The Runesmith

Roland and Bernir were in the process of returning to the workshop. After getting breakfast out of the way both of them were ready to work on some things. The crimson armor that he wore needed some tending and his shield did take the brunt of that attack. Before any repairs could be made he would need to clear up some things with his new worker and also his new tamed beast.

The little puppy had woken up halfway through their trip and was now running circles around Roland. From what the old man said at the adventurer’s guild he knew that the wolf pup needed to be named. Unless this final bit wasn’t complete the little dog wouldn’t fully listen to him.

“How about you name him Red, Mr. Wayland? Or maybe Ruby?”

Bernir had been giving him some naming advice along the way but Roland wasn’t feeling any of them. He looked at the fuzzy ball of energy that was jumping around, it even chased after some adventurers that they ran in during their return which left him to apologize.

“He was found in a fire dungeon…”

After mumbling to himself he moved over to where the dog was. The little guy looked up to him and gave out a loud bark. Roland leaned down to pick him up, the little guy’s tongue was out and he was panting out loud.

“How about… Agni?”

With his love for old mythology, he came to the conclusion that he could go with one of the fire gods from his old world. Agni was the name of the ancient Hindu fire god which would fit the theme of the fire dungeon that he got this puppy from. After looking through the wolf’s status screen he did possess a high affinity for fire.

“Oh?”

Bernir called out from the side as after Roland mentioned the name something started happening. A strange magic symbol appeared in front of the puppy that was somewhat similar to a rune but not quite it. This magic symbol slowly floated towards the small wolf’s forehead and entered it. Following this, the small monster’s body started glowing for a second before returning to normal.

“Was that a tamer contract? Didn’t think I’ll ever see one so close up.”

Bernir chimed in while watching the strange phenomenon. Roland also noticed that he gained a title the moment the process was finalized.

It looked more like an achievement than a contract but he knew that even this could unlock special classes. He wouldn’t be surprised if he would be able to pick one of the tamer related classes in the future. There was also a change to his new friend's status that appeared after this strange phenomenon.

‘Bonded? I guess we have a connection now?’

“I wonder…”

He placed the wolf down on the ground but this time around he started out with his name.

“Agni… sit?”

The little puppy perked up at the command and after barking sat down on his behind. His tail continued to swing around while kicking up some dirt in the process. Both he and Bernir were quite surprised at how the puppy was behaving now. It seemed that by having the contract the monster would start to follow its master's instructions.

Roland also remembered what the man at the guild told him. If the master outlevels a young monster like this there are never any issues with the commands. Even less if the master is a tier above, only when the monster starts to outlevel its owner would it show defiance.

He was reminded by the old man to be careful. Allowing the monster to fight for a person without the master doing anything would cause it to advance quickly. Many tamers sometimes got lazy and stagnated with their monsters overtaking them.

The experience between a tamed monster and its master would be divided between the two. This wasn’t at 50% as some might think. It was closer to 70% for the monster and 30% for its owner. In some cases, if the monster was a violent variant it could go berserk and even kill its own master. Such stray monsters would then roam the land unhinged from their contract.

Having a monster go berserk could be counteracted by a couple of things. Besides the owner having a higher level some tamer and summoner-like classes could have special traits or skills that kept their beasts at bay. Another way would be through magical items similar to slave collars that would force a monster to obey.

‘Well, I can always keep it from advancing if it ever reaches my level…’

This was the most common way of guarding oneself against an unruly tamed beast. In Roland’s case, he was an active fighter and he also gained experience from crafting items. It was highly unlikely to him that his tamed monster would ever reach a higher level than he did.

“It’s finally listening to you, Mr. Wayland.”

“Good… let’s go.”

It was time to return to his home, with his new wolf partner now somewhat behaving he could give Bernir some work. After arriving they headed over to his side workshop where he kept the regular iron and steel tools.

“You can stay in this shed for now. You can also use the spare wood if you want to customize it.”

“I-I can make changes?”

“Sure, you do have that carpenter class, it would be a waste to not use it. Just tell me before you make any changes.”

The two started talking and Roland began listing some rules for his new worker. For one thing, he wasn’t allowed to wander around the premises. There were many buried traps here and there that could be set off by the clumsy half-dwarf. He had already been shocked by his door so he didn’t want him to get his foot blown off on a mine.

