WeTried Translations

Translator: [IncomeElastic]

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I Became a Blacksmith the Rankers Are Obsessed With ◈

Chapter 016

──────

Who Is the GOAT

* * *

The Dolores estate.

It was night.

The estate was surrounded by tall stone walls, and beyond the back door lay a garden.

Rows of lanterns lined the manicured lawn, and just as the Duchess had said, every single one was lit.

At the center of the garden stood a gazebo.

Its roof covered in vines, with a wooden bench and table set inside.

Sebas sat there.

A teacup in hand, letting the night air wash over him.

He'd always liked spending this hour here, if he was honest.

Time to confirm the estate's lights were out, and to go over tomorrow's preparations in his head.

Tonight, though, was a little different.

'I'm counting on you, Sebas.'

Lowering his eyes from the gazebo, darkness filled his view, and at the far end of the garden he could make out a newly built annex.

More precisely, a storage shed hastily converted into a workshop.

A building the Duchess had ordered up in a hurry, through the crystal ball.

'A forge, for a child.'

Orange light leaked out through the workshop's window.

The lamp was lit. Which meant the child was inside.

The Duchess's message had gone like this:

'If he looks frightened, or if he cries, please comfort him.'

Sebas set down his teacup and looked toward the workshop.

A child who'd be frightened.

Would he, really?

Sebas had served the masters of House Dolores for three generations now, without quite noticing the years pass.

He'd seen it earlier, out in front of the estate.

The look in that child's eyes, when a servant had reached out to take his hammer.

The instinctive way he'd hidden it, the eyes he'd shown then, those were the eyes of someone guarding what belonged to him.

A child's eyes? How could a child possibly show eyes that relentless?

Obsession, tangled up with something else... a feeling that ran deep.

He'd seen countless people across three generations of service, but he couldn't believe those were the eyes of a thirteen-year-old.

Still, the Duchess had told him to, so.

Sebas took a sip of his tea and waited quietly.

The Duchess was probably listening in from her second-floor window anyway.

Then.

A sound came from the workshop.

"Yeeehaw!!"

"......?"

Sebas flinched.

Was he crying?

He'd half risen to go check when-

"Ah, ah! Niiice~ Perfect, you, you, you little rascal."

"......?"

Baffling shouts filled the garden.

Didn't sound like crying, at least.

Was this just what blacksmith work sounded like?

He tilted his head, wondering if it was some crucial step in the process.

"This is it! This is it!!!"

"......."

...Comforting him, it seemed, wasn't going to be necessary after all.

Sebas sat back down and drank his cooling tea.

* * *

After putting Ruby to bed.

Dolores walked out of the room.

The hallway was quiet. Through the window, she could see the garden's lamplight.

"......."

Dolores headed toward the far end of the hallway.

Not toward her own room. The other way.

There was one room in this estate that no one could open.

Not Sebas. Not Ruby. Not any of the servants.

Only Dolores could open this door.

- Click.

The magical lock on the door released.

The door opened.

Inside was dark. There was only a single window, its curtains left open.

"......."

There was only one thing in the room.

A rope, hanging from the ceiling, catching the moonlight.

A noose tied at its end.

She'd made this room on the day she decided there was no longer any point in staying alive.

Back in those days, when her meridians were freezing solid, her senses fading, and her sworn sisters kept climbing higher while she alone stood frozen in place.

This room had been, in effect, her ending.

And knowing she could end it all whenever she wanted might, paradoxically, have been the very thing that let her keep going.

She'd held on until Ruby came.

After Ruby came, she'd told herself it would only be until this child grew up.

That had been Dolores's deadline.

Set a deadline, and you can live through a day.

But.

- Snick!

Dolores made a gesture, and the rope before her eyes was severed. She couldn't even quite make out what had cut it.

It fell to the floor with a soft thud.

"......."

Dolores looked down at the rope on the floor.

She didn't look for long.

Moonlight fell over her gloves.

The sun emblem etched into them drank in the light and shone.

There was still a reason to live. Still something left she needed to see through.

That alone was enough.

Dolores left the room.

- Click.

The door locked once more.

This room would probably never be opened again.

And where she was headed now-

"...Lionel."

She hoped he wouldn't push himself too hard.

The miracle that child had given her.

She could fairly say she'd already repaid most of its worth, up front.

So it was fine if he didn't push himself.

There was plenty of time.

- Patter-patter-patter-patter....

