The Alchemist of Dandanium
The forge was busy with all manner of work.
“I heard the territory was rich in resources, so I took that to mean there were a lot of mines around here. Ain’t that right?”
As he split wood for the charcoal kiln, Berneval muttered under his breath.
“What do you lot think? Who would’ve guessed trees and water would just start springing up out of nowhere?”
He had some unusual assistants.
- Gop-gop. Goop. (Usually not. That kind of thought.)
- Grehm? Greeehm. (No, goblins don’t even think to begin with.)
- Goop? Gop-gop! (You little runt? I’ll tear open your thought pouch!)
“All right, all right, enough. I was the fool for asking monsters in the first place. Stop fighting and get to work. Still, it’s strange how monsters and humans can actually talk to each other. Hah.”
Berneval had been unwilling at first when Ho-yeong suggested using monsters as laborers, but he had eventually given in to Ho-yeong’s persuasion, or edification.
Yet the monsters adapted to the forge far better than expected.
“Hey, goblin. Go fetch the charcoal.”
- Gop-gop! (Understood!)
Goblins lacked human strength, but they handled heat and smoke well, making them perfect for the dirty work.
“Gremlin, hurry and spread the clay. Just like before, nice and proper.”
Gremlins were small, but their hands were nimble, which made them ideal for delicate work.
- Grem-grem! (Yes, yes!)
The gremlin evenly scattered adsorption soil over the white-hot charcoal.
“Let’s see here. Mm. Not bad.”
White ash clung to the surface of the cooled wood covered in adsorption soil.
Compared to black charcoal, which was cooled without sand, white charcoal had many advantages: it held a higher heat for longer, used fuel more efficiently, did not crumble as easily, and could even be reused.
“What an amazing kind of soil. This is the best white charcoal I’ve ever seen.”
The white charcoal made with adsorption soil was far superior in quality to charcoal treated with ordinary sand. It was more than enough to melt dandanium even without firestone.
“It’s hard and white, so it doesn’t even look like charcoal. Looks more like dandanium.”
The Tamer Territory’s forests also yielded excellent wood.
“Come to think of it, we’re running low on dandanium. When are they bringing more?”
- Raaani! (It’s here!)
Mandragorani No. 8 arrived loaded down with dandanium. The mandragorani were working all over the territory as porters.
“Well now. You worked hard. That must’ve been heavy.”
Berneval lifted a dandanium ingot and muttered, “If I went back to Gallia and told the dwarves about this, would they believe me? If I said some human was flapping his arms around and babbling, and then dandanium just dropped from the sky?”
And not in raw ore form, either, but as processed ingots.
“They’d probably say Berneval Luntin’s lost his damn mind again. If it were me, I wouldn’t believe it either. But what can I do? I saw it plain as day with my own eyes. Ah, right, I could have a cleric verify it. If I ask them to settle whether I’m telling the truth or lying, they’d swarm me like hornets, wouldn’t they?”
He had already decided that when he returned home, he would make a wager worthy of legend.
“A cleric, huh? That reminds me. What about that thing with Joren getting a revelation, or whatever? Did the lad become a cleric?”
- Rani? Raaani-rani. Raa-ni. (Well, I don’t know about that, but Dodum Tree leaves seem like they’d taste good.)
Just as the humans of the Kain Kingdom worshiped the angel Hariad, the dwarves worshiped the angel Galliad, who had forged them. Berneval, despite his somewhat unusual nature, was no different.
“And why do humans keep bawling their eyes out like that?”
In Kain, the temples were also schools and hospitals, so the kingdom’s faith had taken root deeply. Dwarves, by contrast, showed little interest in theology or religion. That was why Berneval had been utterly unable to make sense of the “revelation” event from the day before.
“Forget it. Let the humans handle human business. I’ve got my own work. First, let’s make a shield.”
Like a proper dwarf, he came to the point quickly and began casting the dandanium.
“Sicoop, get over here.”
The mage soldier Sicoop came carrying a tub full of mana water.
“Let’s try quenching it.”
“Please wait just a moment.”
Sicoop chanted an ice spell through the mana water as a medium.
“Pour it.”
When the cooling water was poured over the molten dandanium, it hardened in an instant. Even the forge’s heat seemed to cool in the sudden chill, and the workers’ sweat went cold on their skin.
“Ho, Sicoop, you’ve got some magic in you?”
“I appreciate the praise, sir. But the mana water deserves most of the credit. This is the first time I’ve handled mana water of such exceptional quality, and it is remarkable.”
Sicoop marveled at the quality of the mana water.
And so the dandanium shields were completed smoothly, one after another.
“I’ll be heading to see the lord for a bit. Don’t you lot slack off; work properly, got it?”
- Gop-gop! (Don’t worry, sir.)
- Grem-grem! (Of course!)
The monsters had grown quite dependable.
Those guys are better than plenty of humans who just loaf around.
Berneval naturally mounted Mandragorani No. 8.
“Ey, four-limbed one, give me a ride on the way there.”
- Rani! (Yes!)
As No. 8 carried him around while searching for the scent of Ho-yeong, the territory’s residents greeted him along the way.
“Good morning, Mister Berneval. Thank you for repairing the water pipes last time.”
“Aye. Use it properly.”
He had declared that he would not deal with anything outside weapon development, and yet.
“Hello. When you have time later, could you please take a look at our home oven?”
