"Seen one, cut off his head too!" is what Gerald wanted to shout, but instead he made a puzzled expression. What did that have to do with anything?

"I once used to sell my shields to guys like you! I can still remember those days…" The man stared into the distance, appearing to be reminiscing about the past.

"There was a group of youngsters once, freshly baptized into warriors… They bought my armor and weapons, displaying them proudly under the scorching sun. They were magnificent!"

'Dude, I just want to buy a shield, I don't care about your life story!'

But the man was oblivious to Gerald's annoyed expression and continued rambling on. He spoke something about a great mission, about protecting a village or some such… There were words about those well-known pests, Goblins, and a sudden surprise Orc attack.

"I see..." Gerald absentmindedly acknowledged his story.

"And then!" the smith shouted, "The beast struck them with its huge sword and cleaved a guy clean in half! In half, I say! The poor bastard was too scared to even protect himself and died a dog's death. The rest had the same fate and soon became cold corpses on the ground! Cold, bloody corpses I tell you!"

The smith grabbed Gerald by the shoulders and shook him hard, "Do you realize it now? Orcs are no joke! They are intelligent like us, but they pretend to be stupid and weak and use bait to lure unsuspecting and inexperienced warriors to their death!"

"Er, what?"

"They lurk in the shadows, behind the horde of their minions! And they always attack just when you think the fight is over and victory guaranteed! They are cunning… and vicious!"

"What does this have to do with a shield?!"

"I'm getting there," the man grumbled and gave him an angry side-eye, "You youngsters are so impatient these days, no wonder so many lose their lives! ...Now, where was I? Oh, yes! One of the young warriors managed to survive after all! He used my shield and blocked the Orc's strike, losing only a hand from the impact. Brave guy. He then quickly ran away to get help. And that's why I don't sell shields!"

"Because they are useless and can't withstand an Orc's attack?" Gerald cautiously asked.

"What? No! Were you even listening to the story?!" The guy almost exploded, "My shield worked perfectly, you can even still see it, it's the one hanging above the front door!"

The man continued speaking while poking Gerald's chest with his finger, like some sort of an aggressive secretary.

"I'm not selling my shields to wimps that are too scared to even lift them up and would rather die than lose a hand! Only those that can stand their ground against an Orc are deserving of my masterpieces!"

"Then…" Gerald scratched his cheek, "What would one have to do to buy your shield?"

Placing his hands on his hips the man smirked, "A body part of an Orc or a weapon would be nice to see. And I wouldn't charge anything to that person, a brave soul like that could have one of my works for free!"

Gerald threw his head back and sighed deeply, "Finally some useful information, old man." A fresh Orc corpse materialized itself between them, and Gerald forced his hand into the mouth, yanking out a few teeth. "Here, take this!" He handed over the fangs of the beast, stowed away the corpse, and went to browse through the shields.

"I killed the Orc a few days ago. If you like it so much, I guess you can keep it…"

He ultimately decided on a hefty simple-looking round shield. "I'll take this one!"

The blacksmith stared at the teeth in his hand with an open mouth and trembling eyes, completely stunned.

Seeing no reaction, Gerald decided to just leave, "Thanks, and take care!"

He said his goodbyes to the woman in the shop too, who looked at him in surprise and quietly left.

He then stored the shield in his Ring and finally breathed a sigh of relief. "Phew! That was weird and random! Why are there so many weird people in this world? ...Well, I guess I'm one of them. Hehe!"

After giving the Broken Shield one last look, he decided to return home.

There were plenty of things he still wanted to do. Making more spell scrolls was one of them, and training his Telekinetic Forging skill was also a must.

But all those things could wait a day or two, not because he had better things to do, but instead, he was currently lacking the materials.

So, to waste some time, he decided to finally harvest what he could from all those Goblin corpses and empty his ring from the filth.

The weird thing was, as he used the Essence Extraction skill more often, he got this feeling like the skill was not complete. If it was truly made for enhancing the young ones, it didn't make sense!

Giving them strength without the actual ability to use it safely seemed like a terrible idea.

"Unless there is a way to develop the other half…" Gerald mumbled as the magic around them was busy disintegrating the bloody corpses and extracting their strength. "If I could extract their toughness, resilience, or defense… That could work."

Unfortunately, he had no clue how to do such a thing, or if it was even possible.

"Ah~" He breathed out loudly after racking his brain for a while. Time flew by fast when he was busy and his stomach started rumbling in protest, demanding food like always.

He took a piece of meat from the ring and a bowl of fatty broth. He created a small flame to heat the food up and ate it on the spot.

"I wonder if Sebas will find any Light Crystals this time? It'd be nice if I could make some Laser spell scrolls… Yeah, that would be cool. I could make a laser show… Some loud music and flashing lights, I kind of miss it now that I think about it."

Gerald quietly sighed and moved to the window.

It was already late and the last sun rays were disappearing behind the horizon.

"It has been months since I came here, and I weirdly don't miss my computer that much. Never thought it would be possible for me to go without it for more than a day…"

He rested his elbows on the window's ledge while his legs floated behind him in the air. There was a light summer breeze outside and it carried a nice smell of nature even though they were in a city.

The moon rose from the south and Gerald gazed upon it seemingly in a daze, until suddenly, "Wait, wasn't the moon in the north?"

He quickly flew into the sky and turned around, resulting in his eyes nearly popping out in shock.

"There are two moons!?"