In the end, I wasn’t able to move during the morning until my hangover had passed.
...The item someone from the restaurant gave me to cure the Hangover effect didn’t work, I thought unhappily. That’s some pretty nasty poison for you not to be able to cure its status effect...
Putting that aside, we were back to normal, so we had decided to go shopping in town.
“Hey, Bro, I want to sell the drop item I got from the Demi-Drag and buy some beginner equipment, Dragonscales, and brooches. Do you know where they sell those?” I asked.
“What? You’re going to stock up on those?” Bro Bear’s expression looked troubled.
Nemesis’s skill requires that I take damage, so I was thinking that the Lifesaving Brooch and Dragonscale Ward were a must, but...
“Is there some sort of problem?” I asked.
“Those accessories are beary expensive,” he said. “The Dragonscale Ward is the top ward-type accessory and costs about 300,000 lir for one. The Lifesaving Brooch goes for about 5,000,000 lir.”
“Say what?” I burst out.
That’s 3,000,000 and 50,000,000 in yen. Those items were that expensive? I was taken aback. However, thinking about it, I guess that’s reasonable. It is on the level of determining life or death for you. I would’ve died several times if it hadn’t been for them.
“...I’ll hold off for now,” I said. Also, sorry for breaking them all yesterday...
“That’d be for the beary best,” my brother said. “As for beginner equipment, I know a player-run shop that’s fair. By the way, did you already open the Demi-Drag’s drop item?”
“Open it?” I asked.
“For boss monsters like the Demi-Drag, the items they drop are usually crates. Inside should be one item derived from the boss you defeated, and then one to five random items based on the boss’s level.”
“Oh, really?” I asked.
Come to think of it, the item it dropped was a Demi-Dragon Worm Treasure Coffer, I remembered. I’m pretty sure “coffer” is another word for “chest.”
I selected it from the item list and the message “Will you open this item?” was displayed.
“Would it be better to open this?” I asked.
“Hmm... There’s a chance it’ll be a miss, so you could just sell it as-is,” said my brother. “But if it’s from a Demi-Drag, then it might have something quite good in it. So I think it’s okay to open it.”
“Okay, then ‘yes’ it is.”
Acquired Natural Demi-Dragon Worm Full-body Armor.
Acquired Ementerium.
“It says I got natural full-body armor and Ementerium,” I said.
“Full-body armor is beary nice,” he said. “It should have a skill that reduces physical damage by 150.”
Wow, that’s really good... I think, but I’m not sure anymore after having seen Bro Bear’s costume.
“What does ‘natural’ mean?” I asked.
“Oh, it means that it’s a naturally-made full-body armor.”
...What does “a naturally-made full-body armor” mean?
“All right, then I’ll equip it right away...” I said. “Huh? I can’t.”
I looked closer and saw that the following messages were displayed: “You do not meet the level requirement,” and “You must have a total level of 150 and a job level of 51 in order to equip this item.”
“...I guess I can’t use this for a while,” I said in disappointment.
“It looks like it’ll be some time before you can equip it, so I think it’d be fine if you sold it,” said my brother. “It’ll fetch you at least 400,000 lir. Also, Ementerium is an item you sell. It’s worth about 20,000 lir.”
Ohh, those are pretty good prices, I thought. Although they don’t even come close to reaching the brooch.
“Ementerium though... For the Demi-Drag’s drop item that you’re supposed to sell, it only goes for 20,000?” I said to myself.
If, for example, the full-body armor that he said was a winner hadn’t been in the crate, and instead it had been an item based on the Demi-Drag with the same value as Ementerium, then that’d be a total of 40,000, I thought. I’m finally starting to understand how extraordinary Dryfe’s rewards were that I heard about yesterday. I’m sure it’d be much easier to defeat eight soldiers than one Demi-Drag. I bet it was a profitable battlefield for those that took part.
...In any case, I’ve acquired some war funds, so I guess I’ll go buy some equipment.
At the shop my brother had recommended, I had them choose a few items for me that I could equip even at level 0.
The equipment was supposedly part of something called the Riot series, and they were widely used by lower level players. It was a set consisting of light armor, bracers, pants, and boots.
The equipment I had bought happened to be the quality product of an armor craftsmen. Due to this, the Riot light armor had received the following bonus effects: Increased HP, HP +200; and Reduced Damage, which reduced physical damage by 10.
This will probably be a big help while my level is still low.
“Nemesis will do fine for my weapon, so I should be good to go grind levels now,” I said.
“Not ‘Nemesis will do fine!’ You should be saying, ‘Nemesis is the greatest!’” my Embryo shouted.
“Ne-me-sis is the grea-test,” I intoned.
“Don’t say it so monotone!”
I had also sold the drop items to this shop for the market value of 420,000 lir. Buying the set of equipment and some healing items, by the way, had cost me only about 20,000 lir. I still had the complete amount I had received for selling the full-body armor, but as there was no need to use it, I decided to just keep it.
At any rate, I was now prepared to go grind levels.
“Ah, hold on a sec,” said my brother. “Before you go grind levels, you should equip a job. You’ll be at level 0 forever if you don’t.”
“...Ohh,” I said. I forgot. I’m still jobless.
“Should I explain a bit about jobs?” asked my brother.
“Please do,” I replied.
My brother explained the following things to me.
Jobs in Infinite Dendrogram were divided into three large categories: low-rank jobs, high-rank jobs, and Superior jobs.
Low-rank jobs were ones that jobless players acquired first. They were easy to get, and had a level cap of 50. High-rank jobs had set conditions for acquiring them, and they were capped at 100. Six low-rank and two high-rank jobs could be equipped at once, giving a player a total level cap of 500.
So then what about Superior jobs?
Superior jobs were extremely difficult to acquire, and on top of that, only the first player that acquired the job would be allowed to equip it. Also, the greatest feature of Superior jobs was that they had no level cap.