Nozomanu Fushi no Boukensha (LN) - Volume 12 - Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Maalt, Sweet Maalt, and a Visit to the Blacksmith

“We’re finally back...” Lorraine murmured, when she saw Maalt’s gates through the gap in the carriage’s curtains. “I know we didn’t actually spend that long in the royal capital, but it feels like it’s been ages.”

I felt the same way. Maybe it was because we considered Maalt our home—our base of operations, so to speak. Hathara was my home, home, strictly speaking, and Lorraine’s was somewhere in the Lelmudan Empire, but it was here in Maalt that we had built lives for ourselves. Perhaps it was only natural for us to feel so much nostalgia even after only leaving it for a little while.

“You think anyone’s changed?” I wondered aloud. “Well, even if they have, it can’t be that much.”

“You do hear stories about people leaving somewhere for a year or two and coming back to find out their acquaintances have had children and such,” Lorraine said. “But we were gone for less than a month, so I doubt anything’s changed. Though, since I imagine that the Academy and Tower have been running about doing their business, we might find that there have been other kinds of changes...”

The Tower was the country’s magical research institution, and the Academy was its educational one. They existed in many places, not just Yaaran, and while their names varied, most people just referred to them by those names. No matter which country you went to, in the Academies and Towers you would find future leaders of nations being educated and research groups who were indispensable in the pursuit of uncovering the secrets of magic.

And people from those two organizations were currently staying in Maalt in immense numbers.

As for why, it was because of the dungeon that now existed right below the town as a result of a relatively recent incident caused by a vampire. Dungeons were natural resources—kind of like ore deposits, if ore deposits could spew out various monsters, treasures, and materials—but they were also mysterious ones, and nobody could say exactly how they were formed.

Although some parts of dungeon interiors looked like man-made stone passageways or the interiors of buildings, others resembled vast open biomes that you would find in the outside world, and it seemed like the only explanation for their existence was that they were given form by no less than a god.

Because of this, there were a number of tangled and complicated theories regarding dungeons, and many countries and their research institutions conducted research into them. Nevertheless, nobody had managed to reach the truth yet.

Then, a dungeon had suddenly formed in Maalt.

Newly formed dungeons were a rarity on a worldwide scale, and they were often in places that were hard to get to. Therefore, they represented opportunities for knowledge that every research institution around would give an arm and a leg to study—hence why crowds of people from the Tower and the Academy had swarmed into Maalt, an influx of people that was practically halfway to being an invasion.

Lorraine and I had run off to the royal capital to escape all the hubbub, so we didn’t know what things were like in Maalt currently. Still, it wasn’t difficult to imagine that there had been some changes. I dearly hoped that there wouldn’t be any disputes or conflicts that I’d have to deal with, but from what I’d seen before we’d left, it hadn’t escalated beyond minor squabbles between the adventurers that the Tower and Academy had hired as bodyguards. There probably weren’t any major problems lurking around, so I could rest easy for the time being. Hopefully. Maybe.

“Still, a new dungeon, huh? I’m interested to find out why it formed, but I also just wanted to go for a regular ol’ delve. You two have been in before, haven’t you? What was it like?”

The man directing this question at Lorraine and I was none other than Jean Seebeck, the Grand Guildmaster of Yaaran. He was supposedly getting up there in age, but physically he was fit and healthy, and the light in his eyes was sharper than that even of Wolf, Maalt’s guildmaster. I didn’t need especially keen senses to see that if I were to face off against him, it wouldn’t even make for a proper fight. While I wouldn’t die even if my heart was skewered or my head was crushed, Jean Seebeck was the type of man who made me think that didn’t even matter—he would find a way to extinguish my existence in no time flat anyway.

From that perspective, we sure had brought somebody dangerous with us back to Maalt...but it had been at Wolf’s request, so all the responsibility was on him if something went wrong. No matter what Jean did, my hands were clean. Yep.

That being said, Jean wasn’t the apathetic type when it came to his country or the people who lived in it. In fact, he cared about others, and the general policy he lived by was to maintain peace and order. That was why he had gathered so many individuals with unique abilities in one place, and why he’d served as the chief of an underground organization that held the reins of the royal capital’s underworld. So there was probably no need to worry about him doing anything dangerous or out of hand at all...

“Hmm...when we went in, it had just barely formed,” Lorraine said thoughtfully. “It was really quite unpleasant. How should I put it... It was like entering a person’s internal organs. The walls were almost fleshlike.”

“Definitely,” I added in agreement. “I caught more and more glimpses of stone and mud walls peeking out as time passed, but as Lorraine said, it was all fleshy at the start. If that’s why people support the theory that dungeons are living creatures, then I’d say that’s pretty convincing evidence.”

Jean laughed. “Fascinating. I’m really looking forward to seeing it; you don’t get to see many new things when you get to be my age. What are the dungeon’s monsters and magical items like?”

“We left before either could start showing up,” Lorraine said. “You’ll have to see for yourself.”

At the time, Lorraine and I had had our hands full with the conflict against the vampire Shumini and his thralls, so we hadn’t had the time to explore the dungeon itself and discover its unique monsters and magical items. Even after the incident, we had only taken a quick look from the entrance, so we still had yet to do a proper delve into the place. As such, we were looking forward to doing some exploration of our own, if we could be granted permission.

“I see...” Jean mused. “Well, I suppose it would spoil the fun if you two simply told me everything there was to know about it. I’ll just have to take a look for myself!”

◆◇◆◇◆

After alighting from the carriage we headed for Maalt’s adventurer’s guild. On the way, I asked Jean about the guildmaster—that is, Wolf.

“You were the one who gave Wolf his position, right?”

I was fairly certain that was how the story went, anyway. It was quite well-known that Wolf had been about to retire from adventuring to a quiet, secluded life in the countryside, but Jean Seebeck had put a stop to that.

Jean nodded. “I did indeed. Back then, he was on the brink of ascending to Platinum-class...but that was before suffering such grave injuries to his eyes. He wasn’t getting any younger either, so that was when he began to talk about retirement. In no time at all he had everything ready and a foot out the door. I scrambled here from the royal capital as fast as I could to stop him. ‘Sure, injuries like yours make being an adventurer a tough ask,’ I said. ‘But with the years and experience you’ve got under your belt, why not switch to a role where you can prop the profession up instead?’ And wouldn’t you know it, it worked out: Maalt’s guild has a great reputation these days. Back before Wolf became the guildmaster, it wasn’t much different from any other one out there. If that doesn’t mean that appointing him was the best decision I could’ve made, then I don’t know what does.”

Jean’s words sounded heartfelt. I thought about the time frame in my head: Wolf had become the guildmaster probably...more than a decade before Lorraine and I had become adventurers.

I hadn’t been around to know what Maalt’s guild had been like back then, but I suspected that it had been in a pretty rough state. In general, your average guild—for better or for worse—leaned toward a policy of autonomy and individual responsibility for its local adventurers. That is to say, while they wouldn’t take from you, they wouldn’t help you out either.

You’d think that would be perfectly fine—and it was, at least for people who were used to working within such a system—but guilds applied that policy to the freshest of rookies too, and that was where the problem lay. A rookie didn’t know much about monster species and body parts, much less how to carve them up for harvest; neither were they very educated about plants and materials in general.

The outcome was obvious: they would accept an Iron-class commission under the impression that it would be simple, then fail horribly. And that was one of the better outcomes—often, they simply died.

The obvious question was, “why has nobody done anything about it?” to which the answer was, “because for a very long time, this had just been how things were done.” Upholding it was tradition.

“It,” in this case, meant an adventurer’s freedom. The entire foundation of the profession was that it was bound by nobody’s fetters. It was a catchy ideology, and because it existed, there was a not-insignificant number of adventurers who interpreted it to mean “nobody can give us orders!”

It wasn’t always just the lower ranks espousing that belief either; there were even guildmasters who thought that way. It made trying to change the system difficult, because what you were trying to change was a significant part of the guild’s very foundations.

Under Wolf’s guidance, however, that sort of thing had been cleared out of Maalt. This resulted in a culture of open communication, and the guild’s support helped foster a positive desire for self-improvement—not just in rookies, but relative veterans too.

Jean must have appointed Wolf because he’d believed him capable of establishing such a culture, and Wolf had proved to be up to the task. It was a wonderful thing, and both of them deserved their share of the credit.

Me? All I did was teach some of the basics to a few of the rookies. I hadn’t gotten anywhere near a position where I could have introduced top-down reforms. Of course, I didn’t think my contribution had been totally useless, but there was no doubt that the reason those efforts had helped at all was because Wolf was this town’s guildmaster.

“If other towns had guildmasters who understood adventurers like Wolf, it would lower the rookie mortality rate,” I mused. “It’d increase the quality of harvested materials too. I’m pretty sure there’d be no downsides. I guess it’s easier said than done though, right?”

Jean considered it for a moment before replying, “We—the Yaaran guild, that is—are gradually changing our way of thinking in that regard, but it’s difficult to extend that momentum outside of the kingdom. Then again, overextending ourselves would just result in the project petering out. These things need time—and slow, steady effort. Establishing our footing—in the royal capital, I mean—comes first...but that’s still no easy task. I’m not sure if you’ve heard, Rentt, but there are even Silver-classers in the capital who can’t tell the difference between any but the most common of herbs.”

“So if an herb is even slightly obscure, they won’t know what it is?” I asked. “Like the difference between earthen wildparsley and wildparsley blooms?”

Jean’s face scrunched up. “Nobody would blame you for mistaking those. Even professional herbalists mix those up in person after a close inspection.”

“Maalt’s rookies can tell them apart though,” I said. Well, the ones I’d taught could, at least.

Jean’s eyes flew open wide. “What? You’re pulling my leg.”

“No, really. Actually, isn’t it really bad if you can’t tell the difference? Earthen wildparsley is a high-class delicacy, but wildparsley blooms cause paralysis if eaten.”

