WeTried Translations
Translator: [IncomeElastic]
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Became a Blacksmith the Rankers Are Obsessed With ◈
Chapter 009
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I Received a Billion
Dolores looked back down at the appraisal certificate.
This inscription, the kind etched onto gear, could only be read through a high-grade appraisal machine.
Origin Script.
It usually reflected a piece of gear’s identity, and sometimes even left behind a quote.
The words etched onto a piece of gear weren’t written by its maker. The world itself read them out.
The maker’s heart, and the intent behind the making.
It couldn’t be manipulated. It couldn’t be dressed up, either.
It wasn’t the kind of thing where someone could pick out pretty words just to impress her.
It simply etched whatever existed in that moment, nothing more.
If he’d actually accounted for all that and deliberately steered this Origin Script into coming out this way,
then that wasn’t the scheming of some mere child, and he’d be all the more a talent worth treasuring.
But the most likely explanation here was simply that the boy had made it while thinking of Dolores. That was all.
“…”
When was the last time,
she’d received someone’s pure goodwill?
Her sworn sisters? Even that was a long time ago.
Goodwill.
That kind of thing, it had been a good while.
Dolores smiled once again, softly.
‘I should buy him some candy.’
She thought, to herself.
In the meantime,
Puram’s thoughts were running in an entirely different direction.
‘It’s real.’
Match Rate: 100.
Even the Easter egg the previous generation’s Heir of Flame had left behind, the contingency meant for a successor, had printed out too.
This glove was without question genuine. And Puram absolutely had to pass this contingency on to that successor.
There was no hiding it. Nothing like that.
That was a dwarf’s pride.
‘…Wait.’
Puram’s hand stopped.
He remembered a rumor that had gone around a few days back.
Ricardo, the Grand Chieftain of the dwarves.
Word was a furnace had roared to life on Ricardo’s floor, one level above this one.
That furnace was said to respond only when a new Heir of Flame was born.
A story that only lived on in old records.
Given that Ricardo’s age was catching up with him too, Puram had figured senility might finally be setting in.
Besides, looking at the young dwarves on the 88th floor, not one of them had so much as properly held a hammer, let alone come close to being an Heir of Flame.
He’d figured there was no way a new heir would emerge, and written the rumor off as nonsense.
He’d been sure the dwarves simply had no future left.
But it was real.
This glove, made not long ago, lined up exactly with when that furnace had responded.
With the future of the dwarven race riding on it,
he had to find them. No matter what.
Puram’s gaze turned to Dolores.
This woman knew the answer.
She definitely knew who’d made this.
‘…I have to hold onto her.’
Puram copied the verification certificate first.
Then he translated it. The verification certificate was written in Dwarvish, something a human couldn’t read; that was just how the system worked.
He held the translated copy out to Dolores.
“It’s genuine.”
“So it seems.”
Dolores smiled and took the certificate.
“…”
At the very top, it read genuine, 100 percent.
So far, so good.
But below that was more Dwarvish, and this she couldn’t read.
Ordinary Dwarvish, she could read some of, like the appraisal certificate a moment ago. But this… was slightly different.
“What does this line at the bottom say?”
“…Who made this piece of gear? And where are they?”
An answer that came in the form of another question.
Dolores could tell the intensity radiating off the appraiser in front of her wasn’t ordinary.
It posed no threat to her. It was just a process, a third party proving the boy’s worth all over again.
Part of some tiresome battle of nerves.
“I found him on the road.”
That was her answer.
After all, that boy really had, quite literally, dropped right onto the road in front of her.
Not exactly a lie.
Puram’s brow furrowed.
“This may seem like nothing more than a matter of profit and loss to you, but to my people, this is a matter of the utmost…”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Cut off.
Dolores kept her smile in place and shut the conversation down with a single line.
She’d heard roughly what the dwarves were dealing with, but that was their problem. None of her concern.
Puram judged that pressing further wouldn’t get him the answer he wanted.
Forcing the issue wasn’t an option. He knew exactly who he was dealing with.
Report it to Grand Chieftain Ricardo, then?
…Possible, but exhausting. Very exhausting. The man was still as rigid as ever.
Puram thought it over for a moment.
A direction that would keep the race’s future alive, and that could actually be sustained.
In truth, there was one more thing Puram was debating whether to bring up.
The grain of the leather.
Looking at it again, he understood.
Puram loved the dwarven way more than anyone, but that also meant he knew exactly what dwarves lacked.
A natural kind of finishing like this, one that lulled the grain itself to sleep and opened breathing channels through the leather, wasn’t something dwarves had.
It couldn’t come from hands as rough as theirs.
Which meant this finishing technique belonged to the Elves.
But.
This much, he couldn’t say.
