Crafting Friendships Stronger than Metal

The workshop was filled with a pleasing sound: the slow churning of a giant windmill. It was a modestly sized home for a crafter, but the windmill made it expensive. When they first spotted the house in the initial rush into Zindart, the main town of the 526th Stage, they thought, 'This is the one!' But the price tag left them baffled.

From that point on, they worked themselves to the bone. As a result in just two months, they raised the five million dor they needed. But it was all worth it when they beat out the rivals to purchase the deed, turning that little windmill-attached house into Leonardo & Liena's Armory. It all happened a year ago, on a chilly day for spring.

After a rushed morning coffee, serenaded by the music of the water wheel's rhythmic thumping, she changed into her blacksmith's uniform, inspecting herself in the full-length mirror on the wall. Though she considered it a uniform, it was closer to a saleswomen's dress rather than a blacksmith's. There was a Linen red top with disconnected sleeves and a long skirt in the same tone.

The outfit wasn't her design. A friend of hers had arranged it, another girl the same age who often visited the shop to buy equipment. She claimed that heavy clothes didn't suit her cutie-doll face, and while she'd originally wanted her to mind her own business, it was true that the business had doubled since she started wearing this. So while it wasn't really her first choice, she'd been using it ever since.

She is Liena the blacksmith, and she was sixteen when she logged in to BWS. What she saw in the mirror was black hair, large eyes with dark blue irises, and an elfin nose and mouth that, combined with the dress, made her look like a perfect saleswoman.

She was a serious student in the real world with little interest in fashion, which only made the dichotomy stronger. Even though she'd gotten used to her new look recently, her personality remained same. Every once in a while, she would snap at a customer, which always drew out shock.

She double-checked her equipment and exited the store, flipping over the CLOSED sign. It had always been a dream of her to run her own business, but even inside a video game, dreams and reality are very different beasts. She'd had more than enough experience with the difficulty of meeting customer demand from the moment she started selling in the street and living out of an inn bedroom.

Her first lesson: if you're not good at smiling, make up for it with quality. In retrospect, the decision to focus on raising her Weapon-crafting ability at the expense of everything else was a wise one, as many of her repeat customers vouched for the quality of her weapons, even after she moved into her permanent storefront.

She went inside the workshop to see a man already working in there. He took up the order from the store menu and was about to begin crafting when he noticed her and smiled, "Good Morning Liena. Ready for today's business." The man was Leonardo, another fellow blacksmith and her husband. They had married about five years after the game of death began and were the best blacksmith couple in the game. She nodded in affirmative and watched him go back to his work.

He pulled an expensive metal ingot out of his inventory and tossed it into the burning furnace. Once it had absorbed enough heat, he pulled it out with tongs and set it atop the anvil. He got down on one knee, favorite hammer in hand, and selected the item to be produced from a pop-up menu.

After a specified number of whacks with the hammer, the metal would turn into the desired item. There wasn't really any technique to it; the quality of the finished weapon would vary at random, but they chose to believe that the concentration of the blacksmith during the process affected the result. So he focused all his nerves on the ingot as he slowly raised the hammer and began hitting. After about a hundred blows, the metal turned into a 1-handed Battle Axe.

Just as he was about to begin with the next one, "Morning, Leo and Lie!" The door of the workshop slammed open and the hammer from his hand fell on his feet. "Ouch! That hurts!" he shouted. They looked up to see the surprise intruder scratching her head and sticking out her tongue in guilty embarrassment, "Sorry! I'll be more careful about that."

"How many times have I heard that one before? At least it happened before I actually started working on anything this time." He stood up with a sigh and tossed the hammer back into the inventory. Turning around, he looked up at their visitor, who was just a bit taller than him.

"Good morning, Liza." Liza the archer was a good friend and loyal customer. She wound her way through the now-familiar workshop and plopped into a round chair of unfinished wood, then flicked her back-length brown hair with her fingertips. Every motion was as pristine as a movie star's, and despite having known her for many months, they couldn't help but admire her grace each and every time.

The trio went into the shop connected to the workshop. They sat in the chair and began gossiping. Liena then asked "So what's happening today? You're here early." "Oh, I need this done." She pulled the bow off her back, and tossed it to her. She caught it one-handed and observed it well. Its string had lost some strength but the still packed a punch.

