I was a bit jealous that she’d found hers so easily. Was it designed to be easier to find here, or was it just a massive stroke of luck? Who’s to say?
“Aye.”
Let’s take a nice rubbing to commemorate the moment.
“I’d love it if you could show it to L’Arc. What do you think?” Therese asked me.
“Carrying it back would be a pain, and once we leave this development zone, you can see all the lords at the island aquarium. Can you wait until then?”
“Yeah, guess so. I’ll have to take him there and tell him about it.”
“An aquarium date, then!”
“Nah...if I’m going on a date, I’d way prefer a museum. The ones with ores and gemstones all over the place. Fish just make me hungry.”
Ah, I remember L’Arc mentioning that before. He really knows her well.
In any case, I’d managed to fish the Prado Desert’s lord before anyone else.
“I’ll get right to the dismantling.”
The parts that came out were all Ancient Fish So-And-So...as I thought, it was in the same category as the coelacanth. The drops were somewhat obsolete, to be honest. A bit of a shame.
“Now then...we’ve got the materials, but they’ll have to stay in storage until we meet back up with Romina...”
“Could they be worked into accessories?”
“I could ask Cray to see if they can be used in medicines.”
“Yeah, that works too. You can substitute fossils for ancient fish materials, so if you see any other way to use them, feel free.”
“I heard your gear mainly came from lords, island lord. So this is how you came upon them?”
I nodded at Emoji’s question. Most of what I was wearing had been forged from the fish I caught and shaped by Romina’s careful hand.
“Weapons might be difficult,” said Emoji, “but for armor, Brave Bunowny can forge some if you put in the order. You should check it out when you get the chance.”
“Huh. So Brave Bunowny can craft armor?”
Brave Pekkle had come with Craftwork and Enchantment, and it seemed Brave Bunowny had some crafting skills of his own.
“He is capable of Needlework. If you need any cloth armor, he is the bunny for you.”
“If we have him loiter around while we Craftwork, it might activate a Cooperation combo.”
It was worth testing out. If the system was lenient enough, then perhaps it could encompass Craftwork—Therese’s specialty. Brave Pekkle and Brave Bunowny seemed to get along more or less, so a combo wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.
“The downside is that the armors he can make are limited solely to cloth, though that does encompass a few cloth accessories too.”
So we’re limited on variety, but there’s no reason not to use his services.
“The Ancient Dress I’m wearing was made from this stuff, but I wonder what else we can make.”
“We’ll have to check later.”
“It’ll probably be from the same series...and if the specs are more or less the same, it’d be better to give it to someone else.”
Now who should we equip it to if we want to make the most out of it?
“As I recall, it comes with a Fishing Power effect, and the base stats are on the higher side.”
It was, admittedly, a bit behind the current meta, but still powerful. Its Balance Assist was a huge bonus to the less athletic side of the player base, and it allowed swimming too.
“We’re limited to cloth, right? Then it would have to be me, Lahal, Cray, or Millie...”
“But if we’re using it in battle, it would be most suited to whoever is taking the most hits.”
Shouko had recently started using a fishing rod as a weapon, so she could’ve been an option, but...even if she were around, she mainly wore kimono. It’d be difficult to work around that. L’Arc and sis...they tended to use armor in combat. Granted, sis’s strongest loadout was that mascot costume.
Will we be able to make a Bunowny Costume one of these days?
“If we’re looking at its bonus effects, it’s not that practical.”
“But base stats are important too. Sometimes you have to take what you can get,” Emoji assured me.
Unlike a certain subset of frontliners, Emoji was surprisingly lax about that stuff. Efficiency wasn’t everything; it was important to have fun too. I quite liked that stance of hers.
As expected of someone who really did stand at the top, once upon a time.
“In the first place, island lord, considering your accomplishments, we are beyond the realm of min-maxing equipment.”
“Right. Kizzy’s armor has high base defense, and if we’re considering damage, we might have to give this one to Lahal. It’s bothersome to lose a healer mid-fight.”
“We can decide after we have a proper discussion,” Emoji said.
Just like that, we finished up the topic of the lord’s materials. None of us seemed that concerned over who they ultimately went to.
“Now, island lord. As for your perception of us... I’ll try not to think about it,” Emoji sighed. “But what are our plans for tomorrow? The harvest is nearly behind us.”
Thanks to our training boot camp, we’d secured our crops to some extent. Just one more day, and we’d have cleared all the remaining fields of their crops and that would be the end of it. That left some freedom for what we planned to spend our last day on.
“We could just head out,” said Therese. “Do you have any other ideas?”
“I don’t mind leaving,” I agreed.
“We’re already here, so why don’t we defeat the last floor’s boss before we go? The elevator shall take us straight to it.”
“Huh? With these members?”
Could we beat the dungeon’s boss with just Emoji, Therese, and me? Well... Shouko and Tsumugi managed to take down Cal Mira Island’s Dungeon Boss—the Dragon Zombie—on their own, so maybe it wasn’t that hard of a boss.
“It will be fine,” Emoji insisted. “I will hold its attention. Therese, you use magic, and island lord, attack in moderation. That should be enough.”
“If you say so.”
“What sort of boss are we talking about?” asked Therese.
“It goes by Devil’s Dragon. It is like a variant of the Dragon Zombie.”
“Umm, so are the drops and mats similar too?”
“Aye.”
I see. It’s not especially dangerous, and we can bring home a nice souvenir while we’re at it.
“Aight, let’s go once we’ve finished up tomorrow’s harvest. We’ll head down, then head back, so... Emoji, you’ll write your entry today, and Therese can write the last one tomorrow morning before we head out. That’ll be the end of the diary.”
“Aye aye!”
“I didn’t think I’d stay this long, but it was so comfortable I didn’t want to leave. Plus I got plenty of Craftwork done. It was a worthwhile training camp.”
By the way, Craftwork and other crafting methods gave way less experience in the dungeon. It was actually the same with fishing, but you could make up for it with sheer numbers. The same could be said for Emoji’s farming skill levels, but her lack of progress meant her levels were lower than they should have been, and she actually managed to raise them quite a bit.
“I was just watching from the side, but farming seems real tough,” said Therese. “I should be more thankful to the farmers.”
Emoji nodded. “Indeed. In any case, I plan to keep working hard under the island lord’s guidance!”
And like that, we passed what little time we had left.