“Nine Underlands, that’s the most beautiful piece of armor I’ve ever seen,” Reya breathed. “What god do you pray to, Arwin? I’m swapping.” “It’s just scale mail,” Arwin said, his eyes locked with the Demon Queen’s. “Nothing special.” “Nothing special my ass,” Lillia said. “How’d you make that? That’s impossible. You–” She cut herself off before she could continue, but Arwin knew what she’d been about to say. I’ve only been at this for a short while. I don’t have any formal training as a smith, and even though this item probably wouldn’t be anything special to someone far above our Tier, it shouldn’t have been possible for an amateur. But here I am. Maybe all the time I spent watching my equipment getting made transferred over. It was a weak excuse and Arwin was all too aware of it, but he genuinely had no proper explanation for it other than that the materials seemed to beckon to him, begging him to form them into their proper forms. Even in the final stages of the scale mail, he’d felt the call of the scales directing his movements. Making Average magical items was absolutely nothing to scoff at. The Mesh didn’t even recognize non-magical items in most circumstances. The only exception was when they managed to earn Titles and Achievements of their own, but that was rare. The actual ranking of magical items scaled with the smith that made them and the materials that went into them. An Average item from Arwin, at Apprentice Tier, would be nothing compared to a Garbage item made by someone two tiers higher at Adept Tier. But, even despite that, being able to make Average magical items with the amount of practice Arwin had… it was unfair, to say the least. “I’ve got more material.” Arwin looked back to the still-lit forge. “How long was I working? Do I have time to make another piece?” “The note said two days, and today is day two,” Reya said. “If they’re going to be really strict on their timing, then I’d assume they’ll show up tonight.” “It might be better to bring the fight to them. They won’t suspect it,” Lillia said. “They probably also won’t send their entire guild just for Reya,” Arwin said with a thoughtful frown. “We might be better off waiting for them to show up here, killing the ones that do, and then taking out the rest of them afterward.” “Which would work if they didn’t have any sort of information network, but they clearly respect that you’re a threat.” Lillia shook her head. “And that means that they’ll be watching to see how things go. If people start dying, the rest of the guild will either show up prepared or will be lying in wait. It’s much more efficient if we cut the problem out with one fell swoop.” She had a fair point, but taking them out in one fell swoop was considerably easier to say than actually do. Sure, getting the jump on the thieves would probably give them a few free kills, but there were still thirty of them. If ten were off watching the dungeon, that still left twenty people to handle between the three of them – two, if Arwin didn’t count Reya due to her lack of experience. The idea of trusting Lillia… I don’t know. A truce is one thing, but fighting side by side is entirely different. I can barely even remember a time when I wasn’t trying to kill her and she wasn’t aiming to do the same to me. Arwin had no way to know for certain, but he got the strong suspicion that the exact same thoughts were passing through Lillia’s head. There was little choice, though. Unless they abandoned Reya to her fate, they had to work together. There wasn’t any way to prove anything or ensure Lillia wouldn’t turn against him, she had no way to know if Arwin would hold to his word either. It was like a snake eating its own tail. No matter how hard it tried to consume itself, it would never be able to finish. The only option was just to stop biting. “Just this once, then,” Arwin said, holding Lillia’s gaze. “Until the thieves’ guild has been dealt with.” “Just once.” Lillia nodded. “I don’t plan to make a habit out of killing people. I’m trying to run an upstanding business, so this is going to have to be a cheat day.” “So what are we going to do?” Reya asked, wringing her hands together. “Are we just charging in and killing people?” “That’s going to depend on where their base is,” Arwin said. He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, holding a hand toward the forge. The [Soul Flame] he still had sitting in it sputtered and flew into his hand, returning to his body as his fist closed around it. “I trust you know?” “Yeah. I can show you, but they’ve definitely got lookouts.” “We’ve already established that it’s likely they’ll be watching us,” Arwin said. “There’s even a chance they know what I’ve been up to. And, speaking of which, hold on.” Arwin directed his attention to his armor, willing it to hide itself from anyone else’s eyes. The metal rippled in response, but that was it. Arwin glanced at the others, then tapped his chest. “Well? Can you still tell what it is?” “Not anymore,” Lillia said with a shake of her head. “If I didn’t know better, I’d just think it was normal scale mail. You still might stand out a bit, though. I don’t see a lot of people walking around wearing Forest Lizard armor.” “Not yet,” Arwin said with a low chuckle. He nodded over his shoulder at the pile of pieces left over from the Forest Lizard. “I’ve still got a good bit of material left, not to mention the claws and fangs. I’m going to need some better tools if I’m going to get around to using them anytime soon, though.” “We should probably focus on surviving this fight first,” Lillia suggested. She went to continue, then paused as she took a closer look at the pile that Arwin had indicated. “Do… you think you might be able to make me some utensils? I don’t have a knife. Or a fork. Or anything, really. I’ve just got a bent piece of metal that I’ve been using as a makeshift pan.” “What have you been using to cook if you didn’t have utensils?” Reya asked. Lillia looked down at her hands, then back up to her. Reya grimaced and held a hand up. “Never mind. I’d rather be ignorant. Can we go back to the part where we try to figure out how to kill thirty people?” “That’s simple,” Arwin said. Lillia looked to him in confusion and Reya’s eyes narrowed as she figured out what he was about to say before he could say it. “Simple? How?” Lillia asked.