Meeting Is Always Sudden
Gulp, gulp—
Bang!
“Graaah…!”
The dwarf Brondein slammed his beer mug down with such force it seemed the table might split in two.
The last of the beer still in the cup sprayed into the air.
There was no way to put into words the clean, sharp bliss of a mug of beer after a hard day’s work.
And for him, having sweated through labor in a place hot enough to make his skin sting, a chilled beer felt no different from some precious elixir or rare miracle tonic.
Not that he had ever actually tasted an elixir.
He brushed the foam from his beard with visible regret and let the exhaustion of his hard life slip out of him in a long sigh.
Then Brondein lifted the mug and poured the rest of the beer down his throat in one go.
“Haaah, can’t take it anymore…!”
Even that wasn’t enough to satisfy him. In the end, he pulled another bottle of beer from his third treasured possession—the cooling magic tool—and only after drinking that too did he finally let out a contented breath.
For the record, his first treasure was the forge, and his second was the hammer.
“Now that’s how drink should be. Fruit, weeds, and all that other rubbish they toss into it—what’s supposed to be so tasty about that…?”
Tch. Tsk, tsk.
Brondein clicked his tongue and, as always, decided he could never understand the tastes of those pointy-eared fools.
Creak.
“Oh, Master! You’re out! You worked hard!”
As he was grumbling about elves as usual, savoring the lingering taste of beer in his mouth, someone opened the workshop door and came in.
The young man, his bare upper body shining with sweat, greeted Brondein warmly and called him Master.
Unlike Brondein’s short, compact build, the youth had long arms and legs.
“Master, my foot…. I only taught you because I didn’t like the way you handled a hammer!”
Even as he said it, there was no real displeasure on Brondein’s face.
“Hahaha! Quite right! I’d never claim to be Master’s disciple with skill this poor!”
“Hmph. At least you know it. Still, you’re a stubborn one for a human. If you keep at it the way you have been, you might someday be worth a dwarf’s share of work.”
It was a gruff remark, but one with a warmth hidden deep inside it.
Dwarves were not especially fond of taking on disciples from other races.
Dwarves could endure the blazing heat and relentless strain of the forge because they had rugged, powerful muscles and tough skin built to withstand it; for other races, it was all but impossible.
Humans, at least, were better than most.
The young man, laughing heartily as he looked at Brondein, set down the box tucked under his arm.
“By the way, Master, what is this?”
“Hm? Did I not tell you before?”
“I’m not sure.”
“It’s a Dragon Orb.”
Carefully, Brondein opened the lid of the box.
His hands, usually rough and heavy, were unusually cautious now.
Inside the box lay a golden gem.
Brondein and the youth both gasped at the sight of the gold radiance leaking through the fine cloth.
“Ooh…!”
“A Dragon Orb…!”
Brondein reached out with trembling fingers, then yanked his hand back at once, afraid he might somehow damage it.
He looked down at it with shining eyes.
“So I’m actually going to get to touch this thing….”
“Is this your first time too, Master?”
“Hah! Do you think this is the sort of thing you can just decide you want and go get?”
Brondein barked the words out.
A Dragon Orb.
It was the name given to a highly rare gemstone found near dragon lairs.
It would not break easily under ordinary impact, and because it had been exposed to a dragon’s mana for decades—perhaps even centuries—its sensitivity to mana and its capacity to hold it were astonishingly high.
What’s more, the Dragon Orb had another unique property.
Its color changed depending on what kind of dragon had influenced it.
An orb found near a Red Dragon’s lair would be red, one found near a Blue Dragon’s lair would be blue, and so on.
In other words, the golden Dragon Orb they were looking at now had clearly been influenced by a Gold Dragon.
That alone satisfied the aesthetic sense of anyone who saw it.
There were countless people who wanted a Dragon Orb.
The only problem was that supply was nowhere near enough to meet demand.
“Found near a dragon’s lair” also meant, in plain terms, that one had to enter dragon territory.
A dragon that cherished its own possessions to an absurd degree was hardly likely to welcome intruders into its domain, which meant stepping into a dragon’s territory was practically a suicide mission.
And even if one somehow managed to set foot inside that territory, there was still no guarantee of finding a Dragon Orb at all.
So of course supply was scarce, and since it could not come anywhere close to matching demand, the price had shot into the stratosphere.
“I couldn’t afford to buy one, and even if I had, with my old skill I’d only have ruined it by touching it, so I gave up.”
The time he had regretted it most was when he’d missed out on a red Dragon Orb.
It had been a particularly pure specimen among orbs, one every dwarf with a craftsman’s spirit had drooled over.
As he licked his lips, recalling that still-vivid crimson glow, Brondein suddenly narrowed his eyes.
“But… you seem oddly familiar, boy.”
Flinch.
“Hah, haha, hahaha! N-no, that can’t be.”
At Brondein’s remark, the young man jerked.
“C-cough! It’s just that I still can’t believe there’s a Dragon Orb right in front of me.”
“Hmm… well, I suppose that makes sense.”
At the youth’s words, Brondein nodded.
The young man quietly let out a breath of relief, but Brondein had already turned his attention back to the orb and didn’t notice a thing.
“By the way, Master. What are you planning to make with it?”
“No idea.”
“Huh? You didn’t buy it without a plan, did you?”
