As we went back out to the settlement, I had Claret hide herself again.

While for her, it was just more of the same, for me, it was of a far greater concern. Claret simply stood out too much around here, beyond simply being someone who floated rather than stayed grounded.

I was probably just delaying the inevitable, but I desperately needed the extra breathing room. Time to figure things out before things got too crazy.

As I was worrying about what the future would bring, Elli led me through the town. Frey and the kids she was with were following behind.

The settlement itself was quite unusual, far different from any that I had been to before. It wasn't just the fact that it was built into existing ruins, most of the structures being quickly built temporary housing or work units, but even those temporary housings were things I was able to put into distinct categories.

The most obvious were the ones that were taller than the rest. It wasn't like there were multiple floors or anything, but not so few number of them were almost twice the height of the others despite being single story buildings. The fact that the doors and windows were also larger was quite telling.

Most of these houses were thatch roofed and their walls were made of dried mud with lots of leaves, grass, and sticks embedded in them. Extremely crude, but effective as a hastily built home. A tiny minority of the XXL sized buildings were made of stone. Thick and sturdy looking walls with clay shingles covering the roofs. Or at least it looked like it from below. Even from a distance I couldn't see the top of any of the buildings due to their size before the view was obstructed by other buildings.

Even in a ruined settlement you couldn't get far before anything you were looking at got obscured by a building it seemed.

I could hear the sound of heavy banging from one of the complete stone buildings. Despite how heavy the metal on metal banging was, it came quite fast, as if someone was tapping a pen on a desk or something. There was a lot of smoke rising from a chimney.

As we approached, I realized I could see inside. One side of the building was actually open to the outside with extremely large window shutters opened up to reveal the insides. It was a titan hunched over a metal block. His muscular body glistened with sweat as he slammed what looked like a sledge hammer on a piece of red hot metal. Except due to his size, the sledge hammer looked more like a small hand hammer which he tapped lightly and quickly against a tiny red bar held by a pair of large tweezers.

The piece of metal was quickly changing form before my eyes, from a nondescript bar to a flattened sheet, folded on itself and cut off from the unused metal then reshaped into what was clearly an axe. Probably a Dane axe, if the Danes had existed in this world. Its bit was wide and thin, about five times the height of the butt.

As he finished his hammering and stretched his neck, the huge titan noticed us standing outside of his smithy.

"Oh? An outsider? How unusual for someone to take interest in my work."

The titan's voice was so deep that it could be felt almost as much as it was heard.

"Ah, umm, hi. I've never seen any blacksmithing in person, so I got curious."

"I hope I was entertaining then. Your robes are an impressive work itself. It must have been made by quite the artisan."

"Ah thanks. I think she'll be happy to hear someone compliment it."

I couldn't help but smile sheepishly at his words. Even though I had virtually no part of its production, it still felt good to have my favourite robes complimented.

"Hmmm...wait a few minutes."

Glancing at the other members of my party, he spoke those slow but short words, then turned back to his axe head.

He quickly heated the axe head again, before dunking it into a bucket of some sort of oil, flames bursting out. Once the flames extinguished themselves, he quickly cleaned it up on a flat stone then put the axe head back into the flame for a short while. Finally, he dipped the head back into the bucket, then after a few moments, he took it out and polished it to a silvery shine. Finally, he took it to a series of flat stones and quickly ground both sides the blade against the surface.

Using an unfamiliar tool that resembled a pen but with a flat head instead of a point, he etched lines on the cheeks of the axe as he channelled a small amount of mana into it. It was only then that I realized that there was a hole set into the middle of the cheek. The etchings first started of as a series of concentric circles and little symbols in between, but then branched off like thorned ivy radiating out from the outermost circle.

Once he finished that, he rubbed oil onto the axe head, the face darkening slightly and the etchings turning into a dark blue.

Next, he retrieved a long pole and set it into the axe head before trimming the excess off. Even after that it was still quite long, almost as long as I was tall.

Surprisingly, the pole fit in perfectly without the need of adjustments.

(Just how long has this guy been doing this?)

Removing the axe head, the titan blacksmith got to work on the long rod. Using the same tool as before, he quickly carved intricate patterns of vines and flowers throughout the shaft, his hands were almost a blur with his speed and incredible accuracy.

