Chapter 104: Sold Out
Tyler sat in the workshop, watching Hector craft — the hammer coming down again and again against the hot sword, sparks scattering off it with every strike. He could tell from the sound of each impact alone that Hector was putting real strength behind it, and yet the strikes came down measured and careful, nothing like the ones Tyler had managed on his own so far.
It looked effortless despite how experienced and careful it clearly was, as if this were just another task among many for him. But something else was running through Tyler's mind besides that.
He looked around the shop, crates full of swords, shields Hector had crafted stacked alongside them, all of it clearly sitting untouched for a long while. The reason for it was obvious enough: not many customers came through this shop, though that never stopped Hector from crafting anyway. Today there had been exactly one customer, the woman who'd bought the Gloomcoat almost an hour ago.
He sighed, resting his back against the bench. *Why hasn't she come back yet? She said she'd bring the others, did they not believe her?* he thought, frowning as he stared up at the ceiling. He straightened, looking ahead, and decided to open his system panel.
SPECIES: HUMAN
NAME: TYLER EVANS
RANK: C
LVL: 58
CLASS: CRAFTSMAN
HP: 280/280 MP: 258/258
STR: 282 AGI: 242+[47]
DEF: 244+[251] STM: 237
SKILLS: WEAPON CRAFT-LV2, ARMOR CRAFT-LV1, ACCESSORY CRAFT-LV1, ALCHEMY-LV1, RUNECRAFT, RUSH LV2-MC20, CHAMBER-MC:50
PASSIVE SKILLS: WEAPON MASTERY-LV1, ASSIMILATION, MANA SIGHT, PRIMAL SUBJUGATION, MANA ABSORPTION
EXTRA POINTS: 30
Checking it had just become a habit whenever he was bored, the same reflex that would once have sent him reaching for his phone back when he had nothing else to do.
He knew he could ask Hector to show him something again, but he didn't want to interrupt him, the man looked entirely focused on his work, and Tyler didn't want to pull him away to teach again when Hector already knew he was capable of crafting some other way.
Maybe one day he'd be able to teach himself, now that Hector had shown him enough to get there eventually. But there was one clear drawback that came with crafting his own weapons by hand, and
Tyler already knew exactly what it was. *If I crafted my own weapons without the system, I wouldn't be able to extract any skills from them.
The system's the only thing that can generate the current of engrams Assimilation needs to draw a skill out, without it, it's just a basic weapon,* he thought.
As he looked over his stats, his eyes caught on the skill: Rune Craft. He'd nearly forgotten about it.
*Right. I should ask Hector how to actually use the rune skill.* He got up from the bench, and the system panel disappeared. He cracked his neck, rubbing at it, stiff from sitting on the bench for so long.
*I don't understand the instructions at all.*
"Hector," Tyler said out loud.
"Yeah," Hector said, not looking up, his gaze fixed on the sword as he plunged the hot sword into a bucket of water beside him, steam bursting off the surface in a sudden white cloud. He drew it back out and turned it over in his grip.
A system panel appeared before Tyler, written: [HECTOR ACTIVATED SKILL: HARDEN]
Suddenly, the sword in Hector's grip began to darken from the hilt outward, an inky black spreading fast until it covered the entire sword. A moment later, he turned it over again and frowned. *This should do,* he thought.
Tyler had almost lost his train of thought at what he'd just seen. This was only the second time he'd seen Hector use the skill.
"Did you want to say something?" Hector asked, turning his gaze toward Tyler.
"Right. Yeah, I wanted to ask you about the rune skill." Hector's eyebrows rose.
"What do you want to know?" he asked, setting the sword on the table.
"Well, I heard it gives certain effects when applied on items. And I just wanted to know how it's done."
Hector blew out a breath. "Well, I don't really know. Only someone with the actual skill can tell you how."
"Oh," Tyler said, the word falling flat.
"Why did you ask?"
"I wanted to know how to use it. The instructions on it aren't really clear enough."
