Volume 2, Extra 2.2

Volume 2, Extra 2.2

Translator: Reflet

Editor: Weasalopes

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「Ya got a lot better. Didja practice while I was makin’ these strange plants?」

「Mm～、at least 2 days we were just weaving, so that’s probably why.」

「I seee.」

Hiroshi nodded in amazement as he looked at Haruna, who was making sheep fur into thread. Perhaps it was a result of winter’s harsh training that she could now process cloth, as long as it wasn’t made from quirky material. Maybe she wasn’t quite there in focus power, since she would sometimes fail and tear things up, but it wasn’t like anything she weaved would come to much use anyway, so it wasn’t a huge issue.

「Now all ya need to do is learn Refinement, Forgin’, and Ship Buildin’ alongside Excavation and ya can probably git to Making Mastery.」

「Really?」

「Well even considerin’ yer learnin’ pace, ya gotta git a little desperate fer about one or two months in order to succeed.」

「Half a year at least……」

Haruna’s eyes had a faraway look after hearing that. Actually, getting even that much skill in half a year wasn’t necessarily impossible, but there was a lot of RNG involved. Not only did time take longer compared to the game while working, other time-related things took longer as well, so there wouldn’t be a huge increase in skill amount.

「Yeah, cuz unlike battle, craftsman skills win based on the amount.」

「Ah, so that’s actually the case?」

「Sure is.」

Unlike how one win in battle was equivalent to a hundred times practicing, crafting was all about how much you could produce at a given level. Making the same thing one, ten, a hundred times would gradually increase your skill. Your intelligence would also affect your learning speed a certain amount, but there were no shortcuts in that regard. Ultimately, battle was also a contest of numbers, but it probably couldn’t even compare with how vague the line between practice and implementation were for the art of crafting.

「Still……」

「Hm?」

「No matter how big your crafting skill modifiers are, novice class is novice class, right?」

「Wassup? Ya git an idea or what?」

「I dunno, just thinking that there weren’t any noticeable differences compared to when I acquired Over Accelerate or when you and Mio-chan had crazy changes with your extra skills.」

Hiroshi tilted his head. Honestly, he did not feel much of a change after learning Titanic Roar. Mio, too, already had a high proficiency that only continued to grow bigger, so in the overall picture it wasn’t much of a difference.

「Ya think it changed that much?」

「A heck of a lot. Just look at your handaxe, its attack clearly rose a level.」

There was an easy basis for Haruna’s assertion. Incidentally, one easy way to compare the current power of the handaxe with its past power level was to recall the grey-colored bear they ran into when they went to fell some trees. Before, the bear had been on the brink of death with two hits, but after he acquired Titanic Roar, it became just one hit. There was no difference in where he hit the bear, since Hiroshi had used the same attack striking the same area.

「Well, novice is novice I’m sure, but ya sure that’s all to it?」

「What do you mean?」

「Yer Over Accelerate didn’t change yer specs suddenly like it did fer us with our extra skills, it went up lil by lil with practice, so I at least don’t think it’d be that easy to notice a change.」

What Hiroshi said made a heck of a lot of sense. Much like your height or bust during growth period, suddenly taking notice of how much you’ve changed was comparable to the abilities gained via skill training. Unless you were in the position of your relatives’ point of view, it would maybe be difficult to truly discern differences.

「Well then, leavin’ that aside…」

「Mhm.」

「Seems like Mio’s sayin’ somethin’ about makin’ cloaks. Whatcha gonna do?」

「Ah～……」

Haruna tilted her head, smiling nervously at how Mio was still all hung up on making those. Honestly, Haruna wasn’t all that eager to try and look all fancy with her equipment.

「What do you think, Hiroshi-kun?」

「Puttin’ aside the appearance ‘n whatnot, I think it’s a good idea.」

「Is it, now?」

「Yer left hand’s free, right?」

「It is, but what about it?」

「I won’t say it’s 100%, but people that fight with rapier’s ‘n weapons of that sort, aka fencers, tend to use meingouche instead of a shield. Well in yer case it’d be either hand, so ya could always leave that hand open as a mixup to confuse yer opponent. I’ve done feints like that before.」

Haruna stopped weaving momentarily to express her realization with an “ahhh”. She had in fact looked at every fencing-related video through-and-through once she had decided to main thin swords in the game. Among those included the specialized parry dagger style that Hiroshi had explained about.

「And so once ya consider that sort of switch…Maybe a cloak that acts as a shield wouldn’t be outta the question.」

「A cloak can act as a shield?」

「Well I mean, it ain’t gonna be like what old man Douga or the knights use.」

「Well yeah.」

「But ya can definitely use it like a buckler with the right arm technique, as a blind to confuse ’em just like the old tricks that fencers use. Plus just like Mio said, cuttin’ things up with the hems of yer cloak as a weapon ain’t outta the question.」

「Let’s keep that one on the bench for now since I can totally see it cutting my feet as I walk, but if I can use it as defense then it could work. I was seriously pained by how much I lacked in defense and defensive measures in the forest dungeon.」

Haruna’s face grew sour as she recalled what had transpired not even half a month ago. Sure, it was a problem in her field of expertise, but it was still scary to just leave a weakness out like that.