"This isn't that bad at all. It seems a bit early to have it maintained." Leo noted to which she nodded "Yeah, I know, but I want it to be more elastic." "Oh?" They looked at Liza again. She was wearing the same old knight's uniform of gold with silver clovers and a half-length skirt, but her boots looked shiny and new, and there were small silver earrings sparkling in her ears.

"Okay, something's weird. This is a normal weekday. What happened to your mandated guild activity quota? I thought you said progress was slow on the 610th Stage." She smiled shyly at his question. "Actually, I got the day off. I'm going to meet someone after this…"

"Oh~?" Liena dragged the chair several clattering steps closer to Liza. "Tell me more. Who are you meeting?" "I-it's a secret!" she stammered, blushing slightly. She folded her arms and nodded. "I see…No wonder you've been so cheerful lately. You've finally found a boyfriend." Leo smirked. "Th-that's not it at all!" Now her face was really red. She coughed and gave them a sidelong glance. "Am I…really that different from normal…?"

"Of course, when you first came here, all you cared about was dungeon this, conquest that! I thought you were a bit obsessed, honestly, but you've changed slowly since about two years. The change was so gradual that I didn't notice it until I compared you with the time you first came here. I mean, I could never imagine you skipping out on your game-clearing on a weekday before." Leo was quite observing.

"I see…Maybe he is rubbing off on me…" She wondered invoking Liena's interest "So who is it? Someone we know?" "I don't…think so…but maybe?" She again began bushing.

"Bring him next time." Leo added causing her to blush even more "I swear, it's not like that! I mean…it's totally one-sided…" "Really!" This time they were truly stunned. Liza was the sub-leader of the strongest guild in the game, The Golden Knights, and one of the most beautiful women in Arcadian. There were as many men who courted her as stars in the sky, but they'd never imagined the opposite would happen.

"I don't know. He's very strange." she said, gazing into the roof. "It's way too hard to figure out what in his mind. He never goes as planned and follows his own lead…but anything other than that, he is incredibly powerful. He even managed to take down two full bars of an SM alone." Their jaws dropped and they couldn't believe her words.

Liena, however snorted "I don't think he is more powerful than you, especially with this," showing off the bow that was her greatest masterpiece ever made till now. It was called Mahendara Vayavya, the finest bow she created about a year ago. "He defeated me on more than one occasion, that too without hitting me with a weapon art."

"That would narrow down the list to about dozen players." They consulted their mental registry of famous clearers while Liza hastily waved her hands. "Y-you don't have to guess!" "In that case, I'll just have to look forward to the day you show him to me. Feel free to put in a good word about me if he has any weapons needs!" Liena replied.

"You're always looking out for your business, Lie. I'll tell him about your work…Oh, crap! Can you strengthen that now?" "Sure thing. Just give me a second." Leo stood up with Liza's bow in hand and walked over to the workshop. He appeared a minute later with the bow, now looking stronger than earlier.

He tossed the bow back to Liza, and then caught between his fingertips the thousand-dor coin that came flying back. "Thanks come again!" "Next time I'll need you to do my armor, too. But I'm in a rush today, so this is all for now." Liza stood up and hung the bow on her back. As she left the store, the duo got in their business, with Liena managing the sales while Leo doing the crafting.

Liza goes down to 230th Stage and finds a guy bowing in front of a grave marker just outside the now cleared main dungeon of the Stage. The guy stood up and turned towards her, "You are late. I hoped to find you waiting here since you were the one to call up this meeting." Liza pouted "I don't think I deserve a lecture from you on punctuality and being on time, Naperjet."

Naperjet, the highest level player known in the game and the most ill-publicized one as well was paying homage to his fallen team-mates who were killed here due to his misadventure. The duo wound up and returned to the main city of the Stage. They went inside a restaurant and had a seat table there, since it was near noon it was decided that they'll go for a brunch there.

"Um…Liza" Naperjet began after finishing his part and Liza looked up towards his face which seemed quite odd. "You know about any blacksmith who could create weapons to be used on frontlines." Surprised by the question, she asked "I don't mean to be rude, but you used to say that the best swords were from the monster-drops. Suddenly, you are asking for a blacksmith to create weapons for you."

