Chapter 4.0, Longsword

“Jayce, care to explain everything from the beginning?”

“From where exactly?”

They returned to the Moon Village and parted ways as Irene and Aiden had their own establishment in this village. They had decided to meet again at the inn’s restaurant, where they first met Irene, the next morning.

Jayce had nothing against it since they had witnessed last night’s battle. His arms still felt sore from that battle. He took a mental note not to apply too much pressure to his arms for the next battle. Even with Alice’s healing spell, he could still feel the numbness on his arms.

Enough of that, he placed it to the corner of his mind and returned his attention to their conversation. Irene and Aiden had yet to arrive, so there was some time between him and Alice.

“From the beginning, when you threw a knife at one of the watchtowers and that’s a hundred and fifty metres distance.”

“I used Weight and Reverse Summoning rune that was embedded in my throwing knife. As you already know about the summoning spell I had used for Noir. It is slightly different, think of the knife as a medium, while I’m a summoner and a familiar. Although, this spell requires more mana and concentration compared to the conventional methods. That’s why I tend to avoid using it during battle.”

She began to muse about the newfound rune he had just explained. She had heard rumours about Reverse Summoning spells, but so far, there wasn’t a single adventurer was able to confirm it, let alone an adventurer able to pull it off. “Then what about—”

“Sorry, we’re late.”

Before she was about to ask another question, they were greeted by Irene who was entering the restaurant with Aiden, who seemed to be unconscious(?), judging by the way how she dragged him along.

“Good morning, Irene,”

“Morning.”

Alice and Jayce greeted her with a wryly smile. Part of them suggested not to ask of Aiden’s current condition as there seemed to be a strange mark on his head. They felt sorry for him and gave a silent prayer to him to get better.

As Irene was approaching them, they could barely Aiden murmuring something. After laying Aiden down on the floor by the table, and sat in a chair across Alice and Jayce.

“Good morning to both of you,” she returned their greetings with a smile as if nothing had happened.

A waiter approached them, ignoring Aiden’s body, and serving Irene, business as usual. The waiter probably saw this kind of situation quite often during his job as a waiter here.

“I would like to have the usuals, please.”

The waiter gave a slight bow and headed back to the kitchen.

Irene shifted her gaze back to them and asked, “Had a good night sleep?”

Alice didn’t know what she was indicating, as her eyes seemed to contradict from her words, but she decided to answer her question anyway.

“Yes. We had a decent sleep last night.”

Irene was disappointed by her response as she was expecting a reaction from her. Before she asked another question, Jayce intervened their conversation.

“Now that everyone is here. Shall we resume our discussion?”

Alice and Irene gave their attention to Jayce and their expression tightens slightly and nodded.

Jayce took a deep breathe to shake off the fatigue from his system. They had just slept for five hours last night, after returning and taking a bath in the Moon Village.

“Before we begin our discussion, my name is Jayce, classless adventurer. This is Alice, magician class adventurer,” he began with the introduction of Alice and himself.

“Irene, archer class adventurer and my unconscious childhood friend over here is an assassin class adventurer, Aiden.”

Alice still couldn’t believe that Irene was an adventurer from the beginning. She initially thought that she was a full-time waitress in a restaurant. As for Aiden, though, this was the first time she had encountered an assassin class adventurer.

Assassins nowadays were rare in the capital due to the intense training she had heard from her parents.

She gave another look at Aiden, who was still unconscious, not so much as a twitch from his body.

Jayce had a feeling that Aiden wasn’t keen on meeting them. Irene probably brought him along as to show gratitude to them for saving his hide from the bandits.

“On behalf of my friend, thank you for rescuing our people from the bandits and taking down their leader.”

She stood up and gave a deep bow.

They exchanged glances and back to Irene.

“You don’t have to thank us. Without you and Aiden, we wouldn’t be able to defeat the bandit leader.”

“She’s right. There were many opportunities for Axton, who was the leader of the camp, to kill me.”

“But you seemed to be able to handle the bandit leader just fine last night. Aiden told me about you. Not only you wield dual blades but you were surprisingly adept with that longsword.”

Her statement alone was sufficed to cause anxiety for Alice. She turned her attention to Jayce, who seemed to be calm about this.

Irene may have keen eyesight, but the longsword Jayce had wielded against the bandit leader couldn’t be perceived. Every time she tried to focused on his weapon, his presence disappeared with the wind as if he was an illusion. But his equipment was meant for a warrior class adventurer.

But Jayce’s next words soon surprised her.

“Even though I seemed to have the situation under control that doesn’t mean it is true. Even with the supports I had, I can’t defeat him just by wielding thief’s weapons, so I have to use a longsword to defeat him. Any more questions?”

Irene gave another questioning stare toward Alice and Jayce.

As she did so, a waiter arrived and placed two oolong teas on the table.

She gave her thanks after receiving her order and affirmed the waiter that there were no further orders needed. She took a sip from her tea to straighten her thought process and then asked another question.

