“Phew…”
I slept remarkably well.
It’s been years since I’ve felt this good waking up.
People have been talking about virtual drugs recently but seeing how well I can sleep in a game, that’s more than enough reason for them to start selling them.
How long was I out for?
I opened up the menu to check the in-game clock, which read 10:07 PM.
I’ve been asleep for about six hours then.
I take a look out the window and see that the sun has already set.
“Let’s go get that Fishing Mastery then.”
Name/ Kizuna†Exceed
Race/ Spirit
Energy/ 2,820
Mana/ 70
Serin/ 1,850
Skills/ Energy Production III, Mana Production II
Energy Production II → Energy Production III
Generates 200 Energy per hour → Generates 400 Energy per hour
Costs 50 Mana to upgrade.
Fishing Mastery I
All actions with a fishing rod receives a 10% buff.
Consumes 100 Energy per hour.
Costs 30 Mana to acquire.
Unlock requirement: Obtain 10 items or more with a fishing rod.
Upgrade requirement: Obtain 100 or more items with a fishing rod.
I acquire Fishing Mastery I. Doing so consumes 100 Energy, leaving me with 2,720.
Upgrading it to rank II will cost me 60 Mana. With only 40 left, I don’t have enough for it.
In any case, I’ve got Fishing Master I now. I’ve been waiting to see what it can do. Well, still, I don’t think I can catch The Big One so easily though.
“… sure am hungry.”
I feel like I just ate before I went to bed. Thinking about it, that was already six hours ago, so maybe it’s time for another meal. I’ll eat the leftover fish I had grilled for me.
I take out the Grilled Herring from my inventory.
“It’s turned cold. This game even has temperature, eh?”
When I had it earlier, it was fresh off the grill and piping hot.
In that case, if someone were to make stuff like ice cream, it’d probably melt too.
Well, who knows? Maybe there’s dry ice or something like that as well.
It’s a bit miserable but if I don’t eat this, it’d be going to waste. I can make do.
“Now that my belly’s full, let’s go catch a fish or two. Where did I leave my clothes again?”
Here they are. I just tossed them over by my shoes.
Right after I get dressed, I take out my Wooden Rod +2 and I’m ready to go.
I leave the inn.
Pa.s.sing by the front desk cued a “Take care!” from the NPC.
I step out to a town of darkness.
A soulless scene.
Maybe everybody’s. .h.i.t the sack already or they’re still working hard at leveling up.
“It really is dark. I can barely see where I’m going.”
Of course, there are no streetlights, but there aren’t even torches around. It’s nigh pitch black.
I open up the map from the menu and head towards that same bridge I was on yesterday. I even dropped by the general store since I had forgotten to buy more bait.
I can’t believe that they’re still open though.
If this were a real person running the store, they’d probably wouldn’t be too chipper at this time of hour.
Imagine a clerk working in a convenience store or something…
Anyway, I get to the bridge.
Unfortunately though, the moon is covered by clouds.
I wouldn’t know I’m facing the sea if not for the briny breeze and the gentle crashing of the waves.
Perhaps I need a carbide lamp or something of the sort.
For now, I’m happy with my big pile of bait as I stick it onto my copper fishhook.
I poked my finger three times, causing 10 damage.
Then after casting my line into the sea, I feel a weird tug that I’ve never felt before.
It’s… rather strong.
But this dull bite is just odd.
Whatever, though. I power through it and fish it out of the water.
—××× obtained.
Hmm? It’s too dark to read the text.
I don’t know exactly what it is, but I put it into my inventory. I’ll know when the sun rises.
I bait my hook and cast my rod again.
—××× obtained.
Whoa! I caught something the moment the hook touched the water.
They’re really biting.
I bought 300 pieces of bait, but now it looks like it might not be enough.
Alright! It’s an all-you-can-catch!
—
———
—————
… finally, morning.
I keel over with my hands and knees on the ground, exactly like the orz emoticon.
As for results though, I caught nearly 200.
