Chapter 84 - Gearing Up

The first thing that Gren did when he woke up was ask the system if the update was complete.

<System Update Complete>

<Due to changes made to the research, all progress towards earning a research point has been reset>

<One research point has been rewarded to all Users>

<Your current balance is ten research points>

Gaining a research point was good but he couldn't afford the Simple Mechanics research project with ten points anymore.

{How many research points will be required to unlock firearms?}

<Firearms requires five unresearched elements: Carbon, Potassium, Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Sulfur>

<Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Sulfur can be researched as part of the Nonmetals One research project>

<Nonmetals One costs five research points>

<Potassium can be researched as part of the Metals Two research project>

<Metals Two costs twenty research points>

<Firearms requires one unresearched technology: Simple Mechanics>

<Simple Mechanics costs twenty five research points>

<The total cost to research firearms is fifty research points>

<Master requires forty more research points>

Great. It was the same exact price as it was before. Gren was really hoping that it would be cheaper so that he could unlock them sooner. The cost of the internal combustion engine blueprints was more than 25 points so it was still a significant change.

Gren tried to sit up but his back hurt and he was still wearing his armor.

{Store my armor away.}

The slight drop from the armor disappearing didn't help his back problems but he was able to get up now. After getting up, he noticed that Jasmine was curled up into a ball a short distance from where he was. "Shit." Gren realized a serious problem; Jasmine's body temperature was lower than it needed to be.

Gren quickly designed a metal structure shaped like a tent and had the system construct it before covering Jasmine with it. He needed to use fire magic to warm up the inside of the structure so there were small holes for ventilation. The large door on it was held shut by gravity and didn't have any way to lock it from the outside, just to be safe. There was no floor to the structure so he left some threaded holes on the bottom to allow for one to be mounted to it later on.

After making sure that the inside of the structure was warmed up and that Jasmine would be fine, Gren left to go see what time it was. There were a few people sitting at the tables by his statue and they were drinking something, probably alcohol since Rumi and Rodge were part of the group. "Oh, it's the rat slayer! Back from his nap with the dragon lady!" Why did Dill, one of the mercenaries, know that he was sleeping next to Jasmine? The rat slayer part was obvious with the statue next to where they were drinking. It was a conversation piece that no drunk person could resist talking about.

"How long was I asleep for?" Gren decided not to give the alcoholics the response that they wanted. He was already sick of the rat slayer comments after Rumi--or possibly one of the other dwarves--and a couple of the other women started trying to make a song about him while drunk. None of them were good singers or songwriters. The lyrics didn't even rhyme...

"Gren. Don't be surprised." Rumi got serious all of a sudden. "You've been asleep for years." What else could he expect from a group of drunk people? Rumi and the rest of them were laughing at her obvious lie. He decided that it would be best to go find someone sober to ask his question. "Bring more alcohol!" He wouldn't do that for Rumi right now; she has had enough to drink.

The most reliable person to talk to was Jessica so Gren went to look for her. Even if she wasn't upstairs, he could just look outside to see what time it was. He noticed that there was a sound coming from the kitchen when he reached the ground floor. There were only a few people that would be in the kitchen when most of the food was stored underground. When peeking in, Gren saw Jessica washing the dishes. Gren made sure that she wasn't holding anything that could be broken before calling out to her. "Why don't you take a break? You're always working on something whenever I see you."

"There is a lot to do around here. If I don't do it then it'll all pile up." They did go through a lot of dishes in one day and almost nobody else was helping with them.

There was a much faster way to wash them. "Move aside, I'll do the dishes real quick." After Jessica moved aside, Gren stored all of the dishes away; making sure to not store the grime along with it. The leftover sauce and bits of food landed in the sink so Gren just washed it down the drain using water magic.

The great thing about living in Adierton was that there was proper plumbing. You still needed to use water magic or a water magic device but there was no need to worry about the waste. The underground ruins had sewers that people could dump their waste into. Gren found out after the rat incident months ago since that's where the rats were coming from; it was sealed off now but that was the source of the terrible smell down there. You needed to fill a bucket to flush the toilet but it was much better than an outhouse. "Ta-da! All clean now." Gren brought out the dishes that looked almost brand new again.

