Chapter 28
1.
88th Floor, Climbing Zone.
After a long, grueling battle, the climbers who had set foot on the floor collapsed, catching their ragged breaths.
“You’ve worked hard.”
An old dwarf who appeared to be the floor’s administrator clapped his hands and stood before them.
“My heartfelt congratulations on reaching the 88th floor. As is customary, I’ll briefly explain this floor to you.”
“Ha… We… made it….”
“We did it, didn’t we?”
The old dwarf slowly nodded.
It was a congratulatory message for passing the trial of the previous floor.
And a consideration sent to the climbers, telling them to catch their breath before attempting the next floor.
Those two sentiments were contained in the customary greeting sent to climbers.
“Now, everyone, look up.”
The climbers’ gazes all turned toward the sky above them.
And then.
“……What is that?”
Someone muttered absently.
High above them stretched a gigantic grid that reached all the way to the horizon.
Various emblems were engraved across the ceiling and sky.
“Those are the records of glory engraved by the descendants of fire.”
“Ah… Those descendants of fire!”
The old dwarf nodded. The descendants of fire were a proud part of the race’s history, one the climbers knew as well.
He looked up at the grid and lowered his voice.
“The descendants of fire are the exceedingly rare few among the Sun Dwarves who have been chosen by fire alone. But even that great fire is helpless before the passage of time. A new descendant of fire hasn’t appeared in a very long time….”
“Good grief, let’s stop with those dusty old stories.”
Just then.
Someone cut the administrator off sharply.
A dwarf in a suit, the corners of his mouth stretched high.
He was an employee of the Company.
“Everyone? Rather than some vague legend, wouldn’t it be more important to become stronger right now?”
He pushed his way between the climbers and rubbed his hands together.
“Now, how about trying our Company’s renowned enchantment service on the 88th floor? We guarantee the finest enchantment experience and definite improvement.”
“Ooh….”
In truth, people who couldn’t climb all the way to the 88th floor themselves weren’t forbidden from receiving enchantments.
Unlike the climbing zones, the residential areas containing enchantment facilities could be entered if one had a companion or received certification for that floor.
However, the latter was difficult in practice, so most people had no choice but to rely on the former.
And most importantly, there was a clear difference in enchantment costs between those who had set foot on the 88th floor themselves and those who had not.
That was a price set by the Company.
In short, climbers who had been forced to buy expensive enchantment equipment were now hearing that starting their enchantments after reaching the 88th floor was the cheapest option.
The climbers’ eyes began to waver.
The Company employee’s smile widened another notch.
It was then.
- Rumble….
The sky trembled overhead.
“……?”
- Boom!
- Crackle….
Along with the sound of something ringing out.
A new emblem began to appear in one of the empty spaces.
The Company employee, who had been chattering about enchantments, and the climbers alike stood there with their mouths hanging open, staring up at the sky.
“Um… Mr. Dwarf, what is that…?”
One of the climbers asked in the silence, and.
The bearded old dwarf slowly stepped forward.
The bitter expression he had worn moments ago had transformed into a broad smile that showed every one of his white teeth.
Moisture had even gathered in the corners of his wrinkled eyes.
Still looking up at the sky, he spread both arms wide toward that distant place no one could see.
“Tell them what you saw. Tell them what you heard.”
Words he had thought he would never be able to say again.
He wasn’t saying them only to the climbers.
To the dwarves who wore stiffly pressed suits instead of oil-stained leather aprons, and.
To those who held a single contract instead of a hammer.
“Tell everyone…!”
The old dwarf shouted at the top of his lungs.
“Welcome the new descendant of fire!”
Tears streamed down his wrinkled face.
2.
The God of the Workshop, Once Again.
Yesterday, I had gotten a good rest in Doloris’s arms for the first time in a while.
I hadn’t planned on resting, though. I had been forced to rest.
What had truly surprised me was that Ruby had thanked me.
‘Tank you.’
Even after sobbing her eyes out, she had formally left those words with me before scampering away.
Since yesterday, she had been looking at me differently again.
“……Phew.”
Meanwhile, Doloris seemed to have decided that she had more or less reached the beginning of her recovery.
This morning, she had left the estate to visit her personal physician.
And I.
Right now, there was something I was personally very curious about.
There were roughly three things.
First.
If I enchanted the equipment I had made for her and raised its level, would her recovery improve further?
So I caught Doloris as she was about to leave and asked her to take off at least her gloves, but.
‘Mmmph… No.’
Doloris pressed her gloved hands tightly against her chest, cheeks flushed, and shook her head.
If I had asked for her stockings, she might have cried.
Anyway, her expression was so cute that I nearly let her go, but.
