Balthazar’s groggy eyestalks jolted awake as he realized his precious gold bar was gone. Jumping onto his eight legs with a start, the crab looked around frantically, searg for the missing ingot.

  “No, no, no…” he mumbled, lifting his backpack to check the ground under. “Where is it?!”

  The mert had no she of curren his Bag of Holding Money, but no matter how much gold he owhe simple possibility of any of it going missing terrified him.

  And seeing his only ingot of gold disappear felt like an irreparable loss.

  He had grown incredibly attached to his treasure in the less than one day he had ow. To say nothing of how hard he had worked to acquire it—by stumbling upon it in an abae room.

  Balthazar had earhat bar of gold by nearly getting his shell crushed to keep it. He was not going to let it slip between his pincers.

  How could a heavy bar of solid gold just vanish from my side like this?

  The crab’s eyes rolled up to the sky. Instinctively, his suspis went to the damnable birds. Usually when things went missing around his pond it was always the work of one of them, swooping down to pilfer his belongings like the pests they are.

  No, it would have to be a massive bird to fly away with a solid gold ingot. It would whip up a windstorm just trying to take off. We would have noticed it.

  Then his eyes went down to the ground. Maybe ants?

  Balthazar had always known ants were incredibly strong when enough of them got together. They could carry weights several times their own. But what use would ants have fold?

  The mert began to envision imaginary sarios where an ant stumbled upon a mysterious scroll and gained access to the world’s system. With its unlocked potential, the little a on to find that s could be exged fary pastries too, and then taught its whole y to seek out gold.

  Nah, that sounds ridiculous. The crab thought, shaking his shell in denial.

  While looking around for clues, Balthazar realized some bushes behind his sleeping spot were slightly trampled, and the tree branches behind them were broken. Someone had passed through there.

  He looked over at his panions. They were still asleep, save for Bouldy, who was far off in the distance, holding Pebbles in his palm and showihe white flowers that poputed the side of the road.

  The crab hesitated for a moment.

  No. You’re a big crab, Balthazar. You ’t be using your friends for everything every time. Handle something on your own for once.

  Telling himself he was more than capable of following a trail without someone holding his pihe scowling crusta put on his big crab backpad headed into the woods to follow his missing gold.

  Whoever had taken it was clearly clumsy, leaving such a messy trail of broken branches and trampled vegetation in their wake.

  I swear, it better not be some fresh-faced advehinking I’m some lootable crab-bag!

  Pig up on some noisy movement ahead, Balthazar skittered faster, eager to get his precious property back.

  “Stht there, criminal scum!” the crab excimed as he jumped out of the tall underbrush and onto a clearing.

  “Huh?!” a gruff voice burst out in surprise.

  A big, lumbering creature turo face him. It was rger than any regur human, its skin was lumpy and nearly gray, and it wore simple animal furs that left its bulging muscles exposed.

  Betweerands of untamed coarse hair that fell over its face, the creature had one single rge eye above its nose.

  The crab’s monocle was still safely stored in his backpack, where it couldn’t actally break like the st one, but he did not to know what he was looking at.

  It was a cyclops. And a young o that.

  “Who you?” it asked, cradling a solid bar of gold in its brutish hand.

  Balthazar paused, surprised to find such a hulking creature to be the one who pilfered his treasure.

  “I’m the owner of that ingot you just took!” he finally responded, putting as much authority as he could muster into his voice. “Who do you think you are?!”

  Big or not, the mert was not about to just let someoake his precious gold and do nothing about it.

  “Me?” the cyclops said, raising its unibrow in genuine fusion while pointing a meaty fi himself. “Me Brontus. Hello.”

  “Well, uh… I’m Balthazar,” the crab said, taken aback by the apparent simpleness of his foe’s mind. “Now give me back my ingot!”

  The creature’s unibrow suddenly turned into a heavy frown as he pulled back the arm that was cradling the ingot. “No! Me find ingot. Me take ingot!”

  Balthazar’s eyestalks formed a frown of his own.

  “You didn’t ‘find’ anything,” he excimed, pointing an accusatory cw at the cyclops. “You stole it from me!”

  Brontus’s expressive frown turned into genuine surprise again.

  “Me did? Me think crab was just sleepio ingot.”

  The annoyed crusta groaned.

  “And I was! I was sleepio my ingot.”

  The big oaf looked at the crab and then back at the gold in his hand, blinking his eye like someoruggling to make sense of something.

  “If ingot yours then why me has ingot?”

  Balthazar exhaled sharply. Nothing wore out his patience faster than someorying to swindle him on gold matters.