“M-mine runes?”

Bernir took a bit to look around. The backyard was a bit unkempt and weeds along with grass were making it hard to spot where these mines could be buried.

“Yes… I’ll probably have to remove those, for now just don’t go behind the house.”

Roland glanced at the puppy that he was holding. The little guy was wiggling around and trying to escape but he knew that it could cause an explosion to occur. Maybe later he could teach this wolf to evade the traps by smell but for now, they were a big hazard for both Agni and Bernir.

“Okay, Mr. Wayland…”

Roland wanted to remind Bernir about dropping the honorifics but then he remembered. He was actually about double the age of this young man, so acting as his master wouldn’t be that out of the ordinary.

“Well, I’ll be in my house if you need something.”

Bernir nodded as Roland left him to his own devices. The straw mattress and the blanket were in the log shed already so he only needed to get the half-dwarf a pillow. The log shed was quite large, there was also room behind it to expand it in scope. He was hoping that Bernir that had the carpenter class would be able to expand it himself without his help.

‘I wonder if he could help me build that wind turbine later…’

After his makeshift steam engine had been set up he started thinking on ways of improving it. There were other ways of generating power that didn’t even require mana in the first place. One of these were wind turbines, there was enough space to make one of them in the back.

There was no reason to make a full-sized one, he wasn’t interested in grinding down grains to make flour. He was mostly interested in generating electricity which he could connect to his generator. With some wind runes as backup to make it spin when there was no wind, it could work better than his previous setup.

Roland closed the door after himself and placed Agni on the floor. The little animal instantly took off towards one of the rooms. He gave out a sigh but let the wolf look around the house while he decided to go to his workshop.

After going downstairs and removing his armor he gave out another sigh. A lot had happened in just one day and he suddenly found himself, two roommates. He wasn’t sure what to do with the two but he had some plans.

First, he remembered his times in Edelgard. This had taught him the power of magical contracts. These contracts could actually be made by him thanks to his scribing profession. Depending on the tier of the person signing it a higher level scribe would be required.

His new Runesmith Lord class allowed him to use tier 2 scribing skills as well, thus there wouldn’t be a problem with that. He still had his old contract stashed away so he could copy most of it over while making some changes.

‘I feel that Bernie will sign anything that I put in here, he seems desperate.’

It was clear from how the half-dwarf acted that he wanted this job offer badly. His eyes shined brightly whenever he looked at his blacksmithing tools. Even though they were unkept and rusty it didn’t matter to that guy. Bernir was also close to reaching the 50th level which would bring him into the tier 2 rank soon.

He would then be gaining a tier 2 smith as help around the house. Previously Roland never considered getting more help, thinking that he could somehow manage everything solo. Now on the other hand he started seeing some potential in sharing the workload. It was unknown to him what path Bernir would follow but he hoped he would pick the armorsmith class first.

With the added help he would be able to focus on things that he was good at, which was runecrafting. He would be able to leave all the time-consuming armor repairs to his new worker while he focused on discovering new runic patterns and code combinations. This would further his progress exponentially.

‘First I need to get that contract done… can’t have him talking about my runic forge nor my steam engine. It would be good to have him work with the runic tools but will the contract be enough to keep his mouth shut...’

The trust issues that he had run deep but with the contract signed he would more or less feel secured. He didn’t think that Bernir would speak out on his secrets unless threatened with his life. Expecting someone to take his secrets with him to the grave was asking a bit much.

These contracts activated after they were broken, so even if he put some kind of silencing curse on it, it would only activate after the information was given. The purpose was to not have the person signing the contract perform certain acts but couldn’t stop the process from happening.

There of course were some contracts that were more strenuous but they required the involvement of the darker kind of magic. Slave collars and magic items could also perform this task but something like that felt somewhat wrong to him.

“Bork?”

A bark of a wolf moved his attention to his other problem. The dog here was still newborn and at this current level, he wasn’t really useful.

“Agni… do you want to go kill some monsters?”

The dog started wiggling his rump behind frantically and jumping around the house as if he couldn’t contain his happiness.

“Hm… first I need to get that contract done… your training will have to wait.”

