The Runesmith

“What was that?”

Roland called out while peeking his head out of the entrance to the attic. He clearly saw them slowly increasing their walking speed before bolting into the forest as if they were being chased by some large monster.

“I’m not sure, but I think they will be back.”

Replied Elodia while also looking out through the window.

“You think so?”

Roland asked while going down the ladder that led up into the attic. He had brought up some wares like runic scrolls that would probably be quite popular. Down on the main floor, he looked a bit disappointed after the four had left. They were actually the first customers that arrived here.

“I think we will be having a lot of customers soon, the word just needs to spread around town.”

Elodia continued talking while going through the store and checking if everything was in order. It had been a week since she had been hired and the contract had been signed. The two went back and forth on it but after a few days, they were finally able to decide on the right hourly wages.

With her help, he started getting the store in order. Thanks to her expertise in sales she helped him prepare the placement of the items. There was not much stock to go around but Roland managed to scrape by with some runic weapons and Bernir added his own armors that he had upgraded with some runes.

Roland was also sure to produce his old specialty, runic scrolls. With him being the store owner he could lower the price far enough to compete with even the lowest discount prices that the dwarves could offer. He knew that at least when it came to magical wares in the city he had the advantage over the bushy beard competition.

After months of preparation and getting materials from the black market merchant he had enough stock to open up. For now, he focused on lesser spells like sharpness, impact, and strengthening to produce more newbie-friendly items.

He knew that the dungeon was still being swarmed by newer adventurers. These could not afford exotic wares with powerful tier 2 runes. Thus he focused most of his time on the steel and silver adventurer demographic for now. Maybe if he gained enough notoriety he could push towards the gold rankers.

It was actually surprising to be visited by this group as the billboard was placed just an hour ago. Together with Bernir he went over to the fork in the road and placed it there without expecting much. It was already the middle of the day so he didn’t expect anyone to shop up this fast.“If you think so…”

Roland nodded as he took Elodia’s words to heart. The woman knew her way around the adventurer guild so she probably knew what they were after. If she thought they would come, then they would come.

“Speaking of the shop opening, do you think that those kids will be alright?”

“They will be fine, Lobelia is with them, I must thank you again for giving that offer, this will be a good learning experience for the little ones.”

Elodia bowed her head before Roland as a thank you which made him recoil awkwardly to the gesture. He had come up with the idea to distribute fliers through the city and thought that utilizing the orphans from Elodia’s home would be adequate.

For a small price, they would go around the city and hand out some fliers. While this world had some advancements there weren’t that many when it came to printing. There were some stores with something akin to printing presses but instead of them, skills were being used.

A high-level scribe could actually output a similar performance to a printing press as they had a peculiar skill. It was a skill that allowed them to use some mana to copy writings or even drawings from paper.

While Roland had a similar class in the form of runic mana scribe it was just a tier 1 class. He was unable to learn this skill as it would require an advanced tier 2 version of this class. Then if a person went even further they could write almost as fast as a modern-day printer.

This was quite interesting to Roland as it showed him that people were prioritizing skill advancements over machines. They didn’t see a purpose in creating advanced printing presses as a person could just produce better effects if they leveled up further.

Classes like scribes also could be leveled quite fast as it wasn’t a battle class. The more they copied and the more they wrote the more experience points they gathered. Thus the printing press was pushed to the side after people realized that they weren’t really required.

He as well needed to hire one of these high level scribes as his writing speed wasn’t up to par. The only thing he performed was the initial flier with the text and little drawing of his runic emblem that he used. Thanks to his wares being already known and the sun mark being associated with him, it would probably aid in him getting more customers.

“You don’t need to thank me, I just thought the kids would do a better job.”

This wasn’t anything new, in his old world, odd jobs like this were left to younger adults that were still going to school. They didn’t require much payment and they just needed to stand around in a popular area and give out the fliers. Most of the time the piece of paper would be scrapped but if one person from then looked over it and decided to show up it was more than enough.

“Well, I’ll be in the workshop, just give me a signal if you need anything, do you need me to explain it to you again?”

