Chapter 34: Chapter 34: Solo Leveling – Prim Proper

[Prim Proper] Lv. 24 Halfling Berserker

Status:

HP: 175 MP: 65

STR: 206 DEX: 74

MAG: 7 WIS: 52

VIT: 43 AGI: 18

LUC: 37

Skills:

Active – Crush, Rending Blow, Counter, Stoneshatter, Breakthrough, Lurk, Phoenix Crash, Flash Repair, (Study)

Passive – Berserk Mastery II, Merciless, Bloodbath, Gathering IV, Crafting VII, Master Craftsman I, Survivalism, Scrounger, Fire Endurance II, Blast Endurance II

“Alright, let’s set this up over here… put this over with the other potions… straighten up this weapon display… and… there!”

With a grunt, Prim hefted a tall platemail chestpiece up onto one of the racks, taking a step back to wipe her brow and look over her work from the last several hours.

Once just an empty shell piled high with random materials scattered about, her self-operated shop was finally presentable for the first time in its short life, shelves and displays all filled to burst with all manner of items an adventurer could need, each and every one of them hand-crafted by the Berserker herself.

Having been left to her own devices the past few days, she’d gone on a spree of gathering from every forest, every cave, every riverbed, every hilltop, and every ravine she could find, hauling back raw materials numbering in the tens of thousands each time.

And whenever she’d been too worn down to keep gathering, she spent long hours of the night working her magic, crafting all manner of items she could think of with no heed to need or use, dispensing entire suits of armor alongside enough swords and axes to outfit a small army, every manner of potion, elixir, tincture, concoction, and perfectly normal beverage one could hope to ever taste, and enough arrows to fill a thousand quivers a thousand times over.

Now, with nothing left untested and no display left unfilled, she was finally ready to what she’d set out to do when she first set foot into the game days ago.

Opening the first and only player-run store.

She’s hoped the rest of their small guild could have been present for the event, but Elise had kept herself busy preparing for the event soon, and anytime either of them had tried to message Monica, she’d just said she was “busy trying something” on her own.

“Can’t be helped, I guess… maybe I should’ve been getting ready too. The free time has been nice, at least…”

It was the first time she’d had to be alone since she’d abducted Monica and Elise shortly after, and the quiet in the once noisy room was a bit deafening without all of them talking over it.

But there was no use moping over it now, they’d be back again before she knew it and she was going to give them something to be impressed by when they returned.

Scooping up a pair of boxes stacked high with papers, she headed out the front door and into town, a determined expression across her face as she set out for the next step on her road to setting up her business.

Advertising.

No corner of town was safe as she ventured forth, fliers slapped onto every quest board, signpost, building corner, tavern door, and any other flat surface she could reach, fluttering pages flying past and out of her boxes as they whisked past into the crowds around her.

For anything an adventurer could want, come and visit Properly Armed, the one-stop shop for all a player’s equipment and consumable needs!~

Mountains of fliers vanished from her crates as they flooded out into the world, the halfling having broken into a sweat by the time she was sticking the last sheet she had onto a notice board in a far corner of town.

“Haaa… that’s the last of them then. Felt like I made more of those before I left but… may as well head back for now.”

Trudging back with her emptied supply trunks, she flipped her newly made sign to OPEN and waited for customers to roll in the front door, an excited bounce in her step as she hummed happily to herself the whole way.

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…

……

………

Eyes half-glazed over, Prim slowly glanced to the side, checking her clock yet again.

The minute hand clicked a step further, marching right past the fifth straight hour since she’d set up her fliers all over town. And in all that time, not a single soul had passed through the front door she’d sat and stared at for that entire time.

Streams of players ran past her front window, plenty of them even looking inside as they walked or even stopping to peruse the front display. But every last one of them hurried away eventually, even more simply never bothering to give the shop a second glance as they passed right on by.

The dismayed crafter sighed loudly, head resting against one of her arms as she did her best to not fall asleep at the counter. She hasn’t been expecting a line out the door on day one, sure, but… she’d hoped to have one customer at least.

“Did I miss something they’re all looking for…? I felt like I covered most all my bases here, maybe even did a bit too much… maybe it’s that I do have too much and they can’t see anything worth coming in to get? Guh, why do they all gotta be so stubborn…”

With a grunt, she leaned her chair back, balancing on its back legs as she rocked in place, staring at the ceiling.

