Blacksmith vs. the System

When I returned to the town, enthusiastic about testing the limits of the improved core skills, Eleanor was already waiting for me. This time, she didn't say anything even before she drew her sword and attacked.

"Good evening to you as well," I called even as I drew mine and countered her attack, even parrying hard enough to push her back.

"I thought that it's better to check whether you're slacking," she said even as she attacked again. I countered her easily. This time, it was less about her holding back, and more about where we were fighting. A tight corridor, which was far more advantageous for Stalwart Guard.

Of course, that advantage wouldn't be enough for me to win against her if she started fighting seriously, but the fact that she had to take me seriously in the first place was enough to show how much I had grown.

We fought for two minutes before she pulled back, clearly satisfied. I barely added ten points since our spar, but considering the increasing difficulty of upgrading a skill, it was still incredible. Believably so.

"I heard that you managed to hunt a lot of insects today," she said.

"Yes. Trying to take them in one blow is a good trick, especially with the stone shield trick," I replied. "The second floor is not as hard as I had initially feared. Giant ones are even easier to deal with a hammer. Though, it was hell to maintain the little contraption I made. I had to repair it maybe twenty times."

"That's what you get for trying to rely on machines rather than proper skill," she said.

I strongly disagreed with her absurd statement. No matter how convenient the skills were, it was not an excuse to not to attempt recreating technology in some way. However, I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to annoy my boss … or was she technically my business partner. Maybe a client?

Then, I shrugged. Regardless of her exact title, she represented my access to the dungeon. I could humor her. "Unfortunately, I need the money to recruit when the caravan arrives. So, unless you have a couple thousand gold coins you want to lend me without interest, I have to play with these devices."

"Good point," she said. "I would have, but I have put everything I have to bid for the dungeon along with Lady Maria. We even borrowed some from the family. Or, I would have done that easily."

I thought about asking her just how much it cost, but I held my mouth shut. Being too nosy was not a good idea. "Any plans for the night?" I asked.

"I need to go back to the town," she replied. "I have another meeting with that b — Rosie. Do you want to come?" she corrected, her tone signaling that they weren't getting along. A change from the earlier attitude. My best guess, Eleanor was getting annoyed at Rosie's business acumen. Not that I blamed her.

Rosie was a dangerous opponent across the table.

"Depends," I said.

"On what?"

"On how much Rosie actually knows about the dungeon, and how invested she is in its success," I said. "There's no way a beard and a new skill would make her believe that I'm a new person."

Eleanor nodded, clearly not having considered that. "She is the one that found us the suppliers for the skills, and she was the one that found the new blacksmiths. Also, she invested a lot in her new guild here. Don't you trust her?"

I paused for a moment, considering. Before, I would have said that I trusted her immediately. While she had always looked out for herself, that was not a bad quality in a dangerous world. She had a reputation for sticking to the deals she made.

I knew that intimately. When I was still using her to collect data about the surrounding towns, I had carefully analyzed the data she provided to make sure it was not fake. Faking data, even with people with Intelligence, was not an easy job, especially against me.

After a decade of reviewing papers for various journals — a terrible, thankless part of academia — I was pretty familiar with how fake data looked. Just to be on the safe side, I even ran some statistical analysis to make sure everything was acceptable.

While it was not conclusive evidence, it was a strong positive mark to her case. Combined with her significant investment to the town, it was fair to assume that she could be trusted … with my identity. Not anything else.

Especially since there was a good chance that she would be moving here to operate her new guild. Revealing my identity was easier than playing hide and seek. And, with her being aware of my identity, I could start making purchases through her once again.

The best thing about it was that she was too used to my weird purchases, so a few potentially risky subjects should just go under the radar.

"Fair, let's go," I said, hating myself that I was actually volunteering to fly. However, I needed to do so, because I had too many things to do in the town. I wanted to buy new skills, experiment with environmental mana, and even see if I could hire some people to work for me.

