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CH.347 Cailie’s HomeBase Job
CH.347 Cailie’s HomeBase Job
Another day brought with it its own fun things to do. Firstly, I decided to join Ria, Unika, Cina and Molly for their morning exercise. I knew Cina and Molly went on a morning run every day, but I didn’t know that Unika had decided to join them. And I think at first Ria was just keeping an eye on the horse-folk girls while they ran, but she was probably bored or something and decided to join in herself. And now Unika, and her two iron foxes, had also joined the morning run club. And I guess for today I did as well.
While the morning run, well, it was more like a jog to me because of my stats and keeping pace with the horse-folk, was somewhat fun, but I still don’t think I will keep running with them every morning. A few times a week might be a different thing though.
And keeping up with Ria… that is difficult. She is as fast as anything. And that is despite me being a lot higher level than she is, as she is still LV.99. Actually, I should just show you her stats, since it has been a while.
Ria, just like the rest of us, has been leveling herself up slower. But she has been using Level Up! every now and then. Just a shame she still has her Card Summoner at LV.2. Maybe I should tell her to use that skill more so she can get it to LV.3 and get the deck feature. I should also take some of the new people to TinaWood and have them attempt the challenge rooms. Maybe they can get lucky and get Card Summoner.
I almost wish I could just give that skill to people. I mean, I have a Chaos God Dungeon. Why can’t I use it to make something like Skill Orbs? Or maybe a Skill Orb for an extra skill would be impossible? I wonder if the Sage’s tower knows how they are made? If I recall correctly, the Great Sage Arcadia was able to make Skill Orbs, so they might have the knowledge on how they are made.
Weren’t they also something you could get from the Castle Dungeon in the Hero’s country? Skill Orbs, I mean. I feel like someone said you could get them from there. I really should have checked that dungeon out and copied everything it can make to the Chaos God Dungeon catalog. Well, there is always next time. And next time, maybe we will go exploring in that dungeon. That could be fun.
After the morning exercise and then breakfast, I took Cailie to the new farm floor of HomeBase. You couldn’t yet get there without Agunan or I teleporting you there, well you could if you could get inside the dungeon part, but you can’t get there from the Citadel part, so effectively there is no way to get to the farm floor without teleportation. But I am working on a teleportation gate that will lead there.
And of course the reason I took Cailie here was because I wished she’d take over as the person in charge of all of these crops. And no, she wasn’t going to do it alone.
“So, what do you think? Do you think you can do it?” I asked Cailie.
“... it is… massive. I think it is a bit much for one person.” Cailie said.
“Who said you will do it alone? Let me introduce you to the Aromage squad.” I told her, as I teleported four monsters in avatar dolls to the floor. “Say hello to Jasmine, Cananga, Rosemary and Bergamot.”
“H-Hello.” Cailie carefully greeted the squad.
“So, what do you think? Do you think you can take the position as someone who oversees these fields?” I asked.
“... I … I’m not sure. I can try. But I’m still not sure if five people will be enough.”
“Don’t worry. I can give you more avatar dolls if you need them. I can also send Molly and Cina to work here. I just want you to be the one in charge. Is that fine?”
“... I’ll … I’ll do my best.” Cailie said.
“That is all I’m asking for.” I reassured her. “Also, I have this for you.” I gave Cailie something fun I quickly put together. It was basically a hand microphone that would amplify her voice if she spoke into it. It was still a prototype, as I wasn’t sure if it could carry that Charming Voice skill, but if it cannot, I’ll try to make one that can.
I explained as much to Cailie and she gracefully accepted her new gift. Even if I did hear her muttering about how I’m constantly giving her stuff. … which, to be fair, is true. But most of it is stuff that she actually needs. Sure the floating ‘wheelchair’ is a bit extra, but it will help Cailie a lot, and it is just better than one with actual wheels in every way. Except mana use, but that isn’t a major problem. Even if we max out the mana use of everything that feeds off of HomeBase’s mana flowers, we would still use only 25% of the produced mana. And even if we somehow used more, I could always plant more mana flowers.
For the afternoon, other than my practice time, I had two other things I wanted to do.
One. I was going to finish the evolution tanks. Einar and Eline were both getting close to 40, and while I’d usually say that there is no way they will evolve, Mariina did say that it is a lot more common for beast-folk to evolve multiple times. Because of that, I had Laura check for it with the System and the info is true, so there is a decent chance that Einar, Eline or both of them will evolve at LV.40. The only reason Laura wasn’t sure was because both of them still had their Racial skill at LV.1, so that might limit their ability to Racially evolve. They might have to rely on a Class-type evolution. Maybe I can still fix it if I focus their Level Ups on their Racial skill until they reach that LV.40 mark.
The other thing I did was visit the workshop. Ever since I worked on that letter opening knife with Wilma, I’ve kind of wanted to do some more work there. It is something that requires strength control, accuracy and patience, so it is something that works kind of as training. And I could potentially gain a new skill if I keep working there, so perhaps doing so wouldn’t be the worst thing.
There was also something Wilma had wanted to do for a while, but she’d need me, Lua or Ria to help with it, so she hadn’t been able to yet. And that was working with Blood Iron or Vampiric Steel. Sure putting a Vampire monster in an avatar doll was an option, but I just haven’t put any of them on shift yet, because the standard avatar dolls aren’t really liked by the Vampires. And I haven't made any Zombie-monster dedicated avatar dolls yet.
