System Change

Derek was reminded of an old adage he used to hear all the time back on Earth both before the system arrived and after, ‘Man plans, and God laughs.’ Sitting at the camp, nothing quite described their current situation better than that. Before, both he and Edgar had wholeheartedly agreed to put all the politics aside and do whatever they could to finish the raid as fast as possible.

Once that was decided, Edgar went around, telling everyone his plan. Even when a few complained, he shut them down fast, finally putting his foot down as both prince and party lead. His new attitude may have rubbed a few the wrong way, but hadn’t cared. He was uneasy about the information they had gathered, and his kingdom and family meant more to him than their current raid.

The only reason the prince hadn’t used one of his escape scrolls, Derek ascertained, was because of the off chance that either nothing was wrong, or it was a situation that was currently being or had already been handled. His current duty to the kingdom was to complete the raid. If he showed up back at the kingdom, having left the raid early and nothing was wrong, it would embarrass both him and his royal family.

Derek, on the other hand, wasn’t as worried as Edgar. Whether the kingdom was under attack from a giant beast or another kingdom didn’t matter. There were only a few people in the entire kingdom that he cared about, and they were all in either Savannah or the capital. Even Bronson and Clare were in the capital. Though, he did feel for Walter, having known that the older man had most likely already lost some of his family.

But Derek didn’t care too terribly much about the kingdom as a whole, just some of those in it. Plus, Silvi was with pretty much everyone he cared about, and after his last class-up, it would take one hell of a force to get through her. Well, that or a perfectly cooked piece of fried chicken.

Derek snorted at the thought, drawing questioning eyes from the prince who was sitting across from him. “It’s nothing,” Derek said. “I just thought of something kind of funny.”

Edgar rolled his eyes and didn’t say anything. He just kept tapping his fingers on the table.

Derek let out a sigh and thought to himself, I guess it’s really more like, ‘Man plans, and the system laughs’… After all that preparation to complete raid at record time, they had been left waiting for over four days. With the team he assembled for the trial, Edgar, along with everyone else, fervently believed they would be back in just a couple of days, maybe even less.

However, it was closing in on the end of the fourth day of the fifth trial, and they had heard nothing from the trial team. Edgar was checking his contract list over and over, waiting for the inevitable ‘break’ in one of their contracts. But that had yet to come. Which meant that all the team members were at least alive.

Derek could only lean back and think about entering meditation. It would at least let him pass the time a bit faster. So, that’s what he did.

However, it wasn’t more than a couple of hours before he was broken out of his meditation by the presence of someone approaching them. Derek opened his eyes to see the giant smith walking their way with a sly grin on his face. Derek’s heart jumped at that.

“Is it?” Derek asked before Tyron even had a chance to say anything.

Without a word, and with a wave of his hand, the blacksmith pulled out a full piece of chest armor. Then, with a smile, Tyron reached Derek and held the item out for him to inspect.

Derek promptly snatched the armor piece away from the smith and looked it over. It was black, the same color as the wyvern it was made from. Whereas his weapon was made mostly from the bones and fangs of the beast, with just a touch of the hide, the chest piece was made with the black hide and scales.

The hide from the wyvern was turned into a leather that worked as the base and padding of the armor, while the scales, which were noticeably smaller than they were on the beast, were arranged in overlapping rows throughout the piece.

The first thing Derek noticed when looking the armor over was its flexibility. He could quite easily bend it, so it would also be easy to move in it, unlike the armor he had brought from Earth and hadn’t worn in ages.

“How did you make the scales like this?” Derek asked. It was because of the scales small size that the armor could be so flexible. But surely the smith hadn’t cut up the scales just to be able to make it like that. That would definitely damage the structure of the scales, and thus, the armor. At least from what very little he knew about smithing.

“I’m a blacksmith,” the smith said. “I have smithing skills.” Tyron looked down at Derek like he was dumb, which caused him to flush in embarrassment.

The image of the man’s hammer growing and shrinking appeared in Derek’s eyes. He really did feel dumb, then. No matter what the man had done to the scales, he was too good of a smith to do something that would damage the structural integrity of something he crafted.

“Ah… yeah. Sorry.” Derek apologized. “So, how good is the armor?” he asked, because he couldn’t tell at all.

Finally, Tyron’s face brightened up a bit before he began. “It’s a great set of armor!” the smith said. “Unfortunately, I’m unable to bring out the materials’ full capabilities, but I can also say that I doubt anyone else in the kingdom would be able to, either. If you want something like that in armor, you’ll have to take your materials to Vallum and plead with some of those dwarves to give it a shot, as I specialize in weapons.”

