WeTried Translations

Translator: [IncomeElastic]

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I Became a Blacksmith the Rankers Are Obsessed With ◈

Chapter 032

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I Think My Eyes Are Going to Rot

* * *

The imperial palace's banquet hall.

There was a saying like that, I think I remember it.

If a person with two eyes wanders into a village of the one-eyed,

that person's the one who's abnormal.

And, as for me.

[Compatibility Rating][3.5/40]

[Explosive energy is accumulating in the body. Possible permanent organ damage.]

[Compatibility Rating][9/60]

[Slowly eating away at the wearer's mana. Prolonged wear will cause debilitation.]

[Compatibility Rating][2/40]

[Uncontrolled mana is eroding the wearer's mind.]

[Compatibility Rating][4/40]

[Multiple mana interference occurring. Eating away at the wearer's lifespan.]

"Oh, for f-...."

Of all things, I had ten eyes.

* * *

"...This can't be happening."

I was thirteen.

They slicked my hair with wax, rubbed on perfumed oil, dressed me in stiff, uncomfortable clothes, and loaded me into the carriage.

I was apparently going to be hauled all the way to the imperial palace looking like this, no say in the matter.

"....."

Just give me stockings instead of this, give me powder!!

I want to enchant something. My hands are itching for it.

I asked Dolores if she could maybe get more powder,

and, surprisingly, she got a slightly troubled look on her face and explained it to me carefully, step by step.

To begin with, this powder wasn't the kind of thing anyone had a reason to use unless they were Dwarf Company,

so demand for it was extremely limited.

Which meant production and distribution both mostly stayed locked up inside Dwarf Company's own supply chain.

So she said she'd try to scrape together as much as she could from what was already floating around the market.

It wasn't that it was hard to get, more like it wasn't the kind of thing you could just buy in bulk the way you would ore.

And, the decisive part.

'Buying it in large quantities carries a risk of being traced.'

It would inevitably raise the question of why anyone would even buy it in the first place.

By ordinary common sense, it was just a useless powder.

"...Then can't we just buy the raw material instead of the powder?"

Buy the raw material, and just grind out the powder by hand myself, couldn't I?

"What's the powder made from?"

[The basic raw material for enchant powder is mana stone.]

[Dwarf Company blends it in "appropriate" ratios to make the powder.]

[Doesn't seem like anyone's ever asked, since even if you had the powder, you couldn't enchant with it.]

"Is there a recipe? In the Sun Dwarf documents."

[Hang on]

[Huh? There is?]

[A full compilation on the "Enchant Dust" formula]

[Except apparently this piece is written for an Heir of Flame]

I hadn't expected much, but Yuna had actually turned up the information.

Enchant Dust?

That had to be what she meant by the powder.

It was written for an Heir of Flame, so why hadn't I ever seen this before now?

[I never searched for "Enchant Dust" specifically...?]

Right, you had to know the name to search for it.

Fine, I'd let that go.

"What is this, seriously...."

It seemed like this might turn out to be easier to solve than I'd thought.

I opened the document and checked its contents.

But right at the very start of the document was something I never expected.

[The current representative Heir of Flame oversees and adjusts the quality and supply volume of Enchant Dust.]

What?

[Heirs of Flame and enchanters exist in a relationship that's both mutually complementary and mutually restraining.]

[If an enchanter's enchanting destroys a piece of gear, demand for the blacksmith rises accordingly...]

[But if the Enchant Dust made is so high quality that heavily-enhanced gear becomes commonplace, demand for the gear itself falls instead.]

[The Heir of Flame must properly regulate the volume and quality of this Enchant Dust.]

Something I never knew.

I'd thought Enchant Dust was some kind of reward that dropped from dungeons.

Turns out it wasn't.

It was originally an industrial product, produced with its volume deliberately regulated.

And on top of that, the one who controlled both volume and quality was the Heir of Flame.

Hold on.

Then who's the current Heir of Flame?

