WeTried Translations

Translator: [IncomeElastic]

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I Became a Blacksmith the Rankers Are Obsessed With ◈

Chapter 59

──────

Happiness Regained

* * *

Watching the enchant machine, what I felt was, how should I put it….

'If I had to put it in a metaphor….'

It felt like discovering that the claw machine in front of you doesn't actually have any real grip strength in its claw.

You know how it is, the claw clamps down for a second and then automatically loosens up.

The kind of situation where you can never win a prize unless everything lines up absolutely perfectly.

But here's the thing I was curious about.

'Didn't Henrik say enchanting was impossible for him, though?'

I remembered what happened at the shop where I'd bought the enchant hammer.

Back then, there'd been an enchant hammer and enchant powder too, just the same.

But Henrik had shaken his head and said it was impossible. It looked like the enchant wouldn't even start in the first place.

Of course, I'd swung the hammer myself right then and there, and rediscovered a feel for it I hadn't touched in a long time.

This is just a fact-based observation, but I'm confident Henrik would do better than that machine at pretty much anything.

So that meant this was some device unique to Dwarf Company.

In other words, whoever built the enchant machine must have inherited some know-how for making the enchant actually start.

What could it be.

"……."

While I was still turning that over in my head,

"Starting from +1 to +2."

the next enchant began.

How long had it been?

Barely managing to keep watching a scene I could hardly stand to look at with my own eyes,

I finally arrived at one conclusion.

- Beep-

- Whirrr….

When the dwarf pressed the button, the machine would whir to life, powder would spray out, and the enchant would begin.

A circle would appear over the gear… and a while later,

- Tap-tap-tap-tap.

the hammer would strike.

Ugh.

So that meant the button itself was something that granted the qualification to enchant, in that case,

wasn't enchanting supposed to be something only a dwarf with the Enchanter talent could do?

It was a moment that made me desperately curious about where this machine came from and how it actually worked.

And so, before I knew it,

- Whirrrrr… Clang!

along with a bright, pleasant sound,

─────────────────

【Enhancement Success】

─────────────────

[The Blue-Silver Bracelet][★★★☆☆]

[+9 → +10]

─────────────────

Up to +10, it had somehow climbed its way up through nothing but a repeating cycle of success and failure.

"...From +10 onward, there's a Destruction Rate."

The dwarf in front of us said this while carefully watching Dolores's reaction, but

"……?"

Destruction Rate?

I wondered whether it was really showing up this early already, but

honestly, hammering like this, I wouldn't have been surprised if it destroyed the thing starting from +0.

Since I didn't know the first thing about the Enchant Room, I'd left most of the decisions up to Dolores anyway,

"Please continue."

"Yes."

At Dolores's answer, the dwarf pressed the button again.

- Beep-beep.

Normally, for a 1-star piece of scrap gear, a Destruction Rate only appeared once you started making mistakes from +16 onward.

Before that, there was no Destruction Rate at all.

And for a 4-star Unique piece... sure, it was harsher, but even then, the Destruction Rate only kicked in from +14.

But a 3-star piece has a Destruction Rate starting from +10?

I checked whether that was actually true,

─────────────────

[Strike Tally]

[Perfect] [0]

[Great] [0]

[Okay] [0]

[Bad] [1]

[Awful] [81]

─────────────────

[Success Rate: 20%]

[Destruction Rate: 5%]

[Failure Rate: 75%]

─────────────────

【Attempting……】

─────────────────

A belated hit on a circle right before it vanished earned exactly one Bad….

Ah, fuck.

There really is a Destruction Rate?

That was when it happened.

- Whirrrrr, Clang!

- Crash!

"...Eh?"

Right in front of me, our poor Blue-Silver Bracelet got wrecked.

A single attempt, and it hit that bottom 5 percent right on the nose.

"...I- it's been destroyed."

The dwarf watched Dolores's reaction warily.

"Let's move on to the next piece, please."

But Dolores, for some reason I honestly couldn't figure out,

had been in a foul mood for a while now.

I took her hand in both of mine and gently kneaded it, watching her carefully.

Her expression eased up a little at that.

Since she seemed to be feeling a bit better, I sat myself right down next to her.

Anyway.

Now for the real main event.

I'd already confirmed just how garbage the enchant machine's system was, so that part was settled.

─────────────────

[the Ancient Grimoire]

[★★★☆☆]

[Enhancement Level: +18]

─────────────────

Now it was this one's turn to be enhanced.

The dwarf carefully set the grimoire down behind the glass.

- Beep.

The button was pressed, and the crap powder sprayed out.

- Shhhk….

The recommended amount of powder for going from +19 to +20 was around 3 grams.

+18 to +19 wasn't much different either.

[3g]

Exactly 3 grams had been sprayed.

