Accept the New Recruit (6)

Adam felt like he was losing his mind.

The stares of the dwarves surrounding him weren't the problem. A true master craftsman, after all, was not supposed to be rattled by a mere audience.

The real problem was the relentless barrage of backseat coaching pouring down on him!

"No… that, that… huuuh…"

"Tsk. Why would he do it like that? Heh heh… no, that's not it."

"Oh my! Oh dear… if you do that there… oof!"

Every swing of Adam's hammer drew a fresh comment from the dwarves. Their reasons for sighing were all different—the angle of the hammer was wrong, the speed was inconsistent, the point of impact was off…

Adam couldn't bring himself to say it out loud, so he screamed inside his head.

Wh-where exactly is the impact point off?! The impact point has been consistent this whole time!

Adam was certain he was hammering the heated metal with a steady point of impact, a steady angle, and a steady force. But to the dwarves' eyes, Adam looked like pure amateur hour.

Clang—! Clang—! Clang—!

He hammered the heated metal thin, spread it out, heated it again, and hammered once more. After several rounds of this process, the metal had become as thin as paper.

Adam looked down at the thinly spread metal with a proud expression. The dwarves' constant nagging from the sidelines had tried to break his concentration, but he had refused to buckle and produced a result he could be satisfied with.

"Ha, haha! How about that?"

Adam's question was brimming with confidence. The dwarves' expressions, however, were nothing short of complicated.

How to put it…

"Weeell… hmm…"

"Well, sure. Not bad."

"For a first try, that's pretty good. Looks like you've got potential going forward."

It was the look adults give a child's wild scribble of a drawing, or the face a professor makes when first receiving a college student's assignment.

The dwarves wore expressions too delicate to put into words. Seeing them, Adam felt a sudden, unwelcome unease. In all his life he had never once doubted his own skill—so what was this reaction supposed to mean?

"Kid, you done?"

"Yes!"

Bran's call. Adam turned around with confidence, holding the paper-thin sheet of iron. No matter how much they were the god's own workers, before a result this thin—

"Ah…?"

What Adam saw was a cloth that shimmered with the sheen of steel. The iron plate Bran held was so impossibly thin it fluttered. It was so fine it billowed like silk, swaying gently in the breeze of Bran's own breath.

It looked as though metal itself had been woven into silk.

"Bran! What the hell is this?! Even if your opponent is the new kid, this is a total mess!"

"Haha, I'm embarrassed, I really am… Knowing I wasn't the youngest anymore made me a little nervous, you know. Embarrassing stuff."

"Even so! How can you produce something this sloppy?! You're embarrassing yourself in front of the kid! Tch!! Give me that hammer!!"

"Aw, awkward…"

Opus Fallac seemed thoroughly displeased with Bran's result. He snatched the hammer away, pulled out another piece of metal, and began hammering it with abandon.

Th-that is…

Adam could not tear his eyes away from Opus Fallac's hammer as it danced through the air like a thing possessed.

The hammer striking the iron without hesitation. The back and arm muscles that coiled as if in fury, hard as cast iron itself. With the roaring fire before him, Opus Fallac's silhouette from behind was the blacksmith of myth made flesh.

He hammered the metal to its limit, heated it again, and spread it thinner still. Soft sounds of admiration rose from the surrounding dwarves.

"As expected of Big Brother… He got promoted after receiving a blessing not long ago, didn't he? The presence on him is something else."

"I heard his beard got way longer after the promotion too. I'm jealous of Big Brother."

After a long stretch of hammering, Opus Fallac's hands came to a sudden stop. Something sat on the anvil, steam rising from it in lazy curls, radiating presence.

Opus Fallac casually picked it up with his bare hand, dunked it in water, and pulled it out.

"You should've at least managed something this basic!"

In Opus Fallac's hand was a slender bundle of thread.

No—not thread. He had hammered metal until it was as fine and thin as thread.

It swayed limply from his hand, light as air, every ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠bit the image of real thread. He had drawn it so fine and thin that you could weave the strands densely enough to make clothing from it.

Adam's eyes went wide at the metal spun into thread. That was something beyond the realm of ordinary forging.

"Good thing this was just a bet—if you'd made an offering like that, I wouldn't have let it slide!"