"It's me."

Then, as the current representative Heir of Flame, allow me to make a solemn declaration.

"Supply Lionel with 100 percent of the volume."

Just as I was establishing this perfectly rigorous new supply law,

"Been waiting long?"

Dolores and Ruby climbed into the carriage, dressed beautifully.

I found my eyes widening a little without meaning to.

Dolores always dressed nicely to begin with, but seeing her this formally done up was almost dazzling.

And Ruby, too. I could tell for sure now.

'Confirmed beauty archetype.'

She was probably going to grow up gorgeous. Probably going to be popular.

She sat down beside me and kept sneaking glances at me.

"You're kind of cute today, huh?"

I said it without thinking much of it, and,

"...W-What? Where'd that come from, all of a sudden...!"

Ruby's face went bright red and she whipped her head away.

What do you mean, "where'd that come from," it was a compliment.

Apparently we just had a little further to go than Henrik's forge we'd visited before.

Guess I could just let my mind go blank and pass out for a bit.

Carriage motion sickness really was the worst.

This world genuinely didn't seem to have a concept called "suspension."

Though I suppose looking for suspension in a horse-drawn carriage is kind of a funny thing to want.

While I hovered somewhere near death, Dolores calmly explained the imperial family to me.

The structure of the imperial household, the family members, all of that.

Ruby apparently already knew, but I had no idea at all.

"Below His Majesty, there's the Crown Prince. And then there's a prince, and also a twin prince and princess."

Four children in total.

And today was the twins' birthday.

Since I'd never encountered the concept of an emperor anywhere outside fantasy novels, there was something a little exciting about it.

About an hour into being half-dead in the carriage,

"...Lionel, you're carsick, aren't you."

Dolores looked at me with something like pity.

"...Come here, rest your head on my lap for a while."

"No, I'm fine..."

"I'm not fine."

Unable to refuse, I laid my head down obediently on Dolores's lap.

- Slump.

Ruby seemed more composed than me.

Keep being composed from now on too, that way I get to lie down on someone's lap.

I closed my eyes meaning to rest for maybe five minutes,

"...Huh?"

and when I came to and opened my eyes, the carriage had already passed through the imperial palace gates.

It wasn't anything else, Dolores's thighs really were magic.

The motion sickness had vanished completely.

"I didn't think I'd sleep that long..."

I bolted upright and apologized to Dolores.

Her legs must have gone numb for sure.

"I'm sorry... your legs must be asleep."

"Hehe... I liked it. It reminded me of Ruby, back when she was little."

She stroked my hair and smiled warmly.

Right as I was witnessing Dolores's ocean-deep generosity,

- Clatter.

the carriage stopped.

The moment the door opened,

the attendants waiting in front of the palace all bowed at the waist at once.

"We greet Duchess Dolores."

Oh.

The treatment really was on a different level.

Dolores stepped down first with elegant grace, and Ruby and I followed, holding hands as we got out.

By the time we stepped out of the carriage, the sun had already dipped a little low,

and against the sunset, the enormous banquet hall came into view.

It looked like the party hadn't started yet.

[...this is kind of interesting though]

What is.

[Normally a great noble at the level of a duke or duchess waits for all the other guests to arrive first and shows up deliberately late]

[The later you arrive, the higher your standing is supposed to be]

Contrary to Yuna's explanation, more carriages kept rolling in behind Dolores's.

Meaning we were nowhere near last.

The real deal never shows off, isn't that how it goes? Empty carts make the most noise.

I glanced up at her figure walking ahead of me.

Bathed in the sunset light, she looked even more striking than usual today.

Ruby and I each held one of Dolores's hands as we climbed the stairs.

- Click, click.

The moment the three of us appeared through the wide-open doors of the banquet hall,

"Presenting Her Grace, Duchess Dolores!"

the gatekeeper's voice rang out through the hall.

Plenty of nobles had already arrived in the hall,

and in an instant, the countless gazes that had been trading pleasantries...

all turned toward us at once.

