Chapter 26
1.
And so, several days passed.
During the day… I heated and quenched it, and at night, I passed out in Doloris’s specially made refrigerated bread.
The translucent, soft red silk piled up day by day,
and my quality of life improved day by day as well.
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner were delivered,
and I no longer slept only at night; Doloris forcibly put me to sleep, so I took naps during the day too.
She said she’d only come when I was tired… but she just showed up whenever and hugged me, so honestly.
One day, when I looked at Doloris, who had come far too early, with a sullen expression, she panicked and pulled a sheet of paper from her bosom.
“I came to show you the response to Lionel’s gloves.”
Apparently, she had kept it tucked there just in case I got sullen.
The final winning bid was 170,000 gold.
It was 1.7 billion won.
“Since they can be called the finest equipment in humanity for guilds, knight-order climbing parties, noble families, and early climbers… I think the price went up.”
“Wow.”
When I exclaimed, Doloris covered her mouth and asked,
“Heehee, do you want to sell them?”
“Hmm….”
I touched my chin and thought about it, then.
“No.”
There would be a better use for them. I had inadvertently become an auction-house flexer, but I still didn’t want to sell them.
Anyway, time passed like that.
Before I knew it.
“Yuna, do you know what a mast is? A mast?”
I pulled up the corners of my mouth as I peeled off the ore’s final layer.
Almost nothing comes off anymore. Now.
The Flame Ore that had once been the size of two fists had dwindled until only a red glass bead the size of an ant remained, its internal mana clumped together.
This one was going to become a topping.
The final gemstone topping sprinkled over the sock liner.
“Let’s go.”
It was time to return to the Sun Dwarves.
The precious translucent red silk had piled up in a soft mound,
and now I had to turn it into warming sock liners.
But.
I felt uneasy about simply following the recipe for the original Apprentice Blacksmith’s Warming Sock Liner.
“It’s ugly….”
Perhaps it had been designed to be worn inside a large shoe.
It had no aesthetic appeal whatsoever. It was clunky and heavy, as if it cared only about function.
Of course, changing only the material would improve it in various ways, but make Doloris wear something like this?
No way.
“Isn’t there anything better…?”
The textbook I was reading now… was an introductory textbook for apprentice blacksmiths.
Being faithful to the basics would be enough, but I wanted to aim higher.
[I’m looking, but… I don’t see anything like an advanced course or something.]
“Really?”
That was a little strange.
Just as I was rummaging randomly through the textbook.
“……?”
The last page of the apprentice textbook.
In one corner, a short phrase had been written.
『You cannot advance by merely learning.』
『If you have walked a path someone else created until now, it is time to blaze your own path.』
“……This.”
I felt like I understood what it meant the moment I saw it.
If I had melted the theory into my mind, trained the fundamentals, and made them second nature….
In other words, the Sun Dwarves’ details and principles.
If I could put all of them into practice throughout the entire process….
Was there any reason to stand atop a recipe someone had made for apprentice blacksmiths?
“………”
- Swish.
I spread out the red silk I had drawn over the past several days across the workbench.
Keep the details exactly as they are.
Burn the fundamentals and principles into my body, too.
But I would make the path.
The truth was, I knew nothing about aesthetics.
I wasn’t even a female character from some subculture gacha game; when it came to clothing, I knew even less.
But I wasn’t worried.
“Yuna, what are the prettiest stockings you can think of?”
[Huh?! Yuna’s personal taste?]
Her energy suddenly shot through the roof.
More precisely, it wasn’t Yuna’s personal taste; I just meant something aesthetically excellent.
They’d probably be similar.
If I lacked aesthetic sense, I could ask someone who had it.
And Yuna’s aesthetic sense could, in fact, be considered the strongest among humanity.
She had learned every fashion trend in the world and possessed all that information.
You could call her a sea of data.
[Hmm… well, you know?]
I waited for a moment, then.
[I think the common elements of pretty stockings are three things.]
[First, transparency; second, the ankle line; and third—whether men like them.]
“W-What are you talking about all of a sudden?”
[I’m serious! I didn’t make this up; people really say things like this.]
Is this for real?
I flinched for a moment.
Then I brought up the manufacturing process for the stockings Yuna had sent me.
What I would have to do if there were no machines.
And I was rendered speechless.
“…You mean I have to do this by hand.”
An infinite repetition made of needles and cloth.
Looking back, it was absurd. When I thought of blacksmiths, I had imagined nothing but heating and hammering iron.
You know, the whole muscular forearm thing.
But a blacksmith had to be capable of taking responsibility a little deeper than that.
Counting eye-of-a-needle-sized stitches through the night.
“Do it. I can do it.”
Yeah, fuck it. There’s nothing I can’t do.
And so… my first hell began.
I don’t want to describe every process in detail.
