WeTried Translations

Translator: [IncomeElastic]

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I Became a Blacksmith the Rankers Are Obsessed With ◈

Chapter 56

──────

A Hammer for Me

* * *

The one who represented both the climbers and the Enchant Room's clientele was Sakpung.

No one really disputed that.

A man determined to see the very limit of 3-star gear.

Since 4-star and 5-star gear was, to begin with, something most climbers could never get their hands on…

Sakpung, who'd poured that much money into the Enchant Room, was more than qualified to speak for the rest of them.

"Sakpung."

Elliot held out a teacup.

No steam rose from it.

As a rule, the people who sat in Elliot's reception room were usually already burning up inside.

Gear had just shattered on them, or they'd come with questions about the Enchant Room.

So he could hardly serve them anything hot.

"You'll need to start with an explanation."

But the man across from him didn't so much as reach for the cup.

Sakpung.

His real name… Deorik.

He probably had a surname, but he never used it.

Born the illegitimate son of a noble house, he'd built his own climbing party and clawed his way to where he stood now.

"Why is it possible to enchant Unique Equipment at all. Didn't you tell me the destruction odds were far too high, that you'd never take on a job like that?"

Enchanting a low-tier piece past +5 and enchanting Unique Equipment amounted to the same problem.

Dwarf Company refused both, categorically.

The odds were supposedly so low that success was effectively impossible either way.

"There's no point calling it an error. Someone just picked up their winning item from the auction plaza."

As the CEO overseeing the company that ran the Enchant Room,

he'd rehearsed countless answers for a situation exactly like this.

But every one of those answers, every bit of that thinking, had collapsed the moment that item sold today.

'Someone out there really is enchanting Unique Equipment and putting it up for sale.'

"Sakpung."

"Speak."

"Do you know where the art of enchanting actually came from?"

"Is that relevant right now?"

"It's very relevant."

He set his hand on the table.

"Enchanting was originally a Sun Dwarf art. All we've ever done is imitate it."

"….."

"We gathered up whatever records and fragments survived, consulted the last remaining enchanter, and reconstructed it as best we could, exactly matched to that enchanter's own ability."

"…Hm."

"So the number we quoted you, 3 stars, was simply the ceiling of what we knew. That's why we had no way of knowing better. But now that a piece of gear like this has actually turned up…"

Elliot raised his head.

"we have to admit we were wrong."

"Admit it?"

At that, Sakpung's eyebrow twitched up slightly.

"…That a new, exceptional enchanter has emerged among the Sun Dwarves."

"So?"

"We intend to find this dwarf and hire them."

- Slide.

Elliot pushed a document across the table.

"This is a count, drawn from our internal records, of how many times each customer has attempted +10 or higher on 3-star gear. Past +10, we classify a customer as 'someone who's gone for endgame gear.'"

"….."

"If you bring us Unique Equipment down the line, we'll enchant it for you free of charge, exactly as many times as your attempt count here."

Sakpung looked down at the document.

Beneath his name was written a single number.

The number of times he'd blown a piece to pieces in this very room, over ten years.

"And if you can't find this dwarf?"

"Then we'll issue a full refund covering every +10-and-above attempt you've made."

Elliot was confident.

Finding a Sun Dwarf enchanter was, to him, no different from digging up gold buried in his own front yard.

The whole race was already in the company's grip, and every coin that kept them fed came straight out of this company's pocket.

And.

The terms of service guaranteed the head office a mandatory six months to respond to any unforeseen variable.

Every customer read that and signed off on it before an enchant ever began.

That was exactly why the climbers never resorted to force right away.

"….."

What's more.

if a customer really wanted a full refund,

they'd have to sign a separate contract agreeing never to use Dwarf Company's Enchant Room again.

Even if a brilliant dwarf did turn up somewhere…

there was exactly one place in the world that did enchanting.

Telling a climber to put their name on that contract meant, in effect,

'Give up on climbing the Tower.'

It amounted to nothing less than telling them to stop climbing for good.

