"50 Million valis, or turn around and walk right out the door." Helfin Astarine, the proprietress of the small magic shop huffed. She owned the 'Crystal Host', the establishment that supplied a fair amount of refined magic cores and crystals for the Mages of Orario. This also happened to be the shop that Riveria took Tanya to get her Minotaur core refined. The elf woman had a severe frown on her face as she crossed her arms under her chest. "I have a large number of cores that are being refined right now, and if you expect me to push off some of those orders to get a Goliath core refined in time for your expedition in four days, then you better be willing to pay."
She was far more polite with Riveria! What the hell! Simpering, bowing, scraping, 'Oh, yes, Riveria-sama! It would be a most auspicious honor to help your little Tanya-chan get this Minotaur core refined! Take face one and slay it on her own, she must be oh so very brave and powerful!'
Sure, it had been grating at the time, but where the hell was that woman now!?
Tanya felt her gorge rise. "10 Million valis is far more than reasonable, Astarine-san. Your price chart says 5 Million to refine a Goliath core, with a 30% surcharge for rush orders. I really shouldn't be paying you as much as I am willing to, but that is the absolute best you're going to be getting out of me."
"That stone is very large, Tanya-san, it will take up an entire one of my refinement pools- a pool that I could be using to refine a half dozen orders." The woman looked unimpressed. "Why would I push those orders to the side because you need this done quickly?"
Tanya blinked before her finger poked the price chart on the counter. "That is what the 'rush order' surcharge is for, you have the customer pay extra to push the other orders back. Do you not understand how business works?"
"I have been refining cores and various precious stones for Mages in this city for 50 years, I am well aware of how business works." The woman's frown turned into an affronted scowl.
"Then you should know that trying to charge five times the amount for a simple, day-long delay in production is patently unreasonable. In fact, one might consider it highway robbery." Tanya leaned over the glass countertop that displayed various refined cores and gems as much as her height allowed her to. "Do you want to be entitled to half of my Dungeon proceeds while you're at it? Let me put it to you like this, either take the 10 Million valis, or I'll take my Goliath core to Lenoa, and I'll pay her 50 Million valis just to spite you. When I return from my Expedition with all of the cores and wealth I will accumulate, then I will be sure to parade them in front of your shop, all the while loudly proclaiming that you could have had access to my earnings but you decided to suddenly be a bint for a reason that I cannot divine."
Tanya reeled herself back and visibly let herself calm down. "I do not know why you're suddenly so hostile to my presence when Riveria-dono was not standing next to me, but I do not appreciate it."
The woman's entire mein changed, her posture less confrontational and more conciliatory. There was silence for a few heartbeats before she sighed and shook her head. "My... apologies, Tanya-san. It is not right for me to treat you so harshly. However, Riveria-sama's Guardianship of you has been inflaming tensions between the factions of elves here in Orario. There are those that see it as Orario does, a simple desire to care for your needs, while others see it as the Princess attempting to buck tradition with choosing a successor that was human for the throne of the High Elves."
She brought a hand up to rub at a temple. "I have been among the other mortals long enough to know that what she did has no hidden symbology, but the newcomers to the city have been causing a ruckus. Since word spread, I have been placed under some pressure from the factions to pick a side in this foolishness, and I am not so foolish to believe that I can remain neutral without there being economic consequences for doing so."
"Elves make up the majority of my customers, and they make up the majority of mages in the city. Losing one half or the other will be a major financial blow." The woman placed her hands on her hips and sighed, "If I send you away then I can at least keep out of this whole mess for a little while longer. Hopefully, things will settle down, but elves have long memories to go with their long lifespans."
Tanya mulled her words over in her mind before nodding. "Very well then, I can accept reasoning like that, however, I feel that it is foolish. The mob will come for you one way or the other until you pick a side, and if you try to remain neutral then you will just have both coming after your head. Regardless, I'll accept your refusal and take my business elsewhere. While I do not appreciate your initial venom, I can at least respect your candor with me now. I will go to Leona and see what she can offer me. Have a pleasant day."
With that, Tanya turned around and walked right out the door before taking off and flying over to Lenoa's Secret Shop.
"Hehehehe, 15 Million would get me up off my bottom to refine that Goliath core before your expedition. Yup, that would do the trick just fine. Hehehehehe." The old biddy chuckled greedily as she rubbed her hands together.
