Let's Try the Forge!

After hearing the girls' orders, several waiters and waitresses came while pushing food carts in. Looking at the time, it was already near noon. I guess time flies when you're enjoying it, really.

As I was absorbed in eating the food served to us, Toki and the others were busy talking while eating.

"Of course, we plan to build a guild IRL," Toki suddenly replied without hesitation to Hailey's question. "But before that, we need to make a name for Ruin's weapons and armor first."

"Ah, is it because it costs money to maintain a guild?" Hailey asked further.

Toki shook her head lightly, however. "There's that too, but if it's money-related, then there's nothing I can't handle. Rather, it's more for smoothing out the official sanctioning of our guild."

A guild, huh?

Although it's a game term that's often used, it also exists in reality right now. Guilds exist under many names, like Mercenary Groups, Clans, or even Sects. Guilds even have the possibility of gaining the city's or country's support, not only financially but also physically.

However, to be a state-sanctioned guild, one needs to possess enough "merits" or "fame". One good example is the top guild right now, built by the same person who founded Mina's School, the Eclipse Guild. They were more or less in charge of handling monster attacks around City-B, which we reside in. Their name was slightly wounded, though, after the last monster attack.

Although they tried their best with the military, they couldn't completely clear the monster waves alone. Without the help of the Witch of Ruin, the defense of the city may have failed.

'Pulicizing that I was the one who made the Staff of Destruction that saved the city should be more than enough credit, but I guess the aftermath of revealing that is a little bit troublesome.'

Rather, it would probably be detrimental to our development. I can imagine other guilds pulling strings to get their hands on the one who managed to create a legendary-level weapon.

In the end, their talk ended with waiting for me to gain enough fame as the crafter "Prometheus". Well, as the guild leader, I guess it's my role to raise the guild's name first.

Slowly, their talk was turning into something I couldn't even butt into. Is this the legendary girl's talk that I've been hearing about? I literally can't catch up with the speed at which they change topics!

After eating, since we were done with the meetup anyway, I tried to slip out. Toki didn't say anything and only wished me good luck in crafting... She knows me too well. I was itching to try out the forge, after all. But before that, I need some metals to use together with the boss monster's parts!

Deciding to stop by the front desk and check the stock of ingots, I left the room.

---

"So? What's your first impression of Ruin, I mean, Mahiro?" Toki asked the three girls as soon as Mahiro left the room, a thin smile appearing on her face.

"He's definitely disappointed when he knew that we're girls and not guys," Mina muttered with a wry smile. Of course, they wouldn't miss such an important detail, as it was pretty obvious based on his first reaction.

"He's cute!" Lily declared without any hesitation. "Rather, I don't understand why he's still single even now, given his pretty good looks."

Hailey raised her head, complimenting Lily's words. "Ah, I was wondering about that too. I think you mentioned he was even turned down by someone?"

"He was, but that situation is a bit complicated." Toki sighed lightly before whispering words to herself, "Well, I guess it's a good thing for me, though..."

"Instead of his love life, I'm more concerned about his speed of leveling up," Mina said with a frown, crossing her arms against her chest. "I heard that some people level up faster than others, something to do with saturation or something."

"Ah, I heard about that too. Marionne was even saying in the chat that she was close to proving whether it's true or not."

Hearing a familiar name, Lily turned to Toki with a curious gaze. "Right, Marionne lives in this city too, right? Why didn't you invite her, Toki?"

"I tried. However, she's busy with the military higher-ups."

Toki literally has the contacts of all 16 members of their guild in Lost Age. Most of them were living in a far-off city, however, so they couldn't come to the offline meeting.

"Speaking of Marionne, isn't she like head-over-heels for Ruin? Well, we're not ones to talk, though." Mina sighed, leaning against her chair while playing with the straw of her juice.

To be specific, they all possess goodwill toward Ruin in one way or another. Only Marionne was brave enough to confess her love to him, but Ruin didn't pay her confession any heed. After all, in his mind, everyone in the guild was a guy.

"..."

Silence spread around their table for a moment. Each has a pensive and nostalgic look on their faces. Toki smiled wryly, recounting her experience. "I was actually tired of interacting with others back then since most were just after my parent's money. However, when Ruin found me in Lost Age, my world changed."

