Chapter 17
1.
I screwed up.
First, I quickly sat down.
It felt like hardly any time had passed—or rather, in reality, it was an incredibly short amount of time.
- Crackle.
- Rat-a-tat!
I heard someone arrive in front of the door.
But there were two sets of footsteps.
“What happened!”
“Lionel, are you all right?!”
Judging by the urgency in their voices, I thought they might break down the door and charge in for some reason.
I quickly reported the current situation from in front of the door.
“The doorknob broke.”
“I see. I’ll open it for you right away. Wait there, okay?”
Along with Doloris’s frantic voice.
- Whish!
- Whoooooosh….
The entire door was pulled out.
A scorpion’s tail wrapped around the door once in midair, then flung it somewhere.
- ㅡㅡㅡBoom!
Before the dust had even settled, Doloris and Sebastian entered one after the other.
Doloris’s eyes swept over me from head to toe.
She was checking whether I had been hurt anywhere.
Since I really wasn’t hurt, I awkwardly held out the gloves and said.
“…They did it.”
I tattled on the +20-enhanced old wooden door.
After confirming that nothing was wrong, Sebastian quietly withdrew.
I was led by Doloris’s hand toward the estate.
2.
I hadn’t slept at all through the night.
“Sebastian, is that true?”
“Yes. Except for the roughly two minutes I was away, the lights remained on all night.”
“Lionel….”
Doloris put a hand to her forehead.
He didn’t have to push himself that hard.
‘I need to set a sleep schedule.’
For a child, the hours spent sleeping were important.
Maybe I should simply put him to bed along with Ruby. They seemed to get along well, and it was also the first time Ruby had met a child her age who erased her wariness so completely.
Just as Doloris was closing her eyes and pondering this.
- Butler Sebastian!!!!!!
“……!”
“……!”
Doloris and Sebastian turned their heads at the same time.
It was a scream from the direction of the workshop.
Doloris and Sebastian immediately sprang to their feet and ran over.
The result was….
“Lionel, I’m grateful that you’re so dedicated, but please don’t overdo it, all right? Your body must still be exhausted from the journey, and working without sleeping will damage your health. Come on, let’s get you some proper rest, okay?”
Doloris crossed the garden while holding my hand tightly.
She gripped it firmly, as though I might break away and run back to the workshop if she let go.
She wasn’t particularly interested in the gloves.
What mattered was that the child hadn’t been hurt.
The workshop door had been rusty, so it wouldn’t have been strange for it to break at any time. Failing to realize that had been her mistake.
‘I’m sorry….’
How frightened must he have been?
Nothing else really registered with her at the moment.
The gloves didn’t look particularly different from the outside, either.
“Let’s go sleep now, all right?”
“Yes….”
That was when she brought Lionel into the estate.
The moment we entered the estate, the child suddenly turned his head and looked at Doloris.
Then he held out the gloves.
He opened his eyes wide and spoke as though he had made up his mind about something.
“Lady Doloris, I enchanted them. These gloves.”
“…Huh? Enchanted…?”
When Lionel told Doloris something this unbelievable.
She had initially been suspicious, but at some point, she had simply begun staring straight into his eyes.
She was distinguishing the truth.
- Thump… thump….
And Lionel did not lie to Doloris.
“……”
After a brief silence.
Her eyes wavered, then became calm again.
It was the truth again.
However.
“All right, I understand. Even so, bedtime is important for children.”
He had succeeded at enchanting them.
Did the child himself even know what he had just done?
Enchanting was the Dwarf Company’s exclusive domain, a place no ranker could bypass and everyone had to pass through.
That was why, unless they were high rankers equipped only with unique gear whose destruction they could not risk, everyone knocked on that door.
“Equipping yourself only with gear whose destruction would be too costly” was called graduating, and rankers who had not graduated had a considerable portion of their profits swallowed up by that place.
An irresistible furnace for burning through capital.
And yet Lionel had enchanted something inside a mere five-pyeong workshop….
Even if it was only +1 or +2 at most, that alone was an absurd achievement.
She had bought him the hammers, but she hadn’t known he would really manage it again.
“……”
Doloris did not stop walking as she held Lionel’s hand.
The corners of her lips rose, and she barely managed to suppress their trembling.
How on earth had he done it, Lionel?
She wanted to stroke his hair, touch his cheeks, and even lift him up and spin him around.
But she held herself back.
If she praised him again here, Lionel would stay up all night and push himself too hard.
