The Runesmith

Roland’s journey back up was mostly uneventful. The monsters at the lower levels were far too weak and his new ‘partner’ was actually being helpful. Any monster that he slew the young man was able to disassemble quite fast. He was also good at pointing out which monster parts would sell for the most coins.

There was only one downside to this as it took him more time to return. Which left Roland prompting him to hurry it up. When the two survivors were out it was already late at night. The adventurer’s guild wasn’t something that was open 24/7, mostly closing at about 10 pm. It seemed that he would have to return tomorrow to make his report.

The biggest problem was this half-dwarf that was following him around. He had a strange submissive look on his face whenever Roland looked his way. Whenever he praised him for giving him some valuable market information or about the monster parts he seemed ecstatic. It was as if the man had never been validated in his life before.

But now they were out of the dungeon he could just meet up with the guy on the next day. There wasn’t really a need to have the half-dwarf testify with him. He was mostly doing it for peace of mind, the adventurers that died could have families. They might have wished to know what happened to their dead relatives.

Roland was unfamiliar with them so the explanation would be left up to the half-dwarf. There was also the info about the rare golem that could be actually sold for money which he was aiming for. This and him slaying it could help him get through the silver rank quest if his new friend confirmed his story.

“Bernie was it? I guess I’ll see you at the adventurer’s guild tomorrow.”

“It’s Bernir… but sure thing Sir. Wayland!”

“Stop calling me Sir, I’m not a knight…”

Roland continued walking as they passed the dungeon guards. They wouldn’t really care about the report as that wasn’t their part of the job. They were only there to keep untrained people with no adventurer cards from wandering into the dungeon below.

His house was between the dungeon and the city of Albrook. It took him about thirty minutes on foot to get there from this spot, then another half an hour to get to town. The walk directly from the city took about forty minutes, his house wasn’t directly between the two landmarks.

So it was time to head back. The path towards his home split off from the main road which made his bike a bit hard to use. This time around he didn’t have it with him, it needed a larger spatial bag that was more of a backpack for him to be able to remove it. He had gone down into the dungeon thinking that he would only need to defeat a couple of tier 2 monsters.

Without his bike, he would need to make the walk back home the old fashioned way. Roland was able to test his new armor extensively and it worked a lot better than he expected. There was a bit of a lag between the runic spells activations which he would need to work on. Other than that his mana stone armor was working just fine. He didn’t get to test out some of the inbuilt attacking spells as he was trying to save up on charges.

‘If I can lower the size of these wands further, maybe if I attach them to my gauntlet or vambrace. I could use them as disposable magic tools…’

This was one of the ideas that he thought up while fighting with this armor. He remembered when he was blasting the monster from afar while using his small scrolls. His rune shrinking skill was now leveling up further. If he managed to minimize the design even further he could start adding small rods or plates with disposable runic structures. Maybe even add a holster for disposable runic scrolls for one-time use.

He wanted to design them in such a way that during a prolonged fight he could just pop a used-up plate out and insert a new one. There wouldn’t even be a need to make these ammunition type spells from better metals, he could use plain steels that would hold a couple of charges.

‘This would be good for my armor’s longevity and would cut the costs significantly…’

Roland was walking towards his house while Bernir was behind him. The half-dwarf liked to talk but it seemed that he had given up on it after Roland started thinking about improving his gear design. In reality, this wasn’t why Bernir was being quiet, he started to slowly fall behind while walking. At first, he thought that the half-dwarf was just going his own way but then he heard a thud sound behind him.

“Hm?”

After turning around to see what the noise was about. He could then see Bernir face planted on the ground with the large backpack covering most of his body.

“Hey, Bernie… are you okay?”

He called out but after a moment of silence, it was clear that his new acquaintance was far from it.

Roland moved over with haste and flopped the young man onto his back. His eyes shone with some light as he used his identification skill on him. This was the fastest way to see if something was wrong. With the new levels in this skill and after it advanced to the higher tier he was now able to see people's MP and SP numbers.

