WeTried Translations

Translator: [IncomeElastic]

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I Became a Blacksmith the Rankers Are Obsessed With ◈

Chapter 74

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Flash-Spam Dolores

* * *

Isabella would play chess whenever a tangle of complicated emotions welled up in her.

She'd play against an imagined opponent, and more often than not, that opponent was Dolores.

"......."

Except today, calling it a game of chess felt like a stretch, since there were only two pieces on the board.

A white queen piece, and right beside it, pressed close, one small pawn. That was all.

Who they represented hardly needed explaining.

Dolores and Lionel, obviously.

"They're stuck together, huh."

- Tap.

Isabella nudged the pawn one square forward, just to see....

- Creep.

and the queen crept right along with it, pressing itself back against the pawn.

She knew well enough that even trying to guess what kind of relationship theirs was would be sacrilege.

No matter how socially hopeless and slightly clueless Isabella might be, she still had some grasp of common sense.

But since she was Dolores's closest friend, she was also the one most likely to notice when something about Dolores changed.

Two weeks ago, when Dolores had seen Lionel sleeping with some strange underwear draped over his face, her heartbeat had, without question,

- Thud, thud, thud.

...raced.

Thinking about it any more deeply seemed like it would only get strange in all sorts of ways.

So Isabella stopped thinking about it, for now. And simply waited for Dolores to call her again.

And so....

A little time passed, but.

"...What?"

Dolores never reached out to Isabella.

* * *

About two months had passed since I finished the underwear.

I'd been going through an incredibly busy stretch myself, and next week already... was the day the imperial family would formally grant House Dolores the Belua Mountains.

And lately, I'd picked up a new interest of my own.

Forum surfing.

These days, the hottest topic on the Inner Tower Community was....

[Elysia von Dolores, countdown to her Tower-climbing comeback.]

[What happens when the retired Dolores makes her return.TXT]

It was news about Dolores's return to climbing the Tower.

Two weeks earlier, Dolores had submitted a return application to the imperial climber-management office.

It was really just a formality, but her name carried so much weight that word leaked out before long, and the thread was already blazing.

It made me happy. There's a bit of a culture out there that treats retirees like has-beens put out to pasture, but....

Dolores, at least, got plenty of respect, so none of that applied to her.

The post that caught my eye the most was....

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[✪][Could the Apostles of Dawn actually get back together...?]

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The Apostles of Dawn, the climbing team Dolores used to belong to.

I'd never actually asked for details, but apparently there were about six other members besides Dolores.

These days, the team had just naturally dissolved.

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[Mina]: This is amazing... my role model....

[Anon]: Pure speculation, but I bet everyone wants it

↳[Anon1]: Just thinking about it gets me hyped, fuck ㅋㅋ

↳[Anon2]: Guess it's time for a Ranker shake-up?

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"Mm, mm, good."

Respect Dolores, exactly.

But as forums always go, there were bad reactions too.

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[Anon3]: Bullshit, what's the floor gap between her and Yeomhwa even at this point ㅋㅋ

↳[Anon3]: Why the hell would some moron even write a post like this? You think Yeomhwa's out of her mind enough to climb back down? ㅋㅋ

↳[Anon1]: It'd be Doloris climbin up ya idiot btch

↳[Anon3]: Why don't you climb up there yourself then. This geezer-party nostalgia bias makes zero sense, fr

[Anon4]: Honestly it'd be great, but can the gear power creep even keep up?

↳[Anon5]: Probably rough ㅋㅋ Looked at Dolores's last known gear, it was mostly pairs of 4-star with the occasional 5-star mixed in

↳[Anon5]: And factoring in that it was low-floor gear too, by today's standards that's kind of underwhelming, right?

[Anon6]: Honestly "High Ranker" is just a title at this point, she's retired, people are just giving her a courtesy pass ㅋㅋ

↳[Mina]: It's not a courtesy pass, she's just genuinely amazing? And I bet she'll be fine once she gets new gear too

↳[Anon6]: That's just your opinion, now that she's coming back people need to be realistic. How long are you lot gonna keep jerking off to the past?