"What are you talking about?" he asked.
Tyler took a step forward. "I got the skill while hunting."
Hector's eyes went wide, his mouth parting as if to speak, before he pressed it shut again. "You have Rune Craft?" he asked.
"Yeah," Tyler said simply.
Hector thought, *He has Rune Craft as well. Not only does he not need to spend nearly as much time crafting, he can turn useless scraps into ingots. And his weapons can give skills. And now Rune Craft, too?*
Something hot climbed through Hector's chest as he took in the plain, unguarded look on Tyler's face, no idea, clearly, what he'd just handed him. His jaw set, hard, and held there.
Then, just as fast, it drained back out of him, and what dropped into its place sank lower and stayed there, a weight settling somewhere under his ribs that had nothing to do with anger at all.
He didn't know what to say. Rune Craft was the skill every craftsman in this trade wanted, the rarest of them all, and he knew exactly how rare, because he'd worked harder for it than he'd worked for anything else in his life, and it still hadn't been enough. What he'd walked away with instead was Harden, a fine skill, a useful one, but not the one he'd spent all those years chasing.
And here Tyler stood, seeming to have nearly everything already. The skill-granting items alone would have been absurd on their own, worth more by themselves than Rune Craft ever would have been to him.
Stacking Rune Craft on top of that didn't make Tyler look like a craftsman so much as it made him look like the idea of one, assembled whole, missing nothing. Something in Hector's chest pulled tight at the thought, tight enough that he had to breathe through it once before he trusted his own face again.
"That's great..." Hector muttered. The words came out thin, stripped of any warmth. A small smile pulled at the corners of his mouth, but it stayed dead, never reaching his eyes. "If you really want to learn about rune crafting, you should go see old man Ron. He can teach you how to use it."
"Oh, thanks," Tyler said, a smile breaking across his face.
Hector walked around the table. "I have to go get some fresh air," he said, passing Tyler on his way to the back door, and pulled it shut behind him.
As the door clicked shut, the bell rang out from the front of the shop, and Tyler caught the murmur of voices through the workshop wall, a couple of women, and Kai's voice threading through underneath them.
A smile stretched across his face, and he hurried for the iron door, pulling it open. The woman from earlier had come back, and she'd brought another man and woman with her.
The other woman had black hair and a small frame, shorter than the first, wearing simple black leather armor that left most of her plain black clothing exposed underneath.
The man beside her had a bulky frame, easily as tall as the doorframe itself. He wore leather armor reinforced with metal guards across his legs, arms, and the whole of his midsection.
Kai was already speaking to the assassin when Tyler stepped through the iron door.
She turned with a satisfied grin, gesturing toward the two hunters standing in her wake. "I'm back. They wanted to check the shop out for themselves."
"Thanks for coming back," Tyler said, stepping closer to the counter and resting his palms flat against the smooth, polished wood.
The second woman with a smaller, leaner build with dark hair framing her young face, stood beside her companion. She wore fitted black leather armor over simple dark clothes. Her voice came out soft and feminine as she met Tyler's gaze. "How did you do it?"
"Well, that's a secret we can't reveal at the moment," Tyler said, scratching the back of his neck as a faint prickle of heat touched his collar. His eyes caught the cool gleam of the black pendant resting against her chest, stamped cleanly with the letter C.
*She's a C-rank assassin. Same as me.*
"Why can't you tell us?" she asked, tilting her head, her dark brown eyes searching his face.
Tyler hesitated, shifting his weight. "I'm sorry, but I can't explain why or how it's done. But you can trust us. We make great items with top-tier materials and special effects."
"Enough with the bullshit," a deep voice rumbled.
The massive man took a heavy step forward, the floorboards groaning under his weight. He crossed his thick, armored arms over his broad chest, leather and metal plates grinding against each other. "What kind of trick is this? When I touched that armor, I didn't feel a skill at all."
The first woman turned her head, glaring up at him. "That's because you have to wear it. And you're far too big for that coat."