“Ah yes, I just need to put my finger on one of these and then inject a bit of my mana, right?”

“That’s right.”

Elodia had a plate made from metal under the counter. It had several circular indentations on it to place her finger. Depending on where she was pressing her finger during the activation a different message would be sent to Roland.

While he wanted to do nothing more than to produce a telephone system, it was a bit of a hassle. This was the best way to get some information through without him needing to use a crystal ball that required a bit more mana to run.

His clerk had a few options to choose from. One was somewhat a panic button that would cause the store to give out an alarm and also signal him. Some other ones would tell him that there were some difficult customers around and that he needed to come over.

On the other end in his workshop, Roland had placed a little console with color patterns. Depending on which one lit up he would get the information through. For now, this would be the communication method, when he had more time he would try to come up with a proper solution that would mimic modern-day phones.

This world already had crystal balls that showed a picture and sound, he just needed to alter it to his needs. Maybe later in the future, he could figure out a recording feature.

“Be sure to call me if something happens.”

“I will but I think Korgak should be able to handle himself.”

Elodia nodded while Roland finally left through the back. Korgak was the person who came up to him after seeing the guard duty offer. He was quite surprised by this half-orc’s decision but he supposedly liked work that didn’t require him moving that much.

He asked Elodia about it and she confirmed this. Korgak was somewhat forced by the guild master to participate in the previous expedition. Apparently, he loved nothing more than to laze around and drink.

Working as a guard at a store instead of going down into the dungeon was much easier. Even when the pay was lower if the half-orc had enough for food and drink, he was fine.

This was quite the opportunity for Roland as the large brute was quite strong. He would be able to take care of most assailants, only gold rank adventurers and above would pose a threat to him.

Even with a competent bodyguard, Roland wasn’t confident in his defenses. He started reinforcing the walls around his home and in the future, it would start looking more like a medieval fortress than a farmhouse outside the woods.

Now back in his workshop, he was looking over a new prototype. It looked like a long cylinder with a lot of small sticks connected to the top part. Besides the small pointy things coming out of it, it possessed a couple of matte gems stuck between them. This made it look like a shiny cactus but was in actuality a new prototype of a weapon.

After taking a good look over it he nodded and took it outside. There he placed it down on the ground, a cable with some power was connected by him before he left it in place.

“This should do it.”

Even after connecting it to his power cable that went to his generator the cylinder didn’t start doing anything. Which was what was expected, the real test would be carried out now.

Roland walked away a small distance from his newest creation. There he had a basket with some small sacks filled with grain. When he held one in his hand it was about the size of it and it had weight to it.

First, he took out something that looked similar to the remote he used on his golem. With the help of the kitty professor, he figured out a way to remotely activate his runes. As long as they were connected to a power source like his runic generator they would be able to be turned on remotely.

Thus the strange cylinder’s surface started shining and Roland could see the runes being activated. With the device's activation, he could proceed with the test. Thus he finally threw the bag filled with grain towards it and waited to see if his new creation would work as intended.

At first, it didn’t seem like anything happened but soon a blue light escaped from one of the protruding poles. It connected with the spot where the sack was thrown. Not only one of the stakes started shining as more of them lit up the moment the bag aligned with them.

“Good, it’s working as intended.”

From Roland’s perspective, it looked like the little poles that were stuck in the cylinder activated the moment the sack of grains went into their line of sight. The blue light was just a harmless little bright beam to show Roland that the device could see the moving item and was activating as intended.

This was a small prototype of a turret and it would become much bigger when he created a proper one. The little thin poles would be replaced by larger ones, each of them containing an attack spell that would activate whenever something aligned with it.

Roland hoped to construct an active turret that would be able to move around and target on its own accord. This wasn’t such an easy task to perform as he would need to create a custom system to guide its movement.

The easier method was to just make it react to movement. Thanks to the golem eyes that he was able to produce, the turret would be able to detect movement. Then when something would come in range it would activate one of the rods that were the closest to it. The spell would be a guided magic missile, which would compensate for the aiming.

