Chapter 62 – Arriving at the village?

The party of four set up camp by a shallow cave. They were lucky enough that it was only occupied by one giant spider type monster. It didn’t even have any babies and was easily dispatched by Roland who tossed a fire blast spell in there.

The monster went up in flames nicely and had been almost instantly cooked in the process. No one was actually willing to eat the thing, not even the half-orc companion who didn’t look like a picky eater.

They made a fireplace to ward off some of the night stalking monsters. There were variants with night vision and specialized skills to wander through the dark areas. Most of the time a simple bright burning fireplace would keep those types of beings away. Traits and skills that worked in darkness were quite susceptible to light.

Roland was a bit deeper in the cave, next to a monstrous-looking spider that had long lost its life. He was using his runecrafting hammer to repair his magical wands that were used during the day.

There were a lot more monsters than he anticipated in this gorge. The decision to free the slaves and have them in his party was the right one. If he was alone, it would have been many times harder to survive and he would have probably burned through his rune scroll reserves as well.

He was managing with his runecrafted magical wands for the time being. When a monster got too close he could also use his enchanted sword. The charges on it were also limited but the mana warrior skills were suited for middle and close-range combat.

While tinkering with his gear Roland took some time to examine his status and skills. Not much time had gone by since leaving Edelgard but he had managed to level up once.

Debugger L 6, Circuitry L 7, Tinkerer L 8, Identify L 8, Basic Mana Shaping L 9, Basic Mana Regulation L 9, Mana Sense L 9, Basic Rune Mastery L 9, Basic Rune Scribing L 9, Basic Smithing Mastery L 8, Basic Runecraft L 7, Runic Blacksmith’s Eyes L 5, Blacksmith’s Heat Sense L 6, Basic Rune Compression L 3, Ethereal Pathways L 6, Basic Mana Reinforcement L3, One-handed Swordsmanship L 4, Hand to hand combat L 1, Spearmanship L1, Blunt Weapon Proficiency L1

Roland paid attention to his combat-related skills. They had moved above basic ones but they were still only in the beginning stages. During his stay at the Arden estate, he was forced to raise them to L9 of their basic versions but since then they had been stagnating.

He focused on increasing his crafting professions and then his mana related skills. That left less time for combat practice. He did use the sword from time to time which increased this skill the most but he wasn’t sure that it was the right choice to only focus on that one.

He was going to be a runesmith and would be able to produce various weapons and tools. Swords were nice against other people but against monsters, something like a spear might have been better. Increased reach and thrusting attacks could win out over sword slices.

Then if a person was up against a heavily armored monster, or maybe one with a hard shell a blunt weapon would be a better choice. Even an ax or a war hammer that had a more concentrated point of impact would be better than a sword in that situation.

There were just too many skills to focus on though but he did have time till he maxed out his current class. He could both fight monsters during the day and then craft during the night and constantly receive experience.

Even now while he was fixing his magic wands he was gaining small amounts of experience. With time this would certainly stack and let him increase his levels fast. First, he would need to escape this foreign canyon and get to that next settlement.

‘I hope they have carriages going through that village, I might have to go to a larger one on foot if they don’t…’

Roland grumbled as he knew that small villages were rarely visited by outsiders. Mostly some merchants came once a month or every other month to sell and buy some items. Then maybe the tax collectors would show up, or the governing lord would send people to pick up grain.

If he arrived there just after the merchants visited it he might have to wait over a month for another one to arrive. There was also the problem with his three new companions. They stood out too much, two beautiful elves and one huge mountain of muscles.

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People would probably start asking questions about them. If it came to light that they were escaped slaves then he might get in trouble for setting them free. Even though he knew they were innocent and were not criminals, he had no proof.

This slave ring was probably something run by a shadowy organization. If he got involved with it at this point in his life he might end up as a slave too.

‘Well, they didn’t seem like they would be going towards the port town though. The border to their country is to the west.’

They agreed to split up after reaching the village. It was only a place to get some better clothes and food. He would be repaid for everything with mana stones. These he wanted to keep for now as he had many new items to produce. That is if he actually managed to get a new workshop out there in the sticks.

The city he wanted to go to was a frontier town, just an old village before people took notice. With the arrival of the dungeon things would be taking off but how far it had advanced was still unknown. He only wished that he wasn’t too late and he would manage to get himself a house of his own.

With one last hit, the wand that produced the fire arrows was finally repaired. He looked over the runic structures. He could see the metal shape deforming a bit and the runes started to erode into the hard steel. The more he used and repaired it the less steel there would be until finally, it would be unusable.

“Should last me through more repairs… I wish I could smelt those collars down and use deep steel instead…”

He was already thinking about improving his sword but it wasn’t that easy. The better the metal the harder it was to place runes on it. The reason deep iron or deep steel could hold more charges was that it was somewhat resistant to mana. The runic structures burned up at a much slower rate but were also harder to inscribe.

Roland finally decided to stand up and join the others at the campfire. They had managed to get some fish from the nearby river. There was a shallow spot through which a lot of them were passing. Logon was surprisingly good at catching them with a sharpened stick. With a few thrusts, he impaled some which were now being roasted on the fire.

“Here you go, Mr. Carmine.”