Frontiers ~Chronicles of Bucket-san’s Detailed Pioneering~ 12

How about joining a clan?

Our girls-only gathering ended when Mika-chan reached her limit at dawn, and since Hime-chan also had gone hunting, I decided to open a stall.

I had made a lot of items yesterday, so it was a good chance for me to put them up for sale.

Even though it’s currently midnight in the game, there’s still a lot of active players.

While searching for a good spot for my stall, I browsed other stalls and bought the fabrics I missed among other things I needed.

It seems that some of them have already started to make Bronze gear, which is the next rank after Copper.

But all of them were ★2.

★3 was considered to be equipment of average quality, so this ★2 Bronze gear had a significantly lower performance rate, making it almost no different from Copper gear. That must be why they weren’t able to sell them yet.

In order to not lose money, they would have to sell it at a higher price than Copper gear. The only natural result is that they remain unsold.

It’s still too early for me to start making Bronze gear, too.

I can still get a fair amount of experience points making Copper gear, and ★4 Copper gear and those that end up having an [Option] are still selling quite well.

When I started preparing for the stall in a vacant place, the guy in the stall next to mine said, “I saw the video on the forum. It was a disaster.”

The person who took that footage of that stupid incident seems to have received a good response in the forums probably because they waited a bit before posting it.

When I checked it, I felt that the majority of the comments were sympathetic to me as a victim of that idiot’s poor behavior.

It also seems that there was another victim of that stupid incident, and when they wrote something about it, they were advised to report it to the admins.

Although my actions themselves hadn’t been a model answer to the situation, they have been praised as being very effective as a coping method. Well, the ideal and the reality are two different things.

I’ve only opened up my stall right after checking the forums, but the post itself made me get a lot of customers.

And even as soon as I started to visit other players’ stalls searching for materials, I received a lot of feedback from them, saying things such as “It was quite the incident. Don’t lose heart!”, “You have my support!”, and “How about joining a clan?”.

The last one, which also was of a slightly different nature, was a [Clan Invitation], but since I’m not planning to join any clans right now, I politely declined it.

A “clan” is a group of pioneers that can be created by clearing the special quests that can be received at [Guild Rank ★ 4] and above.

Clans have many convenient functions such as a dedicated call function that allows all members to talk to each other at the same time wherever they are, and a function to set up a base, known as a “Clan Home”.

Of course, members of the same clan can help each other, so they are very convenient in many ways.

Right now, there are only clans made by NPC pioneers, but soon there will be player-made clans as well.

And naturally, one could simply join those NPC-made clans just like the one I had been invited to.

Being part of a clan is convenient in many ways, but that is not to say that they’re not with their disadvantages.

It goes without saying that each clan has their own set of rules, and it is common for an incident caused by a single member to affect the entire clan.

And being part of a clan makes you look like “that guy from that clan” rather than as an individual in the eyes of other players.

Of course, there are often cases where the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, but in my case, I’m sure I’m going to be asked to make a lot of items for the clan if I join one, so I don’t feel like entering one right now.

I don’t want to be tied to a clan in that way, and besides, making items is my main source of money at the moment.

I’d like to be able to draw “magic patterns” all the time if possible.

If anything, I just want to enjoy the game, so I don’t want to do anything that might end up becoming an annoyance later.

I’ve already been invited to clans already with the premise of making stuff for them, but I’ve naturally turned them down already.

It seems that I’ve already become popular on the forums as a naive crafter, and many are looking to secure me for their own clans’ exclusive use.

It’s a bit of a hassle, but I’ll just write a “No clan solicitations” sign and put it next to my items for sale.

If people still come asking me to join their clan, all I’ll need to do is make a video about it and post it on the forums.

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Fortunately, I’ve received almost no solicitations after that, the sales and purchases have been smooth, and I was able to sell the “Magic Circle” for the first time.

That said, I only sold one of them, so I still have a lot of stock left, but I’m still happy.

When purchasing various items, the capacity of my Item Box would inevitably become an issue.

According to the information at the time of the beta test, I should get an expansion for my Item Box by raising my [Guild Rank].

Speaking of which, even though I’ve opened my stall the Guild, I’ve never actually entered their building.

I’ve been looking inside from the outside, and it always seems to be so full of people, and since I don’t really need to go in, I’ve been putting it off for quite some time now.

Since this last stall sale has increased my Merchant Lv. to 30, I obtained a new skill, [Merchant Arts/Lv30/Market Price Collection & Revision].

The [Market Price Collection] I had until now automatically collected only the current prices of surrounding items, but this new [Market Price Collection & Revision] will also be able to collect past prices.

Since NPCs have been here before this current release, it makes sense to be able to collect past information.

Furthermore, at the moment, several NPCs have higher skill levels than most players, so it’s very convenient to be able to automatically collect the prices of the items made by such NPCs.

The vast majority of NPC salesmen rarely make their own items, as most players do.

In other words, players will follow the lead of the NPCs that are currently ahead in the business, which makes that market price information a very useful thing to have as a result.

I’d better go to the Guild to collect those market prices.

