I had forgotten about the Gacha Cube. No that isn't actually true, I had deliberately ignored the Gacha Cube due to how my situation had been over the past few days. Now that everything was a lot more stable, relatively speaking, I now had the place to myself since Joan had gone out to buy underwear, I still snicker at the thought. I figured that I had a good few hours to both use the Gacha Cube and deal with anything from it.
"What I wouldn't do for some rain right now…" I commented. The midday sun was bearing down on the streets, making things uncomfortably bright and hot.
I rolled the Cube onto the Workshop table one last time as if it were a dice before finally poking it on one side. It began to spin rapidly and blink and I cautiously backed away from the glowing cube of possibilities. Then the Workshop was engulfed in a bright light.
"Hiiiiii~" What was that? I quickly rubbed the blindness out of my eyes.
"…A floating…helmet?" I goggled at the sight of a floating knight helmet with green light blasting through the gaps.
[You got unlucky! You get a familiar!]
'Oh god how is this unlucky?' I thought as I dismissed the notification by wildly waving my hand through it.
"No silly!" The helmet flew to the side and bounced off of a wall before clattering harmlessly on the floor. "I'm a fairy!"
'I think I would have preferred the floating helmet.'
Fairy was right. I couldn't think of any other tiny sparkly humanoid with wings. She also had green hair that reached beyond her back and was wearing a tiny dress made of leaves and tiny flowers. I used Observe on her.
[Mint(Familiar) Lvl1]
[1/1 HP]
"You're…you're very fragile." I commented after giving her stats a short glance. Aside from the high intelligence she didn't look like anything special. Still, why this was considered unlucky I didn't know.
"Well, what did you expect? I'm a tiny fairy!" Well, she was right…I didn't know how much HP a fairy would normally have so I guess that this is normal.
"Alright then… So, what can fairies do?"
"Fairies!" She began, puffing her tiny chest out in pride. "Are the best partners you can get!"
'Eh, I think that spot is reserved for something else, maybe a dragon or a kraken…or an actual human or Faunus…'
"We can do some minor healing, make shields, and make the people stronger by a little bit." She was sparkling a little bit. "Fairies are considered to be a warrior's best friend!"
"Yeah…no I'm not a warrior…" I spoke up, making her freeze suddenly.
"A mage then! That's fine, I can be plenty of help to a mage like you."
"I'm a merchant."
"…what?"
"I'm a merchant." I repeated. "A shop having, item selling merchant."
Mint dropped onto the floor bawling.
'…again with the crying…' I thought before bending down and scooping her up.
"There there, it's alright no need to cry…" I said comfortingly.
"I got summoned by a merchant! It's not alright! Merchants are useless!" I felt an eyebrow twitch in annoyance. "What about all the bloodshed and carnage? I want blood and people suffering!"
"…I'm starting to see why you count as unlucky…" I felt incredulous at the fact that there was such a thing as a bloodthirsty fairy. A crybaby bloodthirsty fairy. It was a shame that she looked as adorable as she did.
"Would you calm down, I get into fights sometimes and am probably going to get into more so you'll get your share of pain…" She immediately perked up and busied herself into trying to fully embrace my arm cheering all the way…
Somehow I just felt that she was going to cause me a lot of trouble in the future.
Mint had made herself comfortable under the counter, in one of the drawers. Me, being nice, helped a little bit by making tiny furniture. If these metal things didn't sell well in the future I could always make a profit out of making dollhouses.
I picked up one of the skill books I had bought and the notification popped up.
[Would you like to learn Weapon Mastery?]
'Yes.'
[You have learned the skill: Weapon Mastery]
[Weapon Mastery Lvl1]
[Increase weapon damage by 1%]
I figured that gaining mastery wouldn't be easy but only a 1% increase? Difficult was brutal.
I picked up the next book and did the same.
[Repair]
[Repair items. Consumes material or Lien.]
I noted that it wasn't locked for out of combat. I moved towards the cracked shop windows and used Repair on it. I cackled madly as I watched the glass repair, making the window as good a new. Then I took it to its next logical step and used Repair on the entire building and watched as it consumed almost all of my money.
Now what was once a shop in a barely inhabitable abandoned building now looked like it was newly constructed.
Turning my attention back to the last two books, one about Dust and one about Aura. I picked up the Aura book first and learned it.
[Aura Barrier]
[Receive damage in Aura until it is depleted.]
[Aura Strike Lvl1]
[Increase damage of next attack by 10% and increases impact radius.]
[Unlock Aura]
[Unlocks the Aura of a person.]
Despite having an Aura pool I actually haven't been using Aura aside from the costs for Reckless Charge and Hardened Strike, with the two being my only combat oriented abilities. I was curious what 'increases impact radius' meant.
[Semblance: Locked]
[Locked]
'Hm, Semblance locked? That's ok I suppose, it's not like I'm going to be a Huntsman anyways, I'm just learning these things in case I get in a fight with someone.'
Finally, I picked up the last book, Basics Of Dust, and tried to learn it.
[Dust Arts]
[Consumes Dust. Allows for the proper use of Dust in combat.]
The ability was nice and certainly looked useful, it was too bad that I only learned it for the sake of knowing it since I neither had Dust or a weapon made for Dust, maybe I should try to make one soon.
"I'm back…" Joan called out as the shop door opened up.
"Ah welcome back Joan!" I greeted, eyeing the bag that she was carrying. "How was the store?"
"It was embarrassing!" She yelled. "The book you bought didn't help at all so I had to get some help from a clerk! Then…"
I tuned out the rest and instead took a deep breathe, as if enjoying the scent of suffering, which I was.
"What's with all the noise?" Mint suddenly spoke up, sleepily flying out of her drawer and turning to Joan. "Oh…Are you Master's girlfriend? I knew he couldn't be that pathetic."
