I replenished my bullets overnight and thoroughly cleaned my clothing, gear, and revolver to make sure all the brackish water was out of everything. I also inspected the goods I had salvaged, but the only thing new I learned was that the book I had found was a non-combat-class book—which was exciting—but the class was called a Navigator, which didn’t seem particularly useful to me personally.
I still considered learning it, because it sounded like non-combat classes could give enhancements, but since they only leveled from non-combat use, it seemed unlikely I would gain much from the class. I didn’t see myself navigating a ship across the sea anytime soon. I decided to wait and see how much it would sell for before deciding for sure.
Once I was clean and rested, I jogged across the city to catch Asylaion on his daily route to the military’s enclave. I moved a bit slower than usual since I was burdened with the chests and other goods I had found, but at the same time, my enhanced body made carrying the extra weight seem almost effortless. I was slowed mostly because I was trying to avoid dropping the unwieldy chest rather than because of their weight.
When Asylaion saw me, he jumped down from his wagon and gave me a hug. I was touched by the gesture, even though I knew part of it was just a Merchant happy to see a returning customer. It was still a kind gesture either way.
“You have survived yet again!” He looked me up and down and noted the pile of goods I carried in my arms. “And you have found something interesting, eh?”
“I hope so,” I said.
He led me over to his wagon, where I put the goods down. I moved back and Asylaion stepped forward to inspect what I had brought him.
“Interesting stuff,” he said as he opened and closed the chests and held up the various garments I had salvaged.
I waited patiently for him to finish evaluating everything.
“A lot of luxury goods,” he said as he turned to me. “You must have found an old, unsalvaged noble’s house, eh? Or some boutique store? A very lucky find on your part!”
I didn’t correct him, merely smiling in response to his probing questions.
“A lot of this will sell well to the palace,” he continued, “but I will need to sell it to the generals first and they will have to sell it at the palace. I am too lowly of a merchant to sell directly to the Emperor and his remaining nobles. That will cut out a good bit of our profit.”
I gave him a skeptical look and he laughed in reply.
“Fret not,” he told me. “I am not saying this to take advantage of you. I just want you to know the reality of our situation. You could, of course, try selling to the nobles yourself, eh? I would not recommend it, though.”
“No, I’m fine selling through you. I trust you to be fair.”
“Good, good,” he said. “Now the book. That is something rare. To the right person, almost priceless. That class has been lost for some time. Only a few people are still around to teach it, and they don’t seem interested in doing so. But the problem is that we do not have any large ships left that need a navigator. That means the demand is not as high as it could be.”
I waited, not interrupting as he continued to talk.
“At the same time,” he said, a thoughtful expression on his face, “Sycae has a few merchants that may be willing to pay well for this just in case they ever rebuild their fleet. There are a few dreamers that still imagine things might go back to the way they used to be. They might be interested in a way around the old curmudgeons that refuse to teach the class to anyone new these days.”
He hummed and hawed a bit, counting on his fingers for a moment, making a big show of adding up the value of my goods. I resisted the urge to smile at his song and dance.
“I can give you ten blue orbs for the clothes,” he finally said, “and five for the chests. I’ll give you a gold orb for the class and another gold orb for the songbird. A very fair offer.”
I looked over the goods and couldn’t help but agree, although I was sure if I went through a lot of effort, I could get a bit more in Sycae or with the nobles, but it wasn’t worth the trouble and I didn’t have the contacts to make it happen quickly. Even though I thought it was a relatively fair deal, it was good to bargain in these situations, and I was feeling more comfortable socializing as a human, so I didn’t take his first offer immediately.
“That songbird is heavily enchanted,” I replied, “and likely worth a lot to the right noble. And like you said, that class is extremely rare. It could be the difference between a merchant being able to restart a shipping enterprise and being stuck here in the city forever, if I’m right. I will take two gold orbs and twenty blue orbs for everything.”
We bargained back and forth a bit but eventually settled on two gold orbs, seventeen blue orbs, and my choice of two types of ammunition he had recently picked up from the military. We shook hands and he handed me the orbs. I put them away while he dug out his new ammunition for me to look at.
After I looked over the new arrows he had, the only two worth taking were an Arrow of Blinding, which exploded with light, much like the Holy Arrow did when it came into contact with a ghost, and a Multi-Arrow, which copied itself after firing, creating a wave of arrows. The Arrow of Blinding wasn’t particularly useful, but I picked it up anyway just in case I ever needed it. The Multi-Arrow, on the other hand, was extremely useful. It could provide me with more options for dealing with a large number of enemies, similar to my Explosive Bullet.
“By the way,” he told me after I secured my new arrows in my backpack, “I had a visitor the other day asking about you.”
I looked up at him sharply, surprised that someone would be asking after me. “Oh?”
“Yeah,” he told me, stepping closer. “Asked if I knew a new scavenger who had some powerful ability or class. I told them I hadn’t seen anyone new in a long time. Just the regulars around here, if you know what I mean.”
