CH.285 Wilhelmina, the tall dwarf

CH.285 Wilhelmina, the tall dwarf

“... where..?” The lady blacksmith questioned when she opened her eyes.

Lua had used a bit of time with Silpheed to make sure they got all of the carbon monoxide out of the blacksmith’s lungs, before she finally used her copy of Monster Reborn to resurrect the lady.

Spoiler[collapse]

Also, with that smoke bomb out of the forge, we were able to air out the room and got most of the smoke out.

“... a... a dragon..? Are you ... here to take me ... to heaven?”

“Do not think so. You aren’t done living yet.” Agunan told her.

Wait? Is this something normal? Remind me to ask Agunan later.

“I see. So my job... I really must complete it...”

“What job are you talking about?” I just asked.

Me speaking up apparently brought the smith’s attention to the fact that there were more people in the room. Her eyes wandered around and stopped at few places, like taking a good while to look at both Lua and Ria, but just glancing over Alice, before again stopping and focusing on me, or perhaps my duel disk to be accurate.

“... are you... a dungeon master? ... The dragon has one too... A dragon, two dungeon masters... and two dhampirs... this must be heaven.”

Wait? She figured out that both Lua and Ria are dhampirs? How?

“This is no heaven. We are still in the workshop.” I told her.

“... are we..?” She seemed to finally be catching on, and she took another look at the room. “... I guess we are... heaven wouldn’t be this run down.”

Wow. Acknowledging that the workshop is in disrepair. Isn’t this your workshop?

“... so why are you here then? And why am I on this table?”

“We came here to deliver treant wood. You did request some from the adventurer’s guild, right? We tried to call when we came in, but no one answered, so we came further in. Eventually we found you passed out on the floor of your smithing room.” I explained. No need to add too much about her literal death experience.

“Passed out?” She questioned.

“Yeah. The room was super filled with smoke, so I think you passed out because of that.” I again didn’t tell the whole truth, as I don’t think it is a good idea to tell someone they may have been an assassination target.

“Smoke... Alright... I guess this workshop really is breaking before my will...”

“Sorry to ask this right now, but we are kind of on a quest here. We brought the treant wood you asked for, so where should we put it?”

“The wood? Did you really? Now I can... but... I don’t...” At first, she seemed to get honestly excited, but then she quickly turned crestfallen. “... May I get the wood? ... I need it... for a commission.”

“Sure. That is what we are here for.”

“... but I can’t pay the extra I promised on the quest form. You will only get what is on the guild paper.” She told us. “... is that still fine?”

I looked at Alice. Admittedly, I hadn’t fully read the guild’s quest form, so I didn’t even know about this additional reward.

“I think it did mention it. But I just picked it because it was a quick easy quest for us.” Alice admitted.

“Then perhaps read the form properly next time...” I just commented. “Well, whatever.”

“... excuse me, but what are you talking about?” The smith asked.

“Don’t worry about it. So, the wood? Where do you want it?”

“Just put it there.” She said, as she pointed at the floor. “Now... maybe I can still keep my freedom...”

Keep her freedom? Is there something bad happening to it?

Spoiler[collapse]Mission: Help the BlacksmithInfo: Artisan and blacksmith Wilhelmina has run into some trouble that might end up with her as a slave. Help her complete the staff commissioned by the town’s Lord and deliver it to him. Make sure Wilhelmina doesn’t end up as a slave.Goal: Make sure Wilhelmina is able to keep her freedom.Reward: Opens Promo Trades ‘’, ‘’, ‘’ and ‘’.Note: If no action is taken, no reward will be given. Even if Wilhelmina is able to keep her freedom.

“I see.” So problem one. We need a new fitting. I do have materials in storage, so we could make one. ... but this needs to be done in two days, so let’s try the cheaty route. “Can I hold it for a second?” I asked.

“... that’s fine, but why?.” Wilma asked, as she handed me the fitting.

After receiving it, I took it into Storage and used Storage’s repair function to fix it. Then I took it back out and handed it back.

“... what... did you just do to this? The crack... is gone? As are the hammer marks... How?”