“I mean, you’re not wrong there, but...”

“And if you can tell them apart, wildparsley blooms have their own uses too. They’re potent enough to even affect decent-sized monsters, so you can extract the juice and apply it to your sword.”

Jean looked at me incredulously for a few moments before saying, “And you’re telling me that Maalt’s rookies do that? That’s terrifying. I feel like I’ve been out-assassined.”

Though Jean had called it “terrifying,” wildparsley bloom extract wouldn’t kill a person, and the human system purged it relatively fast. Even if you messed up and injured yourself with a weapon coated in it, you’d be okay as long as you had allies around. I’d made sure to drill into the rookies I’d taught that they shouldn’t use it when they were alone, so they’d probably be fine. And by “drill,” I meant that I’d had them test the extract on themselves so they could experience what the paralysis felt like. That way, they had a firsthand understanding of how dangerous it could be—and I said as much to Jean.

“I take it back,” Jean muttered. “You’re what’s terrifying. I’m starting to think that scary mask of yours really suits you...”

Shortly afterward, we arrived at a certain building, and Jean came to a stop. “Ah!” he said. “We’re here.”

It was Maalt’s adventurer’s guild. I wasn’t surprised by the fact that Jean had recognized it—he had mentioned that he’d come here before. Then again, guilds looked more or less the same everywhere you went, since they were built for the same purpose.

Apparently there were some special exceptions out there, but I had never seen them. If I journeyed to distant lands one day, then maybe I’d get that chance...

“Right, let’s head inside,” Jean said. “You’re both coming too, right?”

He strode toward the building, and Lorraine and I followed suit. The commission we’d accepted was to escort Jean to Wolf, so our work as adventurers wasn’t over until we’d fully satisfied the requirements of the job.

But of course, that was just common sense.

◆◇◆◇◆

“Let’s head over to reception first,” I said. “Then...”

Then they can inform Wolf that we’re here, was what I had been about to say, but Jean was already marching straight toward the guildmaster’s office, leaving us behind. He gave off the impression that he wouldn’t bother listening to anybody.

“U-Um, excuse me! Excuse me!” Sheila was evidently working today, but despite her initial attempts to stop him, she froze when she saw his face and murmured, “Wha...? N-No way... Are you...?”

Jean halted for a moment and huffed in amusement. “Pardon my intrusion. Don’t worry—none of the responsibility for this will fall on you.” He resumed his march and soon disappeared onto the next floor.

Sheila, who had been rooted in place as she watched him go, still wasn’t moving. Lorraine and I dashed over to her.

“Sheila, are you okay?”

“My condolences, Sheila...”

Our words seemed to bring her back to life. “That...” she eked out. “Th-Th-Th-That man...is he who I think he is?”

I nodded. “Jean Seebeck, Grand Guildmaster of Yaaran. We brought him here from the royal capital.”

“I knew it...”

Although Sheila looked dejected, she also seemed relieved—likely because she had been feeling responsible for letting Jean march his way past without confirming his identity. To be fair, his very presence had been intimidating, and she had seemed to recognize his face.

“Have you met him before, Sheila?” Lorraine asked.

“In a way...” the guild receptionist confirmed. “Regular guild employees like myself go to the royal capital sometimes for training or seminars. I’ve only seen him from afar a handful of times...but once would have been enough to remember. The way he carries himself...it’s not something you can forget.”

“You’re right about that...”

Even when he was just standing still, it felt like some kind of vitality or drive roiled off of Jean Seebeck in waves. Lorraine and I were well aware that that was just his public face though; we knew he could go unnoticed any time he wished. He never would have been able to lead an underground organization in the royal capital otherwise.

In circumstances like these, however, it was more convenient to be open about who he was. It opened doors and allowed people to recognize him...like Sheila had just now.

“In any case, he’s a guild official, so there should be no problem letting him through,” I said. “Would it be all right if Lorraine and I go after him? We need to report to Wolf.”

“Of course,” Sheila said. “By which I mean, I’d really rather not go to the office right now, so...please, go ahead.”

Her last words had sounded a little pushy. I couldn’t really picture what a meeting between Wolf and Jean would be like, but evidently, it wasn’t something a regular guild employee wanted to get involved in.

I suspected not getting involved was indeed the smart thing to do, and Lorraine probably thought the same. Still, we had a report to make, or else our job wouldn’t count as complete...

Sighing, we chased after Jean.

◆◇◆◇◆

“Wolf! It’s been too long!”

By the time Lorraine and I caught up, Jean had already thrown open the door to the guildmaster’s office and strode in boisterously with a smile.

“Looks like we were too late...” I muttered.

“Well...it’s not as though they’re going to start trying to kill each other, right?” Lorraine pointed out calmly. “It should be fine. It’s probably not too different from the director of a company paying a surprise visit to one of its branch managers.”

That was a good way of putting it, and if it really was the case, then no problems should arise. Then again, that description didn’t account for the fact that Jean seemed to be a natural-born troublemaker.

I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been hoping our arrival and report would be quieter than this. Alas, what was done was done.

Lorraine and I entered the office after Jean, and we were greeted by the sight of Wolf with a hand to his brow, a pained expression on his face. It was a rare look on him—he was usually always imposing and dignified—and it sent a pang of guilt through me for what we’d unleashed upon him.

Wolf glanced in our direction. I wouldn’t say there was a reproving look in his eyes, exactly, but I will say that I averted my gaze and pretended not to notice. I even whistled, albeit silently.

Lorraine might have even whispered, “You’re not fooling anybody,” but that was no concern of mine.

“Grand Guildmaster Seebeck...” Wolf said. It sounded like he had to force the words out of his mouth. “I must admit that I had not expected you to arrive so...promptly...”

Jean smiled broadly. “I saw through your scheme, my good man. You sent these two along to fetch me so you could say that you technically made the effort, didn’t you? I bet you thought my staff would refuse and you could put it off for longer. But too bad—for I am here!”

“You...are indeed. I had thought that since Rentt and Lorraine were unfamiliar faces in the capital, it would have been difficult for them to get a direct meeting with you...”

From the sound of things, although Wolf had hired us to do the job, he’d been hoping for us to tell him that we’d been turned down. Since it was probably closer to an internal message than strictly a guild job—pretty much all he’d done was say “bring him over”—then failing to accomplish it wouldn’t have resulted in lowering our ranks or anything like that, so Lorraine and I wouldn’t have faced any negative consequences.

But as it had turned out, we had run into several unexpected turns of events and became deeply embroiled in a pretty tangled mess of circumstances...which had resulted in us succeeding in escorting Jean here. I couldn’t blame Wolf for not being able to foresee that.

I wondered if Wolf knew that Jean was the chief of a shadow organization. I couldn’t be sure, so it was probably best to assume that he didn’t for the time being and choose my words accordingly.

“Can we consider this job completed now?” I asked, interrupting their conversation momentarily.

“Yeah...” Wolf said. “You may. I’m honestly impressed that you handled it though. How did you even meet him?”

“It’s a long story... Honestly, I think we could have managed it just by asking. When we told the guild employees that it was a request from you, they pretty much gave us the royal treatment.”

“What...?” Wolf looked perplexed.

“I figured that you’d be sending someone along soon so you could claim you ‘tried’ to invite me to Maalt,” Jean explained. “So I left strict orders that any messages from you were to be passed on to me—no exceptions.”

Wolf heaved a deep sigh, recognizing that he had been read like a book. “You haven’t changed a bit,” he said. “Well, so be it. You’re here now. Welcome to Maalt.”

◆◇◆◇◆

“A toast! To you adventurers, to us—the guild that supports you—and to the greatest guildmaster we could all ask for: Wolf Hermann! Drink up, everybody! Cheers!”

A chorus of deep “Cheers!” rang throughout the tavern from the gathered adventurers. To say that all of Maalt’s adventurers were in attendance would be a slight exaggeration, but it wasn’t too far from it. Almost every adventurer who wasn’t out on a job was present for one reason and one reason only: to welcome the arrival of Jean Seebeck, the grand guildmaster of Yaaran.

“When I said he’d have to organize a welcome party himself if he wanted one, I wasn’t expecting him to actually do it...” Wolf muttered. He was at the same table as Lorraine and I, and his expression was resigned as he watched Jean lead the tavern in a toast. “That wildcard never changes.”

“Why did you ask us to go fetch him from the capital in the first place, then?” I grumbled, letting a little resentment leak into my tone. “Oh, right. So you could say you made the effort, right?”

“Sorry about that,” Wolf said, dipping his head in apology. “I can’t deny that I was waiting for you to contact me saying he refused. Partly because he’s a nuisance, sure, but mostly I was expecting him to turn you down because he really does have his hands full most of the time. Nine times out of ten he’d refuse a genuine invitation too. If I had known that he was so serious about coming, I’d have followed proper procedure.”

Although Wolf talked like he thought Jean was an annoyance, it didn’t ring quite true. I had the feeling that he didn’t just see Jean as a superior, but someone he was indebted to as well. I was sure part of him was likely happy to see Jean again after so long.

“True, he must have a lot of different responsibilities to handle...” Lorraine mused. “When we left the royal capital, he had to shake off the guild employees and leave in secret. I wonder if they’ll be okay back there...”

From the look on his face, it seemed like Wolf had realized something. “Do you two...know about his ‘work’?” he said in a low voice.

I assumed that he was talking about Jean’s shadow organization. Lorraine and I nodded.

“Some of his associates got sent our way,” I said. “It was a...unique experience. Had to go through the wringer a number of times afterward because of it.”

“We did have some fascinating encounters though,” Lorraine pointed out.

Understanding dawned in Wolf’s expression. “Ah...so that’s how you met him. I’m impressed that you even made it out alive.”

“It wasn’t as bad as it could have been,” I admitted. “Not that I’d put my hand up if someone asked me to do it again though. They seemed to be having some internal troubles, so they didn’t come at us with everything they had.”

