Chapter 22: The brothers

Shingi focused on the orders. Since he had decided not to use any magic or mana, not even to help shape the metal as he did with Mithril, things would be slower. He organized the orders and started working on a few nails and chains and quite a few metallic kitchen cookware. Those seemed to be a fair amount of the orders but no knives for a reason.

Garry had left with the materials to use some more blueprints for those generic items. This time, Shingi had used them cause he was most familiar with creating weapons and not this type of thing, but it wasn't so hard to learn with these.

He worked on multiple ones simultaneously, which was simple since there were many orders of the same thing.

As time passed and got a few hours before the shops started closing, Shingi ended the last creation he had crafted for today. Shingi put it at the side with the rest of the same order's items. He organized them in different bags to be given to the customer right away without looking through other orders. He had almost a dozen of bags that, even if they weren't too large, most of them put them would be impossible to handle for one of his size and strength.

He could use his stick enchantment to stick the smaller and lighter bags with the others to handle multiple ones. As long as he fed the enchantment with mana, it wouldn't end. But, unfortunately, this would take a lot of mana, and he had decided not to use any unless having no other choice.

So he had to take leave and return multiple times to deliver them all. And so he did, and this was an excellent time to train his ACCELERATION, STEALTH, and MARTIAL ART skills. Combining them gave him better control of his body and increased his speed like a parkour master. However, he was still much slower than he was in his Player's body. He needed time to adjust to this body, and also, his stats being much lower, and they weren't allowing him to use these skills at their full power, even if they have a high rank.

As he worked on deliveries, unexpected notifications that he hadn't seen for a while appeared cause he was of pushing his body that much with using those skills.

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AGI increased by 1

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END increased by 1

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He spent almost an hour going around the town, delivering orders and getting the payments for them. As they learned that day, he even had to 'persuade' a few not to mess with this young man.

After delivering the last thing, he started his look around for a specific Player.

'Hineko should be around the storehouse.' [Shingi]

He made his way over there, but this time, he focused even more on STEALTH than before this time.

It didn't take him long, and he came across the one he was looking over, and as he expected, he wasn't alone. There was with him one more Player, and it was a young man looking just like Hineko. He was wearing arcane ropes and had a long, dark brown wooden staff at hand with a blue gem attached at the top part of it.

Shingi looked over at them for some time, and he understood that they were looking around while waiting for him. And so, after making sure there wasn't anyone else around, he appeared right behind them and coughed twice.

Both of them jumped and were scared like their life was in danger. Then they turned to see the source of the noise.

"Oh.... you are here. I came as I promised, but I brought my little brother with me. Hope you don't mind." [Hineko]

"Nice… meeting you. My name is Mizuneko." [Mizuneko]

The new guy bowed towards Shingi after introducing himself. It seems he was aware of what happened when he met with his brother, and they both seemed to pay attention to the way they acted.

'Good. This will make things way easier.' [Shingi]

"Stand up and follow me, both of you." [Shingi]

He started his way and led both of them at the storehouse he used for his Mana Tree creation, and he sat over at the box he was using then.

"So the two of you. What is your level and skills, and hide nothing, or I will know." [Shingi]

He looked at them and used some of his MINOR ILLUSION spell to make a pair of horns appearing on his head and disappearing right away. And it looked like it worked on intimidating them, or at least Hineko.

Both of them told him all their skills and the details of their characters were speaking. Hineko even said their weight and height, which was unnecessary information, but he didn't want to see what happened if they didn't share everything. Even Mizuneko, who wasn't as scared, followed the example of his brother.

Hineko was of Rogue class and was currently Level 14. His highest skill was his SLEIGHT OF HAND, followed by his ACROBATICS, as he wanted to be a performer, like a juggler or magician of a sort. His combat skills weren't worth to be mentioned, but this was something that could get adjusted. He also had his trusty quiver with woods for the juggling tricks he was working on and not cause he used a bow.

