Past the shelves outside, lined with hardware, forged kitchen knives, and iron pots, Twentie sat at the counter. He was the one Belle and Wise had recommended, and he looked absolutely ecstatic to be there, his joy practically radiating off him.
"Twentie, I'm leaving the sales floor to you today. If any special customers show up, just contact me on the tablet in my workshop."
"Mhm mhm! Mhm! (No problem, boss! Leave it to me!)"
Andrew ruffled the Bangboo's round little head before opening the iron door next to the counter.
Inside was every kind of large-scale equipment a blacksmith could need: a forge, Ann anvil, a power hammer, a grinding wheel—the works. In a corner off to the side were piles of materials harvested from Ethereals, alongside various other metals.
And there was the ledger. Or more accurately, the book of debts.
The little phonograph shop wasn't very big, and Sixth Street was quite far from the city center, but it was still a city storefront. Even with the huge discount the previous owner gave him, the price tag had reached a staggering forty-seven million Dennies—equivalent to over 4.7 million yuan.
According to the contract he signed, he had to pay off the debt within three years, plus Ann additional one million Dennies in interest. Otherwise, the previous owner would repossess the property.
"I was a hunter for over a decade, and I still can't escape a mortgage! What did I get myself into? How is New Eridu just like back home?!"
Staring at the long string of zeros, Andrew felt like he was back in his university days back home, facing the sheer terror of real estate prices.
He remembered how, before he even graduated, he'd unknowingly become a homeowner. Normally, that would be a good thing, but the problem was that his family had only covered the down payment.
The shadow of a 50-year mortgage, taken on before he'd even found a job, felt like it was carved into his very DNA. Even after all these years, the memory was still fresh.
Life wasn't easy. Andrew sighed. Two months of hard work since opening the shop had only just covered the cost of the equipment. The property debt was the real monster ahead.
The seven hundred thousand Dennies he'd acquired when he first arrived was, in the face of this price, less than a drop in the bucket. It was barely even a tip.
"All this money, and the price is just for the land!"
Stunned into silence for a long moment, Andrew could only console himself by saying it was a necessary sacrifice.
After all, he'd secured a truly safe place to stay. As someone from another world, he had a lot to hide.
Most importantly, Andrew believed that with his skills, paying off this debt would be a piece of cake.
Scanning the room again, his eyes fell upon the left wall of the workshop. What hung there was nothing like the safe merchandise on the shelves outside.
Looking at the wall, the piercing glint of cold steel met his gaze. Ann assortment of melee weapons was displayed before him.
The residual Ethereal designs on them showed that Andrew's idea of bringing the forging methods from the hunter's world into this new one was already showing some success. While they couldn't compare to the terrifying power of dragon-slaying weapons, the partially effective energy circuits gave them effects that ordinary weapons lacked.
Not long after arriving in New Eridu, Andrew discovered that the energy within his body was different from the Ether energy that saturated this world. This power, which had been difficult to perceive back in the world of Monster Hunter, was now as easy to control as a flame in the dark.
Fortunately, this energy wasn't a finite resource. It could be replenished by absorbing and converting Ether energy. Once converted, even if it was discharged, it wouldn't revert back to Ether but would simply dissipate.
After a period of experimentation, Andrew found that the energy from the world of Monster Hunter possessed Ann extremely potent life force. If infused into plants or animals, their growth rate and size would increase dramatically, and it even had a certain healing effect on wounds.
Since this energy came from the world of Monster Hunter, Andrew decided to name it Dragon Element Energy.
Walking over to the window, he infused a bit of his energy into the herbs and various seeds he was growing on the sill, specifically for making recovery potions. Watching them immediately burst with vitality and start to grow, Andrew decisively plucked the new sprouts from the herbs.
He tucked the harvested herbs into the pouch at his waist, then turned towards the last wall, where the stairs led to the second floor.
With each step, Andrew ascended to the shop's second floor. The upstairs opened into a single room. The already small area meant the living space consisted of only a bathroom and a bedroom. On a rack against the wall, weapons and armor were displayed—Andrew's own set of hunter gear was prominently featured.
As Andrew approached, the Blazing Light Tachi began to emit pulses of faint blue light, like a hungry dragon hatchling that had finally seen its mother coming with food. The sight made Andrew chuckle.
"Easy, easy, I haven't forgotten you."
He grasped the tachi's hilt, and a steady stream of energy flowed from his body into the blade. As his power surged into it, the once-dull edge of the sword regained a measure of its sharpness.
Though it seemed a long way off, once it had absorbed enough energy to create a sustainable cycle, it would be able to recover on its own through the internal circulation of the Dragon Gem he had forged into it. Then, Andrew wouldn't have to 'feed' it every day.
Until then, every use would deplete the energy he had so painstakingly infused into it.
Andrew only stopped when continuing the transfer would affect his own condition for the day. As his hand left the hilt, the white cloth wrapped around the blade's body seemed to reluctantly caress his palm a couple of times before unwillingly letting go.
"It really did mutate after coming to this world, didn't it? No idea if that's a good or bad thing. Still, I guess you could say it's accepted me as its master now."
During his month in the world of Monster Hunter, the Blazing Light Tachi, Laverne, had never behaved like this. Could it be that pushing it to its absolute limit that one time had caused it to be reborn from the ashes?
Having no clue about the tachi's changes, Andrew could only set the matter aside for now. He walked over to the nearby workbench and sat down. A map of all of New Eridu, including Hollow Zero, was pinned to the wall.
The area and location of every Hollow were marked on it, as well as the most crucial information: whether any anomalous spatial data had appeared.
Based on the data from the two siblings, every time a Hollow showed anomalous spatial data, Andrew would jot it down on a sticky note and place it on the corresponding Hollow on the map.
For the past few months, every trip into the Hollows—aside from completing commissions and investigating the Hollows' ecology—was a search for a way back. Andrew had never given up on the possibility of returning.
Looking at the map covered in all sorts of sticky notes, Andrew stretched lazily, grabbed a black pen from a box, and walked up to cross out one of the notes on a Hollow.
Last night's Hollow investigation had still only turned up Ethereals, Ethereals, and more Ethereals. Not a single clue about the world of Monster Hunter.
But as long as he was still in this world, Andrew wouldn't give up. He wasn't too worried about the others, but he couldn't stop worrying about Meowscular.
He ground the freshly picked herbs and, using the last bit of his surplus energy, mixed them into two bottles of recovery potions. Andrew slotted them into a rack in a drawer, finally completing his daily tasks after waking up.
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