WeTried Translations

Translator: [IncomeElastic]

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I Became a Blacksmith the Rankers Are Obsessed With ◈

Chapter 013

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The Real Enchanter

* * *

“A hammer, huh. Brings back memories. Henrik?”

“Ha ha… it’s not quite like that.”

“Got it. Works out well, then.”

Dolores made a fist and tapped it lightly against her palm.

- Tap.

“Take your time picking, Lionel. Ruby and I will run over to the book district for a bit.”

“Okay.”

“I need to buy her some magic books.”

Honestly, it was more comfortable with Dolores gone.

Ruby stood beside Dolores, eyes sparkling.

Chicken skewers, then candy, now books. Today really was this little one’s birthday.

“Once you’ve picked, just wait here. Henrik? Mia? I’m leaving Lionel in your hands.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t worry~”

Dolores and Ruby headed out.

- Ding-a-ling.

The bell rang, and the shop went quiet.

Dust hung thick in the air, and nameless hammers packed the display racks.

From here on, this was my time.

‘Let’s pick one out.’

Henrik silently pulled hammers from the shelves,

and I looked over each one, one by one, as he brought them out.

The first hammer was…

─────────────────

[Bone Hammer][★★☆☆☆]

[Compatibility Rating][-/40]

─────────────────

『There’s no telling whether these are the bones of some beast, or of “someone.”』

- A mage wandering the Valley of Sorrow -

─────────────────

Oh, fuck.

Why’s it starting off so creepy right out of the gate.

“…That hammer’s a Bone Hammer. It’s meant for forging, but it carries a fairly strong curse attribute, unfortunately.”

Oh.

This guy’s got a good eye.

He’s seeing exactly what I’m seeing.

“I see. You can speak casually with me, you know.”

“No, I couldn’t. I’m fine as I am.”

A flat-out no, huh. I reconsidered the situation.

A noble, a Duchess no less, has a kid who claims to be her family pushing him to drop formalities…

Right. Maybe asking for that was actually more of a burden on him.

“…Okay.”

I just quietly looked over each hammer Henrik pulled out.

But the more he brought out, the less any of them really caught my interest.

Either the flavor text was unsettling, or the star rating was just too low.

I wanted to at least pick the best of a bad lot…

They say a craftsman never blames his tools, but every craftsman who says that is using good equipment.

Still, this guy Henrik had a real knack for explaining things.

─────────────────

[Ash Forge Hammer][★☆☆☆☆]

[Compatibility Rating -/20]

─────────────────

『The last heat left behind by a dying volcano.』

- Author unknown -

─────────────────

“This one’s made from compressed volcanic ash. Good thermal conductivity, works fine for metalwork, but the handle’s a bit weak.”

“Oh-ho.”

─────────────────

[Mine Shaft Repair Hammer][★☆☆☆]

[Compatibility Rating -/20]

─────────────────

『No wall this hammer struck ever came down. Not once.』

- Rutz, Overseer of the 3rd Mine Shaft -

─────────────────

“This one’s what miners used to reinforce tunnels. Sturdy enough, but not great for precision work…”

“Ohh…”

None of them really did it for me, in the end.

Still, I kept going through the motions, picking each one up in turn. That’s when it happened.

─────────────────

[Basic Enchant Hammer][★☆☆☆☆]

[Compatibility Rating][-/20]

─────────────────

『Don’t you dare call enchanting luck. It’s effort.』

- Ogeron, 4th-Generation Sage Artisan -

─────────────────

An Enchant Hammer?

Right as the unfamiliar word gave me a flicker of doubt-

“‘Sage Artisan’?!”

Before I knew it, I’d blurted it out loud, seeing the words written underneath.

Why’s a Sage Artisan showing up here.

“Ah, this hammer… actually, it’s not for forging.”

The corner of Henrik’s mouth twitched.

“Do you know about enchanting?”

“Ah, n-not really, no.”

He wore an expression like he’d just caught me red-handed, his mustache twitching as he opened his mouth.

“Gear has a grade. Expressed in the number of stars.”

“Right.”

“Enchanting is the act of raising a piece of gear’s standing, separate from its stars.”

Henrik picked up a nearby hammer to show me.

“Say this hammer is a one-star piece of gear. Enchant it, and the one-star’s base performance stays exactly the same, but new power gets layered on top of it, one layer at a time. We call that Enhancement (強).”

“Like… +1, +2, that kind of thing?”

“Yes, exactly. A piece of gear’s stars are fixed at birth. Materials, the maker’s skill, the process. It can’t be changed.”

What is this, this incredibly familiar system.

It was a system most guys from the world I used to live in would probably recognize.

The enhancement system from some hugely popular RPG game.

And then.

“But what makes that possible in the first place is enchanting… please wait just a moment.”

Henrik squeezed his eyes shut for a second, then suddenly headed for the counter.

Then he bent down under the table.

- Click, click.

What was that sound?

I tilted my head slightly and looked down.

What the.

He was turning the dial on a safe.

[8918. Heh heh.]

No, Yuna, we don’t peek at that kind of thing.

The safe opened, and Henrik pulled something out from inside.

A small pouch wrapped in cloth.

He carefully undid the pouch and pinched out a bit of whatever was inside between his fingers.

It was a blue powder.

“This powder is the heart of enchanting.”

Henrik held up his powder-dusted finger for me to see.

“You sprinkle the powder over the gear, then hammer it in so the energy soaks through.”

He carefully sprinkled the powder over the Bone Hammer from earlier.

- softly, softly…

Blue particles settled onto the hammer’s surface.

