**Gulp, gulp.** The suspicious afro-wearing man known as Mister Egg drinks his sake with a light, cheerful sound as it goes down his throat.

  The man himself seems to be enjoying the drink, downing it in one go, and immediately...

  "Another round!!"

  "Tch."

  He shamelessly demands a refill from the shop owner, dispying his audacity without a care. The fact that I’m the one paying for his drinks weighs heavily on me.

  In other words, he’s mooching free alcohol off a kid’s money.

  He’s already emptied three wooden mugs, and all we can do is watch in silence.

  "Hey, what’s the point of all this?"

  He doesn’t do meaningless things. It’s only because of that trust that Nel is barely holding back her anger.

  "Waiting for him to awaken."

  "Awaken?"

  "Yeah, this guy says all sorts of crazy things, but if he keeps drinking and surpasses a certain amount, he becomes... reasonable."

  "Eh..."

  Mister Egg’s ambition. This quest—no, the writer who created this quest—must have a seriously twisted personality.

  First of all, the conditions for triggering the quest are just ridiculous.

  In the game era, you’d enter the shop and talk to Mister Egg, who’s sitting at a table holding an empty mug. He’d repeatedly demand that you treat him to a drink.

  If you refused, he’d start rambling endlessly about his boasts and compints, turning into a broken record.

  The only way to resolve this was to give him alcohol.

  But here’s the kicker: giving him alcohol once doesn’t end it.

  No, this quest requires you to keep feeding him alcohol endlessly. You can’t take the drink away midway.

  If you interrupt his drinking even once, the quest trigger conditions reset internally.

  In modern times, the amount of alcohol you’d have to provide would be considered alcohol harassment. Only after that would the quest finally begin. And to make matters worse, the amount of alcohol required to trigger the quest is randomly set. What a garbage design.

  The whole concept of someone being unreasonable normally but becoming reasonable when given something is already messed up.

  And in real life, right in front of me, such a person exists. It’s absurd.

  "Hmm, my head is clearing up. I think I can come up with a good invention now."

  "Wha—?"

  Yeah, I’d react the same way if Mister Egg, who until just now seemed like a total weirdo, suddenly started acting like a gentleman.

  He began tidying up the messy mugs on the table with graceful movements, then elegantly finished the remaining sake.

  After quietly pcing the mug down, he turned to look at me.

  "Young man, thanks to you, I’m in a good mood and have come up with a great idea. I’ll definitely repay you for this. As for the payment, I’m sorry, but I don’t have any money on me right now. I swear I’ll pay you back once my invention sells."

  He straightened the colr of his white coat, bowed his head sincerely, and put on a genuinely apologetic expression.

  It’s here! It’s here! It’s here!!

  I’ve hit the jackpot with one of the rarer outcomes in the random number generator!!

  As Mister Egg suddenly turned into a gentleman, the shop was filled with an atmosphere of confusion from the owner and the other customers. I, however, smiled.

  "In that case, could you show me your inventions? If there’s something I like, I’d be interested in buying it."

  I made sure to be polite and quick, suggesting that there might be something I’d want.

  "What! You want my inventions? What a promising young man!! Please, take a look!!"

  Ignoring the suspicious gnces from those around him, he spread his arms wide in welcome and quietly stood up.

  "Then let’s head out right away!! Don’t worry, my b is just nearby!!"

  And with that, he left the shop in high spirits, despite having consumed a rge amount of alcohol. His steps were steady as he walked further and further away.

  I followed him. In the game era, if you lost sight of him here, the awakening triggered by the payment would be nullified, and he’d forget everything.

  Mister Egg’s memory of his awakened state completely disappears once he sobers up. However, when he drinks enough to reach that awakened state, he develops incredibly useful golem parts.

  Even though he’s the one who made them, he doesn’t understand their capabilities and only recognizes them as things he made because they’re in his b.

  Thus, when he’s sober, he can’t make them anymore, but he still believes the fame and wealth gained from selling his inventions are his. Mister Egg is at his most capable when he’s drunk.

  That’s exactly why...

  "Why is he so fast after drinking all that alcohol!?"

  "Amina!! Fly ahead!! Don’t lose sight of him!!"

  "O-okay, got it!"

  Even though Nel and I are Css 1 with top-tier stats, he has the physical ability to outpace us easily.

  As we ran at full speed to keep up, Mister Egg moved like the silver-suited hero from a certain beverage company’s commercial, leaving us in the dust. Nel was shocked, and Amina quickly took to the air to track him from above.

  "Oh! Young man! You’re te!!"

  "Huff, huff... I-I’m sorry for being te."

  If it weren’t for Amina, we would’ve completely lost him.

  "W-where exactly is ‘just nearby’?"

  "That was pretty far, huh?"

  We ran for about twenty minutes at near full speed, covering several kilometers. Even with our enhanced stats, we couldn’t match Mister Egg’s stamina, who didn’t even break a sweat.

  Amina, who was flying, was fine, but Nel and I, who were zigzagging and constantly accelerating and decelerating, were completely out of breath.

  We finally arrived at a fairly rge warehouse-like building on the outskirts of the royal capital.

  Standing in front of the warehouse with his arms crossed, Mister Egg looked like a guardian deity. We couldn’t afford to compin and risk upsetting him.

  "My apologies, I got carried away. I couldn’t help but want to cut through the wind. Normally, I’d go slower. But time is limited. Please, enter my b."

