Karma
Karma
Gaining new insight was all well and good, but the problem was my size.
I'm not exaggerating—I stand out way too much.
Just look at me: a muscular hulk somewhere between 185 and 187 centimeters tall, with a 140-centimeter longsword at my hip, walking around in a pristine white dress uniform and wine-colored half-cloak while flaunting a handsome face. How was I supposed to hide that?
"This isn't Assassin's Creed. No way I can pull it off like this."
I had some breathing room since I figured I'd be moving around a bit more anyway, but seeing as not even the collective intelligence of the Eldmias in my head could come up with a sharp idea, time alone wasn't likely to change anything.
Still, giving up wasn't an option, so I decided to keep mulling it over while I went to visit Mr. Balkun Dmarli, the one who'd sold me this goddamn incredible sword at a friends-and-family discount.
Honestly... ah, what should I call it? Since it's about how well Magic Power flows, should I borrow from electrical conductivity and call it 'magic conductivity'? Nah, even if it's a mouthful, 'Magic Power conductivity' is probably better. Anyway, the sword's toughness was one thing, but I owed part of my narrow escape this time to its excellent Magic Power conductivity.
After using my old sword, the one I snatched from a member of the Demonfolk in the abandoned dungeon in between, and now this one, I knew for certain. When you got down to it, Mr. Balkun was my lifesaver.
"They say a craftsman doesn't blame his tools, but I'm no craftsman, so I've got no choice but to rely on good gear."
Naturally, Eldmia, who knows how to show gratitude for a favor, couldn't skip paying his respects. Even though it had been a chaotic day, since things had already come to this, I intended to stall for time by handling as much outside business as I could until I figured out a way to catch the bastards tailing me.
Truth be told, I'd kind of hoped for the delightful situation where they tried to make contact early, but as always, the world didn't flow the way you wanted it to.
For nearly twenty minutes, taking a winding detour until I reached the Dwarf District, the bastards did nothing but follow with dogged persistence, taking no action whatsoever.
Persistent fucks. They were clearly trying to map my every move and figure out where I went and who I met, which only pissed me off more.
"Hm? Aren't you Gin's friend? Right, Eldmia. Eldmia Ega, wasn't it?"
So I arrived at the shop I'd tracked down from memory, and just as I was worrying what to do if Mr. Balkun wasn't at the same spot as last time, a familiar voice reached my ears.
Mr. Balkun, standing in front of the smithy entrance inside the shop with a pipe in his mouth, spotted me first and called out.
"No Gin today? Come to look into armor?"
Look at that confidence—the unspoken assumption that the item he sold couldn't possibly have broken down already. That was the kind of standard you expected from a dwarf.
"Your memory is impressive, Mr. Balkun. Honestly, I thought you might not remember me."
I figured he must have either an insane memory or a rock-solid professional ethic, but his answer was unexpectedly simple.
"Heh heh. With a frame like yours, you're hard to forget, and Gin even brought you here when he'd finally shown his face again after ages, so there's no way I could forget. So, what brings you here today?"
"I came to give my thanks and, just in case, to have my equipment's condition checked. It saved my life, you see."
"Oh ho? Could you give me the details on that? Sounds mighty interesting."
As someone who possessed the wonderfully noble hobby of saving rookies with kickass gear, he was naturally intrigued by a story where his weapon played a solid, active role, but there were so many parts I couldn't tell him that what I could say was practically nothing.
How the hell was I supposed to say, 'I lopped off the head of a fucker cursed with some godawful curse, and because your sword has great Magic Power compatibility, I somehow managed to whip up a new technique and kill him'?
In the end, all I could manage to say out loud was that the sword had stayed fine even after blocking a fair bit of magic. It wasn't really a lie, since whether it's attack magic or raw Magic Power, the stress on the blade was similar enough.
Thankfully, Mr. Balkun seemed more pleased that I was genuinely grateful for his help than about the unremarkable story itself.
"Heh heh heh! That's great! I like that my sword saw some action, and I really like you for coming all this way just to let me know and say thanks!"
"You're no different from a lifesaver to me, so it's only natural."
"Hoh hoh hoh! A warrior with a very enlightened outlook, I see! Young friend, your attitude is most admirable! Give it here! I'll inspect its condition right now!"
They said flattery could make even a whale dance, and in a flash, Mr. Balkun's spirits shot sky-high. Grinning from ear to ear, he took my sword and began checking its condition, and thanks to that, I had the chance to observe just what the process of inspecting dwarf weaponry—which supposedly combined magic and alchemy—actually looked like.
Mr. Balkun took the sword, placed his hand on the blade, and stayed still for about thirty seconds.
Suddenly, the blade rippled like mercury and lost its form!
"Good lord, I'd heard they were made with magic and alchemy, but this is beyond imagination."
"Got a mage friend, do you? First-time warriors always lose their minds, thinking their weapon's been destroyed."
Mr. Balkun chuckled heartily, but his eyes, fixed on what had been a rippling blade, were infinitely serious.
"But doesn't this mean there's no worry about repairs as long as you leave it to a dwarf smith?"
