“Conquerors?”
“Yes, didn’t you conquer the dungeon in Zuirya? Isn’t there a big fuss over there right now? Ah, my name is Herc. One of the representatives of Ale and Ironhammer, I guess.”
Says Herc with a grin.
He comes across like a kind old man, but his sharp eyes are looking this way like he’s observing us.
“Old man Herc, you’re going to scare us if you look at us like that.”
“What? Didn’t you also conquer the dungeon? Like you’d be scared so easily.”
Argo admonishes him, but he doesn’t care.
It’s a little uncomfortable, but not that bad. It just feels like he’s observing.
And I’m quickly proven right.
“Hm, nice equipment. Nice weapons too, but the armor doesn’t look that different from normal stuff. It’s the materials that are great! Where did you buy that? And are those accessories all magic items!?”
I’m surprised by what I hear.
This feels like it goes beyond him just having sharp eyes, so…
“Yes, I have Appraisal.”
He says casually before I reach the answer.
He just told his skill to a complete stranger…
“I got to see some nice things. It was worth it to catch Argo and ask him.”
Argo says they stopped by here yesterday, and were asked all sorts of things.
They talked about things like conquering that dungeon, the equipment they use, and the magic items we got in the dungeon.
Also, he says everyone in Avid knows he has the Appraisal skill. And that the number of Appraisal users in Ale and Ironhammer is in the double digits.
Some had it from the start, and some learned it while mining.
However, this Appraisal is limited to items, but he says a skill that can see the condition of items is very useful for a blacksmith.
Yes, I get that. I almost nod unconsciously.
If I act suspiciously, he might figure out I have Appraisal too.
“Wait, what did you ask?”
“Ah, he asked us what brought us to Avid, and when I said we wanted to check out equipment and you might go to the dungeon, he asked us to bring you here.”
“Exactly. Ah, it’s not like we see the others as rivals. Unlike other clans, ours isn’t competing. Some just see us as their rivals anyway.
We just worked for ourselves, and turned into one of the big five before we knew it. We just work for our own desires. Yes, to create the ultimate weapon with our own hands!”
Herc says it was just a simple group of blacksmiths at the start. But them being dwarves meant they were discriminated against in the empire.
This made it hard to get materials. Sometimes they would not sell them to them, sometimes they would for more than double the market price.
But just as the option to leave the empire was starting to become an inevitability, they reached the conclusion that they should source their own materials.
This is because the dungeon in Avid has high quality ore. They formed the Ale and Ironhammer party, which started with five dwarves. But more dwarves with the same ambitions gathered, they went to the dungeon together, polished their skills as blacksmiths, and gradually became famous.
With this, more and more humans and beast people were charmed by their weapons, and wanted to become their pupils, bringing us to the big clan that exists today.
Nowadays, they attract even foreigners who want to be their pupils.
“Hum, we’re getting off track. Why did you want us to come here?”
I say, correcting course.
They didn’t want us to come here just to see our weapons, right? Or was that just it?
“That’s right that’s right. I wanted you to come here to form a connection.”
“Connection?”
“Yes. If you want to conquer the dungeon, I would like it if you came to me first to sell materials of the third floor.”
“Don’t you go get them yourselves?”
“Of course, but there are places I can’t go. Especially since the third floor is more complex than the others.”
The third floor is a field type, with golems and water monsters.
We talked about this yesterday. This means the difficulty spikes.
But there are also materials… Ore that you can only get there.
“There are records of adamantite and orichalcum being found there. But in all my years mining, I’ve never found them.”
Herc sounds frustrated. Surely a blacksmith would be happy to have such precious ore.
And then, Herc might be able to create the ultimate weapon that would satisfy him.
“Hum, we’ll sell it if we find a lot of it. I also make weapons, so only if I have enough to spare.”
I can’t make any promises, but if I want to sell it, I’ll come to Herc.
He’s very happy to hear that, looking like a kid.
Then he looks at our equipment, and energetically gives us his thoughts on it.
Hikari and the others get bored midway through and leave, but he doesn’t let me go until he’s done. The sun has set completely by the time I get back.
Thanks for the treat.