It was clear after one glance, that Bernir had no stamina points left. He had remained silent and never asked him to take a break during the whole journey back from the dungeon.

‘Was he just being stubborn?”

Why did this guy not tell him that he was close to passing out was unclear. He might have been afraid that he would be left alone to fend for himself or he was just trying to be tough. The reason wasn’t really important, now Roland had another problem on his hands.

‘I… I can’t just leave him here… some stray monsters could get to him. I don’t have any stamina potions either...’

Bernir passed out after they walked for 15 minutes from the dungeon location. They were still close to the main road leading to the city but it was very late. Other adventurers might run into the sleeping half-dwarf but that didn’t mean that they would help him.

There were also monsters living out in these lands, the forests were dense in these parts so some of them hid there. He even ran into some low level creatures from time to time but they mostly fled from people above their level like him. They would certainly not flee from a juicy passed-out half-dwarf though.

‘Do I need to carry him back to the city?’

Roland had the strength to carry this guy around and the backpack with no problem but going to the city like that would take some time. His own house on the other hand was fifteen minutes away from this spot. The more logical thing to do would be to take him along to his home and let him stay there for the night. But then Roland’s trust issues sprung into action once more which made him question that option.

‘Well… I could dump him into my shed … don’t think he will steal any of those old tools from it…’

After going through some options he decided to take him along towards his own house. He didn’t need to allow him to sleep in it directly as his shed was a good option. Thanks to this being a volcanic area the weather was warm, he wouldn’t freeze even when sleeping in a tool shed. The same shed that he used as a dummy workshop.

With a small nod, he decided on taking the half-dwarf with him. Normally he would sling him over his shoulder but there was still the backpack that would be in the way. He wound up putting it on his back while carrying Bernir in his hands in the front. The monster egg was in one of the side pockets of this large backpack. Roland was sure to check if it didn’t shatter during the fall and it was just fine.

‘I picked up quite the ugly princess…’

Roland groaned inwardly while walking forward. The young man that he was carrying wasn’t the prettiest and also needed a bath after what happened in that dungeon. Though he wasn’t sure if this was just Bernir natural fragrance. He was in the minority of the common people that washed themselves every day. Not everyone could fashion themselves a runic bathtub with clear magical water.

Finally after about fifteen minutes, he was back home. There were no street lights but he had a night vision rune inscribed in his helmet to help him out with that. After entering through the main gate he flopped Bernir down on the ground.

Roland moved into his house first to get some things. He had an old straw mattress that he didn’t use at all as later he fashioned a large bed for himself with a softer finish. He fetched a blanket that he carried with the straw bed to his log shed.

‘I think I’ll just burn it after this guy is gone…’

He placed the smell half-dwarf onto the makeshift bedding and placed the blanket over him. He didn’t have any spare pillows to give and didn’t want to have that unkempt red mop on any of his good pillows either.

The shed that he was using as a backup plan for thieves looked a bit dusty and unkempt. He didn’t really like to clean it and only worked there to make some basic things like nails or hinges for doors. It had been visited by some intruders before but they didn’t really take much as all these tools were of low quality.

‘That should be it… normally someone that runs out of stamina will be out for a good six to eight hours, I’ll check upon him in the morning.’

He closed the shed but didn’t lock it from the outside. There wasn’t anything useful in it and if Bernir woke up and found it locked he could have a panic attack. Maybe even use it as a toilet if he woke up in the middle of the night. There was nothing in it that he considered valuable so even if he ran off back to the city it would be fine. His own hose was tightly protected so there was no fear of someone like this even getting in there.

‘What was a guy like this doing down in the dungeon anyway? His jobs are blacksmith and carpenter… he is level 45, shouldn’t he be in some smithy working?’

Roland had peeked at Bernir status. He couldn’t see his pure stats so he couldn’t compare his old runic blacksmith class to the regular one but he could see that this man was a pure crafter. From his perspective, there was no reason to endanger himself to go down into the dungeons. With his skill set, he should have joined the construction company or one of the many smithies in town.

