Chapter 11
1.
I don't know how long it's been since I last woke up to such a fragrant scent.
And even more so when it was a woman's scent.
Of course, I mean Doloris, not Ruby.
When I looked beside me, Ruby and Doloris were already gone, and the blankets had been neatly folded.
Doloris's spot was the same. All that remained on the pillow was her scent.
I could hear Ruby chattering outside.
I was the only one who had overslept.
I should wash up.
“Good morning….”
“Wow, Sleepyhead's awake.”
“Yeah, good morning to you too….”
Sleepyhead, first thing in the morning.
Doloris smiled sweetly and waved.
“I'll wash up and be right bac—.”
I was naturally about to head outside to the washroom when.
As I tried to leave, Doloris grabbed my shoulder and turned me around to face inward.
Toward the washroom in the villa.
“Wash up here.”
“…Yes.”
This time, I didn't refuse.
You could call it learned helplessness.
I had learned yesterday that there was no point in trying anyway.
When I stood in front of the sink, the familiar little boy's face stared back at me from the mirror.
Damn, he was handsome.
I called Yuna while washing my face.
“What is Ariel Plaza?”
I had heard that was where we were going today.
It seemed like it would be convenient to know about it in advance, but the Tower… I had been told I couldn't enter because of my age.
Then naturally, the Outer Tower.
[Good morning, oppa]
[Just a moment]
While I rinsed my face, a hologram appeared.
[Ariel Plaza. It's the largest commercial plaza outside the Tower, located right beside the Empire.]
[Climbers, merchants, nobles, mercenaries… Whatever you're doing, it seems you pass through here. You can assume that almost everything traded in the Empire passes through this plaza.]
“Equipment too?”
[Of course. Weapons, materials, magical tools, clothing, food, information—everything.]
[Even mercenary contracts.]
[There are seven districts. Don't imagine a country marketplace just because it's called a plaza.]
I nodded while brushing my teeth.
The surprising thing was that this world had infrastructure for everything except the scenery.
The toothbrushing I was doing now was part of that, too.
Well, anyway.
I could think of it as going to a department store or outlet.
I could look at things and tell them apart, so I would just buy something suitably decent.
I roughly dried my face with a towel and went outside.
There were clothes suitable for changing into in front of the door, and this time I simply put them on without resisting.
“Are you dressed?”
“Yes.”
Doloris and Ruby were already ready to go out.
She was wearing an even whiter dress than usual.
Ruby was putting on her shoes beside her. Judging by her expression and how quickly she was moving, she seemed very excited.
Outings really were nice.
Especially when you were young.
As I headed over, I pointed toward Ruby's feet.
“Your shoelace is undone.”
The little girl's shoes had cute shoelaces, and one side had come undone.
Doloris smiled silently, crouched down in front of Ruby, and tried to tie it for her.
Tsk. She was completely spoiled.
At thirteen, she should be able to do this much herself.
“Hey, you do it.”
“……”
“How old are you?”
Of course, I did it while carefully watching Doloris's reaction.
She might have liked this sort of thing. But she only smiled at me and offered no resistance.
Then perhaps.
Maybe she simply didn't know when to stop indulging her.
I'll help you.
“……”
Ruby's face flushed crimson.
So she really had no grounds to argue.
I carefully crouched down in front of Ruby.
“You sit down too.”
Ruby reluctantly crouched down.
I took hold of one end of the lace and slowly demonstrated, teaching her one step at a time.
“Cross them into an X like this, loop it once, and pull.”
Ruby followed along. Her fingers were short, so she kept dropping the lace.
“It won't work….”
“Then you keep going until it does.”
Ruby bit her lip tightly and grabbed the lace again.
This time, she managed to cross it, but she dropped it again when she tried to loop it.
“It's all right. It's your first time.”
“……”
Her eyes were fixed on my fingers, determined not to miss the demonstration.
I showed her once more, and this time she followed along fairly well.
- Swish.
It was ugly, but the knot was tied.
Still, she did pretty well.
“It's not hard, is it?”
“…No.”
“You can do it.”
Ruby looked down at her toes and nodded.
Her voice was quiet, but the corners of her mouth lifted slightly.
Honestly, for all that she was a little blockhead, I thought she was very cute and well-behaved.
Hadn't she accepted my sudden intrusion into her life in an instant?
She had been living with Doloris alone, so she might even have been justified in getting jealous.
- Tap tap.
I didn't stroke Ruby's head like Doloris did—I just gave it a few taps.
Then.
“Eek.”
“Eek?”
You little brat.
I only realized after standing up that Doloris had been quietly watching us from behind.
Ruby sprang to her feet, turned toward Doloris with a delighted expression, and ran at her.
“Master, I did it!”
“Good job. How clever of you.”
I also stood up roughly and tried to leave.
Just then, Doloris whispered behind me.
