Chương 71: Chapter 72: Back to Elmspire

Once I've made everyone boots, the trip back to Elmspire is a lot faster. We aren't tracking anything, so we don't have to go slow enough to be able to spot trail sign. I know which direction we're going from all the various hints and clues throughout the forest, and we're able to just move.

So even though we stayed at the orc fortress until early afternoon – before eventually setting it on fire and watching it burn for long enough to be sure that it was destroyed – we still get almost the whole way back to Elmspire before we stop for the night. We could've made it. We're only about an hour away from the city at this point. But Ash suggested that we wait until tomorrow, that we go in during the day.

"It's bad enough that they'll have a demon visiting," she says.

"Way worse to have the demon show up in the middle of the night." I suppose that makes sense. I don't like the way they treated her last time, though. If they do it again, I might suggest that we make for Marketplace instead, and spend our money there. No one will look at us twice there. We set up camp, and I check to see if my armorer skill went up much making the boots. It's at 17 now, so it improved at least a little bit.

I qualify for the crafter class and the fletcher class, so I could just keep working those secondary skills. But that feels like something to do when I'm low level and want to work on skills. Being a higher level, I want to get out there and do stuff. I want to adventure. It's nice that I can provide my friends with better gear, and that I can improve the gear that I have, but I don't want to spend all my time crafting. I think the problem is that I'd feel like an NPC if I did that.

Maybe there's something to that, and I'll eventually need a vacation of sorts from adventuring. When I feel that way, maybe then I'll focus on my secondary skills. But right now, I want to be an adventurer, not waste my precious time crafting the same things over and over again. The guard we run into at the entrance to the grove doesn't give us a hard time. He barely looks twice at us. It's like he doesn't even register Ash's black skin and shark teeth, or Vincent's horns and yellow eyes.

He sees us, he clocks us as adventurers, and he lets us into the city with no more hassle than a reminder that violence is prohibited within the city.

"I guess that one guard was just racist," I say.

"Either that or this one just didn't want to bother with the fuss," Ash agrees.

"Either way, I feel better coming in now."

"Who do we report to about what we found?" Vincent asks.

"Do we go to a government center, or just the scouting guild?"

"Seems like the scouting guild should be the first stop," I say.

"Maybe they'll tell us to bring it to someone else." So our first stop is the scouting faction. I don't have any scout quests to turn in, but I do have a lot of information. I walk up to the desk. There's a woman behind it this time. She looks extremely bored.

"How can I help you?" she asks as I walk up.

"I have some information," I say.

"We found an orc staging ground for invasion. We have their maps and plans and stuff. Who do we turn that in with?" That seems to get her attention.

"Orcs you say?" she asks.

"We haven't had any problem with them in a while. What do you have on them?"

"I have everything that was in the commander's tent," I say. I reach into my bag and start pulling out maps, letters, little figurines, and sheafs of paper, laying it all out on the desk between us.

"There were about a hundred of them, but we wiped them out and burned the fortress. Still, I figured it would be good to report what we found."

"Yes," she says.

"Yes, yes. Definitely. Thank you. This will be very valuable."

"Is there a reward for it?"

"I can register it as a quest and you can turn it in immediately, if you want to," she says. She fiddles with something, pulls out a book, and writes down something quickly, then turns it around for me to see. Scout Quest: recover intelligence from an enemy encampment. Reward: 20, 000 experience, 30 renown. I make sure that the others all sign up for the quest, then immediately turn it in. Between it and my other quest, I should be able to actually level again.

That does put my scout guild renown at 225, which is enough for me to be able to buy something useful.

"Can I have the shopping book thing?" I ask as I turn in the quest.

"The thing where I can spend my renown points, I mean." She looks confused at first, but as I explain, she nods in understanding and gets another book out, handing it to me. There are skill books for a hundred renown each, there are bows for two hundred renown, and there are is a hat for two hundred. The hat provides armor and a bonus to sneak. I almost get that, but I don't want a helmet; they get in the way of hearing and they obscure vision, and I like both of those senses to be as free as possible.

The skill books apparently provide five levels of a skill, which is sorely tempting. It's harder and harder to get skills to improve as time goes by, and being able to add five to my bow is really tempting. I know I pick up alertness quickly just by paying attention to the world around me, but I'm still tempted to improve that. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. I'm about to decide when I notice something else. Ability potions.

According to the book, these are potions that provide points to spend on abilities, improving them right away. They translate to basically seventy five faction points for every ability level. I've got enough for three, if I want to go that way. I could improve Sniper Shot by three levels, make it cooldown in less than thirty seconds. All of the things that I can currently afford basically just reduce the time I need to spend improving things. I check to see if there are any new abilities that I could buy.

There are some for sale, but I already have Find Path and Observation, the two that are available with the number of points I currently have. I could save them, but I want to buy something. I want to see a sudden increase in something. Knowing that it will be the hardest to improve, I actually decide on the book for spellcraft. It's not one of the core ranger skills, so it doesn't get a bonus for improvement, and it's already really high.

