Chapter 16: Old fashioned

Chapter 16: Old fashioned

“Nine Underlands, that’s the most beautiful piece of armor I’ve ever seen,” Reya breathed. “What god do you pray to, Arwin? I’m swapping.”

“It’s just scale mail,” Arwin said, his eyes locked with the Demon Queen’s. “Nothing special.”NewW novels updates at novelhall.com

“Nothing special my ass,” Lillia said. “How’d you make that? That’s impossible. You–”

She cut herself off before she could continue, but Arwin knew what she’d been about to say.

I’ve only been at this for a short while. I don’t have any formal training as a smith, and even though this item probably wouldn’t be anything special to someone far above our Tier, it shouldn’t have been possible for an amateur. But here I am. Maybe all the time I spent watching my equipment getting made transferred over.

It was a weak excuse and Arwin was all too aware of it, but he genuinely had no proper explanation for it other than that the materials seemed to beckon to him, begging him to form them into their proper forms. Even in the final stages of the scale mail, he’d felt the call of the scales directing his movements.

Making Average magical items was absolutely nothing to scoff at. The Mesh didn’t even recognize non-magical items in most circumstances. The only exception was when they managed to earn Titles and Achievements of their own, but that was rare.

The actual ranking of magical items scaled with the smith that made them and the materials that went into them. An Average item from Arwin, at Apprentice Tier, would be nothing compared to a Garbage item made by someone two tiers higher at Adept Tier.

But, even despite that, being able to make Average magical items with the amount of practice Arwin had... it was unfair, to say the least.

“Why are you here?” Arwin finally asked, snapping himself out of his reverie.

“To help!” Reya answered for Lillia. She picked a plate up off the floor and pulled the covering off, holding it out to Arwin so he could see the meat pie on it. “Also, we brought you food!”

It was cold, but Arwin grabbed it without hesitation. He still had some time before he’d need to eat another magical item, so his body didn’t necessarily need food, but the pie looked delicious.

“Thank you,” Arwin said, swallowing before he spoke. “But... Reya, you were meant to keep people out of the smithy, not invite them in. Besides, doesn’t the D – ah, doesn’t Lillia have a tavern she needs to run?”

“Unfortunately, I found out that two of my only customers were about to get themselves killed,” Lillia said, the irritation clear in her expression. “I had no choice but to come.”

“To hand deliver the food?”

“No, you oaf. Well, yes. But also to help you with your thieves’ guild problem.”

Arwin nearly choked on his own saliva. He waited for Lillia to burst into laughter at his expression, but her features were dead serious. She wasn’t joking.

The Demon Queen is offering to help us? She’s suggesting that not only do we call a truce, but we actually fight side by side?

“Isn’t it great?” Reya asked. “We actually have a chance of surviving!”

If anyone heard of this, they’d faint in terror. When I was still the Hero, I can remember people theorizing about ending the war by finding an enemy so great that neither the Kingdom of Lien or the Monster Horde could handle it on their own, so they’d have to work together.

The only option was just to stop biting.

“Just this once, then,” Arwin said, holding Lillia’s gaze. “Until the thieves’ guild has been dealt with.”

“Just once.” Lillia nodded. “I don’t plan to make a habit out of killing people. I’m trying to run an upstanding business, so this is going to have to be a cheat day.”

“So what are we going to do?” Reya asked, wringing her hands together. “Are we just charging in and killing people?”

“That’s going to depend on where their base is,” Arwin said. He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, holding a hand toward the forge. The [Soul Flame] he still had sitting in it sputtered and flew into his hand, returning to his body as his fist closed around it. “I trust you know?”

“Yeah. I can show you, but they’ve definitely got lookouts.”

“We’ve already established that it’s likely they’ll be watching us,” Arwin said. “There’s even a chance they know what I’ve been up to. And, speaking of which, hold on.”

Arwin directed his attention to his armor, willing it to hide itself from anyone else’s eyes. The metal rippled in response, but that was it. Arwin glanced at the others, then tapped his chest. “Well? Can you still tell what it is?”

“Not anymore,” Lillia said with a shake of her head. “If I didn’t know better, I’d just think it was normal scale mail. You still might stand out a bit, though. I don’t see a lot of people walking around wearing Forest Lizard armor.”

“Not yet,” Arwin said with a low chuckle. He nodded over his shoulder at the pile of pieces left over from the Forest Lizard. “I’ve still got a good bit of material left, not to mention the claws and fangs. I’m going to need some better tools if I’m going to get around to using them anytime soon, though.”

“We should probably focus on surviving this fight first,” Lillia suggested. She went to continue, then paused as she took a closer look at the pile that Arwin had indicated. “Do... you think you might be able to make me some utensils? I don’t have a knife. Or a fork. Or anything, really. I’ve just got a bent piece of metal that I’ve been using as a makeshift pan.”

“What have you been using to cook if you didn’t have utensils?” Reya asked. Lillia looked down at her hands, then back up to her. Reya grimaced and held a hand up. “Never mind. I’d rather be ignorant. Can we go back to the part where we try to figure out how to kill thirty people?”

“That’s simple,” Arwin said.

Lillia looked to him in confusion and Reya’s eyes narrowed as she figured out what he was about to say before he could say it.

“Simple? How?” Lillia asked.

“All we have to do is hit them harder than they hit us.”

Lillia and Reya rolled their eyes in unison. Arwin chuckled at their expressions, then looked around the forge. There wasn’t much he needed other than a sword and his armor. It would have been nice to have more equipment, but time just didn’t permit it. On a whim, Arwin grabbed his explosive sword and slid it into one of the Brothers Six’ sheaths before hanging it on his waist.

“Right,” Arwin said, giving Reya a sharp nod. “Lead on, then. It doesn’t matter if they see us coming. It’s time we check out this thieves’ guild. If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to come up with a plan once I see what we’re dealing with.”

“And if we don’t have time?” Reya asked.

Arwin’s features darkened and his hand tightened around the hilt of his sword. “Then we’ll just kill them the old-fashioned way.”