And even if someone tried to get around it through proxy enhancement and attempt the enchant again…

in the end, wasn't that money still flowing straight back into the company's pocket?

They had no intention of stopping that, either.

"….."

"Kuhahahaha!!"

- Bang!

Sakpung burst out laughing, slamming his palm down on the table.

Elliot's eyebrow twitched.

"Kuhahaha!! Hahaha!"

- Bang! Bang! Bang!

Sakpung kept pounding his palm against the table.

"…Sakpung."

"No, sorry about that."

He wiped at the corner of his eye.

"I'll stop getting angry about it. No fun in that anyway."

The terms had always stated, from the start, that the company bore no responsibility for whatever resulted from an enchant.

Even before walking into this room, Sakpung had figured he wouldn't walk out with a clean answer.

"Your company's in the position of having to find this dwarf. Otherwise the whole business shakes."

"….."

"Am I wrong?"

"You're not."

"Thought so."

Sakpung met Elliot's eyes.

"Then how about this."

"….."

"If I find them first, or some other group does, that dwarf wouldn't be your employee anymore, would they?"

"…But the dwarves, as a race, our company-"

"I know, I know. That the company's got a tight leash around every dwarf's neck."

Sakpung's mouth curled upward.

"This is going to get fun."

Just then.

- Slam!

The door flew open.

The person who walked in was a human employee in a suit.

If a dwarf employee had thrown open the CEO's door like that, they'd have been reprimanded on the spot.

But a human employee was a different story.

"Sakpung, I'm sorry, but if I could just have a moment-"

But Sakpung, laughing, forgave the interruption.

"Speak freely!"

A riot?

Elliot guessed as much and leaned forward,

and the employee, ashen-faced, hands trembling…

"…The mana stone mine in the Kargon Mountains, on the 89th floor…"

"….."

"It's been hit by an air strike."

The Kargon Mountains.

Along with the Belua Mountains outside the Tower, it handled the bulk of the company's mana stone supply.

"The, the moment every worker had just stepped outside…"

"….."

"Giant arrows rained down from the sky, and a windstorm-"

"…Arrows."

Giant arrows.

Wind.

Elliot carefully turned his gaze forward.

Sakpung.

He was grinning wide enough to show every tooth.

And only then did it register.

Since when, exactly.

His palm… was still buried in the table.

- Craaack…

The table had split wide open, radiating out from his palm.

"Something wrong?"

- Slide.

Sakpung glanced at him, then slowly pulled his hand out of the desk.

- Crumble…

Broken splinters of the table fell away from his palm.

"Sounds like something's gone wrong."

Giant arrows. Wind.

People capable of pushing through an air strike on that scale weren't exactly common.

And yet someone perfectly capable of it was sitting right in front of him.

Had this whole conversation itself been the alibi?

Elliot looked at him and tilted his head slightly.

"…Seems that way."

Sakpung rose from his seat, his mouth curling up wide.

"Well, I'd hope you didn't pull a stunt like this without being ready for that much."

"….."

"See you in six months… oh."

Sakpung, about to walk out, stopped beside Elliot and looked down at him.

"I do hope you find that enchanter of yours before anyone else does."

- Thud!

How long had it been since he left.

The employee just stood there beside him, reading the room.

The Kargon Mountains had never had any defensive installations to begin with.

Only a High Ranker could stop a High Ranker's attack. In the end, the cost-effectiveness just wasn't there.

More than anything,

every climber was the company's customer.

Enchanting could only be done here, so why would anyone strike the source itself?

This was a place tangled up in countless interests, and plenty of people ran businesses of their own off the back of it.

In other words, touching this place risked earning the enmity of every big player out there.

But the rule had just been broken.

"No casualties… and no alibi, is it."

Elliot shook his head.

"…Every Berdandi guild member who comes through from now on."

"…Yes."

"Lower their enhancement odds. All of them."

"Yes, sir…"

And.

The mine in the Kargon Mountains was an extremely delicate site.

