CH.285 Wilhelmina, the tall dwarf
<span style="font-weight:400">“... where..?” Thedy cksmith questioned when she opened her eyes.
<span style="font-weight:400">Lua had used a bit of time with Silpheed to make sure they got all of the carbon monoxide out of the cksmith’s lungs, before she finally used her copy of Monster Reborn to resurrect thedy.
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<span style="font-weight:400">Also, with that smoke bomb out of the forge, we were able to air out the room and got most of the smoke out.
<span style="font-weight:400">“... a… a dragon..? Are you … here to take me … to heaven?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Do not think so. You aren’t done living yet.” Agunan told her.
<span style="font-weight:400">Wait? Is this something normal? Remind me to ask Agunanter.
<span style="font-weight:400">“I see. So my job… I really mustplete it…”
<span style="font-weight:400">“What job are you talking about?” I just asked.
<span style="font-weight:400">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 ces, like taking a good while to look at both Lua and Ria, but just ncing over Alice, before again stopping and focusing on me, or perhaps my duel disk to be urate.
<span style="font-weight:400">“... are you… a dungeon master? … The dragon has one too… A dragon, two dungeon masters… and two dhampirs… this must be heaven.”
<span style="font-weight:400">Wait? She figured out that both Lua and Ria are dhampirs? How?
<span style="font-weight:400">“This is no heaven. We are still in the workshop.” I told her.
<span style="font-weight:400">“... 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.”
<span style="font-weight:400">Wow. Acknowledging that the workshop is in disrepair. Isn’t this your workshop?
<span style="font-weight:400">“... so why are you here then? And why am I on this table?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“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 exined. No need to add too much about her literal death experience.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Passed out?” She questioned.
<span style="font-weight:400">“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.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Smoke… Alright… I guess this workshop really is breaking before my will…”
<span style="font-weight:400">“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?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“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 amission.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Sure. That is what we are here for.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“... 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?”
<span style="font-weight:400">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.
<span style="font-weight:400">“I think it did mention it. But I just picked it because it was a quick easy quest for us.” Alice admitted.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Then perhaps read the form properly next time…” I justmented. “Well, whatever.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“... excuse me, but what are you talking about?” The smith asked.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Don’t worry about it. So, the wood? Where do you want it?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Just put it there.” She said, as she pointed at the floor. “Now… maybe I can still keep my freedom…”
<span style="font-weight:400">Keep her freedom? Is there something bad happening to it?
<span style="font-weight:400">“Excuse me, but may I ask something?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“I guess? What is it? I still won’t have the extra money, but if you want, I can service your weapons. I’d love to make something new, but… I don’t have materials for anything but…”
<span style="font-weight:400">“No. Not that. What do you actually need the treant wood for? And what do you mean ‘keep your freedom’?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Oh that. It is just amission I have for the town’s lord. He requested I make him a treant wood staff with a magic stone. And if I can’t, he will take my workshop and turn me into a ve because of a debt I owe him.” The smith exined. “I don’t really care about the shop and I’ll have to turn it over anyway. I’ve been nning on leaving the town anyway, as I just don’t have customers any more. But because of the debt I have, I have toplete this job, or I’ll be made a ve. But now. I have the wood, the magic stone and the fittings, so I canplete the job.” She added, with clear determination in her voice.
<span style="font-weight:400">“I really cannot rmend that.” Lua cut in. “You were passed out just a moment ago. You should be resting, not working.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“... there really was a dhampir here… Why is there a dhampir in my shop?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Perhaps some introductions are in order.” I said.
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<span style="font-weight:400">“I am Wilhelmina from Smorog.” The smith introduced herself. “I’m also the owner of this workshop. … though I’m also the only one working here currently.”
<span style="font-weight:400">We had all already introduced ourselves, she was thest.
<span style="font-weight:400">“... Lord Wood.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Please, just Brian. I only use my full name when I operate as a noble. At the moment, I’m just an adventurer.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“... Lord Wood. Would you be… in need of an artisan?” Wilhelmina asked. “... as you can see, my shop isn’t doing that well. So I’ve considered moving away afterpleting my currentmission. So perhaps… you might need an artisan? … I can also fight… if that is what you need. I can keep your weapons in tip top shape while out on jobs. And I’m good with a shield, so I can keep everyone safe. So… Lord Wood, would you please hire me?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“... is that really what you should be asking now?” I just asked her. “Don’t you have like seven bigger problems, like losing your freedom if you don’tplete the staff? Worry about your next thing after that.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Brian. You know she should rest.” Lua said, with a somewhat strict tone.
<span style="font-weight:400">“I know.” I admitted. “Just reminding her.”
<span style="font-weight:400">I say that but honestly, getting a cksmith might not be a bad idea. I have Kotetsu, but having a local person working for me is not bad at all. And it’s not like I can’t pay her.
