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

Chapter 60 – That’s troublesome

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I logged in.
It was the 21st day since the game’s release and the 60th in-game day.

As usual, my morning login was during the game’s midnight, when both my store and the library are closed.

However, essential facilities are open 24h a day; not to mention I have my own workshop.
It’s easy to work for as long as I collect the things that were bought by the store while I was logged out.

Then, let’s do our best while crafting today too!

******

After taking the materials from the store’s warehouse, I spent roughly five hours crafting items.

It seems like the store was able to purchase a considerable amount of high-rank materials from Eku Labyrinth, even if the number of ordinary materials was overwhelmingly larger.

Nonetheless, I first made as much iron gear as I could with the high-rank materials while aiming for items with two Options in them.
I couldn’t guarantee it as it is luck-dependent, but I was still able to make a decent amount with useful Options in them.

I then updated the private section of the blog, that can only be accessed by my acquaintances, to list those out and also sent messages to my acquaintances talking about those items.

The rest of the time was making items with ordinary materials, which ended up having at most one Option in them.

Those were, of course, also luck-dependent, but I end up getting happy with the results of those crafts a lot more often, as getting one good Option in these items is a lot easier than getting two good Options in the items made with premium materials.

That said, there is still some variation on the numbers of items with just one Option in them, so I posted about the best ones on the private section of the blog.
After all, while everyone definitely prefers items with two good Options in them, their supply is still scarce, so it’s not strange to go for items with a single good Option instead.

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In any case, I went to the guild to get the gear I crafted evaluated.
By the time that was done, I had already received some replies from my acquaintances that were interested on the items posted on the private section of the blog.

I reserved the appropriate items for those people, and then put everything else on the normal section of the blog… In the end, I can’t save items for people that don’t reply on a timely manner, so all other good items will be sold at the store normally.

This time, only three iron items that I posted about on the private part of the blog were sold to my acquaintances, so I guess the store will get a fair number of nice items added to its stock.

******

After finishing restocking the store and doing the pre-sales for acquaintances, I now had free time until my log-out time at noon.

While I could use this time to craft more items, I had some other ideas in mind… In particular, I was thinking about disclosing the library information to the members of Works.

Even now, it’s still fairly rare to see player Pioneers in the library, so not even the forums have much information on the usefulness of libraries.

I got a lot of recipes from reading those books, and I don’t exactly want to monopolize this source of information… But at the same time, if I posted about it on the forums, then the library might suddenly end up being crowded all at once, which is something I’d like to avoid.

Of course, combat-oriented player Pioneers don’t need recipes, but the number of crafters has been steadily growing since the game’s launch, I think.

I mean, we don’t have official statistics on that, but I’m sure I’m seeing a lot more stalls now than I used to see in the past, so the number of crafters must have definitely increased.
And having all those new crafters suddenly crowd the library is really something I would rather not have.

Especially because right now, a lot of the player pioneers are selling food, but only a very small variety of dishes.

When I asked Lulu about it, she explained to me that this happens because the ingredients in Frontiers are a bit different than the ones we use at our daily lives.

There are some ingredients that work the same as normal, but they’re only a handful, and they rarely go together in a single recipe.

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Moreover, taste ends up changing even more once you start doing typical cooking methods such as baking, steaming or frying, so even Lulu has a hard time creating sweets without using the game’s recipes… And the situation isn’t that different with other types of dishes.

Because of that, a lot of experimentation must be done in order to make new meals in Frontier… It’s a bit similar to Alchemy in a way, I suppose.
But instead of creating magical potions, you use the magic of the kitchen to create delicious food.

In any case, I’m not a cook.
I never even tried cooking in Frontiers before… In part because it’s a bit scary, but also because I’d rather study new Magical Formations instead of learning how to cook.

Therefore, my capability of satiating my Hunger and Drought in-game depends almost entirely on stalls.
And if I were to disclose the information about the library, many new cooking recipes might end up reaching the people that sell food on stalls, which will increase my overall eating enjoyment on Frontiers.

However, I still don’t want the library to be crowded, nor do I want to disregard Works and disseminate useful information to everyone instead.

