WeTried Translations

Translator: [IncomeElastic]

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I Became a Blacksmith the Rankers Are Obsessed With ◈

Chapter 71

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Lionel's Desire

* * *

"... Kim Yuna."

[Huh? What?]

"Report this to the scientific community."

[Uhh??]

"... Tell them a cure for insomnia has been found."

I stared, mouth hanging open, at the huge black bra I'd had draped over my face.

What even was this? This coziness, this perfect softness?

This was a miracle, fuck....

If I'd had this as an eye mask back in grad school, I never would've suffered from insomnia.

My poor, pitiful youth.

Honestly, the shape and the cushioning were nothing special, the real point was the faint scent of Dolores lingering in it.

Just a brush of it against my nose and everything went dark.

I'd been living a life where Dolores's scent went in as input and sleep came out as output, so... resisting it just wasn't really an option.

What was I even going to do about this down the line.

Thanks to it, I'd slept incredibly well, so it was only right I kept the source of that scent fertile and flourishing.

Before I knew it, the Spirit Thread extraction was down to its very last batch.

- Creak, creak.

The last of the thread spooled out, and I spread it over the anvil, then finished up by tuning it with the hammer.

"Done."

I set Dawn Bringer down and stretched out my stiff back.

And then... I turned my head.

"... Christ."

Off to one side of the workshop, a snow-white mountain of Spirit Thread sat piled up.

Honestly, I hadn't been thinking about the total volume, so making it one bundle at a time hadn't really given me a sense of the scale.

... but after grinding away at it nonstop for two straight days, the pile had gotten absurdly huge.

"......."

The satisfaction lasted only a moment.

The instant I realized I now had to knit all of that into something, my whole body flinched.

The one saving grace was that this time, I didn't have to do everything entirely by hand.

- Whirr....

Because I actually had a knitting machine and a loom.

"Ugh, this is heavy."

I dragged the cart carrying the machine, scraping and rattling across the floor, into the middle of the workshop.

Thanks to Isabella.

These were the tools Isabella had left behind a few months back, when she fled after getting chewed out by Dolores.

The fact that she'd apparently prepared them for me, in her own way, was something I could only be grateful for.

I'd have to at least thank her properly, next time we met.

Of course, all I really needed was the knitting machine. The loom, not at all, since underwear needed to stretch soft against the body.

A knitting machine, which loops the thread into interlocking stitches to keep it elastic, suited the job a lot better.

Obviously, I had no intention of letting the machine do everything.

Not even with a knife to my throat.

I'd have the machine spin out just the base fabric.

and handle the parts that needed delicate adjustment, the upper bust area and the finishing work, separately, by hand.

"Good."

I had the blueprint sketched out in my head....

"Now pull up what's in my head and put it into a hologram."

Let's go ahead and work out the composition.

My goal, first and foremost, was an elegant, refined design.

[I'll go ahead and make an underwear hologram that takes big brother's perverted taste into account~]

- Bzzzt....

A blue hologram flickered to life in front of me,

and looking it over, I nodded.

"Oh, nice."

A newly designed white garter belt, with matching panties attached to it....

and a bra that tied the whole set together perfectly....

Yeah, Yuna really did have good taste, she'd captured my preferences exactly....

- Flinch.

Then I checked the center of the panties, and... huh?

Wait, hold on.

"Um... Yuna."

[Hm?]

"This... um, is there a hole cut into the middle of the panties?"

[I thought you liked that kind of thing?]

"Absolutely not. Can you close that up? And the zipper... what the hell?"

A zipper???

Why in the world was there a zipper on it.

It's not a motorcycle suit.

"Take the zipper off too... I don't like that kind of thing."

[ㅋ]

Don't laugh, seriously.

[Dolores might like it though ㅋ]

She's a Grand Duchess. As if she'd like something like that.

She's about as elegant and high-status as it gets.

Anyway, the hologram got remade per my request.

The center got filled back in, and the zipper vanished.

The exposure level dropped considerably, and overall, the whole thing ended up looking almost like a corset.

Hm, not bad, though.

The whole point, first and foremost, was tasteful and classic, not lewd.

Just think of it as a design aimed, as much as possible, at suiting a Grand Duchess like Dolores.

The rough prototype was more or less settled, so let's go ahead and get started.

"She really got me a nice one."

I did know a fair bit about the brands humans used for their tools.

What Isabella had left me as a gift turned out to be a knitting machine from a brand that, as it happened, supplied the imperial family.

- Click.

I sorted the Spirit Thread by strength and loaded it onto the machine.

Soft thread for wrapping the upper bust, firm thread for supporting the underbust and waist.

I hung each thread in its proper spot and turned the handle.

- Whirr....

The countless needles set into the machine spun and wove the thread together.

The exact mechanics were a bit hard to explain, but basically, loops passed from needle to needle, knitting the thread into a single piece of fabric.

- Clack.

Fabric pushed its way out from beneath the knitting machine.

This would become the base material.

"Blueprint."

[Yep]

Now I cut the fabric to match the blueprint, and knit only the upper section that needed delicate adjustment, plus the finishing, by hand.

After repeating that process a few times,

before long,

- Tap.

the first piece of underwear... was complete.

- Shhh....

Maybe because it was nighttime, a Skilled Blacksmith's pattern etched itself into the lower left corner of the underwear.

"......."

Sure, on the surface it looked fine.

I never expected to nail it on the first try anyway. That was exactly why I'd spun so much thread.