  That was his own signature move, after all.

  “Listen here, bucko,” the crab started, skittering closer to the cyclops while wagging his pincer. “That metal you’re holding there is mine. I ear with the steam off my shell, so give it back before I get even more upset.”

  Brontus took a step back from the mert, looking somewhat intimidated—or at least uain on how to react to a giant talking crab moving up to him.

  “No!” the one-eyed bandit excimed, pulling his hands away. “Me his! You snooze, you lose! Ingot mine now!”

  “Why, you little…” the fuming crusta said, grinding his mouth parts. “Give it here!”

  Balthazar reached up with his pincers, trying to snatch the gold, but the cyclops was too tall for him.

  The creature started to chortle as it watched the crab give little hops and wave his cws in vain, all while keeping the ingot well above his reach.

  “Hehehe, you is small,” said the ughing oaf.

  Balthazar stopped jumping and groaned in anger. “Argh, I oughta just…”

  Making a rash decision, the crab brought up his list of skills. He had not yet found an opportunity to try out his Mega Pinch teique since he lear from Captain Leander, and he figured the simpleton who had dared to take his stuff would make for a perfect first target.

  Since Mega Pinch still required 2th to use, which he did not have, Balthazar activated his other new skill first.

  [fident in petence]

  [Skill - A tier]

  [Requirements: 60 CHA]

  [Cooldown: 1 day]

  [What you may proper qualifications to do a job, you make up for with exceptional self-fideemporarily verts the highest attribute requirement of the skill you activate into a Charisma requirement of the same level + 25.]

  After that, he selected the altered attack skill.

  [Mega Pinch]

  [Skill - A tier]

  [Requirements: 20 STR 45 CHA]

  [Cost: 30 mana]

  [For 60 seds, your pinch will carry unbreakable force, making it physically impossible to disrupt its grasp.]

  “Take this!”

  The crab’s right cw began to glow white with power, a vibrating hum ing off of it as he pulled his arm back.

  The cyclops’s snickering suddenly stopped.

  “Huh?!”

  With fear in his eye, Brontus turned away to flee, the golden ingot still held tight against his chest.

  But Balthazar would not let the thief of his treasure get away so easily.

  The crab jumped up and, with a thrust forward that cut through the air like a sharp ks through a freshly baked pie, closed his mighty pincer on the cyclops’s shoulder.

  “Owie!” Brontus cried out. “Stop it!”

  “Give. Me. Back. My. Property!” the attack crab said between vigorous shakes and yanks from the hulking creature.

  “You tickle me! Stop it!”

  “I won’t stop until—Wait, what do you mean, it tickles?!” Balthazar said, piill firmly cmped onto his victim’s trapezius muscle.

  Looking at the system’s text, he saw the result of his special attack.

  [1 damage dealt!]

  “What the…”

  Baffled, the crab tried to let go of the cyclops’s shoulder, but his cw would not respond to his and to open.

  “The hell is happening?!” excimed the mert, hanging from the other creature’s back. “Let me go!”

  “No, you let me go, crab!” Brontus yelled. “You is the one grabbing me!”

  “I… ’t!” Balthazar said, waving his free arm around and kig his dangling legs as the cyclops desperately tried to shake him off.

  Finally, realization dawned on the crab and he checked the description fa Pinch again.

  [For 60 seds, your pinch will carry unbreakable force, making it physically impossible to disrupt its grasp.]

  Physically impossible to disrupt its grasp… You have got to be joking! Not even I break it off?! And it doesn’t deal any damage! What’s the point of this?!

  “Let go! Let go! Let go!” the lumbering fool cried out, trying to reach for his back like someone desperately attempting to scrat itch.

  “I. ’t. Let. Go!” Balthazar tried to expiween being shaken and stirred.

  For a full mihat felt like an hour to the crab, the two creatures spun around wildly, stumbling and smming against trees while engaged in what would have looked like a clumsy dance routio anyone passing by.

  Finally, after the 60 seds were up, Balthazar’s pincher simply snapped back opeing go of the cyclops’s bulging muscle.

  The crusta dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes, feeling bruised and humiliated.

  Brontus fell bato his behind too, sitting on the grassy forest floor with his one eye spinning around.

  “Ow, me dizzy now,” he said.

  “Y-yeah…” Balthazar said while struggling to stand back up. “That… that will teach you not to mess with a crab. Now give me back my gold ingot before I pinething else!”

  The cyclops used his hand to stop his head from spinning and looked at the crab with fusion in his eye. “What you mean? Gold ingot?!”

  “Yes, don’t py dumb… well, dumber with me! That bar of gold you ght there!”

