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The inspection of Tanaka by the dwarves took about three hours to finish. Although it might have seemed like a short amount of time, it was only possible because there was alchemy involved.

In that time, Dina and Libra who went shopping had gotten back.

At this moment they were looking at Tanaka along with me in an exasperated expression.

Modified… yes, we did not merely stop at inspection of Tanaka but went ahead and modified it.

In the beginning, the dwarves merely dismantled Takana into smaller pieces to inspect it, however, things took a turn for the worse when I got bored and joined them.

If one were to let me make an excuse, I would blame it on the fact that the Blutgang exclusive materials brought by the dwarves were of a higher standard than I was expecting.
Come read for free at the original source two more free thoughts

Apparently, the name of the material was called “Mizar Steel” and it was a new material created approximately 100 years ago and had a quality befitting of its name containing founder of the great nation.

It was a sturdy, light and flexible material and possessed an astonishing maximum level of 400 should anyone want to create a golem out of it.

It was unfortunate that there was no longer any high-level alchemist in this country which had the ability to create golems of that level cap.

It was truly regrettable as, if there were alchemists capable of such a feat in this country, its combat might would include level 400 combat golems.

Needless to say, if it was me, I would be able to bring out the full potential of this material. Additionally, as I knew that it would serve as a good material should I decide to mass produce golems, I had purchased quite a fair amount of it.

I had a plan to eventually combine them with the golems which were retrieved from the Royal Tomb and create a platoon of mid-level golems.

In any event, I had decided to strengthen Takana with the Mizar Steel, however, I might have taken things too far.

In some moments, I was taught various things by the dwarves. And in others, I was casually teaching them various knowledge from modern day Japan. The current Tanaka was the unfortunate consequence of that. Although the outer appearance had not changed much, the originally big Tanaka had become even bigger with the length of 15 metres and the height of 2.8 metres.

It was without a doubt, a size that would not be able to run on Japanese roads. Furthermore, the interior had become as luxurious as hotel rooms.

In other words, using this world’s standard, it was extremely luxurious.

The floor was now porcelain tiles. The cabinets and walls were purposefully made using wood and varnished giving off a brilliant and glossy look.

Apparently, in this country, the varnish was normally in circulation, as such it was a fortunate miscalculation which saved me the hassle of having to manually make things myself.

We also purchased cloth and as such carpets, sofas and beds also received improvements.

If I were to turn Tanaka into an accommodation infrastructure, I would be able to fetch quite a lot of money. Not that I was going to do such a thing.

“This thing turned out quite nicely!”

“Kakaka, I’m satisfied!”

Dwarf rangers were also laughing in satisfaction as they were looking up at Tanaka.

I assumed they now had basic knowledge of the mechanics behind suspension and types, thus I believed it would not be long before this country was introduced to transportation golems which resembled modern day cars.

I digress but, Mizar Steel and the cloth were both sold cheaply to me.

It seemed it was due to the gratitude for letting them inspect Tanaka.

In practice, the dwarves went as far as to say “We don’t mind it giving it to you for free.” However, I did not feel good about that, thus I asked them to make it dirt cheap instead.

“Oh, by the way, Libra, did you find out the location of Karkinos?”

“I was waiting for you to ask that question. I have already determined his location.”

“Good, let’s go there now.”

I had almost forgotten, but the original goal of coming to this location was to find and meet up with Karkinos as well as to stop Scorpius.

Now that Libra has accurately determined Karkinos’s location, it was possible for us to head to his location any time.

After saying a few words to the dwarf ranger, I followed Libra who guided us at the front of the group.

We again went through the gate and returned to the capital.

After walking for a few minutes, we reached a familiar storefront.

The store that we were standing in front of was the restaurant with the crab sign that caught my attention the first time we came into the capital.

“………….”

What a strange thing it was. It turned out Karkinos was right in front of us.

Not to mention he was boldly hanging up a crab signboard.

You know, how I should put it. As an excuse, maybe I should say that people had small peripherals and that the harder we looked for something, the harder it was for us to spot something that was close to us.

I’m sure you’ve heard of something like that before. Instead of trying to hide badly, it was much harder to find person that was boldly walking around in the middle of the city, you know, something like that.

