Durendal Castle
“Since we’re arriving this afternoon, let’s eat this for breakfast and head out right away.”
After camping another night, I’d been wondering what to have for breakfast when I decided on the scones we’d bought in Hilton Village. The tangy flavor of the raisins was a hit, and everyone ate happily as we walked. By the time noon passed, fields and small settlements began to appear. We were almost at Durendal Castle.
“I can see the castle over there!”
At Yanne’s words, I looked up and found the shape oddly familiar. No, it was downright nostalgic.
Stormwind, huh. Hahaha.
Durendal Castle looked almost exactly like the Stormwind Keep from WOW. The crenellated walls, the pointed spires, even the moat surrounding it—it felt as if the developers had copied Stormwind wholesale. Old gamers were going to get misty-eyed over this.
When we entered the castle, Chico, the leader of the mercenary group, showed his guild certificate and explained we were passing through on a commission. We were let through without issue.
“Sir Mage, we need to report the completion of our commission to Marquis Helion’s territory. Thank you once again for healing my arm.”
Chico had received two healing buffs over the past two days, and now he could use his right hand without any trouble.
“It was a short journey, but a comfortable one. We’ll be staying here for a few days.”
“If you ever need our services again, please put in a request through the Mercenary Guild. We’ll come running right away.”
“I’ll do that.”
Our time with the Chico Mercenary Group had been brief, but they weren’t the worst sort of mercenaries. They were just the right amount of rough and reliable. After parting ways with them, we headed straight to a general store. I’d wanted to find an inn first and take a bath, but I had nothing clean to change into, so clothes came first.
In the game you didn’t need to wash, but this world was strangely realistic. The grime and the smell of sweat felt all too real.
I bought spare clothes for myself and picked out some for Yanne as well. She’d brought her old clothes from the village, but I knew their quality, so I got her new ones.
“Goodness, did you buy these cheap from some pioneer village? With fabric like this, I can only give you five shirts to wear underneath.”
Yanne had laid out all the miscellaneous clothes and cloth she’d brought from home on the table. They were hand-me-downs worn for years, so their value was pitiful. I bought her underclothes and dressed her in pants that a boy might wear. We’d probably be traveling with mercenaries often, so I decided to have her dress like a boy for safety.
“One meal a day included—that’ll be one gold per week.”
Roughly 400,000 won for a week. The price wasn’t bad. I paid immediately and asked them to prepare bathwater. According to the mercenary Joy, high-class inns had private baths attached to the rooms, but the inn here in Durendal wasn’t quite that upscale. So I paid an extra silver.
“Will you be bathing with your slave?”
“No. Do you have a maid?”
I had originally planned to bathe with Yanne and teach her how to wash properly. While traveling here, I’d realized she didn’t seem to understand the concept of using soap. I’d intended to show her while I washed, but after talking with her while she used my arm as a pillow, I learned she was already thirteen. At that age—middle-school level—I couldn’t bathe with her. Of course, she’d grown up poor in the mountains, but I’d still hoped she at least knew how to wash. After my own military experience, however, I wanted to make sure she learned to do it properly.
When I’d enlisted, the culture shock had been real. The instructors actually taught the recruits how to bathe. After the first training session, during group bathing, the sergeant major had demonstrated the proper way while fully clothed. I’d thought it was obvious, but several recruits genuinely hadn’t known how to use soap correctly.
First pour hot water over your body, lather soap from your head to your armpits and between your legs, then scrub with a soapy towel to create foam and rinse it all off.
It was a simple shower routine, but some recruits without fathers had never learned it, and others had only ever rinsed with water. If that happened in the modern world, then in this world—where soap and proper baths were scarce—the problem would be far worse.
So I tipped the inn’s bath attendant and asked her to teach Yanne how to wash.
***
“That little lady seems to have found herself a good master.”
Yanne wasn’t actually a slave, but since she called me Master, I didn’t correct her.
“Right? My master is someone worth respecting. So you’ve seen through to his true nature as well.”
“Hmm, I’m not sure about that, but he’s different from the people I’ve seen at inns so far. He doesn’t even make you wear a collar, and he bought you new clothes. I’m jealous.”
Yanne looked at the iron slave collar around the maid’s neck and felt a pang of sympathy.
“That’s why I’m trying not to disappoint Master, but I don’t know what I should be doing.”
“If that’s the case, I can teach you. Ah, I think I understand what he meant by asking me to teach you how to wash.”
The maid, Yuria, realized there was more than one meaning behind the request.
“What do you mean?”
“Hohoho. First, you tidy up your master’s clothes.”
After confirming that Yanne had finished learning how to wash, I took my own bath. When I came out, my clothes—both the ones I was wearing and the ones I’d taken off—had been neatly folded and arranged. Yanne held out the freshly laundered clothes she’d washed, and I couldn’t help wondering just how deeply the game’s AI had been designed.
***
“The Chilean tester, Piena, died after only three days.”
“Damn…”
Elon Busker felt hollow hearing that Piena, the tester he’d personally recruited all the way in Chile, had died so quickly.
“How did she die?”
“Her starting point was a commercial city. Even though she followed the report’s advice to be careful, she was dragged away, raped, and killed.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“Because she’s playing a female character, her survival rate drops sharply if she’s overpowered by force. And since she thought it was just a game, Piena probably didn’t take it seriously either.”