He clapped me on the shoulder, giving me a roguish smile. I tried to smile back, but it was strained.
“Thanks for doing that,” I told him. “Why would they be asking about me? Do you know who it was?”
“Well,” he said, “I have suspected for a long time that the person who asked after you was taking some of the Patriarch’s silver on the side, if you know what I mean. Did you have a run-in with his priests recently?”
“Ah,” I said, realizing what he meant. “Yeah . . . they ambushed me and tried to capture me when I was out scavenging the other day. I fought back. One of them died from the fight.”
Asylaion’s eyebrow rose sharply as I spoke. I was afraid one would get stuck by the time I told him I killed one of the priests.
“You killed a priest? On your own? When facing more than one priest at a time?”
“Well,” I said, unsure of how much to reveal, “I mostly got lucky. They almost captured me.”
“Hmm,” he replied, staring at me for several moments. “You are quite the puzzle, my friend. Quite the puzzle.”
I tried to give him an innocent smile in return. When I said nothing more, he shook his head ruefully and smiled at me again.
“Well, anyway,” he added, “I just wanted to warn you.”
I felt another surge of affection for the wily merchant. He hadn’t needed to warn me or lie on my behalf. It might be in his best interest to protect the scavengers that traded with him, but that was still going above and beyond for me. I was learning that I might be able to trust him more than I had initially thought.
“I appreciate it, Asylaion. Thank you.”
He nodded and we said our goodbyes. I stepped back and watched silently as the caravan continued down the well-worn road, on its way to trade with the military like it did every day. A few of the guards even nodded at me as they passed, seeming to recognize me as someone worth respecting now that I had been surviving in the city for so long. It felt good.
I made my way back to the villa, moving rapidly and silently through the city now that I wasn’t burdened with the chests and other goods. If the priests were investigating me, then I needed to be especially careful. They had skills that I didn’t have a way to counter right now and could have dangerous contacts or agents in any of the enclaves. I had no magic of my own, so I wasn’t sure how I could counter their spells if they got the drop on me like last time.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Back at the villa, I studied the new arrows I had purchased. The Arrow of Blinding was interesting because it contained an activation rune, a Durability rune, and a rune that I reasoned must stand for Light. I let my nanobots loose to study the two new arrows, measuring the runes down to the smallest detail. Once they were done, I searched the house until I found a pot in the kitchen of the villa and a piece of cloth that was still in decent condition. I ordered my nanobots to break down the clay of the pot, shaping it into a small solid ball that would fit in the palm of my hand.
Once that was done, I had the nanobots carve a Durability rune and a Light rune into the ball of clay. Then I pulled out a blue orb and charged the ball, causing it to burst into light as soon as the runes finished charging. I squinted, but the light was so bright I was nearly blinded and had to look away hastily.
I grabbed the scrap of cloth I had brought and wrapped it around the lit orb several times, slowly dimming it as the cloth covered it in more and more layers. When it had finally dimmed enough to see again, I opened my eyes and looked down at what I had crafted. The small clay orb cast a faint light over the room, giving me some light to work by when it became dark, as long as I didn’t announce my presence to the monsters that came out at night. And if I needed more light, I could unwrap it more, adjusting the light that escaped through the cloth. I had invented a crude flashlight, which was probably unremarkable to the rest of the world, but it would help me when I went searching for goods in the city. The Navigator book I had used to light my way under the water had been surprisingly useful, so it was good to find a way to create light when I needed it.
Wrapping up the clay orb fully and tucking it into a pouch on my waist, I turned to the Multi-Arrow. The problem with this arrow, I soon realized, was that it required four runes instead of the standard three. It had the standard activation rune and Penetration rune but then had two more runes. I should have asked Asylaion about the arrows, but I had been distracted by the talk of the priests searching for information about me. He had originally told me that most things could only hold three runes without overloading, so how was this arrow able to have four? And since there were two runes that were unidentified, it was hard to know which one was responsible for the multiplying effect or if both were required.
I ran some experiments, carving the runes on more clay balls, then charging and tossing them around the foundry warehouse to see what happened when I activated each rune separately. I learned that the first unknown rune caused a multiplication effect and the second rune seemed to hold and store additional energy, much like a battery. When I carved the Battery rune by itself and tossed the clay ball, it did nothing but stayed fully charged. When I tossed the Multiplication ball, it drained itself of energy but only made one or two copies before running out of power. When I combined the two runes, suddenly the Multiplication rune drew power from the Battery rune, causing the clay ball to multiply tenfold, sending a mess of balls rolling across the foundry floor. So I theorized the Multi-Arrow could have four runes because one was passive, simply providing the greater amount of charge needed to multiply the arrow so many times.
