WeTried Translations

Translator: [IncomeElastic]

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I Became a Blacksmith the Rankers Are Obsessed With ◈

Chapter 028

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The World Turns Upside Down

* * *

The 88th floor, climbing zone.

After a long, desperate struggle, the climbers who'd finally set foot on the floor sat slumped, catching their ragged breath.

"Well done, all of you."

An old dwarf, who looked to be the floor's overseer, clapped his hands and stepped in front of them.

"My sincere congratulations on reaching the 88th floor. As is customary, allow me to give you a brief explanation of this floor."

"Ha... we actually did it...."

"Did we make it? Did we really make it?"

The old dwarf nodded slowly.

Congratulations, for having passed the trial of the previous floor.

And a consideration, urging them to catch their breath before facing this floor's challenge, before pushing forward again.

A customary greeting, carrying both, sent to every climber who arrived here.

"Now then, everyone, look up."

The climbers' gazes. All turned skyward at once.

And then.

"...What is that?"

someone murmured, dazed.

High above, a massive grid stretched out to the very edge of the horizon.

Each cell of the ceiling and sky bore its own engraved pattern.

"That is the record of glory carved by the Heirs of Flame."

"Ah... the Heirs of Flame!"

The old dwarf nodded. The Heirs of Flame were a proud history even the climbers knew, a legacy of the dwarven race.

He looked up at the grid and lowered his voice.

"The term 'Heir of Flame' refers to the precious few among the Sun Dwarves chosen by fire itself. But even that great flame is powerless before the passage of time. It's been a long, long while since a new Heir of Flame last appeared..."

"Come now, let's leave off with the musty old stories."

Just then.

Someone cut the overseer off mid-sentence.

A dwarf in a suit, the corners of his mouth pulled up in a wide smile.

A Company employee.

"Everyone? Rather than chasing pie-in-the-sky legends... isn't getting stronger right now far more important?"

He wedged himself in among the climbers, rubbing his hands together.

"Now, why not try the 88th floor's signature attraction, our Company's enchant service? We guarantee the finest enchanting experience and a real, tangible boost in power."

"Ohh..."

In truth, it wasn't as though someone who hadn't personally climbed to the 88th floor was barred from getting enchanted.

Unlike the climbing zone, the residential district where the enchant facilities stood could be entered with a companion, or with certification from that floor.

The latter option was realistically difficult to obtain, though, so most people ended up relying on the former.

And crucially, there was a clear difference in enchant costs between those who'd set foot on the 88th floor themselves and those who hadn't.

A price the Company itself had set.

In short, the climbers who'd been buying expensive enchanting gear reluctantly, swallowing the cost like a bitter pill,

would find that starting to enchant now, having reached the 88th floor, was the cheapest option of all.

The climbers' eyes wavered, little by little.

The Company employee's smile rose another notch.

Right at that moment.

- Rumble....

Overhead, the sky trembled.

"...?"

- Boom!

- Crackle....

Along with the sound of something resonating,

a new pattern began carving itself into one of the empty cells.

Both the Company employee who'd been going on about enchanting and the climbers alike stared up at the sky, mouths hanging open.

"Um... dwarf, sir? What is that...?"

one climber asked, breaking the silence.

The bushy-bearded old dwarf stepped slowly forward.

On a face that had been bitter just moments before, a smile so wide it bared every white tooth had bloomed.

His wrinkled eyes had already welled with tears.

Still looking up at the sky, he threw both arms wide toward some faraway place he couldn't even see.

"...Tell what you've seen. Tell what you've heard."

Words he'd thought he would never get to speak again.

And they weren't meant only for the climbers.

To the dwarves who now wore crisply pressed suits instead of grease-stained leather aprons,

who held a contract instead of a hammer,

"Tell it to all of them...!"

the old dwarf shouted until his throat tore raw.

"Tell them to welcome the new Heir of Flame!"

Tears rolled down his wrinkled face.

* * *

Another day, and the god of the workshop was back at it.

Yesterday, for the first time in a while, I'd rested properly in Dolores's arms.

I mean, I hadn't planned on resting. I'd been forced to.

What genuinely surprised me was that I hadn't expected to get a thank-you from Ruby.

'Th-thank you.'

Even after bawling her eyes out, she'd formally left those words behind before scurrying off.

Ever since yesterday, the way she looked at me had changed again.

"...Whew."

Dolores, meanwhile, seemed to have judged that she'd roughly entered the early stage of her treatment.

This morning, she'd left the mansion to see her physician.

As for me,

right now, there were a few things I was personally very curious about.

About three, give or take.

First.

If I enchanted the gear I'd made her and raised its level, would her treatment improve even further?

So I'd caught Dolores just as she was heading out and asked if she'd at least take off her gloves for me.

'Nnn... I don't wanna....'

