Chương 45: Variety

Eisen and Bree walked through town, and before going to the Inn made their way to the General Store to buy some equipment for which Eisen didn't have the time to make them himself, as well as some spices that might be useful while cooking.

The first things that Eisen bought were bags with salt and sugar, as well as some different spices like pepper, basil or rosemary, and at last some garlic cloves and onions, as well as a bottle of cooking oil.

On their way to the different kits, though, Eisen also saw some other herbs that he knew. Amran and Byron. And this alone gave Eisen some ideas to experiment. If these herbs could be used while making potions, maybe they also had some effect when included while cooking. So, Eisen also bought some small bags filled with these, and then walked over to the different kits.

There were all kinds there. Mining kits, lumbering kits, or even smithing kits. Eisen chose two different ones, once the basic camping kit with two tents, and the basic cooking kit.

Eisen and Bree decided that from tomorrow on, they would camp in the forest until Eisen's level reached 50, or preferably even higher. Since Eisen figured cooking counted as a crafting skill, he was also hoping to figure out how his Crafting Space skill worked when cooking in the forest.

After they bought the supplies they needed, the two of them walked back to the Inn to eat a bit, so that they could save the meat for the next day with the help of a short-term preservation spell from Bree. She really had a variety of spells she could use.

After Dinner, Bree talked to the owner of the Inn.

"H-Hey, Boss… Could we talk about something?" Bree walked up to the Innkeeper standing behind the front desk while fidgeting around with her fingers. He smiled and nodded. "Of course, what's the problem Lass?"

"It's not a problem, but… First, I want to thank you for your help. Without a place to stay I don't know what I would be doing right now. But it's about time I move on to someplace else... Eisen and I want to go on a Journey soon, so I won't be here too much longer."

"I see… Then thank ya for always doing such a great job, Bree. Ye were our best waitress, always wearin' a smile on yer face. We'll miss ye here. When are ya leavin' though? Right off the bat?"

Bree shook her head and smiled bitterly, "Thank you, Boss. But no, not directly. Eisen and I wanted to camp outside of town tomorrow, and then we'll return to town to get some more things ready before we actually leave... But I can work when we're staying here the night, of course!"

"Don't worry about it, lass. Ye don't need to work anymore. I can spare the costs of a few nights' stay."

"R-Really, are you sure?"

"Of course! See it as a goobye present, lass."

"Thank you so much, Boss!" Bree smiled brightly and walked around the counter to give the Innkeeper a giant hug.

In the meantime, Eisen already went to his room and was cleaning his sword and thinking about combat tactics. It's been about 45 years, but he remembered a few things about the martial arts that he learned in his younger days while he was fighting today. He wasn't really able to completely do these things perfectly again, but at least his feel for his sword grew sligthly.

If Eisen met up with Brody at some point, maybe he could help Eisen out while practicing in return for making some equipment for him.

Either way, for now Eisen had to think about what to do next. Tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, Eisen would fight as much as he could, and hopefully get close to level 50 so that he could properly fight in that Dungeon that Bree was talking about.

Even if he wouldn't directly be at 50, though, he could probably get inside and fight without problem, considering all the bonus stats he got through his skills.

And again, the only thing that Eisen needed to take care of was eating and drinking properly, since he didn't feel tired while he was fighting, and only when he made up his mind that the fighting for the day was over did he feel a rush of exhaustion.

This part of the game made it easy for him to fight all day long without worry.

Eisen placed his sword down next to his bed and laid down, closed his eyes, and logged off for a few hours.

---

"Good morning, Bree!" Eisen said as she walked up to him in the restaurant, this time not wearing her regular uniform but instead her dress. He laughed softly at this and smiled. "So everything worked out with the Innkeeper yesterday, I take it?"

"Mhm! He's letting me stay here while we're still in town, and I don't need to work for it!"

"Oh, wow, that's incredibly nice of him. So, let's eat breakfast, shall we?" Eisen suggested and waved at one of the Waitresses to get her attention, and ordered a nice breakfast for him and Bree.

After taking their time to eat, the two of them pay and make their way out of the Inn and back toward the same entrance tunnel that they used yesterday.

Eisen and Bree first walked back to the area with the low-leveled goblins and walked in a straight line toward the area with the higher-rank versions of them without trying to avoid anything in the way.

The reason for that was simple. Eisen and Bree needed to get into the feeling of a fight, and so they decided to kill anything that crossed their way, as there was nothing that could really do anything against them at this point in this area anymore.

So, whenever they came across a few Goblins that decided to attack them, they fought back and moved on to the next area, until they saw a different type of Goblin group.

They were slightly taller, and were wearing and holding old equipment. There were three in total. One of them was wearing an old, rusty steel helmet and some pants that were obviously far too big for it. It was slightly more muscular and held a dull shortsword.

The second one was the shortest of them all, and wore dark cloth as makeshift clothes, and held a letter opener that it seemed to be using as a dagger.

