21

"We'll see you tomorrow afternoon and then tomorrow night so you can get some sleep for once!" I call out to Sir Beryl as I led the group out into the meadows. He had asked if we would be making camp here for the night so I figured he wanted to know if he could get some extra sleep again. I felt bad explaining that we had to go hunt dusk imps to fill an order for armor that I receive, but he understood.

The others were all still freaking out about how even Papi had gained two levels from the survival challenge and was now almost level twenty. I had risen halfway to level sixteen from the even and nobody else in our party was below thirteen anymore. Plus, between the five of us, we had gathered over a hundred goblin skins to make work on skills with.

One thing that quickly became a problem was when Papi read the description on the elder root weapons we got. Unlike me, who stole the killing blow on the hobgoblin warrior, the others only got the basic clubs and spears. However, everybody got the same amount which told me people normally got one of every weapon for every set of waves.

I had to make it very clear very quickly that these were the clan's start-up items and nothing could be done with them until the reality day before the currency change.

We made it to the second set of waves and got two of each elder root weapon, which meant we would need our full team together with the best equipment we can get to make it to the third set of waves. However, that third set of waves would probably be hobgoblin warriors with giant clubs. For each person.

Everybody else was busy excitedly discussing while I was busy in my head, simply letting them lead the way while Go and Skooma handled coordinating with one another for meeting up by the city gates. My biggest issue was currently equipment more than people.

The event spawns enemies per person so the easiest way to get through waves would be if everybody was capable of fighting their own opponents. This was the step one, getting everybody armed and armored enough to withstand ten goblins even if they lack the skill. Step two was organizing and training the people who could not pull their own weight just yet.

The third issue was the quantity of elder root loot, the only other way to make up for its scarcity besides getting further was with more people. This then created a vicious cycle of trapped thinking in which I tried to work out a fourth variable to get out of the endless loop of equipment, skill, and people to think about.

My biggest issue with equipment right now was that we could only currently make basic equipment without our proper magic characters and appropriate skill levels. Even if a normal Fuller Sword like my haunted one without ridium came out to thirty damage, there was nothing but that damage. My sword at least had the potential of a two-for-one attack, if we had weapons with debuffs or extra damage effects it would be so much simpler.

Trapped in my thoughts like this while working on weapon designs for individuals and classes, I actually ended up fighting on auto-pilot through several ferecats while following the others back to the city. For someone like Go it would be as simple as making a pair of large hatchets to replace his preferred primitive clubs with and for Papi it was simply replacing the pick hammer with a battleaxe. For Ivana and Lil, though, it would be tougher.

Lil's short spear already did around the same damage as my Blackened Fuller Haunting and it was made of some really nice materials. It would be hard to replace without paying for it. Ivana's issue was simpler, I could basically give her the Elder Bokuto for sidearms because she was fairly proficient in clubbing goblins with a cutting edge.

Her bow, though, could probably be replaced with elder root once we had somebody proficient enough to work it. Of course, I could always bribe Ferithar with a couple of clubs to make elder root weapons for us but that would be expensive. Therefore, elder root weapons would have to wait until I had more affinity with Ferithar.

As we reached the main road half a mile from Sierra, I open my inventory to withdraw the crafting recipe for a Goblin Bow. The bow had a simple but effective and even pleasing design based around the use of goblin parts. One of the parts I had originally been confused about was the wood material. The blueprint said root wood so I figured it meant like oak root or maple or something.

Now that I had some experience in dealing with Elder Root, though, it became obvious what root wood the recipe meant. The four-foot bow, too, would also come out to have a hefty ranged damage of thirty and a suitable physical damage from its designs. A critical from this bow with one of my dusk arrows would halve the health of a hobgoblin.

"Do you think you can make this?" I ask curiously, holding out the weapon recipe to Ivana. "If I make it then it will do less damage in your hands than mine. Also, what recipes did you guys get? I got this bow recipe from unlocking the Elder Oak Passage and I got an upper armor recipe earlier."