I crafted several bullets with the multi-effect and moved away from the villa in case I attracted too much attention. When I tested the Multi-Bullet, the effect was impressive. The new bullet had the standard Penetration rune, which sent the bullets flying forward so fast they were impossible to track even with my enhanced reflexes. When combined with the Multiplication rune, though, a single bullet turned into ten bullets, spreading out and impacting against a wide area of effect. I practiced against a wide stone wall, and a single bullet spread out and covered the entire wall, depending on how far away I was from the wall when I fired the initial bullet. The closer I was, the more bullets impacted close together, almost like buckshot, while if I released the bullet from a greater distance, the bullets spread wide, covering the entire wall for twenty feet or more.
The downside to the Multi-Bullet was that I couldn’t fit a Durability rune onto it, which made the bullets less penetrative when used against things that were covered in armor or thick skin. They would still carry the punch of the Penetration rune, but they rapidly flattened out when impacting against something especially dense or unyielding. Thankfully, there wasn’t that much that could fully stop a steel bullet except for the strongest of armors or truly durable creatures, making the Multi-Bullet very useful.
While I was tossing the clay balls around the foundry, I got an idea for a new application of the runes as well: grenades. There was no reason I couldn’t use clay balls, or steel balls, to make the magical equivalent of grenades. They wouldn’t need an Penetration rune, since I could just toss them like a normal ball, but they could still carry an Explosive rune to give me some additional firepower. Back at the villa, I collected all of the pottery in the home and set my nanobots to forming them into hardened balls that rested comfortably in the palm of my hand. As the first few started to form in front of me, I designed the runes I would put on them: the trigger rune to activate the effects of the other runes, a Durability rune to make them resistant to breaking or damage, and an Explosive rune to finish the set of three runes.
After charging them up, I ran over to the area where I had tested the Multi-Bullets and was very happy with the results. Each ball carried the explosive power of my Explosive Bullet but could be tossed over walls, rolled across the ground, or thrown with my left hand while I was firing the revolver with my right. The explosion was just as powerful as those from the bullets, enough to destroy the stone wall that had stood up to multiple Multi-Bullets being fired at it over and over.
After testing several of the new weapons to make sure they worked, I hurriedly left in case the explosions had attracted too much attention. As I left, the wall I had tested them against collapsed further, crumbling to the ground, scorched and burned black from the magical flames.
I ran back to my villa, my mind awhirl with possibilities for the different kinds of grenades I could make. Some of the enchantments I had purchased would actually work better in grenade form, such as the Confusion rune or the Darkness rune. Tossing out a Darkness Grenade would cause a large area to be blanketed in impenetrable blackness, making it an effective tool for blinding an enemy, covering my flank, or hiding me as I escaped from a dangerous situation.
The Confusion rune seemed powerful. It would cause whoever was struck by the weapon to turn and attack anyone nearby, confused about who was friend or foe. The problem I had considered when I bought the arrow that contained the rune was that it was more likely to kill the enemy when it was enchanted on a bullet. If the target I shot with the Confusion Bullet just died from the bullet itself, then it defeated the point of the Confusion rune. But a Confusion Grenade could actually sow confusion since I would just need to make sure the grenade impacted against an enemy, triggering the enchantment. They wouldn’t be injured, allowing them to attack their allies or whoever was nearby with their full strength.
I spent the rest of the day and that night crafting a bandolier from leather scraps. The bandolier could hold the different kinds of grenades, making it easy to pull and throw them while I was in combat. As I waited for the bandolier to finish, I also worked on crafting a full range of Explosive Grenades, Confusion Grenades, and Darkness Grenades. In the middle of the night, I had another thought in regard to the Confusion Grenade, quickly scrapping the clay balls I was crafting for those grenades and instead using steel to form the balls.
With the stronger material, I could get rid of the Durability rune and instead replace it with a Battery rune and Multiplication rune, allowing me to toss a Confusion Grenade into a crowd, where it would multiply tenfold, sowing even more chaos into an enemy’s midst. I couldn’t help but grin madly as I worked through the night, crafting and fine-tuning my newest creations.
In total, powering the grenades took ten blue orbs, which was quite expensive, but I knew they would be worth it. They diversified my arsenal and I could throw them while firing my revolver at the same time, only having to stop to reload, which required both hands.
Feeling confident with my new inventions, I decided to try something a bit risky. The dungeon I had identified in the basement of the foundry where I had found all my iron called to me, tempting me to test myself against it. With a belt full of bullets, plus a bandolier of grenades, and feeling good after successfully completing the last dungeon without too much trouble, I decided to risk another dungeon. Not only had the last dungeon given me a good amount of experience, but the reward of a perk and a significant number of orbs, both gold and blue, made another dungeon too tempting to pass up. If I wanted to buy the Archer class before the deadline was up, I would need to take some risks or I would never get enough currency.
The next morning, I approached the foundry, checking and rechecking my bandolier and satchels, drawing and holstering my revolver nervously. The foundry was silent as always, the city empty around me and uncaring at the risk I was about to take. I approached the unnaturally dark stairs leading into the basement, hesitated slightly, and then stepped downward.