Ruin had a one-track mind, aiming for nothing but becoming the best in the game. Perhaps affected by his mentality, Toki slowly recovered from her misanthropy and became a tyrant herself... It wasn't a good ending, but it was much better than the former, at least.

"Mine's much simpler than yours! I was being bullied by my classmates because of my small stature and was depressed before he found me!" Lily laughed heartily, but a hint of self-deprecation could be detected from her words.

Hailey patted Lily's head, smiling, while Lily pushed her hands away while shouting, "Don't treat me like a child!"

"I guess the guild's like a little mental care facility managed by Ruin, then." She chuckled lightly before continuing with her own story. "I was just ostracized by others in my class for having red hair, getting called ugly, or demon-girl, or other names. It's pretty lame, now that I think back, but if I didn't meet Ruin, then I..."

She placed her right hand over her left wrist as if recalling something before smiling lightly.

"... You girls make my backstory seem lame." Mina sighed lightly. "I was just unable to find anyone to pose a challenge to me until I met Ruin. He was the first person that I couldn't beat in something even after going seriously at it."

"Miss Genius here have it tough~!" Toki poked fun at Mina before all of them broke out into laughter.

Their chat went on and on, seemingly without end.

---

After leaving Toki and the rest, I went straight back home. After looking at the debris for a moment, I noticed that I really did forget Kyouya's lance near my PC. I opened my World Storage and chucked it in... Along with my entire computer set.

After all, I can't just let it be exposed to the elements with how my room was half destroyed. Really, this skill of mine is too convenient.

After retrieving what I needed, I walked toward the dismantling facility again. There, I went to the facility head's room and asked Peter, the facility head, about the materials from the beetle boss monster.

He led me to a storeroom where the materials were placed. Each part was already separated into groups, with labels indicating which portion belonged to whom. I moved to the one labeled "Hailey" and checked what was available. After seeing everything, I took the legs, the carapace, and the antennae into my storage.

As I was about to move out of that place, I noticed one area with my name. "Wait, I have a portion too?"

I checked immediately, and it seemed like the parts that the others didn't choose were piled into a mountain. Thinking about their classes, these parts were technically useless to them, after all. To be precise, it was the hard wing cover, the entire head, and a large majority of its carapace.

Without hesitation, I dragged everything in my area and placed it inside my World Storage. Really, it's convenient that I can use it like an infinitely deep pocket.

"I should really increase my intelligence later," I muttered to myself, recalling the few free stat points that I haven't assigned yet.

After taking all the materials I needed, I thanked Peter before heading to the workshop alone. Of course, the door was opened using Toki's barcode. I wonder for how long I can continue using this "key"?

Inside the workshop, which was now all clean as I literally had everything inside my storage, I went to the forge and started preparing the flames. It was an induction forge, however, so there's not much preparation needed. I just turned it on and waited for it to heat the metal platform in the middle.

I took a crucible and placed the metal ingot that I had procured earlier. It was a little big, but started melting as soon as I placed it inside. While waiting for it to completely liquefy, I took out the leg of the beetle and used it as the "base" for the lance's shape.

Looking around, I used the leg to make a "mold" in the sand at one corner of the room. Using that, I poured the molten metal and let it solidify for a bit. I did that three more times, melting more ingots into the mix before the rough shape was completed.

I used a wheel grinder, smoothing out the sides of the spear before splitting it in half. After that, I used a hammer, flattening both halves until they became something like an uneven, thick metal half-pipe.

With the core done, I moved on to the reinforcement. I used a long sheet of carbon fiber, applied it at the core, and used resin to fix it in place. Then, I sandwiched it between the two halves, welding the gaps, and creating a heavy spear with a tough core.

After that, I took time to create the speartip, then addressed how to integrate the boss materials before finally creating the finished product. It took so long to create that it was almost midnight when I stopped.

In the end, the entire spear weighs about 20 kilograms. It was heavy, probably needing more or less 40 points in strength to lift, and about double that to be wielded as a weapon.

"Now, let's check for the stats..."

When I turned to look at the status display of the spear, I became speechless. "... I did it again."