CH 82

Chapter 82 – And most importantly, the prizes!

After eating lunch, I logged in. It was now time to earn some Skill Points.

There are no issues with that because I already restocked the store before logging out.

Also, I decided to expand the business hours of my store, in order to more easily purchase the Shadow Fragments of the event. The store will now be open 24h a day!

To do that though, I had to hire four more clerks to fill all the necessary shifts.

Just like last time, I went through the Guild to get proper interviews with the clerks, and then ended up choosing the four people I liked the most.

As for the three clerks that had been working with me, there were no changes to their routines, as they wanted to keep on working on daytime like they had been doing before.

I’d like to eventually have everyone meet up together, but I suppose there is no rush for that.

In any case, Bucket’s Shop – Lily may be a small store, but it is now open 24h a day.

It would also be nice to get a bigger store, but I can’t really make enough items to fully stock a big shop, so that is unnecessary.

It’s still tough to meet the entire demand, after all…

In any case, the store can now purchase Shadow Fragments much more easily due to always being open, which lets me be more active within the event!

After all, there are quite a few special event recipes, and they do give a decent amount of experience too, so I want to keep on participating.

Moreover, I’ll get tired of it if I only make steel gear and nothing else. Not to mention that the event mobs are resistant to attacks without attributes in them, which makes steel weapons not ideal for event battles.

On the other hand, the event weapons and consumables do have attributes on them, so they are selling quite well.

And as the recipes don’t use a large amount of intermediate materials like steel does, it ends up being faster to make the event items than steel items.

But of course, the most important part are… The prizes!

We can exchange event points for a special exclusive item… Namely, the Minicot.

It seems to just be an abbreviation for Mini Mascot, but the official name is Minicot.

It’s a doll-like pet that you can take with you as you play Frontiers. It cannot help on battles nor on crafting, and it also has no levels nor skills, and you can’t even name it.

But it’s cute. I think it will be fun to have it with me, even if it’s just a pet.

There are various prizes that one can exchange their event points for though, including many different tiers of Minicots. With the most beautiful, cute and cool ones costing the most points.

There are also some that are not appropriated to talk about, but never mind those.

The one I’m aiming for is the Singing Cat Minicot. It’s a pet with the perfect balance between cuteness and dignifiedness!

… But it’s also one of the most expensive rewards on the prize pool. There are only two rewards that are more expensive than it, in fact.

And as the event has just begun, nobody has been able to get it yet.

As for Mika and Hime, they aren’t planning on exchanging their event points for Minicots, because they’re planning on competing for the top spots on the event.

The members of Works have already gotten some Minicots though.

Mukaida got the Rocking Rocky Rock Minicot for one, which looks like a lump of rock.

Mii and Muu both got the Floating Triangular Bottle Minicot, which looks like a haunted flask.

Lolita and Lulu are, just like me, aiming for Minicots with a higher point consumption though, so they didn’t get a Minicot yet.

Seeing Mukaida’s Minicot confirmed our decision… Minicots that cost only a few points are not cute.

I mean, it’s a lump of rock. What’s the point of having a pet like that? It isn’t cute at all…

Though Mukaida seems to be satisfied with it.

Mii and Muu also seem to be happy with the Minicots that they got, even though they just look like haunted flasks… I don’t understand it.

Well, what’s important is that I have to earn enough points to get a cute Minicot!

That said, the event will last until the end of September, so I should be able to get enough points if I steadily work towards this goal.

******

Making items using Shadow Fragments, reading, drawing Magical Formations, drawing Magical Formations…

… The last two were the same!

And that was why most of my free time was spent with my beloved Magical Formations.

It was night-time in-game right now. The store’s shift has been switched to the night shift, but I haven’t restocked the store yet.

After all, I haven’t made restock products yet!

But that’s alright. I made event items and plenty Magical Formations, so it is okay even if I don’t have steel items to restock the store.

Well, steel is still the type of gear with the highest demand, so… Let’s make a few of them, and then do the restocking.

“Alright, let’s go.” As I said that, the Wandering Mushroom Minicot approached me.

Because it has no legs, it needs to shake its body to move closer to me… However, it is still able to keep up with my pace even if I run.

And well, it essentially looks like a somewhat big mushroom… Yeah, I got one! The Singing Cat Minicot costs way too many points, so I decided to pick a cheaper Minicot for the time being in order to start experiencing what it is like to have a Minicot.

After all, there are quite a few Minicots with a reasonable pricing… Though even those reasonable ones are still somewhat expensive.

Well, not nearly as expensive as the Singing Cat Minicot though.

Still, in just this free time, I was able to get half as many points as necessary for the Wandering Mushroom Minicot, so everyone should be able to get one on this price range with some ease.

And well… Even though it is just a mushroom, this Minicot is starting to look cuter and cuter as I stare at it.

I guess this was a good purchase. I couldn’t stand waiting until I had a lot of points, so I got one of the cheaper Minicots, but I’m enjoying this more than I expected.

I guess this is the kind of feeling that you just can’t understand until you get one… Could the Rock and Flask Minicots also be cute once you grow used to them?

… No, not really. No way.

Well, let’s start making some steel gear while being accompanied by the Wandering Mushroom Minicot that is standing next to me.

I don’t really need to move between facilities to work on the intermediate materials, so I stayed on the same location for a while.

The Minicot only moves while it is following you, but if you stay still for a certain period of time, it starts doing some special actions.

The Wandering Mushroom Minicot started spraying some spores for one.

“What are those spores?! What did you do!? It… It disappeared once it hit the floor…?” I was a bit surprised and ended up exclaiming that.

I guess it’s just a visual effect that doesn’t really spread any bacteria nor makes the Minicot proliferate.

That said, I tried attaching the spores to materials before it hit the ground, but the spores still disappeared anyways without getting attached to anything.

I thought it would be interesting if the spores could change the materials in some way, but I guess that, just like the official announcement said, the Minicots cannot help with neither battles nor crafting.

Still, this is interesting. I wonder what the rock and bottle Minicots show on their idle animations… Let’s try getting Mukaida and the twins to show that to me next time.

On another note, one can only have a single Minicot following them at a time.

I can have as many Minicots as I want, and they come with a special item that calls them, but still, I cannot have two following me at the same time.

Well, I only have the Wandering Mushroom Minicot for the time being.

Quite a few Minicots were added as prizes for this event, but it’s possible that more might be added with time.

I’d like to collect as many event exclusive Minicots as I can, but it is already hard enough to get the Singing Cat Minicot, so getting an extensive collection may be hard.

And well, the two Minicots above the Singing Cat are just plain impossible to get.

If I end up with some leftover event points though, then I’d like to get some extra Minicots.

A shame that people aiming for the top ranks of the event can’t get the Minicots though… Because getting the pets will deduct points from your total, and the ranking cares not about how many points you got, but about how many points you have. You can’t spend them if you wanna stay at the top.

Well, it’s an event, so it’s fine as long as everyone is enjoying it.

Or well, it’s an incident that threatens and worries the NPCs, but this is not the case for player Pioneers at all.

Still, as I got involved with NPC quests recently, I can see that they are worried about it, as it is quite dangerous for them who are living within Frontiers.

It’s a bit sad that the cheerful event mood gets soured by their worries, but that much can’t be helped.

In the end, all that I can do is craft. I can’t fight like Hime and Mika, so I can’t really defeat those abnormal enemies.

Therefore, I’ll just contribute with what I can and enjoy the event.

The Wandering Mushroom Minicot is also dancing and cheering me up, so let’s use this as further motivation, so that I can continue doing my best!