Kobolds Love Jewels (2)

Whoa. She really should not drink any more of that.

Someone from my past floated up in my mind — the sort who used to bellow I'm not drunk yet!!! at the top of their lungs while pouring liquor down their throat with no beginning and no end. Absolutely not me. Obviously.

Anyway, drink like that without a single thought for your limit, and the odds were excellent you'd write yourself a chapter of pure black history.

Before I had a chance to stop her, Eline slammed the whole thing back in one shot.

"Ghk—"

Her face had gone tomato-red, as if one prick of a needle would pop it. Not that any of it put so much as a scratch on how beautiful she was.

"Melanin was a good kid."

So her friend's name had been Melanin. Eline and Melanin — the names sat close together. Live in Korea with names like that, and they would have been teased within an inch of their lives. No question.

"She went out to pick flowers for her parents, and then..."

Right. She'd gone a little farther from the village than usual, chasing some rare blossom, and disaster had found her.

"Hell of a shame."

"It is. The village elders went after him, but in the end they lost him."

"The goblin lord?"

"Mm."

The elven village, she'd told me, lay somewhere in the Great Forest. The moment the goblin lord barely scraped his way out of it, the elves abandoned the chase. So not leaving the Great Forest mattered more than pursuing the one who had murdered their own?

I couldn't honestly say I understood. They weren't human. They were elves. Nothing for it but to let the matter lie.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, she ordered a fresh beer, knocked it back in one shot again, and shouted.

Burning over that fact, Eline said, she had slipped out of the village in secret. By rights you had to be at least two hundred years old before you so much as earned the minimum qualification to leave. Or something to that effect.

Bang— bang— bang—. At last Eline started hammering the table with her empty beer mug.

Creeeak— An ominous sound crawled out of the table, and every eye in the place locked onto us. This was a guild inn. Nothing good ever came of raising your voice in a place like this, and cold sweat was already starting to run.

"Hey. You're drunk. Let's get you to bed."

"I am nooot!!! Not!! Drunk!!!!!!!!"

From now on, Eline does not get a lot of alcohol.

Thanks to having become a mana user, I somehow managed to hoist the thrashing woman onto my back.

"Aigoo, I'm sorry. It's her first time drinking."

"Well now. Looks like your girlfriend's been through something rough. You comfort her proper, you hear."

Apologizing to everyone in earshot, I climbed to the second floor.

"Hey. Which room is yours?"

"Mmmn..."

She could barely get a word out. I got the door open anyway and tossed her onto the bed.

"Ugh. I think I'm gonna throw up."

"Sleep it off."

I'd had more than enough, and I was about to escape that room as fast as my feet would carry me when—

"Goat!! Where are you going!!!"

Eline started pounding the mattress beside her.

"Sleep here."

The bed was cramped at a glance, and she'd been drinking on top of that, so her sleeping habits were guaranteed to be vile. It would not even be strange if she threw up on my face in the middle of the night.

"Knock yourself out."

I fled without looking back.

"@#$!—!! @#$!@#!!"

Eline's howl chased after me, and I ignored it without effort.

The next day I woke late, washed in a hurry, and stepped out of my room — just in time to catch Eline on her way downstairs.

"You're up."

At the sound of my voice she flinched, then turned to look at me.

"Goat..."

"You remember last night?"

Her face went red at a terrifying speed. So she remembered, then.

"Forget yesterday."

"A thing like that~ I would never~"

"Forget it."

"Yessir."

She'd sensed the killing intent.

"Anyway, I'm off to buy a shield. What about you?"

"Shopping together is boring. I'll go out and swing a sword for a while."

Her stomach still hadn't settled, so she meant to sweat it out with some bladework. Hangover swordsmanship, was that the idea?

"Fine. When you get back, let's eat dinner."

"Got it."

At the guild, Eline took a request and left ahead of me. Her expression still wasn't good. For all I knew, she'd throw up while she was carving a monster apart. Missing that spectacle was a shame, but what was I supposed to do about it?

I walked up to the receptionist.

"How may I help you?"

"Ah, yes. The thing is, I'd like to buy some dwarven-made weapons. Where would I go for that?"

Without quite meaning to, I leaned in and lowered my voice. It ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠felt something like holding a first-prize lottery ticket. I simply did not want anyone else overhearing.

"Do you have a ticket?"

