I Became a Blacksmith the Rankers Are Obsessed With - Chapter 049

WeTried Translations

Translator: [IncomeElastic]

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◈ I Became a Blacksmith the Rankers Are Obsessed With ◈

Chapter 049

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Give It to Eric, Eric

* * *

He'd suddenly barged straight into my workshop, though I honestly had no idea how he'd even gotten in.

No, wait. Since Yuna had said she couldn't get a lock on the coordinates... maybe it was actually me who'd wandered into his.

The man who'd just shouted at me, presumably one of our dwarven ancestors.

And on top of that.

[Encounter with a Sage Artisan of Old]

Apparently, this was the famous Sage Artisan himself.

There was no way I could stay calm about that, but.

As for the answer to the question he'd just asked me....

'What do you think you're doing?!'

What was I doing? Making a sign and hanging it up, obviously.

And also, I was about to start making underwear. Something pretty and comfortable.

I managed to sort that out clearly in my own head.

It might seem like a strange leap from actual blacksmithing all of a sudden, and I'm sorry about that, but all of it was going to become the groundwork for something bigger.

"......."

We stood like that, staring each other down for a good several dozen seconds.

Wait, was that supposed to be some kind of encounter line he'd just said?

Was I actually supposed to answer it?

He looked me up and down, since I hadn't answered.

My forearms, legs, shoulders, and so on.

"Hah...."

Then he let out a long breath.

He looked around the workshop, then walked over to the shabby, pathetic anvil that some human had made.

Every time he moved, something like sparks of flame flickered and rippled off his body.

Like an afterimage trailing behind him, I guess you'd call it.

He definitely wasn't an ordinary person, that much was clear.

- Clang, clang.

He tapped it with a finger a couple of times, then.

"Haah...."

Let out a sigh.

- Thoom....

This time, it was the crude, primitive forge some human had made.

"Haah...."

Another sigh.

"Haaah......"

Every single item that had drawn a sigh out of him turned out to be something a human had made.

I know already, buddy. I'll swap them out, alright?

If there was one small comfort in all this.

- Pat, pat.

- Creak.

- Whoosh.

After spending a long while examining the top-tier crucible furnace I'd built with my own two hands, he.

"... Hmm."

Stroked his beard, looking satisfied, and nodded.

Well, this doesn't feel bad at all.

Guess this one passed muster, in its own way.

A whole different league from anything humans make, huh.

Eventually he stepped closer and slowly opened his mouth.

Even up close, he was still about the same height as me.

"How long has it been."

A low, resonant voice.

"You crossed a trial said to be harder than a camel passing through a needle's eye, and became an apprentice Heir of Flame."

He took one more step toward me.

"Then you passed through an even narrower gate, and became a Certified Blacksmith."

Another step.

Until finally, his face was right in front of mine.

"And out of all that, one appeared who raised a forge with their own two hands, and hung their own emblem before it."

"......."

Honestly, no camel had ever actually passed through a needle's eye.

It's just that my little sister, Kim Yuna, happened to be a needle's eye wide enough for something a lot bigger than a camel.

"I don't even know how many years it's been anymore. But."

"......?"

He narrowed his eyes.

"... By any chance, heir, are you a half-dwarf?"

"Ah."

Right, of course.

To a dwarf, I probably looked like the art style had suddenly shifted on him.

It made sense he'd assume I was some dwarf-human mixed blood. Even before the Tower opened, humans had lived inside it as a race, after all.

How should I even answer this.

"... Well, you might've been looked down on for it in the past, but I'm not the type to care about things like that."

"Ahaha... thank you."

I let it slide, more or less.

"So, what year is it now, by the Solar Calendar?"

I figured I'd need Yuna's help for this one.

[Right now, it's Solar Calendar... year 1231.]

"It's year 1231."

"...... What?"

Hearing the year, his eyes went wide, as though he thought he must have misheard something.

"What...? Year 1231... what are you even talking about...?"

He dragged a palm down over his face.

"... Is that really true?"

"Yes."

"......."

He stayed frozen like that for a long while, then.

Walked over to the crucible furnace, leaned against it, and muttered something under his breath.

"Ninety-one years have passed... then does that mean there hasn't been a single heir who's built their own workshop, this whole time...?"

He was muttering it very quietly, but.

I could hear every word of it.

"... Ah."

As though something had just occurred to him, he came back over to me.

He studied my eyes closely, then added.

"How many Heirs of Flame came after that little runt Ricardo?"

This wasn't exactly within my own knowledge either, so.

[Ricardo is currently the Grand Chieftain of the Sun Dwarves, and the Heir of Flame after him is....]

[You, big brother.]

"There weren't any."

"......."

"There's only me."

"......."

He heard what I said and, without a word,

slowly turned and walked toward the wall, braced one hand against it, bowed his head, and just stood there, still.

"......."

His back was broad.

How long did that stretch of quiet reflection last, I wonder.

He came back over again.

"Just what happened, after I died...?"

Only then did I start explaining, drawing on everything Yuna had told me.

The Sun Dwarves had slowly declined.

Once the Tower opened and humans started coming in, goods sold just fine even without anyone bothering to clear the trial and become an Heir of Flame.

Even mediocre gear, even mediocre-tier enchants, humans bought them up regardless.

So nobody bothered trying to clear the trial anymore.

With no one clearing it, the line of Heirs died out, and once the Heirs died out, divine implements stopped being made.

Once divine implements disappeared and the race itself declined, the gods stopped visiting too.