↳[Anon7]: Can't she just get new gear made though?

↳[Anon6]: T H E R E ' S N O 5 - S T A R G E A R O N T H E M A R K E T , G O D D A M M I T

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"These fucking bastards...?"

This, this is them dissing Dolores right now, right?

I looked down.

There, neatly laid out, sat the gear I'd stripped clean off Dolores the night before.

Obviously, it was so I could enchant something for her to use temporarily before she resumed climbing.

Making her top-tier gear from scratch right away wasn't realistic, so I'd decided to start by enchanting the pieces that at least wouldn't hurt her health....

"You people are dead, I mean it."

How dare they talk about gear power creep.

I'll become the living embodiment of power creep myself.

Right as I was fuming and scrolling through the forum,

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[Yeomhwa]: (・ω<)

↳[Mina]: It's Yeomhwa!!!

↳[Anon2]: ㅋㅋ guess the bastards up there better shut up

↳[Anon1]: Whoa, shit, maybe the reunion's actually real?

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Whoa.

The super-famous user Yeomhwa, showing up out of nowhere.

This person's unreal.

From what I'd heard, she was the one who'd bought my +16 Ether Circle.

She'd paid a fortune for it, and now this on top, I'd never even seen her face, but my affection stack for her kept climbing anyway.

"I like you, Yeomhwa."

I'll officially recognize you as Dolores's second honorary little sibling.

For the record, I'm the first.

Though I wonder if she's doing okay? The Ether Circle had some pretty rough side effects.

There's no way Yeomhwa alone would've been spared them.

"...Maybe I'll offer her some after-service later."

Enhancing it all the way to +20 for her wouldn't be out of the question.

She was Dolores's former teammate, after all, if she asked, there was no reason I couldn't do it.

Hm, well, anyway, it was about time.

"When's this over?"

Normal people would hate for a break to end, but....

[...you've got 10 secs leftttt]

"Okay."

I was the kind of person who enjoyed even enchanting itself.

If anything, it was Yuna who'd forced scheduled breaks on me, and I was obediently going along with it.

- Ding.

The timer rang again.

"Let's gooooo!!"

I picked up my hammer and got back to enchanting.

If Dawn Bringer had one advantage, it was that even after enchanting for a long stretch, my hands didn't tire out as much.

But where there's an advantage, there's a disadvantage too.

"Argh."

The enhancement odds it rolled were way higher than with the Basic Enchant Hammer.

Why's that a downside, you ask?

Because it means the enchanting finishes faster.

Anyway, among Dolores's gear, the stuff that was actually decent, by my standards, there was almost none of it.

Especially this bastard.

[Everbloom Prime][★★★★★]

[Unique Equipment][Compatibility Rating][0 / 100]

[Accumulates the mana of a cast spell and adds it to the next spell cast.]

[The maker's design was built around a woman's body under thirty years of age. Grants no effect whatsoever to a wearer past that age.]

Hm... enhancing this one would be pointless, so I set it aside, I'd give it to Ruby later.

Aside from that, I pulled every other piece that fed cold energy and worsened the Meridian Affliction.

But then there was this one, at least.

[Shoes]

[Silver Palace][★★★★☆]

[Unique Equipment][Compatibility Rating][30 / 80]

[Recovers mana with every step and returns it to circulation. Now that the wearer's Nine Yin Meridian Affliction has improved, it can be worn without any particular side effects.]

This one originally had a Compatibility Rating of 8.

But since the Nine Yin Meridian Affliction had improved a lot, I'd been able to raise the Compatibility Rating a lot too.

Right now, it stood at....

[Enhancement Level][+19]

It was sitting at +19.

If it were up to me, I'd have loved to push Spring Without Frost and Spring Breeze Bearing Fire all the way to +20 too.