  Brontus looked down at the brietal resting in his hand.

  “This gold?! Me think ingot was steel!”

  Burying his fato his other palm, the creature started sobbing untrolbly.

  “Wha… what?!” the befuddled crab said. “How do you mistake gold for steel? They’re pletely different colors!”

  The thief brought his ugly cry face up from his hand, aire pond’s worth of water hanging precariously from his eye.

  “Me… me is colorblind,” he said between heavy sobs.

  “Oh, I… didn’t know. Uh… sorry?” the awkward crusta said, immediately realizing he had no idea why he ologizing for the cyclops being colorblind like that was somehow the crab’s fault.

  “Me fail again,” Brontus said, his eye going down to the floor as he held back the torrent of snot threatening to pour out of his massive nose. “Just take ingot back. Me don’t want it no more.”

  The cyclops chucked the gold bar, whided in front of Balthazar’s legs with a heavy thump.

  “Oh. Are you sure?” the surprised mert said.

  Wait. It’s my ingot and I was trying to get it back! Why am I even asking if he’s sure about giving it baow?! Get it together, Balthazar!

  “Y-yes,” said the hiccupping creature. “Me eel, not gold. Gold is no good.”

  “Say what?!” the crab excimed while pig up the ingot and shielding it with his cws as if to keep it from hearing the bsphemy the cyclops had just uttered. “How could gold ever not be good?”

  “Steel make good on and armor,” Brontus expined. “Everyone know gold is no good to smith on or armor. Too soft.”

  “Uh… Right. Everyone knows that. I… certainly did too,” Balthazar said as he stored the gold bar bato his pack. “But wait, are you some kind of smith?”

  The brutish creature sat up straight, his sobbing having finally stopped, despite his sad expression remaining.

  “Me training to be bcksmith. Me spend long time ving master smith in vilge to teach me how to make good on and armor. Master say me o find good, quality material to make me own stuff first, theeach me. But… me ’t even tell steel from gold because of me faulty eye!”

  Brontus threw his face bato his hands, resuming a loud sobbing that made the crab feel increasingly unfortable the lo went on.

  Having no idea what to do to stop the awkward situation he found himself in, Balthazar walked closer to the cyclops and patted the side of his thick arm with the side of his pincer.

  “There, there, it’s alright,” he said, rolling his eyestalks up. “I’m sure you will find something soon, just… somewhere else other than near me. And then you’ll go do your practig or whatever, and bee a master bcksmith.”

  “You think?!” Brontus excimed, suddenly lifting his face from between his knees. “Me beaster smith like master in vilge?”

  “Sure, sure,” the mert said, nodding his shell. “Hell, I bet you’ll even bee better than him.”

  “Really?” the young one-eyed giant said, crag a wide and very hard to look at smile full of crooked teeth. “Even if me ’t tell color of metals apart?”

  “Yeah, of course,” said Balthazar, throwing his pincers into a shrug. “Look at me. I’ve got no fingers and that didn’t stop me from being a mert.”

  Brontus’s mango-sized eyeball widened as he opened his mouth in astonishment. “You a mert?!”

  “Sure am! Balthazar, the famous mert crab. I’m sure you’ve heard about me out there,” the smug crusta said while casually examining the tip of his pincers.

  “No, never heard of you,” the simpleton bluntly said with a bnk expression.

  The crab gave the one-eyed creature a stink eye of his own before exhaling sharply.

  “Never mind that. Point is, I’m a giant crab and I became a mert, so who says a colorblind cyclops ’t bee a bcksmith?”

  “The people from the vilge,” Brontus said, still with a bnk expression on his face.

  “Well, aside from those fools—”

  “Me pa says so too.”

  “What?”

  “And me ma as well. They both say me should get a real job, like cave guard, or siege stone hurler.”

  “Yes, well, that’s really—”

  “There’s also me cousins sayiupid for me dream. And me childhood friends. Me girlfriend too. And me ex-girlfriend. And her sister. The vilge beggar. The—”

  “Alright! Enough!” Balthazar excimed, throwing his arms up. “Geez, kid, you need better friends… Maybe a better family too, while you’re at it.”

  Letting out a long sigh, the crab walked closer to the sitting cyclops and pced a pincer on his shoulder—without ping it this time.

  “Look,” Balthazar started, in a more calm tone. “If I give you a pinch of advice, do not listen to what others say you or ot do. I didn’t. Sure, it nded me in some hot water sometimes, but it also got me further than I ever dreamed of getting. Certainly much further than anyone would ever expect a crab from the side of the road could.”

