The Blacksmith and the Tender Master-Disciple Relationship (End)
"...A little...?"
My bewildered words echoed softly through the workshop.
Deidros's eyes widened, and he suddenly grabbed my shoulders.
"A little...? Why such an ambiguous answer...?"
"It's not that I can speak with all spirits... Ever since I touched the pendant, it's only been my master..."
Shaken by the shoulders, I rambled out a dizzy response.
"Your master?"
At my reply, Deidros stopped shaking me.
"...Yes, my master."
"And who might this master be? Ah, I mean to ask who the owner of this pendant was."
"...Her name is Lady Sierra."
"Sierra... Sierra... Ah, you mean the Purple Moon. So you were the disciple of the Purple Moon..."
Deidros seemed to remember her. He turned her name over in his mind before murmuring her epithet, the Purple Moon.
[How dare he utter This Lady's shameful moniker so carelessly... How utterly mortifying...]
Sierra, who had slipped out of the pendant once more, grumbled.
Spotting Sierra's translucent form, Deidros pointed at her and asked me,
"Could you perhaps tell me what she is saying right now?"
[Do not tell him under any circumstances, my disciple! This Lady has no desire to converse with such a fellow!]
Sierra shouted in response to Deidros's question. I briefly clutched my head at the sharp, piercing ring in my mind.
"...Uh, she says not to tell you."
"Ha, it seems Lady Sierra is quite shy. Come to think of it, I haven't asked for your name yet..."
"I am Zeto. I am Lady Sierra's first... and last disciple."
I introduced myself, extending my hand to him.
"Zeto... I have many names—Deidros, Gregor, Iserval... but since you came looking for Deidros, Deidros will suffice, yes?"
It was an introduction fitting for a dragon who had lived for centuries, weaving through the lives of countless personas.
With that, we shook hands.
"Her last disciple... I see. Your presence here must mean... her illness finally took her in the end."
Deidros was a being of immense age. Countless souls must have drifted through his memories... Perhaps because Sierra had once been so famous, once he recalled her, he began reciting even the finest details of her life.
[...]
As Deidros brought up her illness, a shadow fell over Sierra's face.
She must utterly loathe that disease—the very thing that had claimed her life and left her lingering with unresolved regrets.
"...Still, I consider it a great blessing that we can converse like this, even if only in this manner."
I replied to Deidros, offering a quiet comfort to Sierra at the same time.
"She was so active, and then she vanished without a trace... I assumed she had entered secluded meditation, but to think she was raising a disciple."
"She did enter secluded training. It was after she emerged that she met me and took me in."
"I never would have pegged her as the type to take a disciple, yet she kept you hidden away... Hahaha! Truly, one must live long to see everything."
Deidros muttered something like, "What an amusing picture," as he carried the materials over to a corner of his workshop.
Producing a fountain pen from somewhere, Deidros looked at me and spoke.
"...I haven't the slightest clue how you are able to converse with a spirit. You don't possess Divine Power, nor have you studied necromancy, have you?"
"Indeed. I don't have much of an explanation myself..."
There was only one thing that came to mind.
The blindfold. But I couldn't just casually reveal its existence to a dragon.
"To converse with a soul... even those with formidable Divine Power find it impossible. Unless, perhaps, one were the noble Saintess herself..."
"...Can a Saintess speak with spirits?"
I asked, trying to pry more information out of Deidros.
Having already laid the groundwork for a connection with the Saintess through my encounter with Antony and Emilia, I needed to seize this opportunity to confirm the facts.
"A Saintess... I haven't met the current one... Ah, my memory fails me as to which generation of Saintess she was..."
Deidros suddenly looked up at the ceiling, searching through the library of memories stacked deep within his mind.
"...It was a very long time ago. In those days, wicked things like Demon Blades plagued the land. I, too, was churning them out like mad. I was young back then, and watching the world descend into chaos was terribly entertaining."
Deidros was by no means a righteous being. Perhaps one could say he had matured now... seeing as he lived a relatively quiet life.
