Chapter 5- Smithinator

As I reach the edge of the square where the bazaar is being held, I am hit with the sound of thousands and thousands of people speaking, haggling and browsing an incredibly varied assortment of wares.

Taking a moment to survey the bazaar, I especially focus on observing the people who are haggling and speaking loudly with the sellers of wares.

*Ding!*

Your skill: Human language: Gallian - has reached level 2.

Gallian lvl 2: You can understand, speak and write basic words in the language of Gallian.

'Freakkin' Finally!! Whoo!

Just need to level that skill a few more times and then I can actually speak normally.' I exclaim happily in my mind as I do a little fist pump for this small victory. 'Alright, so… How do I go about this?' I muse as I look around for a vendor who may be interested in my loot.

"Maybe I should look for a blacksmith? Or is there actually someone who focuses solely on monster parts?" I mutter quietly to myself as I sweep my gaze over the bazaar in search of a blacksmith or a monster part merchant.

Even after 20 minutes of walking around and searching through the bazaar, I still haven't haven't seen even a hint of a blacksmith anywhere; Instead I look for a person who looks like they would be easy to talk so I can ask where I may sell these monster parts.

A few minutes later, I find a friendly looking old man and promptly decide to ask him.

"Uhm, excuse me. Do, you know, where, sell monster part?" I say in still broken Gallian; Wincing in my mind with every broken word I utter.

'Please hurry up and level up, I beg you: Gallian language skill!' I plead in my mind.

The old man looks surprisedly at me at first, but after a moment, he takes on a thoughtful look as he looks me over with a discerning glint in his eyes.

"You are a #$?&, I see." He says as he seemingly takes in all the information that he can glance from me.

"What kind of monster parts do you have?" He replies in a steady and measured voice.

Opening up my inventory, I take out one of the black razor tiger hides to show the old man. The old man's eyes go wide for a moment at the suddenly materializing hide, however he quickly recovers and moves to inspect the hide. "Hmm… Very good #$&#. … I can see no damage that is done to the hides." He says and gives me a discerning look.

"I assume you have a &#$ skill?" He asks me searchingly. But a moment later, he shakes his head weakly, bu continues before I get to reply.

"Nevermind. You obviously have some sort of skill that lets you #$-&$ monsters.

… You would be wise to bring this to the #$&#$ named Klaus Res. His shop is over in the #&$#" The old man says to me as he nods his head slowly, as if he is agreeing with himself.

Trying to digest all that the old man had told me, it takes me a few moments to "#$&#$? I not know that word." I reply in broken Gallian.

"#$&#$. A person that makes things with metals and monster parts." The old man explains, before he points to his right, towards an area where a lot of smoke is rising up from most of the houses. "#$&#$. The place where #$&#$ and other &$#& works."

'Ah, so something like a blacksmith? and the… craftsman district? Something like that?' I muse as I take in the information and process it so it makes sense to me.

"Blacksmith, over there?" I ask the old man in broken Gallian.

Smiling, he nods at me. "Yes, the blacksmiths workshop is over there." He replies. "Go search for Klaus Ras over there." He says and waves goodbye to me before he turns and walks away.

Watching the old man walk away and disappear into the crowd, I turn and make to start walking towards the craftsman district to start my search for this Klaus Ras person when I am met with a familiar sound.

*Ding!*

Gallian language skill has reached level 3.

Gallian language lvl 3: You can now understand, speak and write moderately well in the human language: Gallian.

A smile quickly stretches across my face, before I start walking and go towards the craftsman's district to begin my search for this blacksmith named Klaus Ras.

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An hour or so later after asking for directions 4 times, I have now finally arrived before Klaus Ras blacksmith shop.

"It would have been a lot faster, had one of the people I asked not pointed me in the wrong direction, but I guess that's part of life so… Yeah." Mutter to myself as I take in the shop before me: It's a quite big and honestly, ridiculously robustly built red brick house that looks like it could withstand a cannonball without much trouble. It has a large and eye-catching sign with an anvil and hammer with the name Klaus Ras engraved beneath them hanging above the entrance.

'Whatever, I'm here now so it's all good.' I tell myself, shrug and walk up to the door; Once I reach the door, I pull it open and walk inside before shutting it behind me. The first thing that hits me is the loud clanging sound of metal hitting metal with a constant rhythmic beat.

Turning around, I take in the details of the interior of the blacksmith shop: It is a large room with a lot of shelves and stands that show off different kinds of armor, weapons or other gadgets I have no idea what they are supposed to do. Straight in front of me, there is a path that leads straight through the shop, towards a smaller room with an opening in the wall where I can see the source of the clanking sound: A very tall, large and seriously muscular man is wielding a large forging hammer in his right hand and beating away on a giant piece of brightly orange glowing metal at a huge forge that stands before him.

'Whoa! Smithinator, come to life!' I exclaim in my mind as my mind takes in the image presented to me.

The man before me is like a chiselled greek statue; He is super ripped and lean as hell: He could likely enter a bodybuilding contest and come out the winner without having to do anything more than he currently is.

