WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 749: You Didn't Say Hello, Did You? Say Hello

= = =

The accepted wisdom is that forging a truly refined and exceptional sword takes at least half a year. Aetri cut that time short.

No miracle. He had simply prepared well.

There were other reasons too, of course. But if he had to name the single most important thing outside of preparation, it would have to be the dwarf who had dropped by a few times recently.

Aetri knew the dwarf. The dwarf's purpose was plain enough.

"Put in a good word for me later, would you? I'm not a bad dwarf, you know. The Iron Clan just has a bit of a species-wide tendency to charge ahead without thinking things through."

He mostly came with favors to ask, but while he was there, he passed along smelting techniques. He threw in something like his personal philosophy on top of that.

"Does a method have to be superior just because it's traditional? The right move is to pull everything excellent out of that tradition and reshape it into something new!"

Dwarves always dream of progress. They never hesitate when it comes to accepting new techniques, learning them, and putting them to use. That same drive is why they pursue craft so purely.

It is also why dwarves were the most easily swindled of all the intelligent races.

"Oh, a new technique? Sounds good. Teach me."

Even Aetri could picture a dwarf saying exactly that without any effort.

If you ranked the races humans had cheated the most, dwarves would sit unchallenged at the top.

And dwarves who spent too much time around humans could naturally start doing the same kind of thing themselves.

Either way, Aetri had learned the smelting techniques and drawn real insight from those ideas.

'Innovation means something new, with everything I already know added on top.'

On top of that, he had gained experience handling several rare metals, a stroke of luck no other smith on the continent could claim.

That was what it meant to get your hands on multiple rare metals and work them freely.

Enkrid had even brought back Inscribed Weapons for him along the way. All of it became study. Aetri looked at everything he could get his hands on, and he learned, and he practiced.

Research and study. He stacked one identical day on top of another.

And somewhere in the middle of that, a rough picture took shape.

'Layer three different irons together.'

The technique was called pattern welding.

Which irons, then? The three most famous on the continent: Valerian blue steel, Lewes silver steel, and Uber Mountain yellow steel.

What people called blue steel, silver steel, and gold steel. Near the ore veins that produced them, rare metals sometimes surfaced alongside, true iron, true silver, hardest iron. Those three.

Aetri had obtained some of each, along with a portion of meteorite iron as well.

The sword born from that was the Three-Iron, of course.

There were gemstones and special metals beyond those, but.

'Cursed metals, out.'

Those belonged on Inscribed Weapons. What he had smelted down from a suit of armor taken off a Cultist Enkrid had killed turned out to be a cursed metal.

Even while Enkrid was away, Aetri never stopped swinging the hammer.

He worked true iron and true silver and hardest iron, refining them over and over. Then a peculiar iron came to him through a trading company.

The metal itself was neither especially hard nor especially flexible. But the moment he saw it, he felt like something would come of it. Instinct stirred. After that, he moved as if possessed.

Layer the irons and stack them, then add innovation on top.

'This is a mystery.'

He did not understand the principle. He had no confidence he could repeat it if asked. It felt like crossing a cliff on a single tightrope without the skill to be doing it. No, he was still on that wire.

Yet even as it happened, Aetri seemed to watch himself from a step removed, observing with detachment.

The part of him that was concentrating simply struck with the hammer, folded in true iron, struck again, layered in true silver, struck again, added hardest iron.

'He's going to ruin the whole thing.'

That was how it usually went. The part of him watching from outside felt a spike of dread. The way to make those three metals work together was to keep each one in its own place.

The Three-Iron had been the fruit of that research. Now he was ignoring even that. He was mixing them. Fusing them with heat.

'This won't work.'

The worry lasted only a moment. Then he forgot even that.

He forgot time. Even the hours he spent with Enkrid blurred.

When he drew in Enkrid's Will and poured it into the iron, when he listened to what Enkrid had to say, he seemed to focus again. But once Enkrid left, it all felt like something that had happened months ago.

Aetri's assistant watched with worried eyes, afraid his master might collapse at any moment.

Watching him thin out day by day was no small thing.

'Is he going to be all right?'

One day among the many spent watching and worrying.

Shhhh.

A strong gust hit and a wooden window rattled with a clatter. Then the door hinge began to creak and squeak, and there was a thud as the door swung open.