+18 to +19, honestly, I'd never even attempted that stage myself with a 3-star piece, so I wasn't entirely sure.

I wondered how it would turn out here.

- Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap!

─────────────────

[Strike Tally]

[Perfect] [0]

[Great] [0]

[Okay] [2]

[Bad] [11]

[Awful] [135]

─────────────────

[Final Success Rate: 14%]

[Destruction Rate: 16%]

[Failure Rate: 70%]

─────────────────

【Attempting……】

─────────────────

Insane.

What an insane set of odds.

Right as I was shaking my head at how brutal it was,

- Whirrrrr… Clang!

─────────────────

【Enhancement Success】

─────────────────

[the Ancient Grimoire][★★★☆☆]

[+18 → +19]

─────────────────

"Uh...?"

"Oh my."

"Heh…."

Me, Dolores, and the dwarf.

All three of us were stunned at once.

Right in front of us, a +19 piece of gear had come into being.

Honestly, this wasn't part of the plan.

So I kneaded Dolores's hand over and over,

"...Let's go for +20 too."

She seemed to catch my meaning.

"...+20, you mean."

"Yes."

"W- well…."

"What's the matter?"

The dwarf in front of us seemed to be wrestling with something,

"...Yes."

then finally bowed, head lowered,

- Beep.

and pressed the button.

And, as always,

the powder came down.

- Shhhk….

But the moment every last grain had fallen,

─────────────────

[Warning! Amount is below the recommended enchant powder amount]

[+19 → +20]

[Recommended amount: 3g or more] [Current: 1.1g]

─────────────────

What?

That can't be right.

The amount that had sprayed out looked exactly the same to me….

─────────────────

[Star-Sand Powder] [1.9g]

[enchant powder] [1.1g]

─────────────────

The fuck?

Star-Sand Powder. What the hell was Star-Sand Powder?

I remembered seeing it in a textbook once.

Its grains were fine and sparkly, so at a glance it was impossible to tell apart from real powder.

The problem was its nature: the instant it's exposed to room temperature, it melts away and scatters on its own.

Basically, think of it as behaving almost exactly like snow.

Which meant that stuff was…..

not crap powder, not real enchant powder at all.

[Warning!]

The odds were bound to drop, naturally, as a result.

- Clench….

My fist tightened on its own before I even noticed.

I was understanding this correctly, right?

They faked the powder?

Since I couldn't stand to watch the hammering anymore, not even as a joke,

I stared at the result with a hollow, defeated expression.

─────────────────

[Success Rate: 2%]

[Destruction Rate: 29%]

[Failure Rate: 69%]

─────────────────

【Attempting……】

─────────────────

- Whirrrr, Clang!

【Enhancement Failed.】

Thankfully, the gear didn't shatter.

I squeezed Dolores's hand, hard.

It was our prearranged signal. Time to stop.

"Let's stop here."

"...Yes."

The dwarf didn't try to push for anything more,

and immediately took the Ancient Grimoire out and handed it over to Dolores.

"...Congratulations on the +19."

"Thanks."

I looked at the bitter-faced, suited dwarf,

and in that moment,

I remembered something. Back when I'd read the Apprentice Blacksmith's first textbook as an Heir of Flame,

there'd been a passage right at the very front.

It had struck me so deeply that I'd read it over and over again.

It was even part of the reason I agonized this much just to forge a single hammer.

A passage I'd ended up memorizing without even realizing it.

『Though the sky should fall, and the earth itself split open,』

『a Sun Dwarf must never speak falsehood before the gear they have forged.』

『For this is the Sun Dwarves'…』

"...pride."

I murmured it under my breath and turned around.

Only then did it hit me.

It seemed like I was going to have to deliver some bad news to Hareungar.

'The Sun Dwarves have thrown away their pride.'

That was my conclusion.

* * *

The moment Dolores stepped out of Dwarf Company's room,

she walked straight out and put real distance between us and the company.

If you kept going from the company and rode a carriage far enough, you'd reach the village where the Sun Dwarves lived.

The Sun Dwarf Village.

The only places I'd ever been were the imperial streets, and…

Eriel Plaza, with its resident population of three hundred thousand. That was the extent of it.

"……."

So all I could really say was that this place looked pretty shabby by comparison.

The first thing I noticed was that there was no sound of hammering.

Even though this was supposed to be a village of Sun Dwarves.

The carriage stopped and I stepped down.

Where we got off was the one building that actually looked decent and modern, at least compared to everything else.

"It's lodging reserved for climbers."

"Ah."

That's a little sad, honestly.

The nicest building in the whole dwarf village, and it's for climbers, not for the dwarves themselves.

"Let's go inside."

Before we'd entered the Tower,

she'd told me about Dwarf Company's surveillance.

Wherever we went, we should assume we were being watched and listened to, and that we'd have to wait for the right place to actually talk.