“Lionel, I didn't know you had ever tied shoes with laces.”
“Haha… I'm good with my hands….”
I brushed it off suitably.
When we left the villa, a carriage was waiting outside.
So that's how we were going. It was a carriage.
It wasn't exactly an ordinary carriage; something about it was different.
Something blue had been engraved on the wheel axle.
It was a carriage, but instead of horses, a blue-glowing stone was embedded inside. Behind it sat a driver, just like on an ordinary carriage.
Was it something like an engine?
A carriage without horses….
[It's a carriage containing magical engineering. It's powered by mana stones. They say it's about three times faster than an ordinary carriage.]
Even horses had lost their jobs.
Doloris opened the door as though nothing were unusual.
“Climb in.”
The inside was more spacious than I expected.
There were four seats and a small table. Thin curtains hung over the windows, and a basket of fruit sat on the table.
Ruby jumped in first and claimed the seat by the window.
I sat across from her, and Doloris climbed in last and closed the door.
- Hummm.
The mana stone hummed, and the carriage began moving without a sound.
The scenery remained the same until we left the orphanage.
Stables, fields, dirt roads, and more stables.
But less than ten minutes after the carriage began moving, the view outside the window changed.
The dirt road turned into paved stone.
“How long will it take, by any chance?”
It wasn't that there was anything else.
I absolutely wasn't getting carsick or anything.
“It won't take long.”
“I see.”
Before I knew it, houses made of various kinds of wood were passing outside the window.
Just as I leaned against the window and was about to close my eyes slightly.
“Lionel.”
Doloris called my name.
“Ruby.”
She called Ruby too.
Ruby stopped chewing the grapes and looked up at Doloris.
“When we return from the plaza, we'll go to my domain.”
“……”
“……”
The domain—Duchess Doloris's duchy.
I had heard about it last night.
“The three of us will be living together from now on.”
The three of us.
Ruby's eyes widened.
She looked at me, then Doloris, then back at me.
“…Together?”
“Yes.”
“Lionel too?”
“Lionel too.”
Ruby hesitated for a moment, then.
“……Mm.”
Without saying anything, she picked up another grape and put it in her mouth.
Aside from chewing faster than before, she showed no particular reaction.
It didn't seem like a refusal.
I didn't have anything to say either.
I already had two family members.
Then, since we were family now, harmony was important.
I held out my hand toward Ruby.
“I look forward to getting along with you, Ruby.”
Ruby stared at me, then.
She reached across the table and took my hand in hers.
“……”
“…Eat.”
She was holding a grape in her hand.
What was this supposed to mean?
I accepted it and chewed.
“It's good.”
“I didn't ask if it was good.”
You little brat.
Doloris quietly laughed.
The carriage continued on its way.
2.
Floor 88.
The Sun Dwarves' first floor, the residential district.
The Dwarf Company's first floor.
The Enchantment Hall.
A vast white hall with no clock.
Dozens of rooms lined the walls of the enormous circular hall, stretching all the way around it.
The doors to every room were open, and light spilled out from inside.
- Whirrrrr, clang!
A familiar sound rang throughout the hall.
The sound of machines hammering equipment in the enchantment rooms.
The sound of the greatest amount of money evaporating in the Tower.
And then.
- Crash!
“You fucking piece of shit!”
A scream erupted from Room 7.
Then came the sound of something crashing into the wall.
Whether it was the man who had just cursed or the remains of his equipment, no one could say.
- Whirrrrr… clang!
- Crash!
“Ah… this is driving me crazy….”
A groan came from Room 12 as well.
You could distinguish success from failure based solely on the sounds echoing through the hall.
- Whirrrrr… clang!
- Ta-da-da-da~♬
“Nice!! Ha… Should I try for +16 too…?”
“Not bad, customer. It's worth trying.”
The dwarf in Room 3 was even subtly recommending that the customer try for +16.
For reference, destruction protection could not be used from +16 onward.
That dwarf knew it. The customer knew it too.
And yet the dwarf asked, and the customer nodded.
[You bear all responsibility for the enhancement attempt.]
With that one line, the Dwarf Company was invincible.
The climbers ascending the Tower entered one room each and sat with a dwarf in front of them.
Their equipment was placed on the enchantment machine before the dwarf.
They prayed that it wouldn't be smashed to pieces.
They held their breath.
They prayed.
They cursed.
No matter how you looked at it, the scene resembled a gambling hall.
The reason there were no clocks was the same.
The thing that told you when it was time to leave had to be your empty wallet, not your equipment.
However.
Enchantment had not originally been like this.
You sprinkled enchantment powder over the equipment.
Then the blacksmith struck it directly with a hammer.
Until the powder seeped into the equipment.
Once, then again, with care.
Luck certainly played a role in success and failure, but the blacksmith's concentration and skill determined most of the outcome.
The Dwarf Company had transferred every one of those processes to machines.