Things were not going swimmingly anymore.
That sentiment lasted up until Tanya swung by the coach-maker to check on the status of her very own "Tiny Home". Then her smile returned once more.
In her life as the Salaryman, she'd once been obsessed, as all money-minded Japanese people were, with the concept of a small home on wheels. Even in Mainland Japan travel could be quite expensive once you started adding in the costs of tickets and lodging; the hotel rooms were incredibly small for the price you paid for them, to the point where you might as well be living in the back of a van. So, some enterprising people started coming up with a mobile house on wheels that could fill the role, and do it quite nicely!
The Salaryman never took a vacation, preferring to have his vacation time be paid out at the end of the year instead of rolling it over into the next year. Not that it mattered anyway, the vacation caps were fairly low, and if you tried to save up too many hours then you would lose them; given the large amount of time spent at the office with the ever-increasing number of projects, the likelihood of an office worker in Japan even being allowed to take their vacations was pretty low. It was all-hands-on-deck all the time.
Even still, there had been a phase in his life where he spent dozens of hours watching Youtube videos of various vans and small trucks being converted to house a bed with a small amount of storage space and the like. He had a few fantasies of driving his little house up to a beach and just opening up the door to let the sea breeze in while he lounged on his bed with a can of MAXX Coffee in one hand and a good thriller novel in the other.
Tanya had, quite shamelessly, taken all of those design ideas and incorporated them to make a house on wheels using one of the more common wagon designs available.
Every little space-saving feature he saw she incorporated, from a bed that lifted into the wall, to a wide desk that folded down. The structure was essentially a rectangular box that measured 3 meters long, hanging off the back of the wagon chassis by roughly half a meter, 2.5 meters wide to match the base, and 2.5 meters tall. The wall on the backside was double-thick because it could separate thanks to the hinges on the bottom, which allowed Tanya to lower it and turn that 2.5 x 2.5-meter space into a nice little deck that was suspended by two steel braided cables.
She went wild with the design, engineering a dual 50-gallon water tank made from stainless steel barrels that had a simple hand-operated pump to create pressure. The piping was made from copper, and she ran it from the front-mounted tanks to the small overhead shower; a simple drain allowed the wastewater to flow outside. She thought about including a toilet but decided against it- she could just relieve herself in the bushes or at the pit latrines like everyone else.
The chassis of the wagons used for Orario's dungeon expeditions were built to be incredibly tough, they had to be in order to lug around the hundreds upon hundreds of kilograms of drop items and monster cores.
While sitting down with the carpenters who were in charge of the 'Pathfinder Wagon' shop, she learned quite a bit about the different types of woods available for this. They typically used Short Timber for their wagons, the hearty wood sourced from the mountains of the Dwarven Kingdoms to the north of Orario, because it was stiff and incredibly durable. However, building a full house out of it would make it too heavy.
Instead, she had them build the frame of the chassis from the Short Timber, and elected to use Whisperwood for the construction of the house part. Whisperwood was one of the primary exports from the Elfin kingdoms, and it was incredibly lightweight but still more than sturdy for her purposes; if she had to guess it was equivalent to balsa wood in weight but had the strength and hardness of oak. While nothing exciting in this world- miracle materials like this were everyday items- in both of her worlds Whisperwood would have been exalted, at least up until the advent of aluminum during the industrial revolution.
It was surprisingly inexpensive to get everything done for the 'Adventurer Home', but that was probably because the carpenters- an assortment of elves, dwarves, and humans- saw the potential of fashioning such a product. Most Adventurers slept in tents, and if they could offer an alternative to that in a package that was easy to transport in the Dungeon? Well, they just might be able to create a whole new market for such items.
A pop-up tent with canvas walls on the roof, some small windows that could be swung inwards to promote airflow, a small ladder built into the wall that could be used to hang clothes. Every little space-saving feature Tanya could remember was put into it. Once it was treated and painted, the damn thing was glorious!
They even managed to fashion a brace for the structure with girthy eye-bolts on the top to where Tanya could tie a rope to it and sling-load it like she was a magical cargo helicopter. The entire structure weighed less than 250 kilograms, including the chassis, and it cost her less than 200,000 valis.