Once he was done, he rubbed a different oil from before onto the wooden shaft using a leather cloth, darkening the light wood to a rich reddish brown. Finally, he reattached the axe head to the shaft then pinned it into place.

But against my expectation, he wasn't finished. From a bag placed nearby, he pulled out a small gem.

Or rather, it was a mana crystal.

Taking the mana crystal, he placed it into the hole in the face of the axe and worked it with another unfamiliar tool. After a few seconds, the mana from the crystal flowed out and infused with the weapon.

He gave the large axe one last inspection, then came closer, stepping up to the large window.

"A person bearing such good armour deserves a good weapon."

The titan held out the Dane axe.

"For me?"

He nodded.

"But why? I'm not even that much of an axe user."

"Perhaps. But a weapon can protect just as much as it can harm. Especially vampires tend to forget about their defence."

It felt a bit ironic that he was offering me a weapon as a way to remind myself about keeping up my guard.

"I don't know if I'll find a time to use it, but thank you. It's very beautiful."

It may have been a weapon, but it certainly looked like a work of art. Though the mana that swirled within it suggested it was quite a powerful weapon while enhancing its beauty even further.

"May it provide you with shade when the light is at its harshest."

"Umm...I don't know if it'll be enough, but I need to give you something in payment."

"That's not needed. Having one appreciate the art in addition to the product is payment enough."

"I insist!"

Reaching into my bag over my shoulder, I pulled out an ingot. One of the few I had left after using so many up since leaving my home.

I handed over the pearl white ingot to the titan. His eyes grew wide at its sight, apparently the slab of metal weighing many times its mass in his mind.

"Is this...mithril?"

"As far as I know, it is."

I had used [Scan] to check it out, but even then, there was the chance that the name in the database was different from the common perception of the word. Though the chances of that was slim to nearly nonexistent, I didn't want to forcibly overvalue the thing. It was of little use to me, and getting more wasn't really a big deal in the first place.

The titan closed his eyes for a minute before wrapping his fingers around the ingot which looked tiny in his massive palm.

"I understand. My name is Njordr."

"I'm Scarlet."

Njordr's eyes widened once again for a moment before he calmed down.

"I see. You seem to live up to your name."

"Thanks."

While my feelings regarding my predecessor was complicated, it was hard to take words like that as anything but a pure compliment.

It was rare for even me to get such a nice one.

"And thanks for the axe. I'll treasure it, and try to put it to use on occasion."

"That'll be good. Any tool will feel happiness when being used."

That line of thought reminded me of some eastern faiths. While I doubted that those feelings of his stemmed from similar beliefs, it was possible that this was just a universal feeling that came from all artisans.

And with those words, the titan Njordr picked up another slab of metal and got to work heating it up in his furnace.

I bowed my head to the smith before turning to my companions.

"Sorry about that..."

But there was only one person behind me. Aside from Elli, everyone else had gone at some point.

"It is of no consequence. It only brings me joy that you would find yourself so intrigued by the work of one of our craftsmen."

"It really is good work."

I ran my fingers along the shaft of the axe I had received, tracing the darkened grooves that ran along its surface.

"Umm, but what happened to the others?"

"The kids got bored so Frey took them back home. She should be able to prevent them from talking about you until at least tomorrow morning."

It seemed like Elli had no illusions as to the fact that those kids would spill the beans regarding Claret.

"Ah, they got bored huh? I guess that's no...huh?"

At that point my eyes were gathered on the shadows casted by the buildings around us.

"How long had I been watching the smithing?"

"Oh? Probably about three hours I believe?"

It didn't feel like it at all. I must have been quite engrossed in it. No wonder the kids got bored.

Or rather, it was quite amazing that Elli didn't show any signs of being bored herself.

"Sorry."

"For what?"

"Making you wait for me so long."

"I said it was no problem. The fact that the one the great Claret serves again would find interest in our town is something for me to be proud of."

"I'm not someone so amazing though."

This automatic presumption that I was someone who deserved such insane levels of respect and admiration was something that was quite difficult for me, who used to live near the bottom of the totem pole, to accept.

"That mithril ingot. How did you get it?"

Elli took off slowly and I followed, continuing our little tour of the town.

"I killed some golems in the dungeon and it was one of the drops."

"I believe that was close to the hundredth floor, correct?"

"Yea."