“If you know how to wield them, then who taught you? I’ve heard that only a handful S-rank adventurers able provide such apprenticeship.”

Jayce’s seemed to be unfazed by this question as he answered her question.

“An old friend of mine. Also, in case you were wondering, he’s dead.”

He casually took a sip of his tea, closing his eyes to focus and enjoy the aroma wafted from the tea.

Alice and Irene were surprised by his assertion.

This time, Irene gave a look towards Alice in askance. This was the first time for Alice to hear the word dead from Jayce, not to mention that he seemed calm about it as if…

In the midst of their contemplation, they heard a yawn coming from below.

They peered down from the edge of the table. Aiden was stretching his arms and shook off the strains around his back, producing a few crackling sounds. He focused on his hearings to determine his location, he then turned his attention to Irene.

“Good morning, everyone. What did I miss?”

Instead of being mad at her, which was what Alice and Jayce expected, he took a seat and drank his refreshment.

Thanks to Aiden, the air around Alice and Irene began to soften. They kindly returned their greetings back to him. Irene told him about their recent conversation until now.

“I see. By the way, I can’t believe your longsword didn’t even break after you swung it at his greatsword multiple times,” he began. “Not to mention that it was made of glass.”

Jayce had no reason to hide from them, after how much time they witnessed and heard his battle with Axton. With that in mind, he began from the beginning of how he reached his decision to forge it.

Yesterday, before Alice woke up in the morning, Jayce ventured around the village to gather further information about the camp from travelling merchants and the villagers. During his discussion with one of the travelling merchant, he found an intriguing ore from his carriage. The ore they were referring to was a glass ore. It wasn’t meant to create glasswares as the name suggested. The merchant mentioned it wasn’t worth buying as due to its low durability and demand. However, to Jayce, this ore was what he had been looking for during his stay in the Capital.

After introducing every other ore he had to Jayce, he still insisted to purchase every glass ores he had in his stock, including the obsidian ores. The merchant was flabbergasted by his request, but at the same time, he was happy to find a seller who was willing to buy his glass ores. As a sign of goodwill, the merchant decided to sell the glass and obsidian ores in thirty-per cent off.

Jayce agreed to purchase the obsidian ores in his offer price, but not the glass ores. He was well aware of the glass ore’s market price. And besides, he sensed that the merchant was low on funds for his business.

After receiving his purchase, he went to visit one of the blacksmiths, who worked in the day shift, in the Moon village. The blacksmiths abruptly halted their progress when Jayce entered their workshop. Despite their intimidating looks, they gave a warm welcome to him and served him as any other shopkeeper would do. Jayce then went to one of the blacksmiths who appeared to be the boss and materialized a glass ore from his magic gloves.

“Do you have any equipment that was able to utilize this ore?” he asked.

“Yes. But we’re not making glasswares or any sorts, though.”

“Oh. I’m not making glassware. I just need to borrow your forge to create a weapon.”

The blacksmiths laughed at his request. However, their boss didn’t. His expression turned serious upon hearing his request. Not only that their resources were abundant, but they were difficult to get their hands on as due to low demand. The issue with the blacksmiths when it comes to glass ores was that they were extremely brittle as a weapon.

The head blacksmith was intrigued by his request, he could faintly see an aura coming off from Jayce. Within his eyes showed determination to create something extraordinary, so he went to clear his workstation and prepared every single tool that Jayce might need. He then gestured Jayce to use his workstation. The blacksmiths stopped their work and gathered around him.

Jayce nodded to the head blacksmith and began his experiment.

Yes, this was an experiment Jayce had in mind the moment he heard about Axton’s weapon from the village chief, so he wasn’t sure whether the procedure would work.

He processed almost the entire glass ores he had in his disposal with their grinders, crushing them into tiny bits and poured them in a crucible. He positioned the crucible by the entrance of the forge.

But before he adds the crucibles into the forge, he cast a Separation spell to the crucible’s contents, leaving the concentrated glass to be the only ingredient in the crucible.

Once that was done, he used large tongs to place the crucible into the forge and then moved toward the mould cabinets. He looked for a specific longsword mould that suits his liking and placed it close to the forge.

The shape of the mould was one-metre long, but it had to be that long for it to succeed.

When the liquid glass was ready, he discharged it to the mould. He had to transfer it quickly as the glass was gradually returning to its solid-state. He cast Isolated Gravity spell to the liquid glass that was cooling down in the mould, shaping and smoothing every detail of the longsword.

He was confident about his gravity magic; it was his main magic when it comes to forging weapons. The last time he created his weapon was a few days before meeting Alice, although it ended up in failure due to miscalculation of his experiment. His current experiment was to test out the effects of hardening enchantment based on size and materials for the final product.

When the weapon was cooled and ready, he lifted the longsword up in one hand. It felt a bit lighter, but he still needed it to be heavier. He gave a few test swings with the longsword, sending a few breezes around the workshop.