Dolores pressed her two gloved hands tightly against her chest and shook her head, cheeks flushing.

If I'd asked for her stockings instead, she might have cried.

Anyway, the expression was cute enough that I nearly let her off the hook....

but once I put my foot down, she finally handed the gloves over with a sulky look.

As for the first question, I was about to check it, right now, with these gloves.

The second question was this.

What, exactly, was 'Unique Equipment'?

This one I planned to check through various sources.

The wiki, various communities, that sort of thing.

Anywhere information might be found.

And finally, the third question.

"...I ignored something Isabella said?"

Was I out of my mind?

[Yep yep yep, totally]

Yuna played back a video she'd recorded that day.

In it, Isabella, flushed with excitement, pointed a finger at me from beside me.

『You! Become my disciple!』

But in the video, I...

'I want to die.'

'This stitch won't come loose. I want to rip the whole thing apart.'

'Ah....'

Without even glancing up, I'd just kept knitting away at the stocking's stitches.

『L-Lionel...? Um...?』

『...Lionel?』

In the end, video-Isabella, eyes brimming with tears, sniffled her way right out of the room.

"...What have I done."

What was truly surprising, maybe, was how mild and good-natured Isabella had been about it this time.

Anyone would have heard that as a flat-out snub.

And yet, instead of getting angry, she'd chosen to shrink back and quietly retreat.

I'd have to apologize later.

I'd appreciate it if she'd accept it....

Getting her contact info through Dolores seemed like the way to go.

I had no idea when exactly she'd come into the mansion, but I'd been way too rude.

"Well then, now...."

Time to settle my questions.

I wanted to grab the enchanting hammer and start swinging right away, but

even I know priorities. There was something I needed to check first.

Namely, the Apprentice Blacksmith's Warming Gloves.

The concept of [Unique Equipment] attached to this piece of gear.

What exactly was Unique Equipment?

I started digging through the community boards.

Wikis, forums, guide posts, every corner that might have information... would be a lie.

"Yunaaa."

[Yeah?]

"Give me the big-data summary, would you."

[Ughhh]

Yuna let out a sigh,

and hundreds of documents flashed past before my eyes in a blur.

[Want the three-line summary?]

[One. Unique Equipment is gear that's the only one of its kind in the whole world.]

"Good."

[Two. But just being one-of-a-kind doesn't make it Unique Equipment. It only gets the 'Unique' label if it performs on a completely different level from other gear of the same star rank.]

[Can't be measured in numbers, but it's a whole different class.]

[Three. So when someone gets their hands on a 4-star or 5-star Unique piece, it's strong enough that people give up on enchanting it entirely, just because of the destruction risk, and use the bare +0 original as-is.]

That was more than three lines, but pointing it out seemed like it would just make Yuna mad, so I nodded along.

So the concept of Unique Equipment was strong enough that people would give up on enchanting altogether?

Just the one time, sure, but

I'd once taken a 0-star piece of gear all the way to +20 without a single destruction.

In fact, so long as I didn't botch it myself, there wasn't really any destruction probability to begin with.

"...So what happens if I enchant Unique Equipment?"

So, honestly speaking,

the whole idea of giving up on enchanting because of destruction risk felt like it belonged to somebody else's story entirely.

You could get fun, dopamine, and an enchant all at once, so why would anyone chicken out of that?

[Hmm....]

Yuna searched for a moment,

[Thing is, there's no research on it]

[Basically, the higher-grade the Unique piece, the more the destruction chance spikes even at low enchant levels]

[Even Dwarf Company avoids taking enchant requests for Unique Equipment because the destruction risk is just too high]

"...I don't get it."

Was the enchant difficulty for a high-star Unique piece really on that level?

I couldn't stand not knowing.

I figured I should probably try enchanting Gorgonyu's White Gloves, the ones Dolores had tossed in the trash, sometime soon.

It made my mouth water just thinking about it, though whether she'd actually give it to me was anyone's guess.

"Hey, you."

[the Apprentice Blacksmith's Warming Gloves]

"I've been curious about you. Lucky for me, you're right here."

All this talk of enchanting had my hands itching for it.

[So, big brother, how many hours should I set the timer for?]

[Two hours...? Three...?]

"Tw-..."

[Two hours?]

"Twenty hours."

[.......]

I'd rested. Far too long.

Now.

Time to march to war, rhythm-game style, once more.

* * *

At that same moment.

Dolores was sitting in a teahouse within the imperial castle grounds, close by the imperial palace.

She'd just come from seeing her physician.

She wrapped both hands around her teacup, replaying what had just happened.

- ...How, how in the world, how could this happen.

The physician, having finished taking her pulse, shook his head over and over.

He was the physician who'd looked after her for decades, the one who'd looked after her whole house.

No one knew better than him that this illness never got better.

And yet, that very man had said what he'd said.