Jean’s organization had been embroiled in an internal power struggle when they’d come after us, which had resulted in faulty intelligence and a botched job. If they’d made a coordinated attempt on our lives, I doubted we would have ever made it back to Maalt alive. In short: we had been lucky.

“Sounds like a real mess...” Wolf paused to mull it over for a moment. “Suppose I’ll get the full story from Jean later. You know, I still can’t believe he skipped out on the employees back at the capital to come here. I can practically hear the complaints I’m going to get the next time I visit headquarters. My stomach’s aching already...”

“You could always foist all the blame onto him,” Lorraine suggested. “In fact, why not take the initiative on that? You could apprehend him and ship him back to the capital, or even just report on his whereabouts and take the credit for locating him.”

“That would put me in the clear...” Wolf muttered, nodding to himself. “Everyone in the guild knows how impossible he is to keep in check, especially the employees in the capital. They’d likely be grateful enough just to get an update on where he is. Hmm... I guess that’s what I’ll do.” He looked up at Lorraine and I. “On another note, there’s news you two might want to hear. Something interesting happened a little after you departed Maalt.”

“Oh? What was it?” I asked.

“You know about the new dungeon that formed underground here, of course...”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it turns out another one was found, down along the Ete Highway near the village of Mors.”

“Really?!” Lorraine exclaimed. “Are you sure they didn’t misreport it?!”

She sounded surprised, and I could also hear a note of disbelief in her voice, which was only reasonable. Dungeons were rare enough that discovering them was far from an everyday occurrence, and often it turned out that someone had simply gotten the wrong idea about an ordinary cave. If a cave was large enough, monsters would use it as a nest, and certain kinds of people often stashed away their loot in them too. The end result was often hard to differentiate from a genuine dungeon.

“Apparently, the person who found it—a Bronze-class adventurer who was on a goblin-hunting job in Mors—saw the dungeon while it was expanding,” Wolf explained. “The phenomenon’s about as rare as the formation of an entirely new dungeon, but you do see it sometimes with dungeons on the smaller side. The adventurer in question had seen another dungeon before, so they were adamant about their discovery. They even explored the shallower strata a little and came back with a magical item to show for it—one that was confirmed to be so-called dungeon junk. So while I suppose I can’t say for certain that it’s a dungeon...it’s looking pretty likely.”

“Dungeon junk” was a category of magical items sourced from the dungeon with no clear purpose. They likely had some kind of use, but had so far proved beyond the ability of human intelligence and creativity to puzzle out, so they were treated as simple curios. Pretty much every dungeon had them, so in a way, they served as proof that a particular location was indeed a dungeon.

There was always the possibility that the Bronze-class adventurer had taken dungeon junk from somewhere else to pass off as a new discovery, but chasing down every offhand suspicion would never get us anywhere. For the time being...

“You’re looking into it, right?” I asked.

Wolf nodded. “The folk who aren’t here today are out confirming the report. We should hear from them soon enough.”

“I can’t wait...” Lorraine murmured. It sounded like she was speaking more to herself than either of us. “A new dungeon nearby, right after one forms in Maalt? Maybe that theory was onto something...”

“Theory?” Wolf asked.

“Mmm. To be precise, it’s not so much a theory as just something my old mentor used to mutter to himself about sometimes. The gist of it was that he suspected dungeons could give rise to other dungeons nearby.”

◆◇◆◇◆

“Dungeons birthing other dungeons?” Wolf’s brow knit in doubt. “Sounds like an old wives’ tale to me.”

“It does sound somewhat absurd, doesn’t it?” Lorraine agreed. “Still, don’t you ever wonder sometimes? There are more than a few places in the world where dungeons can be found in clusters, even though you’d think that the distribution should be more even. It’s almost as though they’re animals forming a herd...to paraphrase my old mentor, that is.”

“That’s just...y’know. The conditions in those places make it easier for dungeons to form, don’t they? I’m no expert, so I forget the details of the theory, but it’s something about the ambient mana and topography combining into the specific circumstances that a dungeon needs to form. Seems a reasonable enough explanation to me for why dungeons can be found in clusters.”

Despite his claims, Wolf was pretty learned on the subject. There was a decently sized subset of adventurers who boasted that academic topics were pointless to them, since their profession was based on pure physical strength. While Wolf might have looked like the perfect spokesman for those types, he was actually quite the intellectual.

“That’s the most popular theory these days, yes,” Lorraine agreed. “And it makes sense—in fact, I was a proponent of it myself. But with this new dungeon in Maalt and the discovery of another nearby so soon afterward...well, I can’t bring myself to believe that they’re unrelated. If this new dungeon formed recently—especially if the time frame is right after Maalt’s underground dungeon was formed—then it makes me think my old mentor might have been right.”

“I can’t fault that logic,” Wolf mused. He didn’t look fully convinced, but it seemed as though he at least thought there was something to the theory. “Still, it just seems so...well, what do you think, Rentt?”

“Me? I wonder...” I thought about it for a moment. “I’d believe either theory, to be honest. Even just in this particular case, it could also be that the conditions you mentioned for dungeons to form happened to line up in this area during the past few months.”

Despite my words, I was leaning more toward Lorraine’s opinion—but that was only because I knew from Laura that the dungeon under Maalt had been created by magic rather than forming naturally. If another one had formed near Maalt soon afterward, then it seemed only natural to assume a cause-and-effect relationship.

Wolf wasn’t aware of that though, and it would be too complicated to explain, since I’d have to keep the details vague. Besides, I couldn’t deny the possibility that Wolf’s theory was correct either. It was entirely possible that a dungeon forming underneath Maalt had created an environment that made it easy for others to form nearby.

I had the feeling that asking Laura would be enough to put the whole question to rest on the spot, but she was still asleep. Then again, even if she wasn’t, she probably wouldn’t be so free with her answers anyway. She always gave off the impression that she preferred to keep to herself, as though she wanted others to try and figure things out on their own and would only step in to help as a last resort. What was she—my mother or something?

I’d be too scared to ever say that to her face though...

In any case, to my surprise, both Wolf and Lorraine nodded in agreement with my words.

“That’s a definite possibility,” Lorraine said. “Whatever the answer is, it remains to be seen. It could even be something else entirely.” Her expression sobered a little. “Either way, though...”

“Either way...?” Wolf asked, sounding puzzled.

“There’s a possibility that other dungeons will be found around Maalt in the near future, and not just by Mors village. It looks like your workload is only going to increase from now on, Wolf...”

To my ears, Lorraine’s words sounded like an omen of doom for Wolf—and judging by the realization dawning on his face, they were.

“I hadn’t considered that possibility...” he said. “You’re absolutely right though. Why is all of this happening in Maalt, of all places? It’s supposed to be a peaceful little rural town...”

I wondered that too. It really seemed like bizarre events had been happening to me nonstop ever since I’d become a monster. Was this my fault? Surely not...

Actually, I was technically the first victim in all of this. That probably put me in the same boat as Wolf when it came to being a magnet for bad luck.

In my case, though, a lot of good had come with the bad. Although I was a monster now, that meant that every bit of training I did resulted in measurable physical improvement. Thinking along those lines made me realize that this situation wasn’t all terrible for Wolf either.

“It’s not such a bad deal, is it?” I said. “It could end up increasing the guild’s income, and a new dungeon means a chance to acquire new materials and magical items. Sure, it’ll increase the guild’s workload too, but...”

Dungeons were like a rich vein of ore waiting to be mined. The profit they promised was exactly why so many people delved into them. And if a rich vein of ore suddenly popped up next to a town, people would think it was a gift from a god.

Wolf, however, seemed to have something he valued over materialistic desires. “What’s the point in my income increasing if I lose all my time off in the process?!” he exclaimed. “Still...an increased workload means that every guild employee’s going to have to chip in. And I mean everyone.”

He was staring right at me as he spoke, but I had no idea what—oh. I...I’d forgotten, but I was functionally a guild employee right now, wasn’t I? But...but...

“I have the right to refuse, don’t I...?” I said.

“Sure,” Wolf agreed. “Feel free to do that. Abandoning the rest of us to work without sleep or rest would be so kind of you, Rentt. I don’t mind, of course...but the other employees might end up being so busy they can’t even go home. Sheila might even cry...”

“You’re playing dirty and you know it,” I complained. He was clearly trying to guilt-trip me into being unable to refuse.

However, it seemed that I was mistaken in that assumption—at least partially. “I’m joking,” Wolf assured. “I would appreciate a little help when things get really rough though. I’ll probably ask Jean to send some people over from the capital as a last resort, if it comes to that, but that’ll still take time.”

“Well...if that’s all, then just let me know when you need me.”

“Will do. Thanks.” It seemed that business was over, because Wolf switched back to small talk. “Come to think of it, will you two be working again starting from tomorrow?”

“I plan on taking tomorrow off,” I said. “There are a few things I need to settle, but none of them are guild jobs.”

First, I had to deliver a letter to Lillian, the director of Maalt’s Second Orphanage. After that, well, the weapon that I’d ordered had to be ready by now. I’d go pick that up...and then probably do some dungeon delving or find a commission to take. Essentially, I was back to business as usual.

Actually, not quite business as usual. There was one more thing I needed to take care of—well, wanted to. Not immediately, but soon.

“Wolf,” I began. “When’s the next Silver-class Ascension Exam? I actually became qualified to take it recently...”

◆◇◆◇◆

Thankfully, both Lorraine and I managed to avoid waking up with hangovers the next day. That was no surprise on my part—with my body, I couldn’t get hungover if I tried. After all, alcohol counted as a type of poison.

As for Lorraine, she’d always been able to hold her liquor, and she rarely drank more than she could handle. She could even use magic or divinity to heal herself if things got really bad.

That being the case, the day saw the two of us walking through the streets of Maalt together. We had a number of errands to take care of.

“Hmm...a month from now, in the mining city of Welfia,” Lorraine said to me as we headed toward the orphanage. “That’s a little far.”