Then again, being able to keep swinging that hammer all day would probably even be a daunting task for even the best of bodybuilders; Even Arnold would likely find it a daunting task to keep swinging that hammer all day long.

After a few moments of observing the blacksmith work, I instead turn my focus towards the items on display. There is all kinds of things being displayed; Everything from weapons such as swords, pikes, maces, spears to more exotic weapons, throwing knives, shuriken like things, strangely shaped weapons and some things which I'm not even sure whether they are even weapons at all; To armors, shields, helmets, armguards, shoulder guards leg guards and many other strange things I can't even conceive their uses.

'Some of these things, I don't even…' I muse as I inspect some of the more exotic pieces.

"Can I help you with something?"

"Whoa!" I exclaim in surprise at the sudden deep and loud voice from behind me. Whipping around to face the source of the voice, I am suddenly face to face with Smithinator in all his glory and honestly, I am intimidated.

"I, uh, I… I'm…" I stutter nervously as I look up at the muscled giant of a man. "I.. am, looking to, sell, monster parts." I finally manage to squeeze out in broken Gallian.

"Oh. monster parts huh?" Smithinator says thoughtfully as his eyes look upwards and into the distance. A moment passes before his gaze returns to me; His gaze runs over me, searching for something. "I need to see what you have to show me, where do you have the parts?" He asks questionably and looks at me curiously.

Oh. OH! "Ok." I say and materialize the 6 hides and the 2 claws of the black razor tiger that I looted from the foe that almost killed me yesterday.

His eyes widen as the monster parts suddenly materialize in my arms and a moment passes before he shakes himself out of his stupor; But once he does, he quickly takes the monster parts and moves them to the counter built into the far wall and quickly begins to inspect the monster parts meticulously.

15 minutes pass as he meticulously goes over each and every millimeter of the monster parts, inspecting and scrutinizing each and every single little detail of the items; Until finally, he draws in a long breath before exhaling ever so slowly.

"These monster parts are of a regular quality, but they are not naturally made; There are no dents, no marks, no cut marks or chipps." He says slowly and deliberately.

"These monster parts are too perfect to have been made by hand; They were made by a skill."

An awkward silence stretches between us for a good while as we stare at one another in silence.

Finally, I nod affirmatively to him. "Yes. It is a skill." I reply simply.

Nodding, the muscular blacksmith nods thoughtfully to himself as he gazes over the monster parts that bow lays spread out on the counter before him. "I can give you 30 silver for everything; 20 for the hides and 10 for the claws." The smithinator says finally after a moment of consideration.

Taking a moment to consider his offer, I quickly decide that it will do me just fine: Even if he is ripping me off, I wouldn't know, and going to seek out other blacksmiths seems like it'd be more effort than it would be worth: So I decide to take the deal.

"Ok, 30 silvers." I reply to the man.

"Deal!" Smithinator exclaims and tosses me a small coin pouch; I have no idea where he got it from but whatever, I'm not going to get caught up in it. I'm sure it's just magic.

Opening the pouch, I count the coins and they do indeed add up to 30 silver coins.

"Thanks for this; I think I will be able to make some really interesting things with these monster parts." Smithinator says cheerily as he sweeps up all of the monster parts and haul them into the back room. A moment later he comes back outside to wish me well.

"Come back if you get any more monster parts that you want to sell, or if you are in need of equipment; I do custom orders as well, if the request is interesting enough." He says happily.

"Alright. I will be back, when I have more. " I reply before I wave goodbye before I turn to leave the blacksmith workshop; Only to realize that what I'm currently wearing is practically a hobo outfit by now.

Turning back to Klaus, I gesture to my clothes. "Do you have clothes that you sell?" I ask the smithinator before me.

Giving my attire a once over, he chuckles and nods. "Aye, I have better ones than that laying around." He says and chuckles as he goes into the back room for a minute before emerging with a simple shirt and pants that are cream colored. "These are on the house. Try them on for size." He says and nods towards a cubicle with a drape: A changing room?

Doing as he says, I change into the new clothes and notice that while they are a bit on the big side, they aren't as uncomfortable as I first thought that they would be.

Leaving the cubicle, I show off my outfit to the smith who smiles and nods at me. "Thank you for the clothes." I say sincerely. "I will be back once I have more to sell you." I say and wave to the man as I turn to leave.

"Ou! I will be waiting!" Comes the reply, and I turn my head, smile and wave before I open the door and leave the smithy.

Once outside, I look around the area and commit it to memory as well as I can so I can find my way back once I have things to sell to the smithinator. The sun has already started its descent a while ago, so I still have a few hours before darkness truly falls.

"Time to find something good to eat and somewhere to sleep." I mumble as I stretch my body to its limits as if I am trying to grab the sky.

With money in my new money pouch, I turn and start walking back the way I came, to get back to the bazaar once again.

This time, to find me some good food and then somewhere to sleep for the night.

End of chapter 5.