'God Only Knew Who And What They Would Fight And I Had Seen Enough Anime To Know Better'

After a long day of arduously imbuing mass amounts of wood that could only hold between five and ten percent of the overall energy, my crew was finally relieved by a team of proper pages late in the afternoon after our work had gotten the attention of higher ranked officials. Even though the credit would still go to the guards who signed us on, the town itself had taken over the project to increase speed and efficiency.

Because of the sudden developments and being sent home early for the day, I never got the chance to talk to Gryn and his friends about working for me in a trade of services. However, after all of the money everybody made the others were overjoyed despite the reason for the work in the first place. Even I was paid ten small silver coins, equal to a thousand copper pieces that could rent a room in a good inn for around two months.

However, compared to the prices of enchanting and alchemy materials, I could really only afford to by a set of intermediate alchemy tools like a few distillation sets. The actual materials to use them on started at one silver piece and steadily climbed. If I were to spend my entire life's savings, which was a few gold coins, I could rent a small building and property to set up my own shop.

This, however, was too much responsibility and too time consuming for me to bother with, I had all I needed at home and my mother could sell most of it through or to the Guild. If I were to invest a single cold coin, though, I could outfit Gryn and his friends with gear that would make most professional mercenaries do a double-take. Back at the inn Gryn's younger friends lived, the others were excitedly discussing the things they would do with their money and materials.

Finally seeing an opportunity instead of waiting to force my ideas into the discussion, I simply said, "Or, you could just spend your savings on even more materials and just let me make everything."

An abrupt silence was the first response I received alongside all eyes at the table on me. There was surprise more than disbelief, which was good for me. These kids had already seen my knowledge of magic and power at work and had heard the stories of my family boasting about my talents, they had no reason to think I could not make gear and equipment better than they even hoped for.

Somehow, though, there was still an issue which was addressed when Carth turned to Gryn and asked, "Can we trust him?"

This was not a question of whether or not I could complete the task but instead of whether or not they could include me at all. This piqued my curiosity. Gryn, of course, simply shrugged and countered with, "Can you trust me?"

Nodding his head, Carth smirks and says, "Let me see how far I can throw the both of you." The others briefly laughed but then seriousness returned as Carth said, "You know we plan on entering Guild training to join the Guild as mercenaries once we're older. The only issue is… we're all kind of weak, so to enter training we need gear that will increase our stats and special weapons to compensate. These are things we're not supposed to have until we turn sixteen, so nobody can find out we have them before training. Are you fine with this?"

"How strong do you want them to be?" I ask instead of directly answering. "Physical enhancement enchantments require a high conductivity even for basic goods and that will take a lot of money. I can chip in to pay for it, but I'll need something in exchange. Not money like a debt or anything, but I'll need you guys to work it off by collects plants and materials for me. The money you make will probably go down, but we'll be investing in one another."

"I don't have any problem with this," Gryn remarks before Carth can continue the discussion, taking away much of the seriousness after one of their party already accepted the terms. Gryn was obviously the leader of the group and let Carth handle the little things, but he did not seem to have any problem undermining his authority on those little things.

The others quickly voiced their opinions on the subject of cheap labor and my investment, all of them in favor. Carth, who probably wanted to see exactly how much they could get for how little, was soon in a bad mood and forced to concede negotiations. I honestly felt kind of bad for the older guy, but he kept it together and remained professional.

The main constituent of the gear they wanted would be leather, light and flexible and waxed for durability rather than boiled for hardness. For the enchantments they wanted, mundane leathers would only go so far, but they had been stockpiling hides for years and had plenty to use for crafting and trade for those crafts. Just the giant pelts from the rodents they hunted recently were enough to make a layered leather tunic.

On top of this they wanted carapace plates for augmenting their arms but not everybody wanted the same designs or methods. Since they were a team, I advised them to use matching sets for identifying one another and then worked and helping everyone reach a communal compromise. Some of them wanted sleeves and others wanted braces, but for the simple sake of their hunting and gathering efficiency I had them compromise on accepting sleeves.

