"Chicken! I can finally eat chicken again!"
"I heard Giacomo and Linnie will be making desserts now that we have wheats!"
"I thought this place was going to be a nightmare. Turns out it isn't so bad after all!"
These kind of talks resonated through the crowd outside the storage.
They were full of joy due to the bounty obtained from the Weekday Dungeon.
"What useless jerks."
Shanny whispered as she stared at them.
"What's the matter?"
I asked her.
"While Tarran was out there hunting our food and Gary was busy cutting down trees for his workshop, the others just sat and play around. They did nothing!"
"That's not true! They did carry the games back to the portal."
Tarran tried to object.
"A donkey can do that much, Tarran!"
Shanny snapped back.
She clenched her fist.
"Urgh! If only I didn't have to deal with that weird deer, I would've had time to give them a piece of my mind…through my knuckles!"
I gazed back to Jonah.
"Did the same happened to you?"
I asked him since he seemed to have the same opinion.
"Those that came with me did nothing as well. That's why we didn't bring a lot of ores. I had to carry whatever I could find after I slayed the monsters just so we could bring something back."
He told us.
"That's not okay! They should've worked hard like the rest of us!"
Trudy said concernedly.
The little boy suddenly turned uneasy upon our discontent.
"Don't worry, everyone! I'll make sure to keep the storage full! I recently got a 'Gatherer' skill that allows me to enter the Weekday Dungeon twice a day!"
Tarran said trying to calm us down.
Now that was the condition the fairy told us to figure out. Apparently a certain skill was needed to enter the Weekday Dungeon more than once in a day.
It was great that Tarran had this skill.
Even so.
"But we can't just rely on you. There're too many of us to feed. And we're only talking about the food supply here. There're still materials for weapons and potions we need to gather."
I said to the boy.
"Perhaps Miss Pauline and Mister Gerrits could help! Like yesterday."
He suggested.
"We can't keep relying on them either. They have their own jobs to worry about."
Gerrits and the craftsmen as well as Pauline and the cooks had their duties in the lobby, which already took up most of their time.
They should not be bothered to collect materials in the first place.
On the other hand, I also believed those of us in Party 1 should not frequent the Weekday Dungeon.
Jonah, Shanny, and I needed to focus on our training. Not to mention, I was also busy doing research and preparing potions in the magic hall.
All for the sake of climbing the tower.
We could not keep putting off our important routine just to collect materials.
If the others would not cooperate, it would make things difficult once master resumed our climb.
Master surely had seen the others' behavior in the Weekday Dungeon.
They needed to do something to solve this matter.
"Haa…"
I sighed upon our current predicament.
"What should we do, Serafina?"
Trudy asked.
"Leave things be for now. We'll see how master deals with it first. If things don't change when master starts calling us to the trial again, then we'll think of something."
I told them.
Shingg…
Right at the end of my sentence, I caught a glimpse of a shining pouch in the storage. It was exuding with magical energy.
I hurriedly walked up to the pouch and examined it.
Kept inside the pouch was a glowing blue stone. It was the water elemental stone we obtained yesterday in the plateau.
But that was not what caught my attention.
The reason I went for this pouch in the first place was because it was shining with various color, like a rainbow.
Located inside the pouch alongside the water elemental stone were another two glowing stones. One was green in color and the other was red.
"Wind and fire elemental stones?! When did we obtain these?"
I looked to my comrades.
Jonah and Shanny raised their eyebrows upon the sight of the stones. They seemed to know why those rocks were in the storage.
"I found the green one after killing off this giant weird-looking deer in the Kendert Forest."
Shanny said.
"And I found the red one after slaughtering the huge snake in the Isralta Mine."
Jonah said. He continued.
"You told us to look for the glowing stone from the giant wolf in the plateau. So I figured this was the same kind."
"I thought so too."
Shanny added.
Finally, another good news.
Having obtained all of the elemental stones, I could begin working on creating enchantment stones.
It was nice to have figured out where we could find each elemental stone too.
"Good work you two! Well then, I'll be taking these to the magic hall and--"
[No, you won't, witch!]
The fairy suddenly appeared in front of us.
She extended her hand to the pouch.
[Hand the elemental stones over! Master's order!]
"Master? Why would they need these stones?"
I asked.
[Just hand them over!]
She insisted.
Given that master was ordering it, I refused to object and turned the pouch over to the fairy.
The winged-creature then vanished into thin air with the pouch.
"What was that all about?"
Trudy asked.
None of us could give an answer.
There was still so much about the forged land that we did not know yet.
But apparently master had the need for the elemental stones.
Flash.
The synthesis building by the square suddenly lit up with great light.
Once the light dissipated, another story had been added on top of it.
"The synthesis chamber. It's gotten bigger!"
Tarran spoke out.
"But why? What's more to the synthesis chamber than synthesis?"
Jonah asked.
"Maybe master expanded it so they could synthesize more people at a time."
Shanny said with a smile as she gazed at the crowd outside.
I turned to my comrades to address this matter.
"Well, aside from the changes with the synthesis building, since master had taken the elemental stones, we need to restock them. We will aim to collect the stones whenever we enter the Weekday Dung--"
[Kyaa!!! A success!!!]
The fairy suddenly reappeared in the storage, looking all excited.
This time she had this rainbow-colored stone with her. No sign of the elemental stones she took.
"What is that you got in your hand, warden?"
I asked the fairy.
With a proud look, she raised the rainbow stone for all of us to see.
[Heh! This is one of the most important item you'll ever see. It's a promotion stone!]
"Promotion stone?"
Jonah repeated with a frown.
[It's an item that can turn a worthless 1-star hero like you into a 2-star.]