Chapter 53 – Take that!

I continued to work until it was the evening log-out time.

I feel like I made quite a lot today… Or rather, it’s a bit obvious when I see how much stuff there is in my inventory.

I really made a lot! I did my best, so… Let’s logout!

******

I logged in again after finishing my usual things, such as having dinner and taking a bath.

It was now time for the long-awaited joint collection tour!

Since I had already prepared for it before logging out, I just have to wait, as the meeting will be held in front of my workshop.

While my store may be the smallest one amongst the ones owned by the clan members of Works, the workshop has a larger rest space than most shops do. And as it is close to the south gate and our clan has no base yet, we decided to meet up at my workshop.

“Bucket, I’m here.” While I waited in the living room of my workshop, I heard those words, as well as the sound of knocks on my door.

Mika, Hime and Lolita can all enter the living area of my workshop without knocking, as I gave them permission, but I guess Lolita is a bit more formal, so she decided to knock first… If it was Mika, she’d surely come in right away.

After I opened the door for Lolita, I saw that everyone from Works was already waiting outside.

“You ready?” Lolita asked once she saw me.

“Of course. And good afternoon, everyone. Or well, good evening, I guess?” I said.

“Either one is fine! More than that though, I’m envious of that! You have a workshop already! We want to get one soon…” Mii said.

“Yeah yeah! Whether it’s daytime of nighttime…” Muu started saying.

“It doesn’t really matter!” Both Mii and Muu said together.

“What about the intermediate equipment?” Muu asked.

“What is it like!?” Mii and Muu asked together.

“We can’t save any money for one due to all the alchemy research.” Mii commented.

“We won’t give up though!” Mii and Muu exclaimed in unison.

“After all–” As the two of them kept on talking, I started looking at the other clan members.

Mukaida seemed to be a bit jealous of me already having a workshop, which is pretty understandable, since I also really wanted one.

Lulu on the other hand just made a slight bow. I guess it’s hard for her to say anything while the twins kept on going with their machinegun-like talk.

As for the twins, it seems like they’re troubled for funds due to how Alchemy works. There are many different things you can do by combining materials, so they keep on experimenting with different combinations, which results on them burning all their funds all the time.

Well, it’s understandable though. This highly-variable nature of Alchemy ends up making it quite different from other crafting-related activities, so it’s only natural that they’d burn resources quickly.

That said, the results of their research will probably lead to long-term profits to everyone on the alchemy field… Not me though, as I just make Magic Paper and the basic things that Homun creates.

… I do make a lot of Magic Paper though, so I ended up earning quite a bit of Alchemy Level by doing that.

“Now then, shall we get going, everyone?” Lolita asked us, stopping the twins who were still talking.

We all agreed to her words, so we started moving towards the south gate, where we’ll meet up with our escorts.

******

“Oh, there you are!” Mika exclaimed

“Good seeing you, Mika, Hime.” I told them both.

“Good seeing you.” Hime said.

“Now we can finally play together!” Mika exclaimed.

“Ah, I guess that’s true, isn’t it?” I replied.

“Happy.” Hime said

“I’m happy too.” After saying that, I turned to the rest of the escorts, and said, “Nice to meet you, and thank you for the help today.”

We had 12 escorts total. 6 from Mist Knights and 6 from Kikoridottokuru. It was the standard amount for joint collections, two escorts for every collector. It’s a necessity due to how many enemies tend to attracted by collection activities.

And of course, strong escorts are definitely necessary, but as our escorts are the top fighters among player pioneers, we should have nothing to worry about.

Lolita surely put a lot of work into this… But that makes sense, after all, it’s the first joint collection of Works. There’s no way we can afford failing here.

I in particular am very excited not just because it’s my first joint activity with my clan members, but also because it’s my first time leaving Capital Sabrina and my first joint collection!

I’m going through a lot of firsts here, but I’ll do my best!

******

After greeting everyone, Lolita started giving basic instructions to everyone on what we should be wary of during the joint collection tour.

… Though everyone else already has experience on joint collections, so she’s doing this just for me.

Well, let’s not worry about this too much and instead just focus on the explanation.

And also, both Mika and Hime have experience as escorts, so as long as I don’t mess up too badly, they’ll probably be able to salvage things.

After all, Mika is a fantastic fighter, while Hime can limit the movement of large numbers of enemies at the same time while using her threads. With the two of them together, there is nothing I should fear! Don’t I have some great and extremely reliable best friends?

In any case, I still paid proper attention to the explanation, since I don’t wanna be a burden or anything.

Once Lolita finished telling us everything, we left Capital Sabrina and quickly found an area that had enemies in it… Though they were mostly small fries. Stuff like Rabbits, essentially.

However, there were already collection points available, so we could start working here.

Also, each person sees a different arrangement of collection points, so they aren’t necessarily on the same locations for each player. This is pretty helpful, as it allows one to dig as much as they want without worrying about exhausting a collection point for the other collectors.

“Then, let’s get started!” Lolita said.

“Yes!” We replied in unison.

It’s important to have some good synchronization while collecting, as doing collection activities attract enemies. It’s better if everyone does things in unison, so as to have all mobs come together in one go. This makes it easier for the escorts to get a better grasp of the situation and handle the enemies accordingly.

Well, this part is handled mostly by Lolita. Everyone is relaying the position of their collection points to her, then she tells each person where they should go. Once everyone is in position, we can start collecting.

And as the escorts are familiar with this kind of organization, they can quickly go into the appropriate positions to take care of the enemies that will start coming our way. In fact, they were all ready for it in less than 30 seconds. We have some really efficient escorts here!

“Will you be okay, Bucket?” Lolita asked me.

“It’s alright. All my collection tools are already at 6*, after all.” I told her.

“6*? As expected of you.” She smiled as she said that.

“I’ll collect a lot today!” I exclaimed.

“Yeah, let’s do our best!” She replied.

As it’s my first joint collection, Lolita seems to be worrying for me and paying some extra attention to what I’m doing.

But well, I did do quite a bit of research in advance and I prepared myself accordingly, so don’t worry too much, alright?

Either way, Lolita’s collection point was near mine, so we started collecting side by side.

There was a small green light in front of me. That was the collection point.

I can see what kind of material I can get from it by checking the color of the light. Green is related to vegetables and fruits.

I can get the materials by using the tools of the Improved Beginner Collecting Tools, but I don’t know what tool is the best one for this… The spade, maybe? I won’t know how many materials I can get until I start using the tools.

And well, the amount and rank of the materials obtained improves if you use the right tool, so I want to choose the proper one.

But to know which one you need to use, you need to properly understand how the light patterns work… But that only seems to be possible once the Collecting and Mining skills have reached a high enough level.

So, for me, who has no level on those skills, nor any experience reading the light patterns, I have no choice but to try it.

“Take that!” Using my spade, I tried digging on the collection point.

And I got… One small carrot. It’s worth 10 Nil.

In other words, a total flop…

“Ah…” I couldn’t help muttering.

“It’s alright. Unless you’re really unlucky, the collection points won’t disappear from just a single attempt. So try it again, but now with a different tool.” Lolita told me.

“Alright! Let’s keep going then!” With Lolita’s encouragement, I recovered my energies.

She’s right! There are several chances to keep on trying to collect for as long as I remain lucky!

And the collection point did not disappear from a single attempt, so… Let’s keep trying!