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Chapter 128: The selection

Life and death – except Arwin wasn’t sure which was which. Both of them had the potential to completely screw him over if they grew strong enough. He drummed his fingers against his upper thigh and sucked on his cheeks as he thought.

Finally, he heaved a sigh. The Mesh had given him a challenge to learn how to use [The Hungering Maw]. Sure, it had given him a direct upgrade offer to the ability, but that didn’t mean it was a good choice. He’d learned that following exactly what the Mesh wanted resulted in Unique weapons, not necessarily good ones or the ones he wanted.

That didn’t seem to be the case this time. [The Hungering Maw] was already ruling his life. It was time to try and take back some of that control. Even if it came at a big risk of requiring him to make even stronger items to survive, it was a risk he had to take.

He selected it. The Mesh’s golden words shimmered and changed. Something twisted in the center of Arwin’s chest. A tendril of pain wove into his stomach and stretched out through his body. It faded as quickly as it had come, bringing with it a new message from the Mesh.

[The Hungering Maw] – An enormous burst of energy has permanently infused you with magic, but not without cost. You must consume objects or items with Magical Energy equivalent to your current Magical Power every week to survive. Consuming an item temporarily grants you some of its properties. The Hungering Maw’s palate has advanced and it has a significant chance to ignore detrimental effects of items that it has eaten.

Title: [Magical Olfactory] has been earned due to [The Hungering Maw]’s advancement.

Arwin let out a breath of relief. Nothing about the upgrade had indicated that the Hungering Maw would require stronger items from here on out. It had just been a pure upgrade – and an interesting one at that.

Potentially ignoring the detrimental effects of items he ate was quite the boon. It wasn’t completely reliable, but it was a huge buff to the effectiveness of eating items mid fight.

Even if I should still try to avoid items with Brittle or the like while fighting, if I’ve got something with a powerful benefit and a mediocre drawback, it’s now a lot more viable. I can even use the ones with worse drawbacks in really bad scenarios.

With this upgrade, I should significantly increase the importance I put on making small pieces to have around, both to keep the Maw at bay as well as to use while fighting. But… what was the title I got?

Arwin summoned it with a thought.

[Magical Olfactory] – The Maw’s influence spreads. With sufficient concentration, you can smell the scents and quality of magic within items.

That was it. Arwin’s brow furrowed as he re-read the title to see if he’d missed something, but there was no more information. It was as simple as that. He summoned [Verdant Blaze] to his hands and raised it to his nose.

Arwin did his best not to feel like a complete idiot as he took a sniff of the hammer. It just smelled like metal. But, even as he started to lower it, Arwin realized he’d missed a note. He lifted the hammer again and sniffed at it once more.

The note was distant and faded, but it came forth the longer Arwin concentrated on it. It didn’t smell anything like what a hammer should have smelled like. His eyebrows knit together as he tried to place the scent.

It was something between honey and burnt sugar, with notes of earth scattered throughout. And, while he wasn’t sure exactly what the scent was, Arwin knew one thing for certain. It smelled delicious.

He lowered the hammer before he could even think about taking a bite out of it. Verdant Blaze was too powerful to waste as a snack – and given how hard it had been to eat Tix’s sword, he suspected he wouldn’t be able to eat it easily anyway.

Why would smelling the magic in something be useful enough for The Hungering Maw to give me a whole title for it? It’s got to have something to do with the main title, but I have no idea what. I suppose I’ll find out soon enough. I’m going to have to sniff every magic item I get for a while until I figure out what this Title’s actual use is.

As odd as it was, Arwin still couldn’t complain. Specializing in [The Hungering Maw] had gone very well. He hadn’t made his situation any worse and had a new way to use the ability in a fight.

And, if his suspicious were correct and the Mesh wasn’t playing with him, smelling magic would somehow be useful to finding a way to get the Title under control. It wouldn’t have come from a Challenge specifically to rein [The Hungering Maw] in otherwise.

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Arwin yawned. He rubbed at his eyes with a finger, then shook his head. It was pretty dark out and the night was well underway. As tempting as it was to keep working, his body wasn’t invincible. He needed sleep.

He summoned the [Soul Flame] out of the hearth and dismissed Verdant Blaze before heading over to the tavern.

Lillia had fortunately left the door unlocked for him. He stepped through it and closed it quietly behind him. It looked like he hadn’t been the only one that was hard at work. Lillia had added several new tables to the tavern and an imp clad in its maid outfit was rubbing at one of the tables with a rag.

This place is really starting to look like a tavern. I wonder what she’ll specialize in at Apprentice 5. Maybe we should try to see if we can activate a Challenge for her to get the inn under control or something like that. If they exist for me, they have to exist for everyone.

It was something they could look into once the Wyrm horde was dealt with. The more pressing matter would be making himself some bracelets or other magical items to use during the upcoming fight in addition to re-outfitting Rodrick and anyone else that he could slot in before they left.