This place seemed to be what she'd meant by somewhere suitable for talking.

- Creak….

The moment we opened the door and stepped inside,

- Bolt upright.

the employee sitting at the counter shot up out of his seat.

"D- Dolores!"

He didn't hesitate for a second, fumbling to hold out a key while bowing his head.

I quietly took her hand and followed Maman.

Inside, it was bigger and nicer than it had looked from outside.

We passed through an old-fashioned hallway and stepped into a room.

"...Wow."

Honestly, it wasn't all that different from the room I normally stayed in.

Right down to there being just one bed.

Damn it.

"Now we can talk freely."

- Clap, clap.

She clapped her hands a couple of times,

- Whirrr….

and the area around Dolores's heart began to glow blue,

before soon spreading to cover the entire room, like a mosquito net had been draped over it.

Some kind of magical device, probably.

Honestly, there was a lot I wanted to talk about right now.

First, Gaia.

Second, the fraud those crazy bastards at Dwarf Company had been pulling.

Compared to the second topic, the first one didn't carry nearly as much weight, so it made sense to start with Gaia.

"Why do you think Gaia came to me?"

"……."

The instant I asked the question, Dolores

- Slide.

moved in behind me and scooped me up into her arms.

"D- Dolores?"

"...You should say Maman."

"...?"

Then she slowly made her way to the bed and lay right down.

Dolores smiled softly, smoothing my bangs back with gentle strokes.

"Right, why Gaia came to you?"

"...Yes."

"……."

Dolores reached her hand out into empty air,

- Whirrr….

a pocket dimension opened in midair, and a white flower appeared in her hand.

The flower Gaia had given me.

"This is a lily of the valley."

"Ah…."

"Do you know what a lily of the valley means, Lionel?"

Unfortunately, I didn't know the first thing about flower meanings,

"...No idea."

"Happiness regained."

- Stroke….

Dolores said that while running her hand gently over my forehead.

"Gaia must have... chosen you, Lionel."

"...Happiness regained."

I murmured the flower's meaning to myself again.

That's when it happened.

"...Lionel is my happiness regained too, you know."

"Whoa."

"I guess Gaia felt the same way."

"That's amazing."

"...It really is."

- Squeeze….

"Oof."

Dolores hugged me tight,

"It really is amazing."

For a while after that, I had no choice but to bury my face in her chest.

Thankfully, there was a breathing gap in the same familiar spot, always right there, so I could still breathe.

After a while, she finally let go.

"Whew…."

Now.

It was probably time to tell her.

I sat up and met her eyes.

With the most serious expression I'd worn yet.

The second most serious face I'd ever made, right after the time I made Spring Without Frost.

"Dolores."

"Mm."

"Dwarf Company has been committing fraud."

"...Eh?"

Dolores tilted her head.

The machine that only pretended to hammer,

and, most damning of all... the tampered amount of powder.

Feeling like some secret royal inspector, I laid out every last detail for her.

"...For all these reasons, the Sun Dwarves have made a habit of manipulating enchants, and they've thrown away their pride…"

Before I could even finish speaking,

- Bolt upright!

"W- where are you going?"

Maman had shot up from the bed.

She smiled brightly and said,

"I need to get my money back."

and tried to head for the door.

"Wait wait wait!!"

What I'd overlooked was that she, too, was a whale of a climber who'd poured a staggering amount of money into Dwarf Company.

- Grab!

"……."

I barely managed to grab her by the waist,

and, for now, managed to calm her down.

* * *

Elliot sat in his office, fidgeting with his pocket watch as he waited for someone.

Dwarf Company's current mana stone reserves were still comfortable, but

given the rate they were being drained, they'd clearly run dry before long.

For now, they'd been cutting down on consumption by occasionally adjusting the amount of powder used, but-

- Tap, tap.

His fingertips tapped against the rim of the watch.

At this point, the only mana stone mine left to them was the Belua vein.

"...Sakpung."

The Kargon mine he'd wrecked still had a good while left before it could be restored,

so he'd sent an envoy to the imperial family.

There were three goals, more or less.

Move up the contract.

Increase the target mining quota starting immediately.

And.

Since they'd been paying a tribute of 1 percent every year, the imperial family's storehouse had to be sitting on a stockpile by now.

Buy up the mana stones sitting idle inside it.

"……."

He needed to bring back at least one of the three.

Even just one of them would be enough to buy six solid months.

They'd kept a friendly relationship with the imperial family, so surely at least one would come through.

And today was exactly

the day that envoy was due back.

- Knock, knock.

"Come in."

Elliot had one rule whenever he received a report.

Lead with the conclusion.

State the conclusion first, then follow with the reasoning.

But.

"...I'll make my report."

The envoy's expression wasn't good,

"All three were rejected."

"……."

Elliot…

So, conclusion first: he was screwed.

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