More precisely, it seemed like they were mostly on me.

Ruby's face was probably already recognized, after all.

But as I met all those turned gazes, I noticed something felt off.

Something was strange.

The way the people in the banquet hall were dressed felt wrong somehow.

Every single one of them, without exception, was decked out in dazzling finery.

Glittering jewels, armor, no matter how I looked at it, it felt distant from what you'd call banquet attire.

It genuinely looked more like fantasy-novel costuming.

A complete departure from Dolores, who wore nothing but stockings, gloves, and a single pretty dress.

Though she was still a duchess, so what was this about?

- Slide.

Just then, from up ahead,

a middle-aged man with a considerably protruding belly approached us with an arrogant stride.

"...Well, if it isn't Duchess Dolores herself."

He had medals hung noisily all over his chest,

and his flesh and clothes practically spilled out between the gaps in his armor. Could this man even breathe properly?

And right there in the middle of it all,

a necklace he was wearing caught my eye.

─────────────────

[the Ornate Peacock Feather Necklace][★☆☆☆☆]

[Compatibility Rating][1/40]

─────────────────

[An accessory worn purely out of vanity. Doesn't help with anything, in any respect.]

[A pearl necklace on a pig's neck]

─────────────────

『One who devotes all their passion to dressing up the outside fails to notice how empty they've let their own inside become.』

─────────────────

What caught my eye

was a necklace with a Compatibility Rating of 1.

What is this irritatingly mismatched necklace.

I'm not joking, my eyes feel like they're rotting from that Compatibility Rating.

And it looks so expensive on the outside, too.

"It's an honor to see you, Your Grace."

"...Count Valmont."

Dolores answered curtly.

She clearly wasn't thrilled to see him, something I only knew because I was practically working toward a bachelor's degree in Dolores studies by now.

Her expression looked calm, but her eyes and the corners of her mouth had dropped just slightly.

She was quite annoyed right now.

Dolores's enemies are my enemies.

I stared upward, unblinking.

The greeting wrapped up more flatly than I'd expected.

[I think this is a move to cement his own standing by greeting the highest-ranked person in the hall besides the Emperor first]

That was Yuna the psychoanalyst's read on it.

He'd apparently been in quite a hurry.

We followed Dolores deeper into the hall,

and, unsurprisingly, the seats she was shown to were right below the head table.

Meaning, right in front of the imperial family, today's guests of honor.

One of the highest-ranking seats in this vast hall.

The instant we took our seats,

- Slide.

- Slide.

nobles began lining up one after another, endlessly, to greet Dolores.

"We greet the Duchess."

"It's been a while, Your Grace."

Every single time, Ruby and I bobbed our heads like greeting robots.

"Hello. Yes, hello. Hello..."

By this point I was starting to understand why Dolores had brought me here.

Wasn't this her way of stamping into everyone's mind exactly whose protection I was under?

"....."

But there was one thing I couldn't understand, one thing that made absolutely no sense to me.

Setting Dolores aside.

Fine.

I'll grant all of that.

But why on earth did these people, who were supposedly great and distinguished nobles,

'every single one of them have such garbage gear?'

- Slide.

A marquis came to greet us.

[Compatibility Rating][5/40]

- Slide.

A viscount followed after.

[Compatibility Rating][6.9/60]

Was this some kind of coordinated arrangement?

Every single one of them had at least one or two stars just because they were nobles, but the Compatibility Rating was garbage.

I don't know if it's an occupational sickness of mine, but seeing trash-tier Compatibility Ratings makes me want to throw up.

Born to be a blacksmith, I guess.

Caught between the double misery of a flood of greetings and my eyes rotting from bad Compatibility Ratings,

a break finally arrived.

Taking advantage of a brief lull in the crowd,

I leaned over and quietly asked Dolores, sitting beside me.

"...Um, Dolores."

"Hm? Lionel, are you having a hard time?"