At any rate, it’s a place where you can buy any material, so it’s perfect for gathering information. Moreover, the purchase at Guild is 20% cheaper than usual, so it’ll automatically correct the prices around that area as well.

Otherwise, the market information will be incorrect every time you pass near the Guild.

The Guild near the Southeastern Gate is a large one-story wooden building. It’s open for business 24 hours a day, and it has this very liberating aura around it since its doors are always left open, but in reality, there’s not much to see from outside because so many people are constantly coming and going.

There is also a bulletin board outside the Guild where many quests are posted.

However, this bulletin board is special because the posted quests cannot be taken off without permission, so the quests can only be received by registering them as if ordering food from an online menu.

Of course, quests get automatically taken off the moment they are accepted, but most of these quests are permanent quests, and anyone who has registered can take them as many times as they like.

They look more or less like this:

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Standart subjugation / ★ 1 / Exterminate 30 Rarabbits

Reward: 2,000 Nil

Deadline: –

Comments: –

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It seems that you can get 2000 Nil for killing 30 Rarabbits, the weakest monsters around the capital Sabrina.

I don’t know because I haven’t fought them yet, but Rarabits are the very first kind of monster you can fight, so I can see why this quest would be quite appealing.

It looks like there taking this quest is the way to go to make money, provided you were already going to go kill Rarabbits either way.

Not that I particularly care about that anyway.

There seem to be almost no other quests than the permanent ones, since they are accepted in a first-come-first-served fashion.

The only ones remaining are those where the reward doesn’t match with the quest’s contents.

They’re just quests for people trying to get equipment with useful Options for less than the market price.

For example, something like this:

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Delivery quest / ★2 / Deliver a longsword of quality ★3 or more with an Option that increase attack power

Reward / ~ 6,000 Nil

Deadline: –

Comments: Reward amount depends on the ATK of the delivered longsword. Payment after assessment.

====

Unlike subjugation quests, where killing the requested monsters doesn’t count unless you do it after taking the quest, for delivery quests you can also prepare the requested item in advance and then take the quest.

However, the content for those quests is quite strict.

Even the Copper Longsword with a [Attack Power Up (S)] that I sold to Rush yesterday has a market price of about 7,000 Nil.

Since the only Copper-rank longsword is the Copper Longsword, it will be more expensive than a regular one, and besides, there are no recipes for a longsword that is cheaper than the Copper Longsword.

Since weapons with Options are more expensive than their regular variants, this quest inevitably means selling an Option weapon at a lower price than the market price.

Weapons with useful Options such as [Attack Power Up (S)] are in high demand, so even if you sell them at a reasonably high price, they will sell immediately.

There’s almost no reason to sell them for cheaper just for a quest.

In this way, quests can be issued by anyone, both players and NPCs.

Of course, there are also fees involved, and there are times when no one would even look at your quests, like that delivery quest from earlier.

Furthermore, the quests posted on the board will expire after one in-game week after the exact date and time they were issued, after which they will be automatically invalidated and removed.

When accepting a quest, the deadline for each accepted quest will be different from the one-week posting expiration date.

In the case of a delivery quest, it would turn into a temporary order, and it will be completed after the assessment of the delivered item from the moment it’s presented at the delivery counter.

This seems to be a measure to prevent things like double delivery and quest-spamming.

Otherwise, people who just take these quests and never complete them would only result in a waste of fees for the requester.

However, the only problem with this system are the cases where someone first accepts the delivery quest and then goes on to procure the requested items. However, this would only be a problem for the person who accepted the quest, so even if someone else completes the quest before them, it would be only their own fault.

After learning about such quests from the dog-eared receptionist at the counter and filling out some extremely simple forms, my registration at the Guild was finally completed.

This is how I’ve become a ★1 [Guild Member].

I had already learned most of the information about quests during the beta test, but there were some new details that weren’t present in the beta.

Even if you want to raise the [Guild Rank], the quests were all about defeating monsters, and those delivery quests that are basically “sell me this stuff for a low price”. However, in this release, the Guild –which was a rather harsh resource for crafters– was also revised, and a crafter-friendly system was implemented.

That is the [Crafted Item Appraisal System].

If you bring an item you made to the Guild’s evaluation counter and subject it to various examinations, you can receive the same acknowledgement that you would receive when you complete a quest.

As a result, crafters, who would normally have a hard time raising their [Guild Rank], can now do so without undertaking quests.

By the way, once an item has been appraised at the Guild, it will be returned to you, so it can be sold afterwards.

Of course, items other than those made by the person who brought them in will not be subject to evaluation, and the same applies to items that have already been evaluated before.

Moreover, if the item brought in is an Original item, it will add to its appraisal score.

I haven’t received the official results of my appraisals, but when I asked them to examine the items they had so that I could try the system, I was told that they received an evaluation of about 6 ★1 quests.

The unsold items I have for sale can be appraised as well, so considering the items I’ve sold so far, I wouldn’t be too far from reaching [Guild Rank ★2] by now.

The “Item Box Expansion Pack” that you can get from reaching [Guild Rank ★2] is a must-have item, and it is the biggest reason for me coming here today.

It’s a shame I haven’t reached that rank yet…