AT 07

Atelier Tycoon Episode 7

‘If I delegate everything, it would feel like I’m just exploiting him.’

Moreover, Zeno only had a 2-star crafting ability, so his speed might be slow. If she entrusted him with tricky items to make, the quality was also likely to suffer.

Therefore, Lilife decided to delegate just these three for now and see how it turned out.

“I’ll be back soon. It’s fine to take your time, just don’t push yourself too hard.”

“Yes. Please be careful on your way.”

Unlocking the portal in the Misty Forest should cut the travel time to just a few hours. Still, just in case, she packed everything potentially useful into the wooden box and held it in her arms.

Stepping onto the portal outside the mansion, a window popped up asking which region she wanted to go to.

[Accessible Region: Golden Fields]

Of course, since she had only unlocked one place, the Golden Fields was the only region she could travel to.

After arriving at the Golden Fields via the portal, Liliphe started walking in the opposite direction from the atelier.

If she kept walking, a forest would appear. Getting through that forest would lead to the shoreline.

In <Atelier Tycoon>, traveling to distant regions took more time. However, that travel time was only a matter of tens of seconds in real time.

In the game, she could move with just a tap or two, but now that she was inside the game world, she had to walk herself.

So, there was no telling when she’d arrive at the Misty Forest. To save time, she needed to unlock the portals as early as possible.

How long had she been walking? Just as she was starting to get tired of the repetitive field scenery, a forest began to appear in the distance.

“Oh, it’s just like its name.”

The mist hanging in the air created a dreamy atmosphere. It wasn’t a thick fog, so she could still make out objects.

She found some of the herbs and mushrooms she’d seen in illustrations, plucked a few, and put them in the inventory box she’d brought.

It was just an act of curiosity; that wasn’t the important part. She had to find the portal. In this vast, misty forest.

Lilife let out a sigh and began her search for the portal. The grind had begun.

While Lilype began her grind, Zeno, who had stayed behind at the atelier, also moved to handle the tasks Lilype had requested.

He entered the workshop, stood before the workbench, and recalled the recipe for Tomato Soup.

5 Tomatoes, 2 Waters.

Zeno had no personal inventory window. He couldn’t put items or materials into or take them out of the inventory box.

However, being a familiar, he could craft items, and while crafting, he could check the materials the user possessed.

So, the moment he thought about making Tomato Soup, the information that Tomatoes and Water were in the inventory box surfaced in his mind.

Liliphe took materials directly out of the inventory box to craft, but unlike her, for Zeno the familiar, the materials appeared out of thin air.

With an expressionless face, Zeno held the tomatoes and water and began moving his hands. The Tomato Soup was finished quickly.

“And next, the Pesticide.”
He made that one smoothly as well, but the problem was the next item.

When he started making the Potion, black smoke began billowing up in puffs.

“Hmm……”

A troubled look appeared on his otherwise expressionless face.

It had already been a couple of hours since Liliphe started scouring the Misty Forest until her eyes felt like they’d fall out.

She finally found the portal engraved under a dense tree. Relieved, she checked the unlock conditions.

[Misty Forest Portal (Locked)]

[Unlock Condition: Gather 10 Blue Herbs (1/10), Gather 10 Red Wild Mushrooms (1/10)]

Blue Herbs and Red Wild Mushrooms were the most common materials found in the Misty Forest. They were also the materials Liliffe had gathered shortly after entering the forest.

It seemed that one of each had been counted, as it showed 1/10 instead of 0/10.

“If I’d known, I would have gathered them all!”

She had encountered these two materials quite a number of times while wandering around looking for the portal. But she had only gathered the very first ones she found, ignoring all the rest. Just finding the portal was taxing enough. In her single-minded focus on finding the portal, the common materials hadn’t even registered.

But upon learning the unlock conditions, Liliphe was filled with regret.

She looked at the system window with a rueful gaze, then sat down on a rock near the portal and began eating a sandwich.

The sun was still far from setting. Since the materials were common, she should be able to meet the conditions quickly. It would be much better to use the Misty Forest portal to return to the atelier rather than going all the way back to the Golden Fields.

After leisurely finishing her sandwich, Liliphe stood up, brushing the last crumb into her mouth.

“Alright, time for another grind.”

A thought suddenly struck her. It was a good thing she didn’t mind grinding. Otherwise, seeing these unlock conditions would just keep piling on the stress.

The two materials were scattered all over the forest. Looking carefully at the bases of trees, she found clusters of two or three red wild mushrooms, and the blue herbs, being a vivid blue color, were also easy to spot.

As a result, Liliphe managed to satisfy the conditions and unlock the portal in less than an hour.

The previously unresponsive portal began to glow with a blue light, just like the one in the Golden Fields. Noticing it was now active, Lilype positioned herself on the portal.