She was talking about the Silver-class Ascension Exam that Wolf had told us about the previous night.

“Nothing I can do about that,” I said, shrugging. “The capital’s one thing; people take the Silver-class exam there all the time. Maalt, on the other hand...well, do you really think I’d be able to wait a whole year?”

The gist was simple: although the Silver-class Ascension Exam took place every month or so in the royal capital, it was a different story here. While Maalt was a decently sized town, it was still a rural frontier settlement. We didn’t see many people capable enough to make it to Silver-class in the first place.

As a result, Maalt held the exam much less frequently than the capital did. When I’d asked Wolf last night, he’d told me that they’d just recently had it, which meant that the next would be in a year. Then, after I’d told him that I couldn’t wait that long, he’d told me about the mining city of Welfia.

As its title suggested, Welfia was a city based around the largest mines in Yaaran, and it was a cornerstone of the kingdom’s economy. Obviously, that made it much larger than Maalt. Additionally, Wolf was apparently acquainted with the guildmaster in Welfia, and he’d recommended that I go there if I wanted to take the exam early, since they were trustworthy.

The exam would be taking place a month from now, and it took five days to reach Welfia from Maalt by wagon—a week, if you gave yourself a little leeway. In other words, I had plenty of time to make it out there. There was no issue with signing up for the exam either—registration was open at Welfia’s guild until the day.

Incidentally, the reason they held the Bronze-class Ascension Exam frequently even in Maalt was because there were always people making the jump up from Iron-class. The sharp drop in numbers for the Silver-class exam just went to show how difficult attaining that rank really was. Most adventurers ended their careers at Bronze-class; being stuck there wasn’t a problem unique to me.

That being said, in my case, I had been particularly stubborn when it came to letting the issue go. A decade-long period of stagnation would have sent any ordinary adventurer home, into a different line of work, or left them with the resigned resolve to make a living from Bronze-class jobs for the rest of their lives.

I hadn’t been able to come to terms with any of those options—which is a fancy way of saying that I had just been a plain old fool. Still, that idiocy had led me to where I was today, so I had no regrets.

“I suppose a year would feel too long, given that it’s a step toward achieving your dream,” Lorraine said. I could hear the sentimentality in her voice. Now that she had mentioned it though...

“I’m starting to get the feeling that the wait wouldn’t be that bad,” I said. “A year isn’t that long compared to how I spent the last ten...”

“No, it’s good that you’re eager. Don’t overdo it though—this is just a single step. You’re still a long way away from Mithril.”

“I know, but please don’t say that out loud. My resolve will waver...”

“Waver? After all this time? Please... Oh, we’re here. I’m starting to get used to this door knocker.” Lorraine gently lifted the knocker in question and hit it against the door several times. “Oh...?”

To our surprise, the knocker stayed firmly in place—a notable change from how it usually came off—and produced a high, clean sound with each rap.

“What in the...” Lorraine began, but she was interrupted by the door swinging open to reveal Lillian.

“Oh, if it isn’t Lorraine and Rentt,” she said, before taking notice of the surprise in our expressions. “Is...something the matter?”

“No, well...the knocker seems different today,” Lorraine said.

Lillian’s eyes lit up in recognition. “Ah! We were starting to get fed up with it, so we finally fixed it,” she explained. “Well, I say ‘we,’ but it was Isaac who did it when dropping Alize off one day. He was very quick.”

Evidently, Lillian had become properly acquainted with Isaac. From the description alone, a sister of the Church of the Eastern Sky becoming acquainted with a vampire sounded like a recipe for trouble, but from the story she’d just told us, their relationship was probably closer to a pair of friendly neighbors.

To be fair, I’d dropped by the orphanage back when I’d been a ghoul, then a thrall, and many times since, so I was in no position to speak. I’d just have to pray that Lillian didn’t end up being corrupted toward evil while I wasn’t looking.

Of course, the Church of the Eastern Sky was relatively lenient. They weren’t like those religions with doctrines that were basically “thou shalt kill all monsters,” so a little fraternization was probably fine.

I doubted things would have gone so smoothly if she’d been a part of the Church of Lobelia. I wanted to avoid those people as much as possible—one of the reasons being that Nive had ties to them.

Still, Isaac had fixed the orphanage’s knocker...?

“He really can do anything, can’t he?” Lorraine muttered.

It sounded as though she’d been talking to herself, but I agreed completely. You could say that was just a matter of course, given Isaac’s personality coupled with how long he’d lived, but that did nothing to take away from the amount of effort he put into improving himself day after day. You really had to respect his skill.

After all, it was a cursed knocker. No matter how much adhesive Lorraine and I had used on it, it had always come off. Maybe the problem had been our half-baked insistence on using the adhesive in the first place?

Well, honestly, the reason we’d treated the repairs so carelessly was probably that it would have felt a little sad to finally see the knocker stabilized. I could have fixed it any time I wanted. Now, though, it was time to say farewell to the knocker of old...or not.

Either way, a sense of sadness stirred in our hearts.

◆◇◆◇◆

“I see... So Elza’s doing well...”

Currently, we were seated on the couch in the parlor, chatting with Lillian. Three cups were placed before us on the table, filled with black tea; one of the orphanage’s children had brought them in earlier. It hadn’t been Alize, and when we’d asked after her, Lillian had told us that she was with Isaac. It sounded like they’d been diligently undergoing the training that we had asked Isaac to help them with.

That being said, apparently Rina was out of town on a commission at the moment, so Isaac was training Alize by himself. The two of them were probably stronger than I was at this point.

Ha ha ha. Just kidding...I hope.

I was really jealous of people who were blessed with talent.

Just kidding again.

“Yes. Mel and Pochi are doing well too,” Lorraine said. “They asked us to pass along their regards. They felt lonely when you never replied to their letters.”

Lorraine was the one who’d received the request from Lillian—I had just tagged along—so she was giving her the report. That being said, I’d come along to the orphanage because I’d thought that Lillian would want to hear about how Elza, Mel, Pochi, and the children were doing.

“You went to the orphanage?” Lillian said. “I see... I’m glad to hear that everyone’s doing well, truly. I suppose I never did reply, did I? I was always worried that it would get them in trouble...”

“Trouble?”

“I was reappointed to Maalt due to some complicated internal circumstances in the clergy...” Lillian explained. “Essentially, I was demoted. I thought that having close ties to someone like me would negatively affect them. After all, they run an orphanage. What if their funding was cut off?”

Ah, of course. The orphanage that Mel ran was an institution of the Church of the Eastern Sky, meaning that was the source of their funding. I didn’t know the details of Lillian’s history, but if she had had a bad reputation with the Church, the higher-ups could very well cut off her sympathizers.

Even if that wasn’t as likely as Lillian thought it was, her concern only demonstrated how much Lillian cared about the orphanage where she’d grown up.

“I don’t think that will be a concern anymore,” Lorraine said. “Mother Elza even said there was a chance you might be recalled back to the capital. Ah, right. I have a letter from her.”

“Oh? Is it...?”

“Yes, she asked us to bring it to you. Here you go.”

“Thank you.” Lillian accepted the letter. “Do you mind if I read it here?”

“Not at all.”

Lillian broke the seal, the divinity that flowed from it proving that it had perfectly served Elza’s purpose: preventing anybody but Lillian from being able to open the letter.

Lillian’s eyes scanned over the letter. It didn’t take her long to finish, and when she did, her expression relaxed, as though a burden had been lifted from her shoulders.

“If it’s all right, may I ask what it says?” Lorraine asked.

“Of course,” Lillian said. “Though it’s nothing much. It just says that everyone’s doing well and that matters have calmed down within the Church, so she can recall me if that’s what I want. And that even if I don’t want to return, I can always visit too.”

It sounded like Lillian didn’t have to worry about the higher-ups in the Church of the Eastern Sky anymore.

“Do you plan on returning?” Lorraine asked.

Lillian shook her head. “No. Perhaps I would have, a long time ago, but now...this is where I belong. I do plan on visiting though. And I’ll have to send a letter to Mel too.”

Lillian had no intention of leaving this orphanage behind to return to the capital. Elza and Mel would be sad about that, but it was the choice Lillian had made, so they’d probably accept it. They were still close enough to visit each other, after all. And when they did...

“If you find yourself in need of an escort, please look no further than us,” Lorraine said. “Naturally, if you believe our capabilities to be lacking, then feel free to hire other adventurers too.”

I was pretty sure she was joking with that second part.

Lillian chuckled. “Of course. I’ll be counting on you when that time comes. As for your capabilities...I may not look it, but I’m quite handy in a fight myself. If we’re attacked by monsters that you find difficult to handle, have no fear—I’ll protect us.”

Her words took me by surprise. I sensed that she wasn’t completely joking either. A little of her divinity had spilled over—enough for me to tell how refined and potent it was. The divinity that Lorraine and I possessed was barely worth mentioning in comparison. No wonder Elza had such high expectations for her future.

Of course, the amount of divinity a person had wasn’t the only factor in determining how capable they were in a fight, but any undead would be easy pickings for her, and the healing and purification she could contribute would make her an invaluable asset regardless.

“Oh, right,” Lillian said, looking troubled. “She also wrote about the stroll you enjoyed together through the city. It sounds like she caused you some trouble... As her childhood friend, I apologize on her behalf.”

Elza must have included her sneaky excursion out of the abbey in the letter.

“Not at all,” Lorraine assured. “We had fun too; honestly, it was quite beneficial. Oh, here—we bought these for you.”

Lorraine handed over the gifts we’d purchased in the capital: long-lasting confectionaries and black tea. The former was for the orphanage’s children, of course, while the latter was from a brand which Elza had told us Lillian liked.

“Oh, are you sure?” Lillian said hesitantly. “I was the one who made the request of you...”

“Both you and this orphanage have done a lot for us,” Lorraine said. “Don’t think of this as a gift for a client, but as a token of appreciation for a wonderfully helpful neighbor.”

