WeTried Translations
Translator: [IncomeElastic]
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Became a Blacksmith the Rankers Are Obsessed With ◈
Chapter 027
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A Fire Is Kindled
* * *
If someone asks me who I am,
I plan to confidently hold up this stocking and show it to them.
An Heir of Flame, a Certified Blacksmith, a maker of 2-star gear, and no slouch at enchanting besides.
And, most importantly.
"The owner of Spring Without Frost."
Of course, ownership was about to be transferred to Dolores soon enough.
My hands were still trembling.
They'd been shaking the whole time I cleaned up after finishing the work.
Partly it was the dopamine rush, but honestly, I'd pushed my body past its limit too.
I had one goal. Get this to Dolores as fast as possible.
Strictly speaking, the proper order would've been to swap it into her gear window first and check its performance.
What her stats would look like on equip, whether the Compatibility Rating actually held up.
Handing it over could always wait until after the check.
But.
"Forget it."
This time, I was just going.
That whole process felt unnecessary.
Even without checking ahead of time. This one would work.
I felt strangely certain of it.
I wanted to put it in something like a gift box before giving it to her.
But I didn't have anything like that.
I gripped Spring Without Frost (the stocking) tightly in my hand and left the workshop.
Dolores was on the second floor, in her bedroom.
A voice slipped out through the crack of the door.
"...and that's why you have to treat spirits gently, with warmth and care..."
She had Ruby seated on her lap, reading aloud from a book.
Ruby's eyes sparkled, completely absorbed in the story.
"......."
I stopped my hand on the doorknob.
Lately I'd wondered whether Ruby might feel like Dolores's affection was being stolen away from her.
I didn't want to interrupt a moment that happy, either.
So I sat down beside the door, the stocking still in hand.
- Squeeze...
For a moment, I closed my eyes.
- Thump...
Trying to settle my racing heart.
I don't know how long I sat there like that.
- Fwump.
The sound of the book closing.
"Shall we go eat now?"
"Yes."
Now.
- Bang!
I threw the door open.
"I'm here."
"Lionel...?"
Dolores's eyes went round.
From her lap, Ruby spotted me and gave a little wave with her small hand.
A greeting, probably.
Come to think of it, I really hadn't seen much of Ruby's face lately.
I huffed a small laugh and walked over.
"You finished early today..."
Dolores, about to say something more, let her gaze drift to my fingertips.
There, in my hand, was a footwrap with a faint red glow to it.
And, I, too,
found my own eyes drifting naturally to her feet.
Clunky, stiff, whatever the word, those warming shoes I'd wanted to throw away.
The shoes I'd considered a failure, she'd still been wearing them all this time.
"...Ah, that's a little embarrassing. It was a failure."
"Not at all. They're plenty warm."
I shook my head... and slowly sank down onto one knee.
The stocking in my hand,
I lifted it up before her with both hands.
"...Please take them off."
"......!"
Color rose to Dolores's face.
"And."
I raised the stocking a little higher.
"This. Please wear it."
"......."
Dolores said nothing for a while.
Then bit down on her lip,
and before long, her eyes had grown wet.
"...Of course."
Her voice trembled.
Ruby's mouth curved up slightly, and she hopped down from Dolores's lap and came to stand beside me.
As always, that kid was quick on the uptake.
Dolores took the stocking from me.
- Slip...
She slipped off the leather shoes she'd been wearing,
and carefully unfolded the stocking.
"...Oh my."
Dolores's gaze lingered for a moment on the very top edge of the stocking's thigh.
A small fastening loop hung there.
"...This will need that, won't it."
She'd figured it out, it seemed.
Right, a stocking this long would need a garter belt to keep it from sliding down.
Exactly what I'd intended.
To pull it up past the knee, you'd need something to anchor it in the end.
Dolores seemed to remember something for a moment, then rose to her feet,
and pulled a slender strap out from a bedroom drawer.
Then she sat back down and, slowly,
began putting the stocking on.
- Slide...
The silk that had caught at her toes slid past the arch of her foot and wrapped around her ankle.
The folded part unfurled as it was drawn gently up along her calf.
I watched the whole process without missing a single moment.
Not out of any ulterior motive, I just wanted to make sure it went on right.
"...Just a moment."
The instant Dolores blushed and lifted the front hem of her top,
her pale skin came into view...
- Slip.
"No."
A small palm covered my eyes.
Ruby. I can't see. I really can't see.
- Rustle.