When I spoke firmly, she eventually handed over the gloves with a sullen expression.
I was about to use these gloves to check my first question.
My second question was.
What exactly were ‘unique equipment’ items?
I planned to confirm this through various documents.
Wikis, various communities, and so on.
Anywhere that had information.
And finally, my third question.
“……I ignored Isabella?”
Am I insane?
[Yeah, yeah, totally]
Yuna played the video she had recorded that day.
Isabella pointed a finger at me from beside me, her face flushed with excitement.
『You! Become my disciple!』
But in the video, I was.
‘I want to die.’
‘The stitch won’t come undone. I want to tear it all apart.’
‘Ah….’
I was knitting the stockings’ toe without even looking at her.
『L-Lionel…? Um…?』
『…Lionel?』
In the end, Isabella left with tears in her eyes, whimpering as she went.
“……What did I do?”
What was truly remarkable was how unusually mild and kind Isabella had been this time.
Anyone would have taken it as blatant dismissal.
Yet instead of getting angry, she had chosen to shrink back and quietly withdraw.
I should apologize to her later.
I’d be grateful if she accepted it….
It seemed right to obtain her contact information through Doloris or something.
I had no idea when she had entered the estate, but I had been terribly rude.
“Then now….”
It was time to resolve my questions.
I wanted to start by striking the hammer for an enchantment right away, but.
I knew how to prioritize. There was something I needed to confirm first.
Namely, the ‘Apprentice Blacksmith’s Warming Gloves.’
The concept of [Unique Equipment] attached to this item.
What exactly was unique equipment?
I began digging through the communities.
Wikis, message boards, strategy guides, anywhere that seemed likely to contain information—I looked everywhere… well, that’s a lie.
“Yunaaa.”
[Yeah?]
“Could you give me a big-data summary.”
[Sighhh]
Yuna sighed once, then.
Hundreds of documents flashed rapidly past my eyes.
[Want the three-line summary?]
[One. Unique equipment is equipment of which there is only one in the world.]
“Good.”
[Two. But it isn’t called unique equipment simply because there’s only one. Even at the same star rank, it has to perform on an entirely different level from other equipment for the name ‘unique’ to apply.]
[It can’t be measured numerically, but its caliber is different.]
[Three. That’s why when people obtain unique equipment around four or five stars, it’s so powerful that they give up on enchanting it entirely because of the destruction risk and simply use the original at 0 enhancement.]
That was more than three lines, but I nodded because Yuna seemed like she would get angry if I pointed it out.
So the concept of unique equipment was so excellent that people would give up on enchanting it?
I had only done it once, but.
I had raised a 0-star item all the way to +20 without a single destruction.
In reality, as long as I didn’t make a mistake, there wasn’t even a destruction chance.
“…Then what happens if I enchant unique equipment?”
So, honestly.
The idea of giving up on enchantments because of the destruction risk felt like someone else’s problem.
You could get fun, dopamine, and enchantments all at once, so why would anyone chicken out?
[Hmm….]
Yuna searched for a while.
[The thing is, there aren’t any research results.]
[Basically, the higher the rank of the unique equipment, the more sharply the destruction chance rises, even at low enchantment levels.]
[Even the Dwarf Company is reluctant to accept unique equipment for enchantment because the destruction risk is too high.]
“……I don’t understand.”
Was the difficulty of enchanting high-star unique equipment really that extreme?
I couldn’t resist something I was curious about.
Sooner or later, I felt like I had to try enchanting Gorgoneion’s White Gauntlet, which Doloris had thrown into the trash.
My mouth watered at the thought, but it remained to be seen whether she would give it to me.
“Hey.”
[Apprentice Blacksmith’s Warming Gloves]
“I was curious, but you fell right into my hands.”
The mere thought of enchanting had made my hands itch.
[Oppa… How many hours should I set the timer for?]
[Two hours…? Three hours…?]
“T….”
[Two hours?]
“Twenty hours.”
[……. ]
I had rested for far too long.
Now.
It was time to return as the rhythm-game warlord.
3.
At the same time.
Doloris was sitting in a teahouse inside the Imperial Citadel, near the Imperial Palace.
She was on her way back from seeing her personal physician.
She wrapped her hands around her teacup and reviewed what had just happened.
- ……How? How could this possibly be happening?
The physician who had finished taking her pulse shook his head again and again.
He was the personal physician who had watched over her for decades. The physician who had watched over her family.
He knew better than anyone that this illness could never be cured.
And yet he had said that.
- …There is no way to explain it. However.
With trembling hands, he checked her pulse again.
- You are definitely improving… and to an astonishing degree.