"Ohhh! That's pretty useful. When did you learn to do that?" Jessica decided in her head that from now on Gren would be the one to clean the dishes whenever he was home.

"I got the idea when on my last request. It was useful for swiping some old wine since it was covered in dust. Even Shenzi said that nobody would figure out that it was me." Gren only figured out that he made a mistake when he turned around and Jessica was glaring at him.

Jessica used her fists to grind his temples. "You. Did. What?" It was bad enough that her current husband was childish but now he was taking things that didn't belong to him? Unacceptable.

"It was abandoned." Gren managed to pull away from Jessica and cover his head with his arms. "Nobody had been down there in years. If we left it then it just would have been taken by somebody else." It was a miracle that it wasn't stolen already.

Jessica sighed and sat down at the table. "Why do you constantly make me worry? It's bad enough that you're going around as a mercenary but now you're acting like a thief. If I didn't think that you were necessary on this request then I'd immediately pull you from it." His discipline problem was worse than she thought and she didn't know how to help fix his behavior. Mercenaries were rough and uncultured so they weren't a good influence. Her late husband was the same way but less immature.

Gren felt more like a son than a husband to her even though the two of them were now having a child. She still didn't know why she slept with him on that first day when he wasn't her type. She had to be with him now for the sake of keeping her family together but it wasn't like she was suffering. Even if you ignored the fact that he was the son of the Goddess, he had a lot of good points. The sex felt great, he was a talented young magician that had lots of money, and he wasn't violent or abusive towards them; if only she could get him to behave better, she would have no complaints.

Now was not the time to be arguing, Gren had other things to do. "For now, just focus on the request. We'll talk when you get back. The other members were picked out so you'll need to get them equipped. Here's a list of their names and their species." When Gren reached out for the paper, she grabbed his hand. "Remember that I don't hate you. I only scold you because I want you to grow up to become a proper man."

Gren didn't think that she hated him but their relationship was strange. Regardless of whether or not there was any love between them, Gren planned on being a good father and husband. He wanted his wives and children to live carefree lives and the mercenary business was the only path he had to accomplish that goal. With a nod, Gren took the paper and headed back downstairs.

There were a total of seven women that Gren needed to equip--eight if Letta wanted new armor.

The dark elf, Dhalra, would require a standard bow with arrows. Her armor needs to be lightweight and flexible. Gren would need to look into possible materials that he could use if he researched Nonmetals One.

The twin elves, Nadia and Nalia only needed good armor; they were there to help as support and not direct combat. One of them could speak to plants while the other could control vines so they would be useful. Some self defense weapons might be a good idea, just to be safe.

Buthi was a scorpion insectoid that was unique. She was unique in that she had three pairs of arms but only her upper-most right arm had a pincer on it; it also happened to be the only arm with an exoskeleton. The other five arms and most of the rest of her body was covered in flesh. Besides the pincer arm, only Buthi's large scorpion tail had an exoskeleton. Her armor was going to be complex and, since her body was different, there were more arms that he had to equip.

Gallia was more of a traditional insectoid; her body was almost completely covered in an exoskeleton. She even had large blades on one of her three pairs of arms. Her face was mostly human except for her mouth which was small and insect-like. Just like with Buthi, Gren had no idea what to do about her weapons or armor. Maybe just giving her a giant shield and adding something to her scythes so that he could gain points would be enough.

Sachi was a cyclops which meant that her body was the same as a human's body if you ignored her skin tone and head. As long as the helmet was modified, Gren could easily make equipment for her. Her gear would be more melee-focused since she didn't have good depth perception.

Kuroa was probably going to be the biggest challenge. All of her gear needed to be light since she came from a birdlike race that was able to fly. A throwing weapon was probably best but Gren was stuck picking between javelins and darts.

He would have his work cut out for him. Well, the system would, anyways. The AI came up with most of the designs while Gren told it what he wanted. Gren was only needed to make visual changes and to pick the final design.