"Hmm... I've never had much reason to explain it to folks who don't know the work, so I'm not sure you'll follow, but strictly speaking, this is the form of the Mana this sword possesses. A comparison... would be something like a human's soul, maybe?"
"I understand at once. So, ultimately, the repair means fixing the body, not the soul, meaning this process can only repair the magic-related parts."
"Precisely. On the flip side, the magical elements imbued into equipment can only be fixed this way. It's called a design circuit, but that's not something a layman needs to care about."
For a moment, I wondered if having that technique meant you could smash enemy equipment for breakfast, assuming they were carrying dwarf-made gear, but seeing as even a craftsman of Mr. Balkun's level needed a thirty-second warm-up, it didn't seem like something you could pull off in real combat.
"Whoa? What the hell are you doing, showing off your skills in a place like this?"
I'd been entranced just watching the fascinating sight when I suddenly heard a voice from behind that sounded oddly like it hadn't quite gone through puberty yet. I turned my head to see a short young man sauntering in, both hands shoved into his pockets, crossing the shop floor into the smithy. But despite his youthful looks, the unmistakable adventurer's gear—and more tellingly, his completely bare, hairy feet—made it clear he belonged to an entirely different race.
It was the race I'd only heard about in stories from Asilie, the one called halflings in some Earth fantasy settings.
"Whatcha staring at? First time seeing a half-foot?"
Of course, that term 'half-foot,' stuck on them because they were half a human's size, was purely a human-centric label and a deeply rude, racially discriminatory remark.
"To be precise, it's my first time seeing a Pulling who calls themselves a half-foot."
With the excellent education Asilie had given me, I couldn't just spout that kind of discriminatory bullshit. I deflected it neatly, and he suddenly turned serious, pulled both hands from his pockets, and bowed in an extremely polite greeting.
"Ah, so you're a learned man. So many uneducated louts in this world, I've gone and committed a grave discourtesy. Hey, you squat lump! When such an honored guest is here, you should've at least hung a sign out front, damn it!"
"This little runt, already kicking up a fuss the second he's back."
His attitude struck me as quite pleasant, but Mr. Balkun just rolled his eyes and clicked his tongue.
"Yuh huh? Kicking up a fuss when I came in worried because there were some shady dumb fucks outside scoping the place out, wondering if something had happened? Fuuuuss?"
"There's something outside?"
"There were. Four idiot humans who actually think they're perfectly disguised as ordinary people. Man, I almost thought the beams shooting out of their eyes were going to light the furnace."
He placed both hands in front of his eyes and wiggled his fingers rapidly—I guess that was supposed to represent flames. He was a pretty amusing guy, all right. But what he'd said was far from amusing.
"Ah, they're there because of me. I've caused a needless misunderstanding."
The worry I'd shoved to the back of my mind, distracted for a moment by the fascinating spectacle, began creeping back up again. At that, the Pulling man looked at me with an expression of sheer wonder and voiced his question.
"You, honored guest? Ah! I'm called Shadow Foot. Obviously it's a pseudonym, but I've been introducing myself with it like a real name for so long that it's basically one by now, so I'd appreciate it if you treated it that way!"
"A pleasure, Shadow Foot. I'm called Eldmia Ega. I've heard that being able to call yourself not by a name but by a title is a great honor among Pullings. You must be a highly skilled scout."
"Good heavens! Squat lump! He's a dragon! Judging by the wisdom of this honored guest, a dragon has incarnated!"
As expected, Asilie's lessons really did pay off. Even as he said that, the way he patted my calf was unmistakably the gesture of an adult dealing with a praiseworthy child. Mr. Balkun clicked his tongue again, but the furrowed brow suggested he was trying to focus on inspecting my sword, as if this behavior was nothing new.
"Well! Jokes aside, you're a rare one to meet, friend! A truly delightful encounter! Today, my feet must be especially lovable for having carried me here! Though they always are! Gah hah hah!"
"It's my first time meeting a Pulling in person as well, so this new encounter is very delightful. Are all Pullings as pleasant as Shadow Foot?"
"If every Pulling were like that, the Demonfolk bastards would've gotten so disgusted they'd have crawled back to their own territory."
Judging by Mr. Balkun's reaction, that was a no. But Shadow Foot, brimming with manic energy, just laughed.
"Still, no matter how generously I look at those pricks, they weren't friendly. And their whole getup didn't look like common thugs, either."
"Exactly. They're all bastards I need to catch and beat down, but I haven't had a good way to do it, so I've just let them trail behind me while I moved around. That's how I ended up here."
"Smash? Those four?"
"Haha. What am I supposed to do with just four? I've got to raid their base."
"Gah hah hah hah! Bold! You're as manly as you look! I'll help!"
"Ha ha ha... pardon?"
The dumbfounded question slipped out before I could stop it, and Shadow Foot slapped my knee with a boisterous answer.
"I said I'll help! In my whole life, I can count on one hand the times I've met a human friend this delightful, and if this squat lump here is willing to show off his techniques without reservation and inspect your weapon, that means Mr. Ega must be a man with quite the amusing life himself! I'll help! We just need to dig around behind those guys a bit, right? Sounds fun!"
"There he goes again."
Good god.
I couldn't keep up with this man's energy or his pace at all!