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Chapter 24: Broke

Even though Arwin had taken care to avoid letting the wood get too close to the fire, there was only so much he could do. It wasn’t like the hammer had been in great shape to start with, and the extra stress on it finally proved to do it in.

Arwin didn’t even bother trying to pull the handle from the fire. He watched it burn beside the red-hot scales, his nose screwed up in annoyance. It had been two days since he’d gotten back from the hunting trip, and he’d spent both of them completely focused on working with the scales.

If he’d focused on making what he already knew how to make, it wouldn’t have been a problem to make a few more magical items. But, instead, Arwin put everything he had into figuring out how to make himself greaves.

He’d made several pairs of scale mail greaves without too much difficulty, but that had taken hours and the majority of them had all been either completely non-magical or detrimental. Their actual shape had been decent, which was at least something to be proud of. His practice had started to spill over, but they still weren’t perfect.

He made a few more attempts, managing to make a grand total of two normal, non-detrimental sets of scale mail greaves before he decided to push things a bit farther.

He attempted to hammer the scales together into a single plate rather than individual links, and Arwin had been pretty sure that he’d been making progress – but all of that had ended with the breaking of his hammer.

“Well, that’s annoying,” Arwin said. He tossed the head of the hammer in his hand, chewing his lower lip as he tried to figure out what to do next. There wasn’t a good answer beyond the most obvious one – he had to go buy a tool to work with.

At some point, I need to make myself a hammer, but I need a hammer to make a hammer. Now isn’t that a paradox? Armor first, though – or greaves, at the very least. I feel like a moron walking around with just my chest piece.

That meant he needed to go shopping, and shopping meant he needed money. He’d been unwilling to sell anything subpar the last time he’d gone to the market, but things had changed slightly since then.

Arwin had absolutely no plans of putting anything magical up for sale, but even though the two non-magical scale mail greaves weren’t the greatest things he’d made, they were definitely still nothing to be ashamed of.

Reckon I could probably sell these for enough money to buy myself a hammer and maybe some more metal to work with. The problem will be actually selling them in the first place. Nobody wanted to buy anything the last time we went to the market.

Either way, I might as well return the bag to Rodrick and Anna while I’m at it. I don’t want to hold onto this thing forever when they’re waiting for it back.

Arwin gathered the two pairs of greaves he’d made and slung them over his shoulder. He snagged the bag that Rodrick had given him and headed out of the smithy. Reya was still out doing whatever it was she did during the day, but Arwin wasn’t all that concerned about someone breaking in. He had all his magical items on him and it wasn’t like there were many people on the street in the first place.

He made his way through the city, keeping to the side of the road to avoid drawing too much attention. Arwin was more than aware that his clothes were still the ratty, filthy ones that the Brothers Six had worn, and he probably didn’t look particularly friendly in them.

Just another thing I need to eventually invest in. Gah. I really need a good way to start making money, but I refuse to make magical weapons for random people. Selling these greaves will be a good start.

Once I build a name for myself, maybe I could interview people that want magic items. I could even sell it as me personalizing it for them, and then just refuse to make things for people I don’t like.

I rather like the idea of that, actually.

A small grin slipped across Arwin’s features and his pace increased as he continued through the city. He didn’t actually know where the Glowing Swordfish was, but after wandering around pointlessly for a while he accosted a few passersby until one of them directed him in the direction of the inn.

The Glowing Swordfish was a three-story stone building that looked like it had been made in the previous century. Shingles hung crooked on its tall roofs, and many of the windows had been boarded over.

A wooden sign bearing the faded carving of a blob with a point at its end that was probably meant to be a swordfish hung askew above a wooden door whose knob had fallen off. Arwin approached it and hooked a finger into the hole to pull the door open.

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The smell of dust and stale bread greeted him as he stepped into the common room, which was surprisingly busy despite the depressing exterior – and, for that matter, interior. There were half a dozen tables with mismatched chairs scattered around the room across from a bar that seated four people.

Around three quarters of the tables were populated with adventurers, and fairly decently equipped ones at that. Many of them had armor that made Arwin’s Mesh tingle in recognition, but he couldn’t see the information on most of their equipment, which meant they’d gotten strong enough to hide it from weaker outsiders.

That wasn’t saying much given Arwin’s return to the Apprentice Tier, but it felt off to see so many relatively strong looking adventurers sitting around in such a dump. He would have wondered if the food here had something special about it if he couldn’t smell it in its complete and utter mediocrity.

A chubby man in a dirty smock that Arwin presumed to be the bartender stood at the other end of the bar, his nose buried in a book. Arwin took a moment to study the bar, checking to see if it was doing anything to draw customers that Lillia could do.

The thought caught in his head a moment after he thought it and a small frown flitted across his lips.

Why do I care what the Demon Queen is doing with her time? She’s not hurting anybody, and that’s all that matters. It was my job to kill her, not help her.

