I Became a Blacksmith the Rankers Are Obsessed With - Chapter 012

WeTried Translations

Translator: [IncomeElastic]

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◈ I Became a Blacksmith the Rankers Are Obsessed With ◈

Chapter 012

──────

A New Family Member

* * *

On the road to Eriel Plaza, by carriage.

Dolores’s idea of “won’t take long.”

Turned out to be a little too perfectly calibrated to this world’s standards.

I’d braced myself for about an hour, but ended up suffering carriage sickness for three and a half hours instead.

I felt like I was dying. It was rough.

“Hey, you okay?”

“No.”

Ruby asked, seeing how bad I looked.

“Hee hee, guess you can’t handle carriages.”

She grinned, baring small, pointed teeth, like she’d just discovered my weakness.

This little brat… but she wasn’t wrong, so I had nothing to say.

I never wanted to ride a carriage again.

Maybe I should just build some kind of vehicle myself.

I was lost in thought, wondering whether the Heir of Flame manual had instructions for building a car, when-

- Knock, knock.

Someone rapped on the carriage window.

We’d apparently already reached the city gates, because a soldier in armor was standing beyond the window.

The armor bore a golden lion crest. Looked like a checkpoint inspection.

A textbook fantasy-world scene, if there ever was one.

Somehow, seeing it in person made my heart race all over again.

“Identification check…”

The soldier trailed off mid-sentence.

They’d apparently just made eye contact with Dolores inside the carriage.

“Your Grace.”

“Hello.”

Dolores offered a light smile.

The soldier straightened up and gave a formal salute.

“Identity confirmed. You’re cleared to pass.”

They pressed a fist to their chest and saluted.

“Glory to the Empire.”

Dolores returned it with a light nod.

“Glory.”

That was fast.

The salute was razor-sharp too. Dolores was clearly a public figure.

I mean, she was the Ruler of the 5th Floor and a High Ranker, it’d be stranger if the soldiers didn’t recognize her face.

It hit me all over again just how big a deal it was, Dolores taking me in and raising me.

Maybe it just meant I was worth that much to her, but still.

The carriage rolled on a little further before stopping at the entrance to a wide plaza.

“Let’s get off here.”

Dolores stepped out first.

Ruby followed, and I stepped down last.

“…”

What.

Stone underfoot. Flagstones.

White and gray tiles laid out in neat alternating rows. Considering I’d been standing on a dirt road just a moment ago, well, three and a half hours ago, technically, the difference really hit me.

And when I lifted my head.

“Wow.”

People, everywhere.

People in armor. Mages in robes.

Merchant carts piled high with goods. Vendors hawking their wares. The smell of grilling meat.

It all hit me at once, through my eyes, through my nose.

[Eriel Plaza. Resident population two hundred thousand, three hundred thousand counting foot traffic?]

[Brother, close your mouth. You look like such a Country Bumpkin.]

Ah, right.

This is basically Shibuya-level.

Ruby, seemingly unimpressed, just walked along calmly, holding onto the hem of Dolores’s dress.

Guess she came here often.

I was genuinely amazed, though.

Even the world I used to live in barely had places like this. Actually, no, it just didn’t.

Three hundred thousand people… this place had to be massive.

Dolores glanced back at me as she walked.

“We’re headed to the weapons district. Follow me.”

I nodded and followed after the two of them.

That’s when-

“Ruby.”

Dolores stopped walking and smiled down at her.

“Want to hold hands?”

Ruby’s eyes went wide.

“…Okay.”

A small hand reached up and took Dolores’s.

The moment she took it, Ruby’s eyes slowly widened further.

“It’s warm…”

“Yeah, it’s warm, isn’t it?”

Dolores gently wrapped her hand around Ruby’s.

Then she turned to look at me.

“I never used to be able to do this.”

“…”

“My hand used to be so cold it would startle her.”

The Nine Yin Meridian Affliction.

Dolores’s hand used to be cold enough to frost over.

Even wearing gloves probably wouldn’t have made much difference.

“But it’s fine now.”

Come to think of it, I’d never once seen Ruby hold Dolores’s hand while they walked.

She always just held onto the hem of her dress.

Dolores lifted her gloved hand slightly, showing it off.

“Thanks to you.”

“…It’s nothing.”

Ruby, as if afraid of losing it, gripped Dolores’s hand tight with both of her own.

That’s when-

- Sway.

Dolores’s other hand swayed toward me.

“…”

- Sway.

Once more.

“…Me?”

“You’ll get lost in a crowd like this.”

“…”

“Hand.”

Resistance was pointless. Not in front of Dolores.

I carefully took her hand.

It was a small hand, but mine was smaller still, so it felt big in comparison.

And it was warm.

Even through the glove, unable to feel bare skin, I could tell for certain.

Weirdly satisfying, huh.

For a second I almost squeezed it playfully, but held back.

Ruby on her left, me on her right.

The three of us walked through the crowd together.

“…”

Little by little, I started to feel the stares.

At first I thought I was imagining it. With this many people around, eye contact was bound to happen sometimes.

But no. People were definitely looking our way.

At Dolores, to be precise.

A passing merchant turned their head. Two men standing in front of a stall whispered to each other.

A woman in a robe recognized Dolores and jabbed her companion with an elbow.

“…Isn’t that the Duchess?”

“What? Oh, it really is.”

I guess it wasn’t exactly common, a noble, a Duchess no less, walking the streets so openly on her own.

At least not by my limited knowledge of web novels.

Nobles, from what I knew, either never left their carriage at all or showed up with a small army of guards.

And here she was, without a single guard…

Oh, wait. She just didn’t need one.

I didn’t know exactly how strong she was, but she was a High Ranker, after all.