After all, I joined Works in part because of the idea that we’d be able to exchange information in a closed environment, so… Let’s try doing that first.

******

“-And that’s how.” I told Lalalu.

“No way… You can actually get recipes at the library? So this is why there is that 10,000nil admission fee…” Lalalu muttered.

“So, Lalalu… I mean, clan master.
How much do you think this information is worth?” I asked her.

“Well, let’s see…” She started pondering.

Before trying to talk to all members of Works at once, I decided to instead talk to Lalalu privately about the library.
It’s important to take those things slowly after all.

“Well, remember when you complained about being unable to find any thread thinner than the beginner ones? How about it?” Lalalu asked me.

“Eh!? You found it!?” I asked back.

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“Only recently though.
I got its recipe as a reward from an NPC’s quest.

“Though well, this much isn’t enough, so…” After Lalalu told me that, she then started sharing some extra information with me.

To be honest, this much already felt plenty though.
This new material was great for doing ‘Add’ like master Merget told me, but Lalalu insisted in sharing more.

… I felt like she gave me too much now.
It’s not fair to her like this, so I decided to tell her about how Discover and Concentration can be useful in the library, since there isn’t much information on the forums on how to use those skills.

******

“Bucket, why don’t we stop here?” Lalalu asked me after heaving a sigh.

“That might be a good idea.” I replied.

Both of us kept on going and going on the information share battle… It was honestly funny to look at this in hindsight, as it happened simply because the two of us didn’t value the information traded in the same way.

If I gave a value of ‘10’ to ‘Information A’, then Lolita gave it a value of ‘12’, so she decided to give some extra information to compensate… Then I did the same, which led to each of us keeping on sharing more and more things with one another.

To think this ended up happening just because me and Lolita did not want to end the conversation while feeling that the other party got the bad end of a deal… If this trade happened with someone else, the conversation would have probably ended after I got the first piece of information that she shared.

“Well, that is that then.
This started with an information shared by you, so I don’t mind if I end up being on the losing end a bit.
Or rather, it’s better if we stop here, I think.” Lalalu said.

“I agree.
I ended up saying some stuff I didn’t intend on talking about, after all, so let’s keep most of this information private.” I replied.

“Yeah… Like, what is that Dark Sword even? I don’t think I wanted to have this kind of information…” Lalalu muttered.

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I could only give a troubled laugh in response to her statement… Due to this information battle of ours, I ended up telling her not only about the Magic Ingots, but also about the amazing sword I crafted with Mika’s materials.

I also ended up learning a lot of information that Lolita had kept secret though, but I guess that’s because the two of us are too alike… That said, I think I too didn’t want to know some of it.

******

“Then, I’ll discuss with everyone about the rewards for sharing information in advance.
Sorry for all the mess today, Bucket.” Lalalu told me.

“Roger that!” I replied.

In order to prevent an information battle like we had today, Lalalu will discuss with everyone about what will be the appropriate level of information to be traded in advance, which will make the process a lot easier… Because trying to exchange information of equal value with one another without advance discussion is too hard.

Still, I entered Works for exactly this kind of thing, so I want to keep trying to make the most out of the clan.

Also, Lolita told me about the plans for the next Joint Collection tour.
We won’t have such luxurious escorts by our side, such as Mika and Hime again, but I’m still looking forward to it.

I’d like it if we could go to the Eku Labyrinth, but the levels of my collection-related skills are still too small, so I’d probably fail too many times and lose the collection points if I went to such a high-level area.

So, for now, I have to steadily raise the level of those skills.
I want to get those high-rank materials, but I also want the skill points… Ah, this is so annoying!

In any case, this discussion will probably lead to an increase in the number of reading companions that I have.
Lolita will distribute the information about the library to everyone on Works first, then after a while she might make a post on the forums talking about it.

Until then though, the regulars of the library will probably be primarily the members of Works… Even if we have yet to obtain permission to enter the library’s second floor, there are still plenty of books to read through in the first floor.

And as my level of Decipher goes up, so will the number of books I can re-read to obtain new recipes, so… I guess I’ll keep on being in the care of the library for a while longer.