And so, in the place the gods had left behind, the Sun Dwarves grew poor.

In the end, I told him, the Heirs of Flame no longer existed.

"......."

His face grew stiffer with every single word he heard.

I could see his eyes sink a little lower with every sentence I added.

I couldn't bring myself to mention Dwarf Company on top of it all.

That part was a genuinely heartbreaking moment.

Even if there was still some room to recover from the gods leaving,

the fact that outside capital had moved in to fill that gap, founding a company and driving in a wedge that made any real recovery impossible, that was a different story entirely.

"Would you give me a moment to think."

"Yes."

He went to a corner of the workshop, sank down, and pressed a hand to his forehead.

It had to be a lot to take in, I figured.

From what he'd said, he seemed to already be dead,

and ninety years after his death, the very first heir he'd met had brought him nothing but news that his people were dying out.

And watching him like that,

"... Hoo."

I took a breath and steadied myself.

Honestly, I'd already finished doing the math in my head.

If I just kept playing along as a half-dwarf here, I'd probably get to learn all kinds of techniques.

Whatever happened, I'd walk away with something.

It wasn't even like I'd lied, either.

He'd asked and drawn his own conclusion, and all I'd done was smile, so technically speaking, I hadn't done anything at all.

And yet.

- Footsteps.

He came back. His eyes were a little redder than before.

"I'm back."

That didn't feel right anymore, did it?

"I'll be honest with you."

"......."

"I'm human."

"......."

"I happened to become an Heir of Flame, and a Certified Blacksmith too, but I'm definitely a human who lives outside the Tower. This place is outside the Tower as well."

Then I bowed my head.

"I'm sorry for deceiving you."

"......."

No answer.

With my head bowed, I couldn't even see his expression.

A human sitting in the seat meant for a dwarf heir, no wonder he'd be at a loss for words.

- Footsteps.

The footsteps drew closer.

Then, suddenly.

- Thump.

A large hand gripped both my shoulders.

I lifted my head, and.

What followed was.

"That's not it."

"......?"

It was a little different from what I'd expected.

"What in the world does you being human have to do with being an Heir of Flame?"

"... What?"

His eyes blazed with an intense light.

"You raised a forge from bare ground, carved your own pattern, and came all the way here on your own."

"......."

- Squeeze.

The hand gripping my shoulders tightened.

"In a place without a single ember left, in a spot where no one else remained, you lit the fire yourself, with your own two hands, and earned the sun's recognition."

"......."

"If you hadn't earned the sun's recognition, I wouldn't even have been able to come here. So human, dwarf, what could something like bloodline possibly mean, next to that?"

He looked me straight in the eye.

"An Heir of Flame isn't born, it's forged."

"......."

"So let me ask you this, heir."

- Squeeze.

"If you're not an Heir of Flame, then what are you?"

That struck me speechless.

Why is this guy so good at persuading people.

That got to me a little just now, honestly. All that effort had been real, after all.

As I stood there unable to say anything,

he slowly spread the hands gripping my shoulders outward, then.

- Knead, knead.

started kneading both my arms.

"......."

Um, excuse me.

"How old are you?"

"... Thirteen."

- Flinch.

His hands stopped.

"...... Haah, I genuinely can't believe it. How long has it been since you became a blacksmith? Are you eating properly?"

"About five months, I think. As for meals... I skip them sometimes."

"Incredible, more than words can even express. To reach a workshop worthy of the sun in such a short span of time... But you must make sure to eat properly. You're still growing, after all."

The hands that had been kneading me slid away.

Then he stepped back and looked around the workshop once, all the way around.

"This space, by nature, is a place for encountering a Sage Artisan of a past generation. When an heir opens their very first workshop with their own hands, one of those who came before pays a single visit."

"I see."

"And so, you're allowed to ask your ancestor for wisdom."

- Slide.

He held up three fingers.

"Exactly this many."

"...... Three things."

Three was actually a pretty generous offer.

Up until now, I hadn't had anyone to ask about metallurgy or blacksmithing.

The manual really only covered the basics, and no matter how smart Yuna was, there was no way she'd know everything an Heir of Flame ought to know.

So every time I hit a wall, I'd just throw myself at it, and if it didn't work... well, it just didn't work, that was that.

Three questions wasn't bad at all.

But that was when it happened.

"But."

The dwarf standing in front of me suddenly folded all his fingers back down,

wearing a bitter expression.

"Just this once, I'll make an exception and tell you everything I can."

"...... Is that even allowed?"

"The reason it was originally limited to three... you could say it's a restriction we ancestors, myself included, traditionally placed on ourselves."

Ah, so it's one of those "because the ones before us did it, we do it too" kind of things.

A military-style tradition, huh.

"Unfortunately."

He opened his eyes wide and looked at me.

"This isn't exactly the time to be worrying about tradition or appearances, is it."

"......."

Curiosity suddenly got the better of me, and I spoke up.

"By any chance, was that 'What in the world do you think you're doooooing?!' thing from earlier also some kind of tradition, for the moment you meet someone?"

"... That's right."

No wonder. There's no way he'd actually known what I was doing when he said that.

I'd been too startled earlier to even get a word out.

"So, heir."

"......."

"I'll ask again."

"......."

He walked slowly over to the sorting table.

"What were you doing?"

The instant those words left his mouth, before I could even answer,

- Hummmm....

light poured down over the sorting table, and something began taking shape, piece by piece.