"No, that's not it..."

I gestured at the whole banquet hall with my hand.

"...why is everyone here wearing so much gear, all piled on top of each other?"

They could just wear a dress or a suit comfortably, so why go to the trouble of draping all these heavy magitech pieces over their whole body?

If you're going to wear it, at least wear it well.

At my question, Dolores looked down at me for a moment, then smiled faintly.

"That's what you're curious about, Lionel?"

"Yes."

Honestly I didn't care much about anything else.

I'd originally had nothing but enchant powder on my mind, but seeing the state these people were in had left me pretty bewildered.

"It's a kind of culture."

"A culture?"

"That's right."

Dolores slowly looked around the hall.

"At some point in this world, how high a family's members have climbed the Tower became the yardstick for measuring that family's standing."

"Ah...."

"The higher you climb, the stronger the gear you need, and good gear comes to symbolize a family's wealth and capability."

Dolores's voice dropped a little lower.

"It's a kind of showing off. Saying, our house has this caliber of climber, this much wealth."

"I see."

That made perfect sense.

At its core it was just vanity, but I supposed it was also a status symbol they couldn't afford to give up.

Which meant Dolores was really something, in that sense.

A High Ranker, she didn't even need to drape herself in gear.

She'd stopped climbing, but her reputation still stood.

Wasn't that what real standing looked like?

While I was secretly lost in admiration for Maman,

- Boom, boom, boom.

it happened.

A drumbeat rang out from the far side of the hall.

- Murmur, murmur.

The nobles who'd been chatting all fell silent at once.

And then, as if on cue,

- Slide.

everyone turned their bodies toward the head table at the back of the hall.

Given the flow of things, this could only mean...

"Lionel, Ruby, it's starting."

Dolores whispered low.

"His Majesty is about to enter."

- Slide.

Before long, the great doors beyond the head table slowly opened.

And then.

"His Imperial Majesty enters!"

Along with the gatekeeper's booming voice, a man appeared through those doors.

A dignified stride.

A golden crown resting on his head, considerable grace flowing from his whole bearing.

I never thought I'd live to see an actual emperor with my own two eyes.

Soon after the Emperor, a beautiful woman came to stand beside him.

She was probably the Empress.

[By the way, brother, that's his third wife.]

...Third?

- Flinch.

Yuna, goddess of gossip, delivered the information.

I found myself looking at the Emperor again.

I guess that's what it means to be at the top. Three wives. Wow.

While I was busy being impressed by an utterly pointless detail,

two more people walked into the hall behind the imperial couple, side by side.

Those two had to be today's guests of honor... the twin prince and princess.

I shifted my gaze to the pair of them,

'...Hm.'

and honestly, it was a little unexpected.

Both of them looked somehow frail.

Bloodless complexions, an air of precariousness about them.

Especially the Prince. He looked a few years older than me, but his coloring was strikingly pale.

Were they sick or something?

Just as I was tilting my head, wondering,

- Slide.

the necklace hanging around the Prince's neck caught my eye.

─────────────────

[the Moonlight Essence Necklace][★★★★☆]

[Unique Equipment] [Compatibility Rating][0/80]

─────────────────

『With a gentle, loving touch, the moon goddess shall caress you.

May that blessing last forever....』

- In the name of the moon goddess, Selea -

─────────────────

[Restores the wearer by the amount of moonlight essence stored within.]

[Once the essence runs dry, it instead drains the wearer's own vitality until the essence is full again.]

[There is no limit to how much vitality can be drained.]

─────────────────

At a glance, it looked like remarkably good gear.

But that last line was the whole problem.

No limit to how much vitality could be drained?

What, what's that supposed to mean, wouldn't that just kill him?

"...... Fuck?"

I swore under my breath before I even realized it, low and quiet,

though it seemed like nobody had heard me.

- Tap.

"Watch your language."

Only Dolores had caught my voice.

She gently pressed a finger to my lips and scolded me.

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