Dolores forgot all about her dignity and hurried, a little too quickly, toward the window.

Meanwhile, in the bedroom at the center of the hallway.

Ruby, not yet asleep, heard footsteps passing through the hallway.

Whenever her teacher went into that room, she always stayed at least an hour.

And whenever she came back from it, her footsteps were always slow.

Today was different.

'She came out fast....'

Under the covers, Ruby's mouth curled up, just slightly.

* * *

Dolores.

Don't get your hopes up too much about me.

"I told you not to get your hopes up."

I stood up, spread both arms wide, and looked up at the sky.

Then I straightened both index fingers and pointed them at the sky.

─────────────────

[Strike Tally]

[Perfect] [59]

[Great] [5]

[Okay] [0]

[Bad] [0]

[Awful] [0]

─────────────────

"Sorry, but don't expect me to fail."

A message for the rhythm-game gallery regulars, and every other hater, who said I was dead.

I'm still alive.

Even if it's a different world now.

─────────────────

[Final Success Rate: 36%]

[Failure Rate: 64%]

─────────────────

【Attempting……】

─────────────────

【Enhancement Success】

─────────────────

[Chore Gloves][☆☆☆☆☆]

[+18 → +19]

─────────────────

- Pop!

The glove flashed red for an instant.

Honestly, the enhancement itself wasn't even what I cared about.

But by the time I came back to my senses, it was at +19.

What is this?

There were a few things I'd picked up on while enchanting.

First, the difficulty rises the higher the enhancement level climbs.

The time limit stretches out, it demands more concentration, and everything speeds up.

This circle's called a Hit Circle. In falling-note rhythm games they'd call it a note, but since this one's a circle, Hit Circle fits better.

Anyway, the circle's closing speed picked up with every level.

Past +10, it got noticeably faster.

And by the time I came to, this was what I'd ended up with.

─────────────────

[Chore Gloves][☆☆☆☆☆]

[+19]

─────────────────

So this was basically the grind-fest chore glove, ground all the way to +20, right?

+19, on a piece of junk gear that doesn't even have a star rating.

Hmm... was I maybe just wasting my time here?

No. It's practice, after all.

And it was fun, too.

I opened up the enchant log.

Turns out there was one.

[Enchant Log]

[18->19][Failure]

[18->19][Failure]

[18->19][Failure]

[18->19][Failure]

[18->19][Success!]

Success on the fifth try.

Breaking through a 36% chance in five tries wasn't exactly lucky, but it wasn't bad either.

Well, since I'd already made it this far.

Might as well go for +20.

Just one more try, and then I'll stop, the sun's coming up anyway.

[Current: For-real-for-real-for-real-for-real-last time, attempt #5]

[Getting sleepy so this is the last one / Used up too much powder already so this is the last one / Birds are starting to chirp so this is the last one, variation #5]

Oh, Yuna.

Still not asleep?

[Waaah....]

Well, that's beside the point.

[But hold on, brother. Looks like there's a chance of destruction starting from +15....]

Oh, right.

That's right, from +15 on, being late on the timing raised the destruction chance.

I'd sneezed at just the wrong second, missed the timing, landed an [Awful], and out of nowhere the destruction chance jumped by 1%.

Of course, other than that, I hadn't failed once.

Destruction, please. There's no such word as destruction in my dictionary.

[So, here's the thing, brother, the difficulty's obviously climbing higher and higher, right? It'snotthatI'msayingyoucan'thandleitoranything, it's just, for risk-management reasons we should probably show this to Dolores too, so it'snotthatI'msayingyoucan'thandleitoranything.]

[Maybe... just a little, just the tiniest bit more powder, what do you think...?]

"......."

I'd worked out the correlation between powder amount and difficulty about two hours ago.

Up to a certain threshold, sprinkling on more powder lowers the enchant's difficulty.

Past a certain amount, the gear just stops soaking it up entirely.

But here's the real problem.

Sprinkling on powder lowers the difficulty.

"Kim Yuna."

[Uh, uh-huh?]

"You think I can't handle it?"

[Nonononono that's not iasdf]

Lower the difficulty?

What are you even talking about?

"Here's what I'm doing."

- Tap.

"I'm cutting the powder back instead."

This is it. This is the right call.

[Warning! Enchant powder amount is below the recommended level]

[+19 → +20]

[Recommended powder 3g or more]

Nope.

