A shadow congealed into a man in an alleyway. Faust glanced out into the huge street ahead of him. A long line of people were chatting in front of the shop, showing off their weapons, both new and old.

This section of the city had been taken over by Enchanters and Blacksmiths that Diego had gathered to provide services to the Players that were going to be fighting.

The scent of soot wafted through the air. The chattering crowd and hammering of metals drowned out the sound of Faust’s already silent presence. He swept past the lines and people into one of the booking shops.

Here people booked work with Blacksmiths and were given a time limit on how long their weapons would take.

Inside the building, the hallways were filled with people, Faust clicked his tongue but noticed someone familiar ushering people into an office.

Shadow Step.

Tiffany closed her door, sighing. "First I hope you understand that the wait time has gone up significantly. Secondly, you will need a large amount of low grade equipment to upgrade to a higher grade.

She locked the door since lots of people tried forcing themselves in. "So forget Silver grade. Iron is the only guarantee—"

Turning to face her next client, Tiffany suddenly jolted when she noticed Faust sitting on her desk.

The office was spartan, but still pretty. Everything was carved from polished brown wood. Tiffany had somehow decorated the entire place with flowers—Roses, Orchids, Begonias, Marigolds and many others.

There was a huge window behind her desk. Moonlight bled from it, casting his face in shadows. Faust was fully relaxed and smiling, his blue eyes glowed as he faced the young Asian woman.

"Hello, Tiffany. Sorry for intruding, I just needed a name."

Tiffany rubbed her forehead. "You made my job easier, so you can call me Tif."

"That’s the criteria for friends?" Faust said, chuckling.

He watched Tiffany pass the short, unsmiling redhead that she was supposed to be working with to open a drawer and pull out a file.

"Um... I’ve been waiting for like an hour," the girl muttered.

Faust reached out to shake her hand and she took it reluctantly. "I apologise, my fellow redhead. I just need to know where my friend is. She’s a Weaponsmith, I think—name should be Amelia."

Tif nodded while searching the file. "She’s in Building 8. Next time you come see me, it should be with wine and interesting gossip. Or I’m kicking you out."

Faust found her shop relatively easy. It was one of the few buildings made from stone. Warmth poured from it that would have made Faust uncomfortable before, but with his more than 200 Constitution, he barely noticed the heat.

The smithery was spare, with only a few implements made. Two dusty tables on either side of the wide room held different tools. In the middle, a forge glowed behind Amelia as she carefully hammered a weapon.

"Shit. This is all shit," Amelia cursed to herself.

Faust announced himself casually.. "Seems fine to me."

She snapped around, raising her hammer wildly. She wore a welders helmet to cover her face, but the moment she realised it was him was obvious.

Her hammer came down and her shoulders relaxed, but not too much. Pulling up her helmet, she cursed,

"I forgot to lock the goddamn door. Hey, what’s wrong? You need a weapon made? You’ll have to join the line. I got like twenty orders already waiting. The cons of pulling my weight like you wanted."

She sounded a bit stressed and her smile was strained.

"I already put in the order," Faust said with a chuckle. "It’s a lot of weapons. So you’ll be stuck with me till the fifth wave most likely."

Amelia eyed him worriedly. "I put my price above the average just so I wouldn’t get many orders."

"I don’t mind the price. What I do want is trust and focus." Faust said, walking over to the table and pulling out the hundreds of weapons he had received since the beginning of the Origin Trial.

Amelia walked towards the ever building pile of weapons with widened eyes. Her jaw opened and closed with unsaid questions.

"Bastard son of a—"

◇◇◇

Novice Village #1’s forces had gathered near the walls. Four lines of trenches had been dug into the perimeter of the walls. Archers and mages patrolled the walls, frontline fighters waited nervously by the trenches with their weapons at the ready, and people ran from place to place to deliver things.

This time they chose to stay close to town in case the gate spawned randomly.

Faust sat on the stone walls of the city, looking down on the gathering army.

Beside him was a dark-haired young man with a charming face, chuckling at the sights below them.

Gamebreaker, or Jason, as he was called by normal people, wore a mismatched set of armour. Crimson chestplate, golden vambraces and a medieval helmet with a red horse plum.

"Look at them quiver," Jason mused.

Faust raised an eyebrow. "A lot of them are going to die in a game none of them wanted to play."

Jason waved him off. "We had twenty four hours to prepare. The only ones they have to blame for their deaths is themselves."

"You seem to think you’re invincible." Faust shook his head.

"And you think like a coward. There’s no way you’re rank 1 like this. Feeling bad for people that made poor decisions is a waste of time. It’s like feeling bad for gamblers. Some of these clowns didn’t even fight in the first wave. Imagine how much power they missed out on."

Faust wasn’t opposed to this line of thinking, but painting the world in such broad strokes was pointless.

"So my proposition," Faust cut to, not interested in continuing this conversation, "What Silver Grade weapon did you get?"

Jason chuckled. "How do you know if I got a Silver Grade weapon? Well I suppose we are both winners, so it’s obvious the system would reward you."

"To make things quick, I got a Rapier. Here it is so you can Appraise it."

But Jason waved it off. "Rapiers are too light for my taste. And I’m guessing you want a weapon in return. I got a Shield and I don’t want to trade it."

Before Faust could say anything, Gamebreaker kept talking. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

"Imagine the rewards we would have gotten if Diego wasn’t so stupid. If we forced the sheep to fight and pull their weight. It wouldn’t be hard. By yourself, I bet you could easily kill a hundred people. Even a goblin could eradicate them. Human beings are stupid. They need a strong hand to make the right choices."

Faust was going to ignore him, but thought of something.

"I agree. But Diego is all about image. He lies through his teeth and pretends to be holy. But if you went around and made the cowards fight, I’m sure he wouldn’t bat an eye."