CH 35

Chapter 35 – Really now…

I spent about 10 in-game hours crafting items. I had to stop around the halfway point for lunch, but after that I continued producing.

By then, my hunger and drought had fallen below 40%, so I ate some of the things I bought at the stall. I also gave some to Homun, because even though it doesn’t really need to eat, it seemed to be happy to get some food.

… The food was just 3*, so the taste couldn’t really compare to the cake of the other time though.

Then, just as I was about to continue working, Mika called me. It was unusual for her to call me out of nowhere instead of sending a message, so I picked it up while wondering what was up.

“Hey, Yuri! Listen to this! That raid boss was so annoying! You saw the ‘Goddess Announcement’ about the highway being cleared, right?” She started saying one thing after the other, but I got the gist of it.

The ‘Goddess Announcement’ was the way that official messages were delivered by the game’s management team. About two hours ago I did get the announcement saying that the Demon Trees blocking the highway had been cleared.

Considering that this was the area where most people thought that the event would be focused at, I can imagine what happened afterwards.

“So yeah, the path to the boss took forever! There were so many mobs there and so many trees too! It was a gigantic battle of attrition, and then the boss suddenly summoned more enemies! We were annihilated! Full party wipe!” Mika told me.

“There there…” Was all I could say to her.

I understood that they most likely did things properly. I’m sure Mika’s party didn’t go alone, but instead went with multiple parties together in order to do the raid… But in the end, even a raid consisting of the top players still ended up being wiped out. It’s surely a tough boss alright.

“And so, I want revenge! I wanna gear up with iron and beat that boss down!” Mika exclaimed, “Therefore…”

“You wanna ask me to make it for you, right? You asked at a good timing, as I was thinking of trying to craft iron already.” I told her.

I understood how stubborn Mika can get in those situations, since she really hates losing, so I’d like to help her if possible.

“For real!? Yeah, thanks Yuri! Although…” She was happy for a second, but then seemed to be troubled about something.

“What is it?” I asked her, though I was sure she was going to ask me something excessive.

“We’ve just cleared the rank requirements for making a clan, so I was thinking of celebrating by giving iron gear to my whole party.” She really did ask something excessive.

“Eh…?” Was all I could make as a reply. I do think I should be able to make enough iron gear for Mika, but making it for her whole party is not that simple.

… But this was a request in order to celebrate the creation of her clan, so… “Okay, I’ll do it. But I need to first confirm that I can make iron gear reliably, so I’m putting the request on hold until then.” I told her.

“Thank you! I’m sure you’ll be able to do it, Yuri!” She exclaimed.

“Yeah, alright. Please give me the list of equipment that your whole party needs, so that I can work on it.” I told her.

“Roger that! I’ll message them all to you in a jiffy! And then I’m off to launching my clan!” She exclaimed and cut the call off.

Immediately after that, I got the message with the equipment needs of all her party members… That was fast. Did she prepare the list in advance? As expected of Mika.

Right now she must be doing the special quest that one needs to clear in order to make a clan. She’s probably still suffering from the death penalty, but I guess it’s not a problem since there are no combat elements on the Clan Launch quest.

Though to think they really lost to this boss… I can only imagine how tough the other problematic areas, that are so hard that only NPC pioneers can travel to right now, must be… Well, I’m just a producer, so it doesn’t matter that much to me.

Either way, Mika’s party seems to mostly use heavy equipment, except for their mage, so their combat potential will definitely go up if they can start using a full iron set.

The problem though, is that they all use different types of heavy equipment. Mika prefers stuff that gives less defense but increases mobility, while the tank prefers the heaviest gear available in order to mitigate as much damage as possible.

It would be much easier if I had to make a bunch of the same items, but I suppose it can’t be helped.

Moreover, I actually need a lot of different materials to make all that with Iron. With Copper and Bronze, almost all recipes used the same materials, but they start becoming quite different at the Iron tier and above… It’s understandable that the game does this to make it harder on us, but it’s still troublesome.

Well, none of that will matter if I can’t make iron reliably, so let’s get started on it right away!

******

Seems like Improved Blacksmithing really can make Iron Gear on a reliable manner now that it’s at level 20. I only made one item so far, but I didn’t have many difficulties, so I’m sure I’ll be able to do more.

——

Iron Short Sword

Sword/3*/ATK +48/Durability 80

——

Mika does have an Iron Short Sword already, since she was able to buy a bit of Iron equipment from NPC stores, as they occasionally appear for sale.

However, she uses the ‘Duel Wield’ skill, so she needs a second one.

Ideally, I’d like to make items with ‘Options’ for Mika, but it seems like 3* is the limit for me right now. I’ll have to keep raising the level of Improved Blacksmithing in order to start making 4* gear, and that’s definitely going to take a while when considering how slow the growth pace of this skill is.

And because of that, Mika will probably have to rely on ‘Magic Crystals’ to enhance her gear. They’re rare consumable items that can increase the effectiveness of your equipment.

Due to their rarity, it’s unlikely that someone will use it on Bronze equipment, and you’d have to be crazy to use it on Copper equipment… But on Iron it’s well worth it. Iron gear is about twice as good as Bronze gear after all.

Moreover, it’s probably going to take quite some time to replace those for Steel equipment, not only because of their price but also because of their availability, so it’s going to be an investment that lasts quite some time.

Hopefully they’ll be able to get some good improvements from it. It’s a bit bothersome that the chance of increasing the item’s effectiveness depends on the item’s rank… A 3* item doesn’t even have a 100% chance of being enhanced to +1.

You’d need a 5* for a guaranteed +1; 7* for +2; 9* for +3; and 10* for +4… Of course, even if the chance isn’t 100%, you can still get the improvement done on lower rank items.

… Though the lower rank, the higher the failure chance. Well, it should be fine since they’re 3* gear, and they probably won’t aim for more than +1 or +2.

Another nice thing of the Magic Crystals though, is that they actually give multipliers to the effectiveness of the item instead of adding flat values, so the better the ‘Option’ that the item has, and the better the item’s material, the higher the benefit will be.

Because of that, it feels like a bit of a waste to spend those Magic Crystals on 3* gear, but I suppose it can’t be helped when she wants it to beat a raid boss that wiped her out once.

… Though there is a chance of receiving a penalty when you fail the enhancement. You can lose +values on your item, and you may also lose enough durability to make your item useless and in need of a repair… Or worse, it may even break the item entirely, though the chance of the last one is really low.

It’s really a high-risk high-reward system. I’m sure that, as the game develops, we’ll start hearing tales of people that went bankrupt from spending all their money on Magic Crystals and failed to get the enhancement that they wanted.

******

I was pretty sure that I would be able to make Iron Items reliably after making Mika’s Short Sword, but I wanted to be extra confident on it, so I made a few more items. Once I had confirmed that the production was stable, I sent a message to Mika to tell her about it.

“I did it! The clan is live!” Mika told me in her reply, “The name is ‘Mist Knights’!”

“Congratulations! By the way, just to make it clear, I’m making this huge amount of items this time around, but it’s a one-time exception, okay?” I told her.

“Of course, of course! Thank you, lady Yuri!” She exclaimed.

“Really now…” I sent her this message with a sigh.

She really did make an unreasonable request this time around. I always decline production requests after all… But well, it’s a gift for Mika to celebrate the creation of her clan, so it’s fine to make this one exception. She’s my best friend after all.