- Click.
- Click.
Sounds that stirred the imagination in the dark.
When Ruby took her hand away, there in front of me...
was Dolores, sitting there with a shy look on her face, the stocking fully on.
─────────────────
[Spring Without Frost][★★☆☆☆]
[Unique Equipment] [Compatibility Rating][60/60]
─────────────────
Folded, it becomes the warmth of deep winter.
Unfolded, it becomes the shimmer of high summer.
Two seasons, held within a single garment.
─────────────────
[The sun engraving's warming effect and the Ember Ore's heat-radiating effect offset the wearer's amplification of Yin energy]
[With extended wear, meridian-freezing symptoms ease, and permanent reopening of 2 of the 9 meridians becomes possible.]
[Alongside the easing of the Nine Yin Meridian Affliction, the possibility of treatment opens]
─────────────────
Compatibility Rating, a perfect score.
With extended wear, permanent reopening of 2 meridians.
And, decisively... alongside the easing of the Nine Yin Meridian Affliction, even the possibility of a cure had opened up.
I'd known it would function well. I just hadn't expected it to be this good.
I'd made it thinking only of her, made it for her.
I hadn't even expected the Compatibility Rating to come out this high.
Just then.
"......?!"
Dolores's expression slowly began to change.
First, shock.
Second, a dazed look, as if she couldn't make sense of it at all.
And third...
"Hgh...?"
Tears.
With a trembling hand pressed over her mouth,
she stared down at her own feet, swallowing something back.
Then.
- Ssss...
From the tip of Dolores's foot, wrapped inside the footwrap,
a bluish energy began rising, like a shimmer of heat haze.
The blue energy crept slowly up along the top of her foot,
- Hisss...
then touched the crimson silk and evaporated.
Blue energy rose, the red silk swallowed it whole, and it turned to vapor and vanished into the air.
Spring Without Frost.
The frost that had frozen Dolores over was melting beneath a spring sun.
- Fwomp!
Dolores pulled me into a fierce embrace.
"Lionel... Lionel, how did you..."
Her trembling voice sank into my ear.
"The meridian affliction... how did you...?"
More than the hundred lines of text I could see,
Dolores was probably already feeling it with her entire body.
She was feeling, through her own skin, the word "ease" written there in the stat window.
The pain and despair she'd lived through, all those years...
I couldn't even begin to imagine it, of course.
"Because this is only the beginning."
I held her back.
"It'll all be okay."
Feelings like that,
never having to feel them again,
...maybe I could actually make that happen.
This time around. Because it's you, Dolores. Not anyone else.
Probably.
- Sniff.
Over my shoulder, Ruby's eyes had welled up too.
Like I always say, that kid is quick on the uptake.
I crooked a finger and called her over,
"Hiing... Teacher..."
"There, there, Ruby..."
Her small body burrowed right in between the two of us.
And so the three of us held each other like that for a long while.
"Lionel... thank you, truly..."
"Thank yoooou..."
Dolores's thanks and Ruby's mumbling,
in the air slowly settling around us,
...I,
suddenly opened my eyes.
[★★☆☆☆] [Reached the very limit of a 2-star item's Compatibility Rating.]
[Target: Dolores]
[Title Acquired: 'One Who Declared the End of Winter']
And then.
[Elysia von Dolores]
[Remaining Lifespan][3Y : 11M : 9D : 4H : 13M]
A rather shocking number floated up before my eyes.
The instant I understood what those numbers meant, my heart dropped and nausea rose all the way up my throat, and right then,
- Bzzt...
the numbers suddenly flickered.
[Remaining Lifespan][3Y : 11M : 9D...]
[Recalculating.......]
[Factor: potential reopening of 2 meridians. Possibility of treating the Nine Yin Meridian Affliction opened.]
- Bwoom!
[Remaining Lifespan][8Y : 2M : 14D : 1H : 13M]
[▲ +4Y : 3M]
If what had just floated before my eyes was real,
then just now, because she'd put this piece of gear on,
Dolores's remaining lifespan had grown by four years.
"......."
No words came out.
I said nothing, only held Dolores tighter.
Her lifespan had grown.
Eight years. Still a hopelessly small number.
I couldn't let her live out just that much time and no more.
'...Four years, from a single 2-star piece of gear.'
My mind began racing.
What lay before me was a reward, a title, for reaching the very limit of a 2-star item's Compatibility Rating.
The maximum Compatibility Rating for a 2-star item was 60.