It sat right up against molten lava, so once it took a heavy shock, mining couldn't resume right away.

A minimum of six months.

A suspiciously fitting number.

Fortunately, they still had some mana stone reserves left.

And Dwarf Company still had, contracted with the imperial family,

"…the Belua Mountains."

that mine, still standing.

Elliot added, his voice low.

"After next year's contract renewal, raise the Belua mine's target output."

"Yes, understood."

That mountain range, after all…

belonged to the company anyway.

* * *

All the transactions went through, not some shell account under my own name, but the Tower's system, tied to Maman.

Which meant all of it came back to Dolores.

From the pocket space Dolores opened in midair,

- Thud!

- Jingle!

a heap of gold coins dropped down with a thud.

"Exactly 18,055,150 gold."

This world's auction house apparently didn't charge any fees.

The full eighteen million and change had come in without a single coin lost.

"Wow…"

I'm speechless.

Until just a few days ago, Kim Yuna was my entire net worth.

"Congratulations, Lionel."

- Hug.

She pulled me tight into her arms.

I wrapped my arms around her back.

"You could take some of it, you know."

"Knew you'd say that, so I already helped myself to some."

"….."

"Heh, just kidding."

Turns out she could actually make jokes.

"What are you planning to do with this money?"

Dolores let go of the embrace and asked me carefully.

I'd told Ruby I'd "buy" her workout equipment, but

why would I actually pay money for that?

For one thing, I doubted this world even had anything that high-end to begin with.

I could just make it myself. Pad it up nice and thick so Ruby's body wouldn't take any damage.

A Smith machine seemed like the best call, though I couldn't quite say why.

Something told me that down the road, Ruby would demand I throw the Smith machine out and insist on free weights instead. I could already see it coming.

So once I actually had money, there was one thing I wanted to do first.

Something I'd kept feeling.

My age right now was holding me back way too much.

I wanted to get into the Tower too, but since I hadn't hit the age requirement, there was no way in.

But there was that shady message from Abyss, from before.

The thing Abyss had said back then, wearing a dwarf's face, came to mind.

'There's a way to get into the Tower even without reaching the required age.'

I'd been curious what that meant,

and after scouring through everything I could find,

"The Tower Invitation."

"…The Tower."

I found out there really was such a convenient way in.

Apparently climbers could get one as an extremely-low-probability reward, or find one somewhere else.

Basically, it was an item that let someone who wasn't a chosen "climber" get invited into the Tower, one time only.

I had no idea whether this was actually the aboveboard method Abyss had been hinting at.

"….."

Probably wasn't, if I'm being honest.

Either way.

This was exactly what I needed.

It was limited to the residential district, but it wasn't like I was planning to actually climb anyway.

Turned out demand for these was bigger than I'd expected. First off, since this world revolved around nobility... sightseeing and showing off.

Nobles and the ultra-rich apparently bought them for exactly that.

Second,

'Early education.'

This part was kind of funny.

Climbers only qualified once they hit the right age.

And the very day they qualified, they started right from floor 0.

Thrown into a place they'd never once seen, breathing air they'd never once breathed, climbing their very first floor.

"….."

So wealthy households, established climbing parties, noble houses with money, took their kids there beforehand.

Basically a field trip. Like a school excursion.

What the residential district looked like, and what the climbers looked like climbing the Tower, as seen from that district.

Meaning even if they climbed later on for real, they'd start from a completely different line than everyone else.

Third…

'For business, apparently.'

This one covered way too many different cases to pin down.

Broadly speaking, I guess I'd fall into this category too.

What I was most curious about was, of course, the dwarves' floor.

I wanted to see for myself just how badly they were botching that Enchant Room to get odds that terrible.

And I just wanted to see the floor where the Sun Dwarves lived, for once.

With all that decided, I told Dolores about it, confident and proud, but…

Dolores held her hand out to me.

I took it without thinking anything of it,

- Squeeze.

and then Dolores held her other hand out to Ruby, who stood beside us sipping lemonade.

- Squeeze.