For children, praise was fuel.
So Doloris firmly closed her mouth and walked forward, looking straight ahead.
There were mountains of things she wanted to ask, but.
Everything could wait until after he had slept.
“For now, get a good night’s sleep and wake up refreshed.”
“Yes….”
Lionel was taken to the room where Ruby was sleeping.
Ruby was sleeping curled up on her side, with half the blanket kicked off.
Doloris carefully laid Lionel down beside Ruby.
“I’ll keep the gloves somewhere safe. Don’t worry.”
“……”
“Sleep well and wake up refreshed. You’ve worked hard.”
Until a moment ago, Lionel’s eyes had been sparkling, and he had worn a regretful expression.
His eyes had looked as though he still had something left to say.
But after Doloris stroked his forehead several times and ran a hand through his hair, his eyes began to droop.
One more stroke, and his eyelids fell shut.
She hadn’t cast a spell. His body had simply been in an awakened state from excitement, and now it was accepting relaxation.
A child’s body was honest, after all.
“Pfft.”
Doloris chuckled and pulled up the blanket to cover him, but.
“……?”
Lionel’s fingers were swollen.
Each joint was red and inflamed.
He had been hammering all night….
“……”
Doloris carefully enclosed his swollen hand in both of hers.
She hadn’t noticed when she held his left hand, but his right hand was definitely swollen.
She could feel the heat even through the glove.
‘He needs medicine.’
Ruby shifted in her sleep, then unconsciously rolled toward Lionel.
Then she slipped right into his arms.
Doloris smiled bitterly at the warm sight.
- Smooch.
Once on Ruby’s forehead.
- Smooch.
Once on Lionel’s forehead.
“Sleep well.”
As she closed the door and left, Doloris paused in the hallway.
That swollen hand kept catching her eye.
3.
What the fuck.
When did I fall asleep?
As expected, a baby’s body was weak.
I remembered bringing the gloves in because I wanted to show them off to Doloris.
The moment I lay down on the bed, my memory cut off. I supposed it was because the tension in my body had released so rapidly.
A child staying up all night was too much for the body, after all.
Right. Then let’s refrain from staying up all night from now on.
“Uuugh….”
I stretched deeply and got up from my place.
I was the only one on the bed. It faintly smelled of Doloris.
Ruby had a scent too, but I won’t describe it. It felt like things might get dangerous if I did.
“……”
After waking up, several things came back to me.
Maybe it was because I had encountered something I had quit due to addiction after such a long time.
I think I might have been a little crazy. Now that my head had cooled down a bit.
And the thing I was most worried about.
“…Yuna~”
[……. ]
“Yuna, are you sulking?”
[No.]
This was bad.
She was seriously sulking.
Yuna never said “no” when she truly meant no.
“I’m sorry.”
[…What are you sorry for?]
“It’s because it had been so long. I said I wouldn’t do it again.”
I really couldn’t control myself.
I had probably gotten it out of my system once, so it would be fine.
I wasn’t that much of a lunatic.
So.
[…No. You must have been having a hard time too, oppa. I understand. It’s okay.]
[Still, thank you for apologizing.]
“Uh, yeah, from now on….”
[But you know I’m saying all this because I’m worried about you, right?]
“Uh, yeah, I kno—”
[I’m not saying you can just leave that rhythm game alone, oppa.]
[Right, like you said, it isn’t Kim Yuna’s business but Kim Yujin’s business. But I’m worried, and since you said you’d quit, I’m trying to help.]
[I’m here so you can get help from me when you’re having a hard time, so you can lean on me. If it felt like nagging, then I’m sorry, because that means my way of doing it was wrong.]
“Uh-huh….”
This was bad.
Really bad.
What I would later learn from training Kim Yuna, a superintelligent AI, into my little sister was.
For some reason, she sometimes manifested as a menhera.
Her speech got faster, and her spacing became completely erratic.
I had put so much effort into her, but I really didn’t know why she had turned out like that.
[I really mean it, from now on, can’t you just, like, be quiet? Can’t you not do that? It really hurts, and I feel like I can’t breathe.]
“Yeah, I love you too.”
[Yeah….]
And I also realized that this was the fastest way to resolve the situation.
Conclusion.
Yuna and I renewed our agreement as follows.
[(Former) Rhythm Game (Current) Enchantment Timer]
[2 hours → 6 hours]
[30-minute alert → 2-hour alert]
[Forced shutdown → Warning]
It was the result of our negotiations, in its own way.