Roland went to grab some scrolls, it was time to scribble down the first draft of Bernir’s contract. He needed to make it sure that his new worker would not babble out some of his secrets. The contract would be ready for when his new friend actually proved his worth.

If his skills were not up to par or if he showed no willingness to improve then Roland would need to take back his offer. From how eager his new friend acted it didn’t seem that he suffered from a lack of motivation.

‘I’ll get him to smith something later… like a ladle…’

He smirked to himself a bit after remembering his blacksmith class change. Soon he walked away to get some work done, his little red puppy following him around while being a constant bundle of energy.

A few days later…

“Are you sure we have everything?”

“Yes, Mr. Wayland I double-checked everything!”

“Good, just remain in the back to be safe but we won’t be going to the lower levels so it should be fine.”

Bernir nodded at Roland’s words while both of them headed towards the Dungeon. It was early morning as the two young men set off. In front of the two-man team was a rather energetic little wolf pup that took the chance to bark at any adventurers that he met.

“Agni come back, you might get attacked like last time!”

Roland called out to the pup that quickly sprinted back to him. He picked him up from the ground and placed him on his shoulder. Previously some newbie adventurer’s tried attacking his little tamed monster. It caused a little scuffle to unfold but due to his fame rising they backed away after seeing his shiny crimson armor.

Soon the small party arrived at the entrance of the dungeon. Some people had seen Roland’s performance against Armand so they backed away as he was going through. Bernir had a strange smirk on his face while seeing this.

“Mr. Wayland you sure are popular with the other adventurers.”

“Is that so?”

Roland tried to ignore that fact as well as Bernir’s ass-kissing attempt.

“You still need to make that shield when we get back.”

“Tch…”

He could hear his new associate giving out a strange sound. After signing a contract he was given tasks around the smithy that took out a good chunk of his time. He was a good worker but also had some bad habits that other dwarves had.

For one thing, he liked to drink a lot, with the lodging fees taken care of he used some of the coins he had over to get some cheap alcohol. This he also drank during work, when asked for an explanation he only replied that he worked faster when under the influence. This was a fact that he discovered after the contract was signed, if he knew he would have included a non-drinking during work clause.

The two descended into the first floor and went through one of the corridors. Most adventurers had progressed enough so this level wasn’t being used. Today was the day to help his puppy to level up, for that he needed to have him kill other monsters.

Normally when a person at the second tier was in a party with tier 1 people they wouldn’t get much or any experience. Luckily for him, the tamed monster contract was a bit different and a small part of experience would fall to his monster. The fastest way was still to have him fight himself as no skills would be leveled up. With low skill numbers, the evolution options would be very limited.

“There we go… Agni get ready.”

The puppy gave out a loud bark while looking forward, there stood his enemy and it was a menacing one indeed.

Red Rat L 2

Roland pointed at the small creature, it was larger than a regular rat and the red coloring showed that it was somewhat resistant to fire. This monster was slightly smaller than the Ruby Wolf but they were close.

“Bite it to death Agni!”

The command was given and the ferocious wolf puppy charged forward. The Red Rat could see the other monster coming at it and reacted by charging straight at his enemy. The two clashed with each other and started rolling around on the ground.

Roland looked on with surprise as the battle continued for quite a while. Both monsters started biting each other, scratching and gnashing their teeth in rage. In time the victor was decided, the Red Rat was victorious and a defeated Agni escaped behind Roland’s leg. The Rat continued its chase but was grabbed by Roland with one hand.

“Bernie…”

“Yes, Mr. Wayland?”

“Are there any weaker monsters in here than rats?”

“I don’t think so Mr. Wayland…”

“I thought so…”

Some might think that a slime would have been the easiest foe to defeat. But for a monster without weapons, biting something like a heated slime would be quite painful. If Agni’s fire resistance was high enough to counter the boiling hot slime liquids still remained to be seen.

A crunching sound could be heard as Roland squeezed the Rat to death with one hand and just tossed the dead body to the ground. Agni peeked out from between his legs and quickly charged forward at the dead monster that he lost to. He sniffed it a few times before howling out loud, his face was then raised high as if he himself defeated this troubling foe.

“This is going to take a while…”

Roland gave out a sigh and continued towards the dungeon, maybe with some luck, he would find a Level 1.