With such a rudimentary construction he wouldn’t need to worry about making it move. It could shoot in all directions and the rods were just another version of his paddle wands that he had a lot of time to perfect. After placing a few of these in the backyard, he hoped to get rid of the dangerous mines that were everywhere.

“Agni, come over here boy.”

“Woof!”

His wolf gave out a loud bark which made him sound more like a domesticated dog than a proper wolf. The first thing Roland saw was a large gem on Agni’s forehead that had gone through a bit of change.

Finally after a lot of mana stone eating and work Agni was able to level up his mana-related skills to level 9. This finally allowed Roland to select the next evolutionary option of a proper adult Mystical Ruby Wolf. This time around there didn’t seem to be any rarer variants but this form was good enough.

Agni’s body grew in size, his body expanded to a length of about two and a half meters. While down on the ground his head reached up well below a full meter and if he stood on his hind legs he would tower over his owner. This put Agni at the size of a dire wolf and made him a force to be reckoned with as he was now a proper tier 2 monster.

Even before Roland could give his evolved pet an order he was jumped by him. For some reason, Agni developed a liking for placing his paws on Roland’s shoulders while trying to lick his face.

Without the strength levels that Roland had, he would probably go down to the ground as Agni was quite heavy for his size. The mane around his head and neck was composed of actual ruby fur that was soft to the touch while also being sturdy. His ruby tail was covered with more fur but at the end, it split into two.

“Down boy, stop jumping on me.”

Agni whined a bit but then opened up his maw as he started to pant with his tongue flopping out.

“Agni, I need you to run towards that thing and then back again.”

The wolf’s ears perked up at the order and he looked to the strange metallic cactus. With a little howl, he bolted towards it and then quickly back to his master. There he stood for a moment while looking at Roland with intent in his eyes. Only when he pulled out a small mana stone to give him as a treat did the ruby wolf stop staring.

“You sure have become a glutton for these…”

What Roland wanted to test is if the turret would activate for his tamed beast. Due to him being the creator his mana signature was imprinted onto the device so it would not see him as an enemy. This test also proved that any tamed beasts would be marked with the same mana signature by his golems. Now he knew that he wouldn’t need to worry about Agni ever being attacked by his future golemic creations.

“Hey Bernir, can you come help me with something?”

After a minute a friendly half-dwarf appeared that was covered in sweat and grime.

“What is it, boss? Need something for the store?”

“No, but I need you to move towards that device, start by slowly walking…”

Roland pointed to the turret while Bernir squinted at it for a moment. He accepted the task though and started slowly walking. The moment he got in range the glowing sticks started activating and Roland could see the lights connecting with his body. The spells being used would not cause any damage; it was just like a laser pointer.

“Ack, my eye!”

That is if it didn’t connect with a person’s eyes. Then it would have a similar effect as its modern-day counterpart.

“Oh sorry about that…”

Roland chuckled a bit as he forgot to mention that part. Luckily this would not cause his assistant to become blind but it was somewhat uncomfortable.

“Wait, do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

Bernir asked while clutching his affected eye but after blinking a couple of times he was finally able to focus. Both of them looked at each other as they could clearly hear some people shouting from the direction of the store.

Roland was quick to move towards all of the noise to check it out. When he arrived he was surprised to see the four adventurers back. They weren’t the only ones as other adventurer types were outside the store making a buzz.

“Hey stop pushing, we were here first!”

“No one cares about that, now move to the side, I need a new magic axe!”

The store had a limit to how many people could be inside. This made the half-orc guard have to intervene and keep people from pushing themselves inside. It looked like the word about his shop was being spread faster than he anticipated and he was already looking at some nice profits.

‘Did I lower the prices too much?’

Roland contemplated as he saw the ravenous customers clamor for his wares. While the price was lowered to attract attention, it was not low enough for him to not make a profit.

He shrugged while walking through the back into his store. While Elodia was a good and experienced worker he would not leave her alone there. It was finally time to make some money...