Chapter 22: Oya: Gaining Favor of Master Blacksmith
Her feet took her for a small tour around the city, and her small walk was destined to be interrupted again. when she passed by a certain area, the same excruciating headache came with severe pain and the same voice repeating the same sentence over and over again without stopping.
'Seek the blacksmith lifestyle class, don't seek adventure class now.'
'Seek the blacksmith lifestyle class, don't seek adventure class now.'
'Seek the blacksmith lifestyle class, don't seek adventure class now.'
She couldn't maintain herself standing, so she leaned on the ground holding her head with both her hands. she tried to press over her head, an old trick she learned when she ever had a severe annoying headache like this, but it didn't work either.
As she was like this, she saw a couple of NPC moving out from this building as they helped her to walk entering the inside of it. they were speaking to her, but she could figure out what they were saying, she was like being in another realm.
Once she entered the building, the headache became somehow lighter and began to fade away. Her pain started to be weaker as she felt numbness all over her body. everything began to turn calmer, except that voice which kept repeating the same sentence again and again until she felt her brain would explode.
She didn't know what was happening to her, but she knew it was something bad. She stayed inside the building in such a state for ten minutes, after which nothing appeared again, no pain, no headache, and no irritating voice of hers.
When she felt better, she began to check her surroundings. She was inside a medium sized room, with a metal table with some weird buttons on her side. She lied on that table, and a couple of NPCs were watching her condition with worry and concern. They were the two who came out and took her in.
The first thing she did was to do nothing, as this quite was what she needed to figure out what was happening to her. After some moments of stillness, she was sure that her mind was clear now and there was nothing like these words or that headache, so she sat straight up and looked around her in observation.
She wasn't in just a random NPC building, she was in the blacksmith association, a place where players got to learn their crafts and raise their proficiency at blacksmith lifestyle class.
"It's good you are alright now, you were losing consciousness strangely at the street, are you ok now?"
Oya looked at her speaker, she was a middle aged woman, who was obviously a blacksmith with a high rank here. Oya felt more weird, how could she collapse like this in front of the blacksmith building? This matter was fishy to her, but she had no clue about the reason for all of this.
"I'm feeling better, thank you for taking care of me."
"It's alright, after all your screaming voice with being a blacksmith was very catchy," The NPC said while coming near Oya as she looked directly in her eyes, "Do you want to be a blacksmith? I can teach you here and now."
Oya felt like her own mind was getting clouded again, she hated being in this state, and as the severe headache was about to come again, she hurriedly said:
"I'm grateful for your help, I really in desperate need to learn forging and become a blacksmith."
"Good," The NPC said with a calm smile, "Can you walk now?"
"I guess," Oya replied, "Will this need gold coins? I have a small amount of it right now, but if you need more then I will go out and kill monsters then sell their equipment."
"You are an interesting player, no I don't need your gold coins, and if I need that, it would be better to make you forge weapons and let me sell them for you. This way is more profitable than what you think," the NPC said with a chuckle.
Oya just nodded, to feel that strange condition affecting her to fade away.
'Strange, is this all to direct me to come here and learn blacksmith? That's weird!' she muttered to herself while she followed the NPC inside this big building. Oya knew that at any game, learning a lifestyle craft would need a lot of gold coins.
It's not only related to getting the skills needed for the class, but it included renting forging studios, providing materials to test, and the most important of all the forging designs. Blacksmith was just like nobody without having a great library of forging designs.
Oya knew she couldn't afford that, so she guessed this was a kind help from this senior NPC to her. Lifestyle NPCs or players were usually ranked according to their proficiency in their craft, and generally speaking the NPCs loved to help more players to learn the craft, while players hated having more competitors.
Just as she was in the middle of her thoughts, she found herself in front of a bigger studio than what she had in mind.
"This studio is one of my own properties here in this association, so you can use it for now. I'm looking for worthy apprentices to pass my knowledge to them, so I can't promise you anything for now except if you showed unique talent, then I will consider making you one of my own apprentices.
Do you have any opinion of that?" the NPC asked as she was standing over the doorstep of this studio looking at Oya.
"I'm cool with it," Oya replied calmly as these words made her feel more comfortable. She understood now why this NPC was interested in helping her this much, and she wasn't worried. Although if this happened any other time, she would be very excited.
Learning the craftship from the hands of a senior NPC and gaining her favor early on the game would turn any player's life upside down, but she was now weary of this lifestyle class.
She wanted to finish trying here and leave. If this was potionology, she would have been worried, as she was very good at it, but blacksmithing wasn't something that she excelled at.