Without a word, she took each of our hands and started walking.

Wherever she was silently leading us turned out to be her office.

Dolores opened a drawer in the office,

- Slide.

and pulled something out, setting it down on the desk.

- Tap.

- Tap.

Two sheets of… stationery.

I looked down at them.

Two luxuriously wrapped envelopes.

One had faded slightly and bore a crease from being folded.

It felt like something that had been kept for a long time.

The other one… was still stiff and crisp.

Dolores opened the envelope,

and inside…

a golden, luxurious sheet of paper.

The exact look I'd seen in photos while searching the community forums.

It was the Tower Invitation. Which meant there were two of them, total.

"One's Ruby's."

Dolores said quietly.

"And one's Lionel's."

I took a moment to choose my words.

A Tower Invitation normally went for five million gold.

Of course, since they rarely came up for sale, a markup was almost always tacked on, so this had probably cost more than that.

The worn one had probably been sitting here for a long time.

It looked like it was meant for Ruby.

Which meant, naturally, that the new one…

had been bought after I arrived.

- Slide.

Dolores stroked both my hair and Ruby's.

"I was originally planning to tell you about this a year from now. But…"

She bent down and met my eyes.

"…if Lionel wants it,"

"….."

"you can actually go anytime."

Then she got up and walked further into the office.

This time, where she headed was…

- Click, click.

A safe.

Dolores took something out from inside.

She held the paper she'd taken out close to her chest for a moment, then, carefully, with both hands…

walked over to me and held it out.

"It's an appraisal certificate."

An appraisal certificate…

What was written on the paper called that was.

─────────────────

[the Apprentice Blacksmith's Warming Gloves][★☆☆☆☆]

─────────────────

『Because I made it with care, thinking of Dolores…』

- Apprentice Blacksmith L -

─────────────────

The one Dolores had received to tell whether my gloves were genuine or fake.

The appraisal certificate, carrying that slightly embarrassing Origin Script.

So she'd kept this, all this time.

But then.

Below that,

as my eyes dropped further down the page,

─────────────────

『To the heir who's taken their first step.』

[Match Rate 100/100]

[Heir of Flame]

─────────────────

『To the heir who's taken their first step.』

『Clumsy, yes. But unmistakably burning.』

『Please, don't let it go cold.』

『If you ever lose your way, come find Boldr's Workshop-』

- Maker of the Appraisal Machine, 7th-Generation Sage Artisan Boldr -

─────────────────

there was a line I hadn't expected at all.

"…Boldr."

"I meant to give you this one later too."

- Slide.

Dolores brushed the edge of the paper with her fingertips.

"But now, I think... the timing is something you'd know better than me, Lionel."

She stroked my hair, her expression full of quiet affection.

If you've lost your way, come to Boldr's Workshop.

A message the 7th-Generation Sage Artisan had sent me.

If I asked myself whether I'd actually lost my way…

honestly, I wasn't sure.

That gap between rest and labor.

I still didn't really understand why I needed to rest at all. If I could move, I just wanted to keep swinging a hammer.

That gap between enchanting… and crafting gear.

There was a clear moment where I needed to make a hammer, but

having seen Hareungar's hammer not long ago, it all felt pointless.

Maybe it was because I'd seen something so overwhelming.

Whatever I made, it would obviously just get compared to that.

Could I really make something perfect? Me?

That's what I'd thought, back then.

It had been a while since Hareungar last came to visit in the mindscape, too.

He'd said he couldn't come often, so I understood.

But throwing myself entirely into Dolores's underwear alone felt, honestly, a little like running away.

If I made a better hammer, I could definitely make her underwear better too, in the direction that mattered.

So then.

"Losing your way doesn't have to be some grand thing."

"…Right."

Dolores looked at me calmly.

"I'm going to go."

"Okay."

Dolores turned, picked up the golden invitation,

and handed it over to me.

The Tower's invitation was soon resting in my hand.

"…A hammer."

A hammer for me.

'Lionel's Hammer.'

It felt like it was finally time to make one.

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