  While catching our breath, we apologized and tried to move things along. In the game, if you kept up with him perfectly, he’d praise you. If you were slightly te, he’d say you needed more training. If you barely made it, he’d scold you.

  But perhaps because we were kids, his words were a bit gentler. His actions, however, were not.

  After unlocking the door, Mister Egg went inside, and we barely managed to slip in before it closed.

  "It’s a bit messy, but make yourselves at home."

  "A bit?"

  "Well, it’s better than that mansion."

  Inside, golem parts were scattered everywhere, leaving barely any room to walk. Amina tilted her head at the mess, while Nel compared it to Count Clermont’s junk-filled mansion.

  Meanwhile, Mister Egg paid no attention and headed deeper inside. We followed.

  The inner area had a bit more space, allowing for some work to be done.

  "Are these all golems?"

  "There are so many."

  "Fufu, dies, don’t look too closely. These are all mediocre. Not failures, but not my best work either."

  Although complete, the specs of these golems were only equivalent to Css 2 monsters. Calling them mediocre was something I, as a game pyer, could understand and accept.

  Honestly, the specs of golems are determined the moment they’re made, and you can’t level them up. Even if you modify them, their base limits are set, and you can’t push them beyond their css.

  As one pyer put it, golems are all about performance supremacy.

  "Hmm, why do I have so many mediocre ones here? I remember making something decent before. Where did it go?"

  Instead of admiring the low-spec golems, Mister Egg was searching for the one he’d made that he was satisfied with. But of course, it wasn’t here—he’d sold it off when he was sober and not in his awakened state.

  "Hmm, young man, I’m sorry. You came all this way, but the piece I wanted to show you seems to be missing."

  Unaware of this, he assumed he’d mispced it somewhere.

  But I knew that Mister Egg had sold it off, and it was no longer in this warehouse.

  "No, don’t worry about it. Actually, could we take a look around? Maybe I’ll find something I want."

  "Of course, feel free. I’ll be working over here. If you find something you like, take it."

  So this was the expected flow. That’s why I started searching now.

  There’s a time limit for this search—until Mister Egg sobers up. In real time, that’s about two hours.

  It might seem like plenty of time, but considering we’d have to carry a massive golem out of this warehouse, it wasn’t much.

  "Gather up!!"

  So I immediately called the two over.

  "Look for what I’m about to describe!"

  "Got it."

  "Okay!"

  Realizing that this was a golem workshop and that they could get a golem here, the two quickly dismissed their doubts and followed my instructions.

  "We’re looking for a golem with only a lower body."

  "Just the lower body?"

  "Yeah, it’s an incomplete golem, but that lower body is what we need."

  "Got it! This pce has some height, so I’ll search from above."

  "Thanks! It looks like a spider."

  In the game era, Mister Egg’s specs were that of a Css 5 alchemist. His usual behavior was so poor that he was mistaken for a low-level NPC, but his specs were actually high.

  His fw was his ck of restraint with alcohol and his inability to awaken without it, which cost him dearly in life. But when he’s in his awakened state, like now, working diligently in his workshop, his creations are undoubtedly at least Css 4.

  If the materials and awakening conditions are met, he can produce top-tier golems among NPCs.

  However, in his normal state, he can only manage to create low-tier golems, and he wastes money on useless materials.

  But even then, there are still some good pieces.

  Amina flew through the air, Nel rummaged around, and I headed in the direction where I’d found the target in the game era.

  It was a piece that had been left incomplete when Mister Egg’s awakening wore off. In his unawakened state, he couldn’t finish it, and in his awakened state, it was buried under junk and forgotten.

  In the game era, being able to get a Css 4 golem part so early just by giving him alcohol was an incredible power boost for golem unit builds.

  Depending on the situation, you could also find other Css 4 golem lower body parts in different junk piles. And you could do this multiple times.

  The fact that he was now diligently working at his workbench meant exactly that.

  Initially, a few specific parts were guaranteed, but afterward, Css 4 golem lower body parts could be obtained randomly. It was a highly useful quest.

  "Found it!! Both of you, come here!!"

  And there it was, buried under golem debris—a slightly dirty, spider-like lower body part.

  No mistake.

  The lower body of a multi-legged golem. No cracks, no rust.

  A piece that could actually function.

  Just the lower body was as tall as me, and its width was beyond the span of my arms. The lower body alone was probably the size of a compact car.

  "It’s huge."

  "Really, and just like Liberta said, it looks like a spider."

  As we cleared the surrounding debris to reveal the full form of the lower body, the two seemed surprised by its size.

  At first gnce, it was indeed rge, and if the golem were complete, it would be even bigger. But in the golem-building community, this was actually on the smaller side.

  I knew pyers who created the most insane golems. Of course, the material costs, production time, and maintenance for those were equally insane.

  But I didn’t have time to think about that now.

  "Mister Egg! Can I take this!?"

  I called out to get permission for the item I wanted, but in his awakened state, he just waved his hand, signaling us to take it without a word.

  "Alright! Let’s move it out!!"

  "We’re taking this home, right? Will your mom get mad?"

  "I’ll expin ter! Come on, let’s all move it out!!"

  Taking his gesture as approval, the three of us carried it out of the warehouse. After all, there were four other eccentrics like Mister Egg.

  We had to finish this quest quickly. There were still so many things I wanted to do.