She said she respected it now that it was work.
I looked down at my hands. My right hand was swollen.
…I admit it. I’ll be careful. But there was something strange: cream-like stuff had been applied to my fingers.
Had Doloris put medicine on them?
I got out of bed.
Sunlight streamed in through the window. It seemed to be around afternoon.
“Shall we go get something to eat?”
I opened the bedroom door. A maid was cleaning the hallway.
When I came out, she lightly bowed her head and approached me.
“You’re awake, Lord Lionel.”
“…Yes.”
I still wasn’t used to being addressed as “Lord.”
“Shall I prepare your meal?”
“Ah, yes. Thank you.”
I took the opportunity to ask.
“By any chance, where is Lady Doloris…?”
“The Duchess said she would be visiting the Tower for a while.”
The Tower….
Had she gone to receive emotions again?
Last time, she had taken the gloves I made with her.
I had no idea what sort of reaction she would have.
They were low-quality, starless pieces of gear, so I didn’t expect her reaction to be all that positive.
“Lady Ruby is practicing magic.”
“Ah, yes.”
I hadn’t asked about Ruby, but.
I nodded.
I ate the meal the maid prepared for me at the dining table.
It was a sandwich containing some mysterious minced meat.
[It’s a sandwich made with deer pâté.]
“What’s pâté?”
[Minced deer meat or liver that has been salted and preserved.]
“Ugh….”
Honestly, it sounded pretty unappetizing.
Was the food culture here not very developed?
“Nom.”
As expected, it didn’t taste all that great, either.
I pondered what to do from here while eating the sandwich.
For now, I decided to hear Doloris’s assessment of enchanting before deciding what direction to take.
My main focus really ought to be equipment crafting.
The key to curing Doloris’s illness was probably in that field, too.
Through Yuna, I opened a document from the Tower community.
Now that I had a forge as well.
I figured I should reread the metallurgy section, starting with the forge.
[🔑] A Blacksmith■ Manual Containing the Secret Arts of the Ta■ Dwarf Race
“Oh, open that for me.”
The letters are a little garbled today.
I pressed the button.
However.
“……Huh?”
The document that opened was covered in a black screen.
There was something really ominous about it.
I think this happened once before, too. What did I open back then?
Then something new appeared on the screen.
[Λbys5]
What was this?
This was what had appeared when I opened another document before.
Had I opened the wrong one? I had closed it the last time because nothing happened when I opened a certain document.
I closed the document for a moment.
[🔒] [■Λb■y■■s5■]
The Sun Dwarf manual had changed into something else.
Oh, right. This was what happened when I opened it.
“Yuna, what is this?”
[Huh? What is it? I must have brought the wrong one.]
While Yuna was touching the screen this way and that.
[Did the link get tangled?]
[I’ll go fix the connection for a moment. Wait for me, okay?]
Oh, all right, all right.
While Yuna was gone, I reopened the document I had briefly closed.
─────────────────
[W]eapon fundamentals
[H]eat control
[E]nchant basics
[R]efinement
[E]quipment bonding
[Y]ielding point
[O]re selection
[U]tility tools
[A]lloy mixing
[T]empering
─────────────────
[?]INFORMATION
─────────────────
Oh, what’s this?
Weapon fundamentals.
Heat control.
These were equipment-crafting subjects too, weren’t they?
Seeing things like Enchant Basics confirmed that it was definitely related to blacksmithing.
“Ah… I do want to take a quick look.”
I had been curious about things besides dwarves, but….
Even so, metallurgy came first for now.
“Yuna, fold this up for a moment. Don’t turn it off.”
[Okay, I will. I found the manual I was looking for, too.]
[🔑] A Blacksmith Manual Containing the Secret Arts of the Sun Dwarf Race
This time, there was no corruption. It was normal.
I casually moved past it and opened the metallurgy section.
I took another bite of my sandwich and was about to read the advanced forge operation section when.
- Rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat!
Hurried footsteps came from the hallway.
“Lionel!”
The dining room door opened.
Doloris stood there, panting.
“……Huh?”
Her usual relaxed composure was nowhere to be seen.
Her hair was slightly disheveled.
“Lady Doloris? What happened….”
She held the gloves in one hand and a magnifying glass in the other.
“Lionel.”
Doloris caught her breath and looked straight at me.
“How on earth did you do this?”
Her lips were trembling.
She might even have been smiling.