  Brontus stared at the mert with his big, shiny eye and nodded slowly.

  “But… don’t that mean me should not listen to what you saying now?”

  Balthazar squinted his eyestalks and swallowed a groan of frustration.

  “Just… don’t listen to what others who aren’t me have to say. How’s that?”

  The creature’s face opened up into a big, dumb smile. “Me get it now!”

  “Great…” the crab said, letting go of the cyclops and turning away.

  He stared at his Backpack of Holding Stuff & Things for a moment before letting out anh.

  Ah, what the hell. Why not?

  The mert reached all the way into the bag with a pincer, fishing around for something. What exactly, he did not yet know.

  “Hold up,” he said to the cyclops as his cw found ao grab. “I’ve got something for you.”

  “You do?” the cyclops said with surprise.

  “Yes,” the crab said as he pulled his arm out of the magical backpack. “I want you to have this…”

  His eyestalks rose as he looked at the item in his pincer.

  It was a tool.

  Or at least Balthazar thought it was a tool.

  It was hard to tell, on at of it being just a wooden hah nothing else attached to it.

  “Uh… this… tool.”

  “Oooooh,” the impressed creature howled. “What kind of tool is it?”

  The crab g the useless shaft he was holding for a moment. “Why, it’s a smithing tool, of course.”

  Brontus nodded with a thoughtful frown.

  “Hmm, yes… but a tool to do what?”

  “Many things!” the mert said fidently. “It serve multiple purposes of different kinds. It’s a very versatile tool. Every legendary bcksmith you've ever heard of has held one of these before, I assure you.”

  The aspiring smith’s single eyebrow rose. “Really? Woah… Does it have a name?”

  Balthazar looked at the pletely unremarkable wooden handle again.

  “Sure it does. It’s called… uh… Sundry!”

  “Ooooh,” the cyclops said as he received the piece of worn wood into his hands. “I will bee a master bcksmith for sure now that I wield the legendary Sundry! Thank you, crab!”

  “Yeah, sure, don’t mention it,” the mert said with a slightly awkward smile.

  Hey, at least he’s not sobbing anymore…

  As Balthazar was about to close his backpad strap it bato his shell, his eyes spotted aem peeking out from it.

  It was the used-up Golemancer’s Mark that Tweedus had given him to get ihe fe.

  “Hey, Brontus, catch,” the crab said before tossing him the stony hexagon.

  The cyclops caught the mark with his hands and looked at it, fused. “What is this?”

  “It’s a k of metallic rock or something. It used to have some kind of magical effe it, but I already used that up, so now it’s kind of useless. I figured you could use it to practice your smelting or whatever.”

  Brontus brought the brown stone up to his nose and gave it a big sniff. As he did it, his eye went wide.

  “This is good material!”

  “It is?” the mert said, cog aalk.

  Damn it, I thought it was worthless junk! Why didn’t I charge him for it?! Am I losing my mert touch?

  “Me nose knows!” the grinning brute said. “Thanks! Me go now! Me want to show master what me find! Bet master will be impressed and teach me smithing now!”

  Without waiting for any goodbyes, the cyclops turned around and headed off into the forest, trampling bushes and breaking twigs as he went.

  “Such a random enter,” Balthazar muttered to himself as he strapped his backpack to his shell and started going back the same way he came. “At least I got my gold ingot back. That’s what—Bah!”

  A figure stepped out of the woods in front of the crab, startling him.

  “Rye!” he excimed. “What are you doing here?!”

  “I woke up and you were missing, so I came looking for you,” the young adventurer replied.

  “Oh, I… Hmm… How long have you been there?” the mert asked awkwardly.

  “Long enough,” Rye said, crag a smile. “It’s o see you’ve learo make new friends.”

  “Oh, shut up!” said the crab. “That was a business opportunity, that’s all.”

  “Mhmm, sure,” the archer said. “That’s why you gave him those things for free, right?”

  Balthazar frowned in annoyance. “Not for free. That was an iment. It will pay off… at some point. Iure. You’ll see. I’m the mert here, not you. You wouldn’t uand the intricacies of my business strategies.”

  “If you say so,” said the young man, turning back to the woods with a sly grin on his face.

  The crab went with him back to their camp, still frowning.

  “Seriously, if you tell anyone bae about this, I’ll snip that ponytail of yours right off!”

  “I wouldn’t dare to breathe a word,” Rye replied with a chuckle.

  And so the crab and his friends got ba the road, traveling north along the coast for ahree days and three nights, until they finally arrived at the foot of the mountaihe dragon had been seen.

  The beast’s ir was finally within reach, and i, hopefully, Madeleine.