Chapter 30 - 30. Supplies

The group ends up spending another 1 silver in the blacksmith shop. The armguard cost them 80 copper; James picks a 20 copper wooden club for his skeleton. Although James's skeleton didn't have any stats like Luna they want to try to equip it with a weapon.

The blacksmith didn't have a superb quality armguard like the one that Anna wears. Alice settles for a nice steel armguard and decides to switch when they found a better one.

Steel Armguard

Weight: 0.8

Requisite: 7 str 2 end

Armor: 9

Decrease attack speed by 5%

Wooden Club

Weight: 0.7

Requisite: 5 str

Attack: 6-8

With how fast they spend their money; they would be bankrupt the day after tomorrow if they didn't have any income. But before they can take quest from the village hall they need to stock up healing items. Hunting monster could land you pretty nice income but it also filled with danger.

The group spend another 3 silver and 50 copper buying all kinds of potion to ensure their safety and went straight to the town hall. They bought 10 lesser HP potions for 15 copper each, 5 lesser MP potion for 20 each and 4 lesser antidotes for 25 coopers each.

The town hall is even more crowded than the blacksmith. People are walking here and there try to dig more information, groups are looking for extra members to help them do complete a difficult quest, etc. Due to Albert's condition James and Kana volunteer to take a quest for the party while Albert and Alice wait on the side.

Albert and Alice are waiting near a small butcher stall while Kana and James went on their way. Bored with nothing to do, Alice decided to continue to train her transformation skill. While Albert just plays with Luna on the side. Luna slithers here and there around his hand, head, and shoulder following Albert's command; Weirdly enough Luna is not a sleepyhead like when she is in the real world.

"That's a unique soul pet you got there, little buddy. What is her species if I may ask?"

Suddenly Albert hears a hoarse voice from behind. He turns his head towards the voice and sees a big blurry butcher sitting in his stall with nothing to do.

'Weird, people in this village usually wouldn't start a conversation with you unless you ask them first. Is he going to give me a quest? Better use this chance and dig more information from him.'

"Yeah, I got her as my first mastery. And she is a puppet and not soul pet so I have no idea what is her species. What do you sell here, good sir?"

"Oh, that one rare skill you got there, son. As for what I do; I run this butcher stall. I buy monster carcasses and harvest them and sell the finish products. I also sell my services and charge to help others harvest their hunting trophy."

"You get paid to harvest monster material for others? Why would people do that? Can't you just sell it as it was or harvest it themself?"

"Hey, harvesting material is an art. If some amateur does a sloppy job the material would be damaged and can't be used. How can you make a good quality product when the material is damaged? Also, the store usually prefers a finished product as there would be less waste."

Albert chats for a while with the old man who later introduces himself as Theodore but he prefers to call Old Theo or Mr. Theo. Kana and James got back from their scouting mission and Albert introduces them to his new friend before they go on their way.

"What quest is available for us to do?" Albert asked James and Kana

"Mostly collecting quest. Either collecting rare herbs or material from a monster like wolf fangs or boar tusk. There's no subjugation mission available at the moment." James said

"Did you pick a quest already? How does questing works in this world? Is it free for all or you can reserve quest so other parties can't take the same quest?"

"Gathering and Hunting quest is free for all; the first party to finish get the money. But since most hunting and gathering quest is repeatable you don't really compete with other parties. You have to apply for a personal quest such as escort or protection and your employee can pick which party he would hire." Kana chip in

"So which monster we're going to hunt???" Alice asks impatiently

"I think it's better for us to hunt easier monsters like a horned rabbit first. We don't know how dangerous the monster could be. There's also Earth Chives around where the rabbit usually spotted so we can also do that. That way we can benefit from 2 quests at once." Kana said checking her note on her comlink

"How do you know where that Earth Chives grow near horned rabbit? Also, what the hell is Earth Chives? Is it just normal chives but people around here called it Earth Chives?"

"Earth Chives is one of the ingredients to make lesser HP potion. It looks similar to normal chives but the base of the plant is brown rather than the usual yellow-green. So we need to look closely or we will miss it. There's a small map in townhall and it shows the most common quest location."Kana explain

"I think that place would be super crowded as many students would think the same. Isn't better to go to less crowded places?" James putting forward his opinion.

"For now, I think following the crowd is a better option as we don't know the danger yet. We can't be too reckless as we can't progress for at least 3 days if we died here. We would be left behind by the time we go back here. Plus we haven't fully geared yet so I don't think trying to hunt some high-level monster is a good idea." Albert said backing up Kana argument