by Sakon Kaidou
“You need materials for custom-made items?” I asked.
“If you seek apparel that reaches supreme heights in its splendor, you must be willing to part with elements common folk cannot procure, some so precious that not even the weavers of finest cloth have them in store.”
She had basically just said, “Craftsmen sometimes don’t have the material for high-level gear,” which was completely right. Most Pure-Dragon-tier material couldn’t be found on the market, and if it somehow got there, it’d be really expensive.
It didn’t mean much to me, though. I couldn’t equip any of that fancy gear at my level, so there was no point in gunning for it, even if I had the money.
If there was one thing to take from this, it was that it was standard to bring your own material when ordering a custom-made item.
Side note: UBM MVP special rewards were sometimes materials which had to be used by craftsmen to become something useful.
“How troubling it is that you are aesthetically complete,” said Juliet.
“Ray,” said Nemesis, “what did she just say?”
“‘Your set is so perfect that there’s really no point in ordering any custom-made items...’”
“THIS is your idea of perfection?!”
◇
Yeah, that was the conversation Juliet and I’d had.
Since then, I’d lost the spiky gear and instead gotten a black coat and armor of fire and darkness, so I was beginning to feel like my personal fashion was converging on the darker side.
“...Really? ‘On the darker side’? Is that the extent of what you think of the disaster that is your equipment?” asked Nemesis.
“I see your point. This gear would let me be the star of a dark overlord fashion show,” I said.
Deafening. Silence.
“I’m cracking a joke here. How about a reaction? At least boo me if it’s that bad.”
“You said nothing but the truth. I had no comment whatsoever.”
Anyway, this “dark overlord” gear of mine couldn’t really be replaced.
The three MVP special rewards were closely linked to my fighting style, while the VDA I had as my upper body armor was both really good and a gift from B3. Therefore, the only open slots I had were lower body armor, headgear, and accessories.
I noticed that Nemesis looked somewhat pensive.
“What now?” I asked.
“...Nothing,” she replied.
“Hm?”
Oh well, I thought as I went back to considering my gear.
In my hand, I held the shining material — the metal particles — I’d gotten from the whale.
I could get some lower body armor, but the result would be plate mail, and thus would probably make it harder to move around. Besides that, I had headgear and accessories... but then I decided to just ask the craftsman about my options.
In the store, I met the same person who’d recommended I have something crafted using the powder, and he gave me a list of items they could craft from it. Apparently, Countess Quartierlatin had given him some of it, too, and they were in the process of investigating its properties and uses.
The powder turned out to be really easy to work with, and it could be used to make various pieces of high-quality equipment. It must’ve been one of the reasons why the whale regenerated so quickly.
As I looked through the relatively small list, I saw an “Anti-Poison Oxygen Mask.”
“This one’s good,” I said.
It counted as an accessory, and once equipped, it provided a flow of clean air.
I really needed something like it for whenever I used Hellish Miasma or flew around on Silver.
Besides, its name was “Storm Visage,” which sounded crazy cool to me.
I’d clearly found what I was looking for, so I wrote it down on the order form.
There was a section for the design, too, but since the designs I thought were good didn’t sit right with Nemesis, I decided to respect her and not think about it myself.
Instead, I just wrote down, “Please make it match my current set.”
This was the kind of thing best left to the pros! Nemesis would surely be glad I took this route.
“Hey,” Nemesis spoke up. “A chill just went down my spine. Did you write something strange on that form?”
“Hey, it’s all good,” I said. “It’s nothing for you to worry about.”
“I certainly hope so...”
Anyway, that ended my first order of a custom-made item.
I can’t wait until it’s done!
◇
After ordering the Storm Visage, I went to the adventurer’s guild to pick up a quest.
Quartierlatin’s adventurers’ guild was away from both the ruins and the town center that Logan targeted, so it hadn’t suffered any damage in the attacks, and was functioning as normal.
Scratch that — it wasn’t normal, since you had way more Masters and tians looking for quests through the catalogs than usual.
It looked like many people had rushed over to Quartierlatin to help.
Azurite had told me that at first, she’d banned the adventurers’ guilds from spreading any info about the ruins, in order to keep the Masters away. Because of this, the only ones who’d come were those who’d gotten the info some other way, like I had through the DIN.
But the ban was now lifted, so you now had people from all across the kingdom coming here on or for quests.
“All right, let’s see what quests we have today,” I said as we sat down at a table that’d just opened up.
However, there was someone else who sat down at it.
“Hm?”
“Oh?”
Well, it’s crowded, anyway. Might as well share, I thought as I looked at his face.
“...Hm?” I said.
He looked familiar.
It was a guy with a bandana on his head. Where had I seen it before?
“Y-You’re Ray Starling the Unbreakable!” he suddenly raised his voice.
Oh, so we did meet before, I thought. Wait, no. I’m weirdly famous, so I can’t be sure about that. Back in Torne, some PK clan even tried to beat me to make a name for themselves and—
“AH!”
