Evil Avalon - Volume 2 - Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Granny’s Goods

“Horns?!” blurted Kano. “Wait, she’s not human?”

The woman with remarkably large breasts smiled and answered Kano’s question, “I’m what you’d call a fiend.”

Two large curved black horns sprouted from the sides of her forehead. Her name was Furufuru, which she’d reveal to players after they’d completed a quest in the depths of the dungeon and befriended her. All the gamers loved her. Despite her delicate, seductive appearance, she was over a thousand years old. She was essentially a wise old lady who would answer any questions about the dungeon. Players had nicknamed her Granny, but she would blast away those foolish enough to use that name within an earshot of her with a near fatal punch.

Fiends running shops weren’t unusual in DEC, and members of other races had occasionally helped adventurers. I hadn’t found any record of these nonhumans, but Furufuru was here, which reassured me. For that reason, I wanted our relationship to have a good start.

“Would you mind showing us what you have for sale?” I asked.

“Be my guest,” replied Furufuru. “Take a look around inside.”

This whole place was tranquil. No other adventurer was present in the shop, the square outside, or anywhere in the hidden area. And yet, the shelves contained rows of various items, from weapons and armor to accessories and medicines. This store stocked a better selection than most of the shops in the Adventurers’ Guild. Furufuru clearly wasn’t in it to make a profit, but I also knew she wouldn’t haggle on the prices.

Kano picked up a shortsword that gleamed with a dull silver light and showed it to me. “Oh my God, is this mithril? Awesome!”

“It’s a mithril alloy,” I corrected her.

Mithril, also known as magical silver, was a metal that was incredibly strong within a magic field. Outside one, it was as soft as regular silver. And so, its users had to consider that weapons made from it could turn into weak, heavy lumps of metal.

The alloy came from adding a tiny amount of mithril to regular silver to create something stronger than even steel. Adventurers within levels 10 to 30 frequently used mithril-alloy equipment.

My sister had picked a shortsword of such material, though the mithril content was no more than one percent, as the rest was silver. But silver wasn’t cheap since a small weapon like this would cost over a million yen at the Adventurers’ Guild.

You could also get equipment made from one hundred percent pure mithril. These were incredibly strong, light enough to float in water, and resistant to magic, so they were fantastic to use for magic swords and magic-resistant armor. The downside was that they were both difficult and expensive to acquire, with auction prices going through the roof.

While Kano stood mesmerized at the shortsword, I requested treatment for my status impairments. The store sold medicines that would get the job done, but getting Furufuru to use her healing magic on me was cheaper.

“I can get rid of your status impairments for, let’s see... How about three lir?” mused Furufuru.

“Deal,” I said. “Here you go.”

Lir was the unit of the dungeon currency. One copper dungeon coin equaled one lir. We currently had 138 lir from our thirty-eight copper coins and the gold coin the seventh floor skeleton lord had dropped.

Furufuru clapped in front of my eyes, then the swelling on my body subsided as I regained sensation in my legs. The woman narrowed her golden eyes and looked over my body to check the healing had worked, and she drew her head back. The first healing spell must not have worked, so she placed her index finger on my forehead and channeled magic into me. My vision gradually cleared up, even though I hadn’t been aware of that issue before.

“You’ve put yourself through quite the ordeal,” she remarked. “The second spell is on the house.”

“Thank you very much,” I said. “We had to fight an...unusual enemy.” I had to stop myself from going on a tirade about the mysterious skeleton we’d fought. What the hell was it doing there anyway?

I rotated my arm to test its motion, and it was back to normal. My body felt surprisingly light, yet it was nothing like that. All the food I’d eaten had puffed me back up, and I was almost as big as I’d been before the fight.

“I’d also like to change jobs, if that’s okay,” I said.

“Go ahead and use the crystal ball I’ve got in the back room,” responded Furufuru.

“Me too!” interrupted Kano, gliding over to us carrying the equipment she’d grabbed from the shelf. “I wanna change jobs too!”

Job changes allowed you to learn new skills, which expanded your tactical opportunities during combat. People from this world saw obtaining your first job as proof that you were a true adventurer, and Kano was excited to make that leap.

“So this is the job-change crystal ball? It doesn’t look particularly special,” said Kano.

A transparent crystal ball about fifteen centimeters in diameter sat atop several layers of cloth. In the game, touching the ball summoned an interface, but I wondered how it would work here.

I gently pressed my hand against the ball and saw a mental interface appear in my mind. It was like when I did mental math, imagining the numbers in my head.

It is hard to keep up with, I thought.

Reading the interface was difficult because I couldn’t compare the stats of different jobs. It would have been much easier if all the data were on a computer screen to examine the numbers and consider my options. I figured I’d better copy the numbers down on paper or my terminal to use that instead.

“My level is...19?!” I exclaimed. “It’s gone up a lot. Wait, so that skeleton was around level 25?”

“What?!” said Kano, gasping. “So you’ve gone up eleven levels! What was a monster like that doing on the seventh floor?”

“Beats me.”

I continued sifting through the interface and eventually found the job change menu.

There were three jobs I could change to: the basic jobs of Fighter, Caster, or Thief. The requirements to change into these were to have a job level of 5 in the Newbie job and to have high enough values for specific stats. Fighters needed at least 20 strength, Casters 20 intelligence, and Thieves 20 agility. Kano and I were level 19, so we had cleared the stats requirements for all three.

“Which one are you gonna pick, bro?” asked Kano.

“Let’s see. I planned to go for a Thief job and get the Fake skill that lets you forge your stats... But we got here sooner than expected, which gives us some wiggle room. I might take the Caster job first and learn some magical attacks.”

