Weakling's New Weapon

Under Darshel and Brandial's supervision, Poltas was nursed back to perfect health within a week. Luckily there had been no fractures and only muscle sprains, which healed with rest.

Due to usage of battle-mode, his weblet had leveled up. It now had new features, such as side quests, available on it.

Side quests were in a different category than main ones and had detailed descriptions on the task. They were sorted by the person related to the quest. Poltas currently had four side quests unlocked for different people: Horus, Astoff, Aren and Winzton.

Winzton was a completely unfamiliar name to him so he ignored the quest for now. Astoff was the rude weaponsmith and Aren was the last person he wanted to see at the moment. He did remember meeting a Horus but no longer remembered who it was. Upon looking at the quest description he recalled it was the head carpenter.

After his fighting "experience", Poltas had realised that he couldn't rely on battle-mode for every fight he got into. He needed to hone his own skills and take on enemies. Unfortunately the spear was not a suitable weapon for him. Unlike Brandial's idea of it being easy to use for beginners, Poltas couldn't even hold it upright for long.

With all these considerations Poltas chose to do Astoff's quest first. It had a simple description 'Cursed to never communicate normally again, he struggles to buy materials. Aid the lost soul in his purchases and he may look favourably upon you.'

With hopes of getting a new weapon, Poltas headed straight to the armourer's shop.

"Good morning."

A grunting sound from behind the furnace greeted Poltas back.

Astoff appeared soon after, dressed in a flannel button up and baggy jeans, but his typical apron and head cover were missing.

He gave Poltas a questioning look and turned around to pick up a large tote bag.

"I came to look around here, are you busy?"

He picked up the exit sign and held it up to Poltas.

"Going somewhere?"

Ignoring him, Astoff walked towards the exit and once outside pointed in the direction of the marketplace. Poltas already knew that due to the quest, he had to go to the market and help Astoff, but this whole arrangement needed to be accepted by the man himself.

"Hmmm, I have nothing else to do right now. How about I come help you with shopping?"

The weapon maker didn't seem pleased by this suggestion, but the most he did was spit on the ground before walking away, so Poltas took this as a sign to follow.

"What are you looking to buy?"

Astoff didn't turn to look at him, but tilted his head towards the farmer's market.

Inside the market, he grabbed a basket and began inspecting vegetables. Poltas was evaluating the familiar and unfamiliar vegetables when Astoff looked at him while holding an eggplant and proceeded to move his hand up and down in a suggestive manner.

"…"

He knew that this was not intentionally done to upset him. Astoff was cursed as a child and this was merely a side effect of that past affliction. Nonetheless, Poltas felt a bit offended.

The selection process of vegetables went by smoothly except for Astoff taking every opportunity to pick up a phallic shaped object and gesturing inappropriately with it in front of Poltas.

But once they reached the counter, Astoff's aura changed into a much more aggressive one. He stared down at the employee handling his items, as if to threaten the man.

Poltas, who had been waiting to play a role during this trip, saw the opportunity to intervene.

"Hello!"

"Good afternoon, may I help you?"

"I came here with my friend and he feels better weighing the items himself, could you let him do that?"

Without knowing Astoff's reason for being angry, Poltas said the first thing which came to his mind.

"O..of course. We also have a self weighing counter near the check out. But you guys can do it here, I was going to…uh…go get some water anyways."

The employee ran away from his post before Poltas could change his mind.

The upset man beside him calmed down after the employee's departure. Poltas observed him for a moment and realised that Astoff didn't even know how to weigh vegetables.

'Did I get myself into trouble…?'

He tried to follow the steps he had seen the employee do and weighed each type of vegetable individually. His speed was a lot slower than the worker, but Astoff was closely watching him work. For the last vegetable, Astoff took the basket from Poltas and packed it himself.

'Cursed but has potential to learn. Am I supposed to teach him how to do basic tasks?'

This thought turned out to be true and Poltas became Astoff's assistant for the rest of the afternoon.

"Sorry to bother you but Astoff prefers to chop his meat himself."

"There seems to be a lot of customers here, so we can just pick and skin a fish by ourselves."

"Could you let us write the address instead, Astoff's friend might not receive the letter if he doesn't recognise the writing."

"Astoff doesn't like wearing clothes that have been touched by too many people, can you give us a fresh piece?"

As a carefree person, Poltas did not have much experience in shopping for groceries, it was often his mother or sister who bought things. Trailing after a grown man and making excuses for him was truly a lesson for Poltas.

Astoff ignored him for the most part, except for the occasional weird gestures. But everytime Poltas made an excuse he'd get a thankful look from the man.

It took them an entire afternoon to fill the tote bag up. They returned to the shop as the sun was setting. Poltas checked his weblet, but the quest had not been marked done yet.

After changing his clothes and putting away the groceries, Astoff sat opposite to Poltas with a pen and paper.

'Thank f*ck for the sh*t today. I can't be arsed to f*cking tell them off. Those b*tches were very f*cking nice. Is there any sh*t I can motherf*cking help you with?'

The confusing tone of the written message was off putting, but Poltas disregarded it in favour of choosing a reward for his quest.

"Actually I used your spear in battle before, and it is not very suitable for me. I was hoping you could suggest a weapon that doesn't require much strength to use."

Astoff took a minute to think before he resumed writing.

'A p*ssy like you can't even use a f*cking spear. I think a sword would be more suitable to a weakling such as yourself.'

He brought back a short weapon with a black hilt, and extremely sharp edges.

'Don't piss yourself by staring at it. It's a little too f*cking sharp but easily cuts up b*tches real good.'

Poltas restrained his anger at this unnecessary remark and began to inspect the weapon. It was light as a feather, but even a midair swing produced an intense cut.

Poltas played around with the weapon a bit more and then thanked Astoff for his help.

'This was a good quest, and I finally got a reward. I wonder if the rest of them also have prizes.'

Completing the side quest had increased progress on the weblet. Poltas needed 10% more exp to level it up and unlock more features, but he was not in a hurry.

'I've been working since I came here, it's time for a break. I can just do these next week.'

"Poltas! I finally found you, I've been looking for you everywhere!"

A familiar voice sounded from behind him, with a tone that implied trouble. Poltas tightly shut his eyes and hoped that he could get out of this situation.