The current case was exactly like that, ‘it’s hard to see what is under your nose’ or something like that.

Or rather, one would not think it would be like this. That one of the pillars of the 12 Heavenly Stars was opening a restaurant at a location like this.

“It turns out it was in front of our eyes.”

“Yea, it’s right in front of our eyes.”

Dina and Aigokeros said to me as if they were tag teaming to attack an already defeated enemy.

What the hell, you guys did not notice it too.
Come read for free at the original source two more free thoughts

“Well, don’t mind the small things. Let’s go inside first.”

I quickly changed the topic and hurried everyone into the restaurant.

Inside, the walls and tables were made out of wood and gave off a quiet atmosphere.

Nevertheless, it was not all natural, as you could see the surface shining from the coat of varnish.

Behind the counter stood a young man wearing a pair of glasses.

His lustrous black hair was combed all the way to the back and tied neatly, and his extremely sharp eyes which could even be mistaken for a blade were sitting behind a pair of glasses.

The position of his nose was high but the overall look of his face was well proportioned.

He had a fresh and high stature with his white shirt and tie. The vest that he wore on top of that was coloured red. Finally, his slacks and shoes were coloured black.

Whichever angle you looked at him from, he gave off a feeling of being a “good catch man”.

When that man saw me, he spontaneously jumped on the spot and spun around in mid-air, eventually hitting the ceiling and bouncing back down.

After crashing in front of me with a bang, he quickly stood up and grabbed my hand with his.

“Oh! I was surprised! Ruphas-samaaa! You who exist here is none other than my most beloved master, Ruphas Mafahl-samaaa!”

Ah, this guys is a ‘lost cause’ type.

Even though I literally just said it, I was going to have to take back my words. He gave off a feeling of “bad catch man”.

For some reason, he started spinning around on his spot and started scattering rose petals in the surrounding.

“Oh, at least! This day… who knows how long I’ve waited for this day. This Karkinos, ever since losing milady that one fateful day that I couldn’t forget due to the heartache, couldn’t sleep at night so slept in the day, couldn’t eat meals normally so had snacks, but believed that I would be able to see you so I was waiting for you.”

Well, surprisingly, he lived his days quite normally, oi.

While I was being quite astonished by everything, the lighting inside the restaurant suddenly stopped working, or so I thought, however, a spotlight suddenly lit on Karkinos.

“But, me believed it. Believed that milady wouldn’t be done with something of that degree. Me believed that me would definitely be able to see milady one day.”

As he said that, he put one of his hand on my waist and grabbed my hand with the other.

Subsequently, he made that move you often see male dancers do for the female dancers during the social dance.

What was that calling again….. was it something like Drop Oversway?

But before I could come up with the answer to that question, my stance was returned back to normal, followed by Karkinos going down on his knee with my hands being pulled to his lips for a kiss.

Receiving such treatment from a man gave off an eerie feeling.

“Congratulation on returning, my dearest master. Me would like to commemorate of this joyful occasion. Me would also like to present my love and loyalty to milady even though 200 years have passed –“

Notwithstanding that he had reached such a point in his speech, he was cut short and was unable to complete what he was saying.

The reason for that was simple. It was because Libra had stuck a blade made of light on Karkinos’s neck.

“….H, hey…. You was also here, Libra.”

“It has been a while, Karkinos. Now then, I would like you to state your defence for why put your hands on master’s waist without permission.”

“Well, you know. Between you and me, can you look the other way a bit…”

“I take it those are your final words. I have understood and accepted them.”

“NOoouwooooooouoo!?”

Libra tried to mow Karkinos down with the blade without a shred of hesitation, which was then avoided by Karkinos who took a bridge-like posture, after the initial swing by Libra, Karkinos quickly shifted away from the location whilst in that posture and put some distance between himself and Libra.

In this small timeframe, Libra had already gotten up and was moving in for her next attack.

I was looking at Karkinos who was screaming “Help!” and running away Libra and gave off a sigh.

…… 12 Heavenly Stars… There’s really no ordinary individual amongst them….