What Doloris was feeling wasn’t merely an illusion born from wanting to believe it.
Her dying body really was coming back to life.
“……”
Turning those words over in her mind, Doloris took a sip of warm tea.
Outwardly, she looked as elegant as ever.
Curtains draped around the table hid her legs and everything below her knees.
And behind those curtains.
- Pitter-patter-patter.
Her feet, clad in red stockings.
Bounced restlessly like an excited child, rejoicing with her entire body where no one could see.
‘Lionel, Lionel, Lionel.’
If not for her promise, she wanted to run to him right away and hold that child in her arms.
Just then.
- Step.
The chair across from her was quietly pulled out.
“……Have you been waiting long?”
Long golden hair flowed softly over the woman’s shoulders.
Yet unlike her elegant hair, her body was clad in white armor.
Doloris’s sworn sister and the sword of the imperial family.
The Valkyrie, Serren de Lumiere.
Doloris reined in the excitement in her toes and answered elegantly.
“No, I just got here.”
“Really?”
The woman sat across from her and let out a deep, exhausted sigh.
Dark circles hung heavily beneath her eyes.
She looked as though she hadn’t slept properly in days.
“……Haah, I’ll get straight to the point, Doloris.”
She casually placed something on the table.
A small plaque crafted in gold.
“You didn’t sell them, did you? The gloves.”
The plaque bore an unusual emblem of a roaring lion.
Since it was decorated solely in gold, it belonged to the imperial prince.
“……I’ll meet any conditions you want. Gold coins… an expanded territory… or anything else.”
She looked at Doloris with tired eyes.
Fatigue clung to every word she spoke.
“Couldn’t you hand those gloves over to His Imperial Highness?”
“……”
Doloris did not answer immediately.
The final winning bid for Lionel’s gloves had been 170,000 gold.
She had already guessed that the prince was the one who had casually offered that amount.
But Lionel had not sold them, and.
As a result.
Serren, who was hounded every day by the prince, an avid collector of luxury equipment, had come to Doloris in person.
“Could I give you an answer later?”
“Yes, please.”
Perhaps even that answer was a relief to Serren, because she let out a long sigh of relief.
“…Haah, honestly, I’m curious even as your sister. How did you get them…? Though if I ask, you won’t answer anyway, will you?”
Doloris only smiled sweetly.
“I really ought to quit. Seriously.”
Serren was shaking her head and grumbling when.
Her eyes turned toward the empty air to her right, and.
Then.
- Flash.
Her eyes suddenly opened wide.
It was a habitual reaction whenever she received a message from the Tower.
Her eyes, checking something floating in the air, grew wider and wider.
“……Ah, ah. Aaaaaah.”
Eventually, Serren.
Covered her eyes with both hands and even began whining like a child.
“……?”
Doloris looked at her, unable to understand what was happening, and.
Without a word, Serren turned her interface toward Doloris.
Floating there was.
A breaking news alert from a media outlet that reported Tower news.
[【Breaking News】 The ‘descendant of fire’ lineage, thought to have vanished, continues.]
[【Breaking News】 The Sun Dwarves have returned. The descendant of fire has returned.]
A single photograph capturing the scene was attached to the breaking news.
An incandescent sun emblem had been engraved on the grid.
“Where are we supposed to get equipment belonging to the descendant of fire now…? I’m seriously going crazy….”
As though she had sensed the fate awaiting her, Serren slammed her forehead against the table.
One +20 pair of gloves is already this much trouble.
And now equipment belonging to the descendant of fire, whose lineage everyone had thought was completely severed, had appeared before her eyes.
Considering what had happened with the Genesis Sword not long ago.
There was no need to imagine what lay ahead.
Just then.
A commotion spread throughout the teahouse.
“This….”
“…Then, perhaps….”
Serren looked around anxiously, then.
“……I-I think I need to leave. Quickly.”
She slowly rose, her face utterly drained of life.
“I have to go negotiate or something….”
“Yes, take care.”
Doloris had to endure it.
Until the moment Serren left the teahouse with her shoulders slumped.
Until chairs scraped noisily in every direction and everyone had left.
She had to desperately swallow the laughter rising to her throat.
“Serren…. I’m sorry, but.”
Doloris elegantly raised the teacup to her lips.
The descendant of fire you’ve been searching for so desperately… and the owner of those gloves….
Were, in fact, the same person.
And right now, he was probably hammering away in her estate.
Unaware of what was happening.
“Heh-heh.”
Carefree, singing as he worked.
It had been so long since she had enjoyed days this happy….
Nothing in particular happened to me.
No, wait—the last string above contains accidental text and must be corrected.