But Dolores needed to keep wearing them for now, and since she washed the underwear herself every morning with Cleaning and Drying magic, it felt awkward to just ask her to hand them over right away.

The decisive factor was, it wasn't like I hadn't tried asking.

'Lionel... you know?'

'Yes.'

'If these got destroyed... I might cry, you know?'

'...Eek.'

Since she said she'd bawl her eyes out, I backed off.

I did want to see Dolores cry at some point, just not right now.

Maybe I could pull that prank later, but....

So for now, I decided to show her a +20 with Silver Palace without it breaking, and then work on the rest of her gear after that.

As for Silver Palace's +19 Potential Ability up to this point, it looked like this.

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【Potential Ability】

[+5 - Choose a Path]

[Silver Vigor] Whenever a spell is cast, the leftover mana settles into the body, toughening it.

[Silver Traces] Leaves a trail of silver mana with every step taken. The recovered mana adds to the next step, momentarily boosting movement speed.

─────────────────

As far as I was concerned, honestly, there was no contest.

Silver Traces, cool name right off the bat, and it fixes mobility, mages' chronic weak point, too?

'Really?!'

Of course, that reaction just now had been Dolores's own words.

So I chose Silver Traces.

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【Potential Ability】

[+5 - Silver Traces]

[Leaves a trail of silver mana with every step taken.]

[The recovered mana adds to the next step, momentarily boosting movement speed.]

[+10 - the Corridor]

[Nearby Silver Traces link together to form a single path, called a Corridor.]

[While standing on a Corridor, mana spent on movement decreases and mana recovery increases.]

[+15 - Silver Flash][Cooldown: 5 minutes]

[Consumes one Silver Trace within sight to instantly move to its location.]

[+20 - ?????]

[???????]

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Since I hated reading dense, non-fiction-style text, I asked Yuna to sum it up for me.

[At +5, a trace gets left behind every time you walk, and your speed gets a boost.]

[At +10, the Traces link up to form a Corridor, and standing on it gives a bunch of bonus effects.]

[At +15, ...you use up one Trace to instantly teleport.]

After hearing that, what I felt was.

"...Isn't this stupidly broken?"

I hadn't said anything to Dolores about it yet, but

basically, walking around leaves silver afterglows, and you can teleport using those afterglows too.

In gamer terms, like a Flash.

That's just absurd, even with a 5-minute cooldown, it still meant she could pop off an instant teleport.

It felt like more than just your average broken skill.

And if this was what +15 looked like, what on earth would +20 be?

...Now it was finally time to unlock a +20 Potential Ability for the very first time.

Thankfully, I'd already made a few attempts, and the odds of the gear actually breaking weren't all that high.

Honestly, for a piece of gear enhanced this far, I figured some risk was just part of the deal.

As long as I didn't mess up, of course.

"But Yuna, there's no way I'd screw it up, right?"

[...Sure.]

As my hammer got better, the enhancement success rate had gone up.

But since I could now attempt stages I couldn't even touch before, the chart's difficulty had gotten a lot harder too, and the sequences stretched out longer.

Basically pure upside, though. It just meant Expert Mode had unlocked.

- Ting!

Hit Circles rose up over the surface of Silver Palace.

- Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang!

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[Strike Tally]

[Perfect] [196]

[Great] [3]

[Okay] [0]

[Bad] [0]

[Awful] [0]

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Great... three of them....

Ah, that's a shame. Way too much of a shame, fuck, honestly it's pretty hard though.

"This still counts as doing well, right?"

Without even meaning to, I found myself making excuses for those three Greats.

Naturally, the only one around to listen was Yuna.

[Yeah big brother you did soooo good]

"......No?"

This wasn't doing well.

I'd been stuck at +19 this whole time and hadn't landed a single All-Perfect run yet.

This called for some self-reflection. This did.

As a gesture of reflection, I pressed my palms together in front of my hammer.

Sorry, you got stuck with a sorry excuse of an owner.

I'll do better from now on.

