The Runesmith

“This looks terrible… Why are there so many holes in my workshop!”

“Wait until you go downstairs.”

Bernir was clutching his head while looking at the workplace he had created for himself. It started as a shabby shack but turned into a full-fledged smithy through the years. Roland had seen him constantly work on it after finishing the workload, it was like his own project and place that belonged to him. Now it had been partially destroyed during the Lich’s rampage, the chaotic mana had rained down and left large holes in the walls and the ceiling.

“Noo… my tools!”

Roland looked as Bernir rushed into the almost collapsed building. It wasn’t in such bad shape considering that his home had a lot more holes and the front door was blown open. It would probably take a lot more to fix it and the wind turbines in the back.

“Most of the tools should be fine, they were made from deepsteel. I’ll go check up on him so he doesn’t get crushed under the ceiling.”

Dyana was there too and she followed after her husband. Roland nodded as he looked inside and used some of his magic to reinforce the structure. He was not a carpenter or stonemason though so he didn’t really have any skills that would help him identify the weak points. Luckily Bernir and his own student could use some abilities to help them out with everything.

“This might be a good opportunity to upgrade everything…”

While watching the large lady walk away he eyed the mostly wooden cottage that had once been his assistant's workshop. It started out as a wooden shed and had been constructed with that in mind. The resource used for it had been mostly wood and even though it was fantasy wood it still didn’t have the resistance of the fantasy stones. Perhaps it was time to put some more money into all of this as his compound was certainly not able to last through a tier 3 monster invasion, even one was enough to cause this much damage.

‘But perhaps I should prioritize leveling up first and leave this to Bernir instead? On the other hand, this all happened because I started rushing things…’

The Lich escaping from the dungeon was mostly his fault. While he had no way of knowing that his mana would affect the creature in such a way, it wasn’t an excuse. If he went through the normal channels and adhered to the law then probably no one would have died for it. As it stood now, some adventurers had been killed by the monster and people's homes outside of the city were destroyed or ransacked by burglars.

Perhaps tossing himself into the exact same environment without thinking it over was a bad idea but on the other hand, he had already started this and at this point, there might not be anything he could do to stop it. Arthur had already heard about his plan and the platinum adventurers had already secured the dungeon entrance.

‘It might be too late to stop any of this…’

In his hands he was holding his runic helmet, through it he was able to connect to Arthur via the instant message device he made for him. He was given the order to return to the city as there was a lot to discuss. Now with the city gates opened up, there was no reason to fear any more burglaries, at least not with his newly hired help.

“Wayland, weren’t you supposed to leave for the city? Won’t that pretty boy be angry with you otherwise?”

His eyes looked down at the small woman, her name was Senna. She and her party of four had decided to take the request of protecting his home. Orson, Dalrak, and even Grisalde was here.

“Yes, I’ll be leaving soon, I just wanted to wait for Bernir to get here. I’ll have to thank you for taking the request, most of the adventurers will probably be heading to the dungeon instead.”

“Hah, they are idiots, going back into a dungeon a tier 3 Lich came from is dumb, its better to wait until that platinum party goes through it.”

Senna shrugged while smirking as a larger team of adventurers was being formed to sweep through the dungeon. It was a dangerous mission but it also paid well, for some adventurers this was enough. The siege of the city was quite mild as the monsters never made it inside. The foolhardy people from the guild were probably bored out of their minds and saw this as a chance to let loose.

“It’s not wrong for them to assume that this was a rare monster spawn, dungeon breaks don’t happen often.”

“That’s why it’s better to wait, no one knows when the next Lich will appear!”

“That is true, no use losing your life over some coin.”

Roland nodded as he kind of agreed but also knew that no new rare monster spawns would be appearing anytime soon. He would probably need to find another Lich and shoot him with his mana cannon again for something like this to happen. Even after that, it could have just been a one-in-a-million chance that his mana resonated with this particular monster this well.

This all would require some testing which he could only safely go through after achieving his own tier 3 class. His current level was already at a hundred and sixty-six. The monster at the entrance didn’t go over a hundred sixty. Taking this into account he should have been stronger than them when he achieved the new tier multiplied.

