The Blacksmith's Ascension
The blacksmith snorted as if he found it amusing.
“A Unique enhancement is as expensive as every Blood Crystal I’ve gathered over an eternity.”
“……”
“But you look like you’ve got what it takes to climb higher, so I’ll put it on your tab if you can’t pay right now.”
There was a subtle air of generosity in the way he laid out the terms of the deal. Minel had no intention of taking on an astronomical debt.
“It’s fine. I’ll look for another blacksmith.”
“There’s no other blacksmith who can enhance this item besides me. Finding a smith as skilled as I am is next to impossible.”
“I’ll find one on the upper floors.”
“……”
“In the end, every answer is up above.”
The truth of the Backrooms that Balan had told him. It was an absolute law that applied even to NPCs.
Hina realized it then. Minel had first sounded out the blacksmith’s position, then flipped it around until the blacksmith himself was the one who wanted to perform the enhancement. Minel’s eyes were unwavering and resolute, while the blacksmith’s pupils trembled without end.
The war of nerves did not last long. The one in a hurry was the blacksmith, after all.
“Fine. I’ll do everything free of charge, all the way to the finish.”
“Think you can handle it?”
“I’ve done nothing but enhance for eons. Unique is a first, but the principle is all the same.”
Confidence that he could do it even though he had never tried. It seemed some absolute law permitted only to beings like NPCs underpinned that certainty.
“Enhance one more thing first.”
“What?”
Minel glanced at Hina. Catching his meaning, she quickly undid her rubber bracelet and handed it to the blacksmith. The blacksmith gritted his teeth and glared at Minel. Minel simply stared back with a shameless expression.
In the end, the blacksmith let out a light sigh. Then he raised his hammer and enhanced Hina’s rubber bracelet as well.
“Done. Level 3.”
“Good.”
When Minel nodded, the blacksmith closed his eyes. His hands, moving like spider legs, drew out countless tools. After a stretch of deliberation, he finally picked up two small hammers—two hammers so shabby they could not compare to the one he had used earlier when enhancing the Rare firearm Digital Vein.
The blacksmith set the two bones atop each weapon, took a deep breath, and struck them both gently at the same time.
Thoom—! Thoom—!
A massive impact sound rolled down the corridor. The entire Backrooms shook as if in an earthquake. Minel steadied his footing against the tremors and watched the weapons. The powdered thigh bones slowly seeped into Silence and Noise, and with them a brilliant light erupted.
“Kkuh……”
In a flash of pain as if his eyes were burning, Minel turned his head and clenched his teeth.
“Are you okay?”
“Are you all right?”
Hina and Chori’s worried voices reached him. Was this enhancement also treated as a Mystery of the Backrooms? Yet strangely, the two of them looked fine.
“I-I’m fine…… Hoo…… Huh?”
When Minel opened his eyes, the sight before him left him speechless. Seeing his expression, Hina and Chori turned their heads as well.
The place where the blacksmith had been was empty.
“H-he’s gone!”
“H-grandpa?”
Fortunately, Silence and Noise remained right in front of them. Minel hurriedly picked up both weapons. The feel of them in his hands was no different from before.
Could it be…… had the enhancement failed?
Minel quickly pulled out the Backrooms Codex and checked the contents.
Level:X+1
Grade:Unique
Special Effect: The blade never dulls, and the gun requires no ammunition. Rather than conventional enhancement, the level is determined by the floor reached.
A dual-wield set consisting of the cold weapon Silence and the firearm Noise. Ordinary when used separately, but their power rises dramatically when used together.
The only difference was that it had changed from X to X+1. Considering a level 3 gun had pierced bullet immunity, a single level difference seemed significant. But then again, it had been uselessly blocked by level 10 armor, so maybe it did not mean much. Had he simply wasted the thigh bone—another Unique item—for nothing?
Doubt was creeping up when Hina shouted.
“There’s something left where the blacksmith was.”
The three of them approached without hesitation. There lay a hammer small enough to fit in one hand. Its surface was smooth, forged of solid iron, the color deep as ink, and patterns seemed to writhe across it.
“I guess grandpa left it behind.”
When Chori spoke carefully, Minel reached out and picked up the hammer. Without hesitation he opened the Backrooms Codex. The pages turned of their own accord, as if swallowing the wind.
◈ A Rare item left behind by the ascended blacksmith; the faint sound of metal being scraped still lingers on its surface.
◈ Blood Crystals can be consumed to perform Normal enhancements, but enhancement beyond the current floor’s level is impossible without a blacksmith.
An item left by the blacksmith, huh. No specific level since it wasn’t a weapon? Being limited to Normal enhancement was a little disappointing. Still, with this alone, he probably wouldn’t need to seek out blacksmiths anymore.
As Minel casually stored it in his inventory, Chori looked up at him with a peculiar gaze—like a child at a baseball stadium watching someone who’d caught a home-run ball, half envious and half curious.
“‘Gimme’ is a bad habit.”
“Huh?”
Beside them, Hina asked carefully.
“Minel…… don’t you already have all the weapons you need?”
“So?”
“……”
The one who had caused the blacksmith to ascend was Minel’s Unique item enhancement. Chori’s contribution had been little more than guiding the way. Knowing this well, Chori could not say more and hung her head low.
Yet a peculiar shadow fell over Chori’s face. It was not simply disappointment at not receiving a good item. It was the sense of loss at missing the legacy of someone long known. The image of Chori calling the blacksmith “grandpa” suddenly came to mind. In the Backrooms where no one could be trusted, what the blacksmith who was always in the same place had meant to Chori was easy to imagine.