"That is plenty enough to make you amazing, Lord...um, I mean, Miss Scarlet."

A frown slipped onto my face as Elli referred to me how she referred to my predecessor, but perhaps because she noticed it so quickly, the elderly dokkalfar corrected herself in an instant.

"Maybe in that one way, but being impressive in a single field doesn't automatically make you someone respectful. And just Scarlet is fine."

"No, not just any field. For us, strength is something to be respected though. Oh, in that case you just can call me Elli."

On the inside I already had been, but getting permission was nice.

"...Really?"

It wasn't like I was trying to call Elli a liar. Strength was something to be respected. At least to some degree. The strong, even if restricted to the physical, was something to be careful about, as they had the ability to influence their surroundings by wielding that strength.

"That's right. I told you how competitions of strength is how we determine who the demon lord is, right?"

"Yea. Aspiring demon lords would go around and fight the strongest people in each region and if they win all of them, they become the demon lord?"

"There's technically a bit more to it, but that's the basics of it, yes. In the dark lands, we all need to be strong as its filled with powerful monsters. Hunting for food easily turns dangerous, so everyone needs to raise their levels at an early age."

"You mean everyone raises their levels a lot?"

"Not a lot, but at least level fifty by the time you become an adult."

That sounded...quite high to me. Spending all my time in the dungeon meant that I managed to reach that level pretty quickly, but that's not a luxury most would be afforded. While I hadn't checked out people's levels in much detail, it was hard to imagine the average person raising their level that high.

"Even craftsmen and farmers?"

"I'm sorry, but what is a farmer?"

"Huh? I mean, people who plow fields and grow crops."

Elli shook her head.

"I'm sorry, even in my time, I haven't heard of such things."

"You...don't grow food crops in the dark lands?"

"We hunt for everything we eat."

"Then, what do you do for fruits and vegetables? And grains? Do you only eat meat in the dark lands?"

"Of course we don't only eat meat. We'd grow weak if we did that."

While it was possible that their biology made all of them purely carnivorous, it seemed like that wasn't the case.

"We make sure to hunt plenty of fruits and vegetables. I'm particular to blueberries myself."

"You...hunt for fruits and vegetables? Not gather?"

"Well, sometimes we find them lying around, but it's much faster and easier to just hunt for them."

My mind just reeled at trying to reconcile these conflicting images in my head.

"How...does one hunt for fruit?"

Throwing spears at a tree didn't quite equal hunting after all.

"I'm not sure I understand your question, Scarlet. How else would you get fruit from a treant? They don't drop them very often after all."

"A treant? Treants give fruit?"

Elli nodded.

"I suppose that a vampire wouldn't know that, considering you'd have no reason to hunt for fruit."

(That's got nothing to do with why I'm confused!)

"We form hunting packs and when we find plant based monsters, we hunt them for their spoils. Treants, alraune, mandrakes, and many others."

"I...see."

Now that I thought about it, plant type monsters often dropped various food items as well in the dungeon. It seemed like I hadn't made the connection between dungeon drops and how things would be like on the outside, but perhaps all the monster drops in the dungeon were actual things which could be gathered from the monsters in the wild.

"While the food we gather by hunting them are quite delicious, they multiply so quickly, its a lot of work to keep them from overrunning everything."

"Sounds like leaving the settlements is difficult then?"

"I've heard that people travel from town to town all the time in the light lands, but I can't really imagine it. Just how many guards would you need to protect so many travellers? Or maybe only warriors travel around?"

"They...don't. Sure, they need a few guards to deal with the monsters, but the roads are kept clear so monster attacks aren't that common."

If I remembered right, monsters only attacked the groups I was with only a few times? Usually I had to go out to find them to secure food if anything.

"I can't imagine it. Do they have entire armies patrolling their lands all the time or something?"

"No, I don't think so? Usually they just have adventurers hunt around each settlement. That seems to be enough to keep the monster numbers low enough."

"Adventurers are those people who guard places and fight monsters, but not part of the army, right?"

"For the most part. They generally work in small groups, taking on specific jobs to earn their keep."

"That sounds a lot like our hunting parties."

"Maybe they're not so different?"

I didn't really know that much about their hunting parties nor the environments they worked in, so any direct comparison wasn't going to be very accurate on my part.