“I’ll explain some other time. Can you use it now?” Because the fitting was considered both the a material and a finished product, I could actually use both Material Quality Increase and Item Maintenance on it. If it was a fully finished product, I would have only been able to use Item Maintenance on it, but as it is still considered a material, I could also use Material Quality Increase.

“Yes. It is perfect. Thank you.” Wilma thanked me as she closely looked at the item from all sides.

“Alright. So the staff next, right? What kind of treant wood do you want for it?”

“... what do you mean?”

“I mean do you want bright-wood treant? Or crimson treant? Maybe cotta treant? Aqua treant? Dark-root treant? Or razorleaf treant? Do you have a preference?”

“... you have all of them? Aren’t they all B-rank monsters?”

“Yeah. I do also have some of the standard C-rank treant wood, if you prefer that.” I won’t be mentioning the world treant, for obvious reasons. No need to use something like that for this comission.

“... can I really pick? Those are... quite valuable materials.”

“Don’t worry. When you start working for me, you’ll soon learn that I have access to some good materials. So as long as you work hard later, I don’t mind a bit of expenses at this point. And I think you should really impress Baron Peks with your last job.”

The staff material ended up being cotta treant, and Wilma got to work carving the staff into form. At lunch time, we interrupted her and ‘forced’ her to take a lunch break.

During the break, we learned a few new things about Wilma. She was a dwarf, just an abnormally tall one. And the country she is from is on the northern edge of Ruiso Kingdom.

Because of her height, other dwarves were making fun of her, calling her things like ‘Little Giant’ or ‘Troll dwarf’ so after her training at home, she decided to go out and founded her own workshop.

It was quite popular at first, and she even had a total of 5 other people working here.

But then a big company made their own workshop in this town. And because they just had access to cheaper materials, more variety, and the company name bringing in customers, in just a few years that new workshop got all of Wilma’s workers to move to it instead.

Because of how bad her shop was doing, Wilma took a reasonable loan from the town’s lord, Baron Peks, but because she hasn’t been able to pay it back, she went under the threat of being turned into a slave. But the Baron made a deal with her. If she could make him a treant wood staff, he would only take the workshop and she could go free.

You might think the noble is being deceitful or something, but you have to remember, loans are loans. And in this world, if you can’t pay back your loan, you will be turned into a slave.

But now, that shouldn’t be a problem. With me using my entire monster lineup, as well as my Storage materials, by the end of the day, we had quite the formidable treant staff made. Well, you’d still need to build it up, by passing mana through it, but other than that, it was perfectly fine.

Oh. And one last thing. I asked Agunan and Wilma about the ‘taking to heaven’ thing. Apparently it is some dwarf legend that dragons will take dwarves to heaven after they pass.

“What? You can’t sleep here.” Lua told Wilma as she heard Wilma was going to be sleeping in the workshop.

“Not like I have a choice. It is either here, or on the street. At least here I’ll have a roof over my head.”

“Not happening. You are coming with us.” Lua said, and nearly dragged Wilma behind her. “Brian will get you a room at the inn.”

“Using me as a wallet already? Well, I guess that is fine.” I joked.

“Just let me take the staff into my Item Box.” Wilma said, before Lua had time to drag her off.

Yeah. Apparently Wilma has some strange skills, like Item Box and some sort of appraisal. She can’t see statuses or anything, but she can tell people’s races. Well, she can’t actually see mine, because of level difference. Lua and Ria seem to both show up as dhampirs to her, and Alice seems to still be a human to her appraisal skill. Maybe it just lacks levels to be useful, or we are just too high leveled, so we resist it? Well, I’ll find out with time.

But still, I’m getting some sort of picture, maybe. I meant why this is happening to Wilma. I think there was some merchant that wanted to use her Appraisal and Item Box skills. Wilma probably refused, so the merchant made a new workshop in the town to outdo hers. Then she would either fall into slavery and the merchant could purchase her, or she would just agree to his offer, now with much worse terms than before. Well, that is just a theory I have.

And if she does agree to work for me, we won’t have anything to worry about. If some random merchant tries to mess with me, I’ll deal with it. And if there is a noble involved...

Well, I’ll see what I can do.