Chapter Five #2
I stepped inside and called out, “Anyone here?” Almost right away, I stepped on some unknown contraption on the floor, but I narrowly avoided that… only to step on something else I couldn’t recognize instead.
The inside of the place was even messier than the outside.
“A customer?!” shouted an excited, deep but feminine voice. A second later and the best smith of the game came rushing out from the backroom wearing overalls and dirty, soot-covered clothes.
There she was.
Tabitha Strism, the halfling girl whose orange hair was as big as she was tall with a personality that was even larger.
One of the only girls in the game who was not romanceable at all, and it wasn’t even for the obvious reasons.
Instead, it was because she loved her work far too much to ever think about romance.
Or rather, it would be better to say she was already married, and her partner was her work.
Still, despite being only half my height, she had a pretty deep voice for a girl.
“You must have a good eye to come here,” Tabitha said, already showing off her lovable narcissism. Did she think she was better than everyone else? No, she knew she was better than everyone else, but she knew in such a way that made her a fan favorite character. “So! What can I do for ya?”
“I just got out of a dungeon and thought I’d drop by to sell loot and buy some upgrades,” I explained.
“Really?! I—I mean, ahem. Of course. There’s no better shop around to drop off your dungeon loot than Strism’s Workshop! So, what kinda loot we talkin’?”
“Sorry, it’s only a starter dungeon for now, but I promise that I’ll bring you materials nobody has ever seen before someday.”
Tabitha raised her eyebrows and looked me over. “Hmm. What level are you?”
“Only six right now, but it’s my first day.”
“Reachin’ level six on your first day, huh? You’re either a great liar or a legend in the makin’.”
“It only took a couple of hours. Honestly, I’m surprised that isn’t the norm.”
“A couple hours of non-stop fighting ain’t somethin’ to encourage. Rookies go in, kill one or two monsters, then call it a day typically. Better to get some experience, rest, review how it went, then go back in another day. Preferably with some higher-level backup in case things go wrong.”
“Even for a starter dungeon?”
“Especially for a starter dungeon! Ya think folk are desperate to die or somethin’?”
I was apparently going to have to get used to how cautious people of this world were.
Not grinding for hours in a dungeon, especially one so easy, sounded insane to me, but…
well, I didn’t grow up in this world. I grew up in a world where this one was only a game.
These people grew up in this real world where most of them possibly knew someone who died even in the starter dungeons.
It made sense for them to be so much more cautious than me. Especially since they didn’t have tens of thousands of hours of fighting experience inherited by their reflexes.
What was absolutely trivial to me was a serious life-or-death battle to them, even against the easiest foes.
“Fair enough,” I said. “I’m used to treating dungeons like games, so I’ll have to get used to the culture here.”
Tabitha shrugged. “I’m not goin’ to tell ya not to go crazy in the dungeons if it means bringin’ me loot, but I ain’t gonna encourage it, either. I just don’t want to see my first customer in weeks go and get ‘imself killed.”
Part of me felt a little guilty coming to Tabitha, but that was only because I knew the truth.
She was an underappreciated, in-debt smith who was on the verge of getting her shop shut down in the game.
Her expertise was in crafting, not marketing.
But by exchanging enough money at her place—both buying from her and selling to her—and going on some quests for her, she became the best smith you could hire in the game with exclusive recipes not available anywhere else.
I wasn’t sure how selling things to her and getting her to pay the player helped her get out of debt, but it did.
And that wasn’t even getting into the fun stuff involving her future, such as a good few dungeons only being available by helping her.
“I won’t get myself killed,” I said. “I can promise that much.”
“Ya better,” Tabitha replied. “Now, go on. Show me what you’ve got.”
I held my hand out toward her and opened my status and tabbed over to the inventory to show it to her.
“That’s a whole lot of shell fragments,” Tabitha said, holding her chin as she looked through my inventory. “Hm? Some rare drops? Was this really your first day?”
“The first of many,” I answered.
“You even got the badge for clearin’ the dungeon… well, the boss’s tail there makes it obvious ya did that much. Well, I’ll be. My first customer in a while might be a bigshot in the future.”
“You trying to butter me up?”
“If it means turnin’ ya into a return customer, you bet!”
“I’ll be happy to sell you all the shells, but I want to turn those stingers into potions, and I’m saving the tail hide for armor.”
“You don’t want to get out of that starter wear with some shell armor?”
“What I’ve got is good enough, so I’d rather save the money from selling the shells for other things, like upgrading my sickle.”
“I’ll buy the shells at thirty copper a piece, and enhancement material for the sickle will be five silver each. I can enhance the sickle once from the shells, or if you sell me one of those stingers, I’ll enhance it three times.”
I had three stingers, so selling one of them wouldn’t be too big of a deal. The alchemy recipe I wanted to use them for put out three potions per stinger, so I’d still get six pretty good potions with them. Enhancing the sickle three times would also effectively double its damage. “Deal.”
Tabitha smirked and prepared the offer.
In exchange for all the shells and one stinger, she’d enhance my sickle three times, and it’d be available to pick up the next day.
I clicked on the accept prompt and saw the items disappear from my inventory. The leftover money that didn’t go into upgrading my sickle got added to my currency counter.
That meant I was officially up to four silver and fifteen copper.
I had a long way to go before getting up to 999,999,999,999 platinum, 99 gold, 99 silver, and 99 copper again.
Then again, I had no idea if that would even be possible in the real world without relying on the inherited items and money I already rejected.
That was probably more money than existed by a hundred times.
From what I knew of the worldbuilding, entire cities with elaborate castles and defenses and everything only cost a few hundred million platinum.
And yes, it was possible to oneshot every single boss in the game using that Pirate/Thief build that grew stronger the more money the character had in their inventory with that much money.
“Hey, crazy guy,” Tabitha said.
I got out of my thoughts and replied, “Yeah?”
“You’ve got potential.”
“I’ll be happy to prove you right.”
“Heh. So, I’m in a bit of a pinch, you see. How about this? Give me first dibs on anythin’ ya get from the dungeons, and I’ll make sure to always put your orders above everyone else’s. Be my supplier and I’ll be your smith.”
Tabitha had the confidence to make that sort of proposal despite there being no other customers to possibly get ahead of me in her work queue.
But I knew that would change in the future.
It sounded like a heavily one-sided deal in her favor, but I knew it’d be more in my favor down the line.
“Deal,” I said. It was what I was hoping for, anyways.
Tabitha thrust her hand toward me. “Let’s shake on it! Oh, hang on.” She took her dirty, leather glove off and then offered her hand again. “There we go.”
I took her hand and shook.
Tabitha, despite being a halfling who was even smaller than Frolin, had a way stronger grip. Seriously, Frolin’s shake was like shaking hands with a little kid while shaking hands with Tabitha reminded me of getting pinched by Seth.
“I’m lookin’ forward to our business partnership, partner!” Tabitha told me.
“Right back at you, partner,” I replied.
Now then, it was time to look around for a bit before heading over to Rosie’s.