A Minor Matter Of Professions.

“I’m in your hands today, big brother!”

After a good night’s sleep, the blacksmith youth’s mood had done a total 180. Honestly, I’m a bit jealous of that personality that never holds a grudge.

I bowed to Heimo as he energized the tavern with his entrance, then spread the battered equipment I’d scavenged yesterday across the table.

“Sorry for forgetting our promise and leaving you behind yesterday. If you want, use these for whatever you need.”

“Whoa, what are these! You’re giving ’em to me?”

“Sorry they’re all in such bad shape, though.”

“Nah, this helps a ton! This’ll make the work go way faster!”

As it turns out, the number of broken farming tools has been on the rise lately. Apparently, some of the villagers whose physical abilities suddenly spiked have been overusing them, not knowing their own strength or the tools’ limits.

Heimo is the only blacksmith in the village, but most of his work consists of “tinkering”—basic repair work. He told me he mostly spends his time making daily necessities like nails and pots, or sharpening dull kitchen knives.

In games, you have this image of blacksmiths cranking out swords and armor left and right, but in a peaceful farming village like this, there’s zero demand for weapons. Plus, iron is quite precious, so his main job is melting down old items to reforge them.

“Hm? This one’s actually well-made. I like it. Yeah, the weight is just right!”

Heimo, rummaging through the pile of weapons, had found the mace the Boss Skeleton was using. His eyes sparkled like a child’s as he held it up gleefully. Since he’s short but packed with solid muscle, he looked like a power hitter stepping up to the plate with a massive metal bat.

“If you like it, why not use it today?”

“Oh? Yeah, this feels right at home in my hands.”

“Then let’s clean it up for you. Lend it to me for a sec.”

White Magic Clusters are precious, but I decided to fix it up as an apology for yesterday. I took it, tucked it into my item list, and selected from the transmutation command menu. Once you’ve done it once, it’s really convenient having it registered like this.

When I returned the dull mace to its former state, it transformed into a black-coated weapon: a Dark Mace.

“Oh, so it wasn’t just a regular mace.”

“What the—?! How’d you do that?!”

After I explained the details, Heimo’s jaw hit the floor, and then he started whacking me on the back.

“Alchemist bro, you’re incredible! I’m floored you can even do stuff like that!”

“Ow, ow. Ease up on the strength a bit.”

“Alright, from now on, I’m leavin’ all the repairs to you!”

“No, didn’t I explain? It uses up magic clusters, so I can’t do it just like that.”

“Oh, right. Well, I guess I’m stuck doing it myself for a while. Dammit, I got excited for nothing!”

It seems he has absolutely no sentimental attachment to the repair business.

As Heimo started stomping his feet in a huff, Yoru and Kuu rushed over and started stomping the floor with him. They seemed to have mistaken it for a dance or something. After a while, the man and the two little ones finished their frantic dance, grinned at each other, and shared high-fives.

“Shall we head out, then?”

“Yes. Let us descend to the abyss, Sir Nino.”

The one answering solemnly from behind me was Chief Dirk. I’d invited him along while fulfilling my promise to Heimo. If I’d left him behind too, it might have actually caused a domestic breakdown.

“Oh, right. Please use this today if you like.”

I handed him the longsword the Boss Skeleton had used, now returned to its original state via . The item name was Dark Sword. The material likely wasn’t just iron, but “Demon-Black Iron” infused with black magic stones. If so, it would possess the “Depleting Power” of Darkness, meaning it should have terrifying sharpness. The original name being “Dull Iron Sword” was quite the trap.

I also restored the dagger to a Dark Dagger and gave it to Paula. I’d considered it for Mia’s self-defense since she was empty-handed, but I judged it more dangerous to make her use a weapon she wasn’t used to.

“Thank you. With this blade, I shall slaughter every soul that seeks to harm you—”

“Your phrasing is scary, Paula.”

With two more villagers selected, we finally set off.

Now, as for the strength of Heimo and the Chief:

Apparently, he’d defeated a decent number of monsters back in his homeland. Beastmen have low mana values, so if they don’t train like that, they can’t even handle blacksmithing work in this world. His high physical attack is exactly what you’d expect from a combat race—though the Dark Mace is doing about half the heavy lifting. Also, is a blessing unique to Beastmen; in the game, it was subtly useful for finding hidden targets.

For the record, “Blacksmith” is a general profession, not a combat job. While some games let you fight as a blacksmith, in Dra-Chro 2, it was just a civilian job. Only combat-specific jobs allow you to gain stat increases by defeating monsters. And unfortunately, “Alchemist” is also just a civilian job, which is why I don’t participate in the fighting—I don’t get a single shred of experience points.

Next is the Chief. Since he mentioned receiving sword training back when he served at a Lord’s manor, I had him change his initial job to Swordsman.

Just as a reminder, jobs can be changed as much as you want because the levels you’ve trained are preserved. However, increased stat values from one job don’t affect others; they drop to match the level of the current job. The advantage, however, is that the specialties you’ve learned can be carried over.

In other words, the current Chief is a very convenient Swordsman who can use healing arts while swinging a blade. Naturally, people tend to think you could become an all-purpose god-tier character by job-hopping, but it’s not that easy. There’s a cap on how many specialties you can learn. Since you can’t “forget” them, once the slots are full, you can never learn another. You end up as a “Jack of all trades, master of none” who can do everything but only has mediocre skills.

Still, job-hopping between two or three basic professions is highly recommended. Mid-tier and high-tier jobs usually focus on enhancing the specialties themselves, so you get a bit more room in your slots. Filling those with convenient specialties allows for some very unexpected playstyles. Plus, learning specialties from multiple jobs is often a requirement for reaching those mid and high-tier classes. For example, to reach Holy Knight, the Chief would eventually need specialties from both Swordsman and Healer.

So, the Chief with his black blade and Heimo swinging his ominous mace joined the party, but…

“Take this! And this! AND THIS!”

“Tei! Ya! Ha!”

Both of them were absolute “muscle-brains.” I’d expected it from Heimo, but I never imagined the Chief had that talent hiding within him. Specifically, the moment they spot a monster, they charge in before I can stop them and swing their weapons as they please. It feels like they aren’t thinking about the enemy’s numbers or strength at all. And yet, they aren’t just flailing wildly; they actually strike vital points with irritating precision.

Good grief, they’re as much of a handful as the Assault Birds.

Since the other villagers couldn’t gain any levels this way, we eventually split into two groups to explore. Since I’m the only one who can collect items, my workload essentially doubled as I ran back and forth. Well, they seem to be enjoying the labyrinth exploration from the bottom of their hearts, so I can’t really complain.

As usual, once we hit the fifth floor, I had the two accompanying villagers switch to farm work. We still need to keep expanding those fields, after all.

“Ooooh, what’s this! That’s a huge bird!”

We headed toward the goblin settlement with the Assault Birds that came to meet us. I’d left To-chan and Ge-chan on this floor yesterday, and they had been completely tamed by the goblins. The second saddle was finished, and a Wicked Fairy was perched on it with a smug face. So, a goblin was actually the one piloting To-chan right now. I was sitting behind him, being transported like a guest or maybe just cargo. Heimo was also riding Ge-chan and looked absolutely delighted, his eyes darting around with excitement.

Twenty minutes later.

What greeted us at the settlement was the upbeat rhythm of percussion instruments.