Tanya couldn't conceal her broad grin as she walked around and examined the thing from every angle, the craftsman all gathered around with proud smiles on their faces. "I think that it is everything I was looking for and more, gentlemen."
"Heh, if anything, we should be payin' you, lassie, not the other way around." A squat dwarf with bright red hair and a beard that was much darker rumbled as he stroked his chin.
"Indeed, I happen to agree with Gim-dono." A beautiful elf with brown hair spoke up as he ran a hand through his silky locks. "This was quite an exciting little project to work on to be sure; a far cry from the usual brutish wagons we make. Finally, something with a little grace and elegance will leave our establishment."
"Feh, 'grace and elegance' he says. Naw, this here is simplicity and efficiency rolled into one small package, I think." The dwarf grunted back.
The elf's lips twitched, "While I admit that it doesn't have the amount of aesthetic flare I would like, the grace and elegance I was referring to comes from the simplicity and efficiency, Gim-dono. No doubt we could take a design like this and make it more luxurious for the more... discerning customers."
"My fellows, come now, surely there is no need to fuss!" The lone human, a big bear of a man who was just as hairy, smiled broadly, his hands resting on his hips. "This will be a new chapter in our shop's history! The first true mobile home!"
"Aye, he be right," Chuckled the second dwarf, one with blonde hair and a red beard chuckled, "Just the leaf-spring design she brought to us will revolutionize how we make our carriages!"
Ah, yes, she did show that. While it was up to the blacksmiths to figure out how to implement the design- a simple one she observed more than a few times on the Empire's Heavy-Duty trucks- the "invention" that Tanya shamelessly took credit for would do a world of good. No one appreciated a sore ass thanks to a bumpy ride after all.
Tanya nodded at the man and looked over at the two elves that nodded in agreement. "Am I good to take this with me?"
"Of course!" The big human huffed, "The ropes are already on the roof. We just wanted to all be present when you looked it over. It's already been treated and painted, so when you go down to the Water City there shouldn't be any moisture absorption or water damage."
Tanya grinned and gave them all a shallow bow before she lifted off and ran the thick rope through the eyebolts. With the rope secured she leaned into her newly gained magical strength and slowly lifted off, the carriage groaning a small bit before it settled. The draw on her mana was negligible; even before she had gotten her falna, she would have been able to lift this much with the Type-95, but she was far, far stronger than she was before.
It was a slow flight back to the Twilight Manor, and when she touched down the Adventurers came out of the woodwork, to include her Goddess, to inspect her little home. So she decided to give the 'Pathfinder Carriages' team a little free advertising and she opened the whole thing up, lowered the back porch, and let those present all pop their heads in. One of the Level 3s on the Vanguard team, a half-dwarf by the name of Rowan, remarked that he just might have to get one himself; he was planning on taking a few months off to go visit his family up north, and a very lightweight small home that he could pull with a single horse was right up his alley.
When the clamor petered out it was just Tanya and Loki, the sun beginning to make its descent. The Goddess lounged on Tanya's bed and fiddled around with the magic stone fan that could blow air onto her face while she slept. "Hey, I know that I said I wanted you to go kill the Goliath in the morning, but would you mind going down and taking care of it now?"
Tanya shook her head. "I don't have an issue with it, but my weapon was sort of damaged in my spar with Aiz today, so I don't know if it will last the fight. Why the change?"
The Goddess hummed and rolled over onto her belly so that she could kick her feet. "Well, we're taking a lot more people into the Dungeon than we normally do, which means more wagons we had to purchase, and that storehouse we constructed wasn't cheap at all. Combine that with all of the other purchases, namely the contract with Hephaestus to have some of her smiths accompany use in the Dungeon?"
Loki shrugged and interlaced her fingers under her chin as she scratched the side of her calf with her toes.
"We need a quick infusion of cash to get us over the hump until the Expedition returns. The Goliath Hide will go to a few discerning individuals who're willing to pay a good price outside of Orario, and they want it soon. Since you have to get that Goliath core processed for your new weapon, we will need to wait 12 hours so that the items persist, right? So the sooner you kill that bad boy, the sooner we can sell."
So it wasn't just for shields for the frontline then? Fair enough.
Tanya blinked but nodded. "I don't have a problem with that, but I did promise Hephaestus-sama 40 meters of hide in exchange for knocking a significant portion of the cost off, so do account for that."