[.........]

I'd choose to believe there was endless room to improve.

I'm still young, after all.

My twelve years of rhythm-game experience carried over intact, but my body was still young, so really, that made me stupidly overpowered.

While I was off lost in random thoughts like that, an interface popped up.

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[Calculating Destruction Rate……]

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[+19 → +20 Base Destruction Rate] [15%]

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[Great: 3] [Okay: 0] [Bad: 0] [Awful: 0]

[Perfect Adjustment] [15% → 9%]

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[High-Grade Enchant Powder Adjustment]

[9% → 1%]

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The one saving grace was that even with a few mistakes like this, the Destruction Rate stayed incredibly low.

On average, it seemed to converge somewhere around one to two percent.

Not a number small enough to ignore entirely, so the only real option was to get better and push it down further.

─────────────────

[Final Success Rate: 10%]

[Failure Rate: 89%]

[Destruction Rate: 1%]

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This was about my ninth attempt.

I had at least warned Dolores that Silver Palace might blow up.

'I'll make you a pretty pair of shoes later, if that happens.'

Once I said that, her whole face lit up.

If it broke, there was nothing to be done about it.

【Attempting……】

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[19->20][Success!]

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【Enhancement Success】

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[Silver Palace][★★★★☆]

[+19 → +20]

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"Nice!!"

In the end, without any catastrophe of it breaking... I'd pulled off my first-ever +20 on a piece of Unique Equipment.

The Chore Gloves from before didn't count, they weren't Unique Equipment, and their star rank was lower too.

Right as I stood there soaking in the moment, looking down at the gear,

- Bang!

"Ugh, fuck."

Light burst right in front of my eyes.

From +15 on, gear glowed red.

But from +20, it switched to green, and as the green energy shifted, light burst right out of the gear.

I'd been through this once before....

Argh, I'd totally forgotten.

Got my eyes blasted for it.

I looked at Silver Palace, now faintly aglow with green light.

There was no way for me to know what it actually felt like to wear, of course.

There was only one thing left to check.

The clearest, most objective indicator there was, the Potential Ability.

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【Potential Ability】

[+5 - Silver Traces]

[Leaves a trail of silver mana with every step taken.]

[The recovered mana adds to the next step, momentarily boosting movement speed.]

[+10 - the Corridor]

[Nearby Silver Traces link together to form a single path, called a Corridor.]

[While standing on a Corridor, mana spent on movement decreases and mana recovery increases.]

[+15 - Silver Flash][Cooldown: 5 minutes]

[Consumes one Silver Trace within sight to instantly move to its location.]

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That was as far as the original Potential Ability went.

Now then, what would +20 be like....

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[+20 - Silver Palace]

[Every Corridor remaining on the battlefield connects together, forming a silver palace.]

[Inside the palace, Silver Flash can be used without consuming a Silver Trace.]

[Inside the silver palace, Silver Flash's cooldown is fixed at 10 seconds.]

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"...Fuck."

Silver Palace's +20 Potential Ability was, Silver Palace.

A genuinely stunning effect.

There was no way I could just look at this alone.

Call Dolores, now.

"Dolores!!!!!!!!!"

I shouted at the top of my lungs out of the workshop.

I counted exactly ten seconds in my head.

"What's wrong?!"

Dolores, who'd been giving Ruby a magic lesson, came sprinting in from the field, Ruby held in her arms.

"Here."

I knelt before her and held out Silver Palace.

Dolores looked back and forth between me and Silver Palace, and

"It's +20."

"...You really got it to +20..."

She set Ruby down from her arms and took Silver Palace in her hands.

Then she immediately pulled off the plain shoes she'd been wearing and hurriedly slipped Silver Palace on.

"Would you... try testing it out?"

"Sure, I'll try."

My heart pounding, I watched Dolores.

Dolores gave a light jump first....

- Whoosh!

The instant she lightly kicked off the ground,

she leapt straight up, easily as high as I was tall.