“Were you close?”
Chori seemed to choke up for a moment, but held it in and continued.
“Yes. But to just leave like that without even saying goodbye……”
The blacksmith was probably a being close to an NPC. His relationship with Chori might have been the formal one of an NPC toward a customer. But young Chori had no capacity to distinguish such things. To Chori, any relationship itself would have been precious. Perhaps for those ten years, it had been a single ray of light. The Backrooms was a place where even an NPC’s mechanical warmth could be a comfort.
Of course, even so, it had nothing to do with Minel. But Hina’s gaze upon him bothered him more than it should have. Exactly. Just like Suye.
Minel took the hammer back out of his inventory.
“Take it.”
“Y-you’re really giving it to me?”
“Yeah.”
Chori quickly accepted the hammer. Tears quickly welled in the eyes that looked at it. Hina smiled and asked Minel.
“What’s gotten into you?”
In Minel’s mind, a longed-for voice echoed—the only person besides his father who could influence him.
“Still, I hope Minel will at least be good to the kids. Not because kids are good, but because they’re weak.”
“Because I think Suye would tell me to.”
“Ah……”
Hina had heard the name “Suye” a few times in Minel’s sleep-talk. There had been no clear mention, but she had long since figured out that Suye was Minel’s lover.
Chori hugged the Blacksmith’s Hammer tightly for a while.
“Thank you so much, Big Brother Minel.”
Deep sorrow sat in those tear-filled eyes. But then Chori’s eyes suddenly went wide as a full moon.
“Ah……”
“What is it?”
She stayed still for a while, then looked down at the Blacksmith’s Hammer and murmured.
“It says I can enhance things if I have Blood Crystals.”
“Right away?”
“Yes! B-but…… the level is only possible up to the current floor.”
So they would have to reach the 4th floor for it to mean anything. Then Hina asked.
“How do you know that?”
“I can hear a voice. From inside the hammer.”
“……”
Just as Minel was about to ask more, a person suddenly burst out from a far corner. The person’s entire body was blackened and charred, looking like a black log walking around. Even now their limbs kept twitching as if they had epilepsy.
“A-Minel! Y-you’re alive too, after all. I f-followed the marks just in case!”
Only upon hearing the voice did Minel realize who the man was. It was none other than Miller. He recalled the earlier talk of tracking marks left by party members. The marks carved then must still remain.
Minel quietly raised Noise and aimed it at him. Miller made an absurd face.
“W-what? Did you forget our promise? Huh? Suddenly siding with that Chori bitch? Huh?”
Unable to even focus his eyes properly and with his body still trembling, he looked far from normal. Minel said quietly.
“There were conditions.”
“……”
“I saved Hina myself.”
In that instant Miller’s face went blank. Minel’s condition had been that if Miller cooperated in saving Hina, Minel would cooperate in capturing Chori. Miller had contributed nothing, and Hina hadn’t really been in danger to begin with. Chori’s Mother had instead saved Chori and Hina from the Shocker, which hadn’t matched Miller’s explanation from the start.
Miller’s eyes curved like crescent moons, then his face began to tremble little by little. Then he threw his head back and began to laugh so hard the entire Backrooms seemed about to shatter.
“Kihhihihik! Hihihihik! Kihhihihik! Hihihihik! Hihihihik! Hihihihik!”
A smile full of madness. Hina and Chori stepped back, but Minel instead took a step forward and positioned himself as if protecting them.
Still laughing wildly, Miller suddenly dropped to his knees right there. Then he raised both hands and began to clutch and squeeze his own head.
“Kihhihihik! Hihihihik! Hihihihik! Hihihihik!”
Both eyeballs began to bulge halfway out, and drool streamed from his mouth. Even so, with tremendous force he beat and clawed at his head, his whole body shuddering. Then suddenly his head began to swell like a balloon. In an instant it grew two or three times larger, turning him into something like an alien from a movie.
“Ugh ugh……”
“W-w-what is that?”
Minel wanted to pull out the Backrooms Codex and read it at once, but his instincts told him never to take his eyes off Miller.
“Back away slowly.”
Fortunately, the direction of Chori’s House and the direction Miller had appeared from were different. The three slowly stepped backward, putting distance from Miller, while Miller only continued to scream with madness and thrash his own head.
Like that they slowly reached the corner, and Minel sent the two ahead toward the house first. Just as he was about to turn as well, Miller’s entire body suddenly stopped, and right there his head exploded.
Bang—!
Brain fluid spraying throughout the entire corridor. That liquid was a deep blue that could never be found in a human body. It was a nauseating sight, but fearing some other strange event might occur, he didn’t look away and kept watching. Fortunately nothing else strange happened.
“What the hell……”
He turned and went through the door that Hina and Chori had already opened and were waiting at.
“Are you okay?”
“What happened?”
Once inside, the two asked at once. Minel shook his head and said.
“He’s dead.”
“……”
“……”
“Let’s go.”
When the two nodded and led the way, Minel took out the Backrooms Codex.
NAME:Madman
A Madman is a mutated spirit born when a Mystery that overwhelms a person contaminates the mind; they typically have a head two or three times larger than a human’s. This head explodes only from mental stress, scattering brain matter contaminated by Mystery.
“Sp……irit?”
A word he’d never seen before. Was it something like a monster? Or something else entirely?
Minel suppressed the curiosity welling up and followed after Hina and Chori.