"Okay! Your shop is all clean Lolo! So, can we go back to material crafting?" I asked, but she had fallen asleep behind the register in the shop.
"Lolo! You're going to make us look back if somebody comes in!" I yelled out to her, but she had been gracefully napping like there was no tomorrow.
The bell that alerted us when somebody entered the store rang and I nervously looked back at Lolo to see her perfectly awake and ready to greet others. What a creepy old lady...
"Welcome to Lolofaruba's Shop! What can I get for you today?" Lolo asked the customer. They were dressed in bright orange clothing and her hair was neatly tied up on the top of her head.
"I'm looking for some of your potions... the great quality ones?" The girl asked. Lolo leaned against her glass counter and pointed at all of the potions in the casing below her. A week ago when I first arrived here, I told her that I had no place to stay and in exchange, Lolo offered me a spot in her shop so long as I could produce these high-quality potions for customers that are willing to pay extra.
"Which one are you looking at? The health potions? The stamina? The mana?" Lolo asked the girl.
"Well... I was wondering if you could do a custom order? I'd be willing to pay any amount for the potion if that's what you're worried about." The girl said to Lolo. Lolo's smile directed at me was gross... that greedy woman.
"I was wondering if you could do a high-quality soul potion?" The girl said to Lolo.
"It wouldn't be impossible, but do you know where we get soul buds from? They're a rare flower up in the mountain cave. I can send my big, strong, grandson here to help you out though!" Lolo told the girl while looking at me.
That was my identity whenever it came up in any conversation... I was Lolo's grandson. "Um... can he fight at all? I'm not really strong with fighting." The girl said. I felt somewhat offended, but I didn't really come off as a fighter, so I couldn't blame her.
"Yeah, we'll be okay. So, where is this mountain?" I asked Lolo. Lolo pulled out a map on the glass counter and pointed to a portion of the north section of Zyphilia. I hadn't been there yet, but I got a nice tour of the city when Lolo guided me through it. I've spent around nine days here, and nothing has really changed.
I'm slowly building this shop's reputation as a Magic Hero with excellent potions, and I've been going out every night to kill monsters to level up with Shima. I was now level 25, and Shima was level 18. We should be okay if we play it safe.
I haven't learned any new skills since then, but using the money I've gotten from Lolo, I was able to buy some more magic parchment and upgraded all of my skills to level 3.
"When can you head out? I can schedule around that if you need to." I told the girl.
"Um... well, what about right now?" She asked me. I looked agitated as I turned to Lolo, but she smiled as well.
-
"Isn't this city so beautiful?" The girl said to me. We left almost immediately after her request to leave and walked towards the city's north gate.
"If we're going to be in a party together, I want to know your name," I told the girl.
"It's Daria, and you?" Daria asked me.
"Anima. What are your strengths? I can play around you if you'd like." I told her. I still didn't have any of my weaponry equipped and probably forgot how to use them at this point, but I didn't need to. I could use my skills or whatever it was that I had whenever I needed thanks to my ability to be a Hero.
"And who's the cute little slime on your shoulder? Can she understand me?" Daria asked. Hm? She knew Shima was a she?
"This is Shima, my companion. I think she's able to understand, but she can't speak." I told Daria.
We continued to walk throughout the city while we conversed about pointless things. We were right about to walk out of the gate right as she asked about Shima.
"You know, my family works with monster taming and even has some cases where monsters can speak. If you ever need help with Shima and understanding her, you can come by my place and I'll teach you." Daria told me.
"I appreciate it," I replied to her kind offer. I wonder if she forgot my initial question.
"Oh! My strengths! So, I'm a mage and I specialize in healing and buffing magic, so I'm not really good with attacking. Although, I do have [Slash] for emergencies." Daria told me.
"Do you mind telling me how you got [Slash]? I'm also a mage as well." I told Daria. She seemed amazed and wanted to trade skills with me.
"So, I have [Raise], [Heal], [Slash], and [Block] in my skills. What do you have?!" Daria's voice sounded really excited right now... I almost felt bad not having the same expression as her, so I changed it up.
"Well... I have [Bullet], [Raise], [Heal], and [Absorption]." I told her my skills as well. I realized that we could share the same skills and be just as good as the other in attacking power if we combined our skills.
"How do I teach you my skills? Do you have to learn it from the Magic Parchment, or can I just teach it to you somehow?" I asked Daria.
Apparently, this world has a system where if I shared my interface, Daria could memorize the word and requirements for the skills and replicate a similar version of it. When skills are memorized this way they become something called "Half-Tier Skills", where they don't do a lot of damage and require much more mana to replicate.
Some more time passed and we eventually made it up the first slope leading to the soul bud flower that she needed to make Soul Potions. We didn't learn our skills yet, so we decided to stick to our original attacking idea. I would do damage, Daria would heal me.
"Hey! We have company!" I yelled out. I saw monsters with thick, matted fur and sharp claws on their hands from above the hill. They didn't have a shape, they just look like hairy blobs with claws.
I shouted out the name of my skills, such as [Bullet] and [Raise]. When Daria announced her skills as well, it stacked onto me. My health had nearly doubled and my mana almost quadrupled. I had no idea stacking buffs like this actually worked, it usually didn't work in my games.
There it was again... for the past week, I just keep thinking this world is like a virtual reality game from my world, but it's not like that. It was hard to constantly remind myself, but this world was not fake, it was much more real than Earth.
The hairy blobs died and they dropped some of their furs. Titled, [Blob Furs], these could probably be used to create winter coats like in my world. I kept them in my inventory after closing my hand on them. Daria seemed to take note of that. I completely forgot only Heroes can do that!
"Forget what you saw," I told Daria, moving further up the mountain. In only another mile or so we would hit the cave and find the soul buds.
"I didn't see anything. You could've told me you were a Vessel Hero." Daria said. I turned to her in confusion.
"Vessel Hero... that's what they're called. Tell me about them." I told Daria. I almost blew my cover, but I could act like a Vessel Hero and get information about it if I played stupid. It was all one psychological game.
"Those who have Hero blood or can be reincarnated into a Hero. I once had a friend who was a Vessel Hero, but he died a while ago. Vessel Heroes have the same abilities as regular Heroes, except they don't have a lot of skills or capabilities." Daria explained. That must've been why I hid from her in plain sight, because of my lack of abilities.
"Oh! I see the cave! Come on, let's go!" Daria said. She seemed pretty excited about this...