WeTried Translations

Translator: [IncomeElastic]

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I Became a Blacksmith the Rankers Are Obsessed With ◈

Chapter 026

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The Path an Heir of Flame Walks

* * *

And so a few days passed.

During the day: heating metal, quenching it. At night: blacking out against Dolores's specially refrigerated bosom.

The translucent, downy-soft red silk piled up higher with every day that passed.

And my quality of life kept improving too, day by day.

Meals were delivered morning, noon, and night.

It wasn't just nighttime sleep anymore, either, Dolores had started forcing me to nap during the day as well.

She'd said she'd only come when I was tired... but honestly, she just showed up whenever she felt like it and hugged me.

Then one day, when I gave Dolores a sulky look for showing up way too early, she flustered and pulled a sheet of paper out from inside her coat.

"I came to show you the reaction to Lionel's gloves."

She'd apparently been saving it, tucked away, just in case I got sulky.

The final winning bid was 170,000 gold.

1.7 billion.

"For guilds, knight orders, climbing parties, noble houses, gear like this is about the best humanity has to offer early-stage climbers... I suppose that's why the price came out so high."

"Whoa."

When I marveled at that, Dolores covered her mouth and asked,

"Heh heh, do you want to sell it?"

"Hmm..."

I rubbed my chin, mulling it over, then

"No."

There'd be a better use for it somewhere down the line. I'd accidentally turned into one of those auction-house show-offs, but I still didn't want to sell it yet.

Anyway, time passed like that,

and before I knew it,

"Yuna, you know what the last one in the pack is called? The last one?"

I curled up the corners of my mouth as I peeled away the ore's last membrane.

Barely anything comes out anymore. Not at this point.

The Ember Ore that had once been the size of two fists had, before I knew it, shrunk down into a red glass bead no bigger than an ant, all its inner mana condensed into that single point.

This little guy was going to be the topping.

The final jeweled topping, to be sprinkled over the footwraps.

"Let's do this."

It was time to become a Sun Dwarf again.

The precious, translucent red silk had piled itself into a neat little mound.

Now I had to turn it into warming footwraps.

But.

Something about just following the existing Apprentice Warming Footwraps recipe as-is didn't sit right with me.

"'S ugly..."

Maybe it had been designed with wearing it stuffed inside some big clunky boot in mind.

There wasn't a shred of aesthetic sense to it. Crude, blunt, whatever the word is? It looked like something built purely for function.

Sure, swapping out the materials alone would improve it in plenty of ways, but was I supposed to put something like this on Dolores?

Nope. Hard no.

"Isn't there something better...?"

The manual I was currently reading was... a beginner's manual for apprentice blacksmiths.

Sticking to the basics would've been more than enough. But I wanted to aim higher.

[I'm looking, but... I don't see anything like an advanced course or whatever.]

"Really?"

That was a bit strange.

While I was flipping haphazardly through the manual like that,

"......?"

On the last page of the apprentice manual,

tucked into the corner, was a short line of text.

『Learning alone won't carry you forward.』

『If you've walked a path someone else laid until now, it's time to forge your own.』

"...This."

The moment I saw it, I felt like I understood exactly what it meant.

If I'd melted the theory into my mind, hammered the fundamentals into my body until they became instinct...

In other words, the Sun Dwarves' details and principles.

If I could put all of that into practice across the entire process...

was there really any reason I had to keep standing on some recipe someone else had written up for apprentices?

"........."

- Fwoosh.

I spread out, across the worktable, all the red silk I'd spun over the past several days.

Keep the details exactly as they are.

The fundamentals, the principles, both, carve them into your body.

But I'll carve my own path.

Truth be told, I'm a complete outsider when it comes to aesthetic sense.

It's not like I'm secretly a female character from some subculture gacha game with a built-in eye for fashion, so when it comes to clothes, that goes double.

But I wasn't worried.

"Yuna, what do you think the prettiest stockings look like?"

[Huh?! My taste?!]

Her energy shot up instantly.

To be precise, it wasn't really about Yuna's personal taste, just what was aesthetically superior, but

close enough, probably.

If you don't have an eye for aesthetics, you just ask someone who does.

And Yuna's aesthetic sense could honestly be called the best humanity has to offer,

since she'd learned and stored away every fashion trend that had ever existed anywhere in the world.

You could call her an ocean of data.

[Hmm... let me see.]

I waited a moment, and

[I think pretty stockings share three common elements.]

[First, transparency. Second, the ankle line. Third... whether men like them.]

"Wha, what are you even talking about all of a sudden."

[I'm serious! I didn't make this up, this is an actual saying.]

Was that actually a real thing?

I flinched for a second.

Then I opened up the stocking-making process Yuna had sent over.

How would you even do this without a machine?

And I lost the ability to speak.

"...So this is something I have to do by hand."

An endless repetition made of needle and cloth.

Looking back, it was almost funny. When I heard "blacksmith," all I'd ever imagined was heating and hammering iron.

You know, bulging forearms, that kind of thing.

But being a blacksmith, apparently, meant taking responsibility for something a good deal deeper than that.