Wh-what the hell.

"Eep!"

Even she hadn't expected to jump this high, and her skirt flipped up, showing everything underneath.

...... Let's call it a nice view. Because honestly, it really was a nice view.

"......."

Dolores landed back down, and with a startled look, glanced down at her own feet.

As if she'd somehow realized this Silver Palace was no ordinary shoe... the corners of her mouth slowly started to rise.

- Softly.

This time, she took a step.

"Oh..."

So this was Silver Traces.

Every time she moved, a trace of silver energy was left behind.

With each step she took, another one appeared.

"Can you see it?"

"Yeah, I can see it."

Dolores looked down at the silver ribbons laid out beneath her and smiled, fascinated.

"What a mysterious feeling this gives off."

"...What is?"

Beside her, Ruby tilted her head.

Guess that meant Ruby couldn't see it.

It seemed like something only Dolores and I could see, like her scorpion tail.

"...This is amazing, so amazing, Lionel."

Dolores walked around the area for several dozen seconds, then broke into a bright smile.

I was glad she liked it, but....

Honestly, I hadn't even shown her the real ability yet.

"Um, Dolores."

"Yes?"

"Could you try thinking about making a silver palace?"

I didn't actually know the activation condition myself, since I hadn't worn it.

She didn't question it, just closed her eyes,

and then.

- Fwoosh....

"Whoa."

A massive silver palace... rose up in the workshop's front yard.

The silver paths she'd walked for those several dozen seconds turned into glowing Corridors.

Silver stars were embedded here and there along the paths.

My guess was those... were the points where Silver Flash could be used.

"...Oh my."

Dolores's eyes went wide, and she lightly covered her mouth with her hand.

"It's truly beautiful."

She gazed at the silver palace spread out before her in admiration, but Ruby...

"......?"

just kept whipping her head back and forth between me and Dolores.

"Dolores."

"Yes?"

"Could you pick one of those stars, and..."

I pointed to the star farthest away.

"...think about going there?"

Before I'd even finished speaking, Dolores's eyes turned toward the star,

- Pop!

"......."

and she vanished right before my eyes.

It worked. It actually worked.

The corners of my mouth twitched, unable to stay still.

"Wh-whoaaaa?!"

Right as Ruby, beside me, gasped with her mouth hanging open,

I turned around, looked at the wide-eyed Dolores in the distance, and spread all ten fingers wide in the air.

"10, 9, 8."

I counted down, folding one finger at a time.

"5, 4, 3..."

The moment I'd folded down every last finger,

"Now!"

- Pop!

Dolores appeared back at the star right beside me.

"...How was it?"

"......."

It was the moment a Flash-spamming archmage with a 10-second cooldown was born.

Dolores turned her head and looked down at me.

"Lionel."

"Yes."

- Squeeze.

She pulled me straight into a hug and whispered by my ear.

"You said +20, right?"

"Yes."

"This is... mm... gear beyond +20 is..."

Dolores started to say something, then let her words trail off,

- Smooch.

and lightly kissed my cheek first.

That made cheek kiss number ninety-seven or so.

"Could you... make gear only for me?"

"......."

I'd successfully drawn out Dolores's possessive streak.

I thought she had no interest in hoarding gear. Guess not.

This was the first time Dolores had ever asked me for something like that.

A swelling sense of pride, as a man.

And a certain forum post suddenly surfaced in my mind.

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[Anon4]: Honestly it'd be great, but can the gear power creep even keep up?

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Hey, what was it you all said.

Geezer? Dolores, a has-been?

Power creep? If that's what you want, I'll give it to you.

Until everything up to now looks like nothing at all.

"I'll turn it all into scrap paper."

Every last piece of gear you people have.

That's the resolve I made.

"What about Ruby."

"...... Oh."

Belatedly, Dolores looked over at Ruby.

"Ruby too, then...?"

Thankfully, I managed to get Ruby included too.

Though of course, who knows how things might turn out later.

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