"Actually, I urgently need a new shield and so…" Liza gave a skeptical look and after thinking for a while answered "All right, a blacksmith couple makes quite good weapons. Their workshop is at 526th Stage, and it would be better if you go there tomorrow morning."

"All right. By the way, don't you have your guild duties today?" Naperjet replied, however Liza only nodded and left. He spent the rest of the day hunting in the front-line dungeons leveling up and gaining items.

The next afternoon, Liena was napping in the rock-chair on the counter-table. Since, she stayed up late to finish the orders; Leonardo managed the store himself and allowed her to rest. Leo was in the workshop with another customer when a guy entered the shop and found Liena sleeping in the counter. He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder and said in a low, calm voice "Um…Hey!"

She opened up her eyes and mouth, muttered something and then she bolted upright as though on springs and shouted, only to find standing before her a male player with a startled expression on his face. Leonardo and the customer came out of the workshop anxiously.

"Oh! Hi Asri. Seems like you got to leave that suspicious looking shop of yours to do shopping." The guy smirked at the customer. Asri snorted "I have a busy schedule today, so I'll deal with you some other day." and then Leo seeing that everything's in control turned towards his new customer, "Please take a look at the weapon collection, while I may be unavailable due to some reason with this guy you know."

The customer nodded and Leo left the store with Asri. "W-welcome to our store. Is there a particular weapon you're looking for today?" Liena coughed to hide her discomfort with the incident of him waking her up. "Uh, y-yeah," he replied, nodding.

At a glance, he didn't seem that powerful. He might have been slightly older than her. He had black hair and a monochrome outfit of an almost-black shirt, dark-blue pants and black boots with a bark brown colored overcoat that reached beyond his knees. A single sword was slung over his back and a shield over it. The weapons they sold required high attributes to wield, and she was concerned that he didn't have a high-enough level to wield them, but she showed him in anyway.

"My one-handed swords are over in this case and shields over there." she showed him the display containing all their pre-made models, but he smiled awkwardly and cut her off. "Um, actually, I'm looking to do a custom order…" Now she was really worried. Made-to-order weapons with special materials were exorbitantly priced. He was looking at a five-digit cost, at least.

She never liked seeing people turn red or white after she showed them what their orders would cost, so she tried to head him off before we reached that uncomfortable point. "The market for metals is rather pricy these days, so it will be a considerable cost," she began, but she was shocked by what the man said next. "Don't worry about the budget. I just want the best one you can possibly make."

She stared at him, stunned, but somehow or another managed to find her voice again. "…All right, but…I need to know what properties, what stats you're looking for…" Her tone had lost a bit of its civility, but he didn't seem to mind. "Oh, good point. In that case…"

He pulled the sword harness along with the shield off his back entirely and handed it to her. "How about something at least as good as this?" It didn't look all that fancy. The sword had a golden hilt and a black scabbard, while the shield was a normal brown and golden buckler-type shield. But the instant she held them in her hand, the whole set fell from her hands as she could hardly hold the pair off together.

"Oh! I am sorry. Let me help you." The man bent down and picked up the pair as if they were a normal pair of beginner sword and shield. These things must have required a phenomenal amount of strength. As a blacksmith and hammer-wielder, she'd built her strength stat up fairly high, but there was no way even she or even Leonardo could swing this sword or defend using the shield.

She pulled it out of the scabbard with hesitation and found a thick, meaty blade platinum in color. One look was enough to tell her that it was an extremely well-crafted weapon. She clicked the blade with a fingertip to bring up a menu.

Category: Straight Sword/One-Handed

Name: Caladbolg

DMG: 2040-4100

Range: 40"-50"

Type: Slash/Thrush/Hack/Stab

Durability: 10610

Weight: 350

STR Rating: 310-660

Special:

STR +70 AGI +80 Heaviness: MAX

Crafter:

Class: L

"Its…It's an L-class item." Liena exclaimed. Apart from crafter-based differentiation, weapons in Arcadian were differentiated on the basis of Class as well. L-class meant legendary class meaning that these weapons were mentioned in the mythical tales and had some unique attributes to them.

The sword Caladbolg had maximum heaviness, meaning in terms of weight and armor-piercing capabilities no sword can outmatch it. Max heaviness meant about 65% armor-pierce and 50% strain. She then clicked the shield with a fingertip to bring up another menu.