「Then how ‘bout I make it tonight?」

「Can I ask you to?」

「Leave it me. I got a mountain of ingredients just for that.」

「Such as?」

「First we got yer average wyvern. I could make somethin’ good with cerberus too. Also, garbarensia’s possible too I think. I could even hunt a dragon as long as it don’t have scales.」

Grinning at Haruna for taking the bait, Hiroshi offered up several candidates. All of them were materials not ordinarily used for cloaks.

「I’ll pass on that last one, but wow, that’s one exquisite lineup……」

「Lotsa stuff in storage, so ya can afford exquisite lineups. Heck, I could even forge an alligator skin handbag usin’ wyvern skin if ya want.」

「What a distasteful way to fake an item……」

「It ain’t no fake. It’s a forgery.」

「Yeah, I don’t know what the difference is……」

Hiroshi kept blurting out jokes that only worked when told to other Kansai residents. Haruna just made a troubled face.

Plus forged items, aka forgeries, were more of poorly-performing, unapproved parody items. For you to better image it, perhaps it would be good to describe it as an impersonator imitating someone without permission. Despite these products not looking anything close to the originals, the details on them were dangerously close to that. To be more precise, it was more close to piggyback marketing.

But ultimately these products were just fishy and clearly not intended to trick anyone. Almost anyone understood they were fake at first glance, but you could say that the intentions behind said products were how close they could get to the real ones while creating as much laughter as possible. If tricking others was what fakes were for, forgeries were more like items that were clearly fake but you buy them for the joke. Since everyone buys them understanding that fact, even if they were to regret buying on impulse, there wouldn’t be anyone saying “I should have looked more carefully” or “Ah, they got me”. That was just how forgeries were.

「I mean, even if you try and persuade me……」

Haruna just made an exasperated face at Hiroshi’s passionate explanation. Regardless of whether they were items designed as shoddy parodies or items designed to truly imitate the originals, it was all the same to her in the sense that nothing was real. Official goods were one thing, but Haruna had no intention of buying any product in the grey zone that was infinitely close to black.

「Well let’s leave the forgeries alone. There’s somethin’ else I wanna check up on unrelated to cloaks.」

「What?」

「Wanna upgrade yer rapier?」

Hiroshi asked yet another sudden unexpected question, pressing Haruna. It was already a bit overpowered, and now he was asking if she wanted to upgrade again? Of course Haruna would hesitate over something like that.

「Uhh, another question out of the blue?」

「I mean yeah, I guess it’d sound sudden to ya.」

「So if you’re asking me that, I assume you’ll be making some other weapons brand new?」

「Makoto-san’s, yeah. There was that thing with Aranwen-sama, so I was thinkin’ of goin’ ahead and makin’ a katana ‘n longsword.」

「So I take it this is just alongside something else?」

「Yup. I’ll make Bro’s rod, Mio’s bow will be made of evil ent about two ranks higher than that of magic steel alloy, and only yours will end up becoming regular steel, so I figured I might as well make it alongside all the others.」

This time, what Hiroshi said made a bit more sense. Haruna contemplated it. Honestly, she didn’t particularly feel that her attack was lacking. There hadn’t been any opportunities to engage Barold in close combat, and she had only struggled with the gigantic maneater’s vines because the weapon was ill-suited for it. No fine-tuning would produce that great of a difference.

However, if she didn’t get it fine-tuned when she could, Haruna risked the weapon not being at its best for any potential situations. She didn’t want to inflict a burden on Hiroshi, but right now it was best to have him make it.

「Sorry, is it alright if I have you do that?」

「Roger that. ‘N I can decide what enchantments, right?」

「Mhm. I don’t know what you’ll come up with but sure.」

Haruna gave Hiroshi the OK, throwing it all on him. It wasn’t like she had the right to tell him what to do anyway, not with her power level.

「Then rapier ‘n cloak it is.」

「Ah, so you’re making the cloak after all.」

「It’ll come to use. I mean, I ain’t gonna make masquerades or feather caps though.」

「Yeah, I’m glad you’re not……」

Clearly inconvenienced by Hiroshi’s joke, Haruna quipped before returning to her spinning. She was already approaching three balls of yarn, something a cat would love to knock over and play with, but there were no cats here, so…no problem.

「Oh yeah, were ya gonna use that yarn for anythin’?」

「Secret.」

「Is that right. Well if ya got plans then that’s that. Cause the spirit thread storage is already bad enough as it is.」

Hearing that Haruna had a use for it, Hiroshi only said a brief comment. Haruna was relieved that he didn’t pursue her too much on it. After discussing this with Makoto and Mio, Haruna had concluded it was definitely not a good idea to tell Hiroshi that she was making several pairs of panties.