“Let’s see… I’ve got plenty of heavy armor but maybe lighter stuff would bring in more people since most of them aren’t tanks so maybe leather but then I have to find something that I can get leather off of and I haven’t seen any cows or anything since starting but maybe then just plain cloth armor would be more economical if I could identify some source of fabric maybe from a local-”

Her unfettered calculations streamed out as she was left with nothing at all to focus on, lecturing the wooden roof over her head on the logistics of cloth manufacturing with an unfocused gazed trained upwards the entire time.

The sound of her own voice drowned out the passers-by outside, ruminating over material concerns as she stopped focusing on anything but her own cascading thoughts, completely oblivious to the sounds around her until a BANG like a gunshot rang out from her front door.

“-could extract that into a some kind of fiber possibly and then that would… eh? What was… oh! Oh! C-Come in, come in, we’re open. Come on in!!”

She nearly fell out of her chair, scrambling back to her feet behind the counter as her eyes glittered like gold, her first customer finally here. The door cracked open slowly, a face peeking in through the cracks as her first guest scanned the interior of the store.

“Welcome, welcome, please feel free to- gah!”

A painfully familiar green-clad figure stood in the doorway, a curious expression on their face as they looked around.

“Um… is this like… a specialty store…? Wait, is anyone here? Hello?”

Dropping fast enough to almost leave a cloud of dust behind her, the halfling had ducked behind her own front cower, just barely peeking out overtop of it as the Brawler that had soundly snapped her like a twig a few days earlier now stood in her doorway.

“Sorry, nope, all closed up, come again later, so sorry!”

“But you just said you were open, and the sign is up here and everything…”

“All just a misunderstanding, really, sorry again!”

“…you sound kinda familiar, have we…?”

“Nope, never met before!”

“…oh, you’re from, uh… you were in that dungeon, right? The mine one, I think…”

“You could at least try to remember me if you’re gonna assault strangers…”

She slowly peeked up higher from behind her hiding place, glaring at her guest like a deer in headlights as old bruises started stinging yet again.

Glass, however, seemed more like a lost puppy, all sense of confidence and presence gone as simply looked about idly, more like a tourist than someone who had previously beaten herself and Monica into slightly charred puddles.

“Assault…? Oh, right, I guess I did, I completely forgot.”

“…you forgot.”

“Mmhmm.”

“…”

“…”

“…that’s it?”

“What’s it?”

“You’re, uh… a bit different than I remember.”

They stared at her quizzically, clearly not understanding what she was getting at.

“Actually just, never mind. You were wanting to buy something, yeah?”

“Oh, yes, kinda.”

“I can’t say you’d be my first choice for a customer, but… let’s see what you need.”

Shuffling out from behind the counter finally, more bewildered than scared of them at this point as she waited for what it is they’d come in for.

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“I checked the other shops and they just sell new items, I’ve just been trying to find somewhere to repair this jacket for me, it got a little torn at some point and doesn’t sit quite right anymore.”

They turned around, gesturing to the back of their coat. Sure enough, the ‘little tear’ in question looked as if they’d been impaled, most of the material torn away as either sleeve hung limply off their arms, barely even attached anymore.

“Gods, what did this? You get mauled by a bear or something?”

“Dunno. It was just like that when I looked a few minutes ago.”

“How do you not remember? It looks like it ripped you in half!”

“I don’t remember anything hitting me… I guess maybe that bird earlier?”

“…the phoenix from the mountain dungeon?”

“Oh, right, yeah that one, I think it maybe scratched me once.”

Her thoughts wandered back to the boss of the second dungeon, with talons the size of her entire body. And more importantly, that Glass had been there almost a week ago by this point, meaning they’d been wearing a ripped-in-half jacket for that entire time without having ever bothering to notice.

“I… okay, fine, just gimme the coat and I can patch it up.”

Massaging her temples intently, she held out her hand, gesturing for him to hand over the torn garment so she could start working. He pulled it off and tossed it over to her, only having a short top underneath it.

“Shouldn’t take me but a few minutes to get it fixed for you, feel free to look around while you wait if you want.”

“Ah, lemme just… is this enough to pay for it?”

“You don’t really need to-”

Looking up as she just started setting the vest down to work, she was met with a pile of at least several thousand gold clattering onto her table loudly.

“…that’s, um, not really how much I’d ask for this.”

“Oh. Is that not enough?”

“No, no, that’s a few hundred times too much.”

“It is…? It doesn’t seem like that much, are you sure?”

