Chapter 15: It Is Frustrating When The Work You Put Your Time Into Is Not Efficient Enough
Chapter 15: It Is Frustrating When The Work You Put Your Time Into Is Not Efficient Enough
· Stone
Plain and ordinary stone gravel.
Although it has little to no utility as a crafting material, it can be used for other processes.
· Grey Iron Ore
It can be processed into various materials, however, without any special effects to them.
Because it won’t luster even when polished, it is not applicable as the ornament of any sort.
· Silver Iron Ore
Piece of silver ore.
When used in item creation, it can boost the equipment’s magic power.
It is silver, but it is also Iron Ore.
· Swamp Fossil Rock
A fossil rock that was most probably a part of some swamp monster.
Fossils like that may contain the memories of the creatures that inhabited the swamps many years ago.
But whether or not the memory itself proves to be of value depends solely on one’s own luck……
It was truly sh*tty (like in most of the sh*tty games) that I had to swing my pickaxe for such a long time to start getting results, but when I started to get them they were turning out to be totally worth it.
In particular, one of the fossil stones that dropped out of a certain ore vein seemed to have a rather rare aura to it.
Also, it seems that when you mine for ores and materials at certain gathering points, those points seem to become empty after a certain amount of items drop from them. Something like that happened to the stone pillar I was mining earlier, because it simply collapsed into a pile of rubble after giving me some items.
「Now then, whatever should I do……?」
Oh well, might as well go back to town and try to craft me a weapon out of the ore that I have gathered. It would be a good idea to find out just what kind of items can be made out of the materials that were currently in my possession. And if I don’t have enough items, I can just take a new pickaxe and go ore-hunting again. Who knows, maybe I could craft a really solid weapon out of the things I have on me?
There are still plenty of pillars in the swamp for me to break down.
Really now, it was truly helpful that our high school started the summer vacation period earlier than most of the other schools. Since summer is the season when you can get many things done inside the game world. It was also a given that ShanFro’s sales would skyrocket during the summer vacation period and that there would be a whole new wave of players coming to start their own adventure here.
Once that happens, the new players are going to flood the beginner areas and as a result all of the resources would dry up in an instant. And while there seemed to be some countermeasures to prevent the players from having to wait for the gathering points to respawn, getting caught up in a situation like that…… Yeah, it wasn’t that appealing of a scenario to me.
「Say, I went to gather up some ore, but can I make anything out of this?」
「Let’s see here…… Hoo, it seems that you’ve managed to collect quite a lot of things indeed. I think you’ll be able to craft a decent amount of items out of these materials.」
If you go through the swamp and collect a certain amount of materials, you would be able to craft some new items for yourself. But since the beginning players were more or less content with the starting items they received there wouldn’t be that many people out there gathering, which was making mining a little bit less stressful.
「Fumu, fumu……」
Out of all of the new items that became available to me, two in particular were of interest.
· Swamp Dagger
10 000 mani
· Dual Sawblades
16 000 mani
「Hmm, since my funds are pretty much limited at this moment, I guess I’ll just buy two Swamp Daggers.」
I also sell some unwanted items from my inventory and just like that I managed to amass the necessary amount of money needed to complete the purchase. If I wanted more money later, I could always go hunting or gathering materials throughout the swamp.
「Hm? Say, Mister, are you dual wielding your weapons?」
「He? Umm, yeah, I guess.」
「Ahh, it’s been a while since I was able to create some weapons meant for dual wielding!! Hahahaha!!」
Really? I thought that the dual wielding players wouldn’t be that uncommon in this game?
Anyways, I pass the materials and the money to the clerk, thus completing the transaction.
The weapons should be ready around nightfall. And so I have some free time on my hands for the time being.
「Whatever should I do now……?」
Oh well, might as well go and grind some levels.
I went back to the marshlands. I decided that and level up for a bit to kill some time until nightfall.
And since I wanted to earn me some money, I decided to hunt for the Mud Frogs.
But even though it was just a game, one needed to stay vigilant at all times, otherwise an untimely death would be quick to greet you.
When I looked up into the sky I saw a creature descending towards me at high speed. Was that a bird? Or maybe a plane? …… No, it was just a vulture-like monster, looking about ready to pick a fight with me.
「Thanks. Since you are coming to me, you’re sparing me the trouble of aggroing you myself.」
Once the vulture was low enough it tried to attack my head with its sharp talons, but I managed to dodge its attack and retaliate with an attack of my own, striking its leg with my Goblin Hatchet.
「Gyaaaeeehhh!?!?」
「Geh!? It didn’t one shot it!?」
I scream in surprise and the vulture screeches in pain. The damage I dealt to it was a blow damage, but it only managed to shorten its HP bar by around one third. Was the Goblin Hatchet ineffective against monsters like that or was it simply that its legs were especially sturdy? …… Whatever.
「Oryaah!!!」
Even though this Hatchet was brand new, its durability was draining fast against the vulture’s body. I wanted to say that I was surprised, but…… During my hunt of the Mud Frogs I was going through my Hatchet collection like it was nobody’s business, so the only thing I could do here was to lay waste at the monster while I still had the chance.
「Head! Wings! Torso! Legs again!」
Guh, I was slowly chipping its HP away, but for a mere monster it was especially resilient. Does this mean that Mud Frogs are the limit for the Goblin Hatchet? It surely was a little bit surreal to try to kill a flying monster with stone tools, but finally the vulture falls to the ground and explodes in the geyser of polygons, leaving only its wings behind.
「Now, that took some time to be done with…… Hmm? Wings?」
I check out what was left out of that vulture.
· Bandit Vulture
A piece of Bandit Vulture containing its feathers.
Aside from the proof of defeating the Bandit Vulture, this item holds no value whatsoever.
It is a mere testimony of one’s struggles in order to obtain it.
「It’s totally worthless!!!」
Seeing the effort I put into the fight being laughed at, I screamed at the top of my lungs.
As a matter of fact, it is impossible to keep monsters immobilized for a prolonged period of time via skill usage or magic.
However, since critical strikes can cause a knockback effect that lasts for about one second, most small fry monsters can be perpetually stun-locked if you manage to keep on landing critical strikes on them. In theory, dual wielding can make that effect even easier, or any weapon with high critical hit chance. Keep slashing away at monsters to see for yourselves.
As a matter of fact, some of the monsters with high enough level are capable of using a special attack once their HP has been depleted to a certain level.