“Thank you,” the receptionist said, her smile looking a little forced. “Your total payout will be 1,765,320 liz.”
I gave her a big smile, knowing that we had to be the most successful party this Guild had ever seen. Our daily routine of farming the dungeons always left us with piles and piles of dropped items. To save the Guild workers some time, we waited a few days between cashing out our loot each time.
We’re not going to bankrupt the Guild, are we? They’d surely refuse to buy our items if they couldn’t afford to. If we’d been able to store infinite items in our Bags, I wouldn’t have had to dump them in their laps like this, but alas...
“Any luck on our purchase orders?” I asked.
“We have eighty-six Fire Shrooms but no Orc Rags,” the receptionist promptly supplied.
“We’ll take all the Fire Shrooms.”
“I’ll ring them up.”
I wasn’t surprised that no one had brought in Orc Rags—none could be found around this area. The receptionist subtracted the price of the Fire Shrooms from our total loot payout.
I had no other business at the Guild that day, so I went on my way once the sale was complete. “Thank you. I’ll be back soon,” I said.
“We are looking forward to it,” the receptionist answered.
Every time we visited, the amount of loot we brought into the Guild caused a huge reaction...and that was only for items we farmed from normal monsters around the dungeons. We still held every single item dropped by a dungeon boss. I’d have preferred to sell them at some point, but they weren’t the kinds of items we could dump into the market without careful consideration. But it’s such a waste to let them rot in our Bags. A common use for boss items like these was to offer them to the king or queen, or to put them up for auction to most likely make a small fortune. If I’d thought that anyone I knew was in need of one of these items, I might even have given it to them. Unfortunately, I couldn’t think of anyone who would directly benefit from the items we’d collected.
While thinking about the items burning a hole in our Bags, I’d arrived at the Transportation Gate where the rest of my party waited. When there was no need for all of us to go to the Guild, we’d decided that whoever had the time would stop by, then meet up with the rest of the party by the Gate at a preplanned time.
“Hey, Sharon. Ready to go?” Kent asked.
“Today is the day we’re going to get a thousand!” Tarte purred. As of right now, we had amassed 917 Unstoked Embers over nine days of farming more than a hundred of them a day.
I can’t wait...! “Come on. Let’s go!” I eagerly rushed them forward.
“That’s 998, 999, and 1,000! We did it!” Kent announced as he scooped up the momentous thousandth Unstoked Ember.
“Hooray!”
“Purray!”
We all cheered with unbridled joy. Ten days of farming Heirs of Flames had seemed to last forever, yet it had flown by at the same time. Considering how a party could easily spend more than ten days trying to get one boss item to drop, I was thankful that the Unstoked Embers were basically guaranteed drops by comparison.
“What are we going to do with them?” Kent asked once we arrived at the third level of the dungeon.
I pointed at the oasis spring ahead of us. “Dumping all one thousand of them into the spring triggers an event that lets us trade the Unstoked Embers for the item we want.”
“Sweet. Let’s give it a shot.” Kent began taking the embers out of his Bag.
“Wait a minute!” Cocoa shouted frantically. “Ifrit’s on the other side of the spring! If we’re going to trigger an event, we need to defeat her first! I don’t want her to attack us while we’re preoccupied with whatever is going to happen next.”
“Oh, you’re right,” Kent admitted.
Cocoa and Tarte seemed to sigh in relief. No matter how many times we’d defeated Ifrit, she apparently remained a threatening presence to them.
“Let’s go take care of Ifrit really quick,” I said.
“All right!” Kent shouted.
“I’m ready!” Tarte crowed.
While crossing to the other side of the oasis, I made sure to give everyone their buffs. Then, Kent shouted, “Taunt!” and charged toward Ifrit like he’d done so many times by now. He swung his sword at the Fire Spirit, who dodged Kent’s blade by taking a step back, only to be met with Tarte’s well-timed Potion Throw. After that, Cocoa’s and L’lyeh’s attacks landed consecutively.
Kent kept Ifrit’s attention on himself with another Taunt, using his sword mostly to parry but countering when he had the chance. Even though he was geared toward tanking on the front line, he also had access to great attack Skills as a Dragonrider. On top of defending us, he always contributed to taking down the enemy. “This is it! Dragon’s Breath!” As soon as he was in range of Ifrit, Kent finished the job.
Immediately, I dropped to my knees in prayer. “Please, please, please...let my precious apprentice have this weapon.”
“Purrlease...”
My hands were clasped tight. Statistically speaking, it was about time for one to drop. It has to drop eventually. Alas, our prayers went unanswered once again. Instead of the weapon we’d hoped for, Ifrit dropped an accessory called Fire Ring that buffed the user’s Fire attacks by three percent. It wasn’t exactly rare, and we wouldn’t have a reason to use it in the dungeons here, but it’d be a decent option if we came across monsters susceptible to fire, especially while we lacked more-powerful equipment. Cocoa could always switch to Fire Skills, of course, and Tarte’s Potion Throw could benefit from the buff. Since Tarte was more interested in fighting on the front line, Cocoa was probably the best person to hold on to this ring.
“It’s nice to see equipment drop, even if it isn’t the one we’re chasing.” Kent scooped up the ring. “Who wants it?”
I explained my thought process and recommendation that the ring should go to Cocoa.
“Right. Tarte can’t wear both the ring and her cape,” Cocoa agreed. “Okay. I’ll hold on to it for now, and we can talk about it again when we want to use it.”
“Great. It’s best practice to be flexible with equipment and strategy, so that’s what we’ll do,” I said, and Cocoa stashed the ring in her Bag for the time being.
With Ifrit defeated, the time had come for today’s main event.
“A thousand items laid out like this... It’s quite a sight,” Kent said, staring at the ground, which was buried beneath our thousand Unstoked Embers.
“We can’t lift a paw without stepping on one,” Tarte chimed in.
“Let’s get this event going. We just need to chuck all these items into the spring...which is easier said than done, I think.” Chuckling, I began picking up and throwing Unstoked Embers into the spring. The others followed suit—it shouldn’t take too long with all five of us working together.
“Something’s going to happen when we throw all of them in there, right...?” Kent asked. “I feel kind of guilty, like we’re wasting items.”
I put a finger up to my lips. “Shh. Don’t you hear quiet voices?”
“What?”
“Wait.” Tarte perked up her sharp ears. “I do hear them!”
“Really?!” Kent followed Tarte’s gaze to the spring and lowered his ear to the water. As he listened carefully, his brows quickly became furrowed.
These voices weren’t exactly fun to listen to.
“Why am I not good enough?”
“We couldn’t become Ifrit. We’re not needed here.”
“I’m sad.”
“It’s dark and cold in here.”
“Help...”
The others, who’d all been listening to the voices with their ears to the water, snapped their heads up.
“What are those voices, Sharon?!” Kent demanded.