Roland shrugged as he hoped to be rid of this half-dwarf in the morning. After dumping him off at the adventurer’s guild he would have a clear conscience. It was already late and he was still wearing his crimson armor.

Even though he was complaining about Bernir’s smell he wasn’t much better off. Spending a whole day in this type of armor had made him sweat. How he was able to last this long was thanks to his heat resistance skill along with a little rune that lowered the temperature on the inside.

First, he made a trip to his secret workshop where he started to remove his armor. This was a bit easier to do than putting it on so he was done with it faster. He had made a rack from some wooden logs beforehand, it was quite basic but was enough for hanging this crimson armor.

After being done with that it was time to take a bath. He was tired after a full day of work but not enough to not clean himself. While on the way here he noticed the backpack that belonged to Bernir. The red color brought his attention back to the egg that he received from the boss battle.

For some reason, he felt like playing around with it. After taking it out from the large backpack side pocket he carried it over to his bathroom. While the magic water was filling up his tub and while the magic runes heated it up he was looking over this ostrich sized egg.

‘I wonder if this thing is edible…’

It looked like a giant egg just with a strange pattern, it could be some kind of rare delicacy. The monster inside wasn’t like the other dungeon monsters or the ones living out in the wild. This thing worked on some different laws, he could even find a goblin inside of it. There wasn’t really a limit on what could be hiding inside and it defied the regular monster breeding and birthing norm.

‘Read that you could even get vampire babies from these things…’

He moved into his large tub of water while still holding onto the egg. This tub was quite large to fit his own large frame that was getting more muscular with time passing. He could easily submerge his whole body while being in it. For now, he left the egg floating in the warm water while he washed himself. All the sweat and dirt started to mix together with the sope that formed bubbles around the water surface.

It was already midnight at this point so Roland found himself leaning back in his hot tub while closing his eyes. The monster egg continued floating between his legs without a care in the world. While thinking about the plans for tomorrow he found himself closing his eyes.

Due to his heat resistance skill, he now needed to increase the temperature of this water by a few degrees to feel comfortable. It was probably well beyond what a normal person would be able to stomach but for him, it was just right. The egg was taken from a volcanic dungeon so he also didn’t think that hot water would cause any long-lasting damage.

‘Ten more minutes and then I’ll go to bed…’

He thought to himself while relaxing but like times before Roland found himself dozing off in the warm water. This happened from time to time whenever he overworked himself. The previous day he also didn’t get much sleep as he was giving his new crimson armor the finishing touches.

“.......”

“.........”

“....bork…”

“...bork bork… boof....”

“...GAHHHHHHHHHHHHH”

“What the?”

Roland shot up awake only to realize that the sun had already set. The water had gotten cold just like last time when he spent the night in this tub. He was awoken by a strange shout that sounded like his new half-dwarven acquaintance.

“Did he activate one of the traps? Did he not read the note on the door?”

Before standing out he heard another thing, a sort of whining noise hit his ears. He looked down to see something red floating around in the tub along with him.

“Huh?”

It took him some time to notice that the egg had cracked and that something had popped out from it. This something was now floating in the tub and looking up to him. It was quite fuzzy and its fur was quite red. It had a large black nose and its face was covered with some black stripes here and there.

Before he could take another look the ‘monster’ started barking again. It was clear that this was some kind of canine monster similar to the hell hounds he faced off during his class change quest. It was quite small, no more than a puppy.

Roland quickly removed himself from the cold water while also grabbing the puppy that seemed to have just hatched from the large egg. He held it up with both his hand and used his identification skill to get the name.

“Can I still sell this thing?”

He could hear the puppy whimper the moment he uttered those words, as if it knew what they meant. Roland was left now with another problem but first, he would need to put on some clothes and see what the idiot outside was up to. It seemed like he had activated the electrical trap that gave him quite a jolt.