Category: Shield/One-Handed

Name: Cloud White

DMG: 104-120

Range: NA

Type: Hack/Defense

Durability: 89610

Weight: 150

STR Rating: 410-560

Special:

DMG®: 25% DMG©: 50% Armor+55

Crafter:

Class: S

Again this piece of NPC weaponry outmatched Liena's expectations, however a piece of data from the shield caught her eye and she exclaimed, "This thing is capable of dealing damage. OMG, it's insane…"

She thought about a while, 'How could I manage to compare anything with an L-class sword?' and said, "All right I want your orders in particular details." The man nodded and began "I need a long-straight sword, a dagger and a shield. I have no pre-requisites for the dagger but the shield and sword are meant to be upgrades."

Liena's eyes widened, no doubt the guy was a clearer as he was asking her to craft a sword and shield as an upgrade for his L-class sword with incredibly high stats and the unique shield that was capable of dealing straight damage apart from the counter-damage that normal shields inflicted. But she knew no clearer like him, anyone possessing a legendary weapon would be quite famous like Heathway who possessed a GM level skill and a legendary axe.

She pulled out a shield from the slot and placed it on the table, "It was created about a week ago, but I doubt that your shield would be able to surpass it." The shield was a unique curved rectangular one with length equal to half the length of the user.

He took the green colored tower shield and swung it around. "It hinders a lot of mobility and I doubt it would provide enough protection to compensate it." Liena grew red with anger on his comment regarding the shield and he asked to test the shield. She blinked unable to believe his statement and asked, "What do you exactly want to test?" "Um… Everything. In particular the DPS, system allots to it."

The reply left her baffled and even before she could object; he equipped the shield and swung it hard down on his sword, particularly the cutting side of the sword. To Liena's surprise, the shield shone bright red; the system identified it as a legal weapon art. The shield shone amazingly and struck down on the cutting of the sword with a thundering sound.

And something broke off, at first Liena thought it to be his L-class sword. As the light subsided, it was not his sword having about 10000 durability points but rather her shield with more than a hundred thousand durability points. "Impossible" she was clearly shocked and after she regained her composure, she pulled the man by his collar and yelled, "What the hell were you thinking?" He jerked his face away in panic. "S-sorry! I didn't think the shield I was holding would break…"

She snapped out of the awe and pulled him higher with all her strength "Meaning my shield was even weaker than you thought it would be?" "Huh? Uh, um, well…yes." "You admit it! You've got some nerve, young man!!" Steam could be seen puffing out of her ears in rage.

"I would rather look up for a sword and dagger here." He put up a cynical smile; Liena lost some of her rage and wondered if there was any piece that could match the sword he possessed. She showed him a lot of pre-made daggers; however the stats didn't seem to impress him in particular the speed of the weapon.

The cycle of viewing and rejecting continued till evening when Leonardo and Asri came back to the shop. Leo inquired about the situation and Liena told him about the shield that was destroyed and he hadn't been able to pick a dagger to match his stats requirement. The guy offered to pay up for the losses but Leo put up a finger in front of him, "I'll make you pay me handsomely after your gear has been crafted."

He took a look at the stats of the current equipment and his jaws dropped at the extremely high stats it had. "You seriously want an upgrade. Anyone else would not agree to change the gear." But the customer nodded in negative, "It's technically not an upgrade, I just need some spare weapons to use in the middle stages. Anyways, you could continue with him."

Leo went inside the workshop and after about 20 minutes came out with Asri who made a payment at the counter and left. "All right, Mr. Naperjet; since you want me to craft weapons that matches your L-class sword and S-class shield. I want some rare and valuable items to craft it." Leonardo typed the list of the required materials and materialized it in a parchment to hand it over to Naperjet.

He gave up a scornful look and began, "I never heard about these items, 'Eternal Icicle', 'Crystal of Avon' and what's this 'Acetylene'?" The blacksmith duo gave a hearty laugh and taunted, "It's not Acetylene, its Ace Tulane and these are some of the rarest crafting articles in Arcadian. Only a master-smith can create weapons out of these."

Naperjet gave a sarcastic look to the duo "All right, then you tell me where to find these items and also give the list of secondary items required for crafting." The couple giggled and Leo continued, "Going by your pronunciation, it would take you years to fetch the correct items. So we are going to accompany you and make sure that you get the correct materials."

