Chương 1403: 1402. Stop Trying

After his meeting with Leana, Seth returned to his quarters first. Leana would be speaking with Cade first, then it would be Seth's turn. Until then, he had nothing really to do. Monique would be back in two days. The epic <Olympian Silver> she had requested was already prepared. He didn't want to work on any Sky Dragon Armor parts before the topic with Cade was dealt with. So he decided to take a break until he started working on Monique's armor.

He intended to laze around a little, watch some movies, and play a game or something. Sitting down on the couch, he turned on the TV again and continued the movie he had just started when Mary and Leana called for him. He lay down and tried to relax, but his mind kept wandering. Something didn't feel right. It felt so... silent, despite the TV. He suddenly found the quarters incredibly empty.

It had already been a week since the girls left, but Seth was busy with the armor, and when he returned, he would always call them. He didn't have a chance to realize how lonely he suddenly felt without them around. He used to enjoy being alone, but it seemed like that was the past now. Maybe he had subconsciously avoided being alone in the quarters by focusing on his work. Although the girls would briefly return for the welcome party, they would leave again.

Only Alison would stay afterward, since she would bring the samples of the Sea of Trees and finish her mission with that. The rest of the team would continue working with the horned ones to scout out the potential chasm and supervise the setup of the barrier fence for the pocket closer to Y-City. Then he would be alone again. In this moment, he felt not just lonely, but his mind also kept going back to worry about all the new things and the old things threatening them.

He was far from being as confident in his solution as he had acted earlier. Seth had thought he would enjoy taking a break, even without the girls, but now he became restless when trying to do nothing and relax. Since this was not working, the blacksmith decided to stop trying. If he couldn't relax doing nothing, he simply had to do something. He turned the TV off and threw the remote to the side. Using the power of the tower, he appeared at the door of Paolo's quarters.

He had wanted to talk with the freshly returned Angel Summoner anyway, so why not do it now?

"Tower Master?" the priest asked, surprised when he opened the door upon Seth's knocking.

"Just call me Seth, I think I told you that already once before. I heard of your spectacular return and wanted to hear about it from yourself," the bard said with a smile. Of course, it was not just to hear the young man's stories. The blacksmith's thoughts had changed gears and focused on what items Paolo could benefit from in the future. Marco and Paolo were promising Oathguards, just like Ortega before he joined the Field Teams after becoming a chosen.

Marco had received the Harbinger of Winter Woes before being sent on an off-world mission together with Paolo. The priest, however, had not received any grand items, apart from his Oathguard Loadout, simply because Minas Mar had been lacking in supporter items for the longest time. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Now, Neeco Booz had become a master and was playing around with making fabrics from Puffles' possibly most potent thread yet.

The question was whether Paolo's overall role had changed with his new class and secondary class. Could they treat an Angel Summoner and Marble Monk the same as a pure support priest?

"Oh, of course.. Seth. Come in," the young man invited him in. He offered something to drink, which the blacksmith accepted.

"Who is this guy? Why are you acting so respectfully?" someone asked as a tall, winged woman stepped out from Paolo, as if she emerged from his shadow. Her short, pitch black hair was a stark contrast to her kind of honey-colored skin. She had sharp, but attractive features and focused the blacksmith with golden eyes.

"Oh, is this one of the angels I heard about?" the blacksmith asked, curious but absolutely unimpressed by the sudden appearance. Her entrance was good, but the bard didn't intend to act impressed because of some magic trick.

"This is Novia, the Dominion I'm primarily contracted with," Paolo introduced her, ignoring Novia's question completely. As a consequence, she bent down, hugging him tightly from behind.

"Come on, don't ignore me. Shouldn't you at least tell me the name of your boss?" she whispered with a soft voice, rubbing her cheek against his.

"Stop that, and get off of me in front of the tower master. Wasn't it enough that you had to pick a fight with Lady Faenys?" the priest shooed her away.

"I'm sorry, Seth," he apologized to him.

"Nothing to worry about. A dominion? That means she's in charge of the angels you summon?" Seth asked, based on the little knowledge he had of hierarchy among the creations of a god.

"Yes, exactly. I'm contracted with her, which gives me power over the angels under her command," Paolo explained readily. This was how their conversation slowly turned to his journey through the Pathworks and the power he had managed to discover and develop based on his new class. Seth was quite intrigued by the class of angel summoner. It resembled an elementalist, as well as a necromancer.

Like elementals that were summoned, the angels couldn't die by ordinary means; they would only be unsummoned and need time to recover based on the damage. But unlike an elemental, usually named and summoned by rank, each angel was an actual individual that dwelt in a personal pocket dimension of the summoner, which was very much like the power of high-ranking necromancers.

"So you are a blacksmith?" Novia, who has been silent until now, asked with a glint in her eyes when their talk inevitably came to what items Paolo would need in the future. Since he had become something of a saint of a reclusive god, there was no question that he was going to be added to the field teams.

"Yes, I'm technically in charge of all the in-house productions of Minas Mar, and I'm personally responsible for most of the items of our field teams," the blacksmith explained.

"Stop it, Novia," Paolo tried to stop her.

"Then could you equip us too?" she suddenly asked excitedly, ignoring his protests. Her face was beaming with anticipation, while Paolo face-palmed.

"So you CAN equip items?" the blacksmith asked back, his eyes almost as bright as hers. Seth had suspected it to be possible. Similarly, many of Evee's undead were equipped with armor they usually possessed from the time before they became undead. But she had also equipped quite a few of her mainstays with armor from Minas Mar's vault.

There were also plans to equip Evan's next generation of bred mounts and pets with armor and items, but that was something the other blacksmiths were doing, and Seth was not directly involved in that. The management of that project andthe guidance of blacksmiths was mostly left to Tored at this point.

"Haven't you become strong enough since I started leveling you guys up? Why do you have to bring this up again? Please don't listen to her. She had been going on about equipping them for ages, but there are almost 300 of them. I can't possibly-""What's the problem with equipping them?" the blacksmith asked unperturbed, only looking forward to being able to add another reliable force to their arsenal. Especially since they were able to detect even disguised demons.

"But with this many..." Paolo stammered.