Azimuth: The Elden Throne

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321 Into the Future! Everyone's resolution Part 2

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Following his visit to the Mercenary Guild, Dale went to the sole smithy in town, his favorite place...

He expected to see Barme doing the same thing he did every day and to hear his complaints about how he didn't have any Ore to work with or how his toe still hurt from when his hammer fell onto it…

But instead, he saw something different.

Inside his shop, Barme could be seen talking with eight different people of several ages, albeit none looked younger than his father...

Smiths!

… After a moment of inquiry, Dale quickly understood the situation.

These people naturally gathered here in Barme's shop because they were… Well… Bored, and itching to do something with their hammers.

Having left their home, their shops, and their previous life behind, there was nothing they could do now.

Even if they had dragged their tools and materials with them, unless they made a forge out of clay, there wasn't much they could do right now.

But having heard of Barme's workshop, they all flocked here… And against his expectation, Barme welcomed them, albeit there wasn't much space here.

Dale was glad that had been the case, with nine smiths instead of one, Resko's supply problems would certainly decrease… No matter how capable with the hammer they were.

In fact, it was unlikely that only these people were smiths among the survivors, there were likely a dozen or two more, either apprentices, their children, or other smiths that had either retired, given up on their craft, or merely not heard of Barme's forge due to circumstances.

With these numbers, it wouldn't be difficult to set up a Workshop, creating an environment for their craft to grow!

The problem was… Making one…

And that was when…

[Side Quest, A Smith's Plight has been activated]

[Description:

New Smiths have arrived at the Village, but they have nowhere to work!

Provide them with a working environment as soon as possible so they may resume their craft!

Or else... They'll keep pestering you!

Requirements:

Construct a Workshop with enough space for ten individual Forges 0/1

Or construct ten individual Smithies 0/1

*Bonus rewards for each extra Forge constructed*

]

A simple Quest with a simple description, but with rather complicated requirements.

In the first place, this wasn't a Quest an Ordinary player could complete, it was something only he, who had control over the land could do.

Dale had an idea of how to complete this Quest given Resko's condition, but for now, he bode them farewell.

Of course, Barme continued to pester him about the mines and the ores he needed, which led the other Smiths to do the same once they learned such places even existed.

They were all laughing as they did so, causing Dale's expression to sour a little.

But it wasn't like they only did that, they actually gave him a good idea.

With how many people there were now in Resko, it may very well be possible to have some of them work in the mines.

According to them, they already had Miners working in the old tunnels beneath the forest in search of ores, it was very dangerous and because of that, they were all extremely talented and pretty strong themselves.

Not many survived, so those that did had to be either strong or lucky.

The smart ones weren't there in the first place…

In any case, although his Quest hadn't updated, it had only been a day since they last met, so it was expected for their conversation to end like this.

But it was clear that the time to complete his Questline was coming as the necessity for Ores increased.

Dale had focused a lot on completing Testros' and Tina's questlines, it was time to do the same for the others.

Before it was too late.

... With that in mind, Dale continued, making his way to Ophelia's home.

…

/Later…/

"... Phew…"

'That was tiring…'

With a tired expression, Dale left Ophelia's home, his hair completely disheveled as he pulled his cloak back up.

'My back hurts...'

What had happened? Not much really…

Just like Barme, Ophelia had several guests in her home, people like her, or the past her...

Hunters!

Given how the survivors previously lived, hunting and foraging in the forest was a must given they had barely any space to plant crops.

In fact, they had so little crop food that it was akin to luxury, most of their 'crops' consisted of underground plants such as mushrooms, those they knew how to grow very well, albeit it wasn't enough to feed thousands, not at all.

This was another one of the reasons why the survivors felt so relaxed while here in the Village, being able to eat all of this crop food… Even just plain white bread!

It was so overwhelming it caused many to cry… They were rather dramatic…

Maybe those were their true emotions, hidden away under decades of abuse in the forest…

In any case, to sustain themselves, they needed people in the forest at all times, gathering fruits, setting traps, and making sure no apex predator was marking their surroundings as its territory.

These people were different from the Raiders, the job of a Raider was to go to uncharted territory and recover lost items in the ruins of the Corps.

They were the Elites of the Elites, taught to be warriors and even taught MagiCraft so they could identify, analyze, and neutralize whatever ancient danger was left behind by their ancestors.

The people here were plain old Hunters, people who acted within the limits of the know, hunting simple creatures here and there as they expanded the safe area around their colony.

It wasn't a worry-free job, but it was safe enough as long as you knew the forest… Which was the problem.