We’d soon have to face monsters that could reduce or nullify physical damage, making it essential to have means of inflicting nonphysical damage. There were elemental weapons infused with magic in this world that could do that, though a select few adventurers treated the currently known ones as national treasures and hoarded them. We couldn’t get our hands on one, even if we had the money.

“Kotarou uses an elemental weapon, right?” asked Kano.

“I think so,” I replied. “The red effect it has is a flame enchantment.”

Kotarou Tasato, the leader of the Colors Clan, wielded a sword infused with magic that classified it as one of the greatest treasures in Japan. Only a few ways to get an elemental weapon on the first thirty dungeon floors existed, so they were valuable.

“Monsters impervious to physical damage were why people stopped using firearms in the dungeon, right?” inquired Kano.

“Yep. Thanks to wraiths and slimes.”

At the dawn of the adventuring age, when dungeons had first appeared in the early Showa era, the primary weapons for raiding had been bayoneted rifles. Like in my previous world, firearms were the most effective weapons in close-quarters combat, showing how a swordsman was no match against a machine gun. This world also had guns, and they’d been a safer option for hunting monsters. For example, picking off an orc from afar was safer than running up with a sword.

So why didn’t adventurers use guns? After the tenth floor, some monsters could reduce or nullify projectile damage. You could try to plan your raid to avoid some of them, but you needed to deal with others such as floor bosses. A raid would stall if you only had physical attacks. In fact, the first raids hadn’t pushed past the fifteenth floor.

The benefits of your physical enhancements from leveling up and changing jobs wouldn’t be visible if you used guns since there weren’t any skills related to them. However, monsters became stronger, quicker, and more resistant to various kinds of damage the farther you descended the dungeon, and they’d begin using powerful attacks against you. Kano and I could have sprayed Volgemurt with bullets, and he would’ve taken barely any damage. Although guns were fine to raid the early floors, it was best to train with a weapon and get weapon skills or learn how to use magic. You might initially be weaker, but you would ensure greater strength in the long run.

Plus, the first ten floors pack many adventurers that you might hit if you fired a gun, I thought.

As such, it would be best if Kano, I, or the both of us, learned some magic.

Other than magical attacks, I wanted the essential skills of Fake and Detect Traps I from the Thief job. Also, I would have liked Backstep and Plus Three Skill Slots from the Fighter job.

“Can you change jobs as often as you want?” wondered Kano.

“You can,” I replied. “But your job level gets reset each time.”

Despite the ability to change jobs indefinitely, your job level returned to level 1, and you lost your status bonuses*. That wasn’t a problem because you could raise your job level again. The most common reason for reverting to a previous job was to reacquire its skills and bonuses.

*TIPS: Status bonuses scale linearly with job level, with the player achieving the full bonus at level 10. For example, a Fighter with a job level of 10 will receive the full bonus of a ten percent increase in their HP and strength. But a player with that role at a job level of 1 will only receive a one percent increase to these stats.

I explained to Kano the skills and benefits* of each of the three jobs.

*TIPS: Data for the three basic jobs.

(Fighter)

Ten percent bonus to strength and HP.

Slash: Available at job level (JL) 2. Requires a single-handed or two-handed sword.

Max HP Increase I: Available at JL 4.

Full Swing: Available at JL 5. Requires a single-handed or two-handed axe.

Backstep: Available at JL 7.

Plus Three Skill Slots: Available at JL 9.

Sword Mastery I: Available at JL 10. Increases attack power and combo power when wielding a single-handed weapon.

(Thief)

Fifteen percent bonus to agility.

Fake: Available at JL 2. Falsifies stats when appraised by other players.

Stealth: Available at JL 3. Reduces the likelihood of detection by monsters.

Double Sting: Available at JL 5. Requires a shortsword. Initiates two attacks.

Power Shot: Available at JL 7. Requires a bow. Depletes stock of arrows.

Lockpicking I: Available at JL 9. Opens basic locks.

Detect Traps I: Available at JL 10. Detects basic traps.

(Caster)

Ten percent bonus to MP and intelligence.

Fire Arrow: Available at JL 2. A fire-affinity skill that conjures an arrow of flames several centimeters long.

Restoration: Available at JL 3.

Ice Lance: Available at JL 4. A water-affinity skill that conjures a lance made of ice.

Cure: Available at JL 6. Heals status impairments.

Wing Guard: A wind-affinity spell that increases defense against long-range attacks.

Meditation: Available at JL 10. MP regenerates while the skill is active.

“So, I’d like to try Caster first to shoot some spells. Can I still use Dual Wielding while casting magic?” said Kano.

“Yep, you can do both. Just be mindful of how you use your weapons so they don’t get in the way when you’re casting magic.”

Besides magical attacks, the Caster job also had the skill to heal simple status impairments, which was why every party should have at least one. It was a great skill if you had room in your skill slots.

“In that case,” I said, “I’ll go for either Fighter or Thief.”

The Fighter job came with various skills, mainly for close combat, with the most significant being Plus Three Skill Slots. I was determined to get this one. Seeing that Backstep was a skill that helped you dodge attacks by retreating seemed useful. Moreover, it allowed you to cancel other skills and attacks you were partway performing, a state that would otherwise leave you vulnerable to enemy attacks. Such skills were great during fights against other players and certain powerful monsters. Backstep was amazing until you were a high enough level to learn the Sway skill, which was an improved version.

Although the Fighter job would have given me the best benefits during combat, I chose to learn the Fake skill from the Thief job first to help conceal my stats. The other useful Thief skill was Detect Traps I, which eliminated the risks of falling victims to traps. But a party would only need one member with this ability.

“Guess I’ll become a Thief first,” I said.

I gently rested my hand on the crystal ball and closed my eyes. Number sequences formed and flooded my mind.