This Life, I Will Be the Protagonist-Chapter 585 - : The Old Blacksmith & Y1148
While Shadow.Q stayed at Rita's villa for lunch, the area surrounding the villa was cleared out.
Various divine gifts were coordinated, and not only were all the players moved out, but the previous houses were demolished, and all construction debris was cleaned up.
Standing on the cleared ground with Nivalis and Shadow.Q, Rita raised her hand and activated the The Old Blacksmith skill.
The moment a large humanoid figure of light appeared, Shadow.Q worriedly asked, "Is The Old Blacksmith responsible for the materials for the workshop?"
Rita wasn't sure. And that was why Eclipse Vanguard was involved—just in case materials were needed. Would they just stand by and watch?
The light dimmed, and a giant, easily three meters tall, sat down in front of them, looking at Rita and speaking in a language that even their Eclipse Vanguard translators couldn't understand.
Fortunately, B8017913 could understand. It translated, "Hungry!"
After Rita translated for Shadow.Q, members of Eclipse Vanguard brought forward the food and wine they had prepared. Half of it was regular food, and half was high-level culinary creations made by master chefs.
What worried Rita the most was that The Old Blacksmith might require gourmet-level dishes. That would mean she'd have to step in and spend time preparing food for him. But fortunately, he wasn't picky—he had a large appetite but didn't care about the quality of the food.
While The Old Blacksmith ate and drank, Rita managed to establish some basic communication with him.
She wasn't in a hurry for the alchemy workshop; it was the engineering workshop that she wanted to build first to help Nivalis research ways to protect the villa.
Rita was greatly influenced by Hufflepuff. That was a legendary figure who could brew potions in a humble corner of a small alchemy shop. The environment was important, but not as important as the dedication and resourcefulness to work anywhere.
She asked Nivalis to present her various requirements for the engineering workshop. After The Old Blacksmith—Henrim—took note of them, he also presented his own conditions.
Henrim required two hundred pounds of food and one hundred pounds of wine daily, with a quality score of at least 80. Given enough food and wine, he could finish building a thousand-square-meter workshop in 10 days. Rita suspected that at least half of that time was probably spent eating.
As for the materials, that would naturally fall on Rita. The better the materials, the better the workshop he would build. If the materials were particularly rare, there could even be special properties—like enhancing inspiration or possibly upgrading the potions.
Rita asked, "Didn't you say you'd create a top-tier workshop according to my desires?"
Henrim responded, "The materials you give are your desires."
Rita: "..." What a pity The Old Blacksmith never went into sales.
After Rita translated this conversation to Shadow.Q, she said nothing more, just crossed her arms and stared at the sky. Shadow.Q followed her lead and looked up at the sky too.
The atmosphere became quiet for a while.
One of the players behind Shadow.Q could no longer contain themselves and quietly asked, "What does that mean?"
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Shadow.Q sighed and explained, "...It means aerospace materials."
Rita, who had been hesitating about whether these materials would be suitable, suddenly turned her head with a look of admiration and shock: You can understand this too?!
Even Nivalis had the same expression: Dragon Shock!
Shadow.Q closed her eyes and smiled, raising her hands to calm them down: "It's basic training within the system."
Other players: "…Sorry, we didn't understand at all."
Shadow.Q then asked, "You don't need materials from Lania Kaia?"
Lania Kaia was an ancient place with a long history in the game. Many of its materials had magical properties and higher quality.
Rita shook her head. She wasn't one to indulge in luxury, but she wouldn't refuse to use better things when available. She wasn't the ascetic type.
However, she shared some of her findings with Shadow.Q: "Have you traveled through all 36 main cities of Lania Kaia? They all use materials from their own race, especially in the Polar Day, Ternal Night Fortress, and Four Seasons City. Everything in those cities reminds you of Forest Sea."
Even though those three floating islands were entirely detached from Forest Sea, it was too exaggerated—after all, the main cities were built later. Rita hadn't seen or heard about any main city during her time in the tower.
Shadow.Q guessed, "It's a matter of racial pride?"
Rita wasn't sure, but since BS could communicate with her and even gave her game skins, she couldn't help but think about it more.
BS's technology wasn't weak. The top materials they had here might not compare to Lania Kaia, but they weren't so bad that she wouldn't want them.
She couldn't tell Shadow.Q about BS's secret communication, so she said, "Try to keep the traces of BS intact. It's just a feeling I have."
"Your intuition is important," Shadow.Q responded. This wasn't flattery. Given that Rita's name in the global announcements was highlighted in gold and flashing, it was clear that Rita's intuition was something to be taken seriously.
Shadow.Q didn't disagree with Rita's decision. She also offered several kinds of superior materials invented by Eclipse Vanguard's research department after the game's intrusion. These would be sent over for The Old Blacksmith to choose from, with the surplus left for Nivalis to study.
Rita thanked her. Eclipse Vanguard was generous, and she didn't intend to be stingy: "Once the alchemy workshop and engineering workshop are built, I'll summon The Old Blacksmith for you twice for free."
Afterward, she handed her translator over to Shadow.Q, and as they talked, B8017913 had already transmitted The Old Blacksmith's language into the system. After outsourcing the work, Rita and B8017913 returned to the villa.
Nivalis wanted to stay behind to supervise the construction of the engineering workshop, and Rita let her.
Once home, Rita immediately took out the three iron boxes she had stolen from the customers and asked B8017913: "What are these? Can they be used as materials for the workshop?"
B8017913 replied, "These are the external power cores of the mechanical race. They're like portable chargers in your world. If a mechanical race unit runs out of power, it can use these to recharge. They're pretty expensive. Not all mechanical race units have them. If I were to work for the Diamond Miner, I'd have to work for 8 to 10 years to buy one."
Rita's eyes lit up—charging, nice! Although giving the World Tomb to B8017913 to charge wasn't exactly a loss, she thought that if she fed it to BS, wouldn't it be even better?
However, her first question was, "Why didn't you buy one then? What about the money you earned from working? You didn't lose it all, did you?"
Just as B8017913 was about to answer regarding the chargers, it paused and answered, "...I didn't have any wages before. The mechanical race didn't get paid until nine years ago, when a senior mechanical race leader led a rebellion. After that, we started getting paid."
Rita curiously asked, "What series of mechanical race is that?"
B8017913's voice took on a serious tone, almost reverent, as if mentioning a name close to its heart: "The J-series, Y1148."
Rita was just satisfying her curiosity. Once she did, she shifted the topic back, "So how does this charger work?"
B8017913 replied, "It just needs to be bathed in the sunlight of a world, or exposed to wind, rain, or snow. Any of that works."
Rita toyed with the iron boxes in her hand and called out to BS in her mind.
BS, are you there? Will this have any effect on you?
For the first time since she'd tried contacting BS, the system responded.
BS: "No."
Relieved, Rita handed over the three chargers to B8017913.