‘It’s not only the multiplier though, tier 3 classes also get those…’

“Wayland, are you leaving soon?”

Someone called out to him from afar, it was a voice that he knew well. Almost instantly a small smile crept on his face which the person he was conversing with noticed. He replied almost instantly while shouting a bit and Senna was quick to tease him about it.

“Ah yes, I got all that I needed.”

“I see that your wife is here, I’ll let you two lovebirds be then, and don’t worry while you’re gone we’ll keep this place safe, just don’t forget to give me a discount.”

“Wait she’s not my…”

“Haha, sure sure~”

Senna gave Roland a wink while moving away. The person that approached was a woman wearing glasses, behind her was a girl around the age of ten. It was Elodia and behind her was Marcie with some parchment. She was scribing something down on it while listening to her boss. Without peeking he assumed that she was making a list of things that needed to be either replaced or repaired. Luckily the store portion that was outside somehow made it out in one piece with the thieves not being able to get through the lock before Agni scared them away.

Elodia had come here along with Armand and Lobelia with both of the kids after it was safe. It didn’t seem that anyone believed that any more monsters were coming, otherwise they would certainly not have taken the kids along with them. People in this world were certainly more resilient than in his old one where children were usually cuddled a lot more. Here on the other hand when they hit the age of ten and got their first class, they were expected to start pulling their own weight.

“Why is the city lord calling for you?”

“Well, I kind of made a few promises… don’t worry, I’m at least good at making contracts, he can’t force me to do anything unreasonable.”

“That would be nice but alas your idea of unreasonable is a little different.”

“Ah uh…”

Elodia’s gaze felt like halogen lights trying to pierce through his forehead. She already knew that Roland was prone to putting himself in danger. This whole Lich debacle was already proof enough as any normal person would have just hidden away in the city.

“Well, at least most of the house survived, the shop is fine but what about the workshop?”

“Ah, wait for Bernir to look through it, the ceiling might need to be reinforced more…”

She turned around with her hands crossed over one another while pouting. Luckily he had decided to hide his hands behind some gloves the first time she arrived here. The healing potions did heal his broken bones but they weren’t good at hiding scars. These health potions he used just boosted the natural regenerative capabilities of a body. He would have to get a costly holy elixir from the church or get healed if he wanted to hide the scarred tissue. This is what he was actually intending to do when he got to the city, this amount of damage would be feasible for a tier 2 priest.

“I’m uh… sorry?”

“Why would you be sorry? Not like you put yourself in unreasonable danger just to save some building and magical trinkets… come, Marcie. Wayland here has a lot of work to do, we wouldn’t want to keep him from visiting the city lord.”

“Uh...”

The young girl didn’t know what was going on as she just nodded and quickly hid her face behind the piece of parchment she was scribbling on. It was clear that Elodia was quite mad this time around and he wasn’t sure how to make it up to her. While walking away he did notice her almost peeking back but quickly turning around for another pouting session.

“She didn’t get much sleep you know, Haven’t seen big sis this worried since we had to leave that city…”

After Elodia left to tend to some things Lobelia appeared next.

“She slept near that crystal ball waiting for you to send a message.”

“You don’t need to add salt to the wound, I already feel like an idiot.”

Roland had forgotten that he wasn’t a one-man team anymore. There were people that actually cared about him and would be sad if anything happened to him. It was an actual nice feeling for once but it also brought some drama into the mix. At this moment he didn’t know what he could do to ease Elodia’s mind.

Perhaps they needed to have a heartfelt talk if this whole relationship wanted to continue as he couldn’t see himself becoming less prone to injury until at least getting that tier 3 class problem sorted out. Even after that, it was only the first step beyond the wall. Not like tier 4 class holders didn’t exist and could bully him around. Both sides would probably need to agree to some type of compromise but that was something for later, first he needed to actually see if Arthur worked things out with the platinum adventurers.

“Good, you should… but anyway, you don’t need to worry about those three fools. They were working on their own. The guild won’t come after you or anything like that and they also didn’t have any connections so that’s that.”

“At least some good news for once.”

“Well, have fun but be sure to be nice to my sister, or else!”