'Did the latch not catch properly?'

Security around the Border Guard had been extremely tight lately. The master's forge had four soldiers rotating guard duty, so there was no chance of a burglar walking in at night.

The assistant picked up the lantern, rubbed his drowsy eyes, and headed outside.

It was early summer, yet a strange chill crawled across his skin.

The assistant was walking to close the outer door when he stopped dead. Beyond the open door, the dark was too dark. Wrong.

Could any night be this black?

His back prickled, and a bad feeling settled over him. Something was out there beyond that darkness. That was not his imagination. A white hand shot out from inside the black. He was too startled to scream.

So it was true that a person could be too frightened to make a sound.

He learned that for the first time just then.

The white hand rose and extended a single index finger, stopping at the height where a face would be.

Then two points of blue light appeared in the darkness, and a sound came.

"Shh."

Only then did the assistant realize he had been holding his breath. He let it out in a rush. A figure stepped out of the darkness and into the building.

"Quietly."

A witch. Anyone would have said the same. She wore a pointed hat, and whatever she had done to her clothes, the pitch-black robe seemed to swallow every bit of light spilling from the lantern.

Darkness scattered with each step she took.

The Black Flower. That was the swordswoman's nickname.

"I've been expecting you."

The master's voice, from behind the assistant. He had not sensed him at all. The assistant turned in surprise and saw the master's gaunt cheeks and the bright, keen eyes shining between them.

The same look he had worn for the past several days.

"I thought you might need my help," the witch said, and walked inside without ceremony.

The assistant never quite registered what was happening, and he had no memory of how he fell asleep. He just woke up the next morning.

In the dream, he had a vague sense that not just the Black Flower but the Golden Witch had also stopped by the forge.

Which made it hard to say whether any of it had been a dream or real.

And he could not exactly ask his master about it.

His master's hammering had woken him, so of course he could not interrupt. Lately, the moment his master picked up the hammer, his pupils went distant and he moved like a ghost, doing nothing but working the bellows and swinging the hammer.

Like a man drunk on the light of the forge.

As he had been doing all along, the assistant set out some water and food to one side and went outside.

Leaving the heat of the forge behind, cool air pushed into his nose and swept through his lungs.

'Was it a dream?'

But it had been too vivid for a dream.

That afternoon, the assistant went to the Madman Knights' training grounds and delivered his master's message.

"It's finished."

* * *

Enkrid walked to the forge slowly. Slower than usual. Would he say he was excited? He would nod if asked. But did his heart pound? No, not that.

It just felt right. Natural.

Aetri had made a promise, and he would keep it. That was something Enkrid had never doubted for a single moment.

A belief as heavy as a knight's oath, you could say.

"You've arrived."

Aetri met him at the door, looking like he might have lost half his body weight. Hollow cheeks. Hands where the bones seemed ready to press through the skin.

The forge was quiet and still. Warm, yes, but not the kind of warm that dried your sweat before it could run. The brazier gave off only residual heat. The real heat had faded long ago.

"Said it was done?"

Enkrid came inside without ceremony. Aetri held out the sword the same way.

No scabbard. The grip was plain. The shape was like the Three-Iron and not like it at the same time.

'Looks the same on the outside, but.'

Subtly different. Hard to say exactly where, which was what made it subtle.

The moment you grasped a sword like this, should a shiver run through you? No. You couldn't force that kind of thing.

He gripped it with a head full of scattered thoughts and swung it through the air a couple of times.

Whick. Fwish.

Enkrid was honest. No particular feeling.

"Nothing special about it."

"Yes. Just right."

"It's duller than the silver-steel sword, not as heavy as the hardest iron. Doesn't feel like it'll be as tough as the Three-Iron either."

He had held more than one or two fine blades. Compare it to the Three-Iron Sword right now and there was a difference. Never mind the Three-Iron, this one was duller than Penna too.

If he had to name one advantage.

'The balance is a work of art.'

He held it vertical, then sideways. The way it settled into the hand was real.

"I suppose calling it a masterwork isn't a stretch."

Whether it counted as an Inscribed Weapon, well. He wasn't sure.

"Give it a name."

Aoara's Inscribed Weapon had been called Smile, hadn't it. Her smile was as beautiful as that sword.