“What? Do I look like your errand boy? Why don’t you use the workers already assigned to that? Tell that Shrakhim or whatever his name is to do it.”
“Sorry. Those workers only grumble; they’re hopeless at this sort of thing.”
There were far too many people pestering Berneval now. Watching how friendly everyone had become toward him, he found himself thinking that if the lord, Joren, had not treated him so warmly and first gone out of his way for him, the atmosphere would be very different now.
“If only Mister Berneval had even half your dexterity, life would be wonderful.”
“Well, yes. Why would a fool who can’t even swing a sword properly know how to handle a hammer? Still, not now. I’m busy making shields and armor.”
“Once the oven is fixed, we can serve you sausages from the Abel Principality. They’re said to go wonderfully with beer.”
“What did you say? Sausages from the Abel Principality?”
The Abel Principality, a nation that was almost a sister kingdom to the Kain Kingdom. Its specialty was livestock products from the broad grasslands nestled among rugged mountain ranges.
“We happened to run into a peddler in Rainpa City and stocked up on a bunch, but... we can’t grill them...”
“...Come by the forge later.”
Truly, they were unbearably annoying.
“Tch. A whole bunch of careless fools. Everybody and their mother keeps calling me over.”
He had never had this many people seeking him out before.
“Still... maybe they were taught well by their lord, because they do know how to respect their elders. Better than those young dwarves, at any rate. And come to think of it, you said Abel sausage, didn’t you? Has it been about fifty years since I last had some? Must’ve been around the time I got banned from entering after I was caught digging up stone near White Dragon’s Lair.”
It had been even longer since he had last been invited to another family’s table.
“We’re here, so get down.”
Far from the residential district, construction on the storage facility for tartarium was in full swing.
“Good morning, Consultant.”
Spotting Berneval, Ho-yeong dismounted and bowed his head politely.
“I made this. Take a look.”
He held out a dandanium shield as casually as if he had picked it up off the ground.
“Oh, let’s have a look.”
Ho-yeong brought down a blow on a boulder the size of a human torso.
- Crack.
The boulder shattered into rubble.
“Whoa. That’s clean.”
The shield was completely unharmed, not even a scratch on it.
“Clean, right? Strength’s obvious enough, and the hardness is top-notch. That special soil, adsorption clay, did the trick.”
“What does hardness mean?”
“Looks like you’ve only ever swung a sword, Joren. A man who’s swallowed dust in a mine doesn’t know something even a baby would know.”
Berneval narrowed his eyes and chided him.
“That’s why we brought in an expert like you, Mister Berneval.”
Even so, Ho-yeong smiled easily.
That boy really is a good one. But seeing how he supposedly put Shrakhim in his place, he’s not just a pushover. And yet he takes all my sharp words and smooths them right out. If I’m going to stay here a long time, maybe I ought to fix this damn mouth of mine.
Watching that smile, Berneval felt a pang of guilt.
“Now that I’m a lord, huh? I oughta know things like this too. Look here. You see this hammer?”
Since the lord had treated him well, Berneval had decided to return the favor.
“My hammer’s dandanium too. It’s an alloy mixed with iron, though only lower-grade stuff. A hammer made of pure dandanium? Even old dwarves rarely get to see one, let alone anyone else.”
“Well, as long as it’s sturdy, that’s enough. My armor and helmet are alloys too, and I use them just fine. So, about the hammer?”
“I wandered off-topic. Which is harder, this hammer or my teeth?”
“Mm... the hammer, I’d say?”
“Exactly. Then if I were to bite this hammer with my teeth, what would happen? My teeth would crack to pieces, right?”
Though Ho-yeong flinched at the dwarven comparison, he still nodded.
“That means the hammer is harder than my teeth. And that rock you just smashed was weaker in hardness than the shield, so it broke apart. Do you follow me so far?”
Berneval lifted the hammer to face height.
“But just because some ore has high strength doesn’t mean it has high hardness, see?”
“Mister Berneval! What are you doing?!”
Ho-yeong gasped as he watched Berneval drag the hammer across his front teeth.
“Ah... huh?!”
A fresh scratch appeared on the hammer’s surface.
“See the mark? Even if the inside of my teeth is weaker than the hammer, the surface can still be harder enough to leave a scratch. In other words, my teeth have greater hardness than the hammer.”
“Oh, that’s fascinating.”
“Give it a try yourself. Anything’s best learned through hands-on testing. Might as well try it on your helmet.”
Ho-yeong removed his helmet and lightly scraped it with his front teeth, but no scratch appeared. Instead, he felt one of his teeth wobble slightly.
“Huh... I always thought human bones were weak, but even their teeth are nothing special.”
“Maybe dwarves are just unusually sturdy.”
“Anyway, do you get what I’m saying?”
“So strength means how durable the body itself is, and hardness means how tough the outer surface is?”
“That’s right. Exactly. Now you see? My hammer and your helmet are both made of dandanium, but because of their quality and alloying, their hardness is lower.”
Berneval picked up the shield he had set down.
“But this one’s hardness is just as impressive as its strength. Might even be tougher than dragon scales, for all I know.”
“Ha. Amazing. Dragon scales, huh? That’s some real scale. If monsters stick their teeth into it, they’ll be scaling it in no time. Let’s make armor too, then.”
Ho-yeong was thoroughly satisfied.
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