Equipment Farming (8)
I took a deep breath and tried to calm my racing mind. What does it mean to lose? It means failing to defeat your opponent in a competition. Which means both “competition” and “opponent” are absolutely necessary. The opponent here is probably me, right? She said it to my face, after all. She wouldn’t have brought it up to someone completely unrelated. So what’s the “competition” part? Why do we even have to compete?
All of this is just the wicked scheme of greedy capitalists who deliberately prepare fewer attractive rewards than the masses desire, deliberately sparking conflict among the majority while burying the root cause—that the scarcity benefits them—in the chaos of that very conflict… No. That’s not it. My thoughts had veered off in a weird direction.
Slap. Slap. I lightly tapped my own cheeks to get a grip. It felt like a tiny whirlpool was spinning inside my head. Every time I tried to focus on one thought, the vortex would suck everything in and turn it into a complete mess. Still, I couldn’t just let it go without thinking it through. I forced myself to keep going, one painful step at a time.
Let’s start with the simplest thing. Yeah. I’m not completely clueless about what Faye meant when she said she wouldn’t lose. It’s the kind of line you see all the time in novels and manga. When we split up at the fork and met again later, Faye’s whole vibe had changed noticeably. Like a soft pink aura was gently floating around her. That kind of feeling. And seeing how much more clingy she was with Theo than usual, it wasn’t hard to guess that Faye had developed feelings for him.
So when Faye said she “wouldn’t lose,” she probably meant… yeah, that kind of thing. But why the hell is she telling me?
The question mark just looped right back around. Maybe she found out about what I did while drunk last time? No, that can’t be it. If Faye had caught wind of something that big, her personality wouldn’t let her stay quiet about it. She would’ve reacted somehow. Then… maybe… no way… but just in case… do Theo and I look like we’re in a situationship to outsiders?
“Pfft, no way.”
The idea was so ridiculous even to me that I burst out laughing. Sure, Theo and I have been hanging out a lot lately. Discussing dungeon strategies, thinking about how to use our abilities… Honestly, I’ve always felt more comfortable around guys than girls anyway. So unless I had other plans, I usually ended up tagging along with him. But that’s it. It’s not like we were flirting in front of people or acting like we couldn’t live without each other, calling each other’s names every other sentence. There was never anything that would create a pink romantic atmosphere.
We’re not elementary or middle school kids who start squealing just because a boy and girl talk to each other. There’s no way something that minor would count. I immediately took that absurd delusion I’d briefly entertained, neatly folded it up, and tossed it straight into the mental trash bin.
Back to square one. What the hell is the problem here?
“Luna. You coming? I’m gonna open the chest.”
“Huh? No, I’m coming right now!”
Just before I could sink completely into the abyss of thought, Theo’s voice yanked me back to the surface. I can’t resist a chest. Let’s put this headache on hold for later. I hurried over and caught up with Faye and Theo. The two of them were waiting in front of the chest.
“Who wants to open it?”
“I’ll do it. I’ve got the best luck, after all.”
I didn’t say it outright since the two pack mules might be listening, but the fact that I had good luck was the pure, unadulterated truth. The only problem was that, as always with this so-called Luck, even after the reward appeared I often couldn’t tell if it was actually lucky or not. And since I wasn’t even going to keep the final reward, it was impossible to say whether something good coming out would even count as “lucky” for me. Still, better than nothing, right? With that thought, I stepped forward.
Let’s see… the latch should be around here.
- Pssshhh…
The pipe wrapped around the chest wasn’t just for decoration. The moment I turned the latch, white steam burst out from beneath it. That was all that happened. Nothing else. So it really was just decoration?
The chest opened slowly. The first thing that caught my eye was a dazzling golden gleam so bright it almost hurt.
“Gold bars?!”
“What? Gold?”
Theo, who had heard my shout, rushed over in surprise. But after touching and examining the golden metal, he shook his head.
“Nope. This isn’t gold.”
“It’s not? Then what is it?”
“I don’t know either. Faye, do you recognize it?”
Theo handed the not-gold metal over to Faye.
“Yep! This is brass!”
Faye identified the metal at a glance. This is brass? I looked again at the metal in her hand. I’d seen plenty of brass in this dungeon. The outer shells of the gear golems we’d kicked around were made of it, and the spider golem we’d just defeated was brass too. But those had been closer to brown. The steampunk aesthetic and brown metal made it easy to immediately think, “Ah, must be brass!”
In contrast, the metal Faye was holding looked exactly like gold to me. Not that I’m an expert on gold or anything.
“Brass is an alloy, so changing the mixing ratio to get this gold color isn’t that hard.”
Faye explained confidently, saying her poor family often used brass accessories instead of real gold ones.
“Really? So this isn’t worth much then?”
“Mmm… it’s not expensive, but it should still fetch a decent amount of money. Metals from dungeons carry a faint trace of magic power, after all.”