"Fine." Naperjet manipulated his menu and formed a group of three members. Leo manipulated the shop menu from the counter and set it to CLOSE mode. All the messy shelves and cases displaying weapons of all sorts closed and sealed themselves and the trio left the shop.

The trio went to the 479th Stage which was based on a total icy landscape. The trio changed to the winter clothing and continued to their way out of the town to the snowy valley in the north. Naperjet asked the duo, "Are you sure we will get this Eternal Icicle here?" Liena spoke up "Yep! There is a quest given by the valley spirit to kill 'The Ice Breathing Dragon' which has caused the lake in the valley to freeze and caused all people of the land to flee. The Eternal Icicle is one of the drops from the monster."

The trio went to the tallest peak there, on the top of which a temple was called 'Shrine of the Valley'. The ghostly NPC residing there seemed not to be quite friendly enough and they had to tour the entire shrine to catch it up and make it talk. The NPC began its story from when the place was lush green and the dragon arrived and it caused the place to go barren and snowy.

Since Leonardo and Liena already broke the secret to Naperjet, the story appeared to be very long and boring and at last when it all ended, the trio left the temple and headed towards the lake where the dragon had its nest. However, by the time they scaled down the mountain, it was deep in the night and the blacksmith duo seemed tired.

"I really didn't think getting the quest started was going to take so long." Leo sighed "Seriously…what should we do? Come back tomorrow?" Naperjet had an ironic smile on his face and they traded glances. "But he did say that the dragon was nocturnal. That's the lake over there, right?" The duo glanced towards the horizon, a small reflection of moon-light was there indicating a frozen lake right there.

It was not more than a kilometer away from them. Liena still unable to cope up with the events occurring in the shop remarked, "All right, let's go. Besides, I'd rather not wait to see you blubbering with fear." Naperjet taunted, "On the contrary, try not to have your mind blown by my graceful sword work."

They turned their faces away from each other with simultaneous huffs. They shook their head to clear the minds of pointless thoughts and started walking their way through the heavy snow. Perhaps because of the time of day, the toughest monsters they ran across were Frost Carcass, an ice-type skeleton—but skeletons were the perfect target for Liena's crushing hammer. The undead foes fell apart with a satisfying clatter as she pounded them left and right.

After climbing for about an hour, they saw the lake right in front of them circled by columns of ice crystals. The crystals were sparkling in rainbow colors. "Wow…!" They couldn't help but marvel in wonder, but Naperjet grabbed the duo's collar from behind. "Whack! What was that for?"

"Get ready to use your transport crystal, if necessary." The look on his face was serious. They nodded automatically and materialized the crystal from their inventory, placing it in their pockets. "I'll handle it from here on out—this will be dangerous. When the dragon shows up, stay behind one of those giant crystals. And don't come out."

"…What's the problem? I'm actually fairly high-level. I can fight!" Liena puffed. "No!" His black pupils stared straight into her, and in that instant she understood that he was saying it for their sake. She held her breath and nodded. He flashed back a quick grin before saying, "Okay, let's go." All they could do was giving him another nod.

They'd come here with Naperjet to assist him in the quest of gathering the ultra-rare materials in the place to forge a weapons capable of rivaling his current L-class and S-class weapons but they hadn't honestly considered that they were getting themselves into a battle of life and death. Well over half the experience they'd gained in the course of leveling up was from crafting equipment, and they'd never been in a deadly battle.

But they could tell that Naperjet was different. He had the eyes of someone who put his life in the balance each and every day. The concern in his eyes was of someone who had lost someone close right in front of his eyes. However, they didn't know if it was in the game or in the real life itself.

In the next instant, a screech ran across the mountain-covered valley, ripping through the air dyed with the final stains of navy-blue light. "Get in the shadows!" Naperjet commanded, pointing to a large nearby crystal. They hurried to obey his command, turning to his back as they ran.

"The, uh, the dragon's attack pattern is: claws from left and right, ice breath, then a wind gale! B-be careful!" Leonardo hurriedly tacked on that last part. Still facing away from them, Naperjet waved his left fist, the thumb boldly extended. At the same time, a loud voice of flapping wings came approaching fast. A small bird like figure was seen, but as it came nearer the figure grew larger and larger until it was a full 15 feet tall.