The man's heavy brow furrowed into a deep scowl. "Did you pay these people to play a trick on me?"
"What?" the first woman barked, her hands dropping to the daggers at her hips.
The second woman raised a slender hand, cutting them off. "I felt a skill too once I put it on. But I still want to know how that's even possible."
Tyler's gaze dropped to the man's chest, catching the dark gray pendant stamped with the letter D against his heavy chest plate. James had explained all the rank colors of badges to him before.
*He's a tank. That's perfect.* A confident grin tugged at the corner of Tyler's mouth. "We can prove it to you with other equipment."
The tank raised a thick eyebrow. "Another equipment?"
"Yes." Tyler turned to Kai, nodding toward the workshop. "Kai, go grab the offense shield."
Kai nodded quickly, turning on his heel and pushing through the iron door, leaving Tyler alone with the three hunters.
Silence settled inside the front shop, thick with tension. The second woman kept her dark brown eyes locked onto Tyler, studying his face. "Is this some kind of... ultimate skill?" she muttered under her breath, her fingers lightly touching her chin.
Tyler held her gaze, a knot tightening in his stomach.
*Should I tell them? I can't mention the system, but if they find out an assassin is also a craftsman, it'll sound even more absurd. It's already hard enough for them to accept what's happening. I can't do that.*
The iron door creaked open behind the counter. Kai emerged, carrying the heavy offense shield in both hands before offering the handle to Tyler.
"Thanks," Tyler said, taking the heavy weight of the shield into his own grip. The cold iron and jagged, sharp spikes caught the light of the room.
Stepping around the edge of the counter, Tyler walked directly up to the massive tank, stopping a few feet away. He held the heavy shield upright between them. "This is an offense shield. As you can see, it functions as both a weapon and a shield. We built this specifically for tanks and knights, so the skill inside is compatible with both classes."
The man's heavy arms dropped to his sides in confusion, his broad shoulders relaxing slightly.
"Compatible?"
"Yeah," Tyler said, turning to address the second woman. "Some of these items won't work on certain people because the skill isn't tailored to their class. An assassin can't use a tank skill, and a tank can't trigger assassin skills on your gear. He can only use tank class skills."
"And you're saying this has a knight and tank skill?" the man scoffed, crossing his thick arms over his chest again. "That sounds stupid. There's no skill that works for both."
"This one does," Tyler insisted calmly, extending the thick iron handle toward him. "Here. You can test it out for yourself."
The tank stared at Tyler for a long second, his eyes moving from Tyler's face down to the heavy shield. He reached out a broad, calloused hand and wrapped his fingers tightly around the grip.
The instant his palm clamped around the handle, a violent gasp tore from his throat. His entire body shuddered and eyes went wide as his heels dag into the floor. "W—what the hell?" he stammered, stumbling back half a step under the sudden shock.
His vision blurred into a swirl of light for a split second as a wave of complete skill knowledge crashed directly into his mind, how to trigger it, its mana cost, and its exact physical execution flooding his consciousness instantly.
"What is it? What's wrong?" the second woman asked, taking a fast step closer, her hand hovering near her waist.
The man slowly raised his head, his chest heaving. His blurred vision cleared, snapping her face back into razor-sharp focus.
"It's... a skill," he whispered, his knuckles white around the shield grip as he stared down at the weapon in sheer disbelief.
"What?" the second woman gasped, her mouth dropping open.
The first assassin let out a bright chuckle, a triumphant smile spreading across her face. "I told you, didn't I? The gear in this place actually grants skills. We can buy them here," she said, her voice rising with pure excitement.
"This should be impossible," the man whispered, staring down at the shield clamped in his broad fist. "I have the skill now, and I know everything about it. Just like acquiring a skill after leveling up."
"It was the same for me too," the second woman said, her eyes shifting toward Tyler. Her previous suspicion had vanished, replaced by a quiet sense of wonder, awe, and curiosity.
"How much for the shield?" the first assassin asked, a broad grin spreading across her face.