Lorraine was being sincere—by now, we both had deep ties to this orphanage. Our relationship would continue into the future too, so staying on good terms would benefit everybody.

In the end, Lillian accepted the gifts happily.

We would later on hear that the confectionaries had vanished as soon as she had handed them over. No surprise there—when it came to having an appetite, the only creatures that rivaled legendary monsters were children.

◆◇◆◇◆

“Hey, Clope! Are you in?”

After we’d left the orphanage, I’d headed for the Three-Pronged Harpoon—the blacksmiths. It looked like Luka was out at the moment, so I yelled toward the back to see if Clope was around.

Incidentally, Lorraine had gone home, saying that she wanted to sort the books she’d purchased in the capital as soon as possible. I had no idea when she’d found the time to shop. She didn’t have any business at the blacksmiths like I did, so there was no particular issue with us splitting up for the moment.

She had told me to show her the weapon I’d be picking up later, but I’d tested out the prototypes a number of times before and she’d seen them then, so neither of us were especially bothered about keeping to that promise.

“Hmm? Oh, if it isn’t Rentt!” Clope poked his head out of the back of the shop. “Back from the capital, I see.”

The fact that he’d heard me likely meant that he hadn’t been smithing. He was the type of man who wouldn’t even pause his work if you were screaming at him...though it would probably be more accurate to say that he would be too focused to hear you in the first place.

“Yeah, I got back just the other day,” I said. “Oh, here. I picked up a gift for you.”

Clope accepted the large leather pouch that I handed to him and squinted dubiously into it for a moment before his expression broke out into a grin. “Oh! These are mighty fine materials. Can’t get ’em anywhere around these parts either.”

Lorraine and I hadn’t been sure what to get Clope, but when we’d asked Augurey...

“He’s a blacksmith, so he’d be happy to get raw materials, right? Tools might be good too, but I’d bet he’d prefer to pick his own. Incidentally, there are a few commissions here that could be just the thing...”

He’d gone on to introduce us to several hunting jobs targeting relatively rare monsters that didn’t appear anywhere except in the vicinity of the capital. In the end, we’d accepted all of them...

That was a good thing in the sense that we’d had plenty of materials left over after handing the jobs in—but looking back, I felt as though I’d spent all of my time in the capital serving as Augurey’s workhorse.

Given how much trouble I’d landed him in though, I don’t think I had any right to complain.

“Lorraine and I hunted them down with Augurey,” I explained. “They’ve all been properly processed too. There should be no issues with the quality.”

“Oh? You met up with Augurey? Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a while. If you see him again, tell him to drop by every once in a while.”

Augurey used to be a customer of Clope’s, after I’d introduced him to the blacksmith.

“Will do. I’m not sure when that’ll be, but I’ll keep it in mind.”

“Thanks. Now, what business did you have with me toda— Well, I s’pose I shouldn’t even bother asking, eh? You must be here for this.”

Clope fetched a cloth bundle out from the back of the shop, carrying it with gentle caution. I didn’t have to open it up to know what it was: it was the sword that I’d commissioned him to make, forged from mana iron, the magic crystal of a tarasque, wood that had been infused with my divinity, and my own blood.

It...sounded kind of strange when I listed all those ingredients out like that. Still, Clope wouldn’t have done a shoddy job.

I’d tested out the prototypes many times before, but materials like mana iron and tarasque magic crystals didn’t exactly grow on trees, so the test runs had been made with regular iron, plus the divinity-infused wood and my blood, in order to get a feel for the final product.

Naturally, as far as Clope knew he was using vampire blood that I’d obtained somehow, not my own.

The end result had been that the infused wood had made it harder to break the prototypes by charging them with divinity—and it strengthened that as well. Meanwhile, my blood had given the test blades the ability to ever so slightly drain the stamina and mana of anything they cut—how fitting for a vampire. The effect was pretty nice—Clope had been surprised, since apparently such powers were extremely rare. Still, it really was minimal, so it wouldn’t give me an infinite reservoir of energy to draw from or anything. Maybe Laura’s blood could create a crazy weapon like that...but I bet she wouldn’t give it to me. Besides, I doubted I’d even be able to wield the result.

As for the mana iron and tarasque magic crystal, it remained to be seen what effect they had, but I was eager to test it out.

“What’s the craftsmanship like?” I asked.

Clope puffed out his chest. “It’ll be sure to satisfy you—that I can guarantee.” He paused for a moment. “Well, if I were being honest, I would’ve liked to use even better materials, but that’s never not the case with smithing. It’s the best I could’ve made it with what I had.”

“I’m looking forward to trying it out. Do you mind if I do that right away?”

“Go ahead. We have to see how much divinity it can handle, as well as what happens when you add spirit and mana to the mix. That’s the important part; if it doesn’t work, then I’ll have made it for nothing.”

Blacksmiths were relatively well acquainted with how mana, spirit, or divinity worked individually, as well as the fusion of mana and spirit. However, when it came to divinity-mana-spirit fusion, the majority of blacksmiths had no experience with tools for such people at all. Hardly anyone possessed all three in the first place.

As such, all Clope and I could do was proceed through trial and error. It had seemed to have proved successful: the experience he’d gained from repeated testing of the prototypes had shown as he’d become more familiar with the weapons. Throughout the process, I’d been able to feel the energies flowing through the blades more smoothly each time.

“I hope I don’t break it,” I joked.

“Y-You’d better not!” Clope yelled. He sounded genuine. “If you feel you’re about to, stop channeling energy into it right away, got that?!”

Given that I’d broken several prototypes, his caution was warranted. I hadn’t intended to break them, of course, but divinity-mana-spirit fusion was no easy feat. Controlling it was still beyond me—just when I thought I’d pulled it off, it fell apart, and just when I thought I’d stopped, it kept going. Such occasions were frequent, and each and every use was unbelievably exhausting.

There was no denying that it was the ace up my sleeve—a strike powerful enough to smash through almost any defense—but it was a mixed blessing, since failing to pull it off meant that I’d have the tables turned on me.

I wanted to practice the technique more, but no weapon ever lasted long enough...hence why I was excited to see what this sword was capable of.

“Well, all I can do is my best,” I said. “If it doesn’t work out...”

“If it doesn’t work out...?” Clope repeated.

“Then...I apologize in advance,” I joked.

“Hey!”

Chuckling, I headed for the courtyard, where I would be able to put my new weapon to the test.

◆◇◆◇◆

When I reached the courtyard, I unwrapped the cloth bundle that I’d taken from Clope. The most fun part of having equipment specially made for you was the moment when you laid eyes upon it for the first time. With all the prototypes I’d tested, I already had a rough idea of what the final product would be like, but that did nothing to dampen my enthusiasm. I pulled back the last fold of cloth to reveal the sword in all its glory, and...

“Oh! I gotta say, I wasn’t expecting this...”

“You bet you weren’t,” Clope said, sounding smug. “Though, to be fair, I didn’t expect it to turn out like that either. I think it’s because of the wood infused with your divinity. I’ve seen weapons made from holy trees before, and some of them looked similar.”

He was referring to the unique pattern on the blade. Holding it by the hilt, I saw that it extended along the sword’s entire length, a grainy imprint that was reminiscent of a tree’s age rings. Strictly speaking, however, the pattern itself wasn’t incredibly unique.

Clope was evidently following a similar line of thought to me. “You can get that kind of effect without using holy trees,” he said. “The difference here lies in how sturdy it is. I made a small knife to test the material, and it was five times more durable than a regular one—but it didn’t sacrifice suppleness in the process.”

I swung the blade lightly as a test, and to my surprise it bent like a branch. It was as though I wasn’t wielding a blade of solid metal at all, but one of those segmented whip-swords—albeit one on the stiffer side. Nevertheless, it didn’t remotely give off the impression that it was going to snap.

“Interesting...” I remarked. “It’ll probably take some time to get used to though.”

“Nothing you can do about that except put in the effort,” Clope said. “But if the flexibility really isn’t your cup of tea, I can reforge it.”

“No... I’ll try it out a few times first. I might take you up on that offer if it doesn’t seem like I’m getting anywhere, but I already get the feeling that it’ll work out.”

“Good to hear.”

“Still...the coloring’s a little...well...”

“Evil-looking?”

“Yeah...”

The pattern on the blade was all well and good, but there was no way to describe the color other than “evil.” Was that because it was made out of my blood...? The sword was tinged red in several places and looked so sinister that you could practically hear it yelling “More blood! More blood!”

“Well, that’s fine, isn’t it?” Clope said. “It suits you.”

“Is...that a good thing...?” I asked.

With my skull mask and this weapon, I looked more like a bandit or assassin than an adventurer. I couldn’t exactly deny that it did fit me, but that was a different question altogether from whether it was an appearance befitting an adventurer...

As I pondered that, Clope said, “I guess how it looks doesn’t matter. What’s important is how it feels to use. Let me see how it cuts.”

Clope brought out several logs and dummies made of varying materials ranging from wood to metal to straw. Then, he set them in place around the courtyard. I figured that the different materials were meant to help me get a better feel for the weapon, since it was rare to see a sword as flexible as this one.

“All right, here goes...” I said.

I began cutting through the dummies one by one. At first, I didn’t channel mana into it, relying on pure strength and technique to get a feel for the blade.

Clope had been right to feel confident in it; I could already tell that it was a quality sword, and it cut extremely well. I managed to bisect the dummies wearing metal armor, and what it did to straw and wood wasn’t even worth mentioning.

I checked the blade for any nicks, but didn’t find a single one. When I examined the metal armor, I saw that the parts I’d cut through were slightly jagged, which matched up with the resistance I had felt. The strength afforded me by my monstrous body had probably allowed me to brute force straight through.

Still, that was just fine. I had never wielded a sword that could cut this well.

“How is it?” Clope asked.

I nodded. “I like it. The flexibility isn’t bothering me as much as I thought it would. In fact, I think it’s actually improving the cutting ability.”

“Good to hear. Still, to think the sword is that effective without channeling any kind of energy into it... Maybe you two are a good match?”

Clope was a decent swordsman himself, but apparently his attempts with the blade hadn’t been as successful as mine. I figured the part about us being a match was reasonable—the sword was partially made out of my blood, so in that sense maybe it really was my personal weapon. Perhaps that was why it cut excellently even without me needing to pour any mana into it.

There were examples of personalized weapons like that in the world. The simplest and most straightforward kinds were sacred swords or spears that chose their wielders, granting them immense power when they used the weapons in question. Maybe this sword worked in a similar way.

“You...don’t think it’s a magical sword, do you?” I asked.

“Who knows...?” Clope shrugged. “Though I will say that as a blacksmith, being able to forge such weapons would be an incredible blessing.”

Sacred swords and magical ones tended to be found in dungeons rather than forged, and when they were made, it was only by blacksmiths whose names were renowned throughout the lands. Clope was definitely talented, but whether he was capable of such a feat was an open question.

“You can’t tell the difference?” I asked.

“With some, you can. A lot of them you can’t, though. That’s why you can run across them randomly at street stalls and such every once in a while. You’ve heard stories like that before, right?”

I had, in fact. The variation I’d heard featured a lucky adventurer who’d picked up what later turned out to be a magical sword for dirt cheap at a street vendor. It had given him the ability to defeat stronger and stronger monsters, and eventually he had climbed his way up to Gold-class—or Platinum-class, depending on who was telling the story.

I’d heard another story about a guy who’d gone through a similar thing, except it was a strange cursed mask—which wasn’t lucky at all. Well...I suppose it wasn’t too unlucky, since he was still alive and kicking...

“I guess if I want to know for certain, I’d have to go to the God of Appraisal,” I mused aloud.

“That’d do it,” Clope agreed. “There are other ways, though.”

“Such as?”

“A big-name blacksmith would be able to tell, for one... In any case though, let me think about that part. You should keep trying it out.”

◆◇◆◇◆

Next, I decided to try channeling spirit into the sword. Of the three energies I had available to me, spirit was the one that I’d always relied on the most even back when I was human. At that time, it had been thanks to spirit that I’d become strong enough to finally kill skeletons and slimes.

In hindsight, I sure had come a long way. These days I could cut through monsters like that with pure physical strength. I still couldn’t manage that against superior species and unique variants, but at least those wouldn’t mean instant death when I ran into them. That was a big enough difference on its own.

The vampire I’d run into in the capital didn’t count...

“Hey, what are you spacing out for?” Clope called out.

“Oh, sorry. I was just thinking.”

“Well, there’s no hurry, I suppose. I’ve finished setting up more dummies, so give it a go.”

I refocused myself and began channeling spirit into my sword. As soon as I did...

“It doesn’t look any different...” I muttered.

There were a decent number of weapons out there in the world that changed appearance if spirit or mana was channeled into them. The idea definitely tickled my fancy, so I would have liked my sword to do the same, but it seemed that my hopes—which albeit hadn’t been that high—had been dashed.

Still, those kinds of weapons tended to give away their capabilities, which made them difficult to use. The fact that my sword stayed unchanged was likely better for any future fights I might be getting into.

For the time being, I attempted a simple practice swing.

“Huh. I see. So that’s how it changes...”

“Is something different?” Clope asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “It feels like the flexibility has...worsened a little.”

“Really? I can’t see the difference, myself.”

“I only channeled a small amount of spirit, so you’d only notice it if you were swinging the sword. If I channel some more...”

My suspicions were proved correct: the more spirit I channeled into the weapon, the less flexible it became. In short, spirit equaled rigidity.

I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. It would maybe improve the sword’s cutting ability, but I was worried that it would also make it more susceptible to snapping or chipping. If that led to me breaking it, Clope would cry. I deliberated over whether or not I should continue testing it out.

“Hey, if it breaks from regular use, that just means I made a defective product,” Clope said, his tone frank. “Go ahead—see how it is.”

That only made sense. Clope hadn’t forged the sword to be a decoration, so if this was enough to break it, he wouldn’t have any cause to get mad at me.

I nodded and started cutting. As I’d expected, I had no issues slicing through wood and straw. Even with how stiff the sword had become, I doubted that would be enough to leave any chips or scratches. After checking the result of the cuts, I saw that they were much smoother than before—though I’d already suspected that would be the case.

“Now...how about metal?” I grunted as I sliced through the armor-clad dummy.

The weight of the sword hadn’t changed, so it was still easy to swing. However, the recoil was different now that it was less flexible, so I would have to put a lot of effort into getting used to that.

I had been slightly apprehensive about testing my sword on the armor-clad dummy, but the weapon hadn’t even met any resistance as it cut through. And so...

“Everything looks fine,” Clope confirmed, after running over to check the blade of my sword. “No scratches.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. Just like the wood and straw dummies, the slash through the dummy’s metal armor was smoother than when I hadn’t used spirit, and there was no sign of damage on the sword, which was excellent. If it could cut this well, it would be useful for piercing through to the cores of amorphous monsters like slimes.

Hunting slimes was still a good source of side income for me...

“I guess that makes mana next.”

As Clope swiftly set up the next round of dummies, I began channeling mana through the sword, whereupon I began to feel something strange.

“Is this...?”

It was as though I could feel something in the ground, like the earth itself was an extension of my limbs. As a test, I tried moving the phantom sensation, and...

Whump.

A section of the ground in the courtyard bulged upward like a tiny hill at my command.

I tested the phenomenon out several times and each time observed the same effect—evidently, channeling mana through my sword gave me the ability to manipulate the ground—or, to be more precise, the dirt and sand. It seemed fairly useful for tilling fields...

Well, I wasn’t lacking for fertilizer, so if I retired from the adventuring life to become a farmer, I’d probably be hailed as an agricultural god. As I idly followed that silly train of thought, Clope came over, his preparations finished.

“That’s probably the effect of the mana iron we used, since it was soaked in the Earth Dragon’s mana,” he said, watching me play with the ground. “You see similar things happen sometimes when you make a good weapon out of materials from monsters with a close connection to rock or earth. The ability itself isn’t that rare. The question is: how potent is it?”

I knew about these kinds of weapons too; elemental ones that could spit fire or ice and wreathe themselves in it. It was essentially like a mage casting a spell, except all you needed to do was channel mana through the weapon.

As Clope had said, it wasn’t that rare. You could buy such weapons off the market—if you were willing to part with half of a king’s ransom, that is. And even then, it was hard to say whether a lot of the weapons were worth it. As such, I didn’t have much experience with using them.

“How potent it is, huh?” I said. “I guess I should channel more mana into it and find out.”

I had only used a small amount of mana to start with as a test. If I upped that amount, it might be able to improve the effect.

When I put the attempt into practice, I was proved right: the amount of earth and sand I could manipulate increased with my mana output, and I even managed to form stone projectiles out of thin air. There was a great deal of freedom in what I could do, and that meant a wide array of options in combat.

Still, the mana consumption rate was a little worrying. I’d have to spend even more time practicing with the sword to get used to all the different ways I could use it.

I was starting to get worried that I’d never be able to wield it properly.

◆◇◆◇◆

Next up was divinity. Shaking off my apprehensions, I channel the divine energy into the sword. Appearancewise, it now looked like it was coated in hazy blue flames. However...

“Have you tried using divinity yet?” Clope asked.

Although he was watching me, it didn’t sound like he could see what I could. It didn’t take me long to figure out why: the flames were produced by divinity. Thinking back—reluctantly—to when the insane vampire hunter Nive Maris had forcibly showered me in divine flames, the people without divinity hadn’t been able to see them. In short: the flames that were coating my sword right now were likely of the same variety.

Of course, back when I had learned the fundamentals of using divinity, I had been taught how to make it visible for those who couldn’t see it. I put that technique into practice to show Clope.

“Oh. The blade’s...burning?” he remarked.

“Looks like it,” I said. “I...don’t think it’s actually hot though.”

I couldn’t feel any heat from the blade even though I was wielding it. Touching it didn’t feel any different either.

“Want to try touching it?” I asked Clope.

He looked hesitant at first, since even though they were insubstantial, they were clearly still flames. However, his curiosity won out in the end, and he slowly reached his hand out toward the sword.

“You’re right...” he muttered. “It’s not hot. Flames of this color should be scorching...”

That was exactly the kind of thing a blacksmith would say. It had to be pretty strange for a person who was so used to working with fire to touch what looked like a live flame and not feel anything from it.

It made me wish that he’d been there to see when Nive had set me alight. He would’ve found it amusing—or terrifying—for sure. Of course, I never wanted to undergo such an experience again if I could help it, but maybe I could make an exception if it was for the sake of scaring Clope a little.

“Still, it doesn’t feel like anything in particular has changed,” I muttered, as I evaluated the sword. “The flexibility’s the same, and I don’t get the sense that I can manipulate anything... Guess I’ll start by testing how well it cuts.”

I settled into a fighting stance, then began cutting through the dummies with my flame-wreathed sword using the same motions as I had used with my earlier tests.

“It cuts better, but it’s only as much improvement as I would have gotten from channeling divinity through a regular sword...” I noted. “What’s the point of these flames...?”

I worked over the question in my thoughts. The sword cut well enough through the dummies; I had no complaints in that regard. A regular sword’s sharpness and durability increased if you channeled mana, spirit, or divinity into it, and this sword followed the same principle, though better. Furthermore, using mana and spirit created unique effects that were easy to intuit.

Divinity, however...

Well, I couldn’t get a feel for what it was supposed to do. It was different somehow—that much was obvious from how differently it reacted to divinity compared to a regular sword—but I couldn’t place it. If it turned out that the flickering flames were only there for decoration, I suspected I’d start feeling the slightest urge to snap the weapon in half. Clope would get mad, though. In fact, he’d probably cry if I so much as mentioned the idea, so I figured I’d keep my mouth shut about it. I explained my thoughts about the sword, leaving that part out, and Clope answered with a question.