Counting stitches no bigger than a needle's eye, all through the night.

"Do it. Just do it."

Yeah, fuck it. Nothing's impossible.

And so... my first hell began.

I don't want to describe the whole process in detail.

Even I get dizzy just thinking about it.

One stitch. Then another. I unravel the translucent silk into thread and loop it onto the needle's tip.

Then I knit it up into a tube. The one saving grace, if there is one, is that the cloth tears cleanly along its grain and unravels into thread easily.

"Ah, fuck."

Just when I think I've made progress, the grain shifts out of alignment, and I have to unravel it and start over.

I keep tearing it apart, trying to reproduce the exact angle of Dolores's perfect heel.

My eyes grow bleary... the feeling in my fingertips falls apart.

- Tap.

- Tap.

I stopped even counting how many nights had passed.

It was harder than any work I'd done so far,

and the process was so brutally honest that I couldn't even bring myself to think about skipping a step.

"Isn't there a knitting machine?! A knitting machine?!"

[Nope...]

Unfortunately, there was no machine that could do the stitching for me,

"I'm about to lock in seriously hard, so, no matter what happens, do not talk to me. Got it, Yuna?"

[...Okay.]

"Am I being a little on edge?"

[A little...]

"Yeah, love you too."

And so.

Two weeks passed.

* * *

"Heh heh."

The sly, scheming mage, Isabella.

"How dare she blast me all the way to the border?"

She'd been sent flying, thanks to Dolores's forced-return spell, truly, unbelievably far away.

After stewing in silent anger for a while, she'd finally managed to make her way back.

And since she wasn't the type to hold a grudge cruelly, taking her anger out on someone else was never really an option.

She'd even managed to sneak, quietly and cunningly, into the mansion.

Truth be told, she had gotten in, but

honestly, it had been a little scary.

"........."

From where she stood, Dolores was still terrifying whenever she got angry,

and she'd waited nearby, then slipped in the moment she saw Dolores leave.

The wards had grown roughly twenty times fiercer than before, too.

Breaking through them had drained a fair amount of her mental strength.

"Ugh, that terrifying woman."

She just wanted to catch a glimpse of Lionel's face and slip back out.

While she'd been stewing in her anger, she'd also polished up her opening a little.

What kind of verdict would he give it? It felt just like showing an old teacher a spell she'd newly invented and waiting for their judgment.

The moment she stepped into the mansion, what caught her eye was.

[Take Lionel and you die]

[You might actually die]

- Your longtime companion and friend, Elysia von Dolores -

"Eek..."

It was magical embroidery, stitched into the empty air of the mansion.

Text worked into every corner of the mansion, visible only to a mage of her caliber.

Prepared just in case someone managed to break through the wards and get in.

"That's genuinely terrifying... though I guess it's something, that she still calls me a friend."

Right as she crossed the mansion, aghast and shaking,

- Waaaaugh!

"......?"

a strange cry suddenly rang out from a wooden cabin far off toward the garden.

A male voice, though a fairly young one.

This was, without a doubt...

"Lionel!"

Isabella took off running in that direction instantly.

Normally, she'd have recoiled at the thought of a single blade of grass touching her skirt,

but just this once, she hiked her skirts up in both hands and

- Pitter-patter-patter.

threw open the workshop door just like that.

"......?"

And the scene that met her inside.

She'd expected an ordinary storeroom, but what she saw was...

A forge, ore, a hammer, a quenching trough.

And on the side table, a fairly pretty, no, an incredibly pretty stocking,

being stitched, one careful stitch at a time...

"Lionel?!"

In that moment,

Isabella's thoughts kicked into overdrive,

and the scattered pieces strung themselves together into a single line.

"You... you actually... the gloves...?"

The corners of Isabella's mouth slowly curled upward.

She let go of the hands that had been gripping her skirt, and

- Bounce bounce bounce!

began hopping all around the workshop.

This changed everything.

Chess alone had already proven to be worth that much. And if those gloves really were Lionel's own work...

- Snap!

Isabella thrust a finger vigorously toward Lionel.

"Lionel, you, become my disciple!"

Even Dolores's death threats were worth risking for this.

And so, in front of her as she confidently made that declaration,

Lionel,

"...I want to die."

"......?"

expressed his will to live.

"Sh- ah, right, no cursing, was the rule... fffuck..."

"......Um? Me...?"

Without even glancing her way,

he poured every ounce of focus into stitching the stocking.

"Lionel...?"

"........."

"Um, Lionel... disciple..."

She called out to him a few more times like that, but Lionel never answered,

and about ten minutes passed.

She'd received countless offers over the years, people begging to become her disciple,

endless pleas from people practically courting her, begging just once for a scrap of her knowledge.

Yet Isabella herself had never once, not a single time, offered her hand first.

And that precious first offer of hers...

"Hnng..."

Her outstretched finger, with nowhere left to go, drooped down.

"So mean..."

In the end, Isabella hung her head low,

and trudged her way out of the workshop.

And then.

"Lady Isabella?!"