We’re on good schedule right now. Tomorrow I should be able to get some greaves and maybe a sword for Rodrick. I’ll try to get my bow strung and see if it holds up with the spider silk string. After that I’ll make some bracelets – that should be quick. Some gauntlets and boots will follow since they’ll take the most time. If there’s any room to keep working afterward, I can look into making more gear for Olive, Reya, and Lillia. Maybe even some for Anna as well if I can figure out something I can make for a healer that doesn’t weigh her down.

Arwin nodded to himself. Having a plan took a lot of the weight off his shoulders, even if it was entirely just in his head. It gave him something to focus on. He was still nodding when he realized that Lillia was watching him from the kitchen.

“Oh. You’re still awake?” Arwin asked, catching his head mid-nod and freezing in place.

“Naturally,” Lillia replied. “You look pretty happy with yourself. Find a way to finish the bow?”

“Not the bow. I did want to, but if something went wrong while I was putting it together, I know I’d get stuck trying to fix it instead of doing something more pressing. I made myself some new greaves and reached Apprentice 5 instead.” Arwin summoned his greaves onto himself so Lillia could take a look.

She read over them, her eyebrows lifting, before raising her gaze back to meet his and giving him an impressed nod. “I can’t wait to see that in a fight against a bunch of little runts. Rare item as well. Guess you figured it out?”

“Kind of. It’s not perfect yet, but it works a lot better. I think I’ll have even more luck once I find a proper smith to learn a few things from, but I can’t ask Taylor. I think that would be a bit much.”

“Considering we’re going to be directly competing with him pretty soon? Almost certainly,” Lillia said with a small laugh. “You’re just lucky he doesn’t know that you’re Ifrit.”

“Yeah,” Arwin agreed. “I definitely need to look into getting a supplier. I need to do a lot of things.”

“They never seem to end, do they?” Lillia gave him a knowing look. “I feel the same. Did you know there are suppliers for inns? That’s great for normal food, but if I want to work with materials from monsters, everything suddenly gets way harder. It’s so expensive that I might as well just get everything myself. Which is, granted, what we’ve been doing thus far.”

“Are you worried about supply shortages or something?”

“Maybe at some point in the future,” Lillia said. “Mostly just trying to make sure I’m completely ready to handle new people when they start showing up. Do you like the new tables?”

“I was just thinking this place is starting to look like a real tavern,” Arwin said. “Are the rooms upstairs doing just as well?”

“They’re on their way to it.”

“Then all we need is names. We’ve been pushing that off for a while, haven’t we?” Arwin asked with a laugh. “For both the tavern and the guild.”

“And your smithy.”

“That too,” Arwin said with a grimace. “Problems that can wait for the sunlight.”

“Yeah.” Lillia nodded. She looked over her shoulder into the kitchen, then back to him. “Hungry? I made sandwiches.”

“You already know the answer to that. Just give me a bit to get ready,” Arwin said. He dismissed his armor and headed over to take a bath.

When he came out, Lillia was already waiting for him. They wordlessly headed over to her room and sat down on the bed to eat. Arwin tried sniffing at the sandwich to see if it had any magic in it, but it was just a sandwich. A very, very tasty sandwich.

They both finished their meals, not speaking a word until they were done.

“Thanks for the food,” Arwin said as he polished the last of it off. “It was fantastic. As always.”

“Thank you,” Lillia said from her spot leaning against his side. “I saw someone walking by the street today, by the way. Just an adventurer. He didn’t actually head in, but I think he was considering it.”

“Sounds like we might have some customers soon.”

“Maybe,” Lillia agreed, a note of hope entering her voice. “That would be nice.”

She yawned, and Arwin heard her shift beside him. “I’m probably going to try to get up early tomorrow. I’ve got a carpenter coming in to help with some basic decoration for the rooms.”

“Probably a good idea. I’ve got a lot of work tomorrow as well. Going to try and get Rodrick some more armor made. Do you want anything yourself?”

Lillia let out a soft laugh. “The armor you made me is more than enough for someone who fights on the backline. Don’t worry about me right now. All I need is rest and the dark – or the closest I can get to it, at least.”

I remember she said a while back that she didn’t get the benefit of pure dark that I do when I sit in her room. Never would have thought that such good darkvision would actually be a detriment.

“Do you mind if I try something?” Arwin asked.

“Try what?”

“For your vision problem – or rather, lack thereof.”

“I suppose not. It’s not really an issue that can be fixed. I can even see through my eyelids because of how thin they are, you know. Great for fighting when someone’s throwing dust at your face. Not so good for sleep.”

Arwin lifted his hands, taking a figurative and literal shot in the dark to guess where her face was. Lillia stiffened against him as his hands traced up her face until they found her eyes and covered them.

“There,” Arwin said. “You can’t see now, can you?”

He felt her face move ever so slightly as a small smile pulled across her lips. “No. I can’t. Not at all. It’s… nice.”

Arwin nodded in agreement, and neither of them said anything more. They remained there in silence, enjoying the darkness together as the night continued its march toward the morning.