We both sputtered incoherently in embarrassment, denying Mint's statement to the best of our ability before I grabbed her and stuffed her back into the drawer and kept it shut by keeping my hand on it.
Muffled screams of protest and the noise of Mint violently shaking the drawer filled the air.
'Besides I'm probably the last person she'd ever want as a boyfriend…'
"Euca who and what was that?" Joan asked, finally recovering. I was doing my best ignoring the heat on my own cheeks.
"That's Mint. She's a fairy I got, I warn you that she's…unique, to say the least…" I looked down to the drawer. "Mint I'm going to let you out now. Please don't do anything that embarrasses me or implies weird things." I slowly removed my hand from the drawer.
The drawer opened suddenly and Mint shot out, punching me on the cheek with the force of a hard tap.
"Don't do that again!" She huffed before settling down onto my shoulder. "Hi! I'm Mint! Nice to meet you Master's not girlfriend."
"It's nice to meet you Mint, I'm Joan. I used to be a guy until I met this jerk here." She pointed at me, Mint looked at me in wonder, probably amazed that I caused some suffering onto someone.
"Hey…that's actually pretty accurate…but it could have been a lot worse!"
"Really?"
"Yeah, for all we know if a Heroine Potion exists what's to say that a Maid Potion doesn't?"
"…You have a point…what's Mint doing?" She asked as Mint flittered around her.
She encircled her a few more times before finally stopping in front of Joan and nodding.
"Perfect! With the two of you the streets will flood with blood as I-HEY!" I grabbed her again and put her into a jar.
"Huh, never thought I'd see a violent fairy…" Joan said as she watched me put a lid with holes onto the jar. "Actually, never thought I'd see a fairy at all."
"Yeah, got unlucky with that one…" I put the jar on the counter. "So, notice anything about the shop?" I asked motioning to the entire floor.
"You fixed the first floor?" She said after looking around.
"No, I fixed the entire building!" I exclaimed.
"Everything?"
"Yup! Everything is working properly now!"
She ran up the stairs and a few moments later I heard the sound of the shower turning on, leaving behind the bag.
"Hey you left your bag!" I chuckled and followed her up the stairs, bringing the bag along.
I remembered that I had levelled up yesterday and brought up my Status window to put more points into STR, VIT, and LUK as I sat down on the bed.
[Euca Vinmoor]
[Level:19]
[Class: Merchant]
[HP: 406]
[AP:4680]
[STR:32+2]
[VIT:33+2]
[DEX:17]
[AGI:15-2]
[INT:15+5]
[LUK:36]
[EXP: 0/1900]
[Points:0]
[Lien: 604]
The upcoming level was 20, and with it, my first Class Advancement. I had put off putting any thought into it but now that it was immediate I had no choice to but to think.
'I have two options.' I began to think. 'Blacksmith and Potioneer…each one lets me make better stuff...I'm good with the current level of potions I can make so I guess I'll take Blacksmith…then again, potions are very handy…' I threw my hands up in surrender. 'Fuck it, when the time comes I'll just flip a coin.'
"EUCA!" I looked up at Joan who had just left the shower and I immediately covered my eyes as I started blushing and blindly tossed the bag in her direction as I felt heat emanate from my cheeks.
"Why would you go out with barely anything on!" I yelled.
"I thought you went downstairs already!" She yelled back. I quickly muttered an apology before trying to make my way downstairs.
[-10 AP]
And failing.
'…I did not just find her attractive.' I thought to myself as I picked myself up off of the ground. I looked over to the counter and found Mint laughing at me. Growling, I picked up the jar and gave it a few good shakes before unscrewing the lid and dumping a dizzy fairy into her drawer.
'That should put her out of commission for a while.' I thought.
I heard the door open.
"Welcome to Moor Items! Whaddaya need buddy?" I greeted almost immediately.
[Ruby Rose Lvl23]
[The Red Reaper]
[1500/1500 HP]
"Nothing! Just browsing!" She said before moving on to inspect the weapon shelves.
'Holy shit, Ruby Rose is in my shop.' I inwardly celebrated as imaginary waterworks exploded around me. Not fireworks, those were loud and distracting.
"I see you like my weapons young miss." I called out.
"You made these?" I nodded. "Some of my teachers from Signal buy the weapons here for practice. They're very strong and I've seen them break other weapons." I was inwardly amazed that they could do that.
"I don't believe we've met, Euca Vinmoor, owner of Moor Items and maker of some cool stuff." I held out my hand.
"Ruby Rose, Student at Signal Academy." She shook my hand.
"A future Huntress then! So, what do you think of my wares?"
"I think they're awesome! Do you have any other weapons other than the ones there?" She asked excitedly. I thought about it for a moment before shaking my head.
"What other weapons do you have in mind Miss Rose?" It was then she whipped out her own weapon. Crescent Rose, in all its glory. No matter how cool it looked when I saw it the first time the fact that I'm seeing it in real life added a sense of coolness. I couldn't help but use Observe on it.
[Crescent Rose]
[A hybrid of a scythe and a sniper rifle. Wielded by Ruby Rose in a very effective manner.]
"Impressive Miss Rose, a scythe and a sniper rifle, a finely made weapon." I said after spending a few moments faking appraisal. She beamed at the compliment.
"Thanks, her name's Crescent Rose."
"An elegant name for an elegant weapon. I assume you made her?" She nodded. "I thought so. Sadly I only have one and it's under repair, I had a bit of accident with it." I lied. "Tell you what, you come back tomorrow and I'll show you my little project."
I waved goodbye as she left my shop, promising that she'll be back tomorrow.
Looks like I was going Blacksmith after all.
It brings me great pleasure to make and post new chapters of this. I even know at least 10% of what I'm doing now!