The amount of powder, the number of strikes, the pressure, the temperature—machines handled everything.
The dwarf merely had to press a button.
It was fast; time efficiency had improved dramatically.
That was only natural, since it had eliminated everything humans used to do.
And.
One more thing had become possible.
The amount of enchantment powder sprinkled onto the equipment….
Could be controlled.
And above that Enchantment Hall.
A place that could never be seen from below.
The noise of the hall only rumbled faintly through the floor, and the room itself was quiet.
Floor 88 spread out beyond the window.
A river of lava flowed, conveyors turned, and mass-production lines spewed fire.
This room stood above that beautiful view.
“…So?”
The person seated in the chair spoke.
“Furam doesn't seem willing to open his mouth.”
The dwarf in a suit reported with his head bowed.
He was the very dwarf who had visited Furam's verification center.
“Preserving his position wasn't solely out of sentiment, was it?”
The chair creaked.
The person seated in it leaned forward and picked up the documents on the desk.
“…Do we need to bring him to his senses?”
The dwarf in the suit could not answer.
The one he had bowed his head to.
The legs of the person seated in the chair stretched far beneath the desk.
They were too long to be a dwarf's. They were human.
On the screen before them, the verification device glowed brightly between the windows of Furam's verification center.
“A Descendant of Fire. I never thought such a thing could really exist in this age.”
The hand turned the pages. Long, smooth fingers, without a single callus.
Hands that had never held a hammer controlled the dwarves' business.
“We have to find them.”
The man set the documents down.
There had been plenty of controversy after the dwarves' technology was put on the mass-production lines.
The traditionalists had gnashed their teeth, the artisans had left, and those who remained had been shoved into corners like Furam.
However, the sales were incomparable.
The era when one hammer made one sword a day, versus the era when one machine produced a hundred swords a day.
You didn't need to ask which one was a business.
But a Descendant of Fire….
The man's fingers slowly tapped the desk.
Elite blacksmith equipment was on an entirely different level from mass-produced equipment. He knew that.
The problem was that no one knew where that difference came from.
They couldn't analyze the process or obtain the equipment, so they couldn't replicate it.
At least, not until now.
“If we capture the Descendant of Fire, extract the technique, and put it on the mass-production line.”
The man muttered while staring at the light of the verification device on the screen.
“We might even be able to mass-produce elite-grade equipment.”
The dwarf in the suit raised his head.
Something flickered briefly in his eyes.
“…The Descendant of Fire's techniques aren't suited to mass production….”
“Are you a dwarf or a businessman?”
“……”
The man stood up.
“That isn't for you to decide.”
Lava flowed beyond the window.
Every mineral would pass through this floor. Every material would pass through this floor.
The only thing that bothered him was that.
The person who had brought in the equipment was Doloris, the ruler of Floor 5.
There was no denying that she was a formidable opponent.
“…There is no need to hurry.”
The man turned off the screen.
“A blacksmith will eventually come back here.”
Whether it was material.
Or ore.
Whatever it turned out to be, they would come looking.
It was then.
- Bang.
“Mr. Elliot! High-ranker Sakpung says he's going to challenge the Mana-Infused Bracer to +20!”
“…+20.”
The man called Elliot turned his chair around.
“How many times has it been?”
“Four attempts so far, and four destructions.”
The Mana-Infused Bracer.
It was one of the high-grade pieces of equipment for archers, and when worn, it amplified the force used to draw a bowstring.
It was the most suitable equipment for aiming for high enhancement.
Unique equipment was hopeless if it was destroyed. The Mana-Infused Bracer was high-grade equipment that could be obtained without too much difficulty.
And the fact that he had obtained it four times meant that.
“His determination is impressive.”
He had heard that every piece of equipment except the bracer was already at +20 or higher.
The final piece. He would never be able to back down.
─────────────────
[19 -> 20 Enhancement]
[Success Rate: 16%]
[Destruction Rate: 15%]
[Failure Rate: 69%]
─────────────────
A real-time probability table floated before their eyes.
People attempted enchantments trusting only these probabilities.
“He certainly has done this many times.”
‘Sakpung.’
Are you thinking, Maybe it'll work this time?
Unfortunately, probability is based on independent trials, and.
“Lower it.”
When Elliot gave the order.
In Room 19, where Sakpung was waiting, the machine reduced the amount of powder it would sprinkle over the equipment to one-tenth.
And.
─────────────────
[19 → 20 Enhancement]
[Success Rate: 2%]
[Destruction Rate: 29%]
[Failure Rate: 69%]
─────────────────
Five consecutive destructions were hardly unusual.
“Would you like to try to break through that two percent?”
Apply it.
If it succeeds, he takes it home.
…If it breaks, he can simply buy another one.
Where?
“Increase production of Mana-Infused Bracers.”
Naturally. From the Dwarf Company's shop.