“Then let’s take it with us.”
I tossed the brass ingot into the bag and peered back into the chest. Most of it was ingots. After grabbing a few miscellaneous trinkets, one item remained.
“The last one is… a sword.”
Theo pulled a single sword from the bottom of the chest. The hilt sparkled with a golden sheen, probably made from the same brass ingots we’d just collected. Of course, the blade itself wasn’t brass.
“A sword? I wanna try it!”
Faye’s eyes lit up with curiosity. She took the sword and swung it through the air with an excited expression.
“Can you tell anything?”
“The sword itself is pretty average. The only special thing is…”
Faye closed her eyes for a moment and focused. Then she opened them and swung the blade.
- Whoosh!
The blade glowed bright red, leaving a trail of pure white steam along its path.
“When you channel magic power into it, it heats up and releases steam!”
“Oh. Is that a good effect?”
“Nope!”
I’d asked with some hope, but Faye shook her head firmly.
“It does get hot, but it’s nowhere near as hot as a proper flame enchantment. And even if it spits out steam, you can’t actually attack with the steam. What would you even use it for?”
Ack. So the steam is useless…
Today was another day of unbroken defeats for some naval officer somewhere. Anyway, since it was one of the final rewards, I tossed it into the bag along with the other items.
“We got everything?”
“Yep!”
We made sure to grab every last bit of loot and left the dungeon. On the way back, the paralyzed bandit leader foamed at the mouth and passed out—some minor little event—but it wasn’t particularly important.
◆
“This is all the final rewards?”
“Yeah. We brought everything without holding anything back.”
“Come on, you think I’d actually suspect you two? It’s just the usual thing people say.”
Sepia sorted through the final rewards we’d brought, moving items into different piles. Honestly, I couldn’t tell what criteria she was using. Was she grouping things that would go in similar display spots? Or sorting by potential buyers? While I was watching her organize, her hand finally reached the sword.
“What kind of sword is this? Did you figure out what it does?”
We took the sword from Sepia and demonstrated its function. Since I wasn’t great at handling magic power, Theo did it instead. With a psshhh sound of escaping steam, a pure white trail appeared in the air of the general store.
“That’s all it does. Faye said it’s completely useless for actual combat.”
“W-wait….”
Sepia trembled as she watched the steam slowly dissipate into the air. Was she disappointed? She must’ve had high expectations. But right after that, Sepia snatched the sword from Theo’s hand. She moved so suddenly that Theo actually flinched, worried she might cut herself.
“What are you talking about?! This is absolutely perfect!!”
Sepia raised the sword high and shouted. I’d never heard her raise her voice like that before. Faye, who had been the one to declare the sword’s function meaningless, asked in confusion.
“What do you mean? Did I miss some other function?”
“No, that’s not it. I just examined it myself and didn’t find any other functions either.”
“Then why is it the best?”
At Faye’s question, Sepia answered with a completely serious expression.
“It looks cool.”
“…Huh?”
“Watch this. Theo only put in a little magic power just now, right? If you pour in a ton—”
The blade glowed bright red as thick clouds of steam began to rise. Sepia swung the heated sword wildly. - Pssssssshhh—!!
Sepia’s swordsmanship was terrible. I was pretty sure I could swing a sword better than that. But the way the steam billowed out along the blade’s path, with the glowing red sword occasionally slicing through the mist and flashing in and out of view… yeah, I had to admit it looked pretty damn cool.
“Hoo… hoo. What do you think?”
“Ooh.”
I gave her a round of applause as she caught her breath after her little performance. Sepia, her face slightly flushed, sheathed the sword and explained.
“Anyway, unless it’s an insanely good sword, they don’t sell well. Faye, would you use this sword?”
“No! My current sword is way better.”
“Right? But even if its performance as a weapon is mediocre, if it looks this cool, it’ll sell somehow. Lots of nobles buy swords purely as decorations.”
“Huh. I see.”
“Exactly! And something that sparkles with this gold color will sell even better! It’s a little disappointing that it’s brass instead of real gold, but we can work around that in the marketing.”
Sepia looked like she wanted to rub her cheek against the sword, she was so happy. She couldn’t actually do it yet since the blade was still hot.
“I’m glad you’re satisfied. I’ll leave the compiled data on the dungeon monsters here. That means our contract is complete, right?”
“Of course! You did an excellent job. We’ve received the monster information and the final rewards exactly as agreed. Then I suppose I should fulfill my obligations as well.”
Sepia pulled out a bag that looked like she had prepared it in advance. Inside was the amount of money we had agreed upon as payment.
“This is the reward we originally promised. And since the results exceeded my expectations…”
Sepia smiled brightly and pointed her thumb toward the back door of the general store.
“The truth is, our shop has a secret VIP store that we only show to special customers. How about it? Want to take a look before you go?”