My Quiet Blacksmith Life in Another World: Volume 5 (eBook)

The next morning, I went with Krul to fetch water from the lake, as was our regular routine. She looked happy to be going with me...I thought. I couldn’t actually read the expressions of drakes, so my interpretation was part wishful thinking.

Since we were at the lake, I took the opportunity to wash myself as well, chatting with Krul all the while.

“Did Diana take over for me while I was gone?” I asked.

“Kuluuu,” she chirruped.

I had no way of understanding the nuances of her response, but somehow, it sounded like she was saying, “Yup.”

Thanks to my quality time with Krul, my day was off to a heartwarming start.

“Shall we head back?”

“Kululululu!”

We walked back to the cabin together, me with the water jugs hefted on my shoulders and Krul with them slung around her neck. Another snapshot in our quiet day-to-day life.

At home, we finished up breakfast and laundry before sitting down together for our morning huddle.

I kicked the discussion off by declaring, “I’ll be forging a sword for Helen today.”

“Should the rest of us continue our usual schedule?” Rike asked.

“Yeah. You can shadow me as I work today. Can you make more plate metal with any extra time?”

The five of them chimed in with their agreements.

A new day in Forge Eizo begins.

First order of business—light the firebed and forge using magic. I didn’t understand the principles behind the power I was channeling, but at the very least, I didn’t have to chant any long incantations.

Magic was more like...a field of particles in the air. By snatching up these particles and compressing them, I could generate heat to light a fire. That was the general idea at least. It worked similarly to adiabatic compression systems. Y’know, the kind where the compression stroke of a piston in a cylinder generates a spark with pop!

Without access to magic, I would’ve had to nurse the fire from hot charcoal or build one completely from scratch. The former was the more preferable of the two, but magic took the cake in terms of simplicity. It was practically as if I were using a lighter.

I wonder how many magic users in this world are like me...people whose powers were limited to sparking a small fire.

Once the flames had spread through the firebed, I inserted a plate of metal to heat. I waited, carefully observing to see when it reached the perfect malleable temperature, at which point I transferred it to the anvil and hammered the metal to flatten it.

Back when I had forged Helen’s first set of swords, I hadn’t understood magic, but I knew more about it now. This time, I hammered attentively to ensure that I was properly weaving magic into the structure of the metal. By striking the hot plate, I slowly turned it from a rectangular slab into a proper blade.

Our regular lineup of shortswords was always cast by pouring molten metal into molds. Rike and I would then make final adjustments to the hardened, unmolded blades. However, since I was making a custom model for Helen, I was forging her sword from scratch instead of casting it.

Forged blades were of better quality than cast blades... Well, actually, that wasn’t always the case. Both had their own distinct characteristics.

The reason I was forging Helen’s sword was simply because I could trap more magical essence in the metal this way. Every strike of my hammer changed the shape and imbued the steel with more magic.

The fever-red glow of the scorching metal and the sparkle of the magical particles enthralled me.

Rike sighed wistfully, her eyes glued to my hands. “It’s been over a week since I’ve last seen you work, Boss, and I’m reminded all over again how amazing you are.”

But Rike herself had also improved to the point where she could weave magic as she forged. As someone who possessed the dwarves’ raw talent for smithing and who had learned the elven methods for manipulating magic, she was destined to become a formidable blacksmith in the future.

The longswords and shortswords in our last delivery were all made under Rike’s watch. They had been such high quality they were practically good enough to be labeled as Forge Eizo elite model products.

“I looked away for a second, and you’ve grown so much. I can’t afford to be careless either,” I told her with a laugh.

“Not at all,” she answered. “I still have a ways to go.”

Despite what I had said, all my skills came from cheats, so the only way I could improve was by forging new types of weapons to deepen my mastery. From that perspective, Rike had the upper hand; not only was she overflowing with potential, but for her, the sky was the limit.

Mentor of the Legendary Blacksmith Rike has a nice ring to it, huh?

I found myself chuckling unintentionally as I swung my hammer down on the metal.

For entry-level and elite models, the grip and guard pieces of the blade were part of the mold for the cast, so they came out already formed. When it came to forging a sword, obviously, those separate parts took time to shape.

I sculpted the blade and hilt from one plate, but I made the guard separately from a piece I’d split off a second plate. Of course, I took special pains to weave magic into the guard as well.

I decided on the relative length of the blade and hilt with my cheats—this ensured that, once I put everything together, the sword would be perfectly balanced for Helen’s use.

I slid the guard onto the hilt, eased it to the base of the blade, then hammered to tighten it. In the end, it sat snugly against the body of the sword. With this, the overall shaping work was complete.

Helen had been observing my work the entire time. Now, I passed the completed shortsword over to her for inspection. “I haven’t wrapped the hilt with leather yet, but give it a few test swings.”

“Cool,” she said, taking it in hand.

One half of the workshop was designed as a space to serve customers, and because it was more spacious, that was where Helen moved to conduct her test.

Her movements were stilted at first, but gradually, she shed her hesitation and began to swing the sword with vigor. The blade slashed through the air with an audible swoosh. She looked as though she were dancing. With her height and slim frame, in another world, she could have been a dancer.

The others paused what they were doing to watch Helen. Diana in particular looked on with a focused expression, probably on the hunt for techniques she could use herself.

I won’t be surprised if Diana kicks it up a notch during our sparring session tonight.

However, I couldn’t continue watching Helen forever. “How does it feel?” I asked.

Helen froze in position with the sword thrust out before her.

“UN. BE. LIEVABLE!!!” she bellowed.

We all twitched in surprise from her volume. The air looked like it was still trembling. A rustle from outside told me that Krul must’ve gotten a scare too. The noise hadn’t escaped Diana’s notice, so she dipped outside through the workshop door to check on her.

Helen rushed up to me in one giant leap. “It feels exactly like the last ones you made me!!!” she exclaimed. She instinctively held the sword away from me. As expected of a professional.

“I should hope so,” I replied. “I intentionally forged it that way. This new sword should be more durable than your old ones, but there’s no way to put it to the test right now.”

Right now...and as long as she’s here, really.

“Then it really is a perfect replacement. Amazing.”

I nodded. “Should be.”

But actually, it bothered me that the sword was more or less a replica. I’d forged it the same way on purpose, so it wasn’t as if the result was a surprise. However, in order to level up my cheats, wasn’t there anything more I could do...?

“I got it!!!” Without meaning to, my shout came out just as loud as Helen’s had been. The others all jerked again. “Sorry, Helen, but I’m going to have to reforge that sword.”

“What? You’re gonna scrap this beauty of a sword?”

I grinned. “Yup.” I’d almost forgotten. I still had that waiting in reserve. “I’m going to remake it by combining steel and appoitakara.”

“Appo...popo... What? I’ve never heard of it,” Helen said with a quirk of her head. “Is it different from mithril?”

“Yeah. It’s a rare mineral mined in the north. It’s not widely circulated either, so I’m not surprised that you don’t know about it,” I explained. “I was able to get my hands on some with Camilo’s help.”

Considering her mercenary background and wealth of experience, I expected her to be relatively well-versed in raw materials—if not minerals specifically—but her knowledge didn’t seem to extend to appoitakara.

Maybe hihiirokane, a metal that gleamed like burning flames, was the more famous of the minerals from the north.

“Appoitakara is light but strong, though I’m not sure how it compares to orichalcum or adamantite. I won’t be forging the sword entirely from it,...