Once they were outside of the guild, Dark Sentry headed towards the western gate where all the smithies and mined metals were transported. Spotting a building that had plenty of smithies and a large warehouse, Vulcan led them to a front desk of sorts. The man behind the desk was writing things down on a ledger. He heard footsteps approach him, so he looked up to see who it was.
"Hello, I was wondering if this place sold metal ores in bulk," asked Vulcan.
"Well, that depends. Do you have the coin for it?" replied the man.
Vulcan pulled out the bag of platinum coins he received from the ant colony raid, making sure the coins fell out to show the man he was serious.
"Say no more, sir. Follow me this way," smiled the man, becoming more respectful as he saw the glistening coins. He led the team to the warehouse part of the shop.
"Here we have metals of all kinds. Unfortunately, we can only sell the ores on this side of the shop. The rest is already sold to the kingdom and is not for sale for anyone," explained the man as he showed a section of the warehouse ores that were for common sale.
Vulcan walked up to the shelves, inspecting the ingots one by one. But none of them went beyond rank 2. He was looking for rank 3 and above if he could find any. When he stopped at a large pile of ingots in a dark corner that were blue in color, he inspected the metal ingots, revealing them to be called 'Cold Iron' and a rank 3 metal.
"What about these? How much for them?" asked Vulcan.
The man beamed up, "Those are some ores that were leftover from a project long ago. The ore isnt mined here, so no one has put a use to them yet. I'll give you a good discount if you take them off our hands if you like," said the man.
With that, Vulcan nodded, and it came to a total of five platinum coins for the entire pile of cold iron. He offered to have the metal ingots delivered to the team's place of residence or used to make some armor or a weapon, but Vulcan refused kindly. He then used his Spatial storage to take the metal. It didn't surprise the man; many wealthy customers had Spatial rings, so he just guessed Vulcan had one.
Like this, Vulcan visited smithies that sold metal like this until he finished using almost all the coins he got that morning. Not all the smithies held rank 3 ore; most of them refused to sell their stockpiles since they had been sold to higher-paying customers or to the kingdom. So, he only managed to find two more places with enough ingots to make a total of 8 rank 3 sentry bodies for himself.
With that, they left town in the evening. He gave the two last platinum coins to Jess, stunning her that he would just give money away that easily.
"Thanks, but what gives with the sudden shopping?" she asked, pocketing the coins.
"After what happened to the convoy last night, I need to gather more strength quickly. I can't sit by and wait for that mine we're looking for to show up. This is also why I accepted the Marchioness's mission. It will give us a good excuse to survey for ore veins in these mountains," explained Vulcan as they got on their hover bikes.
He also didn't mind displaying his Spatial storage in front of her. She had seen it a few times before. He didn't tell her this, but since all his sentries are connected to him, the sentries at his fortress will be able to take out the rank 3 metals, making him an effective delivery service. In the future, he might be able to use this ability to his advantage as well for other things. He had already thought of putting sentries inside his Spatial storage for better deployment of his army, but unfortunately, he wasn't able to.
They stopped by a mountain trail that led towards the mountain ranges. It was too narrow for the bikes to pass through, so they hid the bikes and began to walk. Along the way, they ran into several creatures that resembled elk from Earth but were the size of an elephant and with glowing antlers. These creatures slowly grazed while watching their group walk by. Further up the trail they stumbled upon a small cave entrance. Vulcan halted the group and sent sentries to check it out. Arriving half an hour later revealed that no ore veins were found, not even with his metal detection ability.
Soon, the day turned to night as they found a nice clearing on the way up the mountain. They had made it halfway to their destination; tomorrow would be when the real mission would start. Vulcan made sure all his sentries went to work on pitching a large tent made out of tanned leather. He then took out a large sleeping bag that looked like the fluffiest thing Jess had ever seen. Once he placed it down, she couldn't resist jumping on it as all the stuffing inside cushioned her fall.
All the preparations didn't stop there as he then pulled out a grill he made for occasions like this, along with ingredients he had bought in town as well as well-cut pieces of meat. Even that fruit that was Jess's favorite called the 'Wito' was used to make some juice. She smelled the finished meal and trotted over to the cushioned wooden chairs and table. Such luxury in a place as wild as this was unheard of for any adventurer unless they had the coin for Spatial storage devices like Vulcan had.
"Oh, the divines! I swear your cooking never fails to impress, Vulcan," complimented Jess as she scarfed down the meal with gusto. This wouldn't be the first time he had cooked for her. In fact, he had begun to cook for the whole village when he got rid of that bandit mercenary group. In order to gain favor from the villagers and to ease their worries if his sentries were like the previous guests they had, he had thrown a large banquet. The food was very different from what they usually cooked, and the cuisine they had never seen before was delicious enough for the whole village to ask him to teach them how to cook like he had.
"Make sure to chew; you have to enjoy every bit of it," said Vulcan, passing her a glass of juice as she began to cough. With big gulps, she went back to eating her meal.
"Thanks, but that's awfully funny that a golem can cook. Your creator you told me about must've been a genius magi-craftsman." Said Jess while chewing. He cringed a little at the lack of manners from her. The two had grown a little more comfortable with each other over time, and she eventually got curious enough to ask about his true origin. Improvising on the spot, he told her that his creator was a brilliant magi-craftsman from an ancient era. This was a half-truth; he had gotten the idea from his earth mother.
The story of his parents abandoning him was only half of all that happened. It was really his father who truly gave up on him, while his mother ended up blaming herself and for passing on the genes that caused his downfall. The few times she had visited him, she could barely see him and would cry everytime she left his home. It wasn't until years later when he found out from her lawyer that she had taken her own life. He had inherited her money as well as all her possessions and would go all to him. Losing her only sent him spiraling into a deep depression. But because of her final gift he was also able to move on. He had been struggling with money since his savings he had saved up were running low. In the letter, it went into depth about how much she loved him and that she had to atone for the harm she had caused him in this life.
When he first met Jess, it wasn't because he saw a human for the first time in this new world; it was because she looked exactly like his late mother. Hope for finding some sort of closure he never received in his past life. By helping Jess, he hoped he would get that from her; it would be enough to heal wounds that never got healed with time or reincarnation.
"...Yeah, she was the best creator. I wish I could have told her that one last time."