So yeah. For those reasons, I was now at the forge with Vampire Scarlet Scourge summoned.
Wilma, Karl and I were going to turn some steel into vampiric steel, and then we will use that to make some tools. Some gardening tools to be specific. I mean, I just made huge fields, so I should have some hoes, sickles, scythes, forks and so on. Sure we don’t really need them because magic, but it will still be nice to have some. And I just feel like building a garden shed. And what is the point in having a garden shed if it has no tools?
Today our focus was just on getting the vampiric steel made, and then some other time it would be turned into usable tools. And making vampiric steel involved a lot of hammering, so it was good for me. … not in that way, you weirdo. Hammering the metal, because we had to fold it on itself with high quality blood between the folds. It was of course dragon blood, as that is what I tend to use. Sure I feel just a bit bad for Tyrant Dragon, as he is my usual subject when I need blood, but at the same time, he did win a mountain in the Factory for his service, so … okay, maybe I still owe him something more. Maybe some Dragon Treasure will do? Or perhaps he wants A Wingbeat of Giant Dragon? I’ll ask the dragon later.
Our work rhythm was quite interesting. At first, Wilma was in charge, meaning that she held our piece of metal with some tongs, and she also had a tool she used to show where Karl and I were supposed to hit with sledge hammers. It was somewhat similar to what I did with Wilma earlier, but this time there were two of us with the hammers, so it went quite a bit faster.
Eventually we switched over so that Karl was in charge and Wilma and I used the sledges. I decided to never take the ‘in charge’ role, as it was the one where you needed to know the most. I was happy just swinging the hammer.
By the end of the day, or more like when I decided we had done enough because the two dwarves were more than happy to keep going, we had turned ten ingots from steel to vampiric steel.
After smithing, it was time to wash up. And I made a spa with a sauna, so I was going to enjoy it. It was actually quite rare for me to have company in the sauna, as HomeBase has quite a skewed male to female ratio, so the male sauna was often empty. The times I had company when I was in the sauna in my own room with Alice, Lua or both of them.
But today I went there with Karl, so he was able to get some one-on-one discussion time with me. Or maybe I got some with him.
This resulted in me asking about Karl’s dreams, and he didn’t have many of them. He did have one though. He wanted to prove his skills to the people who kicked him out after that blade theft scandal, but that was it. At least that is what he said.
It was actually quite the simple goal and Karl could probably achieve it quite easily. I mean, thanks to being on HomeBase, he can get access to rare materials like vampiric steel, so if he makes a sword out of that, he could quickly get back a lot of the fame he lost.
At the very least it is a lot more simple than what Wilma was aiming for.
In the evening, Alice also returned to HomeBase and she had some news.
“I think the United States are spreading the illegal slave mark.” Alice said. “The areas they are wanting to join are the ones where it is most commonly used, so I think they are paying people to go there and use that mark. Then the States come offering protection from these slavers, if you join.”
“... that … I want to say they wouldn’t do that, but that does make some sense.” I admitted.
“It isn’t something I’m sure about yet, but it does seem to be what makes the most sense. I’ll try to get to somewhere where I can look into the laws of the States starting tomorrow, but from the little I’ve been able to gather, the mark isn’t illegal in the States.” Alice added. “With my A-rank guild card, and me being a child of a noble, I think I can do it. But just in case, Brian, do you think you could get me some of those unique fabrics from TinaWood? I might be able to use them to gain favor.”
“Sure. I’ll make you some.” I agreed to Alice’s request. In truth, I’d almost forgotten that you can’t really get tricot and denim from anywhere but TinaWood. Even the cotton there is a bit different from the one commonly available, but the two others are more rare.
“... why do humans have to be causing problems?” I complained a bit after I had gotten the fabrics for Alice.
“Actually, the ‘President’ of the States is an elf, I think.” Alice said. “President is the term they use for the King, by the way.” Alice then explained something that I already knew. I mean, they even use President as a term for things like Company President.
“I see. So an elf. Didn’t think elves would do something like that. I mean, they are even enslaving other elves.” I commented.
“There are those that don’t care about their own race, as long as they get power.” Lua pointed out.
“... Should we step in?” Alice asked.
“Probably not. Is it really our business?” I asked.
“I mean, we could stop people from dying.”
“True. But again, is it really our business? Stopping the slave trade should be enough to where the States might have to turn into actually waging war. And from there, we can maybe help if the smaller countries ask for our help, but until that happens, we should stay out of it, or we will involve the three kingdoms, or at least Ruiso kingdom. We might start an even larger war against the States.” I reasoned.
“But you could easily stop it, right?” Alice asked.
“Yeah. By slaughtering the entire army of the States. Mass murder isn’t really something good, so I’d prefer not to do that. Let’s just stop the slave trade for now, and see what happens.” I told Alice. “If a war does break out, maybe just a show of force can stop it.”
I know I said that, but for some reason, it felt like wishful thinking. Considering that this ‘President’ of the States might be willing to use a slave mark that can literally kill the person it is drawn on, he may not have any morals at all. And he might not care even if I threaten him with a small army of dragons.
But I’ll hold on hope that he isn’t a complete moron and will actually see the truth.