Arwin shook his head and glanced around the tavern in hopes that Rodrick or Anna would already be down eating somewhere. Unfortunately, he had no such luck. They’d specified that he wasn’t to ask the bartender about them to avoid getting scammed, but the idea of just belting their names out at the top of his lungs didn’t feel particularly inviting.

Oh well. I don’t feel like dancing around this for too long.

Clearing his throat, Arwin drew in a deep breath and called out Rodrick’s name. Several people glanced up at him, but not a single one so much as reacted. An annoyed frown played across the bartender’s face, but he didn’t speak a word.

Looks like they’re used to it. How cheap do you have to be to refuse to let people know when others show up looking for them? Wouldn’t you make way more money by having an inn that people want to stay at?

Arwin didn’t have to sit around wondering for long. After about a minute, footsteps rang out against the stairs as Rodrick headed into the bottom floor of the inn. Arwin barely recognized him in his normal cloth clothes rather than his armor.

“Good to see you again,” Rodrick said when he reached the bottom of the stairs and made his way over to Arwin.

“Came to deliver your bag.” Arwin held it out to Rodrick. “I appreciate it.”

“Any time,” Rodrick replied. “Really, we’re the ones that got away with the biggest wins. You barely dealt the finishing blow on anything.”

Arwin shrugged. He wasn’t about to tell Rodrick that dealing the finishing blow was completely worthless for him. Whoever finished the monster off drew more of its life energy into themselves and advanced to the next Tier faster – but when Arwin didn’t get energy from killing things at all, it didn’t even matter if he participated in the fight at all.

Now that I think about it, aren’t crafting classes almost guaranteed to get more skills than combat ones are? You grow at a much faster rate when killing monsters than it feels like you do by crafting. I wonder if that’s intentional – like a way to balance things out.

“Don’t worry about finishing blows. I was interested in the materials far more than anything else,” Arwin said with a shake of his head.

Rodrick looked to the greaves on Arwin’s shoulder and raised an eyebrow. “It looks like you put them to pretty quick use. You brought them to a smith to see if they could make anything good?”

“Something like that,” Arwin said. “I didn’t love how they turned out, though.”

“Why?” Rodrick asked. “They look decent enough. Do you prefer heavy armor or something?”

“I do,” Arwin said. “But they’re also non-magical, which is less than ideal. I’d prefer my gear to be of higher quality.”

A bark of laughter slipped out of Rodrick’s lips and he slapped Arwin on the shoulder, nodding as if Arwin had just said a hilarious joke. “Wouldn’t we all? I tell you – I wouldn’t settle for anything less than Legendary gear, and it’s all got to be part of a synchronized set. Nothing else is worthy.”

A full set of legendary gear would be rather nice, actually. I’m not sure what the funny part is meant to be. Does Rodrick not have any magical gear at all?

“How much are you looking to sell that stuff for? I usually use heavy gear as well, but my greaves got mauled – though I suppose you were there for said mauling. I need a replacement and haven’t found anything in budget yet,” Rodrick said.

“I haven’t put too much thought into it yet,” Arwin admitted. “I was planning on taking them to a smith and seeing if they’d buy them at a cut cost to sell themselves.”

“Buy from one smith, sell to another? What are you trying to do, start a crafter turf war?” Rodrick snorted. “What about twenty-five gold? You’d probably be able to get better if you went to a real merchant, though.”

Twenty-five isn’t bad. I paid about ten for a bunch of materials from Taylor, the other blacksmith. He blatantly overcharged me, so I think I’d be making decent money from this. Enough to save myself some trouble, at the least.

“I wouldn’t argue that at all, twenty-five sounds good to me. You might want to make sure they fit, though,” Arwin said, holding the greaves out to Rodrick, who dug around in a pouch at his side to count out the gold.

“We’re not that different in size, so it should be fine,” Rodrick said, exchanging the gold for the pair of greaves with a nod. “And you cut me a pretty good deal, so I don’t mind if it’s a bit loose. Damn, though. Look at these things glitter in the light. They’re pretty.”

Rodrick held the greaves up, to the dirty windows, and Arwin was pleased to agree that they shimmered pleasantly. Even though they weren’t magical, he was pretty pleased with how they’d turned out.

“I hope they serve you well,” Arwin said.

“I’m sure they will. I’m pretty sure you cut me a great deal. What are you going to do with the other pair?”

“Probably still try to sell it. A little more gold would go a long way.”

“How much?” a woman asked. Arwin and Rodrick both turned toward its source – a middle-aged woman sitting at a table alone, clad in normal clothes but with a well-worn sword hanging at her side. There was a twinkle of interest in her blue eyes, hidden behind strands of black hair. “I haven’t seen anyone try to make anything out of Forest Lizard scales before. You found a pretty interesting blacksmith there, lad. If you’re still looking to sell, then I’d be willing to bargain.”