Then, I froze, remembering an important fact. "Actually, do you have anything that can block Identify?" I asked. "We don't want anyone checking my class."

"Good point. Wait here," she said as she brought me a bracelet. "Be careful, though. It doesn't last long. Only activate when you're suspicious, and turn it off once the situation passes," she said.

"How does it work?" I asked as I looked at the ugly gold bracelet with emerald and ruby studdings.

"Just hold it in your hand and focus, it'll trigger," she said. "But, be careful. It's an active enchantment, and it's already mostly drained. It can probably last only for ten more minutes."

"Alright," I said, ignoring the temptation to just start examining it. I tried that on the camouflage ring, only to end up disappointed. The ring itself was a boring Mana alloy, and everything was done with Mana.

Which, it had a limited amount of, with no way to refill — at least no way I could figure.

Still, it didn't bother me, I had a good feeling that I could actually block someone's mana if they tried. I just needed to be careful if someone tried to touch me, and that was it. The bracelet, I just needed as an excuse.

"Let's go," she said. I nodded,

Merely ten minutes later, I had been cursing that decision as I grabbed the griffin, scared out of my mind. I had been a passenger on Eleanor's griffin twice, and both had been pleasant experiences — as far as it could be when one flew on top a giant mutated bird with a stupid lion legs that couldn't even manage to flap its wings smoothly; an opinion I held with absolutely no bias.

Unfortunately, one of those trips had been between the town and the dungeon, which was a very small distance with constant patrols keeping the wild monsters away. During the other trip, we had Maria dealing with the monsters with her flame attacks.

Without her, Eleanor was the one to handle them. In melee range.

It wasn't the monsters that scared me. I trusted Eleanor to handle them, and even if I didn't, I could have used Stalwart Guard to protect myself.

No, it was the fact that our Griffin had been dealing with most of the attacks, which made it jerk and twist, worse than even the worst turbulence. Without strength, I wouldn't have been able to hold on.

Eleanor said something, but I wasn't able to process it as my ears rang, spots appearing in my eyes. I recognized the panic attack easily. I took deep breaths, but it didn't work.

I closed my eyes, repeating myself that I wouldn't actually die if I fell. With Health to recover from, a fall from terminal velocity wouldn't be deadly unless I landed on my head. Unfortunately, that didn't work any better than repeating the plane accident statistics in my mind had before the Calamity.

It was torture.

Not even the sudden change in environment as we entered a mana rich atmosphere had helped me. When we landed, I threw myself on the ground, my legs trembling badly. "Are you alright?" Eleanor asked.

"Not particularly, no," I answered, not even in the mood for a lie.

"Come on, let's bring you to the town," she said even as she presented her arm. I grabbed it, and let her drag me toward the gate. However, halfway in, my shakes started to disappear.

Faster than I was used to. It was not normal.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"We have just stepped into the peace zone," she said.

"Peace zone?" I asked.

She paused. "I sometimes forget that you don't really know a lot about big stuff," she said. "Is it possible that you forget that I even said that?" I didn't even bother answering her.

"Alright, but keep your mouth shut. It's a small addition to the formation of every town. It radiates a weak calming effect to prevent stress build up, making sure people don't go around fighting every day. However, the effect is too weak to actually stop people if they are aware, so it's not exactly announced. Too bad we can't really afford it for our town yet. They are cheap, but in our case, we can't afford to supply it with mana."

"A reasonable precaution," I said, glad that I had the excuse of being sick to explain the utter disgust in my tone. A permanent calming effect, affecting my mind. Constantly in the air.

I couldn't even begin to explain why it was a bad decision to keep people under a constant mind-altering effect. Even assuming that there was no side effect — debatable — one thing had been scientifically proven.

A certain amount of stress played an important role in any kind of innovation, or drive to succeed.

Looking back, I couldn't help but wonder if it explained why I had lost three years of my life, limiting myself to sending applications while trying to collect some meager data rather than doing … anything else. I had always assumed that it was just my old world habits.

But, was it?