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As I was thinking over my options, a system screen opened up.
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<td style="width:100%"><span style="font-weight:400">Mission: Help the cksmith</td>
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<td style="width:100%"><span style="font-weight:400">Info: Artisan and cksmith Wilhelmina has run into some trouble that might end up with her as a ve. Help herplete the staffmissioned by the town’s Lord and deliver it to him. Make sure Wilhelmina doesn’t end up as a ve.</td>
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<td style="width:100%"><span style="font-weight:400">Goal: Make sure Wilhelmina is able to keep her freedom.</td>
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<td style="width:100%"><span style="font-weight:400">Reward: Opens Promo Trades ‘’, ‘’, ‘’ and ‘’.</td>
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<td style="width:100%"><span style="font-weight:400">Note: If no action is taken, no reward will be given. Even if Wilhelmina is able to keep her freedom.</td>
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<span style="font-weight:400">… System? Are you sure this is the time you should send me a mission? Well, I don’t mind getting one but still.
<span style="font-weight:400">But because I have to take action, let’s do just that.
<span style="font-weight:400">“How about this, we will help youplete yourmission, and then we can consider you joining our party?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“... why are you just offering her help?” Alice questioned. “Don’t tell me it is her boobs.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“You know I don’t care about that.” Boob size doesn’t matter. What matters is the person they are attached to. (Besides, getting a skilled artisan working for me couldn’t be a bad thing, right?) I added, with our system link.
<span style="font-weight:400">(I know. I know.) Alice responded. (And I guess I could see the use for one. But your monsters already do that, don’t they?)
<span style="font-weight:400">(For the future, I mean. If we really are going to start some sort of school or something, we will need personnel. Including people for maintenance. And she might be perfect for that.) I gave my reasoning.
<span style="font-weight:400">“So, what do you think? Do you ept my offer?” I asked Wilhelmina.
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<span style="font-weight:400">“NO! This piece… I can’t use this… Did I really not finish it?” Wilhelmina, or Wilma as she asked to go by, yelled out as she saw some sort of metal fitting on the anvil in the forging room.
<span style="font-weight:400">“... is there something wrong with it?” I asked. The fitting looked fine enough to my eyes.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Look. Right here. A crack. I must not have cooled it properly and a crack formed.” She pointed at one point with her finger, but I actually couldn’t see anything wrong with it. “It will interrupt the flow of magic, so if you tried using something with this, that point would gather energy and eventually break.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Can’t you repair it?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“No. I’d have to reforge the entire piece. But I’ll lose too much material if I try to reforge this one. And I don’t have any more materials for a new one. I’ve made multiple of these fittings over thest month, but I had to sell them for food money, so I ran out of the raw material.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“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.
<span style="font-weight:400">“... that’s fine, but why?.” Wilma asked, as she handed me the fitting.
<span style="font-weight:400">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.
<span style="font-weight:400">“... what… did you just do to this? The crack… is gone? As are the hammer marks… How?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“I’ll exin 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.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Yes. It is perfect. Thank you.” Wilma thanked me as she closely looked at the item from all sides.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Alright. So the staff next, right? What kind of treant wood do you want for it?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“... what do you mean?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“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?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“... you have all of them? Aren’t they all B-rank monsters?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“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 thisission.
<span style="font-weight:400">“... can I really pick? Those are… quite valuable materials.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Don’t worry. When you start working for me, you’ll soon learn that I have ess to some good materials. So as long as you work hardter, I don’t mind a bit of expenses at this point. And I think you should really impress Baron Peks with yourst job.”
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<span style="font-weight:400">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.
<span style="font-weight:400">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.
<span style="font-weight:400">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.
<span style="font-weight:400">It was quite popr at first, and she even had a total of 5 other people working here.
<span style="font-weight:400">But then a bigpany made their own workshop in this town. And because they just had ess to cheaper materials, more variety, and thepany name bringing in customers, in just a few years that new workshop got all of Wilma’s workers to move to it instead.
<span style="font-weight:400">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 ve. 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.
<span style="font-weight:400">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 ve.
<span style="font-weight:400">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.
<span style="font-weight:400">Oh. And onest 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.
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<span style="font-weight:400">“What? You can’t sleep here.” Lua told Wilma as she heard Wilma was going to be sleeping in the workshop.
<span style="font-weight:400">“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.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Not happening. You areing with us.” Lua said, and nearly dragged Wilma behind her. “Brian will get you a room at the inn.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Using me as a wallet already? Well, I guess that is fine.” I joked.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Just let me take the staff into my Item Box.” Wilma said, before Lua had time to drag her off.
<span style="font-weight:400">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 justcks levels to be useful, or we are just too high leveled, so we resist it? Well, I’ll find out with time.
<span style="font-weight:400">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 very 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.
<span style="font-weight:400">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…
<span style="font-weight:400">Well, I’ll see what I can do.