It came back to me! This bandana guy is...!
“The leader of Sol Crisis!” I shouted as I stood up from my chair.
“Shh! Shh! Don’t mention that clan!” he put his finger in front of his mouth and signed for me to be quiet, then looked around in a panic. The guild was so crowded and noisy that no one noticed what was going on here.
“Are you still after Ray?” asked Nemesis menacingly.
Last time, B3 had handled Sol Crisis because they were using her name, but honestly, if there were PKers going after me, it was only fair that I would be the one to take them on.
“No no no no! I’m not plannin’ on messin’ with ya anymore!” He lightly waved his hands in front of him and asked me to calm down.
“Why would a PK clan come here, then?” I asked. “Are you plotting something? Like you did in Torne?”
“I’m not! I’m just here to quest, man! And I’m not in a PK clan anymore. Not Sol Crisis.”
“Hm?”
As I wondered what he meant, he became dispirited and slumped down in his chair. He looked really down, and his shabby gear didn’t help at all.
Even I, an ex-enemy, was kinda worried about him.
“...What happened?” I asked.
He hesitated for a moment, then began talking, saying, “The clan collapsed after the real deal kicked our asses back in Torne.”
I said nothing, but I could see why that had happened.
The clan had gathered members by stealing the authority of a major player killer: B3, AKA Barbaroy Bad Burn.
It was only natural that they’d get many quitters after they learned that their Barbaroy was a fake and the real one had come in to beat them up.
They’d probably also thought that she’d come after them again if they stayed.
“The guys also put us to sleep and used Steal and Plunder to take all of our stuff...” he added.
“Ouch...” Nemesis and I said in unison.
So that was why his gear is different than it was in Torne, I thought.
“Vermin... the guy who faked Barbaroy and the other founding member besides us... ran away before that happened to him. Blue and I stayed and tried to get the clan back up, but the aggro of the guys we tricked went all on us...”
I didn’t know what to say to that. It was their own fault for faking B3, but I also felt kinda bad for him.
“We couldn’t use ‘Sol Crisis’ anymore, so we changed it to ‘Rising Sun,’” he continued. “It’s just me and Blue, though, so it’s barely even a clan, really.”
So that was what he’d meant by, “Not Sol Crisis.”
“And ‘Blue’ is...?” I asked.
“Blue Screen. The guy who shut down your Prism Steed replica back in Torne.”
Oh, him, I thought. Silver’s not a replica, though.
“Sorry ’bout that, by the way,” he added as he suddenly bowed to me. “I was in a PK clan, so I’m not gonna say sorry for trying to PK ya, but now I think we should’ve picked a better time for that. You beat the UBM, didn’t ya?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. The Black Warcoat I was wearing was all the proof I needed to show that I’d killed the UBM that’d attacked Torne — Void of the Black Sky, Monochrome.
“I didn’t think anyone could do that, and went after ya ’cause it seemed like the perfect chance... but you actually did it. In the end, we just got in your way and got flattened by Barbaroy. So damn stupid.”
Once again, I had no words. Unlike Azurite, I didn’t have the Truth Discernment skill, but the self-derisive, sad-looking smile seemed pretty genuine to me.
Maybe he’s not a bad guy at heart, I thought.
“So why did you come here, anyway?” asked Nemesis.
“I’m just looking for jobs. We’ve got no gear, gold, or people besides me and Blue, so we need ways to get money that don’t ask for much.”
Well, there are tons of quests in Quartierlatin, so you can make some decent money here, I thought.
“But if you’re here, then we’ll just go somewhere else. You probably couldn’t relax with us here,” he said as he stood up and prepared to leave the guild. “I’m out.”
I stopped him by saying, “You don’t need to be considerate of me.”
“What?”
“You apologized, and honestly, that’s enough for me.”
“...You sure?”
“Yeah. You’ve already had it pretty rough, and it’s not like your getting in my way back in Torne resulted in something that couldn’t be undone.”
I’d made it in time to save Louie, and we hadn’t gotten any major increases in casualties, so with the apology, it was all water under the bridge.
“...Thanks.” Dum-Dum, the ex-leader of Sol Crisis and current leader of Rising Sun, bowed to me once again.
“Still, I don’t know what B3 will think, so you should talk to her,” I added. “I’ll say something to her, too.”
“Yeah. Thanks again. You tell me if Vermin or someone else starts bothering you again.”
“Sure. I hope that doesn’t happen, though.”
And just like that, the minor conflict between us, born back in Torne, reached a peaceful conclusion.
Shortly after that, Dum-Dum found a quest that suited him and accepted it.
After he left, Nemesis and I looked through the quest list for any good ones, but then one of the guild’s workers called us. She said that someone important was calling me and asked me to come to a certain room here in the guild. I could only think of two “important” people that could call me in this town, and sure enough, I came into the room to find one of them — a familiar masked lady.
It was none other than the first princess of Altar, Altimia Azurite Altar.
“Still wearing that mask?” I asked.