Someone who was both an Heir of Flame and in possession of an Elf secret technique.
If this woman ever learned that, she might hand the prodigy straight over to the Elves.
If she decided the Elves had more to teach him than the dwarves did.
That, he couldn’t allow.
Puram swallowed the words back down.
So he simply changed direction.
“…That prodigy needs a foothold to grow from.”
“…”
Dolores’s eyes narrowed.
Unlike a moment ago, this wasn’t something she could let pass.
Dolores gathered up the verification certificate and appraisal report and lowered her gaze.
In that case.
“It’s really none of my business, but,”
“…”
“what would it take for him to grow?”
Dolores never caged a talented child.
And if that talent happened to be an Heir of Flame, there was no need to even say it.
‘She’s not even trying to hide it.’
Watching her reaction, Puram fell into thought for a moment.
Would bringing the boy here really be a good thing, through and through?
This place had… Dwarf Company.
More than “had,” really. They’d have long since kept track of exactly who came and went from this verification office.
They might well be listening right now, this very moment.
The floor above was no different. Word was Dwarf Company’s reach was slowly creeping into the 89th floor as well.
There was no guarantee Ricardo could protect the prodigy completely, either. And Ricardo’s methods didn’t suit young people these days.
Puram would bet the man would order him to leap straight into ten-thousand-degree lava, right off the bat.
And if he couldn’t climb back out? Ricardo would just call it a shame, and move on.
If that was the case, then maybe.
growing up out there, under this woman’s abundant support,
…might not be so bad after all.
- Scritch, scratch.
An Heir of Flame would be treated as well as anyone, second to none, after all.
Puram translated the rest of it too, the ancestor’s contingency written at the bottom of the appraisal certificate, all of it.
─────────────────
『To the heir who’s taken their first step.』
『Clumsy, yes. But unmistakably burning.』
『Please, don’t let it go cold.』
『If you ever lose your way, come find Boldr’s Workshop-』
- Maker of the Appraisal Machine, 7th-Generation Sage Artisan Boldr -
─────────────────
“…!”
Dolores’s eyes went wide.
“It was written in ancient Dwarvish.”
“Pass this along to him.”
Puram paused to steady his breath, then
“If he ever loses his way, tell him to come find Boldr’s Workshop.”
And immediately added,
“He’ll… need a good hammer.”
With that, he turned his head away.
Dolores looked at the old man’s turned back.
His back was bent. The sun engraved on his worn apron caught the lamplight and glimmered faintly.
There’d been no lie.
Not in a single word.
With that, the woman set down twice the agreed fee on the table and walked out.
Puram raised a hand to his forehead.
Had the choice he’d made really been the right one?
He’d effectively handed the future of his race over to a mere climber.
Translating the ancestor’s contingency, bringing up the hammer, both of those.
An irreversible choice…
Right as he sank into his thoughts,
- Knock knock.
“…I’m not taking any more visitors today.”
“…”
No answer came. And then.
- Creak.
The door opened.
“…”
A suit.
The one outfit Puram hated most.
“Dwarf Company. Mr. Puram.”
The man in the suit smiled.
“Nothing out of the ordinary happened today?”
His eyes weren’t smiling.
* * *
“The beginnings of metallurgy start with the hammer and the forge…”
God, this is infuriating.
Is there seriously no method out there for a blacksmith without a silver spoon in his mouth?
I’d finished the leatherworking and gem-cutting sections. But no matter how much I read the metallurgy section, I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.
Felt like I’d have to actually try it myself to understand, but damn, the barrier to entry was brutal.
“How much for a forge? A decent one, performance-wise.”
[30,000 gold]
Thirty thousand gold, huh.
Last time, the Genesis Sword or whatever it was called went for ten million gold.
And Yuna had told me to think of every ten thousand gold as roughly a hundred million won.
So thirty thousand gold would be roughly…
[About 300 million-ish won!]
Well, shit.
How the hell does starting a business cost 300 million?
What even is this?
I was still shaking my head at the absurd price when
“…So, what about the hammer?”
My hand started shaking out of nowhere.
So how much was the hammer going to be, exactly.
[100,000 gold]
“Heh.”
A price that pulled a hollow laugh right out of me.
Okay, forget metallurgy. I’m going to become a master of leatherworking and gem-cutting.
If things went south, I was half-tempted to ditch the whole Heir of Flame thing and defect to the Elves.
A Child of the Forest? Yeah, sign me up for that instead.
Let’s cut what needs cutting. I didn’t know exactly how rich Dolores was, but
I didn’t figure she’d just hand a kid 1.3 billion right off the bat.
I liked to think I had a pretty clear-eyed sense of my own situation.