“You can’t think of anything?”

He was probably trying to stir up some kind of inspiration that would lead me toward connecting the dots. After some thought, an idea came to me.

“It might be a bit of a stretch, but I’ve seen a saintess employ a similar power before...” I said. “Maybe these flames can burn vampires? Not that we’d have any way to test that here...”

I was, of course, talking about Nive and her holy flames. The ones wreathing my sword were a lot smaller in scale, but they did resemble hers. It seemed a reasonable enough assumption that they would have the same effect.

That being said, I had no way of testing it out here. It didn’t work on me, after all; divinity didn’t in general.

If Isaac or anybody from the Latuule household had been around, I could perhaps have asked them—but if the result was what I expected it would be, that came with the chance of extinguishing their existences, and I would rather die than do anything that would give the Latuule family cause to hold a grudge against me.

Still, if he was around, Isaac would probably be able to tell just by looking. I’d have to show him when I next got the opportunity.

“Yeah, one doesn’t exactly step out for an afternoon and come back with a vampire to test swords on,” Clope agreed. “But if you think it’ll work on them, then would it work on undead monsters too? You could try it on the skeletons in the Water Moon Dungeon.”

“Good idea,” I said, nodding.

When Nive had used her holy flames on me, she had been extremely eager about how they would burn me if I was a vampire specifically. Originally, though, divinity’s ability to purify made it effective against all undead in general. It wasn’t farfetched at all to imagine that the flames wreathing this sword would be too.

In that case, it should have an obvious and apparent effect on skeletons. Luckily, the Water Moon Dungeon had been my stomping grounds for years, and I knew it like the back of my hand. There was a strange being who resided there, sure, but I figured I’d be okay as long as I didn’t delve too far in.

In fact, although I had gone several times since our last meeting to try and meet her again, I had never been able to reach that strange room. The mysterious resident in question had spoken as though there was a proper route to get there, so there probably was...but for now, trying was likely futile.

Whatever the case, I decided that I’d have to go skeleton hunting sometime soon.

◆◇◆◇◆

All in all, I now had a rough grasp on how to use the sword. The only thing left to try was mana-spirit fusion and divinity-mana-spirit fusion. Both techniques put a lot of strain on a weapon, but in exchange, they gave you access to significant destructive power that could serve as a trump card.

It was thanks to those combinations that I’d made it this far, edging out victories against opponents who’d had the upper hand against me. And with my body’s unique constitution that let me “die” any number of times in a fight and be fine, I was now somebody who could last longer than a few seconds against a much stronger opponent, if not necessarily put up a real fight.

It was also very reassuring to know that I had the option to pretend to be dead when a situation really became hopeless. If the absolute worst-case scenario ever occurred, I could simply just play dead for a while before making my escape.

People often said that as a man, there were times you had to stand up and fight no matter what...but my personal motto was that outside of those times, you should make a break for it as soon as you knew you didn’t stand a chance.

After all, so long as you had your life, you had hope.

“All right, want to try the next one?” Clope asked, a little after he’d finished setting up more dummies.

I nodded and began channeling mana and spirit into my sword. Although it was something I’d done countless times before, it proved to be just as difficult as always—there was a feeling of pressure, like I was trying to force more water into a leather pouch already on the verge of rupturing. That was probably why a sword with a mana-spirit fusion channeled through it caused whatever it hit to burst apart.

That wasn’t the only trick I had up my sleeve these days, however. Instead of just forcing things to rupture, I was also capable of channeling a thin flow of mana and spirit on both sides of my sword’s blade, giving it a better cutting edge than if I’d used mana or spirit alone. Regardless, though, I couldn’t maintain either of those mana-spirit fusion methods for long.

I supposed I just had to continue training hard and devoting more time to improving myself.

When I finished channeling mana and spirit into the sword, a cursory inspection showed me both that the sword’s rigidity had increased and that I once more had the sense that I could now manipulate soil and sand. Channeling spirit alone had made the sword more rigid, and channeling mana alone had let me manipulate earth, so in a way, this was the obvious result of channeling both. However, I had the feeling that the overall potency of both effects was greater than when I’d used spirit or mana alone.

When I tested the blade out, the cut it made through the dummy was exceedingly smooth, and I was able to manipulate a significant amount of earth with finer control. What’s more, when I changed the way I channeled my mana-spirit fusion and tried to slice through another dummy, the technique retained its explosive properties.

In short, it was an extension of the same abilities mana and spirit produced individually, but stronger and more consistent.

My thoughts immediately jumped to the idea of defaulting to mana-spirit fusion as my top combat option from now on—but as was always the case with life, that was easier said than done. As I maintained the mana-spirit fusion, my exhaustion increased exponentially. Speaking in specific terms, while ten seconds of usage was only the equivalent of a full-speed sprint, thirty seconds left me unable to even stand.

“This...is way...too inconvenient...to use...” I groaned.

I hadn’t felt this exhausted when using mana-spirit fusion with ordinary blades. It had to be a result of the sword maintaining the boosted rigidity and earth manipulation effects in addition to the better cutting edge. Added up, all of that made for a huge burden.

If I kept trying to use it after thirty seconds, forget the sword breaking—I was probably going to break long before it did. And I was undead. If a regular person used it, would it suck them dry? This sword was definitely dangerous enough that it seemed like a distinct possibility.

“You okay?” Clope asked worriedly, staring down at me lying spread-eagled on the ground as I tried to recover my stamina.

“Yeah, I’m just tired,” I replied. “I’m not injured anywhere.”

“Good to hear. There are more than a few magic swords out there that take something from the wielder to strengthen themselves. I was worried that one would be one of them.”

He wasn’t wrong; there were a decent number of swords like that in the world. The thought made me suddenly curious about a blacksmith’s point of view on the topic. “Just for reference, Clope...” I asked. “When you think of ‘dangerous magic swords,’ what types come to mind?”

Clope mulled it over for a few moments. “Well, the easiest examples to understand would be the ones which reduce their wielders’ life spans,” he said. “The more you use them, the more your life is whittled down, but in exchange, the sword gets stronger as you get closer to death—and that results in things like the wielder going berserk and becoming unable to tell friend from foe. There was a rare one I saw a while back with needles that would pop out of the hilt when anyone picked it up. Those needles would stab into the wielder’s hand and drain their blood to enhance the sword’s power. It was a rotten thing not worth any decent person’s time, of course, but there was no denying how formidable it was. Weapons like that always pass from wielder to wielder, gaining infamy as they go. I bet you’ve at least heard of the examples I just mentioned, right?”

I had, in fact, heard of both of them. Magic swords which could grant you glory at the cost of dooming you to a ruinous fate were common topics of conversation among adventurers sharing a drink with one another. Sometimes the names of their wielders were mentioned, but the weapons often changed hands rapidly. Those who used them for long periods of time were spoken of as heroes.

In the end, however, even those heroes generally met untimely fates.

Adventurers learned of such things from the stories told by bards and minstrels, and they were always quick to say things like “They reaped what they sowed” or “I could have used it better.” Yet, despite all of the tales, there was never a shortage of adventurers who sought after these magic swords.

The reason was simple. In short, it was just plain old— No, I couldn’t talk like I was a bystander. Back when I had been a Bronze-class adventurer with no future, I had been the same: desperately reaching for my dream, unable to give up on it even though all that lay along that path was despair.

No matter what the era, it was always easy to find those kinds of adventurers. Some of them even managed to find what they were seeking. That was why their stories remained behind in poems and songs—even if those songs were about upstarts walking the path of certain doom.

At the end of those stories, they left their swords behind in place of a gravestone, only for someone else to come along to take it up, ruinous destiny and all, and begin the cycle anew.

Was my sword one of those? If I hadn’t been undead...

I couldn’t know for sure. All I could say was that, for my current self, it was shaping up to be a reliable partner indeed. I was going to master it, no matter what. And if I ended up in a bard’s song one day because of it...

Well, I could only hope that it would be an interesting one.

◆◇◆◇◆

The final technique that I had yet to test was divinity-mana-spirit fusion. Just in case, I apologized in advance.

“This is the one I’m worried about... Sorry if I end up breaking the sword, Clope.”

Clope was proud of the weapon he’d made. If I ended up shattering it into pieces, I’d feel awful. However, his reply was unexpected.

“I know I tried to talk you out of it...” he said, shaking his head. “But the truth is, if that’s all it takes to break it, then it means I gave you a weapon that wasn’t up to the standards of your order. It would mean I’d have failed in my job as a blacksmith. So don’t worry about it, because the fault would be mine. I just have to trust that the sword will pull through.”

He wasn’t wrong—I had ordered a sword capable of withstanding divinity-mana-spirit fusion. But the fact remained that blacksmiths didn’t get customers who made such orders every day. I doubted Clope had much experience in that regard, if any; it was already rare enough to come across someone who could wield all three energies. Even if he “failed,” to use his own word, I wouldn’t blame him at all.

With all that said, there was no denying that I did want a weapon that would let me use all of my strength. The fact that I could wield all three kinds of energy didn’t make me strong or weak on its own, but versatility was something that I could use to my advantage. As far as I was concerned, that was something to count my blessings for.

There were opponents whom mana wouldn’t work against, and opponents against whom spirit was ineffective. Divinity was quite powerful against a certain subset of foes, and yet other enemies required special methods of attack, such as mana-spirit fusion or divinity-mana-spirit fusion, to get past their potent defensive capabilities. If I was able to at least put up the beginnings of a fight against all of those opponents, then it would be a significant boon to have under my belt as an adventurer.

Of course, no matter what kind of power you were talking about, they were all useless if their wielder couldn’t handle them properly. I had confidence in my adaptability...but I couldn’t let myself become overconfident. I knew I’d have to refine myself with diligent effort.