Sebas, who'd been crossing the garden, spotted her and rushed over in shock.

"Wh- what brings you all the way here...! When did you..."

"...I'm gonna go."

"What...?"

"I just wanna go..."

Isabella didn't answer the head butler's question at all,

- Sniffle.

and, sniveling to herself... left the mansion alone.

* * *

Two weeks passed.

My body was screaming.

But today, I wasn't on edge.

"Yuna? Morning."

Because, really, only the very last stitch was left.

[......Big brother, I really have a lot to tell you.]

"Yeah, just let me finish making this first."

I made the final stitch.

And then.

"Done!!!!"

At last, I'd woven every last scrap of cloth into a single footwrap, a stocking, complete.

From toe to ankle,

the vivid red grain flowed like running water, and a faint heat shimmered above its thinly woven surface.

Shine a light on it and you could see straight through to the inside, but tilt it a little, and the shimmer came alive again.

It really shouldn't have taken this long.

I'd added one extra function.

Fold it, and it became a sock. Unfold it, and it became a stocking.

Cramming in a feature that ridiculous meant it was bound to take even longer.

Of course, I'd pulled the whole recipe straight out of Yuna's head.

And on the side table,

the last remaining core of the Ember Ore, a small crimson bead, sat waiting for the final step.

"...Pretty."

The Ember Ore, shrunk down as small as it could go.

All that was left was to set it onto the stocking.

My hands were shaking.

Of course they were. I'd been wringing out every last drop of strength for two straight weeks.

- Tap.

With trembling fingertips, I set the bead onto the tip of the stocking.

As if the fabric peeled away through Thermal Shock Delamination had finally found its way home,

it began drawing itself smoothly toward the glass bead.

Strand by strand, the red threads wound gently around the gem and wove themselves in.

- Shhhrrr...

And before I knew it, the cloth and the bead, as if they'd always been this way,

locked together without a single seam.

"......Ha."

Now, the truly final step.

I picked up the finished stocking and stepped outside the workshop.

"........."

I could barely breathe.

This time, in making this,

for the first time, I hadn't referenced a single dwarven recipe.

I'd taken only the details I'd learned from them, held them in my hands, and cut and stitched with those alone.

In my own way, and mine alone, I'd poured in detail, detail, and more detail.

With a dwarf's spirit, I'd walked my own path.

So here's the question that came to mind.

Was I, in the end, truly a Sun Dwarf?

Would they recognize this piece of gear as their own?

"........."

Right in the middle of the garden, where the sunlight fell brightest,

I lifted the stocking in both hands and raised it up toward the sky.

I shut my eyes tight.

One minute.

Two minutes.

Time passed.

Normally, the pattern would've been etched in before long.

But no matter how many minutes I waited...

no sound came at all,

"...So it's not working."

I nodded.

Right, I'd just try again.

Forcing myself to stay calm, I opened my eyes.

And then.

"........."

Right before my eyes hovered a square panel, blazing in golden light.

And right at its center,

a familiar pattern was etched in.

The Apprentice Blacksmith's pattern of an Heir of Flame.

The shape of a sun with eight tongues of flame radiating outward.

According to the description, it was the very first mark carved by anyone who forged the sun.

"........."

As if entranced,

I reached out my finger.

And then,

- Ssss...

Following the tip of my index finger, a thread of gold light began tracing a path through the air.

The light flowed exactly where my fingertip led.

'...No way.'

One name rose naturally to mind.

Lionel.

I crossed over the sun pattern on the panel,

and slowly drew a stroke beneath it.

L.

The first letter of my name.

- Kzzzzzt-!

In that instant,

golden light burst from the toe of the finished stocking.

The pattern I'd just drawn,

the sun, and the L etched beneath it,

burned themselves vividly into the red silk, glowing gold.

─────────────────

[Spring Without Frost][★★☆☆☆]

[Unique Equipment] [Compatibility Rating][-/60]

─────────────────

Folded, it becomes the warmth of deep winter.

Unfolded, it becomes the shimmer of high summer.

Two seasons, held within a single garment.

─────────────────

『Do not doubt the path you walk, but don't grow drunk on the path you've already walked, either.

- That, is the first pride of one who deals in fire.』

- To Certified Blacksmith L, a tribute sent by the sun -

─────────────────

The very first 2-star piece of gear I'd ever made. And written below it: Certified Blacksmith L.

I stared up at those words floating in the air for a long while,

and, along with the joy of being recognized as an Heir of Flame,

I raised both hands and clenched them into fists, then

without meaning to, my gaze fell on my own hands.

"What a mess."

Scraped and scratched all over. Covered in needle-prick marks.

Callus layered over callus, again and again.

It didn't feel half bad, though.

Because I wasn't ashamed of them.

I curled up the corners of my mouth and gripped the stocking tight.

Dolores.

For two weeks, she'd walked the mansion back and forth on frozen feet.

For two weeks, someone who'd lost sleep because of someone else, who'd wet her own eyes over and over trying to get that someone to rest.

To a person like that,

I,

was going to give her spring as a gift.

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