Right as I lifted my head, still turning all this over in my mind,
“…”
“…”
Ruby was awake.
I had no idea since when.
She was half sitting up on the blanket, staring blankly at me.
“…Hey.”
“…”
No answer.
She just looked at me, perfectly still.
I glanced out the window for a moment. Somehow, the sun was already sinking low.
Seeing the sunset light pouring in, I realized I’d slept a long time; I’d lost track while reading.
Didn’t Dolores say she’d be back by now?
“…Sleep well?”
She still didn’t answer, just kept staring at me with her eyes open, and then
Ruby’s eyes narrowed.
Wait, was this…
“…”
“…”
A staring contest had begun.
Neither of us started it on purpose. It just happened.
Ruby looked at me, and I looked at Ruby.
Sorry, but I’d lost count of how many nights I’d pulled staring at a monitor in the lab back in undergrad.
Dry eyes were a problem I’d graduated from ages ago. A thirteen-year-old had some nerve.
“…”
Ruby’s eyes started welling up, and finally,
“Sniiiff…!”
she shut her eyes and rubbed them with both hands.
I’d won. I had won, but it didn’t feel great.
“Ngh.”
Ruby rubbed her eyes and glared at me. Her bloodshot eyes had a faint sheen of tears in them.
Like I said before, I wasn’t exactly fond of looking after kids.
Because,
“Aren’t you hungry?”
Once I got going playing with kids, I tended to lose all track of time.
Ironically, it was precisely because I liked it too much that I was careful about it.
“Not hungry.”
Ruby snapped her head away and answered curtly.
It had to be a pretty unsettling situation, Dolores gone and nobody but me left in front of her, but she didn’t seem to mind at all.
Pretty composed for her age. Was this the kind of kid who grew up to be a mage?
“…Dolores said she’d be back before it got too late. Try not to worry too much.”
Though it already seemed a little late.
“…”
Ruby looked at me, hesitating over and over like she had something she wanted to say.
Then she opened her mouth.
“Teacher. Is she sick?”
“…”
“You said so earlier… something about a meridian thing.”
Before she’d passed out, no, “passed out” wasn’t quite the right word for it.
Looked like she’d caught something before Dolores put her to sleep.
“She’s not sick.”
If the chance came,
I planned to make it true.
To make sure she really wasn’t.
“Liar…”
Ruby lowered her head, looking hurt.
Right as her eyes started welling up again,
- Bang.
“Were you two playing nice?”
Someone had come in.
It was Dolores.
“You’re back.”
I closed the manual floating in midair and got to my feet.
“Teacher!”
Ruby kicked off the blanket and ran to her.
She’d been on the verge of tears just a second ago, and now her face was already buried against Dolores’s waist.
“I had to stop by somewhere, so I ended up a little later than I meant to.”
Dolores stroked Ruby’s hair and looked over at me.
There was a faint trace of apology in her eyes.
To me? Apologizing to a kid?
It was strange, that she’d even feel that way.
“It’s fine. Nothing happened.”
If anything counted as “something,” it was winning a staring contest and giving up on metallurgy.
Not exactly worth reporting.
- Click, click.
Dolores walked slowly toward me.
Ruby came along too, dragged sideways like a crab, her face still buried in Dolores’s skirt.
Strangely, Dolores had been standing with both hands clasped behind her back this whole time.
“Lionel.”
“Yes.”
Dolores called my name.
And then.
- Slide.
she held something out.
“…”
A hammer.
A two-pronged hammer, heavy-looking just from the sight of it, etched with lightning-bolt cracks running through it.
At the end of the handle sat a yellow gemstone.
Just looking at it made my eyes tingle.
─────────────────
[Tozar’s Thunder Hammer (雷錘)][★★★★☆]
[Unique Equipment] [Compatibility Rating][-/80]
─────────────────
『A war hammer forged from ore mined out of the deep heart of a thunder-vein. Each strike carries a fragment of thunder within it. Said to change the number of lightning strikes called down depending on the wielder’s own stature, though no one has ever proven it.』
- Rudin, Thunder Light -
─────────────────
So, it was a hammer.
The kind of hammer you’d see in some movie, the kind that somehow looked like only someone “worthy” could lift it.
The head was a bit smaller than that, sure, but still.
If there was a problem,
─────────────────
【Purpose: Combat】
【Deep thunder-vein core ore, purity and crystal density top-grade. Material value: top-grade.】
【However, this weapon’s design is optimized for transferring impact force on a strike, a combat design. Its center of mass is weighted toward the end, and its striking face is too narrow for precision forging. As it stands, it can’t be used for forging.】
─────────────────
Wait, this is a combat hammer?
“It’s a gift.”
Dolores said, to me.
She’d gifted me a billion-gold combat hammer.
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