Frontiers ~Chronicles of Bucket-san’s Detailed Pioneering~ - Chapter 119 – Isn’t this bad?

“Bucket, we got a new recipe!” One of the fighters exclaimed.

“Roger, roger.” I replied.

Even if strong mobs were now appearing from the giant crystal, the superiority of the battle team led by Mika seems to be unwavering so far.

This is probably because we are distributing Sacred Silver equipment with priority to the stronger members.

Of course, quite a few other people want it too, but there is a minimum skill level required in order to wield it, and only the top combat-focused Pioneers have cleared those pre-requisites, so it’s not possible to deliver those items to everyone, even if we had enough time and materials to craft a large amount of them.

In fact, we haven’t even delivered the Sacred Silver to everyone that can wield it right now… However, we did deliver it to plenty of people.

Usually speaking, this would have been impossible due to how long it takes to make steel-tier gear, but this time I have three assistants, so the process is going much faster.

The part that takes the longest when making steel-tier equipment is to process all the intermediate-tier materials after all, and my assistants are doing a great job at that.

“Dummy Divine Goblet? What’s that!?” An assistant exclaimed.

“Oh? The Divine Goblet?” I said.

“Do you know of it, Bucket?” Another assistant asked.

“I made one for an NPC quest the other day.” I replied.

“For real!?” The third assistant exclaimed.

“This one is a dummy though… Well, I think there should be no problems regardless.” I said.

“Then we’ll handle the intermediate-tier materials and leave the goblet to you!” One assistant told me.

“Sure!” I replied.

The Dummy Divine Goblet seems to be the only recipe dropped by the strong mobs.

The small fries dropped quite a few recipes for strong items, so I wonder if that was in preparation for the goblet stage? To let us handle what would come in this part?

However, there is no altar to use it… What do we do then?

“I finished my portion of the materials!” One assistant exclaimed.

“I’m also done!” The second one said.

“Same here!” The third one told me.

“Then it’s my turn.” I replied.

It was fast because we split up the production.

Also, the Dummy Divine Goblet is easier to make than the actual Divine Goblet. The former also requires less materials than the latter.

I guess it is because it is a dummy?

But thanks to that, the production speed has increased, which is a good thing.

******

“Something suddenly appeared on the outer circumference!” One of the fighters said.

“Did we move to the next stage!?” Another one exclaimed.

“What’s happening!? Is it a raid boss!?” A third one asked.

“No! Apparently it is an altar of sorts!? What even is this!?” A fourth one answered.

Seems like a change occurred after we finished making the first Dummy Divine Goblet.

The altars suddenly appearing means that we should use the goblets on them for sure, but… They’re appearing on the outer circumference of the giant crystal? That’s kinda far from where the facilities and tools are.

Fortunately though, it’s not only the creator that can use the Dummy Divine Goblet. Differently from the actual Divine Goblet.

“A total of twelve altars have spawned! We need to use the Dummy Divine Goblets on them!

“One of the goblets has already been finished!” Mika told everyone.

“The strong mobs are heading to the altars!” One of her party members said.

“Defend them with all your might, everyone! This should be the crucial moment, so don’t hold back now!” Mika exclaimed.

With Mika’s instructions, people quickly started moving to defend the altars.

However, because of that, the number of people protecting us, the crafters, have inevitably decreased.

That said, the strong mobs seem to have been split into groups. Some going after us and some going after the altars, so we won’t necessarily be overwhelmed by their numbers.

… Except that the giant crystal started spawning mobs even faster than before.

As Mika said, this is probably the crucial moment.

We still have to make eleven more Dummy Divine Goblets, and we need to keep on replacing the event equipment whose durability is steadily decreasing.

It would be quite troublesome if we lost the powerful event equipment here, and I’m the only one that can make Sacred Silver gear.

However, the goblets will receive priority from now on. We can’t finish this otherwise.

The battle team probably thought the same, as Mika has already sent me a message and told me to prioritize the goblets.

Both the battle team and the production team are at a critical moment, but the transportation team also seems to be in trouble.

Because the battle team has dispersed itself to defend the altars. It is hard to properly deliver the crafted items now.

And the strong mobs can break through the defense if we take too long…

Well, I have to give priority to making the Dummy Divine Goblets! There are eleven more to go!

******

“Team 4 finished activating it!” One fighter said.

“Team 6 is also done!” Another one said.

“Three more places left! Start moving forward everyone! Keep only a small defense force behind!” Mika exclaimed.

The Dummy Divine Goblets are being used first on the altars near the facilities, then going to the farther away altars as we progress.

It’s becoming harder and harder to deliver them as they need to be carried to farther altars…

In any case, once a goblet is used on an altar, it starts sending a bright beam of light towards the giant crystal at the center

Three more altars left.

We already finished making all twelve goblets, so we went back to making Sacred Silver equipment, so we finished our part here.

The problem is on the battle team… The strong mobs seem to lose interest on the altars once they are lit up, and then they start focusing only on the remaining unlit altars.

So, right now, there is a huge crowd of monsters trying to destroy the last altars, and there isn’t much of a way to proceed forward and put the last goblets in place without leaving only a minimal defense force behind.

“Team 10 is done!” One fighter reported.

“Two more places to go! Keep it up, everyone!” Mika exclaimed.

However, we’re talking about the top combat-focused Pioneers, who are being led by Mika.

So far, the number of Pioneers who died in this battle can be counted in one hand, so we could say that this special event battle is proceeding smoothly.

We are definitely on a good pace, even if we did suffer some damage.

Though when considering who are the people here, then the other gates are probably suffering a larger amount of damage than we are.

Assuming that the event is progressing on the same way in all gates, that is.

“Here you go! Delivery finished!” One person on the transport team delivered an item to Mika.

“Leave it to me! Let’s go, everyone!” Mika exclaimed.

“Ooh!” The fighters exclaimed together.

The strong mobs are swarming the points farthest from our location, so the transportation team had trouble reaching there, but they finished their delivery now.

This was quite important, as the durability of everyone’s items should be pretty low at this moment. Even the Sacred Silver items, which have a fairly high durability, must be at their limit.

If their items end up breaking, then the battle team won’t be able to maintain the frontline.

Even we were forcibly involved on the battle, I think everyone seems to be enjoying this rare opportunity to work together on the final battle of the event.

It’s nice to go wild every now and then, I guess.

******

“Team 12 is finished! Look! The light!” Mika exclaimed.

The Dummy Divine Goblet finally reached the last altar.

The twelve pillars of light concentrated their attack on the giant crystal, and the entire field area started being enveloped in this warm light.

The strong mobs that still remained in large quantities started disappearing as they were exposed to the light as well.

Is this the end? Did we win?

“Ah…” Was the only thing I could say.

Seems like my last thoughts were actually a red flag.

“Prepare for combat!” Mika exclaimed.

On the moment that the giant crystal was shattered by the light, an enormous shadow spawned from within it, and it started swallowing the very light that broke the crystal.

What was in front of us was the Shadow Lord.

Seems like this is the final battle.

“Everyone, focus on defense! Especially of the crafting team! If the supply of equipment stops now, then we’ll collapse!” Mika told everyone.

As soon as the Shadow Lord appeared, a gigantic number of event mobs spawned all at once, and they all seemed to be rushing towards us.

However, almost everyone of the battle team was around the farthest altar, so it’s basically impossible for them to reach us in time.

It would be nice if we could compete only with the current powerful equipment we have, but most of those items will probably run out of durability soon.

Mika’s instructions did make the defense team near us try to hold the line, but the majority of the fighters were too far away to help.

“Isn’t this bad?” One of my assistants muttered.

“Will we have to fight…?” Another one said.

“Against that…!?” The third one said.

“It’s impossible, isn’t it.” I replied.

It’s not that all people on the crafting team can’t fight. Some people actually moved forward and joined the defense team, even if temporarily.

But to most of us it’s just impossible.

“Transportation team! Take as much of it as you can and run! This place is lost!” One of my assistants exclaimed.

“B-but-!” One of the people on transport started replying.

“It’s alright!” I told that person.

It just can’t be helped… Guess we’re all dying here.

Still, we have to deliver as much as we can to the combat team. At least what we were able to make so far.

We’re also almost done making a new Sacred Silver item, so why not keep at it until we die here?

“I never thought I’d die while crafting.” One of my assistants said.

“I know, right?” I replied.

“But as the production team, I just can’t help wanting to keep at it until the very end.” Another assistant said.

“We certainly won’t have another opportunity like this again, so we might as well.” The third assistant commented.

Seems like all three of us have the same opinion.

We kept on working on this final item while glancing at the wave of approaching event mobs.