For a moment, it looked like stardust had been scattered over it.

Henrik lifted the Enchant Hammer.

- Bonk.

He struck down.

The powder gave off a faint glow. I thought it might be sinking in-

- Bonk.

“…”

“…”

- Bonk.

But nothing changed.

It vanished.

The powder never soaked in. It just scattered off the surface and blew away.

Henrik set the hammer down with a wry smile.

“Yeah. If this actually worked, I could’ve made a living off enchanting.”

Wait, so it just… failed?

“These days, most enchanting goes through Dwarf Company’s Enchant Rooms. They reproduce the exact striking rhythm of the best possible artisan, which gives the highest odds of success. It’s just about impossible with a human body and senses.”

“…I see.”

It was a pretty fascinating explanation.

I mean, I’m an Heir of Flame anyway, so enchanting’s kind of a separate world from me. Right, right.

Still, force of habit, I guess.

I’d already picked up every other hammer once, so my hand reached out naturally for this one too.

- Swoosh.

The moment I gripped the Enchant Hammer-

─────────────────

[Enchant Interface Activated]

─────────────────

[Target Gear: Unspecified]

[Powder Held: Not Detected]

[User Proficiency: None]

─────────────────

[Attempt Enhancement?]

─────────────────

“Huh?”

What? Can I actually enchant?

My body gave an involuntary jolt.

Is spring finally coming for me too, here?

If enchanting could really be cheesed this easily…

- Honey, just a second~

Right then, the woman called for Henrik from inside.

“Ah, please wait just a moment.”

“Sure, go ahead.”

Take as long as you need, honestly.

Henrik disappeared into the back.

I was alone.

Still gripping the Enchant Hammer, I looked around.

The Bone Hammer Henrik had failed on earlier still sat there, the cloth pouch left open beside it.

And, very luckily, some powder must have still clung to it, because-

─────────────────

[Target Gear: Bone Hammer]

[Residual Powder: 2g]

[User Proficiency: None]

─────────────────

[Attempt Enhancement?]

─────────────────

Enhancement looked possible.

“Yes.”

I wondered what form the enhancement would actually take.

Right as I was looking forward to it-

[0:00:10]

“Huh?”

What is this now.

Numbers appeared, floating in midair.

And then.

A blue circle appeared over the Bone Hammer in front of me. About the size of a 500-won coin.

But outside it, an even bigger blue circle appeared as well.

The outer circle slowly began shrinking toward the inner one.

Closer. Closer.

The two circles drew nearer.

The outer circle kept shrinking until the two nearly overlapped, encroaching past the inner circle’s own edge. Then it vanished.

I just watched, not even knowing what it was.

[Uh, w-wait a second… this is-]

Yuna suddenly started trembling.

What’s gotten into her.

[0:00:09]

[0:00:08]

What. A countdown?

Right away, a new circle appeared in a different spot.

Another shrinking outer circle followed after it.

Classic Korean instinct: give me a time limit and I have to do something.

Without thinking, I brought the hammer down on the Bone Hammer.

The second circle was already shrinking. The moment of overlap had already passed, and the outer circle had shrunk smaller than the inner one, right on the verge of disappearing.

- Clang!

And then.

[Awful]

A blunt insult came flying at me out of nowhere.

That’s a little harsh.

[0:00:05]

Time kept ticking by, and nothing else changed, so-

A fourth circle appeared. The outer ring began to shrink.

I struck down again this time too, but-

[Awful]

Hit with the same insult again, I paused my hammering for a moment.

Then.

- Clang!

This time I struck right as the two circles perfectly overlapped.

A rainbow light bloomed in front of my eyes.

[Perfect!]

Finally, some praise showed up.

Wait, this feel in my hands…

[0:00:02]

[0:00:01]

[0:00:00]

─────────────────

[Strike Tally]

[Perfect] [1]

[Great] [0]

[Okay] [0]

[Bad] [0]

[Awful] [2]

─────────────────

[Final Success Rate: 3%]

[Failure Rate: 97%]

─────────────────

【Attempting……】

─────────────────

Mr. Awful.

This is kind of pissing me off.

[A-Awful, it says… Brother? Do we really need to keep doing this?]

Along with Yuna’s insult, the result appeared.

【Enhancement Failed】

The powder that had been faintly glowing until a moment ago lost its light completely.

“…”

So.

Did I seriously just enchant something?

I replayed the scene in my head.

First, a blue circle appears over the gear. A bigger circle shrinks in from outside, closing in.

There’s a moment where the two circles line up exactly. Then it keeps shrinking and disappears.

Wait, wait…

This is that thing.

A smile crept onto my face before I even realized it.

[…Brother.]

Yeah.

[That’s not it.]

No, it is.

Yuna, I see it differently.

That… seems exactly right, though?

The moment the outer circle lines up exactly with the inner one, that’s when you hit it for a good score.

Too early, too late, or miss it entirely, and it’s a miss.

Which meant both times, I’d struck way after the circles had already overlapped.

Hence, Awful.

“It’s a rhythm game.”

Guess I really was awful.

For a second there, seeing the word “Awful” pop up twice in a row,

I’d worried that maybe I just didn’t have the talent for enchanting.

But that worry vanished in an instant.

That’s not a worry I get to have.

Because… I.

“I can finally do this legally now, can’t I?”

Someone who’d devoted fifteen straight years to nothing but rhythm games.

Obsessive.

Vicious.

An absolute menace of a player, through and through.

[Aaaaargh! Do you have any idea how hard it was for you to quit that!!!]

And put another way,

I was a rhythm game addict,

and a rhythm game demon.

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