But if felt more like they were looking for me, rather than me actively trying to catch them.
I take a look at my spoils.
137 Empty Cans
2 Rubber Boots
Crystallization (Unidentified)
40 Herrings
25 Sardines
12 Seaba.s.ses
4 Common Darkfish
3 Zombiefish
“What?!”
What the h.e.l.l?
I got more Empty Cans than anything.
Oh, the disappointment! Gimme back the happiness I had!
Why are there even cans in this world in the first place?
… but I guess it’s not too surprising after all.
What I intended to do was to find out whether I can catch different fish at night, so I can chalk it up as a success.
“How much trash are you guys throwing into the ocean anyway?” is what I want to say, but I don’t wanna be rude.
And not to mention that last thing on the list is totally undead.
I bet I can get some good materials from tr.i.m.m.i.n.g it. It better be good.
I begin to gut and trim the fish while clinging on to that glimmer of hope.
Probably not the cans though.
It took me two hours to finish up.
I’m still not getting a gutting skill though. I wonder what the requirement is.
Maybe I have to fight with it as a weapon?
I plan to keep on fishing though, so I don’t think I’ll go and try that out.
But, naturally, the amount of fish I had was proportional to the amount of time needed to trim them.
I’m glad I have this convenient gutting knife.
It’s just a hunch, but I think I can use it to gut monsters as well. I’ll try it if I ever get the chance to fight monsters.
“Alright, now let’s sell it all.”
I check the clock again to see it read 9:27 AM.
I bet someone as diligent as Alto is would be up already.
I’ll try and send a chat.
What’s his actual name? Altorese, was it?
I remember him saying something about Altorese’s Emporium or something.
And just like before, a dialing sound effect plays as I wait for Alto to pick up.
“Hi, this is Alto.”
He sounds like he’s full of energy.
He’ll be trading all day too, I’d say.
“Yo, it’s me.”
“You sound like you’re the girl from yesterday. No, wait, the guy who’s playing as a girl, right?”
“Right. Kizuna.”
“Is that your name? I don’t think I caught it yesterday.”
Oh, now that he mentions it.
I asked him for his name, but I was too embarra.s.sed to let him know “Kizuna†Exceed” is my name. Rather, I think I deliberately didn’t tell him.
“So? What’s up today?”
“Ah, I wanted to sell you some items. They’re all fish though, if that’s okay.”
“Of course. Where are you now?”
“On the map, I’m to the right of the bridge—”
After exchanging our locations, we ended up deciding to rendezvous at the same place as yesterday.
I was gonna hurry on over, but Alto was there already.”
He has different equipment on compared to yesterday.
Looks like he’s doing well for himself.
“Yo, Kizuna. You said you had fish, but how much do you have?”
“Oh, this much.”
I hit accept on his trade request.
According to Alto, we can just trade it over by hand, but since we’re trading in such large amounts, it’s better to do it this way.
I place the scales, bones, meat, heads, teeth, fin, and everything else in the trade window.
“It seems like you’ve prepped all of them for cooking already, but you still have so much. What a shock.”
“Prepped for cooking?”
“I didn’t do that though?” was what I was about to say, but Alto continues.
“Yeah, after parting ways yesterday, I found out that if you use a kitchen knife to prep your fish, you get a lot more items that way.”
“Huh.”
“And so you have the cooking skill, right, Kizuna? If you need any ingredients, I can sell you some.”
No, I don’t have a single cooking skill pop up. But I’ll keep that to myself.
Since he has so many connections, he’s gotta know somebody that uses a gutting-type weapon, right?
“Hey, Alto, this is completely unrelated, but what do gutting weapons do?”
“Hmm? I’m pretty sure they do extra damage to certain races. But since their base damage is low, not many people use them.”
“I see…”
“And sometimes, when you kill the right monsters, they drop different items too.”
… don’t tell me I’ve misunderstood my gutting knife this whole time.