Well, it does seem like the hunting parties bring back quite a wider variety of materials. Adventurers only seemed to bring back meat for food, and anything else was used to craft equipment. Hunters on the other hand brought back all forms of food in addition to regular monster parts.

"Do your hunting parties go hunt specific things according to central orders, or just whatever they feel like?"

"For the most part the latter. Though they do hunt things by request as well, those are generally from craftsmen who need specific materials."

"So there's no organizations which tell hunters what things are in need?"

"Not particularly. Is that how adventurers work?"

"Yea."

The system sounded quite inefficient. Though that presumed that the society on this side worked in similar ways to the east side. If a larger percentage of people were hunters in the dark lands compared to adventurers in the light lands, then this system might be fine.

But...it still felt pretty inefficient. Did they really need so many hunters? Or even more importantly, were the hunters really getting things that were needed at the rates they were needed? If the crafters were stuck waiting for materials they needed to finish a job, it meant that their clients were waiting for a delivery. Crafters could have stockpiles to prevent that, or demand the clients to bring along the materials needed in addition to the payment, but there were limits to how well such a thing could work.

The biggest issue was that every crafter would need to establish relations with reliable hunters for their supplies, and if something happened to those hunters, or they were doing a different job when the crafter needed materials quickly, the crafter would be stuck without work to do until the hunters returned to business with them.

(Well, it's not really my problem though.)

That was an issue for the leaders of this community, not for some outsider that had just happened to come visit.

Forcing my own ideas where it wasn't wanted wasn't a good way to start a good long term relationship. One way or another, I was stuck with these people being my neighbours, so I'd rather our relationship being amicable as possible.

"Sounds like a lot of work just to go hunt monsters."

"I guess it is, but it works for our hunters."

Their system benefited me as well, so I was a bit more partial to it rather than the more one-on-one way things worked on this side. Over there, all I had to do was register and I was able to work almost instantly, but over here I'd have to find clients myself, make connections with each of them, and only once I convinced them that they could trust me with work, would I finally be able to get jobs from them.

That wasn't too bad for someone born and raised in that community, but for someone who wasn't, it was quite the terrible deal. And things got worse the large the community grew. If for whatever reason that a hunter's normal client was unable to offer enough jobs to make a decent living, finding new clients would be quite difficult.

But maybe the communities on the dark side didn't get that big in the first place? Either that, or they might have systems in place that prevented such problems from becoming major issues. If they were much more interconnected than the communities on Earth, then it could work.

It was entirely possible despite my time on this world, my prejudices from Earth were still making me see all the pitfalls of unorganized and decentralized systems like these and more unable to see the benefits.

"So the hunters now gather most of their materials inside the dungeon then?"

"That's right. There are still a few things we can hunt in the forest around us, but most of the monsters here are either too weak to have anything useful, or too strong to be good prey. If we didn't rely on the dungeon, there would be no way for us to survive."

"I suppose that's true. I can't really imagine surviving here without it either."

I was so glad that I had made sure to select my spawn point to be near an optimal place like this, and I was lucky enough to head straight towards the dungeon right from the beginning. The mountain it was buried in was a great landmark, but if I had chosen to go in any other direction when I first saw it after spawning, I doubted I would have survived.

At best, I would have been forced to survive off of nothing but goblins and rush rabbits. There was no way my level would have risen high enough for me to survive an attack from even the weakest of those gods' assassins.

For that matter, even if I somehow had risen my level though brute force farming trash mobs, I wouldn't have gathered the variety of skills nor experience needed to be particularly effective at real combat. As weak as Sarah had ended up, she would have single handedly killed me in such a state.

It was a bit sobering to realize that luck had such a bearing on my survival from such an early part of my new life, or even before I had been reborn for that matter. If I went through my journey, luck would have probably contributed quite a bit even after that as well, though I didn't really feel inclined to want to actually count the instances. Finding out the actual number would probably be pretty depressing.

But it did mean that I needed to hurry and go back into putting in effort to making myself stronger.

The things with the fairies were mostly settled, and they probably didn't need me to interfere much from here on. Just provide the occasional cooking lesson and feed the fluffballs.

On this side though, I needed to get to know more of the important people and have them meet the fairies to establish some sort of treaty. If the two sides met for the first time in the dungeon, there was a decent chance it would spark something pretty bad.

I could only hope that such a thing wouldn't come to pass.