Level 1 Fallen

Chapter 213: Special Request

After reviewing the contract multiple times, even appraising it to ensure that there were no hidden traps or functions, I signed my name on the page. At the same time, according to the contract, a quest was automatically generated and bestowed to Daichi, tasking him with the establishment of the city. In exchange, the members of the Limitless Guild would become partial citizens of Fallcry.

Once that quest was accepted, he looked at me with an expectant gaze, so I gave him another quest. This one was simple, and I knew he could do it with little effort. He had to use the powers at his disposal to construct a small house. Doing so would grant him the Material Manipulation skill.

Daichi seemed ecstatic when he received these two quests, especially the second one. He stood and offered a deep bow. “Thank you very much, Drake. With this, my future quests should be far easier to complete.”

“Do be warned,” I told him. “Material Manipulation and its future evolutions likely have quite high mana burdens. Don’t be surprised if you can’t do everything you want all at once.”

“Oh, I am fully aware!” Daichi beamed a bright smile. “However, if this cost is spread over dozens of puppets activating the skill in tandem, it can be heavily mitigated.”

My eyes widened slightly at this revelation, but I didn’t press the matter further. He was running out of his allotted time for the day, and I had to get back to the others before Diane logged on.

After receiving the two blueprints from Daichi, I teleported back to the manor that I had set up previously. Thankfully, nobody had found an issue with our presence there, so we hadn’t been bothered. Or rather, this area seemed to be quite far away from where normal players trained.

By the time I arrived, Bella was already up and about. “How’d it go?” she asked, looking over.

“There shouldn’t be any problems. I made the deal, and got a few useful blueprints off of him. Once we get the materials and head back to Fallcry, it shouldn’t be hard to set them up.”

“Got it. Any idea where you want to go for our next adventure? I think we should be ready to leave here any time.” As Bella asked this, Diane emerged from her room, her brand already lit.

“You’re done with your check-ups already?” I asked in surprise, thinking that it was still too early for Diane to log on.

“The doctors were busy today, so they scheduled it earlier than usual,” she responded with a shrug. “Anyways, I hear that everything went well, and you’re looking for the next place to visit?”

I couldn’t help but perk a brow at this. “I take it that this means you already have an idea in mind?”

“There are a few options,” Diane explained, moving to sit down on the couch. “First, there is a large-scale raid being planned on Abyssis. Most of the top-tier guilds and kingdoms are going to be participating, since this is the first major push into their territory in this world’s history.”

“Basically, they are coordinating a strike across multiple different realms at once to push into all of Abyssis’s gates at the same time. Their goal is to secure the gates and prevent future attacks from that side.”

I gave a small nod as I listened, pulling my menu out of my inventory to get started on breakfast for the day. “I see. Though, now that I think about it, I haven’t really heard much about Abyssis actually invading through the rifts, have you?”

I remembered organized monster attacks on the defensive camps, but those had been caused by other monster races, such as the dragons, not Abyssis itself. I couldn’t actually remember any problems caused by Abyssis ever since the rifts opened.

Diane hesitated, seeming to think it over. “I can’t say for certain. I don’t really have access to that information.”

“Anyways, aside from that raid, there are a few people that have actually requested our help through the forums.” I was surprised when she mentioned this, but she kept going. “Most of them are explorers or other casual solo players.”

“Okay… but why are they reaching out to us?” I asked, feeling somewhat suspicious. “It’s not some trap or something, like remnants of the old bounty hunters, right?”

“I don’t think so. Everyone has their own reasons. For instance, there is an explorer who is trying to map out Chimeris. She wanted our help because of your car and teleportation skill, as well as your combat power. Apparently, although it’s her dream to map out uncharted lands, she doesn’t have the strength to do so on her own.”

“Then, there is another guy, he said that he found a level-locked dungeon. You have to be under level ten to get in, but when he had a new player go in, they found that all of the monsters were at least level fifty. He thinks that there should be some extreme reward to make up for this difficulty, so he wanted to get your help.”

I hesitated, thinking it over. “Alright, you can show me the requests. But, that exploration one seems like it would take quite a while, wouldn’t it? Even teleporting, it would take a lot of time to map out the terrain for an entire planet.”

Diane seemed to have anticipated this, sending me screenshots of the various requests over private messages. “She doesn’t want your help for the whole thing. She said that she found an ancient ruin referencing three different locations, and wants our help with those. Her theory is that it’s a kind of linked lore dungeon, and there are hints that an exploration-type skill will be given as a reward.”

