Chapter 50
1.
Why did he bring that here?!
Looking at it again, I'm terribly embarrassed. Now that I have eyes, I can see exactly how inadequate my past self was.
It's like looking back at a paper I edited a year ago.
The shoddiness I feel every time I get through another sentence.
And beneath the equipment, there's a sheet of paper.
I've seen that before, in the Imperial Palace.
That's an appraisal report.
Since he's a Sun Dwarf, and this is the workshop of the Heir of Fire, the appraisal report is naturally top-class as well.
“This is the trail you've left behind. You've made quite a lot in such a short time.”
Yet the dwarf before me merely muttered that and slowly examined it with a solemn expression.
- Tap.
He gave the oily gloves a light tap, then.
“…As a first step, they're ideal.”
With a smirk, he read the appraisal report beneath them.
I hurried over to him.
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【You can't expect to be full after your first bite.】
『Throw it away, throw it away. No. Give it to Eric, Eric.』
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“Yes, you can't expect to be full after your first bite. I don't know who Eric is, but send him my congratulations. It is rare to see an item ruined so honestly.”
“……”
The ancestor's scathing assessment.
Sorry, Eric. Maybe we'll meet someday.
I had always carried a sense of indebtedness.
Next came the Apprentice Blacksmith's Thermal Gloves.
“Thermal gloves are the perfect thing to start with. To make gloves like these after only one failure… Impressive.”
He scanned the appraisal report beneath the gloves, then smirked.
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『I made them with care, thinking of Doloris….』
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“Thinking of Doloris… Is she your lover?”
He looked at me as he asked, but I fidgeted and averted my eyes.
“……”
She wasn't my lover, but.
She was my mama.
“For a lover, though, they're not quite a size a thirteen-year-old could wear. Whoever she is, I'm sure she was delighted.”
He moved quickly toward the next piece of equipment with a gentle smile.
It didn't quite suit his slightly fierce appearance, but he certainly seemed excited.
Since no Sun Dwarf had awakened him in ninety-one years, he must have been terribly restless.
Next came the Apprentice Blacksmith's Thermal Overshoes.
These had been born while I was trying to make Doloris's stockings.
“…The idea was good. The ability was good, too.”
“……”
“However, your choice of materials was less than excellent, so they must have turned out stiff and heavy.”
He said that, then looked at the appraisal report.
- Flinch.
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『If the shoes turned out like this, how am I supposed to make underwear?』
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Goddammit.
“U-underwear?”
“Haha….”
“Ah, well, that isn't really a blacksmith's field. Still, your ability to look ahead is outstanding.”
This was obviously praise he'd forced out of himself.
Before long, the next piece of equipment appeared.
It was Spring Without Frost.
My masterpiece and my ambitious work.
“Huh…?”
The dwarf stared at its exterior for a moment, then his eyes widened.
Then he looked at the overshoes he'd just seen, turned his head back, and stared at Spring Without Frost.
The overshoes.
Spring Without Frost.
The overshoes again.
“C-could this equipment really have come after only one failure?”
When he unconsciously reached out.
Wait.
I instinctively blocked him.
“I'm sorry, Dwarf, but this is worn by a woman.”
More precisely, by female Doloris.
Of course, this was only a copy, but I didn't like other people touching it.
“……I-I understand. I wasn't trying to put it on.”
When I stopped his hand with an utterly uncompromising expression.
Looking a little flustered, he brought his eyes right up to the stockings without touching them.
“Where in the world did this fabric come from? Are you saying a material like this exists? This isn't the handiwork of the Heir of Fire….”
“…Ahem.”
Well, you see.
“The thing is….”
I slowly explained it to him.
The Heir of Fire's craftsmanship was a little ‘old-fashioned,’
and as it happened, elven knowledge was right there beside me—literally right beside me.
So I had taken only the thermal-shock delamination from it and spun the fabric.
“It's a sort of… yes, collaboration.”
“……”
Lionel's illegal collaboration. Something like that.
His eyes slowly widened when he heard that.
“……Huh.”
- Thump.
He sank into the chair in front of the sorting table.
“Are you all right?”
“……”
The Master Craftsman gave no answer.
He wasn't smiling, nor was he angry.
He simply stared down at Spring Without Frost with an expression that couldn't be given a name.
“…Four hundred and twenty years ago.”
“Pardon?”
“The inter-floor war between the elves and the Sun Dwarves.”
A sudden history lecture about the Tower.
“The stated pretext was to seize each other's technology.”
He looked down at his own hand.
“We crossed floors, coveting one another's hands.”
“……”
“Many people died over the years, and many artisans died as well. Many people's hands were cut off, too. Then do you know what we gained?”
“……I don't know.”
“Nothing. Neither they nor we managed to take even a handful of the other's knowledge.”
He raised his head.
“And yet.”
“……”
“You acquired it without shedding a drop of blood.”
- Whoosh….
The quietly burning hearth suddenly flared low.
“…It's not that I still harbor any ill will toward the elves….”
“……”
“It's only that, now that I've finally acquired elven technology, I regret that my people have fallen so far.”