As far as I know, if I’m being really careful, I can gut and trim fish to get their scales and meat.
But it seems like I can use the cooking skill instead. Maybe it’s even more effective that way. In that case, I can probably even earn more money.
Naturally, it’ll become common knowledge sooner or later. But before everyone knows about it, maybe I can make tons of money like this. It’s not exactly uncommon for a new game.
“What about gutting weapons anyway?”
“Ah, I’m using one right now. So that’s it? A peculiar weapon used against certain races…”
“I see. You really like unusual things, don’t you, Kizuna?”
“Guess so.”
“Anyway, how does a total of 6,000 serin sound?”
“That much?”
Alto says it as if it were obvious. If all he had yesterday was 8,000 serin, that means he’s been making lots while I’ve been chilling.
“It takes time to raise your cooking skill, so factor in how much an hour is worth. It’s also quite a lot and then I put it a little below market value.”
Buy low, sell low. That’s how he resells stuff, he mentioned yesterday.
That’s fine then. It’s a lot more than what the NPCs will give me anyway.
I accept the trade, hit OK, and received 6,000 serin.
“Thank you for your patronage. Let me know if you have anything else to sell.”
“Alright, I’ll holler next time.”
I take a look at my inventory to see only empty cans left.
Having 137 of them is actually kind of a bother.
NPCs will give me either 1 or 5 serin for each.
The difference being aluminum and steel.
Wait, hold on. Aluminum and steel, huh?
“Hey, Alto? I have another question. How much do Empty Cans sell for?”
“Empty Cans? Unfortunately, dirt cheap. You’re better off selling it to a store.”
“Is that right? It’s caught my attention that these cans are aluminum and steel though.”
I lower my voice as if I’m letting him onto a secret and his face lights up.
“… I see. With a blast furnace, they might be able to turn into ingots!”
“There are blast furnaces, huh?”
“Yeah. There are people working on their craft skills who are smelting ores into ingots.”
“Then can I get you to take a look whether they can do the same with these cans? Of course, I’ve got a lot more, so if it works.”
We open up our trade windows again and I give him five each of aluminum and steel.
It’ll be easy money if I can turn trash into something useful.
Even if it doesn’t work out, I can still sell it for some change.
“Thank you, Kizuna! Maybe we’ll make a lot with this!”
“Yeah, if it pans out, get me a slice of the action.”
“Of course! I’ll hurry and find out then!”
This being right in his element, Alto rushes off while waving goodbye.
It probably won’t even take him an hour.
“I’ve got quite a good stack of money now. Maybe I should get some equipment.”
If I can turn cans into steel, then maybe I can get someone to make me a weapon.
But since I don’t even have a single combat skill, I think it’d be better to stick to my light clothing.
And for shoes… can I wear these rubber boots?
I take them out of my inventory, take off my default shoes, and stick my feet into the boots.
“Looks like I really can equip them…”
If I had a raincoat and a yellow umbrella, it’ll complete my little girl getup.
Leaving the jokes aside, I should look for an armor shop or a player selling clothes.
I take my first steps in my rubber boots.
Let me tell you what happened after.
My hunch was dead on. Those Empty Cans really can be turned into aluminum and steel ingots.
While keeping it a secret from Alto and the smith, I keep on quietly fishing up empty cans and repeatedly hand them over.
The three of us made a killing for about five days until players found a source of iron ore. Of course, the ingots made from cans aren’t all that high quality, so we started losing business. After discussing our strategy with Alto, we decided to put it to an end.
In any case, we came in hot with out Empty Can method and made a good chunk of cash.
With fate bringing us together, I added Alto to my friends list.
“I’ll be counting on you for another brilliant idea to make money.”
I hope he feels the same way.
Furthermore, for some odd reason, I can only catch Empty Cans at night.
Afterwards, with iron prices going down, Alto made the information public. In the end, pairing the unprofitable fishing skill with smelting and smithing made for a popular money-making strategy.
: // // // // // /ch005/ /next/