"One day, a Saintess barged in on me, leading her personal holy knights. She marched straight up to me and slapped me across the face. 'Do you feel no pity for these resentful souls, unable to even depart this world?' ...Yes, those were her exact words."
Deidros continued to recount his past. It was a story I had never heard even in the game, making it incredibly fascinating.
"That Saintess slapped me a few more times before finally bursting into tears. My cheek still smarts occasionally when I think of it. For a holy woman, she had a surprisingly heavy hand."
Deidros chuckled softly as he spoke, as if the emotions of that day were coming alive again as he retraced his memories.
"I asked the weeping Saintess if she was acting as their spokesperson. And do you know what she said? She told me that the moment she set foot here, the wails of the spirits pierced her ears. She begged me to stop..."
A single tear rolled down to the corner of Deidros's upturned lips.
Yet, he was not crying.
"From that day until her death... I did not forge another Demon Blade."
As I listened to his tale, a question arose.
"Um... it might not be my place to ask, but... if you have such a history, why are you making them again?"
At my question, Deidros brushed away his tear and replied,
"Haha! I suppose I'm throwing a bit of a tantrum... hoping that she might show up again one day to slap me once more."
With a hearty laugh, Deidros brought his trip down memory lane to an end.
Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Deidros began scribbling something on a piece of paper with his fountain pen.
After hearing his story, Deidros looked somewhat different to me.
Was this his own way of mourning her?
Or did he truly hope, against all odds, that she would miraculously return to him?
There was no way to know.
I could only acknowledge that he, too, carried his own burdens.
I had always thought Deidros was merely a mad dragon playing at being an artist.
...It seemed even I didn't know everything.
At the very least, thanks to Deidros, I had obtained the valuable piece of information that a Saintess could indeed communicate with spirits.
"So... was it your idea? To forge a Demon Blade."
Deidros suddenly looked up from his writing to ask.
"Yes. After my master passed and I touched the pendant, I could feel her soul. Our conversations began then as well..."
I gave Deidros a plausible excuse. Sierra, understanding the situation, remained quiet.
"And here I was expecting the madness of a human wishing to grow stronger, or some vain desire... But a tender... 'love' between master and disciple..."
"Love?"
I asked hastily, caught off guard by Deidros's sudden mention of love.
"Are there not many kinds of love? A disciple treasuring his master, and a master allowing herself to become a Demon Blade for her disciple's sake—is that not also a form of love? Have I misread this tale?"
"Hmm..."
Hearing Deidros's reasoning, I realized that from an outsider's perspective, it really could only be interpreted that way.
"Well, if you call it love, then I suppose it is."
I played along, keeping Deidros's romantic, artistic temperament in mind.
I figured a compelling story would motivate him to forge an even better Demon Blade.
Deidros nodded, thoroughly satisfied, but the actual subject of the story beside me didn't seem to handle it as well.
[H-Heuuu... My disciple... Even if it is a lie... This Lady finds this rather embarrassing...]
Sierra covered her face with her hands, parting her fingers slightly to peek at me through the gap.
Her face was strangely flushed.
How a mere spirit could blush was beyond my understanding.
"My, my... this will yield a true masterpiece. I love this story. The tender love between master and disciple. May I have the honor of writing this tale, Zeto?"
Having finished his notes, Deidros spread his arms wide like a theatrical actor and asked.
"As long as you forge it well, I do not mind."
"Of course! For a masterpiece like this, no expense shall be spared. Even if I must raid my own vault, I will bring this grand work to completion."
Deidros declared that he would open his vault—which meant a Gold Dragon's hoard.
Is my luck really this good...?
In game terms, this was the equivalent of triggering a "Great Success!" during crafting.
"That is wonderful news, Master."
Since Deidros already knew I could communicate with spirits, I spoke directly to Sierra.
"The more I look, the more wondrous it is. This bizarre power that defies explanation... Could it truly be the power of love?"
Watching me converse with Sierra, Deidros spouted some utter nonsense.
[...I-Indeed! It is the power of love! This Lady's first and last disciple! This Lady finally understands as well!]