"Oof, you big Names always have the most expensive shit!" Loki recoiled and rolled onto her side before a big grin emerged on her face. "Come on, tell me, what's the damage, huh? It always brings me joy when I see the despondent expressions you guys make when you lament how much valis it's going to cost to get your gear replaced."
The young teen winced. "600 Million for my new spear-stave, and 130 Million for a backup short sword capable of handling the lower floors. However, Hephaestus-sama and Tsubaki-dono were willing to give me a significant discount on the stave, and I will get the short sword for free; it lessens the pain, but doesn't remove it entirely."
"Pffffftttt, ha ha ha!" The Goddess giggled and rolled around on her bed a few times before looking at Tanya. "Still, that's not bad though, Lefiya's little staff, that cute little thing she carries around? 880 Million! Can you believe it!?"
Tanya shook her head and chuckled as well. Yes, the weapons capable of serving Adventurers well in the Lower Floors of the Dungeon were insanely expensive. "Alright, I take it that everything has been arranged already?"
"Did you not see the 30 wagons lined up outside?" The Goddess arched an eyebrow and looked at Tanya as if she was a particularly stupid puppy. It irked the shit out of her.
"Alright, fine. Let's just get this over with."
It took three hours to get down to the 18th Floor, and Riveria stood next to her as they looked at the large crystal wall with a 20-meter tall black silhouette. The shadow was black as night, and Tanya could see the monster breathing, its shoulders and chest moving from behind its cage. "Are you prepared, Tanya-chan?"
Tanya chuckled, "Yes. I've slain one Monster Rex before, I think I can handle this one. I'm much stronger now than I was before."
"Very well, just be aware of its sonic attack, and with your maneuverability, you should be fine. I will be on standby to aid you if you need it." The elf princess shifted her feet just a touch as she spoke. While she appeared outwardly calm, it was quite evident that she was experiencing some flashbacks from Aiz's solo fight against the Udaeus a few months prior.
Tanya walked into the room, her boots tapping on the stone as she walked. When she made it to the center of the room the whole place began to rumble as the crystal cracked apart and fell, a hand thrusting through the wall only hastened the structure's collapse. When the wall finished crumbling away it revealed a titanic form, a heavily muscled man with large hands with a row of pearlescent white teeth.
Spoiler: Goliath
The beast roared in challenge, his voice shaking the very walls.
Tanya responded by firing off two full-strength Refracted Beams into its eyes, and she was almost disappointed when they didn't pierce the back of his skull. This guy was definitely not weak to magic like the Violas Rex was. Still, that didn't stop her from pumping out one of her most powerful Explosive formulas- all 1,000 kilograms- and exploding it in its open maw as its hands shot up to cover its eyes in pain.
The entire head evaporated under the force of the explosion, sending bits of bone and flesh spinning out in all directions. Everything from the neck up was simply gone. The hands that were covering its eyes were mangled bits of bone and flesh.
The body seized for a moment before it dropped onto its knees and collapsed forwards, sending a massive cloud of dust flying through the air. Tanya took off and hovered right above the cloud so that it didn't obscure her vision... and didn't get her all dusty. From her vantage point, the monster's famous regeneration was already kicking into high gear, the neck and lower jaw having already been reformed. The former Colonel waited until the bottom of the braincase was healed before firing off another Explosion; she didn't want to get overzealous and have the explosion damage the monster core, now did she?
She alternated firing off a Refracted beam through its spine and firing off an Explosive spell every so often, if only because the beast couldn't move when it was missing its entire head. The best way to kill the Goliath was too out damage its absurd healing abilities, and when its ability to heal was exhausted, then that was when you had won.
It took her half an hour and a Mind potion to kill the damn thing, but it was better than trying to fight it conventionally, targeting the joints to limit its mobility so that you could strike at its legs to exhaust its healing that way. After watching it for ten minutes and not seeing any observable healing, the young teen flew forward and began throwing rocks at its hand, before finally cutting the back of a finger with a Mage Blade; if the beast somehow was still alive enough to make a move, the best it would be able to do was knock her away instead of grabbing her.
Getting crushed into a paste wasn't on her list of things to do.
Not seeing any healing from the small wound, she flew up onto its back and proceeded to cut 1 meter by 5-meter strips out of its back and waist, the young teen having to drag the flesh over to the wagon train; none of the Level 1s in attendance wanted to be anywhere near it, and Tanya didn't blame them. Riveria helped them fold the hide into a package that could fit onto a wagon, but it only took two strips to max out the load; Goliath hide was heavy.