"I mean… if I knew how to make a bow," Ivana says a little sheepishly. "You're lucky I even put in the effort to get the smithing title. I also got goblin boots."

"Your character development will be slower than ours," I warn her with a deadpan look, accepting the recipe back.

"If my boyfriend wasn't going to be playing this game soon, I wouldn't even be developing a character," she says flatly.

"Oh, I got a recipe for goblin gloves!" Lil chimes in suddenly, fearing a fight might start. "I even got this title and perk that makes goblins hate and fear me. Dad, what did you get?"

"Goblin helm and the same as you, honey," he replies, patting his daughter's head and pretending tensions were not just rising.

"Full suit," Go says simply after taking count of all the pieces named so far, declaring he had a lower body armor recipe. "These Goblin greaves are not bad, the defense comes out to fourteen and the use of a goblin core imbues the pieces with a goblin's naturally highest stat- which is Agility. All of us can benefit a lot from a suit of agility armor, especially against numbers like earlier."

Reading over the design for the Goblin Jerkin, I muse at the potential of crossing these recipes with dusk imp parts. The two species were supposedly closely related enough for Skooma's sister to use alchemy on them and increase their resistance benefits as well as boost her summoning powers. This armor was a two-layer sweater with a soft inner layer and a hardened outer layer woven with soft leather for padding while all throughout the weaving were fangs and claws similar to the animal armor that Lil wore.

After examining each piece we found the gloves and boots increased unarmed damage with the designs of their fang and claw augments while still increasing defense by ten apiece. This suit was already better my starting armor that was now starting to need repairs. With treatment, even if we could not use goblin cores on the crossed armor the defense and resistances would still make this a high value suit.

When the city gates came into sight and I could see Skooma's group up ahead, I say, "I'm thinking about bringing Skooma's group to the table, depending on how well they play. Keep an open mind tonight, our clan will eventually need more people than just us."

"He's the big cat, right?" Papi asks while narrowing his eyes in the direction of the gates. "He looks tough, but I was always a dog person to begin with. How old are they?"

"His age is fifteen, the others are centered around his age," I reply with a shrug. "His sister is older, I think, but I don't remember. Old enough for you? Probably not."

"I have a wife," Papi says flatly, clearly not amused.

Ignoring him and speaking over the party channel, I say, "I'm going to kick half of you guys because we're bringing in another party that doesn't need to know our numbers, dont be surprised." Then I just started removing people from the party while we approached the gates.

"Skooma!" I call out to the other group who were gathered off to the side of the gates and going over a bunch of supplies and equipment on the ground. Looking up, Skooma raises a hand and waves before gesturing for us to hurry while talking to his friends. "They must have had some decent hunting. He said nightwings are a usual for him, let's see what's up."

On a large animal skin spread out between Skooma's group were an assortment of different parts and folded skins from different animals ranging from small game hunting animals to tree vermin and nightwings. There were even a few dusk imp parts and pieces piled together. Still, it did not look like there was enough value here to warrant such careful considerations.

"If someone were to hand you all of this and tell you to make a giant heavy leather suit," Skooma says a few moments after we had been standing to the side watching. "What do you think you could make?"

Considering the main skin that everything was on top of, I immediately thought of a slightly taller version of myself wearing a bear-like hide coat laden with animal augments as well as a patchwork armor of layers with an immense soft leather utility belt of sorts filling in the middle.

Realizing that an armor accessory like a belt was one of the pieces we were missing, I take a couple of ferecat pelts from my inventory to tinker with while saying, "If I made it you'd look like the leader of an outlaw army but you'd have multiple layers of armor that usually rate between eight and ten defense a layer so each pieces would be upwards of fifteen defense. The main coat from the big hide at the bottom would be designed like our druid's and have the highest defense. Skooma, you big fluffy kitten, you just saved me so much trouble just by asking that question."

