“Brutus, I think you have already mastered the basics,” Thirteen commented as he observed the Troll’s meticulous work. “Now, I will teach you how to create an arrowhead mold. But after you perfect it, you will make more of them on your own, okay?”
Brutus nodded and watched as Thirteen carved an arrowhead from a piece of wood.
After that, the seven-year-old placed it in a molding flask and filled it up with casting sand. Brutus continued to watch as Thirteen compressed the sand on top of the arrowhead.
When the boy was done, he flipped it over and removed the sand that was covering the arrowhead.
He took another casting flask and placed it on top of the first one. Just like he did earlier, he filled it up with casting sand.
When he was done, he flipped it over to remove the wooden carving, which had served its purpose.
“Now, we just need to make a hole here. That’s where we will pour the metal in,” Thirteen explained as he bored a hole in the center of the cask. “Then we expand the hole a bit, forming a funnel, so that the melted metal will not overflow like so.”
After finishing his model, Thirteen pressed the two casts together and melted some iron in the forge.
When he was done, he poured the iron slowly into the hole of the molding flask.
“Let it cool down a bit, then after that, we just need to clean it up using the grinder. Now, we have an arrowhead,” Thirteen explained. “Did you understand everything, or do I need to explain it to you again?”
Brutus hesitated, but he still nodded and pointed at the molding flask. “One… more.”
“Okay,” Thirteen took out another pair of molding flasks and repeated the process a second time while waiting for the first arrowhead to cool down.
After demonstrating the process a second time, he asked Brutus to create the third arrowhead on his own.
The Troll didn’t do it as well as Thirteen did, but the end result was still passable.
Ordinary arrows might be effective for Lower Ranking Monsters.
But, when dealing with stronger monsters like the Purple-Furred Honey Badger, they would need weapons that were sharp enough to pierce through its body.
Fortunately, making molds for arrowheads was easy.
All they needed to do was melt the metal they needed and pour it into the molding flask, allowing them to mass-produce as many arrows as they wanted.
Seeing that Brutus could handle the rest on his own, the boy went to check on Bruno’s progress.
“Good job, Bruno. You’re doing well,” Thirteen praised the Ogre as he looked at the sorry excuse for a sword, which looked like a bunch of metal sheets piled on top of each other.
The Ogre scratched its head while smiling.
Being praised by the seven-year-old made him just as happy as his own Master, Cristopher, was praising him.
Thirteen knew that it would take a very long time for the Ogre to perfect his craft, but he wasn’t in a hurry.
In the hands of Ogres, even a slab of jagged steel was a very lethal weapon, so even Bruno’s sorry excuse for a sword was deadlier than the Bone Club that it was currently using to fight.
Perhaps, Bruno knew on an instinctual level that there would come a time when Cristopher would no longer have a use for him.
He felt this sense of crisis when his Master bought Ogres that were stronger than him.
This was why he planned to give his all into Blacksmithing. Even if he was no longer considered strong, he would at least still be useful to his Master.
Thirteen watched as the Ogre raised his Adamantine Hammer to continue refining the slab of jagged steel that he finished making.
A faint smile could be seen on the seven-year-old’s face because he saw the determination in the Ogre’s eyes.
Determination that would pave the way for great things, which would help his Master, Cristopher, in more ways than one.
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Two days later, Rianna’s Hunting Party returned to the city.
The teenagers all looked haggard, but Thirteen noticed that all members of the Hunting Party were present.
He went to meet up with Rianna, who was leading the group. Although she looked very exhausted, he could tell that the latter was satisfied with the results of her expedition.
“Welcome back,” Thirteen said with his arms crossed over his chest. “Did you have a good hunt?”
“Yes,” Rianna replied. “We killed a few monsters, and some gained Bronze-Grade Weapons and Armor from them.”
“That’s great to hear.” Thirteen nodded. “You did well, Rianna.”
“Thank you.” Rianna smiled.
The three teenage boys, Rufus, Eren, and Jeane didn’t like the way that Thirteen was treating Rianna like a subordinate.
They had already made this known to Rianna while they were out hunting, but the young lady only brushed it off and told them that she and Zion were just comrade-at-arms.
However, she didn’t deny the fact that she recognized the boy’s qualities as a leader and that she didn’t mind following his orders.
This was what ticked the three teenagers off the most because they believed that Thirteen was just taking advantage of Rianna’s kindness.
“How about your expedition?” Rufus asked as he stood beside Rianna. “Did you get good results?”
“No.” Thirteen shook his head. “The two Ogres on our team died, and we were forced to return to the city before a day was even over.”
“Hah? You act so high and mighty and you even failed to show some results?” Eren, who was quick to find faults in the boy, commented.
“To think that you made everyone think that you’re some kind of bigshot just because you are from the Leventis Family,” Jeane stated. “It seems that I overestimated you.”
Rianna ignored the three teenagers who were looking down on the boy in front of them and pressed Thirteen for answers.
Unlike Rufus, Eren, and Jeane, the young lady knew full well what Thirteen was capable of.
After all, he was the one who saved them from the Slave Traders who had come to bring them to Gronar City.
If Thirteen hadn’t saved them, she would have been up for sale in the Slave Market, just like the other Wanderers that the Orcs and the Barbarians had captured.
“We faced a Rank 6 Overlord, Purple-Furred Honey Badger,” Thirteen said after Rianna’s persistence. “It killed the two Rank 3 Ogres like it was merely dealing with newly born chicks.
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(A/N: I will refer to the individual rankings of Monsters as Common, Alpha, Overlord, and Sovereign from this moment onward.)
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“Rianna, for now, don’t go to the Warsor Plains. Cristopher and I will explore them after we make our preparations. You and the others should just continue to strengthen yourselves and get better equipment in the Houdini Desert.”
“Okay,” Rianna nodded. “But if the Warsor Plains is really that dangerous, just give it up for now and hunt in the Houdini Desert too. Meeting a Rank 6 Overlord and being able to survive it is already considered a miracle. You did well coming back alive.”
The young lady even lightly patted Thirteen’s head, treating him like a little brother.
“Don’t treat me like a child,” Thirteen said as he blocked Rianna’s patting with his hand.
“But you are a child,” Rianna grinned.
Thirteen wanted to tell the young lady that he was actually thousands of years old. But knowing that she would think that he was just joking, he decided that it was not worth his while.
The three boys, who were laughing at Thirteen in their hearts earlier, suddenly became serious.
Originally, they had proposed to Rianna that they should go to the Warsor Plains to hunt for Monsters.
However, Rianna rejected it because Thirteen already planned to head there to investigate.
Because of that, she decided to just hunt in the Houdini Desert so that their two Hunting Parties wouldn’t have to compete with each other.
After hearing that the boy encountered a Rank 6 Overlord just hours after leaving the city, all of them knew that if they had really gone to the Warsor Plains as they originally planned, there was a high chance that their group would have encountered it as well.
But there was one question that nagged at their minds when they started thinking about it.
Would they have managed to survive and return to the city safely with more than half of their numbers remaining?
Rufus, Eren, and Jeane didn’t know the answer to this question.
However, they themselves knew that the chances of them surviving an encounter with a Rank 6 Overlord were close to zero.