“I… see,” I muttered, looking through the various images to read the requests. I hadn’t expected my popularity among players to reach a point where they began to reach out to me for help with their own tasks. Each request seemed to have its own reason for looking for me, and promised their own reward.

Looking through the various requests, I began to understand a certain theme. They weren’t so much making the request to me, but to Diane. This should be a result of my request when agreeing to the sponsorship deal from the GM. At the time, I said that I wanted my sponsor clips to focus on the relationship between Fallen and Players.

It seemed only natural that this would lead people to want to hire me through Diane for various things. For one, I was already showcasing a willingness to bridge that gap. Second, we were a small group, so it was easier than hiring a full guild. Third, I had a vast array of skills to help with almost any occasion.

“How long have you been getting these requests?” I asked, looking over at Diane, who simply shrugged.

“Shortly after you founded Fallcry. However, a lot of them were pretty ridiculous at the time, so I just ignored them. There was one where someone asked to marry you so that they could be the queen of Fallcry.”

When Diane said this, Bella’s eyes went wide, looking at her in shock. “T-that’s… really shameless, isn’t it?”

“Yup. That’s why I never brought it up. Other requests included copies of your enchanted menu. It might seem like a small thing to ask for, but given how visceral that backlash was when you made it, I ignored those as well. They only started sending reasonable requests about a week or two ago.”

I perked a brow at this, reading over the rest of the requests. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to take one of these. As for the raid, I barely gave it any thought. There were too many kingdoms that likely wanted an excuse to kill me in the chaos on the off chance that they could get my trait while excusing their actions as collateral damage.

Did I think it would be easy to kill me while making it look like an accident? Not really, but that didn’t mean that I should take the risk without any tangible rewards. Besides, as I told Diane, I hadn’t heard of any actions from Abyssis that would warrant such a raid to begin with.

As I flipped through the requests, one of them stuck out at me. This was a request for a custom weapon using my Shadow Forge skill. Like Diane’s previous fighting style, they relied heavily on shadow skills. Moreover, they had already joined Fallcry, and had learned the Shadow Dragon Embodiment skill like Diane.

However, they wanted a weapon that truly complimented their fighting style. For this, they decided that they needed a weapon made from shadows, as it would be the perfect medium for their skills. But… shadows weren’t exactly a common material that could be molded under normal circumstances.

That was when they saw a clip of me using Shadow Forge, and so they hoped that I would be able to make them a custom weapon. As for the reward for the request, it was for a skill book called Substitution. They even included a description for the skill, in case its effects weren’t obvious.

By using the skill on an inanimate object in advance, the user could escape one instance of damage. As long as they were struck before the skill expired, they would immediately swap places with the marked object.

“This Substitution skill…” I said, glancing at Diane. Her brow immediately twitched at the sound of it. “Is it a ninja skill? I haven’t heard you mention anything like it before.”

“That’s right,” Diane said, before letting out a faint sigh. “I don’t know how he got his hands on that skill book. After he sent the message, I looked at all of the markets, but nowhere had the skill listed. If I had to guess, I think he made the skill himself with an enchantment book.”

“...Is this a skill you want?” I asked, and she lowered her head slightly. “Then, I’ll take this request first.”

“Are you sure?” Diane asked in surprise, looking over at me. “You won’t be able to make a good high-level weapon without studying blacksmithing, will you?”

“I’ll visit the Sanctum to read some books on the subject, and then give it a try. If I can make the weapon without blacksmithing, that’ll be for the best. Otherwise, I’ll just study with Hammerhead for a few days. Also, if this does work, I’ll be able to make new equipment for the both of you, too.” This was my primary reason for taking the request. There were actually multiple people making crafting requests in the list Diane gave me. However, this was the only one that had a reward that seemed useful for us.

“In that case, I’ll let the client know. I don’t know if they’ll be awake this early, but they should get back to me once they’ve seen it.” After saying that, Diane logged off, her brand dimming. Her Chosen then looked up at me with a look of determination.

“Will you make me a shadow weapon, too?” she asked. Although Diane had abandoned the path of pure shadow skills to refocus on being a ninja, her Chosen still planned to fight with the skills she had mastered.

“Are you even able to use equipment in your dragon form?” I asked curiously, and Diane hesitated. A weapon that couldn’t be used in her dragon form was essentially useless, since all of her big skills were only really usable in combat in that form.

“Armor…?” she asked again. “You can maybe enchant it so that it grows when I do. That shouldn’t be too hard, right?”

I let out a light chuckle, shaking my head. “I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know if Shadow Forge can make armor. If it can, I’ll see what I can do.”