The white dragon's scales shimmered like ice. It beat its enormous wings smoothly, hovering in the air. All in all, it was even more beautiful than it was terrifying. Its large, ruby-like eyes glared down at them from above. Naperjet calmly reached behind his back, loudly drawing his platinum sword and buckler. As though that were the signal to begin, the dragon opened its jaws wide and unleashed a blast of white with a roaring sound effect.

"Watch out, that's its breath attack!" They screamed simultaneously, but Naperjet did not move. He stood boldly, his sword extended vertically, with hilt hidden inside the buckler. Just as they thought, 'There's no way he can block that ice breath with such a thin sword and buckler', the blade and shield began spinning like a windmill in his hand.

Based on the light green haze enveloping the sword, it must be a weapon art. It was already too fast to see, like a round full-height shield made of light. The ice breath bore down directly on the art. There was a white flash and they turned their eyes from it. But the cascade of freezing air simply bounced off of Naperjet's art shield, dissipating away.

They cast a hurried glance at Naperjet to check his HP bar. The right corner was steadily closing left, perhaps a sign that he wasn't blocking the effects of the ice breath entirely. But to their amazement, it was healing back to full every few seconds. Battle Healing was known as an ultra-high-level ability—and in order to increase your proficiency with it; you had to defeat the most difficult type of opponents, i.e. The Battle Healers with minimal damage intake, meaning that it was virtually impossible to safely power up the ability.

'Who is this guy…?' The thought ran up their mind. No one this powerful could not be a clearer. But his name didn't appear in the registry of any of the top guilds in the game, like the 'The Golden Knights' and solo players were virtually absent till now, most joined one guild or another in order to survive.

As the attack broke down, he leaped at the airborne dragon with an explosion of snow. The orthodox strategy against flying enemies is to attack them with pole-arms or throwing weapons like the lance that Leonardo carried, forcing them to the ground, where melee attacks will be effective. Impossibly enough, Naperjet jumped almost high enough to eclipse the dragon's head, launching into a one-handed combo in midair.

With high-pitched twanging noises, he spun into the dragon's body faster than the eye could follow. The beast tried to fight back with its claws, but the blows were simply too slow. By the time Naperjet finally landed back on the ground, the dragon had lost a full 40 percent of its health.

As he touched the ground, the shield in his hand began glowing faint-red. 'Another attack from shield' Liena guessed it to be like the one she saw at the store, a top-to-bottom smash. However, to the contrary the shield flew from his left hand towards the dragon attacking it from all the sides while bouncing off the columns.

It was overwhelming. A shiver ran down their spine at the impossibility of what they'd witnessed. The dragon shot the wind gale at Naperjet on the ground, but this time his shield was in the air unable to defend himself from the overwhelming attack. As the wind came through with speed higher than any Class-3 tornado, it blew up the snow from the ground. After the snow cleared, they saw him kneeling on his place with his sword jammed inside the frozen surface.

He leapt again in the air and instead of the high-pitched combo; he pounded the beast with single, hammering blows. Each one tore large chunks off the monster's HP bar. It was moving past the yellow zone into red now. The flying shield tore up the rest of HP from it and the beast shattered into countless fragments. The shield returned to his hand and he swung the sword and shield hard before returning them to the cover on his back.

The duo came out of the columns to give him the sincerest appreciation he deserved. But the surface beneath them cracked, "Run Away!!" Naperjet shouted at the duo and they stopped there confused but soon it became clear why was he asking them to run away. As the ice dragon was slain, the area reverted to its former self. The ice began melting and breaking apart and the trio began running out of the now melting lake and jumped out to the banks right in time.

The whole landscape began to change, the frozen place now began to lose its white shade and greenery emerged from beneath. Trees began growing and the whole scene looked like a magical fairy-tail scene. All the iciness concentrated right in the middle of the lake in the form of a moderate sized crystal of ice. Leo stepped up from behind, "That is the Eternal Icicle. Go, claim it."

Naperjet took a few steps back and leapt across the lake which was now about 40 meters wide. He grabbed the ice crystal and came back. "Okay that's one out of seven." Leo remarked and the trio left for the shrine to claim the rewards and left for the next item.

They went through different stages for different materials, each one a quest reward or drop item from monsters battled in a quest. After one full day of wandering through different stages and quests, the trio got all the required materials along with four level-ups for the blacksmith duo.

