12 Getting New Equipment

After seeing that his quest has already been partially completed, he immediately told Sleeping Beauty, the female player who is currently in a party with him.

"Hey, I'm going to head back and get the rewards from this quest now-"

"Wait, before you go back, you need at least 3 Horned Boar's Hide, 1 Slime's core, and 10 Vampiric Bat's Fangs."

"Why? What's it for?"

"It's for the next chained quest that's going to give you some equipment"

"Oh... I have 3 Hides and 3 Fangs."

"Geez... No wonder you opted for killing monsters to level up instead of doing quests. You aren't well aware of how much information can benefit you. You should really start using your brain you know? You wouldn't feel good being called a muscle brain now, would you?"

Devin feeling a bit annoyed by how much the other person has been harassing him with her venomous tongue has been busying himself by continuously repeating a sentence inside his head, so much that it almost sounds like a mantra. 'Endure this, she's here to power level you.'

"Anyway, follow me. I know a place where Slimes appear more frequently."

After completely gathering all the required materials, they immediately returned to the Village and headed to Village Guard Sam. Of course, there was still a line but this time it was a lot more bearable as it was just around midnight in real life and most of the players still have other matters to attend to the next day so they logged-out as soon as they were able to.

<Quest: Prove your strength to Village Guard Sam Completed! Reward: 5 Beginner's village reputation points, 300 EXP, 10 Copper.>

"I see, you are indeed strong enough to defend yourself against the monsters outside. But, looking at your weapon and equipment... Sigh. Go to Blacksmith Carlton and get yourself a new one. Just tell him to put it in my tab for now. Oh, and don't forget to come back to me after getting yourself new equipment and I'll give you the map to go to the city."

Devin nodded and saw that his quest had updated to what Village Guard Sam had just told him. Taking note of the important parts, he yawned and took a look at the time only to see that it was already quite late so he headed to the inn as he was feeling quite sleepy, his party member on the other hand.... not so much as she grabbed him in his arm.

"That's not where the Blacksmith is, dummy. It's this way, follow me."

Feeling the grip, he could only agree as he had no qualms in particular. After all, it was just one more quest, at least, that was what he thought.

"Who goes there?"

After entering the blacksmith, a place that he previously couldn't go into as there was an invisible wall that prevented him from entering, he saw an old man that was white-haired and in contrast to his raspy voice, was his well-toned body which Devin looked at in awe.

"Village Guard Sam sent me here. He told me to get some new equipment and to put the cost on his tab."

Fluently, Devin told these words that were taught to him by Sleeping Beauty. Apparently, those were the keywords to trigger the quest-line once again.

"Sam? Why would he be- I don't know why Sam would give you these bonuses but since you're already here, just chose along that corner young lad."

Devin nodded and saw that there were three different types of armor that were placed on display. one of them was a cotton robe, another one was leather armor and the remaining one was made of metal of some sort which he obviously couldn't discern with his sight alone as he is blind in real life.

Each armor has different weapons that were placed on their left sides. Near the robe was a wooden staff. Near the leather armor, was a dagger that looked slightly better than his, and finally on the metal armor was a sword.

Nothing, in particular, caught his eye and he had deemed nothing note-worthy, he knew that these were still trash tier items, however, it was still better than him wearing his Old Hunter's set equipment.

After thinking about what he would be wearing, he immediately thought about how these might be related to classes in the future. As he is right now, he knows that it is very hard to go melee. With his build, he could take either the leather or the metal armor, but seeing how he could potentially take on another route when he reaches level 10 as he gets to redistribute his stats then, taking the robe would also be a viable choice.

"Hey dude just choose! What's taking you so long? Just take that iron armor and go!"

The beauty was already getting impatient so Devin immediately made a choice and walked towards the equipment of his choice.

"What in the heavens are you doing? Are you an idiot? Hey, I can still accept it if you took the leather, but why are you taking the cloth?

After randomly taking a full set of equipment, he went back to Blacksmith Carlton bid him goodbye and switched out his old equipment.

"Hehe, not too shabby... "

"I did know that you were an idiot but were you really this stupid? Why would you choose the robe when you've distributed your stats to your STR and AGI?"

"Well, I noticed that I'm actually not good at fighting melee."

Remembering Devin mentioned that he had previously leveled up by continuously killing monsters instead of finishing the introductory quests made an inconsistency with his current reasoning. This means that he was hiding something, sensing this, Beauty could only accept his faulty reasoning. Now she regretted being the main DPS for their earlier hunt as she didn't get to fully observe Devin and all she remembered was that he was just barely decent, but it also seemed that he was holding himself back a bit.

Although she was sharp-tongued, she too was sensible and she decided that she would no longer further pursue the matter.

"Whatever, let's just get back to finish the quest."

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