Listening to Deidros's wild claims, Sierra seemed to have lost her mind as well, actually buying into the excuse I had fabricated. Her eyes were slightly unfocused as she spoke.
"Sigh... So, how long will it take?"
I asked, trying to steer the chaotic conversation back on track.
"A Demon Blade is special, so its forging process is naturally unique... Still, a week will be more than enough."
Fortunately, the crafting time for the Demon Blade was exactly as it had been in the game.
Not just Demon Blades, but other special custom weapons took at most a month.
I nodded to Deidros in agreement, stepped closer, and handed him the pouch of money from my coat.
"Here is five hundred gold."
It was the crafting fee.
In truth, to a dragon overflowing with wealth like Deidros, this amount of money held little value.
"Very well. I shall do my utmost so that you will never regret coming to me."
Deidros accepted the five hundred gold, not even bothering to count it.
I suppose he simply didn't want to work for free. To him, after all, this was about creating a piece of art.
Now, it was time to part with Sierra for a short while.
"I will return soon, Master."
I bowed my head to Sierra in farewell.
[Worry not. This Lady is well-accustomed to waiting. A mere week is but a fleeting moment to me.]
Sierra's dignified voice, accompanied by her proudly crossed arms, echoed in my mind.
Her tone was more than enough to reassure me.
"Then I shall see you in a week. It has been a long time since a project has filled me with such passion; I might even finish early."
Leaving Deidros's words behind, I stepped out of the workshop.
A week.
Would it feel long?
Finally, the Demon Blade is being made.
The week flew by in the blink of an eye.
With only a few days left until the Labyrinth opened, our classes were fully focused on lectures about it.
For me, already intimately familiar with the Labyrinth's mechanics, the classes were nothing but tedious.
Nothing particularly special happened over the course of the week. At most, I occasionally had meals with Yuri.
As time passed, I made my way back to Deidros's mansion.
The path there and the barrier surrounding the estate were exactly the same as before, but the only difference was that Sierra was no longer floating by my side.
Sierra would be inside this mansion.
*Knock, knock.*
I knocked on the mansion door.
But this time, instead of a quiet approach, heavy, hurried thuds echoed from deep within before the door swung open abruptly.
"You've finally arrived!"
Deidros greeted me with a radiant face. Seeing him after a week, he was incredibly excited.
"...It has been a while."
I followed Deidros inside.
"Ah, yes! The Demon Blade was completed yesterday. Truly... I have forged many Demon Blades in my time, but this experience was by far the greatest."
Deidros gushed in an ecstatic voice, unable to contain his excitement.
Did it turn out that well...?
I scratched my head as I walked behind him.
"First, it is best to see it for yourself. Ah, though in your case, rather than seeing... you will have to feel it to know."
Deidros rambled on, clearly overjoyed.
Soon, we arrived before a door that looked exceptionally luxurious, even for this mansion.
"This room is normally reserved for esteemed guests, though you are far more than just a guest to me now. I almost feel apologetic that it is so humble. Of course, it may all feel the same to you, but please understand that I care about these details."
"Haha, I do not mind at all."
Having finished his rambling, Deidros opened the door.
True to its purpose, the room boasted an incredibly lavish interior.
Amidst the high-end furniture and beautiful paintings, there she stood.
Sierra.
Her figure standing in the room was like a masterpiece of a painting.
Her long, flowing, ink-black hair and mysterious violet eyes remained unchanged, but...
Perhaps because the vessel housing her soul had changed, her attire was different.
The crimson Eastern-style robes suited her wonderfully, lending her an air of refined elegance.
Yet, the level of exposure remained the same.
Her cleavage and shoulders were still prominently revealed.
[My disciple.]
"..."
With a shy voice, Sierra stepped forward and embraced me.
Watching us, Deidros smirked, shrugged his shoulders, and let out a comment.
"Ha, an embrace the moment you reunite... even though you cannot touch..."
Contrary to Deidros's belief, I could actually feel her.
Sierra hugged me so tightly that her overwhelmingly large, soft breasts pressed completely against me.
[Perhaps a week... was a bit too long...]
I didn't know about anything else, but I was suffocating.