I picked up the underwear to check it over.

"Nice and wholesome."

This was the kind of thing even a noble lady somewhere could wear.

─────────────────

[The Windless Zone][★★★☆☆]

[Compatibility Rating][-/60]

─────────────────

An underwear set crafted from Spirit Thread of a high-rank Wind Spirit.

The wind held within the thread assists the wearer's movements, increasing agility.

─────────────────

『Elegant... it's elegant and refined. C-could this... perhaps have been made for me……?』

- the Queen of the Faraway Wind Spirits -

─────────────────

A 3-star piece of gear to start, not bad at all. Seems like I just need to push the quality up a bit further from here.

But then....

"?"

Huh, who's this?

Who exactly is the Queen of the Faraway Wind Spirits?

Unfortunately, I hadn't given the Queen of the Faraway Wind Spirits, or anyone else, a single thought in all this.

I tilted my head and picked the underwear back up.

What actually mattered was the Compatibility Rating with Dolores.

I opened Dolores's interface... and slotted it into the underwear slot I'd already unlocked for her before.

Since I'd already seen her bare skin directly last time, that slot was already open.

And the Compatibility Rating was....

─────────────────

[The Windless Zone][★★★☆☆]

[Compatibility Rating][11/60]

─────────────────

The sun engraving's warmth slightly suppresses the Yin energy

─────────────────

『The maker's desire and design intent held within the sun engraving don't align with each other, so the engraving's power isn't fully manifesting.』

『The gear's form diverges significantly from the wearer's preferences.』

─────────────────

Not exactly great.

Ah, what is this.

The sun engraving was suppressing the Yin energy a little, sure,

but the performance was just plain bad....

And this was a message I'd never seen before, what exactly was supposed to be different between my desire and my intent, seriously.

[ㅋㅋ]

"......."

Right.

Fine, let's say it's because I held back, held myself in check while making it, honestly, my desire really hadn't gone into this one.

But what did it mean that it clashed with the wearer's preferences?

Taken at face value....

it meant there was some distance between this and Dolores's own preferences too....

"...... Right, well, this is all still testing and process anyway."

Let's try raising the exposure level.

For the next one, I aimed for something closer to a regular shape than a corset.

I opened up the torso a little, opened up the sides a little, and changed the panties... from a snug boyshort cut to more of a triangle shape.

About the exposure level of a sports bra, more or less.

With that, the second piece was finished,

─────────────────

[The Window Where a Breeze Slips In][★★★☆☆]

[Compatibility Rating][-/60]

─────────────────

An underwear set crafted from Spirit Thread of a high-rank Wind Spirit.

The wind held within the thread assists the wearer's movements, increasing agility.

─────────────────

『T-this is beautiful too...! A little bare skin might show through, but... I like this one too. Thank you....』

- the Queen of the Faraway Wind Spirits -

─────────────────

But the problem, once again, was the Compatibility Rating.

─────────────────

[Compatibility Rating][13/60]

─────────────────

was low.

Still, it had inched up a bit, so this direction had to be the right one.

"...... Raise the exposure level more."

This time I left the panties alone and exposed more of the cleavage instead.

I also changed the material, made it half-transparent, semi-sheer, basically.

So her skin would show through.

─────────────────

[The Windswept Hill][★★★☆☆]

[Compatibility Rating][-/60]

─────────────────

An underwear set crafted from Spirit Thread of a high-rank Wind Spirit.

The wind held within the thread assists the wearer's movements, increasing agility.

─────────────────

『T-this is far too provocative, far too provocative... nnngh....』

- the Queen of the Faraway Wind Spirits -

─────────────────

I had no idea why the spirit queen kept reacting like that, but,

anyway, this time too,

─────────────────

[Compatibility Rating][26/60]

─────────────────

"... Hah."

It just kept climbing steadily.

Wait, is my desire really that strong?

This was maddening.

Fine. Let's really go all the way, then.

This time I steeled my resolve and went all in, boldly.

I made it out of a see-through material, and narrowed the garter belt so it clung tight against her hips.

For the panties, I left only the bare minimum of fabric covering front and back and turned them into a thong.

The absolute last line you could still call underwear.

The kind of underwear so embarrassing you could barely stand to look at it.

─────────────────

[Land of Storms][★★★☆☆]

[Compatibility Rating][-/60]

─────────────────

An underwear set crafted from Spirit Thread of a high-rank Wind Spirit.

The wind held within the thread assists the wearer's movements, increasing agility.

─────────────────

『No!! This is way too lewd!!! I can't wear this!!!』

- the Queen of the Faraway Wind Spirits -

『Hmm... then I'll just wear it myself. What do you think, child?』

- Rustia, Goddess of Lust -

『Huh...? No, no... you can't... I'll wear it!!!!』

- the Queen of the Faraway Wind Spirits -

─────────────────

I had no idea why the two of them were making such a racket between themselves.

I had no intention of handing it over to either of them in the first place.

And finally.

─────────────────

[Land of Storms][★★★☆☆]

[Compatibility Rating][45/60]

─────────────────

[The sun engraving's warmth opens 3 of the 9 meridians of the Meridian Affliction]

─────────────────

『Because the maker's desire and design intent are perfectly transparent to each other, the sun engraving unleashes its full power.』

『The gear's form matches the wearer's preferences exactly, amplifying its effect.』

─────────────────

Fuck me.

In the end, I

had succeeded in finding the exact level of exposure needed to perfectly reflect both my own desire and Dolores's preferences.

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