Even my own mind was beginning to go blank.
One stitch. Then another. I unraveled the translucent silk into thread and looped it over the tip of the needle.
Then I knitted it into a cylinder. The one saving grace was that the cloth tore along its grain and unraveled easily into thread.
“Ah, fuck.”
Whenever I thought I had made some progress, the grain would go askew, so I unraveled it and started again.
I kept ripping it out to reproduce the perfect angle of Doloris’s heel.
My eyes grew bleary… and the sensation in my fingertips collapsed.
- Tap.
- Tap.
I stopped counting how many nights had passed.
It was harder than anything I had done so far,
and because the process was so brutally honest, I never even felt tempted to skip it.
“Where’s a knitting machine? A knitting machine?!”
[Yeah….]
Unfortunately, there was no machine to replace knitting the stitches.
“I’m going to concentrate like crazy, so—no matter what happens, don’t talk to me at all, okay, Yuna?”
[Yeah……. ]
“Am I being a little sensitive?”
[A little….]
“Oh, I love you too.”
And so.
Two weeks passed.
2.
“Heehee.”
The lewd witch, Isabella.
“How dare you send me flying all the way to the borderlands?”
Doloris’s forced-return spell had sent her truly, truly far away,
and after stewing in anger for a while, she finally managed to return.
Besides, she was not cruel by nature, so taking her anger out on someone was impossible.
She even succeeded in sneaking inconspicuously into the estate.
The thing was, she had gotten inside, but.
To be honest, she was a little terrified.
“…….”
From Isabella’s perspective, Doloris was still someone terrifying when angry,
and she had waited nearby before slipping inside the moment she saw Doloris leave.
The barrier magic had also grown about twenty times stronger than before.
Breaking through it had consumed a considerable amount of mental energy.
“Good grief, what a frightening woman.”
She just wanted to take a quick peek at Lionel’s face and leave.
While cooling her anger, she had also made a few improvements to her opening.
What kind of evaluation would he give her? It felt like presenting a newly created spell to an old master and waiting for his judgment.
And the moment she entered the estate, what caught her eye was.
[If you take Lionel, you will die.]
[You really might die.]
- Your longtime companion and friend, Elysia von Doloris-
“Eek….”
It was magical embroidery engraved in the empty air of the estate.
Words inscribed throughout the estate so that only a mage of her caliber could perceive them.
Doloris had prepared them in case Isabella somehow broke through the barrier magic.
“She’s truly terrifying… Still, I suppose I should be grateful she calls me a friend.”
As Isabella clicked her tongue, shivered, and crossed the estate.
- Waaaaaaaah!
“……?”
Suddenly, a scream came from a wooden cabin far away on the garden side.
It was a male voice, but remarkably youthful.
Anyone could tell who it was….
“Lionel!”
Isabella dashed toward it in an instant.
Normally, she would have hated even a single blade of grass touching her skirt,
but at this moment, she gathered up her skirts high with both hands.
- Pitter-patter-patter.
She opened the workshop door just like that.
“……?”
And the scene inside that came into view.
She had expected an ordinary storage shed, but what she saw was….
A furnace, ore, a hammer, and a cooling bath.
And on the bedside table, stockings that were quite pretty—no, extraordinarily pretty….
Someone carefully stitching them, one stitch at a time….
“Lionel?!”
At that moment.
Isabella’s thoughts accelerated,
and the scattered pieces threaded themselves into a single line.
“You… really… the gloves…?”
The corners of Isabella’s mouth slowly rose.
She lowered the hands that had been clutching both sides of her skirt.
- Knock knock knock!
She bounced around the workshop.
If this was true, everything changed completely.
A single chess piece had already been worth that much. If those gloves really belonged to Lionel.
- Tap!
Isabella pointed a finger forcefully at Lionel.
“Lionel, become my disciple!”
It was worth enduring Doloris’s threats to kill her.
And before her, as she made that declaration with absolute confidence.
Lionel.
“……I want to die.”
“……?”
Expressed his will to live.
“Shi… Ah, I said not to swear… fuck….”
“……Huh? Me…?”
Without even looking in her direction,
he poured all his attention into knitting the stockings’ stitches.
“Lionel…?”
“…….”
“Hey, Lionel… disciple….”
She called him several more times like that, but Lionel did not answer,
and about ten minutes passed.
She had received countless offers to become someone’s master,
and had been pestered endlessly with pleas to pass on even a single bit of knowledge.
Yet Isabella had never once extended her hand to anyone.
And her precious first offer….
“Hiiing….”
The finger she had held out fell, having nowhere to go.
“That’s too cruel….”
In the end, Isabella lowered her head deeply
and trudged out of the workshop.
And then.
“Lady Isabella?!”
Sebas spotted her while crossing the garden and came running in horror.