*

Level: 800

Species: King Crab

Attribute: Earth

HP: 105 000

SP: 4500

STR (Strength/Attack Power): 4850

DEX (Dexterity): 2228

VIT (Vitality): 10 503

INT (Intelligence): 1180

AGI (Agility/Speed): 2134

MND (Mindpower): 4160

LUK (Luck): 4050

Yeah, it’s quite high.

Looking at Karkinos’s stats, I almost became astonished from his needlessly high defensive values.

In this game, vitality served as a stat to determine whether a one would be able to withstand the enemy’s attack or not. In other words, it was indicative of one’s defence.

High vitality = tough body = hard; that was how it was back in the game.

In any event, Karkinos was the one with the greatest defensive ability back in the 12 Heavenly Stars, and these values were reflective of that.

If vitality was the only stat in question, it would even be comparable to me who was a level 1000 player who had endlessly doped myself.

Not to mention his HP was also very high.

“Anyways, why do you have a restaurant open in a place like this?”

As the game of chase between Karkinos and Libra was coming to an end, I asked a question towards Karkinos.

We all sat in front of the counter and on it there were crab soups made for us by Karkinos.

The taste was certainly that of a crab. Though… I wondered how Karkinos was able to get his hands on crabs in this country…. Wait no, it couldn’t be that he was using himself as a cooking stock, could he?

Currently, Karkinos had the appearance of a human, however, if he were to transform himself back to that of a magical beast, he would become a giant crab.

The name of his species was King Crab. It was the strongest amongst the crabs which had mutated into magical beasts and made many players suffer due to their ridiculously high defensive stat combined with envious counter skill.

As such, it was not implausible to use himself as a cooking stock, but… as I was thinking about such a thing, Virgo who was sitting amongst us shouted out loud, “Ah, this is barometz.”

Looking at the others, I saw that Aries’s face had turned blue after unwittingly drinking the soup.

Oi Karkinos, how could you so easily go through with such a scam.

Don’t say it’s a crab soup and serve barometz.

“Thank you for asking. After me heard that Ruphas-sama was defeated, in preparation for the time that milady would be back, me went around countless countries with the purpose of gathering information. But one day, me noticed that rather than go to different location meself it would be more efficient to create a location where the information will come to me.”

“And that was the restaurant, huh.”

“Yes, That’s right. At times, it was at Hrotti, and then at Ydalir, or at Svalinn. Currently, it is at Blutgang. By going from country to country and opening a store here and there, I’ve been gathering information. Me always believed that Ruphas-sama will return and was hoping to get news of that one day.”

“I see, and you’re telling me that while you were waiting for the news, I myself walked in.”

“Yes, Yes, Yes! Me felt that is what you call destiny! As me expected, me and Ruphas-sama are connected by a faithful red string.”

Unnnnn…… I thought that the idea in itself was not too bad.

If anything, his only mistake would be that he chose a capital city like Blutgang which was literally closed off from the rest of the outside world.

For example, if he was based in the trade capital of Ydalir, he would be able to get his information from the wandering merchants around the world and would have more quickly discovered my return and as a consequence, met up with us.

What he said was not a bad idea. However, the location that he chose was detrimental.

Though if I said such a thing, he would probably become depressed, as such I decided not to do so.

“The location that you chose is quite bad, isn’t it? If you’re going to open a restaurant, you should have chosen Ydalir.”

Notwithstanding that I chose not to say anything to Karkinos, Dina voice it out loud quite easily.

Karkinos froze up and dropped to the floor as if he just suffered from a shock.
Come read for free at the original source two more free thoughts

“….In truth, me also faintly felt like that… whilst me was in this country… was thinking there was no information about the outside….”

“No, you should have noticed it. As expected, you’re still as stupid as before, Karkinos.”

Towards Karkinos who was already feeling down, Aries mercilessly followed up with a line which could easily have been a final blow.

Although Aries had always been quite straight forward with the way he spoke poisonous things easily, this time, his statement was particularly toxic.

In all likelihood, it was due to his anger about being tricked into eating barometz.

All these small things aside, with this, our goal of meeting up with Karkinos was fulfilled.

Considering that every encounter until now was filled with some troublesome thing, this was most probably our smoothest re-encounter.

…. It would have been perfect if only he was not such an eccentric person.