Ever since the Devil began altering the forest's balance, their work became almost impossible because the habits of prey animals changed and in consequence, those of the predatory beasts as well.

It became too dangerous to hunt like that, so they were forced to merely scavenge what they could… But now things have changed.

Knowing there was a hunter here in the Village, not just any Hunter but an Elderly one, which was a sign of great respect back in their Sanctuary, they all flocked over to learn a bit of the 'secrets' of this side of the forest.

They wanted to go back to business, hunt again, and provide for their families.

They didn't want to see their children cry as their stomachs rumbled and to see their husbands die as they refused their portion just so their child could take another bite from a rotten apple.

And given how every single one of these hunters were girls, and with quite an 'energetic' attitude, it was no wonder Ophelia felt tired and overwhelmed.

The reason for this was that Raiders usually required stronger bodies and a sharper mind, the usual characteristics of a man.

In the purest sense as nature willed, that was their job after all.

Although, paradoxically enough, women were left with hunting, setting traps, waiting with their bows, and going after small prey.

Women were also rather good hunters, it's just that they were more important than the man.

They needed to be alive to push their generations onward, but they couldn't stay sitting inside their homes all the time… So they picked the bow and set up traps outside.

It worked, very well even… For the first few decades…

Until the forest rumbled with the dangers from beyond the wall.

... When Dale arrived, they were discussing the dangers within the woods.

The problem was that there was close to none here in these parts... Or maybe that was a blessing.

The biggest danger one may find here is likely, at most, as strong as the ordinary critters they used to hunt with their bows in their spare time, and Ophelia wasn't sure how to tell that to them.

She was a bit fearful of breaking their expectations of her, she was just an old woman who had retired, not some kind of legendary archer who was being carefree with their time now that she was old…

This was a description better given to the 'old' Tina, after her transformation, Ophelia couldn't fathom how strong she had become...

Not that she was envious, if she was, then it was of her appearance, she also wanted to look young.

09:12

As such, Dale gave her a hand by creating an excuse, explaining the conditions surrounding the forest in a way that painted Ophelia in a strong light, glorifying who she was.

And although she felt embarrassed to be talked about like that, she didn't stop him in the end.

These girls needed a role model in a sense, and although she was lacking, she would be said person if it meant giving them peace of mind as they hunted.

And then, upon hearing how the forest here was… Well... Things went as expected, these Amazon-like girls became extremely enthusiastic.

To them, it didn't matter how strong the prey they hunted was, they had families to return to, so the easier their job was, the better.

There was no pride about them becoming nonchalant with how 'easy' everything here was, it was more of a small worry, or trauma.

They didn't want to grow weak in the case trouble came to them, they didn't want to lose their edge...

But they were tired, they wanted to take it easy... Seeing how life was here in Resko, they didn't want to go back to how things went.

These people slowly understood how difficult their lives were as they compared themselves with the people of Resko.

They had their own problems, yes, but... Yeah?

Anything was better than what they had before.

They were all very thankful to Dale for having rescued them and for having given them food when they first met, one of them even hugged Dale so hard he almost lost his breath.

Those girls were strong, more so than it appeared at first…

Thanks to his food and medicine, she managed to save her husband and see the smile of her starving child, is there anything better than that?

That is why Dale was so haggard… Those titanic girls all hugged him as they thanked him.

It was fun and all, but had this happened before the Ritual, he wasn't sure if he would've survived this encounter…

How utterly horrifying.

…

"Huff… I need a time off…"

'But it's barely been over an hour since I left the inn…'

Walking on the streets, Dale took a moment to relax and breathe as he thought about who to visit next.

"... Time to go."

After confirming his target, he went on with it, thinking about what he had experienced so far.

'It seems the Survivors are slowly integrating themselves into our community, or maybe it's the other way around.'

'With the difference in numbers, it's hard to say which culture will devour the other in the end…'

'Of course, I'm being a bit dramatic here…'

He wondered, if there were so many smiths and hunters, would such a thing repeat with the other Elders?

In a sense, there were always a few Survivors near every Elder he visited.

Even Illia mentioned how several people had gone to visit her at the restaurant.

It's not too farfetched to think that they'll be together.

'Things are going too strangely smoothly… Maybe that is one of the powers of the System…'

Even if these people may look self-aware and in charge of themselves, there is a completely other side of reality they aren't paying attention to as if there was a veil in front of their eyes…

The way everyone kind of bonded together… Wasn't very realistic… Although it wasn't like Dale had ever seen anything similar before either.

Maybe this was just natural Human behavior and he was the strange, antisocial being there…

Thinking about this made him grunt.

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