“W-What brings you here…! When did you….”
“…I’m leaving.”
“Pardon…?”
“I’m just going….”
Isabella did not even answer the head butler’s question.
- Sniff.
Whimpering… she left the estate alone.
3.
Two weeks passed.
My body was screaming.
But today, I wasn’t irritable.
“Yuna? Good morning.”
Because there was truly only one last stitch left.
[……Oppa, I have a lot to say to you.]
“Yeah, let me just finish making this.”
I knitted the final stitch.
And then.
“Finished!!!!”
At last, after using up every scrap of cloth, I had knitted it into a single sock liner—in other words, stockings.
From the tips of the feet to the ankles.
A vivid red grain flowed continuously as though water, and a gentle heat shimmered across the thinly woven surface.
When light shone through, the inside was visible through its transparency, but when the angle shifted, its sheen came alive again.
It honestly shouldn’t have taken this long.
I had added one function.
So that folding it made it a sock, while unfolding it made it stockings.
Adding even that deranged function inevitably made it take longer.
Of course, I had pulled all the recipes from Yuna’s mind.
And on the bedside table.
The final core of the Flame Ore, a bright-red bead, was waiting for the last step.
“…Pretty.”
The Flame Ore, reduced to its limit.
All I had to do was place it on the stockings.
My hands trembled violently.
After all, I had pushed myself to the limit for two straight weeks. It couldn’t be helped.
- Tap.
With trembling fingertips, I placed the bead on the toe of the stockings.
The cloth I had peeled away through thermal shock delamination began to be sucked toward the glass bead,
as though it had found its home.
Each strand of red thread gently wrapped around the jewel and knitted itself into place.
- Shrrrrk….
And before I knew it, the cloth and bead fit together seamlessly,
as though they had always been that way.
“……Hah.”
Now for the truly final process.
I picked up the completed stockings and stepped outside the workshop.
“…….”
I couldn’t breathe properly.
This time.
For the first time, I had not referenced a Dwarf recipe.
I had put only the details I had learned from them into my hands, then cut and knitted.
I had filled it with nothing but details, details, and more details in my own way,
and walked my own path in the spirit of the Dwarves.
Then here was the question that arose.
Was I really a Sun Dwarf?
Would they acknowledge this equipment?
“…….”
In the center of the garden, where the sunlight fell most strongly.
I placed the stockings in both hands and raised them toward the sky.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
One minute.
Two minutes.
Time passed.
Normally, the emblem would have been engraved without much delay.
But even after waiting several minutes….
I heard nothing at all,
“……So it doesn’t work.”
I nodded.
Right, I could just try again.
Calming myself with effort, I opened my eyes.
And then.
“…….”
Before my eyes, a square golden panel, blazing with golden light, had appeared in midair.
And at its very center.
A familiar emblem was engraved.
The Apprentice Blacksmith emblem of a descendant of fire.
The form of a sun with eight branches of flame extending from it.
According to its explanation, it was the first mark carved by one who forged the sun.
“…….”
As if entranced.
I extended my finger,
and then.
- Fwoooosh….
Along the tip of my index finger, a golden thread began tracing an arc through the air.
Light flowed straight from the tip of my finger.
‘…No way.’
A single name naturally came to mind.
Lionel.
I drew a slow stroke beneath the sun emblem on the panel,
crossing beneath it.
L.
The first letter of my name.
- Zzzzt—!
At that moment.
Golden light burst from the toe of the completed stockings.
The emblem I had just drawn,
the sun and the L engraved beneath it,
was etched clearly onto the red silk, infused with golden light.
─────────────────
[Spring Without Frost][★★☆☆☆]
[Unique Equipment] [Compatibility][- /60]
─────────────────
Folded, it becomes the warmth of midwinter.
Pulled up, it becomes the heat haze of midsummer.
Two seasons contained in a single pair.
─────────────────
『Do not doubt the path you walk, but do not become intoxicated by the path you have walked.
── That is the first pride of one who handles fire.』
- The sun’s praise for L, a full-fledged blacksmith -
─────────────────
The first two-star equipment I had ever made. And beneath it, the words “Full-fledged Blacksmith L.”
I stared up at the words floating in the air for a long while,
and, along with the joy of being acknowledged as a descendant of fire,
I raised both hands and clenched my fists,
when my hand accidentally entered my field of vision.
“What a mess.”
They were scraped up all over, and covered in marks from needle pricks.
Calluses had formed on top of calluses.
I didn’t feel too bad about it.
Because I wasn’t ashamed.
I pulled up the corners of my mouth and gripped the stockings.
Doloris.
For two weeks, she had walked around the estate on frozen feet.
For two weeks, she had lost sleep because of someone and repeatedly dampened her eyes trying to put someone to sleep.
For that person.
I
planned to give her spring.