They got 'Tear of Mermaid' as an end-quest reward for 'Deep-Water Rescue' quest in 321st Stage along with the scuba suit like item they used to travel underwater. 'Crystal of Avon' was received as a loot item from 'Mining Disaster' quest in 528th Stage while 'Ace Tulane' was a fruit-like item atop the Demonic Pine tree they had to cut during 'Village Expansion' quest in 602nd Stage. The 'Fiery Egg' was a monster drop in 'The Impending Disaster' quest in 599th Stage; 'Terraria's Plate' was in-quest drop in 'Martial-Art Enhancement' quest in 505th Stage and 'Scales of Justice' was end-quest reward for 'Sherriff's Quest' in 510th Stage.

After everything was collected the trio came back to Leonardo & Liena's Armory to forge the sword. It was quite late in the night and Naperjet agreed to come the next day.

The next day, Liena opened the shop as usual and found customer waiting eagerly for their weapons and all. The blacksmith duo explained the reason for delay and apologized for it. Except a few jerks, all agreed to their explanations and had their orders fulfilled till noon. In the afternoon, just as the last customer left Naperjet entered the shop "I think you deserve a meal at least from me." The couple who were exhausted to the bone from the process of non-stop crafting of weapons gave a huge smile and nodded.

Taking the duo to a local restaurant, he treated the blacksmith couple to their fullest, Leonardo asked "What ability did you use in the quests to get the shield flying? I tried to make the shield fly the whole night but couldn't succeed." Naperjet grinned and after five minutes worth of stare from the duo, he opened up "It's a high level ability, with odd prerequisites. I got it about um… I guess about five years ago."

"So, let's get the weapons ready?" Naperjet was clearly excited about his new gear. At the shop, he flipped through his inventory and materialized the various materials collected, tossing it over them. The duo caught the items and nodded "Yeah, let's get it over with. Come back into the workshop."

Leo put the items into the furnace and refined them to form three ingots. Just as he was about to begin, Naperjet put out his S-class shield in front of Leo and said, "Use it as well." The duo now had it blown over their mind, S-class items were said to be the rarest materials in the world after the legendary ones which were one of a kind. However, unable to refuse him Leo and Liena took the shield which was quite heavy even for both of them and placed it in the forge.

The fire soon turned the brown shield bright red, and it began to glow all over the body. Eventually, the shield flashed even brighter, and then dulled, turning into a rectangular block. Naperjet looked at it as if bidding farewell to an old and trusty partner. "Please use it and the crafted ingot for the shield." Naperjet now sat on the chair watching as the blacksmith couple now worked to create the weapons he ordered.

After about four hundred strikes each came out a long sword, a star-shaped shield and a long dagger. He took up the weapons and swung each of them and looked up to the couple, "They are heavy. Nice ones indeed." A smile took its place upon the face of the blacksmith couple, a smile of satisfaction. "Um… Naperjet, I would like to have a look at their inspection stats." Leo began and just as he saw that the customer was about to toss them to him, "Not now…no…not now. At the counter, it would be better there."

At the counter, Liena brought up the inspection menus of the three items they'd crafted there. The shield was a P-class item, named Defending Star. "Hmm… The name says about the design." P-class weapons were considered Pseudo-Legendary, player-made weapons that could rival legendary weapons. The sword was also a P-class item, named Calm Psych while the dagger an S-class item called Drain Blade. "OMG! This dagger has an HP transfer bonus." Liena exclaimed, unable to comprehend with the fact that they were the one who created them.

"Could you explain that bonus part?" Naperjet looked at the inspection window confused. "HP Transfer means that when equipped, half of the damage inflicted would be used to heal your own HP. It's quite a rare bonus." Liena mocked him and then he opened up the trade window for payment. Leo asked for 5M dor and asked him to drop by for repairs, maintenance and upgrades.

As he was about to leave, Leo called out "I know that the shield is replacement, sword is decoy but what about the dagger? Why did you need such a powerful dagger?" "Aah…" Naperjet turned around to face him, clearly grappling with what to say. "Well, I can't explain the full details. But I'll tell you if you promise not to ask any further questions."

"Why so cryptic?" Liena complained but Leonardo nodded. "Here, stand back." He had them back up against the wall of the shop, and then drew the sword from its scabbard while holding the dagger in the left.