Cutting two ferecat pelts into thirds, I put the two longest swaths on top of each other while talking and trim the edges from the other two to use as weaving material so help stiffen the front padding of an armored belt so it does not lean or fold. Then I took three of the remaining thirds who were trimmed of their excess leg skins and braided them together into a furry belt that I work carefully through the main armor pad. Fastening the end together around my own waist to test the size, I soon receive some notifications.

[Crafted: Survival Belt]

[Saved Quick Crafting Recipe: Survival Belt]

[+20XP]

[+20 Leather Working XP]

[+20 Primitive Crafting XP]

As it was with just a basic fastening loop at one of the ends, the Survival belt added six defense to my current suit with my Craftier bonus. Made from thicker and tougher goblin skin, this belt would probably give me eight or nine defense and the others six or seven if I made it. If I had time I would have made a test coat from ferecat but everyone was suddenly giving me funny looks.

"What was that?" Skooma asks curiously, examining the belt I took off to add weapon and tool loops on the inside with the remaining fourth third of ferecat skin.

"I was stuck on basic armor pieces up until now," I explain simply while trimming and weaving loops inside the belt. "You know, the essentials. Head, chest, legs, hands, and feet. Your question reminded me there are more than just those five armor types, though. there's pauldrons for shoulders, belts, coats, and there are even pieces you can specially make as underarmor for protecting your joints. Those might not count in this game, but you can still compile all the armor your character can bear to fight with until you work out a system that works for you.

Nodding his head, Papi says, "While they do sell armored coats and belts the whole sets and suits they sell are usually just the main five pieces. I think I can manage a belt for underarmor but a coat is all else I can add on top of a tin suit like this."

From what little experience I had with defensive ratings in this game the full coverage of a coat even from soft ferecat like the belt would come out to at least ten defense. A belt and coat would be an estimated sixteen defense added to my current suit. For people our level, that was not a small increase by any means.

Sixteen defense could have been enough to see us through the eighth hobgoblin wave if we started with full capabilities.

This was not the fourth option that I was looking for, closer to an extended possibility of the main issue, but it was a step in the right direction.

Moving things along before my thoughts start looping again, I say, "Alright, as for a suit of armor out of all this I can probably make something happen for about a hundred gold if you don't mind paying it. If we didn't already have affinity, though, it'd be one-fifty even though it's all stuff at our level. You already know how much my loot suits go for."

"If each piece has a higher rating than the eighty gold suit I'm wearing, I'll pay it. The next upgrade over is one-fifty in the shops and it only does like six more overall."

"For light armor, they don't really get much higher than that until you get higher tier materials," I war him frankly. "My suit might come out to that much in the main five pieces, but you'll be getting two extra pieces on top. If it's same-tier materials then its the design that matters and I only just started making a study of what does what. However, points of interest," I add quickly.

"First, the demon origins suits are being made because of the resistances they offer," I explain with gold on my mind. "This mismatched pile of excess loot you guys have here will probably come out with one-percents if I put goblin in every piece as it is. If you want to take away inferior parts, like the tree vermin stuff, and replace it with more goblin and imp then you still have time. I won't be working on this until after the origins suits. Just keep all of it on you, too. It really will get lost in my over-stuffed inventory, I have half a forest worth of random crap that I collected in my player inventory."

Slightly purring as he smiles smugly, I Got Skooma says, "Yours truly and his party finished their initiation missions with the Guild, we're officially F rank mercenaries. Guess what we learned? There's been a lot of mission requests recently in the further west of the forest near the fork of the river concerning dusk imps. We did one of them today and we discovered most of the dusk imp related compass points. Let's start heading west?"

"Let's start heading west," I agree, sending him and the other players present invitations to our party. "Well, maybe. Does anybody need to stop for anything? There's a small store at the stagecoach's tavern that sells basic supplies if you need anything."

"You already have everything, right?" Lil asks while clasping here hands together and looking cutely up at me.

*