“Ruby, want to try that?”

“Yeah.”

She herself, it seemed, couldn’t care less about any of it.

Either way.

Dolores bought Ruby and me some grilled chicken skewers.

Red sauce smeared at the corner of Ruby’s mouth.

And then, as we turned down some alley.

- Clang. Clang. Clang.

The steady sound of metal being struck rang out.

Coming from all directions, each in its own separate rhythm.

“The weapons district.”

Dolores said, her voice low.

This, it seemed, was the blacksmiths’ street.

But something about it puzzled me.

‘Weren’t blacksmiths supposed to have mostly disappeared?’

[Humans are different.]

[They’ve always been around. It’s just… once the Tower appeared, the gap in quality got so huge that they got left behind.]

[Plenty of humans still make a living at it, but the quality you can expect out of them tops out around standard soldier-issue gear.]

So that’s about the level, huh.

The hammering sound was pretty nice, actually. Maybe blacksmithing just suited me.

Thinking about how this was going to be my thing from now on, I found myself huffing out a small laugh.

Right, a person’s supposed to work with their body. What was I even doing chasing some white-collar job.

I’ll be over here searing myself next to molten lava, so you all can just…

As I stood there for a moment, lost in thought.

Dolores smiled and brushed a hand through my hair.

“I should have brought you here sooner.”

“…What?”

“Your expression’s noticeably brighter.”

Heh.

As if that were the case.

She’d clearly mistaken a dry laugh for something else.

We walked further along the weapons district.

Among the shops lining both sides, one stood out.

A building with a glowing sign. Fairly large.

Not a figure of speech, either. It was actually glowing.

A gilded border, with blue light wrapping around the lettering.

Looked to be about four stories tall.

‘Egir.’

Surprisingly.

I could read the letters on the sign, but I had no idea what they meant.

[Apparently it means “noble flame.”]

[Looks like it’s in an ancient language.]

Pretty stylish, I’ll give it that.

I hadn’t known medieval-style eras had plate glass, but the inside was visible through a wall of it.

Every piece of gear on display gleamed.

Quite a few customers, too.

I figured this had to be where we were headed. It suited Dolores.

But she walked right past without even glancing at it.

“…?”

Past Egir, one more turn down an alley, and across the way.

Right where the street narrowed and the glow of signs faded out.

Dolores stopped in front of a shop.

“Here.”

Shabby.

The sign was nothing more than letters carved into a wooden plank.

Worn-out gear was all that showed through the window, an exterior so far beneath the last shop it felt almost insulting to compare them.

Whoa, this is actually kind of appealing?

You know how it goes. Finding some fated encounter in a run-down little shop.

I love that kind of thing.

Maybe Dolores had planned this on purpose? She really did have a good eye for…

“Lionel?”

“Yes.”

“Not that one.”

“…Wha?”

Dolores tilted her head slightly and pointed across the street.

“There.”

Across the way stood a shop that looked comparatively normal.

A proper sign hung out front, and the sound of hammering carried from inside. Modest, reasonable size.

Ordinary.

“…”

No fated encounter here, apparently.

We went straight inside.

Ding-a-ling.

A bell hanging from the door rang.

“Wel-”

The man behind the counter lifted his head and stopped mid-sentence.

A middle-aged man with a rather memorable mustache. His apron was smudged with soot.

“…Your Grace!”

“It’s been a while, Henrik.”

Dolores greeted him easily.

The man called Henrik froze for a beat, then bent at the waist in a proper bow.

“There are plenty of other shops you could go to, and yet you always…”

“This place is comfortable.”

In the meantime, a woman emerged from the back.

A woman around Henrik’s age, carrying something wrapped in cloth.

“Your Grace…”

She, too, bowed her head.

“Oh my, Ruby’s here too?”

Her face lit up the moment she spotted Ruby.

The little one bowed her head, and the woman pulled a piece of candy out from under the counter and pressed it into Ruby’s hand.

“Thank you…”

“No need to thank me.”

So this was a place they came to often.

I could tell, from how naturally Ruby accepted the candy.

Then the woman’s gaze landed on me.

“Oh my, and who’s this little gentleman?”

“A new addition to the family. He’ll be living with us from now on.”

Dolores answered plainly enough, but-

A new addition to the family.

The phrase felt really nice. I found myself genuinely moved.

“I’m Lionel.”

The woman looked me up and down, and her eyes went round.

“My goodness, what a handsome boy.”

Another piece of candy came out from under the counter.

“I’m fine, thank you.”

Gotta manage my blood sugar early, after all.

The declined candy ended up getting sucked straight into Ruby’s pocket.

“Anything new going on?”

“Thanks to you always… supplying us with such good stock…”

Supplying.

Sounded like Dolores had some kind of connection greasing the wheels somewhere in the supply chain.

Pulling gear straight out of the Tower, maybe? From the 5th floor, or something like that.

I couldn’t say for sure.

Dolores let out a small laugh and stroked both my head and Ruby’s.

“That hammer I bought last time. I need something better than that. Do you have anything?”

Henrik’s eyes widened slightly.

So it really had come from here.

It had seemed strange for a shop this size to carry something as monstrous as that hammer, but if Dolores had a hand in the supply chain, that would explain it.

“Better than that one?”

“Yes.”

Dolores pointed at me.

“It’s for him to use.”

“Ah, that’s why you wanted the weight-reduction enchantment so strong…”

The man called Henrik rested a hand on his chin, seeming to mull it over.

This seemed like a good moment for me to speak up.

That it wasn’t for combat. It was for forging.

“I need a forging hammer.”

“Right, that’s it. Forging.”

Dolores brushed a hand through my hair.

“Ah… a forging hammer, I see.”