"Twelve silver," Kai answered from behind the counter.
"Twelve? So it's a lot pricier than the coat, huh?"
"Yeah," Tyler said, leaning back against the wooden counter. "The Gloomcoat just increases an assassin's speed. But the offense shield..."
Tyler trailed off, looking over at the tank with a slight nod.
The man picked up the explanation, his voice trembling with lingering shock. "It doesn't just increase my speed. My strength increases by twenty percent, while my speed increases by seventy percent."
"Seventy percent?" both women asked in unison, their eyes widening.
"Yes," the tank said, a sharp breath escaping his lungs.
Tyler folded his arms over his chest, a confident smile touching his lips. "You guys are pretty lucky to be the first ones. We're planning to increase the prices once these kinds of equipment become popular. After all, you're not only buying good equipment, but you're also buying skills."
In the brief silence that followed, Kai shifted nervously behind the counter, looking at Tyler with a strained expression.
*Oh no. Sir might have gone a bit too far. We were never planning to raise the prices.*
"How many do you have?" the tank asked, tightening his grip on the handle.
"We only had two for now, so there's only one left," Tyler said.
"I'll buy it," the tank said, reaching for his coin pouch.
"What about the coat?" the second woman asked, stepping up beside him.
"We have two left," Tyler replied.
"We're buying all of them," she interjected before he could finish his sentence.
Kai's eyebrows shot up in surprise.
*They're buying all of them?*
Kai looked over at Tyler, a wide smile breaking across his face. *Sir really knows what he's doing.*
Kai moved quickly, gathering the remaining shield and the two Gloomcoats from the workshop, setting them onto the counter to finalize the sale. Coins changed hands, and the transaction was completed. The tank and the second woman gathered their new gear and turned toward the door, muttering in hushed, excited tones as they stepped out into the street.
"Thanks for coming again," Tyler said to the first assassin, who had remained near the counter.
"No, thanks to you," she said, clutching her folded coat. "We get to use skills we didn't even know we could have."
She turned to leave, but Tyler took a quick step forward. "Wait!"
She paused, looking back at him.
"You know," Tyler said, lowering his voice slightly, "if you bring more people here, say, about ten people, I'll give you a free assassin item with a different skill. How about that?"
Her brown eyes sparkled with sudden excitement. "Really?"
"Of course," Tyler said, nodding smoothly. "We've been working on other items, better than the ones you have now. You'd be the first to get one, completely free."
"All right," she nodded emphatically. "I'll make sure to bring ten people tomorrow."
"Great. I'm counting on it," Tyler said as she pushed through the door and stepped out into the evening air.
Kai stared at Tyler, a look of genuine amazement on his face. "Wow, sir. You're really good at this."
"Really?" Tyler chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. "I don't know... I was just going along with it."
"Huh, so you're saying it just comes naturally?" Kai smiled.
"Come on, you know that's not what I meant," Tyler said, waving a dismissive hand.
Kai let out a soft laugh.
Tyler glanced out the shop window, noticing the orange glow of sunset stretching across the cobblestones outside. The street was growing dark. He had spent hours in the shop, preceded by the time he had spent at the forge with Hector.
"You guys are about to close, right?" Tyler asked, turning back to Kai.
"Soon."
"All right. I guess I'll head out," Tyler said, already stepping toward the entrance.
"Now?" Kai asked, caught off guard.
"Yeah. I have to take care of something. Oh, and tell Hector I left, all right?"
"Okay, I will. See you tomorrow."
Tyler pushed open the door and stepped outside, pulling it shut behind him. The moment he reached the street, his relaxed expression hardened, his eyes narrowing as he turned toward the town gates.
*I can't believe I promised her an assassin item with a different skill by tomorrow. I don't even have that right now.*
He let out a heavy sigh, running a hand through his hair.
*I was planning to hunt those Shadow Claws at night eventually. Guess that day is today. Plus, I get to test out the new gear.*