“I did not….”
Brondein stroked his bushy beard.
“If I missed this chance, I had no idea how many years I’d be waiting for the next one, so I bought it first. Thanks to that, I’m broke for a while.”
In a single phrase, it was an impulse buy.
Since it was a gem no craftsman could ever dream of touching, he had no regrets—but it was also true that he’d have to tighten his belt for a while.
He closed the box lid again.
“You. Go up the mountain tomorrow and come back.”
“Huh? The mountain?”
“Yeah. Go fetch me some tools.”
Working a Dragon Orb was impossible with ordinary tools.
He had no immediate plan for it, but sooner or later he would have to work it, so he figured he might as well prepare in advance.
The youth’s face fell at the sudden hiking expedition.
But a master’s word was absolute law.
“…Understood.”
And so he could only contort his handsome face into a miserable grimace and accept his master’s command.
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A city at the mountain pass where the Great Mountain Range truly began.
Valtora.
We had arrived there.
“Ooh….”
Walking through the city walls, which looked sturdy and finely built down to the smallest detail, Daeun let out a soft murmur of admiration as she looked around.
“Wherever I look, dwarves. And over there, dwarves too. And over there it’s humans. …Huh? Humans?”
Then she tilted her head.
“This was supposed to be a city of dwarves, right?”
“Right. Valtora.”
“Then why are there so many humans? I mean, there are more dwarves, but still….”
“Do humans not belong here or something?”
“Th-that’s not what I meant, and you know it!”
Daeun smoothly sidestepped the crisis of nearly becoming a species chauvinist.
“Valtora is a city of dwarves, but it isn’t their homeland. Their true home, their native land, is the Great Mountain Range over there.”
Valtora had been built for trade and exchange, so there was nothing strange about seeing other races here.
Except for elves, whose relationship with dwarves was appallingly bad.
Dwarves were exceptional artisans.
Even if the blade was the same, if it had the prefix made by a dwarf attached to it, the price could jump two or three times over; that was how widely respected their skill was by every race.
Even elves, who hated dwarves enough to want nothing more than to kill them, grudgingly acknowledged the quality of dwarven craftsmanship.
From small ornaments to weapons and armor, and even architecture.
When it came to making things, dwarves possessed a gift that seemed almost innate.
They did have one flaw, though.
“Dwarves aren’t very good with magic.”
So while they could hammer out sturdy goods and build solid structures, they could not inscribe those things with magic.
If they had also been able to handle magic, then after the First Race War, the elves might have been erased from the Ardeena Continent altogether.
The one exception was earth-aspect magic, but even that was hard to call exceptional skill.
Could such beings make magic tools?
Obviously, the answer was no.
Making a magic tool required not just deft hands, but also excellent magical ability.
After hearing all that, Daeun clapped her hands together.
“Ah! So dwarves make the frame that holds the magic, and humans bestow the spell onto that frame afterward.”
“Exactly. That’s right.”
For that reason, there were quite a few humans living in Valtora.
Even without that, there would have been people who came to buy useful goods, and others who came for trade.
“Kana knows so much…. You must have studied hard. How admirable!”
“N-no… that’s not it.”
“Hm?”
I hadn’t exactly studied, and I hadn’t wanted to know these things in the first place.
The only reason I knew them was because of Garid.
“Kana, once Grasis settles down a little, how about we go traveling together someday?”
“Traveling?”
“Yeah. We’d go all over the continent. We could visit the Holy Kingdom, stop by the great forest of Nadiron, see Valtora… and by then maybe we’ll even be able to go to the Empire, so we’d visit the imperial capital too. What do you think? Doesn’t that sound exciting just imagining it?”
“...Do we have to? I think staying home sounds more exciting.”
“If you’re going to say it’s exciting, at least change your expression when you say it.”
...Something like that.
Thanks to all his rambling beside me, I ended up knowing a lot of things I’d never cared to learn.
Especially about Valtora—Garid had even come here himself once, so he’d described it with even more vivid detail.
But that aside, I needed to find a decent craftsman now….
Heat rolled out from the long rows of buildings.
Feeling the warmth flooding across my face, I looked around.
Of course I didn’t know any artisans here, so I had no choice but to inspect them one by one and search.
There was one craftsman I wanted to find, but I didn’t know his name or even what he looked like, so I gave up on that idea early.
“I’m sorry, but would it be all right if I went off on my own for a while?”
“I don’t mind, but… is something wrong?”
“Since we’ve come all this way, I wanted to stop by the temple here. I’m going to head to the temple and ask whether they have a room where our party can stay, so take your time and handle your business.”
“Huh… wouldn’t it be too much of a burden to stay at the temple again?”
“Heh. Not at all. I think they’ll actually be glad.”
Celine said she’d go on ahead and disappeared.
After hearing her intentions relayed through Daeun, I nodded calmly.
She wasn’t off causing trouble, and if she wanted to wait at the temple, there was no reason to stop her.
“Then should we take a little look around first?”
“Look around for what?”
I grabbed Daeun, whose eyes had begun to sparkle with interest.
“We’re here to work.”
“W-work? Work doing what?”
“Finding a skilled artisan.”
Then I dragged her along toward the nearest forge.
“N-nooooo!”
I ignored Daeun’s long, drawn-out scream.
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