In fact, buying and reading this book is going to make spellcraft my highest skill by two whole ranks. So my bow skill will have to catch up with it. My next stop is actually the hunter guild. I have to see if these drake scales count as dragon scales. They're thicker than the wyvern scales were, so I have hope that they will. But I also have twelve giant scorpion glands, and I want to see if there is a quest for those.

There is, of course, and I trade in ten of the glands for another 25, 000 experience and 20 hunter renown. That's enough to get me to level 31. The drake scales do not count as dragon scales, but there is a quest for drake scales worth 15, 000 experience and 15 hunter renown, so I trade in for those. I decide to keep hold of the adventurer quest that I have completed, not turning it in just yet. That twenty thousand experience will make for a nice buffer if I die again.

But while I'm in the adventurer guild, I do pick up a new quest. Adventurer quest: giant slayer. Kill giants of any type. Progress: 0/5. Reward: 20, 000 experience, 30 renown. I did get to level 31, which means I have 10 points to spend. I put three each into strength and agility, two into vigor and two into presence. That puts my hit points at 4, 464, my MP at 1, 488, and my stamina at 1, 550. Those are pools to be proud of. I feel invincible.

I understand now where El is coming from in her insistence that she can defeat just about any enemy. I feel like the five of us could take on almost everything I've ever seen in this world. We'd have trouble with Wrax, but I think that's about it. And now, I think I could survive even two slashes of his claws. I want to go back to Glacrow's Goodes and find something to trade my fifty orcish swords for, and maybe something better for my equipment, but I have to go to a magic shop first. I need another spell.

It doesn't matter what it is; I just need it. I wonder if I can find another utility spell, like Refresh. I use that spell at least once a day. It's gone up to level 2, which lets it cast in fifty seconds instead of 60. It keeps me feeling clean even though I haven't actually bathed in close to a week at this point. I don't need to; I cast the spell, and all the dirt, grime, dust, and sweat that's built up since I last cast it just falls off me.

It makes a pretty gross little circle around my feet, especially when I have to use it to clean off blood, but it's better than any shower at making me feel clean. Vincent, unsurprisingly, wants to go to the magic shop with me. He seems to almost instinctively know where it is, too.

"It'll be in a tower, in one of the branches of the tree," he says. I half think he can see it from where we are. I've never been into Elmspire proper. All the faction guilds are among the roots of the tree, and I've never gone any further in than that. But to get to the shopping district that's going to have spells, we have to go up a long and winding road that seems to grow out of the tree itself. It's like we're walking along bark, making our way slowly around and up the tree.

There are a bunch of buildings either carved or grown into the trunk on the way. I think most of them are houses. Some of them are a few feet off the ground, but pretty soon they're at least a dozen feet up, then more than that. Probably gives them a pretty good view of the surrounding area. A pleasant view from your living room. Eventually, the houses do give way to shops. Armor shops, weapon shops, general goods, adventuring supply, that sort of thing.

But also glass blowers, ceramics, home goods, furniture, and all the other shops that mark a place as civilized and not just a shopping center for adventurers. Speaking of adventurers, they're not hard to spot. Most of them are still forest elves, with green skin ranging from the lightest tinge, not unlike the orcs, to a deep forest green that makes them blend in with the trees. I wonder how the system decided which shade to give each person. Maybe the tutorial god helped them out.

Would we have ended up all the same shade of green, then? Was there meant to be more adjustments to our forms possible, and we just didn't get the chance? I think I would've liked to change my appearance a little bit. Nothing all that huge, just a few alterations here and there. For one thing, I think I would've grown my hair longer. Now it's an impossible tangle, too long to stay put but too short to do anything with.

I know that hair grows really slowly, but I'm seriously debating just cutting all of mine off and going bald. I don't think I would've done that if I'd been given the chance to make it long and loose, though. I've always wanted long hair, but my hair curls too much to really let me grow it out. It starts to grow out from my head, making my head bigger and bigger, rather than falling flat and just laying there like it's supposed to. So yeah, I would've wanted straight hair if I'd had an option.

Anyway, the reason they're not hard to spot is that the adventurers walk differently. They carry themselves differently. Some of them look around at the wonder that is Elmspire with naked awe, others look everywhere like they're expecting to get jumped at any time. They're also dressed differently. For one thing, they're dressed like adventurers. Mismatched armor pieces, strange weapons, jewelry, that kind of thing. But it's more than that. It's like we can feel each other out.

Like we just know that one another is from Earth. Maybe there's a bit of a haunted look in the eyes. We're all outsiders here, and the world we come from is over. It's ended, and we're never going to get to go back. That weighs on people, I suppose. I take note of people's levels as we walk by. Most of them are in the mid to high twenties. I only see a few people whose levels are hidden from me, and even fewer below twenty.

Seems like the average level has established itself pretty well, and everyone has managed to stay within that range. It makes sense; twenty five is where the experience starts getting really pricey level up, and it never gets less expensive. Right now, I need 72, 000 experience to reach level 32. I already have 30, 250, but that's just because of the quests I was able to turn in. It's going to take me a while to earn those other forty two thousand experience.

Although, now that I'm back with Vincent, Ash, El, and Gigi, it might not. They may want to go after something big, like the lava lords, and get levels quickly.