Mizuneko was a Mage and was level 20 and had upgraded his class to be an Aqua Mage. Aqua Mages were Arcane users specializing in Water Magic, which had the weaker damage-wise spells. Still, they had many de-buff spells and even some buff spells, but not specializing in them as Light element-based spells were the most powerful buff spells. As for de-buff, some were either not a specific element or of Dark-element, especially for the potent curses. But Aqua Mages had the chance to evolve their class, which wasn't too common for a class to do that early. They could become Ice Mages, which unlocked a unique element for that class only and unique spells coming with that.

There were only some NPCs Ice Mages, and none were taking apprentices back in the day. So Players did not know how to become an Ice Mage, but Shingi had a few theories on becoming one.

He also asked for more details about the Tower and the Dark Guild since he didn't find the chance to ask Phoenix and Tycoon.

The Tower was closed entirely, and only specific people could enter them. Still, it didn't seem that much progress had happened over the years as they hadn't seemed to have explored more than the 94th floor where Shingi got killed.

He and his party back then were the first to clear the floor back then.

That was only one floor higher than the one in which they killed him.

Usually, it shouldn't be that slow, but if only specific people entered and if they were of the Dark Guild. Then, he understood that they probably were trying the same thing repeatedly. They probably tried to conquer things using their brawn and not their brains, which was impossible to work the higher you got Tower.

He researched and paid attention to each part of the floor as clues existed about how to progress. But, of course, the solution wasn't to kill everything there was every time.

Since the dungeons appeared, it made things a little easier. However, some big Guilds were trying to take over the high-level dungeons. They weren't letting anyone else get it so that they kept the limited resources for themselves.

As for why those Guilds didn't force their way in the Tower, it seemed like some tried. But the Dark Guild annihilated them. Some even stopped playing the game or retired, as the brothers said.

Things still didn't understand how the Dark Guild had this much power and why the developers had done nothing. He couldn't ask the two players what happens in the real world, supposed to be an NPC.

And after he finished with his question and organized everything he had heard, he smiled and looked towards the two brothers. Seeing him smiling almost felt like a slight amount of electricity passing through their bodies.

"Well then, now that we have finished talking, we should start acting." [Shingi]

Hineko swallowed some of his salivae and reluctantly asked.

"What would you have us do, mister?" [Hineko]

Even if Shingi was a child, he kept getting this weird aura from him that seemed unnatural to him, and to tell the truth, it was scaring him.

Mizuneko, though, could tell that all was an Illusion. Still, an exceptionally good one, as the Mana Manipulation was looking flawless for him. If he didn't enable his Mana Sense to check his surroundings, he wouldn't notice Shingi using his mana. But because Shingi doing something like that so effortlessly impressed him and wanted to follow him and learn for him.

Of course, everything was an act. Shingi's 'aura' was his shadow which he manipulated to make it look like darkness came from him. He was also deflecting light by controlling its mana to make his surrounding even darker, giving him a darker look. But, of course, this was taking everything he had, especially since he had to keep looking as calm as ever while focusing on all that.

"Well, since you seem to be more interested in working with your hands, we will make you a Thief, and I don't mean you will go around stealing things... well, you will, but we won't keep the items. Also, I will make you a list of books you should gain that you can find at any town library." [Shingi]

It surprised Hineko to hear that. He had heard of the Rogues' class of Thief. Even if it wasn't one of the rare ones, it was a handy one to have. It focused on multitasking and agile movements of hands that he fit what he wanted to play as.

"As for you, Mizuneko, we will do some testing, and if we are lucky and you work hard, we may have made you a true Ice Mage." [Shingi]

Hearing that Mizuneko's staff fell from his hand, he even fell to his knees and kept staring at Shingi's face. Even if Shingi was surrounded by shadow and darkness, it looked dazzling in his eyes.

And then both the brothers spoke at the same time.

"WE WILL FOLLOW THE MASTER'S ORDERS." [Hineko & Mizuneko]