Chapter 14
After filling our stomachs, we sat at an outdoor café in the village, sipping drinks.
I remembered that the eastern continent sold fruit-flavored sodas with unique tastes, so I suggested it. Ned seemed to like it—he was already on his second glass.
Overall, Ned seemed very satisfied with Uneria’s food. Elde felt the same.
—Even the food on the surface isn’t bad.
He picked at it like he was barely avoiding garbage, yet his hands moved so quickly it was impressive.
Ned watched Elde happily eat in silence.
That expression of his when he’s serious is terrifying.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the paulownia coffin…!
“…How do you make a resurrection potion?”
Now that Ned knew the truth(?), he asked.
Judging from his expression, he was worried because his dragon had died—a newbie with a kind heart.
“The process is a bit complicated…” I said.
“I still really want to make it.”
He spoke so earnestly that I couldn’t just fly off to another village to grind the main story.
Elde’s speed was too fast to ride him around just to make a potion, but we still needed Ned to be mobile in case anything happened.
“Then let’s make the potion first. There are about ten ingredients, seven of which come from just fighting monsters. The other three are trickier to obtain, and the process has a high failure rate.”
That part could be handled with sheer effort. I opened the map and shared it with Ned.
“You can get four ingredients in the east, three in the south, raise favor with two southern NPCs to get two more, and we’ll think about the last one later…”
“Favor…”
Ned frowned seriously, thinking.
He seemed to be genuinely considering how to get along with NPCs.
“It’s fine. The NPC selling that ingredient isn’t too cautious. Feed them ten or so of the potion, and it’ll work.”
The “friend potion” was what players called Lavis—a drink NPCs loved.
It had no other use besides raising favor, so most players called it that.
“…Potion?”
“Yes. If the NPC is cautious, giving them seven potions while doing a quest will make the quest go smoothly.”
Did I still have the Lavis ingredients in my inventory?
I checked while digging through my inventory, and Ned’s face beyond the semi-transparent window looked strangely tense.
He seemed wary of me.
“Why…”
Had I said something wrong?
When I closed the inventory, I realized what had happened.
By casually saying to feed them potions, it sounded like I was some kind of criminal…
“…I’m not a weird person.”
I tried to reassure him, but Ned’s expression didn’t change.
An awkward silence fell. I scratched my cheek and tapped the table.
“If we’re done, shall we go?”
Ned quietly set his drink down instead of answering.
You’re not thinking I spiked it, right?
I didn’t! I didn’t! You didn’t hear that from me!
Of course, every NPC had a different personality.
Uneria’s NPC favor system was unusually detailed.
There was even a joke that it was less of an RPG and more of a dating sim.
Each NPC had different ways to gain favor, but the cheat was always Lavis.
It was expensive for newbies to make, but extremely effective.
Ned flinched every time he saw NPCs soften after receiving Lavis.
I doubt he’ll drink the potion I gave him in the future… right?
“If you use the ‘Potion Production’ skill…”
I had mastered this skill from mass-producing Lavis.
Yes, you could make a resurrection potion with it, but Ned would produce higher quality potions.
In Uneria, all crafting skills were tied to the character’s “Focus” stat.
Still, I could see the ingredients in my skill window…
“Huh?”
I rubbed my eyes.
The last ingredient I remembered for the resurrection potion was “Sacred Flame of the Central Continent.”
It was basically a cheesy lore setup to collect the continent’s energy and revive a dead dragon—but now, strangely, it was something else entirely.
[Sky Energy 0/1]
Sky Energy… I knew this. It was a famous… junk item.
When the eastern continent was updated, players hoarded hundreds of them to look impressive in their inventory.
But they had no use, so when people asked, the answer was just that it was junk—a legendary non-legendary item.
It had been updated alongside dragon content, but after a new scenario writer took over, it faded into obscurity.
“Looks like they touched years-old dragon content.”
Judging from this, maybe dragons would have a role in the new main story.
I’ve played Uneria for years, so my instincts were sharp.
“First, we need to head to the far east.”
I nudged little Elde, who was dozing on my shoulder.
He gave me a brief, disobedient look, then quickly grew to full size.
—Another destination?
“The far east of the continent.”
I gestured to Ned from Elde’s back.
He looked at Elde’s unhappy face and slightly nodded.
“Then excuse me.”
—This guy has some manners.
He didn’t know whose sword had burned him earlier, yet he spoke politely.
“Uh—”
—Whoosh!
I tried to warn Elde about the harsh reality, but as soon as Ned mounted, Elde shot into the sky at top speed.
I almost bit my tongue.
Usually, difficult-to-get items meet at least one of these conditions:
The monsters where it drops are strong.
The drop rate is extremely low.
It’s hidden at the end of a long dungeon.
Only certain raid bosses with multi-hour respawn times drop it.
Uneria had many such items.
Maybe to increase player concurrency, they never fixed these complaints.
Even skilled crafting players sometimes offered paid services to craft for others because it was tricky.
That meant having ingredients wasn’t enough.
You had to dodge failure chances and pass mini-games with high scores during crafting to make the item.
The mini-games were sometimes unrelated to crafting, like darts.
This was why resurrection potions were so notorious.
Even though the ingredients were relatively easy, the multiple crafting steps and high mini-game score made it challenging.
For experienced players, one or two failures were fine—but newbies usually prepared three sets of ingredients just in case.
It wasn’t stressful. Or so I thought—until Sky Energy became the ingredient.
We didn’t even know it was a trap and spent half a day searching the eastern continent lightly.
After all, the previous ingredient, Sacred Flame, wasn’t hard to get either.
Finally, we found how to get it…
“It’s in this box.”
Ned handled the NPC-given box with awe, his eyes completely pure.
But my Uneria instincts screamed not to trust it.
Usually, boxes in Uneria…
“You can obtain it at a very low probability.”
I almost grabbed NPC Deia by the collar.
Yes, it felt familiar!
Not even a cash shop—just a random box inside the game! A gambling item!
“The resurrection potion ingredient is a kit?”
This was insane.
I flew across the continent just to open this kit?
I slammed the table in frustration.
“What’s a kit?”
Ned asked seriously. I looked at him with pity—he had no idea about Uneria’s dark side.
“Simply put, it’s gambling. Usually a box, and when used, it randomly gives one item from a few hundred possibilities.”
“…Random?”
“Yes.”
I wiped my face dry.
“In other words, we have to keep opening kits until Sky Energy appears.”
“Even if we get an item once, does it keep appearing?”
Ned asked calmly. I nodded.
“Yes.”
That was the cruelty of kits. Even if unwanted items piled up, you had to sift through them to get the one you wanted.
“So, what’s the drop rate for Sky Energy?”
Ned asked. NPC Deia pulled a long scroll from the counter, as if waiting for this moment.
—Flutter!
On the scroll, dozens of junk items were listed, like “leaves rolling on the ground.”
At the very end, in a small corner, was:
[Sky Energy – 1.93%]
“Wow.”
I ground my teeth at the absurd probability, and Ned flinched slightly.
Could it really be this low? I looked at him.