“For that much I could just make you an entire new wardrobe… just, about a hundred is fine for a repair like this.”

They scooped their mountains of money back into a pouch, leaving out a cluttered handful of 50g coins, the crafter glancing up at them for just a moment with a concerned look, not wanting to correct them a second time.

Her work was fairly simple, slowly reattaching the separated halves of the cloths together again while her customer watched in fascination. She had gotten a skill recently explicitly for fixing equipment, but that was for quick field repairs, and she wanted it to not just rip open again the next time her apparently air-headed former attacker was assaulted.

“So… where’s this jacket from, anyways? A dungeon drop or something?”

“Hm? No, I just bought it in town here.”

“Why not just replace it then? Money clearly isn’t an issue for you.”

“But… I like this one.”

“…fair enough.”

Her monocle popped down from her headpiece, poking out as she looked over the item she was working on. Knowing how badly the two of them had gotten beaten in earlier, she expected it to be some kind of expensive class gear at the very least.

[Trimmed Jacket (Green)]

- HP +5, STR +3, AGI +1

“…this is starting gear”

“Is it?”

“Is this all you’ve been wearing this whole time?”

“No, I got this scarf and some boots and my fists from that bird dungeon place.”

They pressed a menu button, their familiar massively oversized gauntlets dropped on either side of them, both of them leaving equally massive cracks in her wooden flooring.

“…oops.”

Visibly grimacing as her pristine storefront was damaged, Glass apologetically moved the oversized weapons away from the craters they’d made, knocking over a shelf of potions that all crashed down over their head and across the floor as they spilled their contents everywhere.

“Ah, I didn’t- oh, not there, lemme- no, oops, that’s bad, I-”

Stumbling backwards more and more, they laid a path of devastation behind them as they tried to recover, clumsily tripping over their own feet and apologizing as they scattered all manner of perfectly good items all about by accident.

Prim shot up from her seat, firmly catching her flailing customer right before they fell face-first into a display of freshly sharpened bladed weapons, sweat pouring down her face as she barely avoided an immediately fatal incident.

“Just… Just sit down and wait for me to finish, alright?”

“O-Okay, sorry.”

Extremely carefully guiding him back to her work table and making sure nothing else was shattered on her way there, she sat the absent-minded guest down across from her, bemoaning her lost inventory as she resumed her work.

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“And just a few more of this here… all done!”

Another hour later, and she proudly lifted the formerly annihilated garment up from where she was working, now re-sewn and as good as new once more.

“Oh…!”

The boy sitting across from her excitedly shot up from their seat, nearly flipping the entire table as he did so, Prim dropping the coat to try and stabilize it before it was launched into more of her endangered merchandise. Once it settled back onto the floor, she handed the coat over to its owner once more, watching them slip it back on and look themselves over.

“Yeah, fits nice again now, not drooping anymore at all.”

“Good, I was worried I might’ve gotten it too small, I’m still not really used to doing patch jobs like this.”

Both of the iron fists were stored away again, much to the store owner’s relief, Glass testing the material as they stretched, eventually content that it had been restored.

“Right, seems okay. Thanks again. Oh, do you mind if I add you as a friend for if this happens again sometime?”

“Oh, uh… sure, I guess.”

They flicked over an invitation onto her screen and she accepted, Prim now sporting a friends list of three whole other players.

“There, added you. And if you ever wanna try some new gear, feel free to stop in.”

“Mmm… but I like this outfit…”

Grumbling, the Brawler looked themselves over, only now becoming self-conscious of their apparently underleveled equipment as they looked around the rest of the armor on display around the store.

“Hmm… actually, maybe I can make that work then.”

“Huh?”

“I can’t promise anything here, but I made a suit of armor better once by just crafting more materials into it, so I don’t really see why I couldn’t do the same again with your outfit.”

“…oh! So… I can keep wearing this, then?”

“You’ve clearly been doing well enough with it so far, so I can’t really judge.”

They smiled like a giddy child, all sense of the cool and collected individual she remembered him as gone as they beamed at her.

“Thank you thank you thank you…!”

“I just gotta track down some materials that match what you’re wearing, so I’ll-”

“Clothes materials, got it, I’ll find some and bring them right back!”

“Wait, I don’t even know what I need for-”

Her words fell on absent ears, the energized adventurer already sprinting out the front door of the shop again, knocking over one last shelf as they left her store in complete disarray and left the owner herself overwhelmed and bewildered by her second meeting with her newest friend.

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