Such were the thoughts running through my mind as I channeled divinity, mana, and spirit into my sword. It was hard going—if mana-spirit fusion had been like trying to force water into a bulging leather pouch, then this was like trying to forcibly compress extremely solid ore: no matter how hard I tried, it just seemed like there was a physical limit to how much I could cram in.

The amount of power I was successfully managing to channel wasn’t anything impressive—it was probably a tenth of what I had used for mana-spirit fusion, if not even less than that. Since the amount I was actually pouring in was several times that, it meant that a lot of it was going to waste.

Even so, the sheer power I could access just by pouring all of my energies into the same sword would be the strongest weapon in my arsenal. I couldn’t give up on trying for it.

“I think...I got it...”

Somehow, I successfully pulled it off—a mix of divinity, mana, and spirit flowed through my sword. Without a moment’s delay, I set about cutting my way through the dummies Clope had prepared as quickly as I could. Just maintaining the energy flow was noticeably draining to me.

Upon finishing, I saw that the wood and straw dummies had been compressed to a smaller size—small enough to fit in the palm of my hand—and had fallen to the ground. What’s more, they were wrapped in earth and ivy, as though being constricted. Now that was something I hadn’t seen before.

As for the dummy in metal armor, I could still make out its original outline, including where I had made the cuts with the sword, but it had been badly crushed into a spherical shape. That made it difficult to tell which direction I had made the cut from. Like the wood and straw dummies, it was also wrapped tight in earth and ivy. It looked like an enhanced form of divinity-mana-spirit fusion’s inherent ability: compression.

“That’s really somethin’ else. And the ivy...where are the roots?” Clope scrutinized the ivy with a curious glint in his eye. He followed along the vines, searching, and... “As far as I can see, it’s got a tight hold of the insides too. I...think it’s trying to get its nourishment from everything that’s been compressed. Now that’s a terrifying thought. Plus, the ivy itself isn’t affected by the compression...or maybe it is and just doesn’t care. Either way, it’s looking lively.”

“Those dummies are wood, straw, and metal armor though,” I pointed out. “How’s it going to get any nutrition from any of them? It’ll probably wither before long.”

“Well...maybe you’re right. But I’m curious to see what happens when you try that on something living. Whoever’s on the receiving end would get crumpled up and turned into plant feed. What a way to go...”

“I guess you’re right about that...”

Was it because I was a monster from the vampire evolutionary line? Even my sword had gained the ability to drain the life of living things for a longer life of its own.

It was hard to say how useful that ability would be though, and it seemed hard to use too. Plus, sprouting a new tree or something with every slash was kind of an iffy ability. When I had channeled divinity into my sword it had done something similar, so this wasn’t a shocking revelation or anything, but still.

I wondered if I could control it to some extent. I probably would’ve posed myself that same question no matter what the effect had turned out to be though—so in the end, it just came down to practice.

Maybe that was the direction I’d take my training in from here on out. Before, my policy had been to take any secondary effects in stride and prioritize raw destructive power, because the lack of it had been the biggest problem I had faced.

However, now that I could genuinely expect to grow in strength, things were different. I’d have to start putting more thought into that kind of thing. For example, leaving a wound that was crumpled up and covered in restricting vines was as good as telling the world exactly who did it. It was easy to imagine what problems that kind of instant recognition could stir up.

Of course, if I simply didn’t enhance the sword, or continued relying on channeling spirit or mana alone to pull me through while only using my fusion techniques when absolutely necessary, I wouldn’t need to worry about any of that. It had gotten me this far, after all.

But the only thing that success really proved is that I’d gotten lucky enough to only face opponents who could be overcome using what I had. I could easily see my future foes growing strong enough that those techniques would no longer be adequate. What was I going to do when I came up against one of them and had no choice but to fight?

That was what it meant to climb to Mithril-class...even if I was still a long way away from that.

It was clear that the opponents I faced in the future would be more formidable than my opponents of the past—especially since I was going to be undertaking the Silver-class Ascension Exam. I had fought against foes of that level or stronger with Lorraine and Augurey by my side before, but if you were to ask me to try those fights again alone...well, I definitely wouldn’t have the luxury of holding back.

If that were to happen, then—so long as I was still using the sword Clope had made for me—it would be like leaving my signature behind on every opponent I defeated.

And that was far from ideal.

It likely wouldn’t be a problem most of the time, since I wasn’t exactly doing any shady business, but there was a chance I’d be hired for jobs that had to be kept confidential. If I wanted those to go off without a hitch, I needed to be able to control my sword’s effects.

Fortunately, I already knew for certain that I could manage the effects of mana, spirit, and divinity when channeling them on their own. Since that was the case, the same should be possible for mana-spirit fusion and divinity-mana-spirit fusion too.

If it turned out to be impossible, I’d have to give up and find another method...

But for the time being, all I can do is try.

◆◇◆◇◆

“By the way, how’s the sword holding up?” Clope asked curiously, after I’d thoroughly studied the weapon’s effects.

From his point of view, the most important question was likely whether or not the sword could withstand my power. Personally, though, I cared more about finding out what it could do. Clope had held off on asking after its condition—basically repressing his ingrained instincts as a blacksmith—because he had been prioritizing me, the wielder, and what I wanted. Now that I had more or less gone through all the sword’s effects, there was no need to do that anymore.

I checked over the sword’s condition under Clope’s intent gaze. “It’s fine, as far as I can tell,” I said. I was only going by its appearance, but I could at least tell that it was a far cry from the severe damage my divinity-mana-spirit fusion had caused the swords I’d previously borrowed from Clope or bought from other blacksmiths. I’d rendered those unusable.

That said, I wasn’t a blacksmith by trade; there could’ve been damage my layman’s eyes couldn’t see. It was very possible that the strain of divinity-mana-spirit fusion caused things like internal fractures in the blade or a sharp drop in its overall durability.

I was familiar enough with swords to be a decent judge of the quality of mass-produced stuff, but it went without saying that this weapon was different. Clope had put his body and soul into forging this one, and the end result was probably close to being a genuine magic sword. I simply wasn’t equipped to properly evaluate a weapon like that.

As such, I handed it over to Clope so that the professional could take a better look. He took it and went through a series of careful examinations: scrutinizing the hilt, peering at the blade, swinging it, and tapping it to check if there were any defects. It took some time, but when he was done...

“Looks like you were right,” he told me. “It’s fine.”

“Can I take that to mean you were successful?” I asked. “That you’ve forged a sword that can withstand divinity-mana-spirit fusion.”

If that really was the case, then I’d be over the moon. Up until now, I’d treated the technique as my final, single-use trump card. If I could use it two times, three, or even more than that, then my options in combat would broaden considerably—that is to say, it would be easier for me to find a path to victory. Phrased another way, there was less of a chance that I’d be forced to suffer an overwhelming defeat. Since I was hard to kill off in the first place, I was extremely grateful for any options that gave me better odds when it came to taking full advantage of my tenacity in a fight.

“Yeah,” Clope confirmed. “That said, I don’t know how many times it’ll be able to withstand all of that. You’re the only guy I know of who can use something as crazy as divinity-mana-spirit fusion. If there were others around, I’d be able to do more testing...but that’s wishful thinking, I s’pose. I just don’t know a single other person who can use divinity, mana, and spirit. Sorry.”

Clope’s apology sounded heartfelt, and that was a testament to what an upstanding blacksmith he was. Still, no matter how you looked at it, this was on me.

“It’s fine, really,” I said. “You’re the only blacksmith who’s patient enough to stick with an edge-case adventurer like me. You don’t have to apologize.” I was being honest about how I felt. Without Clope, I would’ve had a hard time getting my hands on suitable weapons at all.

“You think so? I can come up with a number of people off of the top of my head whose curiosity would be piqued by an edge case like you. There’s probably just something about your type that attracts my type, so you’d better not worry about it either. But if you really feel like you have to make it up to me, then bring me more interesting things to work on. I’ll take everything you’ll send my way.”

Those were reliable words. With my monster body, there were only so many people I could commission for blacksmith work without reservation. Even though as a pseudo-vampire I looked no different from a person, I lived with the constant apprehension that I could be exposed at any moment. There were precious few people whom I could trust not to turn me in if that happened—or whom I’d let myself be taken for, if they did turn me in—and Clope was one of them. If it was within my ability, I wanted to do something for him in return. That thought spurred my next words.

“I’m happy you feel that way, but I still haven’t paid you back,” I said. “If there’s ever anything I can do for you, just let me know. I’ll gather as many rare materials as you want, among other things.”

I meant it too, from the bottom of my heart. Clope, however, shook his head and said, “Forget about stuff like that. Just keep letting me forge your equipment, and I’m happy. Though...I can’t say I’ll never have any jobs for you, so I’ll gladly accept your offer. You’d better not say you forgot about it when I come to collect, all right?”

I grinned at the joke. “If you’re ever in a bind, I’ll make time for you no matter how busy I am. No job’s too small, so you’d better not hold back either.”

“Do I look like someone who’d be so miserly and reserved? When the time comes, I’ll be asking you for something big, so you’d best prepare yourself!”

◆◇◆◇◆

After chatting for a while, Rentt went home with his sword in his hand and a pleased look on his face, and Clope’s wife, Luka, returned to the Three-Pronged Harpoon from her trip to the blacksmith’s guild.

“I’m back, dear.”

“Welcome back. You’re later than usual—I was worried,” Clope greeted, then noticed that his wife’s usual smile was gone in favor of a troubled expression. “What’s got you looking like that? Did something happen?”

“Well...take a look, dear...” Luka held out a letter.

Clope took it, broke the seal, and carefully read the contents. When he was done, he nodded. “It’ll be a little difficult to ask him about this after what I just said...but maybe this came at just the right time,” he mused. “Looks like I’ll be taking Rentt up on his offer sooner than I expected.”