example, if there’s an enemy that drops materials worth good money, players will keep overhunting it until the day they put the game back on the shelf and leave it there until the mood strikes again. And if there are materials that can only be obtained in a place you can only stay for seven days, you farm them with everything you've got. That's the nature of a gamer.

Bilac: "In a case like this, ya gotta reverse the order. What kinda weapon do you want? Tell me."

Sunraku: "What kind…"

Let's start with upgrading my head and waist armor. Making another pair of twin swords wouldn't be bad. It wouldn't be bad, but if I'm going to the trouble, I'd like to try a different weapon type. Still, using a hammer or spear from scratch with my current skill set would be pointless. So…

Sunraku: "Head and waist armor… and fist weapons, a one-handed sword, and… a shield."

Bilac: "A shield?"

She looked surprised. And I get it, coming from Bilac, who's made most of my current weapons. My stats as Sunraku are now fully specialized in evasion. Hell, even in the Ctarnidd fight, blocking would have gotten me killed. Sure, I got the stat inversion item, so I can gain durability under certain conditions now, but that's not really a big deal.

The fact that this game has two systems, skills and magic, means that no matter how much you dress up your gear and compensate with player skill, you'll never match a dedicated specialist who doesn't compromise on skills or magic.

Take the tanks in SF-Zoo, for example. They sacrificed mobility entirely, but in exchange, they protected the back line against Lycagon. That's what a tank should be. "All-rounder" sounds nice, but it's a term for when you're overwhelmingly stronger than your opponent. If you're equal or weaker, society calls it "jack of all trades, master of none."

So is it a compromise for me, someone who specializes in evasion and positioning, to pick up a shield? Either way, I'm already half-naked. Do I really need to force myself to use a shield?

Shut up, I'll use it because I want to.

It's not like I want a tower shield. Lately, I've only been fighting huge monsters, so I've specialized in evasion. But it's not that I'm bad at parrying. A shield that I can wield in one hand and use to deflect swords and spears—something that size wouldn't conflict with my style. It would work as a "sword that doesn't cut."

And there are people out there who dual-wield tower shields for absolute defense. Specifically, I've done it myself in other games when I was bored. Shields are fun to use. Change your grip a little and they become a slab-shaped fist weapon…

Bilac: "Alright, alright, I got it. I can tell whatcha want just by lookin' at yer face."

Sunraku: "Huh? I didn't say anything, though."

Bilac: "Yer face is sayin' 'Quit yer jabberin', I can handle it, so just make it already.'"

Yeah, I may have thought, "Don't lecture me, NPC weapons shop," just a little.

Bilac: "So, helmet, waistband… Fist Strips, one-handed sword, and shield. Then I'll need this, and this, and this… and this."

Bilac started pulling out items one by one from the mountain of materials. Then she stopped, staring at a particular item.

Bilac: "…Well, well. So this is why ya said ya wanted a shield."

Sunraku: "……You caught me."

Bilac: "With materials this fine, even I wanna make a shield."

Atlanticus Lepnorca’s Mirror Bone… A transparent, disc-shaped part of Atlanticus Lepnorca’s skull that it uses as a lens when firing its beam. If you're going to make a weapon or armor out of this material, a shield is the only choice.

Bilac: "I can feel power in it, as strong as the Golden Scorpion…"

Sunraku: "Right. If a friend hadn't helped me, I would've been eaten too."

Emul: "That fishy-smelling person, wa?"

Sunraku: "Araba."

Being an attacker who could swim through the air in Ruluiath made him ridiculously strong. Our habitats don't overlap, but I'd like to see him again before I retire from this game someday. But the "Conversion" system seems to be involved somehow, and if that's the case, it's a problem.

Sunraku: "So I really can't move forward without taking down Lycagon, huh…"

Lycagon’s Contusion carved into me is troublesome—you could call it an evolution of the earlier curse (Marking). But now the restrictions I'd put off dealing with when I first got it are starting to bite.

—The sealing of "Conversion." From what I saw with Kyotimate, Conversion is like post-hoc character creation.

Probably, it lets you change your avatar to a race with "human" in its name. Judging by how Kyotimate talked, beast-type races probably give a simple strength boost. But Lycagon’s Contusion seals that off.

So I have to beat down Lycagon and lift the curse before I can change races. Fine by me, you damn mutt. Even if I didn't need to, having restrictions placed on me makes me want to break them out of pure stubbornness.

Sunraku: "How long until they're done?"

Bilac: "Come by tomorrow night. I'll have 'em finished by then."

Sunraku: "Got it."

Bilac: "But…"

Hmm?

Bilac tapped the gauntlets—the ones that were cracked and had lost their true power.

Bilac: "Repairin' these is gonna be a pain. Won't be able to do it for a week."

Sunraku: "Well, can't be helped. It's still good news that they can be fixed at all."

Now then. I've suddenly got free time. What should I do?

The "Blacksmith" job can obviously upgrade weapons, and of course, it can also craft them.

But there are two types of weapon crafting: making weapons registered in the system, and making completely original ones—in other words, crafting Unique Weapons.

With the former, you can't make weapons or armor with outstanding abilities, but you can repeat the process a hundred times and make a hundred identical swords.

With the latter, you can create a weapon with Unique performance based on your stats and level, but even repeating it a hundred times, it's rare to get two swords with the same performance.