- ...I simply have no way to explain it. But.

With trembling hands, he took her pulse again.

- You are, without question, getting better... remarkably so.

What Dolores had been feeling wasn't some delusion she'd conjured just because she wanted to believe it.

Her body, which had truly been dying, was truly coming back to life.

"......."

Turning the words over in her mind, Dolores took a sip of warm tea.

On the surface, she looked as elegant and composed as always.

A curtain draped all the way around the table hid her legs and everything below her knees.

And on the other side of that curtain,

- Tap tap tap tap.

her two feet, clad in crimson stockings,

bounced without pause, like an excited child,

her whole body rejoicing where no one could see.

'Lionel, Lionel, Lionel.'

If not for her promise, she'd have run straight there this instant and swept that child up in her arms.

Just then.

- Footsteps.

The chair across from her quietly slid out.

"...Did you wait long?"

Long golden hair flowed softly down over her shoulders.

A woman whose body, at odds with that elegant hair, was clad in white armor.

Dolores's sworn sister, and the Imperial Sword.

The Valkyrie, Seren de Lumière.

Dolores reined in the excitement in her toes and answered gracefully.

"No, I only just got here."

"Is that so?"

The woman sat down across from her and let out a long, exhausted sigh.

Dark circles sat heavy and black beneath her eyes.

A face that looked like it hadn't gotten proper sleep in days.

"...Ugh, I'll just get straight to the point, Dolores."

She set something down on the table with a soft thud.

A small plaque, wrought in gold.

"You didn't sell it, did you? Those gloves."

A plaque bearing an unusual pattern, engraved with a roaring lion.

Made entirely of gold, it clearly belonged to the Prince.

"...I'll meet whatever terms you want. Gold, an expanded territory, anything else you name."

She looked at Dolores with tired eyes.

Every word carried a trace of exhaustion.

"Could you hand those gloves over to the Prince?"

"......."

Dolores didn't answer right away.

The final winning bid on the gloves Lionel had made was 170,000 gold.

She'd already guessed that whoever had thrown out that sum without batting an eye was the Prince.

But Lionel hadn't sold them.

And as a result,

Seren, worn down day after day by the Prince and his hobby of collecting fine gear, had finally come to find Dolores in person.

"Can I give you my answer later?"

"Sure, please do."

For Seren, even that much of an answer seemed to count as a relief, and she let out a deep sigh.

"...Ugh, honestly, even as your sister, I'm dying to ask how you got it in the first place. But you're not going to tell me anyway, are you?"

Dolores only smiled.

"I swear, I should just quit this job."

Seren was shaking her head, still grumbling, when it happened.

Her eyes drifted toward the empty air to her right,

and then,

- Flash.

her eyes suddenly went wide.

A habit that always showed up whenever the Tower sent word.

Her eyes, fixed on something floating in the air, grew wider and wider.

"...Ah, aah. Aaaaahh."

In the end, Seren

even covered her eyes with both hands, whimpering like a child.

"...?"

Dolores looked at her, baffled,

and Seren silently turned her interface toward Dolores.

What floated there was,

a breaking news bulletin from a press outlet covering Tower news.

[【Breaking】 The 'Heir of Flame' lineage, thought lost forever, lives on.]

[【Breaking】 The Sun Dwarves have returned. The Heir of Flame has returned.]

The bulletin carried a single photo of the scene.

A blazing sun pattern now sat engraved into the grid.

"Where the hell am I supposed to get gear made by an Heir of Flame now... I'm actually going to lose it...."

As if sensing the fate about to come crashing down on her, Seren thunked her forehead against the table.

It was already this much of a mess over a single pair of +20 gloves.

And now, if gear from an Heir of Flame, a lineage everyone thought had died out completely, had come back into view...

Considering what had happened not long ago with the Genesis Sword,

she didn't even need to imagine what was coming.

Just then.

A commotion began spreading through the teahouse.

"This...."

"...Then, maybe...."

Seren scanned the room with an anxious look,

"...I, I think I need to go, right now."

she said, hauling herself up with a face like death warmed over.

"I have to go negotiate, at least...."

"Sure. Take care."

Dolores had to hold it in.

Until the very moment Seren walked out of the teahouse, shoulders slumped,

until the sound of chairs scraping back erupted chaotically from every direction and everyone had cleared out,

the laughter rising all the way to her throat, she had to fight, desperately, to swallow it down.

"Seren.... I'm sorry, but."

Dolores lifted her teacup to her lips with elegant poise.

That Heir of Flame everyone was searching so hard for... and the owner of those gloves....

were, in fact, the same person.

who was, right at this moment, probably swinging a hammer somewhere in her own mansion.

without the faintest idea of what was unfolding out here.

"Heh."

Blissfully carefree, probably humming a tune.

It had been a truly long time since her days had been this much fun.

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