"Yes. Here."

I fumbled the ticket out and showed it, and the receptionist nodded.

"Confirmed. Fortunately, the Gent domain has a smithy that handles dwarven-made weapons. Please keep in mind, however, that the establishment is not under contract with the guild."

The receptionist kindly walked me through the location as well, and I left the guild.

The sky was clear as hell. Almost as if it were promising me a wide-open future.

I left the square and headed for the spot I'd been given, and a shop flying a red flag came into view. Gear of every kind was on display out front. A smithy, no question. I opened the door, and a bright chime welcomed me.

Ding—

"Anyone here?"

The place was fairly large. It even looked as though the smithy owned the second floor. For a building that size, the inside was quiet.

"Welcome to the Red Anvil Smithy!! What are you looking for?"

"I came to buy a shield."

"Of course! I'll show you where they are!"

"Ah, one moment."

Blurt out that I wanted a dwarven shield with no preamble, and I might well get a you? for my trouble. I took out the ticket.

"Would dwarven-made be possible?"

The clerk's eyes widened a little at the sight of it.

"Oh, a ticket holder. Young as you are, your ability must be considerable. I'll show you the dwarven pieces on the second floor."

As expected. The treatment changed on the spot. He'd been polite before, too, but now it felt almost careful.

"If anything comes to mind while you're looking, call me anytime."

With that, the clerk dipped his head and went to stand off in a corner. So he knew young male customers hated being chatted up from the side.

I had no interest in the other weapons, so I went straight to the shields.

"Damn..."

Every piece looked outrageously fine. This was not ordinary stock. You could tell at a glance.

Nothing but the prices was written down, so I'd have to ask the clerk.

"Could you tell me about these bucklers?"

As if he'd been waiting for exactly that, the clerk came over at a trot and launched into his explanation.

"Every shield on display is made, at base, from an alloy of Legendarium — the metal they call the metal of the gods."

According to him, the five- and seven-gold shields were Legendarium alloyed with steel, while the ten-gold piece ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was mixed with a special metal instead of steel.

Legendarium, roughly speaking, was a metal with no electrical resistance. Ordinarily, if you tried to settle mana into a weapon, less than half of what you poured in actually stayed. Mana resistance was that savage. Legendarium was different. Pure Legendarium was immensely tough, and it had no mana resistance at all. In other words, these things were no different from superconductor shields.

And among anyone worth their salt, there wasn't a single person who didn't use Legendarium gear. That said it all.

"Hmm. Either the five-gold, or the ten."

Buy the five for the value, or the ten with the intention of using it for the rest of my life?

"The more expensive piece is set ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠apart by mana acceptance that utterly outclasses the others."

"The Legendarium ratio is far higher, too, and the craftsman put a special bit of extra work into it," the clerk whispered.

This man knew how to sell. On the strength of that, I boldly decided to invest the ten gold.

If I hadn't known how to use mana, the cheapest would have been enough. But I was a mana user now, wasn't I? I'd buy the expensive one, on the principle that I'd earn it back.

"I'll take this one."

"An excellent choice."

I finished paying, stepped outside, and looked the shield over from every angle.

For something made of alloy, it was light enough to make the material feel like a lie. That deep, luxurious ink-black, and those golden waves radiating from the boss like a sun — I felt as if I'd become a warrior of the sun. The design alone struck a chord deep in my chest.

"Who am I? Owner of dwarven gear."

I murmured it, and though my purse was light, my heart was anything but. Might as well ride this momentum straight to the training school.

The adventurer named Wilson had clearly piled up a fair amount of money. Imagine opening a training school on the square — the yolk of a bustling city, the choicest land there was. The nameplate fixed to the door of that spacious ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠building, reading Wilson, made an impression.

I was just about to open the door when—

"Gyaaaaaaah—!!!"

"Eek!!! Run!!!"

And wouldn't you know it — several people came bursting out from inside.

They'd come to a training school to learn shieldwork, and now they were sprinting away empty-handed. They looked thoroughly unhinged.

What the hell?

The air was wrong. Their reaction was exactly what you'd expect from people who'd just seen an orc in there. I was no longer sure I'd come to the right place. What if I walked in and got hazed under the excuse of training?

Even so, Mr. Axel would not have recommended the place for nothing. I at least had to step inside.

Clutching a heart hammering with nerves, I opened the door.