[The dwarf blacksmith looked at you approvingly. "You made a wise choice. A weapon really is an adventurer's most essential possession. I have three ready-made weapon molds here. You can choose one."]
The three options were [Mithril Hammer], [Mithril Sword], and [Mithril Bow].
There was even less reason to hesitate over this one. Mithril Bow!
[The dwarf blacksmith took a thunder snake tendon out of his storeroom. This was one of the bowstring materials required to forge a mithril bow, and would give its arrows a paralysis effect upon hitting a target. Since this was your first time commissioning an item at his shop, the blacksmith offered to provide the thunder snake tendon for free. However, you must still pay 10 years of lifespan as the forging fee. Pay now?]
"Ten years, huh..."
Mu You rubbed his chin.
The dwarf had thrown in an extra material, but the forging itself cost ten years of lifespan. Honestly, that was a little steep... Still, it was cheaper than buying a weapon straight from a shop.
When he thought of the weapons in the shop that easily cost over a hundred years of lifespan, paying just ten years now didn't seem so hard to accept.
"Pay!"
[You accepted the dwarf's quote. Lifespan -10. Remaining lifespan: 48 years.] [The dwarf escorted you out of the smithy, then took your mithril into his workshop...]
The text stopped there.
Mu You tried tapping to enter the smithy again, only for a notification to pop up.
[Forging will take at least ten hours. Please wait patiently...]
"Ten hours. Looks like I won't get it until this afternoon..."
Mu You let out a breath.
He had used up his last point of action energy and was about to log off, but another notification popped up in the game.
[As you leave the smithy, you suddenly see an owl swoop down from the sky, land on your shoulder, and place the parcel held in its beak into your hands.] [You open the parcel. Inside is a brand-new Star Spirit Dictionary.]
"Oh? My delivery's here!"
Mu You perked up. The game text earlier that morning had said the delivery would arrive within twenty-four hours, but it had come in less than eight. And it really had been delivered straight into his hands, without any fuss.
Owl couriers really were reliable!
Mu You tapped the "Owl" entry and gave it a five-star review from the options that appeared.
Only then did he tap "Star Spirit Dictionary."
A thick hardcover book appeared in Mu You's hands. Its dark blue cover was covered in ornate runes. He opened it to find the pages packed with all kinds of star spirit script symbols.
Whenever Mu You looked at the star spirit script in the book, however, the corresponding Chinese translation automatically appeared in his mind.
"A fully automatic dictionary that translates straight into my mind?"
Mu You stared at the writing in the book with a strange expression, once again gaining a profound appreciation for the wonders of magic.
Next, Mu You fetched some paper and a pen and began diligently studying the book from the first page.
Memorization had never been his strong suit. On top of that, the symbols of the star spirit language had such abstract structures, somewhat like a combination of Arabic and Greek-both widely regarded as among the hardest languages on Earth to learn.
Arabic had unique and complex word-formation rules, with a single root capable of producing several words with identical forms. Greek, meanwhile, was famous for its bizarre combinations of syllables and rich inflectional structures. Even reading it aloud in full posed a tremendous challenge to the tongue.
The star spirit language took things even further, combining the characteristics of both. Its level of obscurity far surpassed that of any existing human language!
It was easy to imagine what a merciless slaughter of brain cells it would be for someone with no grounding in the star spirit language to force themselves to learn it from scratch.
Fortunately, his increased intelligence stat had noticeably improved Mu You's comprehension and memory, greatly speeding up his memorization. That was the only reason he hadn't given up right at the start.
Even so, it took him a full ten hours just to get a basic grasp of the language's structure and recognize all thirty-seven fundamental symbols.
In short, he could finally understand the dictionary's root index...
By the time he finished, Mu You was practically moved to tears. Ten hours, and all he had managed was to learn how to use the dictionary. That alone showed just how high the barrier to learning this language was.
After a wry smile, Mu You opened the game and retrieved the Night Watchman's Diary.
After a whole day of painstaking study, it was finally time to put his progress to the test.
Laying both books open on his desk, Mu You fetched some paper and a pen and began translating the diary word by word.
"January 3. Clear."
"Today was my first time working as a Night Watchman. The village was pitch-black at night. Without the Pumpkin Lantern lighting my way, I wouldn't have dared go outside. I kept feeling as though something in the surrounding darkness was watching me..."
Judging by the dates, the diary's owner seemed to have become a Night Watchman only half a year earlier.
The first few entries were somewhat longer, but they were no different from an elementary school student's rambling essays. They mostly described some trivial incident he had encountered on his nightly rounds, making the details sound terrifying, only to discover in the end that he had simply scared himself.
After translating seven or eight pages in a row without anything happening, Mu You completely lost patience. He simply flipped to the last page and decided to translate backward from there.
That reversal immediately brought him a pleasant surprise!
The final page was dated June 17. If the dates in the two worlds matched as well, that would have been exactly one week ago.
Mu You looked at the diary entry.
"June 17. Overcast."
"Lately, I've been hearing strange sounds, as though someone is calling to me for help..."
"At first, I didn't pay much attention. I thought I was just hallucinating from overwork..."
"Until tonight, when I reached the graveyard outside the village on my patrol. The voice that had been so faint and intermittent suddenly rang out deafeningly beside my ear: 'Help... someone help me... Master... save me...'"
"I tried to communicate with the voice, asking whether it was buried in one of the graves. But the owner of the voice told me it was a wizard's familiar. It had accidentally become separated from its master, been swept away by a strange turbulent current, and ended up somewhere completely unfamiliar."
"I asked where it had ended up, and its answer left me utterly baffled."
"It said it was in a steel jungle filled with towering buildings, with Fools everywhere nearby... There were also lots of iron boxes roaring along the roads... The iron boxes swallowed the Fools, then started running..."
Huh???
Mu You stared, stunned.
He had been enjoying it as a short mystery story, but why had the plot suddenly veered in such a strange direction?
Fools... that meant humans, right?
Then "towering buildings, a steel jungle, Fools everywhere"... did that mean it was in some human city?
And those "iron boxes" that "swallowed the Fools, then started running"... could it be talking about cars?
So did this mean a pet from the magical world had somehow wandered onto Earth?
Before you continue