He said that, then rose and looked at the appraisal report beneath Spring Without Frost.
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『Do not doubt the road you walk, but do not become intoxicated by the road you have traveled.
── That is the first pride of one who handles fire.』
- Praise from the Sun to Official Blacksmith L -
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“Heh… in all my years, I never thought I'd see this.”
After standing there like that for a long while, he.
“This is the first time I've ever seen the Sun send praise to an Official Blacksmith.”
His hand moved over the paper, but he shook his head from side to side.
“I didn't receive it until I had reached the Elite rank myself.”
Elite?
It was probably the stage above Official Blacksmith.
So there really was something beyond it.
“Overall assessment: The aesthetics, material, performance—everything is excellent.”
- Tap, tap.
He tapped the stars on the appraisal report.
“The only unbelievable thing is the two-star rating itself.”
And then he moved on to the next piece of equipment.
The next piece of equipment was.
The long-awaited final one.
- Hummm….
It was the Cradle of Earth.
Apparently, a divine artifact that receives messages from a god wasn't equipment, so it hadn't been placed on the sorting table.
When he saw the earrings glowing green.
“……A divine artifact?”
He murmured quietly.
The dwarf immediately looked at the appraisal report.
[Divine Artifact (神具)] [Target Deity: Gaia]
- Flinch.
“Lady Gaia…? Ah, no, what about Lady Ignia? How could you give the first divine artifact to Gaia….”
He put a hand to his forehead, seeming to ponder something.
“…Since you use elven technology as well, choosing Gaia isn't incomprehensible. But if you're the Heir of Fire, shouldn't you naturally choose Lady Ignia….”
“Dwarf. It's all right.”
I clasped the hand he was worrying with.
I knew what he was worried about.
To be honest, I only found that out afterward, too.
As the Heir of Fire of the Sun Dwarves, I was supposed to make Ignia's divine artifact first.
But what could I do? The milk had already been spilled.
I could apologize later by making her something good.
“I mean, I'm the only person who can make divine artifacts anyway.”
Even if she got angry, there was nothing she could do.
If she wanted a divine artifact, she'd just have to cool her temper on her own.
This was the downside of a monopoly. If you're so bothered, make one yourself.
He looked me over slowly, then.
“…Since even the gods have stopped setting foot here, I suppose I have no grounds to complain about whom you chose now.”
With a bitter expression, he turned his eyes back to the earrings.
- Swish.
This time, he didn't reach out.
These weren't Doloris's earrings but the Imperial Princess's, so it would have been fine for him to touch them.
Instead of picking them up, he tilted his head to change the angle at which the light struck them.
“Even for me, this is an item I would hesitate to appraise in detail.”
“Pardon?”
“It incorporates the pinnacle of jewelcraft.”
Elven gemcraft and Sun Dwarf metallurgy had indeed been combined.
“To be honest, neither technique has fully matured.”
A slightly painful assessment.
He wasn't wrong.
“However.”
He slowly added.
“The attempt to combine the two into one is something no one has managed in the past thousand years, so that's enough.”
“……”
“In other words, it's an exceptional divine artifact that no one else in the world could have made. And as for the aesthetics… Is this what they call innate talent? Lady Gaia must have been delighted.”
She really had liked it a lot. Enough to send me a long letter of praise.
He finally took his eyes off the Cradle of Earth.
The appraisals of all the equipment were complete.
He slowly walked to the end of the sorting table.
- Clomp.
On the sorting table where my trail lay in a row.
Beginning with the oily gloves, then the thermal gloves, the overshoes, Spring Without Frost, and the Cradle of Earth.
At the very end.
“……Heir.”
A single empty space remained.
He placed a hand on it.
“How does it feel to face the trail you've left behind?”
“……”
To be honest, I was embarrassed at first.
Half of me was filled with fresh emotion.
The other half thought… I've done better than I expected.
“It wasn't bad.”
“……”
He nodded.
“Yes.”
A smile spread beneath his beard.
“That's enough.”
He slowly applied pressure to the hand resting on the empty space.
“The time has come.”
“The time?”
“Heir.”
Flames slowly began to flicker behind the dwarf's back.
“I declare, in the name of Harnagar, the 11th Master Craftsman.”
The 11th Master Craftsman, Harnagar.
That was the name of the dwarf ancestor before me.
“Ask me anything.”
“……”
- Boom….
Simultaneously, I heard the sound of fire boiling up from the crucible furnace and the hearth.
“What piece of equipment did you wish to make next?”
And upon hearing those words, I.
Had no choice but to ponder it inwardly.
This was bad.
“A sword? A shield? Or perhaps a hammer?”
He grinned brightly, showing his teeth.
Oh, this was really bad.
Because the equipment I had wanted to make was.
Something that fit Doloris's body perfectly, without a single error.
Something aesthetically perfect, something I wanted to see her wearing every day.
Something with ventilation to prevent sweat buildup, while still possessing excellent magical performance.
Something like that.
“Or if not, Heir! Could it be armor?!”
“……”
Because it was underwear.
It was, in fact, underwear.