Elon Busker found the irony almost painful. The fact that treating it like a game allowed for bold actions was exactly what could cost someone their real life.
“Can’t be helped. We won’t be selecting any more female gamers for the time being.”
“Understood. We’ll handle Piena according to the manual. Next, I’d like to move on to the Samoan gamer, Orchan.”
Information about the pro gamer named Orchan appeared on Elon Busker’s monitor.
“A friend with a powerful physique. Good. Check my schedule and set up a trip to New Zealand. I hope this one lasts a long time.”
As he spoke calmly, Elon Busker’s eyes drifted to the photographs pinned to one wall. Park Jinwoo’s picture was among them, along with roughly thirty others. Next to the topmost photo, someone had written “DAY + 258.”
***
“Stay inside the inn. If you want something to eat, just tell the innkeeper.”
I handed Yanne ten silver coins and left her in the room while I headed to the Mercenary Guild. First, I made my way to the street of workshops I’d scouted the day before.
“Do you have any gambesons reinforced with iron plates inside?”
“That would have to be custom-made. At least three gold.”
I already had a hundred gold in my inventory and had earned over five gold from healing magic, so three gold wasn’t a burden. If anything, it felt cheap if it could save my life even once.
“Make it with iron plates over the chest, stomach, and upper back.”
“Is this for yourself? Then come here so I can take your measurements. Do you need a helmet as well?”
“Do you have anything decent?”
“Double-layered kobold and goblin leather with a strap to hang around the neck. Comfortable design. One gold.”
“Then give me the knee and elbow guards too for four gold total.”
The shop owner hesitated for a moment, but since I hadn’t tried to haggle, he agreed readily.
“Which weapon shop would you recommend?”
“Kellic’s shop supplies the lord’s castle, so it’s the best, but they only do custom orders and it takes time. If you want ready-made goods, just go outside and look at the shops on the right—pick any one that catches your eye.”
“So everyone except Kellic is about the same?”
“That’s right. All the weapon makers here are disciples trained in the Kellic family.”
It sounded like a decent level of standardization, which was reassuring.
“The gambeson will be ready in two days.”
I browsed the row of weapon shops. Since they were all run by disciples of the same family, most of the stock looked similar. This was exactly when the status window would come in handy.
Because I was dressed neatly, no one stopped me from touching the weapons. Thanks to that, I could check the status window on each one without interference.
Even buying weapons in a game has its clichés.
The usual tropes were hidden magic weapons or cursed blades someone had pawned off. I spent over two hours going from shop to shop, but nothing stood out. It seemed an event like that only triggered in places with enough variety for the cliché to apply—or maybe a skilled dwarf craftsman.
Since I needed a weapon anyway, I picked up a two-handed sword, the fundamental weapon of knights and mercenaries in fantasy worlds. Most weighed between eight and twelve kilograms. With my strength at ten, I could lift and swing them easily. Still, I put the two-handed swords back down. For safety, I needed a shield in one hand.
With my strength, I could probably swing a two-handed sword like Guts from Berserk, but that path led straight to death and suffering. The weight and length meant that even with power, free movement with one hand would be difficult. I’d played around with greatswords in the military, imitating movie heroes, but I had no real idea how to properly attack or swing a two-handed sword.
I considered a shortsword, but then an axe and mace caught my eye. Rather than a longsword that required technique, a simple downward smash with an axe or mace suited me better right now. Unlike longswords whose center of gravity was near the hilt, axes and maces had theirs at the head, so even a basic swing carried tremendous power and lethality.
Of course, prioritizing force and destructive power meant larger movements, but against an enemy I’d closed the distance with after blocking with a shield, a simple, powerful downward strike was more than enough. An axe or mace was the best weapon for that.
Since carrying it at my side would be easier with a mace than an axe, I chose one with a square iron head. Among all the ones I’d examined, I picked the mace and kite shield with the highest quality and durability and brought them to the owner. He gave me a surprised look when someone who wasn’t a knight selected the top-grade items.
“Eight gold for both. I was suspicious because you kept going back and forth, but you’ve got a good eye.”
“They’re expensive, so I had to be careful. Hahaha. By the way, could you make iron balls like this?”
I showed him the iron balls that had come with the slingshot. The owner took them with both hands, visibly startled, and examined them closely. He looked at them as if they were jewels. They were perfectly spherical and shone with a silvery luster—good enough to use as ball bearings. To an outsider, they might have passed for gemstones.
“Where did you get these? To make steel this perfectly round instead of soft copper or lead, you’d need a dwarf elder at the very least.”
“Is that so? I received them from someone else, so I don’t know the source. But is it difficult to make them like this?”
“Hmm. If you want them identical to these, one gold per ball. Even my master probably couldn’t make more than two a day.”
Because they were made with modern equipment, they were apparently hard to replicate in this era.
“They don’t need to be perfectly round. And they can be a bit softer if mixed with other metals. How much would it cost to make a hundred like that?”
“Hmm. If we mix in soft lead and don’t worry about shape or polish, one half-silver per ball should do. Two gold and ten silver total.”
That came out to about ten thousand won per ball. Without automation, pouring molten metal into molds and finishing them by hand made the price understandable.
I decided to buy the mace, shield, and iron balls for ten gold.
“Make me a hundred iron balls. As quickly as possible.”