The blacksmiths were enthralled by his creation, the fine shape of it couldn’t be achieved so easily by ordinary blacksmithing. The longsword had some sort of engravings all over it, while the handle was perfectly shaped for leathers to wrap around it.

He thanked the head blacksmith for lending him a workshop. When he was about to hand out a few gold coins to him. The blacksmith rejected his payment.

“No. I had fun watching a youngling creating a weapon.”

Jayce thanked everyone in the blacksmith quarter before heading out to the forest.

Hidden from everyone’s field of vision, he crafted two runes to his longsword with a blank card: hardening and illusion enchantments.

The illusion rune he crafted can only be activated when a moonlight shined upon the glass longsword. The hardening enchantment effect was soon tested as he struck the longsword with all his might with his obsidian blade.

So far, his obsidian blades were the sharpest and durable glass type weapons he had as a thief class adventurer. A loud ringing sound emitted from the glass longsword. His left hand, wielding the longsword, felt numb momentarily but his longsword wasn’t producing any cracks. He gave another test at it and the result was the same.

“Good,” he muttered to himself and nodded.

                                                           ____________________

Both Irene and Aiden couldn’t believe what they had just heard: creating a glass type weapon that was on par with the destructive greatsword they had encountered last night in mere hours.

Jayce told them everything he had gone through except the runecrafting procedure that was done with the blank card. He did, in fact, crafted the runes on the longsword so he wasn’t lying to them at all.

Alice, who sat beside Jayce, listened to their conversation until a thought crossed her mind.

“Jayce, what should we do about the bandit camp? Now that it was empty.”

Everyone turned their attention to her, Irene and Aiden hadn’t given a thought about it. They were so focused on saving their people from the bandits.

“I will report this matter to the village chief. If you were wondering about its future, it will be used as a farming field, since it has enough fortification to keep the monsters at bay.”

No objections were voiced out after he gave his reasonings, so Jayce assumed that it was decided.

“Now that was resolved. I have a question for both of you.”

He set his target on Irene and Aiden. “Aiden, how did you get caught by them? And Irene, is it your spirit who kept watch on us the moment we enter the Moon Village?”

For a while, Alice could have sworn that Jayce’s tone had slight anger in it, albeit his expression remained neutral.

This time, both Irene and Aiden felt tense. Irene averted her gaze, while Aiden seemed to be mortified by this sudden question he had brought to the table.

A week ago, Aiden went out alone to save the villagers. But he got spotted by one of the bandits who was assigned to a watchtower. That was his own demise, he couldn’t hear that far from where he was. Thus, he was outnumbered and ended up where Jayce had encountered him.

As for Irene, she was worried when she never heard a word from Aiden in the past few days after his disappearance. He didn’t leave any message or any sort to her before he left. She did ask around the village for his whereabouts, but so far—nothing. She had a feeling that Aiden was at the bandit territory. But she can’t rescue him alone.

Even if she took down a few bandits, the others will eventually find them and harm their captives. So that left to one solution, she had to wait for a group of adventurers who took the village chief’s request and waited until she met Alice and Jayce.

She felt grateful for them to take the quest, but she thought two of them weren’t enough to save the villagers. She even had to ask a spirit of the wind to watch over their movements. Once she finished her night shift as a waitress in an inn, she equipped her apparels and equipment to head toward her spirit, where Alice was during their infiltration.

“So that’s what happens,” said Alice.

Irene was prepared to get scolded by Alice, just like how she had given an earful to Jayce last night, but…

“You could have told us that you want to come along.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t get me wrong. I’m still mad that you used your spirit to stalk us. But overall, without your archery skill, we wouldn’t be able to save Aiden and Jayce.”

Jayce had to agree with her.

With Alice’s Shockwave arrows and Irene’s archery skill, he wouldn’t be able to defend against the relentless attacks from Axton. He really needed to improve his longsword skill and the weapon he had just created when they got back to the academy.

After testing the weapon in a battle, it required further improvements.

No matter thought Jayce.

He clapped his hands briskly to gather their attention.

“What’s done is done. I’m going to report our success to the village chief.”

Without a word from them, he headed towards the counter, paying the innkeeper for their meals, including Irene and Aiden’s.

Once Jayce was gone, Irene asked Alice a question.

“Where did you get this guy?”

To Irene, she was quite amazed as to how she got to meet such a young and mature adventurer.

“We met each other, two days ago at the Adventurer Academy.”

“I’m rooting for you,” cheered Irene.

Jayce was indeed strong, but she wasn’t particularly interested in him.

“We’re just friends,” she sighed. “By the way, Irene, will you teach me how to use a bow? I’ve always wanted to try it out.”

She had tried to learn archery by herself, but of course, she wasn’t able to land a proper shot. She was fascinated by the graceful performance that Irene had shown last night. For now, this decision fell to Irene since she, aside from Jayce, was the only person in this circle who could teach her archery.

“Sure. Let’s head to my place.”