"Duskforge."

The name meant dawn forging, the sword that opens the dawn, the one that breaks a new world open.

What had made him want to become a knight?

He had dreamed of a world other than one overrun by Demon Creatures and Magic Beasts.

That was where the name came from.

During the forging, Sinar had suggested the name Kirhais.

Esther had asked about calling it Night Sky or Star.

No one else had said much, but Rem had offered his suggestion with surprising seriousness.

"Urkiora. Or Dusky Sky. How's that sound?"

A small pull toward it, but he didn't change the name.

"Duskforge. A good name. It will take time to break in."

Aetri said it and then quietly crumpled to the floor. The startled assistant rushed over and caught him.

"Master!"

Should an Inscribed Weapon feel extraordinary the moment you pick it up? Enkrid didn't know. But he knew one thing.

He had seen the smile on Aetri's face.

'I entrusted it to Aetri, and Aetri was satisfied.'

That was enough. Had he poured his soul into every stroke of the hammer? Maybe. That would explain the smile, the kind that only comes when everything is done.

So Aetri, having finished it all.

"Is he dead?" Enkrid asked.

Had this sword become a final work? It might have. He had given that much of himself to it, and that was the only kind of smile that fit.

"No, why would a person just die?" the assistant said, startled.

Looking more carefully, shallow breaths were still coming. He had pushed too hard and collapsed, but he wasn't dead.

Enkrid had half known it before asking. He'd just wanted something to feel dramatic. Reality hadn't cooperated.

The Inscribed Weapon hadn't spoken to him the moment he picked it up. It hadn't shone with light. And Aetri the blacksmith had not burned out his soul to complete a final masterpiece.

"The scabbard is over there."

The scabbard was plain. The pommel and guard had nothing remarkable about them. Only the blade held a faint blue tint.

Not the same color as Valerian Steel. Closer to sky blue, a shade lighter than that.

'Should I have named it Sky Sword?'

It felt like it would have suited the blade well. The sword gave off a faint fragrance, and the strange thing was, it smelled like sky on a day without a single cloud. That clear. That clean.

'No. Break it down more carefully.'

The smell of a night sky, and the smell of flowers and trees, all blended together. Mixed like that, it came out smelling like clear open sky.

"Either way, I'll put it to good use. Aetri."

Aetri, who had briefly passed out, came back around and answered.

"Yes."

Enkrid left the forge and showed the sword to everyone he ran into on the way back.

"Aetri doesn't strike me as the type to quietly pocket the good stuff for himself. But somehow I get that feeling," Krais said.

That was Krais, who had no idea what he was talking about. The rest seemed to take it in stride.

"Is that yours, Captain?" Rem asked.

"Yeah."

To put it simply, that was all Rem asked, and all Enkrid answered.

Even so, throughout all of it, Enkrid kept noticing how naturally the sword settled into his hand. Strange, for something that wasn't supposed to be anything special.

He spent the rest of the day like that, then set out the next morning. He had finished all his preparations to leave long before the Inscribed Weapon was done.

"Safe travels."

Krais came to see him off, and Sinar fell in step close beside him.

A few paces along, Enkrid started murmuring to himself.

"Right, we're walking now. Hope something interesting comes up? Same here."

Something like that.

Rem, seeing Sinar walk beside Enkrid in silence, asked, "Who's the Captain talking to?"

Enkrid answered. Perfectly calm. Perfectly matter-of-fact.

"Our baby."

Rem blinked a couple of times.

He dug a finger in his ear, then checked Sinar's expression. Not a trace of joy there.

Of course. You wouldn't say something like that to an elf. She was several times Enkrid's age. There was no reason for those words to apply to her.

Then who?

Ragna seemed to have found it interesting and was listening quietly. Jaxon had followed along without a word, so he listened in silence too.

Pfrrrt.

Odd-Eye, who had come along as if to greet them, shook her head from side to side. This exceptional wild horse understood human speech.

"Could it be?"

Rem asked, and Enkrid introduced the sword with complete formality.

"You haven't been introduced yet? Say hello. This is Duskforge."

Rem did not swear. This was within the range of expected behavior.

"May peace dwell in my brother's skull."

Audin simply recited a prayer.

= = =

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried