Chapter 139: It's Not My Fault; It's The Item's Fault!

Humans are very weird.

After living a while at the Frogmen Village, Ironfelt found the behavior of the people around him quite incomprehensible.

Firstly, they carry out trading with something known as ‘game currency’… weren’t human commonly using the bronze coins, silver Rions and golden Abbys as distributed by the financial cabinet of the Church of Gaglomeia, Goddess of Prosperity?

To have a comfortable life on the surface, Ironfelt had actually sold off his favorite awl in exchange for a sizable amount of Rions from the Craftsmen Guild…

But money didn’t really matter. It was not as if he was planning to start some ironworks on the surface—he was fine as long as he had enough money.

Still, the behavior of the believers simply left him bemused.

They were obsessed with slaughtering the fishfolk who were attacking the beaches, even arguing over the numbers each respective person killed.

Ironfelt is also confused as to how they saw death. They did not fear the idea, and even saw it as a… uh, measure?

He had actually seen one particular believer who floated down the shallows without any limbs, and stabbed some of the fishfolk with the stubs that was once his arm just so that he could hurry up with killing a few more fishmen.

In the end, he drowned—just like that, right in front of Ironfelt’s eyes.

That believer’s party members were not even surprised. In fact, they were saying something like ‘we gotta bring a cleric next time’ as they turned their backs to the believer and had a laugh as they returned to the Frogmen Village.

The whole incident left Ironfelt feeling chills, his hairs standing on end.

No matter how obsessed they were with fighting, not even the dark dwarves saw death as an honor!

If it wasn’t for a divine oracle leading him here, he would already have thought that this was a settlement for insane cultist…

Nonetheless, what weirded out Ironfelt the most was that the believers of the God of Games did not like forging weapons. All of them had their own, although they came in every weird assortment possible.

There was one longsword which looked just like one, but its edge somehow would split forward like a trident. It looked cool but was really impractical!

After all, stabbing with such a blade meant the branched out edges would split the force used on the thrusting, and without a long handle that lends strength, it was not going to cut deep into an enemy’s body and the two adjacent edges would only be the parts doing damage. Anyone who wielded it could even tell that the longsword’s balance was off, not to mention that it was more taxing to use it compared to normal weapons, and even more useless than those ornamental blades that nobles used…

But somehow, the believer who was carrying that useless weapon was confidently saying something like ‘Finally, an Elite Weapon. I’m going to fight ten fishmen at once now!’, with the other believers around him casting him envious looks.

‘It takes great strength just to swing that thing of his at one fishman,’ Ironfelt could not help protesting inwardly. ‘Any sword the rest of you have is far useful, although it’s not as cool as his.”

Apart from that, some believers had weapons glinting in mysterious light—not light that could blind enemies but a more tender radiance that was once again useless beyond looking cool. Were they not afraid of the enemy clearly seeing where they were swinging their swords? Or were they planning to make the enemy laugh to death with their stupid weapons?

Naturally, what those believers wanted to cut their enemies down with was their own problem. It had nothing to do with Ironfelt even if they were happy to use cucumber or tomatoes with those weapons—he wouldn’t disagree with an easier life.

The problem was that his workload never lightened.

***

Ever since Ironfelt settled down, many players came to him with weapons they wanted to strengthen.

And when it came to weapons strengthening, Ironfelt had gained an ‘Art’ after being promoted from Golden Crest to Craftmaster: it was an ability to determine if one’s forging had any problems by asking Stoff, the God of Craftsmanship and Fine Wine before getting to work.

It generally went like:

—’Dear god, is it okay if I put in some dark crystals after adding smelting acids like this?’

—’It’s gonna blow.’

Something like that.

It was not direct communication with the divine, however, since divine oracles were still a big deal for the Craftsmen Guild. The Art was an ability that simply saved the hassle of reading books to reach the answer, and the rank of craftmasters affords the authority to use this power.

In simpler terms, it was Baidu.

Be that as it may, weapon strengthening was an entirely different matter for the believers here as compared to Magma City. Although both imbues the strength of the gods into the armaments to improve their quality in every aspect, Stoff’s divine power was used most of the time, and it was the same even for the leaders of other churches who invited dwarven craftmasters to strengthen their weapons.

Here at the frogmen’s village, however, they are using the God of Games’ divine power. Although it wasn’t out in the open, those believers left their weapons with Ironfelt to be strengthened, and he could feel the strengthening stones containing energy similar to Stoff’s divine power. Be that as it may, that energy could not be used for anything else aside from weapon strengthening.

But what worried him more was that weapon strengthening wasn’t easy for the God of Games’ believers.

It certainly wasn’t because Ironfelt’s technique was subpar. He was actually quite accomplished in weapon strengthening, but there were simply situations where he had hammered the item of those believers just once and it exploded instantly.

Ironfelt was scared to death at first, assuming that he had accidentally caused major trouble… but after smashing up dozens of items, those Believers merely thought that they had bad luck and didn’t seek recompense from him.

He finally realized then that he wasn’t at fault. It was the item’s fault!