Well, the wagons could handle more, but the Level 1s who pulled them couldn't handle more.
The entire back, arms, legs, and ass were stripped, revealing a light black skeleton and black muscles. Riveria made sure to have Tanya cut off the tendons everywhere possible because they would make for an excellent bowstring; her cousins at the Alfheim shop would be very grateful to get their hands on it. A few of the Adventurers laughed at whoever was going to get the strips of Goliath ass hide, and even Tanya got a chuckle out of it.
It was a shame that they weren't able to get any Goliath teeth thanks to Tanya blowing them up, but Riveria insisted that she would be better served using Goliath bone instead; with her Reinforcement formula, she would be more than strong enough to utilize the bow, although she would have to practice with it outside of the city. With the amount of bone being brought back her cousins would be able to fashion thousands of arrows from the material.
Tanya had to cut off the arms and legs so they could attach ropes to the massive monster and roll it onto its back- Tanya and Riveria provided most of the muscle for it, but the Level 1s did help keep it stable while they pushed. The chest and torso, along with whatever bits of hide they could strip from the front side of the arms and legs, were cleaned off and their wagons were full to the brim with materials.
Removing the Goliath core with her Mage Blade was interesting, as it required some surgery to remove properly from its chest cavity; they grabbed all of the rib bones that had sufficient length because Riveria was going to have them fashioned into bows for the Executives of the familia. Finally, at last, the Goliath core was removed, and damn was it big. The thing was about four times the size of a watermelon! The fact that they could shrink and condense it into something no bigger than an apple was really something else.
At the end of it all, they were left with a single strip of Goliath hide that Tanya folded up and strapped to her person with rope. Simple enough.
It was well into the next morning when the caravan had returned to the surface, which suited them just fine as there would be very few eyes on them as they made their way back to the Twilight Manor. When they passed through the gates the wagon train moved towards the storehouse where a handful of Level 3s was on standby to help them unload everything.
Tanya segregated off the 40 meters for Hephaestus and kept 5 meters of the material for herself; she was going to have two new flight suits fashioned and get a thick leather cuirass as well as some arm and leg guards made. The first generation of her modular chest rig should be finished soon, and while the rig itself was made of weaker Infant Dragonhide, it wouldn't matter because the purpose of the rig was to give her all sorts of pouches for potions and things, not to provide protection.
Besides, the Infant Dragon hide was thinner than the Goliath hide; she wanted to be protected and carry things, not feel like she was drowning in thick leather belts.
Loki was waiting there with a huge grin on her face as she watched all of her Children work. "Oh ho! So much valis! Those guys are paying us 15 Million a meter for this stuff, and we must have... what... 100 meters here? That and these bones and sinew! Haha! 2 Billion valis, easy! Oh man, so much money- Finn will have to let me buy at least a bottle of Soma's mid-grade to celebrate, right?"
"Loki-sama, a lot of these bones will be fashioned into bows and arrows, and armor for our familia. The sinew will be going to my cousins because they will be the ones making the bows. It would be irresponsible to just try and sell them- the client only asked for the hide, and that is all he will get." Riveria poked the Goddess' forehead as she hugged herself and squirmed. Loki was hardly chastised, but she did get the message.
Riveria then turned her attention to Tanya. "You should gather a few strips of that Goliath sinew for yourself as well, Tanya-chan. If you're going to make new equipment out of the leather, then using anything less for stitching would be pointless. We will not need all we have gathered for bowstrings."
The young teen nodded her head and grabbed a few dozen strips to be on the safe side; she didn't know how many her seamstress would need, but that should be more than enough.
Tanya looked at her watch- 3:51 AM- and sighed as she flew off to her bedroom to get undressed and hop in the bath.
As she soaked she thought about the coming expedition and wondered if there was any way they couldn't have gotten more help. Well, tomorrow she would be traveling around to give her presentation to the Goddesses of the Top Five, so maybe they might be able to help?
She sunk her chin beneath the clear water and blew a few bubbles.
Only time would tell, but for now, she needed to sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a busy day!
Shit, she didn't drop by Aiz's room and show her those exercises! Damnit!