They couldn't tell what he was going to do. He'd been fiddling with his equipment screen, but the system only recognized the dagger in his left hand as being his equipped weapon. Having another weapon in his right hand wouldn't help him out in the least. In fact, it was more likely to disable his weapon arts because the system would detect an irregularity in his active weapon.

Naperjet spared a single glance at their baffled face, and then took on a battle stance, sword forward and dagger back. He crouched, and instant later — Red visual effects burst outward, coloring the entire workshop for a moment. Naperjet's weapons shot forward in an alternating pattern faster than the eye could follow. He didn't hit anything, but all the objects in the room trembled with the force of the air.

That was very clearly a Weapon Art, recognized and aided by the game system. But…they'd never heard of any arts that used two weapons! Naperjet stood up silently after he finished his combo, which seemed to have at least ten different blows alternating between the dagger and the sword. He snapped both of his wrists forward, returned his sword to the sheath on his back, and then gazed at them.

"That'll do. Oh…I forgot nearly. I need a sheath for the sword and dagger. Can you fashion something for me?" He materialized the sword from his inventory. "Uh…s-sure." How many times had this Naperjet managed to shock them? They should have been getting used to it by now. Liena decided to hold off on the questions and touched the wall to bring up the workshop's home menu.

The shop storage was full of various supplies, so I scrolled through the list until she found a bundle of scabbards they'd bought from a fellow craftsman. She picked out the ones finished with black leather that seemed a good fit for the weapons, and she pulled it out of the menu. Naperjet snapped the blades into the sheath and placed the entire thing in his window screen. They thought he might just leave both of them equipped, but apparently not.

"Was that…a secret?" Leo asked. "Yeah, kind of. It'd do me a solid if you didn't tell anyone." A player's skill and ability information was his lifeline. If someone didn't want you snooping, you had to obey. Suddenly, the door of the shop was burst open "Lie, I was so worried." The visitor shouted and realized that she had been there at the wrong moment. Naperjet gave a cool look to her "Oh! Hi Liza." Liza gave a smile and then proceeded towards Liena "None of my messages reached you, I couldn't find you on the map, none of the regulars knew where to find you, I was so worried that you were missing for two days; I even went to Volintron Palace just to make sure…"

"S-sorry, sorry. We just got stuck in a campaign…" Liena put up a cynical smile identical to Naperjet's. "A campaign?! You?! By yourself?!" Liza's eyes widened with surprise "N-no, with him…" Liza turned towards the swordsman "You…" He cleared his throat lightly and raised a hand in greeting. "Hi, Liza. It's been a while…if three days counts as a while."

"Y-yes…you startled me. So you decided to visit. If you'd just said something, I would have joined you." Leo and Liena shared a sarcastic look at the archer and swordsman. "That's him, isn't it?" Leo crossed his arms and glanced at her. "H-huh?"

"The boy you like!" "Oh…" She looked down, her shoulders hunching, then nodded. Her cheeks were pink again. "Yeah." Liena widened her grin.

"Well, he certainly is very strange." "Did Naperjet…do anything to you?" She looked worried. Liena gave her a hearty nod. "He certainly did. Within two minutes, he'd broken the nicest shield in my shop." "Oh no…I'm so sorry…" "It's not like it's your fault, Liza." The sight of her apologizing, hands clasped together, made the duo feel sorrier.

Naperjet who was silent the whole time trying to ignore the chitchat of the ladies took their leave while Leo snuck back into the workshop; leaving Liena and Liza in the shop gossiping "Well, anyway, the properties of the weapons he wanted required very rare materials, so we had to go to other Stages to find it. When we got there, we got in a series of quests and remained out of the safe zones of cities and that's why it took a while to get home."

"I see…So even if you'd tried to send me a message, it wouldn't have reached me…"

"We probably should have invited you along. I'm sorry."

"No, I was busy with guild work anyway…So did you make the weapons?"

"Yep, all done. I never want to undertake such a bother of a job again, though."

"You'd better make sure you get a nice hefty price tag out of it!"

They laughed together and Liena showed the payment record of 5M taken from Naperjet. She wrung the final words out, still holding that smile. "Well, he's kind of weird, but he's not a bad person. I hope it all goes well for you, Liza." "Um, yeah. Thanks…" Liza nodded, peering into her face, and later took her leave.