The last of them was also the talles and skinniest, and was holding a branch with some kind of cracked crystal at the top of it, as well as a ripped up robe.

He turned over to Bree who looked closely at the three monsters and then began to explain. "Three rank 2 Goblins. They're low in level, so they aren't that strong, but their party composition is pretty good. They have a Goblin Warrior, Rogue and Mage. The best method would probably be to take out the Mage first, since he has a weak body, and then take care of the rogue. They are fast and can do a lot of damage over time. Warrior are slow, so it's easy to dodge their attacks.

"Got it. Thanks. Cast the spells on me first, and then on them just before I attack."

Bree nodded while Eisen quietly moved around the group of goblins and could look directly at the Goblin Mage's back, and nodded at Bree. Quickly, she cast her support spells on him and then quietly waited for Eisen's next signal.

When it came, she cast the de-buff spells on the three goblins, which of course alerted them, but by the time they realized something was off, Eisen already swung his sword to the side and cut deep into the Mage's neck. It didn't instantly die, but it was put out of comission while the Rogue came jumping at Eisen.

The Giant-Dwarf swung his Zweihänder at it, and the Rogue reacted in time but instead of jumping ot the side to dodge, it tried to block Eisen's attack. But of course, since it was holding nothing but a letter-opener with an incredibly thin and weak blade, it gave in to Eisen's attack and snapped in half while the Zweiänder cut through the Rogue's shoulder.

Immediately, Eisen turned around and faced the attack from the Warrior's shortsword, which was stopped by the Zweihänders parry hooks. This was the first time that Eisen was able to take advantage of this feature, and he was glad to see that it worked even better than he had hoped.

Eisen swung his sword downward, and then stepped on the flat side of the Goblin's shortsword to disarm it, and then stabbed it through its stomach. But before Eisen could do anything else, he heard Bree yell something.

"Eisen! Watch out! They had a potion!" She screamed just before the nearly completely healed Rogue stood up and Jumped at Eisen with the small, snapped-in-half letter opener in his hand.

The Rogue was still fast even with Bree's de-buffs, so Eisen didn't manage to dodge in time and got stabbed in his leg by the short goblin.

"Shit!" He swore and turned around, using that motion to swing his Zweihänder faster than usual and hit the Goblin's arm.

In response, it cracked loudly and dropped to the ground while it was completely cut off.

The Goblin screamed in pain and held its wound, giving Eisen the chance to finish it off by cutting through its throat. Then, he moved on to the Warrior and Mage and did the same for them.

"That was harder than I thought it would be." He muttered out and dropped his head while Bree walked up to him.

"I'm sorry, I didn't expect them to have stolen a potion from someone!" Bree apologized with worry and immediately handed Eisen one of the pills so that he can recover the damage that he took.

"Don't worry about it, really. The Letter-opener that the Rogue was using was already snapped in half, so it didn't do all that much damage."

"We should just be careful with the next few groups of Goblins. If these ones had healing potions, ones with a higher level and better equipment probably will as well."

"Maybe, but let's not worry about that. We'll probably have far more healing items than them." Eisen said with a smile after checking that his Health refilled again. And while Bree squatted down to cut out the Mana Crystals of the three goblins, Eisen took a look at their equipment.

First, he checked the shortsword. It was incredibly dull, and there was barely anything you could call an edge anymore. With enough force it probably still could tear your flesh apart, but not as easily and cleanly as usual. The material it was made of seemed like a very low quality iron and the surface had a few cracks inside of it. Eisen frowned and stuck the sword into the ground. It was basically useless, after all, and Eisen couldn't just take every weapon he found with him.

Eisen basically skipped the letter opener. He wasn't really interested in it, and since it was broken there was no use for it either. In the first place, something that can just snap in half like that couldn't be something of high quality.

The thing that interested him, though, was that gem at the top of the Mage's staff. It seemed like it was cracked, and Eisen killed the Mage Goblin before it could do anything, but if the Goblin was walking around with it, it had to have some kind of use, right?

Eisen squatted down and pulled the staff out of the corpse's hands. The main body of the staff seemed to be just some branch, and not even a very sturdy one, and the gem seemed to basically fall out of its slot on its own, and it didn't take any real force to pull it out.

There was a large crack right down its center, but it was still connected at the bottom, albeit barely.

Eisen closely looked at the pure red gem and activated his appraisal to see what he was looking at.

[Cracked Low-Grade Fire Gem]

"Oh? A Fire Gem? Bree, do you know what that is?" Eisen asked and the Fey-kin turned her head to look at the gem.

"Hm? Ah, yeah, I know what that is! Mages use elemental gems to make their spells work better~ That looks like a fire gem! Seems like that Goblin was a fire mage~!"

"I see. Maybe I could make something interesting with it. Ooh, I could try and see what happens if I put a Flame Enchantment on it! That seems like it might work pretty well!" Eisen said excitedly. Now that he knew that something like this existed, he thought immensely about the different possibilities that came with it.

But for now, it was hunting time.