Because everybody wanted helmets that covered their faces, the girls wanted skirted armor that would help people recognize their genders. As much as the extra material of the skirts would add more conductive material to the leggings of their armor, I had no choice but to point out that the last thing they wanted was for the enemy to recognize them as girls.

God only knew who and what they would fight and I have seen enough anime to know better.

Even though Carth and Hilda were old enough to have unlocked their levels, they had spent all of their early levels on raising their Intelligence up to Guild standards and Layla, too, was following suit. This recent hunting trip turned out to be her first trip actively gaining levels. None of these three even had a Strength stat near twenty and even Carth only had the same number that I was born with.

Since their goals were to raise them mental stats first with the easier to acquire points of their early levels, their armor would be focused on enhancing their physical abilities. Their weapons, though, were a collective mess.

Eman and Layla wanted bows that could fire the elements themselves, but the literal draw from such a weapon would drain them in just a couple of shots even if their target was only a hundred feet away. They simply were not strong enough magically to maintain such a weapon. To compensate, I talked them into accepting bows that made simple mana arrows which would give them the option of firing real arrows augmented by enchantments.

Carth and Hilda wanted matching swords that could extend a blade of raw energy that they could then infuse with their new affinities. A reach increasing sword was probably an exceptional tool for sword users, but they wanted instantaneous expansion which would cause an instantaneous consumption of mana. If they wanted to extend and maintain a ten-foot sword at will, they would both need much more mana than they had right now and to train themselves to ignore the affects of such rapid consumption.

Their compromise was a set of swords that could double their length with an energy extension as well as unleash an aura scythe, the raw mana version of my brother's wind blades or my own kinetic slashes. The consumption from these enchantments was much less than their original ambiguous requests and would be good training for preparing them to use such weapons. The same with the arrow generating bows.

Gryn could not craft his own weapons because his alchemy and transmutation skills were not that great, but he had more than enough energy to enchant his own weapon. Instead, since he was basically the powerhouse of their team, we debated what enchantments to use. His initial want was something that could conduct his magic like a wand but in weapon form, which would lessen the strains of using magic in combat.

I, however, convinced him to sidearm a general elemental cutter or piercer enchantment that required less energy than his actual spells and would allow him to attack most distant targets anywhere he was fighting. Especially the more accurate piercer- or thrust styled cutter- which would allow him to avoid striking friends by aiming at targets around them.

Just with the increased advantages that came with every member of Gryn's party having ranged capability, everybody would be capable of taking down the usually fearsome echoes and even stronger, tangible, beasts

Even though the most I could probably get for every stat's enhancement based on their stock of materials would be around ten or fifteen points per stat. Normally, this might not sound like much, but both Gryn and Carth and eventually Hilda would exceed my own base Strength. Once their mana pools grew and their magic consolidated themselves, they would be hard pressed to find any creatures in regions surrounding the mountains.

Of course, there were some seasonal and randomly yearly migrations of magical and mundane beasts, but the Guild basically considered them special events. They made contests of redirecting masses or thinning herds. Gryn and his group would have more trouble finding something to fight than actually fighting.

Once our deliberations on what gear to make were done, we started discussing the sales and materials I would need to increase conductivity for he enchantments. It was decided Hilda and Eman would handle selling the goods from our recent trip and their own stocks to acquire the things we did not already have.

When Gryn and I finally left for home after that, it was already beginning to get dark. However, our parents were still out in meetings and work details. On the bright side, the refugees from Arguston and the neighboring village were still awake and cooking a communal stew in a giant cauldron.

Gryn and I joined the refugees for dinner, which they insisted upon with the reasoning that we had given them the magic weasels to begin with. As much for the sake of tomorrow's work duties as for the health of the refugee children, I 'encouraged' the use of dried iramana petals in the stew. Even though I had the 'mental fortitude' of a young adult tempered by a second childhood, I was physically in a second childhood and completely worn in all three mind, body, and soul.

Without at least a single day of rest, tomorrow would probably leave me bedridden for a few days as I pampered myself.

Once again I was awoken too soon for my needs but this time it was to find not only Gryn in my room but also our parents. They did not look happy, which made me feel rather worried and even a little guilty. I had pushed a lot of boundaries recently and now was almost certainly the recoil.

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