Lobelia delivered a hefty smack to Roland’s back that didn’t really make him budge at all. She was all smiles but her words would be taken seriously. Now that everything here was getting taken care of it was time to move to the city. His magical half-plate armor that he used for walking in Albrook was already on him so after one last attempt at a wave toward Elodia and getting a side glare he decided to leave her alone for now.

“I miss using my bike…”

The runic bicycle that he had made previously was stashed away in his workshop. After making the tunnel to the dungeon and also having someone else to carry his wares to the city he didn’t really have a use for it. His attention turned towards more complicated magical machines like the runic golems. This didn’t mean that this mode of transportation couldn’t revolutionize the city.

‘If I manage to get a few wind turbines into the city and create some charging stations, it wouldn’t be impossible.’

This idea wasn’t his own but came from his old world. Their electrical cars and bikes were just becoming more mainstream. It would take some work and help from the city but it wouldn’t be impossible to popularize magical bicycles. All he needed to do was place a runic battery onto his current design. He couldn’t expect regular citizens to have enough mana to power them or use mana fluid as a fuel source.

That resource was more costly than gasoline in his old world. On the other hand, his renewable runic batteries were different, they could be recharged multiple times. The only thing holding them back was the materials they were made from. With time the runic structures would deteriorate the metal and would need to be replaced or repaired. Something like this would be too much for him as he could not replace hundreds of runic batteries just like that.

‘I’d need a factory or something to make them… perhaps if I could get a golem to make them or repair them instead…’

This was the only way besides hiring other runesmiths to do the work instead. An assembly line to produce batteries and a smelter take back the resources used on the old ones. When thinking about recycling he also thought back to his new skill that he recently tested out. It was the Basic Machinery Salvage skill that he gained after getting past level forty with his runic engineer class.

The test he performed on the mangled-up runic golems that were melted by either the Lich or the explosion. First of all, it required a large amount of mana but considering his current level it wasn’t that straining. The test was easy, he just placed the mangled-up blob of metal on a workbench and activated the skill.

This caused the whole piece to glow in an orange light and progressively to get smaller. It was actually a very game-like skill as in the end what was left was an ingot along with a few screws and bolts. The skill skipped the whole smelting process and could salvage whole ingots from destroyed golems and other basic parts like screws.

The only downside was the mass, the ingot, and parts that were left behind consisted of a lot less than he started with. If he went through the usual smelting process he would be able to gain back more. However, this skill made things a lot faster and it was still only at its lowest level. Perhaps at higher levels, it would be able to produce more. Then also when he applied more mana he would gain better results that at this time seemed a bit randomized.

While walking through the forest he filled his boring head with potential future plans. There were many ways of making money and now even more if he could get Arthur on board with it. The manufacturing of runic bikes or even other car-like vehicles could only happen with his help and it could be a potential gold mine. This however could only happen if the product could reach a wide enough clientele.

As things stood now only rich merchants and nobles could afford things like those. In his mind, the more people he could reach the faster his business would grow. The market for luxury magical items was almost fully saturated, to gain some ground he might have to look outside the box and target people in the middle that weren’t quite rich but not poor either.

The thoughts of expanding his business were interrupted by all the various people scattered around the place. After the monster Lich was defeated a lot of tier 2 monster bones were left everywhere. These could also be picked up by the commoners, seeing farmers and ladies from shops here was certainly a new experience. Thanks to soldiers patrolling these areas now they were safe from being bullied by some of the less stellar adventurers.

‘Even one bone could go for a full month’s wage so this isn’t surprising… but I’m not sure if Arthur won’t have his soldiers confiscate everything at the entrance gate.’

He wasn’t sure if they didn’t read the memo but these bones were supposed to cover the expenses of the main wall repair. Perhaps some of these people were trying to smuggle in some of the smaller bones in hopes of selling them in another city or a merchant that was fine with going against the order.

‘There will always be people out there trying to gain the system, well not like I’m any better.’

Roland was reminded that this whole fiasco started because he wanted to keep the adventurers guild and the dwarves out of the mining spot that he found. Now he would need to live with the consequences of his actions which might show their ugly head at any point in time.

‘I should speed up, those platinum adventurers probably don't like to be kept waiting.’

Thus he sped up towards the main road that would get him to the city where perhaps a new headache waited.