So then.
What if it were 3-star? 4-star?
Or further still, a 5-star piece of gear?
No, and it wouldn't end there.
The highest-grade gear I could ever reach,
if I could push its Compatibility Rating all the way to its own limit and put it into her hands,
just how far could I turn back her lifespan?
- Thump.
My heart pounded.
Mine. Ruby's, in my arms. And Dolores's too.
Beats pulsing together, all within the same warmth.
'So.'
This warmth, this pulse,
I was going to hold onto it for as long as I possibly could.
* * *
The sky stretched out endlessly.
Famous for a ceiling height so vast that even the clouds lay beneath your feet,
the 89th floor, also called the roof of the world.
Right in the middle of that vast open sky,
a single massive volcano rose alone, towering.
But what looked like a volcano was, in fact, an enormous furnace.
The sacred site where generations of Heirs of Flame had worked with fire.
The sacred peak, Kargon.
And at its summit... upon a throne carved straight out of the crater,
a dwarf sat, utterly still.
Ricardo.
Master of this mountain,
and Grand Chieftain of the Sun Dwarves.
His eyes, burning red, gazed down over the ground of the 89th floor below.
Where his gaze rested, on the earth of the 89th floor,
a massive grid stretched, etched all the way to the horizon.
Hundreds, thousands of empty cells, and within each square of that vast grid, its own pattern etched.
Each and every one of them,
a seat of honor that only those chosen by the flame could ever carve their mark into.
And even then, only those who'd broken through the wall of apprenticeship... could dare to have their name inscribed there.
But.
For a span of time too long to even count,
no new light had been etched anywhere in that grid.
Time, for the race called the Sun Dwarves, had stopped.
And yet.
Ricardo kept staring, endlessly, at those still-empty cells.
As if he believed that even today, something might finally be carved there.
"...Ricardo."
The chieftain standing beside him spoke up cautiously.
"Even if a new Heir of Flame really has appeared, it would take at least ten years to rise from apprentice to Certified."
"Then."
But Ricardo, for his part, didn't even shift his gaze away.
"Those ten years. I'll simply wait here for them."
"......."
The aide fell silent.
Knowing all too well that this stubborn ruler really would guard this seat for however many years it took.
"...Please, now."
Just as the chieftain moved to speak once more, one last time,
right at that moment,
- Hmmm...
the sky began to clear.
"......?"
The corner of Ricardo's mouth lifted.
The chieftain, puzzled by the sky suddenly clearing, glanced around.
The Grand Chieftain looked at the chieftain and let out a small laugh.
"...Have you never seen it?"
"...Seen what?"
"Well, I suppose that much time has passed."
Then he raised a hand and pointed up at the sky.
"The sky."
The sun gradually grew brighter,
and just as the chieftain looked up at it with a bewildered look,
- Bwoom!
a single beam of sunlight
plunged down like a spear into one of the empty squares of the grid.
"...What's that?!"
In the square the light had touched,
- Bzzzzt.
a pattern began drawing itself,
first a round sun, then eight tongues of flame radiating out around it.
"The, the apprentice's pattern...!"
"No."
Ricardo stroked his chin and shook his head.
- Bzzt...
Beneath the sun pattern... a single bent stroke of gold light, as if traced by someone's fingertip,
rose to support the apprentice's pattern from below.
"...The Certified... pattern."
The chieftain's mouth slowly fell open.
Someone,
an Heir of Flame, had become a Certified Blacksmith,
and carved their pattern into the Sun Dwarves' legacy.
Ricardo slowly rose from his throne.
"...It's arrived."
His red eyes blazed.
Hotter than they ever had before.
"An Heir of Flame has finally arrived."
And then.
Ricardo raised his arm.
- Slowly.
Beneath the wrist of his right arm, hidden deep within his sleeve...
there was nothing at all.
Only the old scar remained, where something had been severed long ago.
Ricardo's gaze turned to the grid square where the new pattern had just been etched.
More precisely, to the square right beside it, on the left.
A pattern already faded with age... two strokes marking a Skilled rank.
A pattern etched long ago, back when both of Ricardo's hands had still been whole.
Ricardo, Heir of Flame.
A man who had once carried his race's flame alone.
"This old man's forge went out long ago, and has stayed cold ever since."
His shoulders trembled faintly.
"...At last, the flame has found its next master."
The race's future, which he'd thought had burned down to nothing but ash,
hotter than it had ever burned before,
had begun to blaze again.
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