WeTried Translations

Translator: [IncomeElastic]

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◈ I Became a Blacksmith the Rankers Are Obsessed With ◈

Chapter 035

──────

Except You, Idiot

* * *

Ruby decided to draw attention to herself, for Lionel's sake.

Truth be told, she wasn't the type who enjoyed putting herself forward.

She just didn't like it. That didn't mean she couldn't do it.

Well, if it was to help Lionel.

- Click.

The moment Ruby, in her dainty little shoes, stepped toward the curtains,

the children her age fell in behind her, one by one.

It was only natural.

Aside from the imperial family, she was the highest-ranking child in the room.

The one and only... no, now one of two heirs to House Dolores.

Children from all but the grandest houses hesitated even to speak to her first.

"Which Ranker's tower-climbing lecture have you been attending lately, my lady?"

"My older brother always says you should start preparing diligently five years before you ever climb the Tower."

Ruby fielded the words pouring in from every side with just enough effort to get by.

In truth, she wasn't attending any instructor's lectures, and she wasn't preparing diligently for anything.

That kind of talk held no interest for her, none at all.

She just meant to stall for time, at a comfortable pace.

And yet there was Lionel, over there, just eating chocolate.

'...Honestly, what would he do without me.'

He was a handful, that kid.

- Slide.

Just then, a boy pushed through the crowd and stepped forward.

A flashy family crest was emblazoned across his chest, the eldest son of House Valmont.

"Lady Ruby. It's truly an honor to meet you like this."

"...Yes."

Her answer was short, there wasn't really anything to add.

But the boy didn't seem to mind, and pressed on warmly.

"By the way, my lady. I heard Her Grace the Duchess has taken in a new child."

"......"

The eldest son's gaze drifted to where Lionel sat alone, off to the side.

"Oh dear... It seems this sort of gathering is unfamiliar to him. He does seem to be drifting on the outside of things..."

Ruby's eyes narrowed.

His tone was polite, and the words, well, sounded like concern.

She wasn't so young that she couldn't tell what was really meant underneath it.

Ruby knew the best way to handle a situation like this.

Namely,

"......"

Indifference.

Not answering at all was, in its own way, a perfectly good method.

Talking about Lionel would only end up dragging him into this, after all.

And so began the most exhausting kind of conversation this gathering had to offer.

Just as Ruby, wearing a half-checked-out expression, was letting it all wash over her,

"......?!"

one young lady looked toward the other side of the hall and clapped a hand over her mouth.

Ruby turned to look.

Lionel had, at some point, talked the Princess into handing over her necklace.

Quite the talent.

It hadn't even been that long since they'd met, and already he was making off with something belonging to the imperial family.

And then.

The Princess, after staring at Lionel for a while, turned as though she'd made up her mind about something.

Then she walked straight over to the Prince.

- Whisper.

The Princess whispered something into the Prince's ear, and his face stiffened.

The Prince shook his head, but...

- Clink.

In the end, it wasn't long before the necklace was taken right off his neck.

The Princess held it pinched between two fingertips, like it was something dirty, and went back to Lionel.

'What is going on?'

But before Ruby, a bratty thirteen-year-old, could make sense of what was happening,

the Princess, necklace in hand, took Lionel with her...

and slipped out through the ballroom's back stairway.

- Murmur, murmur.

In an instant, the ballroom stirred into a buzz.

It wasn't just the heirs' hall that broke into murmurs, all eyes turned, even in the main hall.

After all, the Princess, the guest of honor tonight, was leaving the ballroom with a child from House Dolores in tow.

"Her Highness..."

"Where is she taking the Duchess's child...?"

Ruby forced her gaze away and muttered to herself, inwardly.

'Well, that worked.'

So why did her head throb, and her stomach churn?

Ever since she'd started living with Lionel, there'd been no end of things she couldn't quite understand.

But this, of all things, she somehow didn't want to understand.

* * *

After hearing that the Prince's necklace was in worse shape, the Princess suddenly took off somewhere.

Where are you going?

For a moment I wondered if she was rushing off to tell the Emperor everything,

but she went straight to the Prince and, after just a few words, got the necklace off him.

He looked a little reluctant to hand it over, but she had it in her hands in no time.

"The attention is uncomfortable, isn't it?"

"Yes, a little."

Honestly, it wasn't just a little.

The stares that had been fixed on me since earlier were more than I could stand.

"Follow me."

"What?"

"Through those stairs there's a hallway, and a terrace beyond it. Let's talk there."

Watching her start to lead the way, I suddenly remembered something.

Was I supposed to escort her? I felt like I'd picked up something about that somewhere.

That at a gathering like this, offering your hand while walking with a woman was the proper form.

I was about to hold out my hand, naturally enough, when...

[Don't hold out your hand!!]

Yuna's sharp order stopped me cold.

Instead, the Princess reached out and lightly grabbed my wrist.

"?"

"Quickly, follow me."

Do members of the imperial family normally drag people around like this?

[...No.]

Yuna's answer was firm.