Derek nodded. Even after the smith finished with the armor he was crafting him, the death attuned wyvern would have tons of leftover materials. So, that wasn’t an issue at all. He was only sad that the armor didn’t have a repair function like Harbinger did.

“So,” the smith continued. “It came out to be a high-epic ranked piece of armor. Which is honestly better than I expected. I just hope I can do the same for the remaining pieces.”

Derek nodded. “This is more than enough, Tyron. Thank you.”

“You’ve already paid for everything. It’s nothing special.” The giant of a man went back to his normal dull demeanor. “Now, I got to get back. It shouldn’t take as long for each of the other pieces,” the man said as he turned around to head back to his forge.

With giddy excitement, Derek stored the armor piece, then flicked his wrist to make it automatically appear on his body. The fit was perfect. It was as comfortable as one of his own shirts. He called the armor a ‘chest piece’ but in reality, it covered his entire upper body, even a portion of his arms, down to his elbows. It was basically a thick, snug, t-shirt with a ton of defense, just like Derek had asked for.

The smith was initially taken back when Derek said he didn’t want a clunky set of plate armor, but something more like the medium or light leather armors that he saw archers and assassins wear. The smith was taken aback, but also saw it as a challenge. And Derek had to say, he was quite pleased.

From across the table came a whistle. “It’s like you forgot that I was even here,” Edgar said.

“Haha…” Derek rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed again.

“I can’t blame you. You don’t get such good gifts often. I would be excited, too,” Edgar said with a smile, but Derek could still hear the nervousness in his voice and see it in his eyes.

“Yeah…”

“How is it?”

“It’s pretty amazing,” Derek said excitedly as he moved his arm about. “I have full range of motion and everything.”

“How’s its durability?”

“Can’t you tell?” Derek asked. The armor didn’t have any type of ability to hide its information like Harbinger did.

“It’s pretty usually for people to use Identify or other appraisal skills on one another, but it is considered very bad form to inspect a piece of someone else’s armor or weapon. It’s one thing to inspect someone as a whole, but another to try to find out the fine details. Though that doesn’t stop everybody.” The prince explained.

“Go ahead.” Derek gave him permission.

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” the prince said, then squinted his eyes. “Hmm… ‘Dark Wyvern Scaled Armor’ and epic ranked with 1200 durability. Very nice. That limits the number of people who can inspect it. The name’s kind of generic, but I’m sure most people who are able to get details from it won’t think that with ‘wyvern’ in the name.” He smiled. “Looks like I’m jealous again.”

Derek laughed. “Have you seen your armor?”

“Well, yeah…” Edgar said. “But I also like new things.”

Derek snorted, then put the armor away. It would look better as a full set, so he planned on being patient and waiting for it to be finished before wearing it again. Finally, he leaned back in his chair and the two of them fell silent once again. Now… it was time to play the waiting game.

***

Cydarian Kingdom…

Fort Belrus…

As the sun rose, Edward was pacing around the fort, making sure his elite squad of 50 men were ready at a moment’s notice. Fort Belrus was a fort set up near the capital. It was one of the forts with a teleporter connected to the other teleporters around the kingdom, so they could get anywhere they were needed as quickly as possible.

Just then, the crown prince felt the buzzing of one of his communication crystals inside his storage ring. Instantly, he pulled it out and activated it. ‘Yes?’

‘Commander! We’ve just received information that a portal has appeared around 25 miles north of Clayton. The enemy army is currently pouring out!’ the voice on the other end said shakily.

‘Got it,’ Edward said to the scout. ‘Anything else?’

‘Nothing, sir!’

With that, Edward dismissed the scout and disconnected from him. After that, he began sending out communication to everyone who needed to know. Then, he gathered his elites. They lost Wilmette, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that. But Clayton, that was a surprise.

He wouldn’t allow them to take a city so close to the capital. Why would they even attack a city so close to the capital? It doesn’t make sense. Is it still those two in command? Are they getting impatient? But Edward couldn’t dwell on the many questions he had. What he knew for a fact was that an army was organizing outside of Clayton, using portals.

He needed to get to the city and judge the situation for himself. So, that’s what he would do.

In mere minutes, he had gathered his men and directed them to the teleporter. “Dent, Jones, Valerus, and Poole, with me! Everyone else, follow behind, five at a time.” With those commands, Edward, along with Dent, Jones, Valerus, and Poole, stepped on the teleporter and activated. With a flash, they disappeared, then reappeared in the Teleportation Building in the city of Clayton.