To get myself in danger unnecessarily would never be a wise choice for me. I just got a new life, why would I want to throw it away? But this dammed Anastasia kept insisting...
"Don't worry Goshujin, you cannot die. Perhaps it is time I teach you an offensive skill."
I didn't care as she tried to console me for forcing me to make a decision I didn't want to make.
"So sister..."
"Avery, just call me Avery. No need for your weird formalities. I'm not going to bite, so just relax."
'she seems perceptive'
I smiled and let out a sigh..
"If you say so, what exactly is this lair of the cursed warrior?"
"Let's see, it appeared around twenty years ago and it's quite a tricky dungeon. Since it is in our territory father naturally lay claim to it and no one was ever allowed to challenge it. It's just like that around the world, except for unclaimed territory, challenging a dungeon without permission is a felony as crucial as treason."
"If it's S grade, that means it's as powerful as Siegfried"
"Yes, which is why I am excited."
"Have you ever been to a dungeon before?"
"I've been in a party organised to help the young Lord of the Heelterd dukedom challenge a dungeon, but I was undercover so don't tell father about it. A dungeon is really an amazing place, the ferocious beasts we have to deal with, the puzzles and traps and then the dungeon keeper before finally reaching the treasure vault, where you meet the vassal weapon." She narrated happily.
"A dungeon seems like a dangerous place"
"But it's worth it in the end when you consider the power you'll be gaining. Having Siegfried given to you for free can not make you understand. It's different when it's a vassal weapon you worked for."
"I see, how long till we reach Orel?"
"Oh, we already passed Orel, I love talking about dungeons so I didn't want our destination to stop our conversation." She said, took my hand and ran forward, laughing. She seemed to have loosened up after hearing that she will be challenging a dungeon.
"Lady Avery!! You have returned?!" The tall, muscled, bulky man with white full beards braided towards the end said, lifting my sister into the air.
"Oh, and who is this?"
I had to crane my neck to see him because of his height.
"That's my brother Gilland," She said giggling.
"Oh-oh, the young Lord!" He said, dropping her and picking me up. The feeling of a man like me being thrown into the air was indeed unpleasant.
After being placed down, I looked around, to think a smithy this big was inside this castle, other workers in the smithy were busy doing the necessities. I counted up to 17 workers in the smithy...
"I'm guessing his grace has finally decided to let you go to that place huh?" He said, flashing a wink at her.
'They seem quite close'
"Yes! I'll be challenging the lair of the cursed warrior with my brother. Father says you should give us the best equipment."
"With... " The blacksmith looked quite shocked and stared at Avery, I could tell what he meant by that stare.
"Don't underestimate him. He's made a pact with Siegfried, looks like master Orel does not hear anything that goes on in the castle."
Not only the blacksmith that stood in front of us was shocked, even the ones working looked in my direction.
"Ah, come in, let's pick something for you two." He said, turning his broad back and entering into the smithy.
Within was even more expansive than I had assumed, but it did little to nothing diffuse the circulation of excess heat. There were several furnaces both on the left and right, and different blacksmiths carried on with their jobs without getting distracted by our presence. Towards our left and right were stairs that took us to the upper floor of the smithy, which was packed with different chambers.
It wasn't hard to guess that this served as some sort of office or equipment storage. We entered one of the wide chambers, the armours were being displayed on a mannequin and even the swords were hung, some equipment was enclosed by a very hard glass. My guess was those were the legendary rated ones.
"Equipment is classified into low-grades, those are the ones that are easy to break, our mostly for beginners, some just call them fakes. We also have the basic grade, we have the middle grade, we have the high grade, and we have the enchanted grade, enchanted grade is the highest grade of equipments and is specifically equipments that have been enhanced with a mineral with magical property, hence making them have an ability.
They could be mistaken for magic-imbued weapons or vassal weapons but they are not the same." The man said, as he explained the grade of equipment, he showed us each grade in the room and I could see the difference.
While the low grades were shabbily made, the basic grade looked simple, I wasn't good at identifying originals but their differences compared to the middle grade were visible without being much stronger, so was the high grade and then the enchanted grade that had gems engraved into them.
"Why are these enchanted weapons, magic weapons needed? Aren't there enough vassal weapons already, and since they are way stronger?" I unleashed the fruit of my curiosity without delay.
"Nice question, young Lord. Not everyone can afford the price of a dungeon. You probably don't know, that if you want to challenge dungeons opened by territories, you have to pay a hefty amount of money. Money that will probably feed me for the rest of my life, for example, a grade-A dungeon is worth around 350 diamond coins, even when all the treasures gotten from the dungeon are summed together it can only be worth 200 diamond coins at most."
"Wait, that's like a coin carved out of diamond?"
He chuckled, "I guess, your brother has never seen a diamond coin before." He said.
"Here..." She placed a soft cold round object in my hand.
I raised it and looked through it, it was neat and sleek. They have no reason to lie. It was truly a coin carved out of diamond.
"How much is one of these worth?"
"About a hundred platinum coins and that should be able to buy you a house and feed a family of ten extravagantly for five years." The blacksmith replied, even though my question was a spoken thought.
"Wow, can I have this...?" I said to her.
She made no big deal out of my question and it made me realize, that this fantasy world is rich and this dukedom seemed rich as well.
"So you understand why not everyone has a vassal weapon, even though there are a lot of dungeons out there. Some of those nobles are greedy though. They alone own close to five vassal weapons and their treasury are filled with dungeons, especially the Qualis kingdom. Their Princes are said to own at least three vassal weapons."
Watching the blacksmith go on about vassal weapons, I began to think. 'It seems the world revolves around vassal weapons and primas, not even mages.'
"Here, come select whatever you want." He said to us.