So basically, you had a room full of equipment that could kill you if you weren’t paying attention. I doubted anybody in town was dumb enough to try any of this unevaluated stuff out—especially because I didn’t want to take responsibility for the fallout—but I thought it’d all work just fine in Ramiris’s labyrinth.
“Yeah, it’s fine,” I told Kurobe. “These actually seem really valuable if you take into account all their different features.”
This was decent stuff, after all. Much of it was valued at Rare or above, with a few Uniques scattered here and there—in the same lineup as the Scale Shield and Tempest Dagger I gifted Kabal’s party.
I picked up one of the items—the Tempest Sword—as I turned to Kurobe.
“It seems like kind of a waste, doesn’t it? Keeping all this high-quality stuff in here just because it’s still in the test stage. Don’t you want to pair some of it with the kind of people who could really take advantage of it?”
I was trying to lead him to the answer I wanted. Kurobe took the bait.
“Oh? Well, you can take whatever you like from here.”
I wasn’t tricking him, exactly, but I did feel kinda bad about it.
Soon, Kurobe’s warehouse was a fair bit emptier. Now I had a set of weapons I could populate the treasure chests in the labyrinth with. They’d be obtained by adventurers who earned the right to them by reaching the level I put them in, so I didn’t lie to Kurobe at all. No need to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Still, I was amazed at his sheer output. There was more here than the last time I had stopped by; I’d say it was at over a hundred items now. Much of it was dicey, yes, but some pieces were just difficult to master. The one common link among them was that they were all superior to anything you’d see in the capital at Englesia, the kind of thing you’d normally only see at auction.
During the Harvest Festival that marked my ascension to demon lord, Kurobe received the unique skill Mastercraft. This was a force that stacked on top of his previous Researcher skill, polishing it further. By this point, he was way past Kaijin. Whenever he got serious about a project, it wasn’t uncommon for a Unique-grade piece of equipment to result. Rare level for sure, at least. That was much of the reason why only his apprentices’ work appeared at public showings.
“Gotta say, though, I’m impressed. I’ve learned forging myself, but no way could I make any of this.”
“Heh-heh! High praise from you, Sir Rimuru. Oh, but lemme give you this before I forget.”
Suddenly serious, the ever-modest Kurobe returned to the tatami-mat room in the rear to fetch something.
“What’s this?”
“Well, it’s something I’ve made you wait far too long for.”
He handed me a long, straight sword, the blade a jet-black in color. Not too long, but not too short—made just for me, at truly the ideal length.
“So this is…”
“Yep. My greatest masterpiece yet.”
At first glance, the only unusual thing about the sword was its black body. There wasn’t some ultra-powerful aura shooting out; it wasn’t generating its own magic or anything. But that’s what I wanted. This blade’s focus was squarely on durability. It’d never break, never bend, and would fully adjust itself to my magical force—without wreaking havoc around me, like with Hinata’s Moonlight sword. It allowed me to be wholly unrestrained in a fight.
“Well done. You’ve made me proud, Kurobe.”
“I’m just as proud of it as you, trust me on that. But the sword isn’t complete just yet. As you know, my weapons usually have a hole at the base, the way you suggested they should.”
I looked at the base. “Oh? I don’t see any here.”
“No. The other weapons get that hole when they’re complete, but not this one. Because once it acclimates to your magic force, it’ll grow…and evolve. And despite that, I built it so it’ll always look like just another sword otherwise.”
He had a right to be proud. As he put it, this sword in its complete state could be a piece of Legend-class material…not that it felt that way presently. The other equipment in the family was still under development, and the magic crystal meant to go into the hole he mentioned wasn’t done yet. No point having a hole if there was nothing for it yet. I would just look forward to that forthcoming moment.
I left Kurobe’s workshop with a spring in my step. I had my own sword, and I also got all the other stuff I wanted. Now I could seed those treasure chests and spread them all around the Dungeon. It’d be kinda fun to insert boss monsters to protect the particularly nice pieces, too. This was almost like designing a real-life dungeon-crawl RPG, and it was unbelievably exciting.
Yeah, you could probably make a mint selling these test items and failed experiments at auction—I’m sure Mjöllmile or Fuze could hook me up with the right people for that. It’d be a surer way of earning income, but I didn’t want that. The key here was to get humans interacting with monsters. I wanted to bring people over here and have them experience everything that made Tempest great—and if they liked what they saw, I’m sure they would come back. This was just one part of that effort.
Plus, this wasn’t just a matter of bribing adventurers with loot and sending them on their way. I already had the next step of the process in mind. Let’s say you have someone hacking their way through the Dungeon, collecting assorted items and bringing them back to the surface. Using non-appraised weapons or armor, I had heard, was considered extremely dangerous. That’s where my little friend Assess comes in. This stuff was made in Tempest, so I naturally knew all about their traits and features. A lot of it would be
