Chapter 63: Butchering the bear

I opened the Daily Equipment Shop again.

Six F-tier items appeared.

But this time, I wasn’t hunting for E-tier items. I was specifically looking for knives or daggers that could be used as tools to butcher the bear.

At the moment, we only had two knives with the [Butchering Lv.1] skill. I wanted to find enough tools so that all six goblins could work on the carcass at the same time.

That meant we needed four more knives.

They didn’t all have to come with the Butchering skill, though. Even ordinary knives would do the job just fine.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t a single knife in the current shop rotation.

I still had my free Daily Equipment Shop refresh for the day, and I could probably afford another two, maybe three, refreshes using Points if necessary.

But given how utterly terrible my luck tended to be, there was a very real possibility that I would burn through all those refreshes and still fail to find enough knives.

Please... please, Gacha God, give me a knife!

I prayed a total of five times for good luck.

After all, some kind of ritual, or at least a sincere prayer, was absolutely necessary whenever you were about to gacha, right?

But just as I was about to press the refresh button, an idea suddenly popped into my head.

Hold on... Wait a minute...

Do I even need a knife in the first place?

To test my theory, I bought an F-tier bone spear from the shop and handed it to Gopuro.

"Hey! Puro!" I called out.

"Yes? Big Boss?"

The goblin dude looked up at me after receiving the spear.

"Please break this spear into a knife."

"Eh?"

Gopuro tilted his head in confusion.

Then his gaze fell upon the massive chunks of bear carcass I had just taken out of my inventory.

"Ooooh!" he exclaimed, his eyes lighting up. "Big Boss, you need knife for butchering?"

"Wait... since when did you get this smart?"

"Heyy!!! What do you mean? I’m always smart!!!" Gopuro immediately protested.

Nearby, Gopuran giggled.

"Anyway, let’s just do it."

Gopuro laid the spear across his legs and grabbed the shaft with both hands. Then, with all his strength, he bent it sharply.

CRACK!

The wooden shaft snapped cleanly.

The long spear was reduced to a short handle and a sharp bone tip, essentially turning it into a crude but perfectly usable makeshift knife.

I immediately checked the spear’s description again.

And...

Voilà!

It had changed!

[Broken Spear Tip]

Rank: F

Description: The tip of a broken spear. Can be used as a knife.

Effect: None

Special Effect: Grants the user the skill [Backstab Lv.1]

****

IT WORKED!

The broken spear had lost one point of ATK because of the damage, but that was hardly important. As long as it could cut meat, it was good enough.

Now came the moment of truth.

"Gopuro, use the spear tip and try to butcher the bear!"

"Yes! Big boss!"

Gopuro immediately moved toward the carcass, crouched down, and began cutting into the thick hide with the sharp bone tip.

And to my surprise, it worked perfectly well.

A few seconds later, he suddenly perked up. He turned toward me, raised one hand, and gave me a big thumbs-up accompanied by a bright, toothy grin.

"HELL YEAH!"

I felt like a genius.

Who needed knives when you had a System that apparently treated broken weapons as completely different items?

And so, using my free refresh and one more paid refresh, I managed to obtain two more bone knives and one more bone spear.

This time, I figured I didn’t need to go as far as breaking the spear. Simply removing the tip and attaching it to a short wooden handle was more than enough to turn it into a perfectly usable tool.

Then, if I needed the spear again, I could just reassemble it.

Now that everyone had their own tools, we could finally get to work.

I created the necessary quests, offering each goblin a reward of 10 Powerstones upon completion. With a tangible reward waiting for them, the six goblins immediately threw themselves into the task with renewed enthusiasm.

They worked surprisingly fast.

Their hands moved constantly as they cut, sliced, and separated the various parts of the massive carcass. Before long, my inventory began filling up with meat, fat, bones, and other useful materials.

Later, while they were still busy butchering the bear, I reopened the Daily Equipment Shop.

There was something else that had caught my attention during the previous refresh.

"Hehe... what a find!"

Apparently, that paid refresh had given me an E-tier weapon.

A shield!

From the preview, it looked like a heavy heater-style shield made of dark iron. I couldn’t help wondering just how large it would be once I actually took it out of my inventory.

[Big Iron Shield]

Type: Armor

Rarity: E

Description: A big shield made from iron. Very heavy, but exceptionally strong and durable.

Effect: +2 ATK, +3 DEF

Special Effect: Grants the holder the skill [Shield Charge Lv.1]

[Shield Charge Lv.1]

Type: Active

Description: Charge forward while holding your shield, ramming into enemies with great force.

Effect: Deals physical damage and knocks back enemies in your path. Has a chance to stun on impact.

Mana Cost: 10 MP

Cooldown: 20 seconds

Cost: 90 Points

Needless to say, this was practically the perfect item for Gopugiga!

The big guy was already the strongest and tankiest among my citizens. Giving him a massive iron shield with a charge skill would turn him into an absolute frontline monster.

Yep. This is definitely going to him.

Now that I knew an E-tier item from the Daily Equipment Shop could appear for around 90 Points, I could finally compare that with the cost of creating one through my [Item Combination] tab.

It required 10 F-tier weapons plus a 50-Point fee to create a single E-tier item.

So, if I could get lucky and pull an E-tier directly from the shop, that was obviously the better deal. The problem was that the chance was only 5% per refresh.

I couldn’t rely on luck alone.

Instead, I should buy F-tier equipment whenever I had spare Points. Even if I didn’t need something immediately, I could always combine the leftovers later.

More importantly, having a stockpile of equipment would keep me from running into situations like this again, where I suddenly needed a specific tool and had nothing suitable on hand.

Right now, I didn’t just need more Points.

I needed gear.

All six of my citizens needed proper equipment, and I wanted to get them geared up as quickly as possible.