The blue light enveloped her body, and when she closed and opened her eyes, she had transitioned from the Misty Forest to the atelier.

The moment Liliffe arrived at the atelier, she witnessed black smoke billowing profusely from a first-floor window. That location was the workshop.

“Zeno?”

Startled, Lilype dropped the box she was holding and quickly rushed inside the mansion.

Opening the workshop door revealed a dense, pitch-black smoke. Liliffe coughed, inhaling the smoke as she scanned the room.

She saw Zeno opening all the windows in the room.

“Cough cough. Zeno, what happened? Are you okay?”

“Ah, Liliphe-nim.”
“Did a fire start? Are you hurt anywhere?”
“The smoke is bad… but there’s no fire.”
“Let’s get out first. Opening the windows that much is enough.”

Liliffe led Zeno outside and asked what had happened.

He rolled his eyes, bowed his head, and explained the situation in a small voice.

“I was making the items you requested, but I think it was beyond my ability. The others were fine, but with the Potion, I just… I’m sorry.”

Seeing Zeno bowing deeply at the waist, Liliphe hurriedly waved her hands. The fact that Zeno wasn’t hurt was enough.

It seemed that with Zeno’s 2-star crafting ability, he simply wasn’t capable of making the Potion yet.

‘The Potion was for the Fourth Tower resident’s request.’

The Towers were related to the World Map. The First Tower was the easiest difficulty, so in the early game, players mainly handled requests from First Tower residents.

As you earned money steadily and progressed, the number of Towers from which you could receive requests gradually increased. First Tower, Second Tower, and so on, with residents living in higher-numbered Towers giving requests of increasingly difficult levels.

‘I guess a Fourth Tower request was too much for Zeno.’

If she needed to delegate crafting in the future, she should only assign requests from First and Second Tower residents.

Liliphe alternated her gaze between the mansion spewing jet-black smoke and Zeno, whose face was blackened by the soot.

In the game, if a familiar made a low-quality item or failed, a message like ‘Oops, I failed!’ would appear along with a crying illustration. She didn’t know if it was because this was the game world, but the detail was impressive.

“We need to go wash up right away.”

When she wiped Zeno’s cheek with her thumb, blackish soot came off directly onto Lily’s hand. Zeno blushed when he saw that, but with his face blackened, the blush wasn’t visible.

“…I’m really filthy, aren’t I?”

Zeno, looking over his own body, soon let out a sigh.

Liliffe said he was cute even with the soot and kept stroking Zeno’s hair. Zeno even expressed worry, saying her hand would get dirty.

“It’s fine. I’ll just wash my hands right away, no big deal.”
“But……”
“What should we have for dinner? Is there anything you want to eat?”
Liliphe changed the subject. Her hand stroking Zeno’s hair remained in place.

After the smoke cleared, they went back into the workshop. She expected it to be a mess with soot, given the billowing black smoke, even if there was no fire, but the workshop was no different from usual.

“This is just like the game too.”

Incidents like this constantly reminded her that everything, including the ground she stood on, was part of a game world.

‘Remember, this is reality but also a game world. I can’t stay here forever.’

These unrealistic phenomena continuously reinforced in Lilife that she needed to return to her original world.

Liliphe proceeded to remake the Potion herself, following after Zeno.

She made the remaining request items and placed them in the delivery box outside the door. The Philosopher’s Stone, of course, was excluded.

She had some of the materials needed to craft the Philosopher’s Stone. If she tried, she could probably make it. But it felt like a waste to use those materials for such a shameless request.

After completing the requests by placing a total of 9 items—2 originally in her inventory and 7 newly crafted—into the delivery box, the bulletin board the next day was empty except for one request.

The white pigeon, noticing the completely empty board, had been diligently perched on it since morning, waiting for Lily.

“Coo?”

The pigeon’s black, button-like eyes sparkled.

The moment Liliphe made eye contact with the pigeon, she averted her gaze and started walking towards the orchard.

Zeno followed behind Lilype with a puzzled expression.

“Aren’t you going to check the new requests?”

“That guy’s… a bit weird. It’s not really a sight I want to see. We made eye contact, so won’t it just stick them on the board itself?”

Hearing that, Zeno smiled an ambiguous smile without a word. Lilife’s attention was solely focused on the soon-to-open shop, so she couldn’t see Zeno’s smile.

Unlike the portals, the door showed no particular change even after being unlocked. A system window simply popped up saying ‘Unlock Complete’ and led into the World Map Open Quest.

[World Map (Locked)]

[Unlock Condition: Invite Tower Residents (0/10)]

In the early game, the only ways to earn money were by selling items at the shop or completing requests for rewards.

However, after progressing a certain way into the game, another method to earn money became available, which was using the ‘World Map Stall’.

After unlocking the World Map, you could use the stalls existing in each Tower to generate income.