And-

"Yuna, I've kept quiet till now out of respect for you, but this music is way too eerie."

I never asked for pop music, but she'd been playing nothing but some kind of classical-sounding dirge on repeat.

The reason I hadn't landed an All Perfect, that is, a run of nothing but [Perfect]s, was clearly the music's fault.

It'd been bugging me for a while now anyway, missing out on that all-[Perfect] run.

[Brother, think about it for a second... this is another world, where would pop music even come from...?]

[I just played something going around the Inner Tower community....]

"Yeah? Well, guess that can't be helped."

Inner Tower music is wild. Kind of catchy, though, I'll give it that.

"Starting enchant."

- Hmmmmm....

The glove, steeped in a red glow, flickered before my eyes.

The enchant began.

I picked up the hammer, easy and light.

How hard could it really be?

[0:02:00]

The time limit had doubled.

Right as I felt something was off-

The Hit Circle appeared.

But.

"Oh, what the hell."

There were two.

Two circles had popped up at once.

Each in a different spot, shrinking down on the exact same timing.

So that's why it warned me.

Up until now, no matter how fast the circles got, it was always one at a time.

No matter the speed, all I had to do was hit them in order.

But the exact same timing....

Sorry to say, but there's a solution even for this.

Two notes, sure, but I can play two notes with a single finger.

The best way is to split the beat.

Hit the first one 0.2 beats early, then the next 0.2 beats late, something like that.

The 0.2 beats here comes down entirely to feel.

- Clang-clang!

Two strikes, cleanly split apart.

There's a technique for this, the context's a bit different, but.

It's called a trill.

- Tak-tak!

[Perfect]

[Perfect]

- Tak-tak!

[Perfect]

[Perfect]

"Ha ha ha!"

I couldn't help but laugh. It actually works.

For a full two minutes, I hammered away in a trance.

Right as I felt my body moving on its own-

─────────────────

[Strike Tally]

[Perfect] [97]

[Great] [10]

[Okay] [1]

[Bad] [0]

[Awful] [0]

─────────────────

[Final Success Rate: 19%]

[Failure Rate: 81%]

─────────────────

Alright, 19 percent.

More Greats than before, and one Okay slipping in, well, that couldn't be helped.

I'm not a metronome, and I don't have two hammers, how was I supposed to land a clean streak of Perfects on both at once?

So I waited, my heart pounding.

【Attempting……】

"......."

It wasn't a probability worth getting my hopes up over, but-

【Enhancement Success!】

- Pop!

"......!"

The glove's red glow shuddered.

The red faded from the edges inward, and green light spread in to take its place.

And the moment that green light wrapped around the whole glove-

─────────────────

[Chore Gloves][☆☆☆☆☆]

[+20]

─────────────────

The grind-fest chore glove had hit +20.

"......."

I lifted the glove up.

A soft green glow shone above my head like a spotlight.

"Kim Yuna."

[Yeah....]

"Say my name."

[Waaah... Kim Yujin! Kim Yujin...!]

"Who is the GOAT."

[Waah... Lionel....]

Guess this wasn't her first time at this.

Quick on the uptake. You're my soulmate.

I looked down at the glove, wrapped in green light.

"Alright, let's see what it can do."

I yanked off the simple gloves I'd been wearing,

and put on the +20 chore glove.

"......."

Huh. I don't feel anything at all.

The moment I put it on, the green light vanished.

Maybe, since it's junk gear, even the enhancement's effect is weaker?

Guess that could be it.

Henrik did say the higher a piece of gear's star rating, the harder it is to enchant.

Seemed like the easier the enchant, the smaller the payoff.

"Alright, let's head out for now."

Nothing to be disappointed about.

This was just the first step. I only had to look forward to the day I'd get my hands on something harder.

I grabbed the workshop door with a smile,

- Craaaaack!!

"?"

The iron handle set into the wooden door snapped clean off and ripped free.

"...Wh, what?"

In my hand was what used to be a door handle, crushed flat.

The door itself now had a gaping hole punched clean through it.

"Huh?"

Wait, hold on.

I quickly ran through the situation in my head.

The conclusion I reached was this.

After taking the glove off, carefully, very carefully.

I stared at the door that would no longer open, its handle gone,

and realized I was now trapped inside the workshop.

"......Sebas!!"

Right from early morning.

I had to call Sebas over through the window.

On my second day at the Dolores estate.

I broke the workshop.

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