[Maybe it's because you're still young.]

In any case, I let myself be pulled along by the Princess's hand, up the stairs, hurried as she seemed.

Since walking while holding the necklace looked awkward for her, I took it from her and carried it myself.

At the top of the stairs, a long corridor opened up.

A colonnade, pillars lined up in a row.

Beneath them, lights cast their glow at even intervals.

The sun must have set at some point, moonlight spilled through the windows and lit our way.

The noise behind us faded with every step we took.

And so, at the end of the colonnade.

- Rustle.

As the curtain was drawn back, the night wind swept across our faces.

A wide, open terrace.

And only then did I notice.

[Someone's been following us this whole time?]

That behind us, an incredibly tall man had been quietly trailing along.

Genuinely intimidating. Walking along in the moon-cast shadow, I felt real pressure from him.

"Don't mind him. He's my guardian knight."

"Ah, I see."

The Princess, apparently noticing where my eyes had gone, spoke evenly.

"Though of course, that's assuming you don't try anything, Lionel."

"Ha-ha."

"I'm joking."

The Princess curved the corner of her mouth up as she tossed out the joke.

Sorry to disappoint, but if I'd been planning something underhanded, I wouldn't have bothered saying anything about the necklace in the first place.

If I'd just kept my mouth shut, the Princess would have withered away on her own soon enough.

The guardian knight crossed the terrace's threshold and came to stand right beside us.

It was a little uncomfortable, honestly. Something like having a test proctor standing right next to you.

Not that I had much to worry about, a knight sworn to guard the imperial family probably wasn't the type to run his mouth.

It was just the pressure of him being there.

Only then did his face register.

Black hair swept back carelessly.

With the moonlight at his back, his face sat sunk in shadow, but the sharp eyes that showed through it were unmistakable.

"Richard, don't tell anyone what you see here."

"...As you wish."

With that instruction from the Princess,

the three of us made our way toward the terrace railing.

A small table sat beside the railing.

I set the two pieces of jewelry down on it without thinking twice.

- Clatter.

"Now, would you explain? What exactly is wrong with these two pieces, and why my brother's necklace is worse off."

"Of course."

Her tone was calm, but the Princess seemed quite anxious underneath it.

I reached for the necklace on the table.

Well, it wouldn't have mattered if there'd been someone besides the Princess here to listen. If that makes you nervous, that's because you're the fraud.

I only ever say what's real.

"The two pieces work on a similar principle. Both restore the wearer's vitality."

"Then why..."

"But Your Highness, where does vitality come from?"

- Tap, tap.

As I tapped the Moonlight Essence,

- Hmm.

it let out a low hum, almost as if it were throwing a tantrum.

"Let me put it more precisely. Both pieces restore the wearer's vitality using an 'essence' stored inside them."

"......"

"And that essence is bound to run out eventually. That's where the difference between the two comes in."

- Tap, tap.

- Hmmm!

This time the necklace vibrated far more violently than before.

"The Moonlight Essence draws on the wearer's own essence to refill itself the instant its stored reserve runs dry."

"...My brother's."

"If it only took back as much as it had given, that would be one thing... but instead, it drains every last bit of the wearer's vitality right along with it."

I gave her a moment to take that in.

That feeling of being fine at first, then gradually getting worse.

Even accounting for the difference between the Princess and her brother, she'd probably felt it too, in her own way.

"Then what about the pendant?"

- Tap.

The Princess asked, touching the Sun Rising.

This part was a bit trickier to explain.

Put into words, I'd have to go on for a while about sibling gods and elemental opposites and all that, tedious and pedantic.

Showing it seemed like the better option.

I gathered my thoughts quickly and got straight to the demonstration.

I picked up the Moonlight Essence.

and laid it down exactly on top of the Sun Rising, overlapping the two precisely.

I was hoping for some kind of immediate reaction.

And as I waited a moment,

- Hmmmmm!

the Moonlight Essence suddenly glowed blue,

- Whoosh!

and a red energy unraveled from the Sun Rising like a thread, drawn straight into the Moonlight Essence.

- Hmm.

Having swallowed the red energy, the Moonlight Essence gave a single, satisfied-sounding pulse.

- Hmm... Hmm...

The Sun Rising, meanwhile, shuddered and trembled.

Wow.

I hadn't expected the scene to turn out this blatantly easy to understand.

It was almost too intuitive. The essence drawn out of the Princess's pendant was being sucked straight into the Prince's necklace.

What further explanation could anyone need?

The Princess could say nothing, only stare down at the sight.

She really did have an expressive face, must be hard work keeping it hidden.

Separately from her, the guardian knight watched the whole scene with a face utterly blank.

No telling what was going on in his head, either.

"They told me these two pieces were a matched set for siblings. That there'd be some kind of synergy."

"Well... they are a sibling set, technically."

I scratched my head as I answered.

I don't have a little sister myself, so I can't say whether that's just how siblings normally are.

[????]

Oh, of course, Yuna's the exception.

[......ㅠ]

You're my soul partner, after all.

[!!]

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