“Many outsiders gather in this facility, after all. And why does it feel as though you always talk about my mask before you even greet me?” she replied, slightly annoyed.
“I heard you needed me?”
“Yes. To be specific, I need your connections.”
Connections?
“I assume you heard that the kingdom resumed the investigations into the ruins after the chaos surrounding them died down?” she asked.
“Of course.”
The quests in Quartierlatin that had appeared after the incident could be put into three groups: material gathering for rebuilding, monster hunting until the local knight order recovered and could take it over again, and ruin investigation.
They were all backed by Countess Quartierlatin and the kingdom itself, so the rewards were generally higher than usual. However, the ruin investigation quests had ended yesterday, and I hadn’t seen a single one of them today.
“Aren’t you done with ruins investigation?” asked Nemesis.
“We have finished exploring the interior, at least,” Azurite replied.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Simply put, we are done exploring it as a standard dungeon, but the investigations are going nowhere.”
According to her, they’d shifted from mere exploration to trying to figure out what they could do with the technology.
“But as things are now, Altar does not have any people capable of that.”
“I see.”
For that, you needed people with jobs and skills related to machines, but due to the inherent nature of the countries, most of them were in either Dryfe or Granvaloa — certainly not Altar.
Some had taken the machine-related jobs available at the crystal in the ruins here, but their level was still low, so they couldn’t be useful for this.
“We could hire outsiders, but that would be careless,” added Azurite.
Of course it would be, I thought.
The ruins were a classified matter — one serious enough to cause Dryfe to get involved. Altar clearly couldn’t just hire anyone who didn’t serve the country’s interests.
“I can only entrust this matter to someone who is both trustworthy and has knowledge of machines, or someone who is vouched for by someone I trust,” she said.
“And so you’re asking if I know someone like that?”
“Yes. Does anyone come to mind?”
“Hm...”
There was one person who came to mind before anyone else. However, he wasn’t here, couldn’t come here, and I couldn’t let him take this.
The second person who came to mind was Shu, but while his Embryo, Baldr, was very mechanical, it didn’t mean that he was fit for the job. In fact, I could totally imagine him somehow destroying the ruins.
The third person who came to mind was B3. She was well-informed and surely knew more people than me. I felt like she could find the perfect solution to this problem.
“I know someone who’s very knowledgeable,” I said. “I’ll ask her.”
“I see. Is she trustworthy?” Azurite asked.
“Of course.”
She’d easily make the top five people I trusted the most.
“She said she’s coming here tomorro— I mean, in three days. You can talk to her yourself.”
“Good idea. I will still be here in Quartierlatin, so I’ll meet her.”
Thus, I arranged a meeting between B3 and Azurite.
“Is it really a good idea to let them meet?” asked Nemesis telepathically.
Huh? They’re both the diligent type, so I’m sure they’ll get along, I replied. They both have a thing for hiding their faces, too.
“You are no different, no?”
Having just ordered the Storm Visage, I really couldn’t deny that.
Once Azurite and I were done talking, I picked up a quest, left the guild, and walked through Quartierlatin.
The restoration efforts were going well, but many buildings were still damaged, and the trees and f
lowers that distinguished this town from the rest were still a huge mess.
Those were the scars of the recent incident, and they reminded me of how Gideon had looked after Franklin’s Game.
“Hm...” I murmured.
Remembering that made me think of a certain someone. He was a friend I’d faced twice — once at the gate, and again atop Franklin’s Embryo.
“Someone trustworthy who knows a lot about machines, huh...?” I added to myself.
It was the first person who’d come to mind when Azurite asked me.
“What’s Hugo up to these days?” I wondered. I hadn’t seen him since our final clash in Gideon. Over a month had passed since, so I couldn’t help but wonder what he was doing now...
Pallid Pages Part One: Spin the Roulette Wheel
Late March 2045, City-State Union of Caldina, Hermine the City of Gambling
It was late March, about a week after the incident in Gideon.
The location was Caldina, the country almost completely covered in desert and dry wasteland.
The dry areas of old had become deserts, while the dry areas that had become deserts just a few centuries ago were now wastelands.
The few areas that were neither were either oases or fertile lands surrounding the rivers flowing from the Harshwinter Mountains to the north, and most Caldinian cities were built around these.
Hermine the City of Gambling was one of them. It was built around an oasis. Like its title implied, it had an entire district focused on the gambling industry.
Masters often compared it to the likes of Las Vegas.
One notable thing about the casinos and other gambling houses here was that they all differed depending on which organization was funding them.
Caldina was a place where merchants and organizations from all the other countries gathered to do business, and the casinos funded by them often had an air similar to their homelands.
The more elegant-looking casinos were often funded by Altarian merchants, while the ones that had a heavy focus on entertainment value were built by Legendarian design.
Then you had the ones that those from Earth would call “Asian-looking.” The serpentine dragons on them clearly showed that they were built with Huang He in mind.
On one of them, there was a sign which translated to something along the lines of “Mirage.”