"Come on, Brother. When it counts, I'm a dwarf who does things properly."

Adam looked down at his own metal plate.

What he had made was a metal sheet as thin as paper. He had been certain it could not be made any thinner. And now a result that shattered his common sense sat right in front of him.

As Adam stood there in a daze, the dwarves began drifting over one by one, chattering away.

"Kid, I wasn't watching too closely, but—wellll, when you were hammering, your elbow was wobbling a lot. You'd do better if you loosened up your shoulders more."

"Right! And your hammer's impact point kept drifting!"

"The power coming through your hips seemed a bit lacking too…"

"Heh… heh heh…"

Adam let out a hollow laugh.

It stung. This had been a bet staked on the pride of Master Craftsman Adam—and he had lost with no room for argument.

And yet he was glad.

Because as Blacksmith Adam, he could see the path of growth stretching ahead of him.

"…From now on…"

"Huh? Kid, what was that?"

"From now on! I will learn even harder! If you'll just teach me, I'll give it everything I've got!"

Forgetting his age entirely, Adam shouted with raw passion. Then he bowed deeply toward the dwarves. The faces of the dwarves watching him bend at the waist brightened.

Among themselves, the dwarves' skills were all more or less the same, so they had never taught each other or offered coaching. The sensation of teaching someone was a fresh inspiration to them.

Fired up by Adam's passion, the dwarves crowded around him and roared.

"Bwahahaha! Our kid's got his spirit fully locked in! Well then, well then! We'll teach him everything we know!"

"That attitude of wanting to learn, huh? Real nice to see!"

"Come on, come on! With the kid this fired up!! We've got to teach him properly!"

As everyone was shouting with enthusiasm, one dwarf bellowed at the top of his lungs.

"EVERYBODY HOOOOLD IT!!!!"

All eyes turned to the dwarf who had climbed up onto a workbench.

"I get that you're all excited!! But isn't there something you're forgetting?!"

"Forgetting what?"

"Dunno."

Looking thoroughly exasperated, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the dwarf thumped his chest and bellowed again.

"We've gotta go drink!!"

"By the Six Gods! How could we forget that!"

"That's right!! A welcome party for the kid!! Tonight's a drinking party!!"

"Bwahahah!! Everybody to the inn!!"

"Kid, you're coming too!! It's your welcome party—can't have it without the guest of honor!!"

"…Ah?"

Prodded along by dwarves going wild at the mere mention of a drinking party, Adam was herded toward the inn.

And then came the absolute chaos of a drinking party.

"Bring the booze, the booze!!"

"You bring it, you six-damned bastard!!"

"What?! You looking for a fight right now!!"

Beer mugs flew through the air. Broken chairs sailed across the room. Some nameless dwarf was face-down in a beer barrel, and Adam was crawling across the floor.

…L-Lord…

Adam retched and quietly called out to his god.

Regrettably, the god did not answer.

"Those dwarves sure know how to party."

I muttered, watching the inn on the screen. The temporary worker who'd met the dwarves—Adam, that is—had headed for the forge like they were having some kind of contest among themselves.

They'd banged away at something for a while, then suddenly gone off to the inn and started knocking back drinks. The dwarves still had plenty of empty inventory slots left, so the drinking felt a little wasteful, but…

"I'm drinking too, so I'll let it slide this time."

I was in a pretty good mood from the pizza and beer, so I cut them some slack.

Before I forgot, I promoted Worker No. 2 and Worker No. 3. Light wrapped around the two workers cheerfully downing beer, and before long their beards grew a little longer.

"…They're still drinking."

Promoted or not, the workers just kept happily drinking.

I took another bite of still-warm pepperoni pizza and swiped across the screen to check the building list.

Now that I had a temporary worker, I figured I might as well put up some other buildings.

"Any decent buildings around?"

The buildings currently installed were… the Dwarf Inn, the Decent Inn, the Smeltery, and the Dimensional Gate. That was everything.

Laying it out like that really drove home how little attention I'd paid to infrastructure. I needed to put up some buildings now and boost efficiency.

With grease-free fingers, I filtered for low-tier buildings and scrolled down the list. Most of them were cheap. Affordable enough to build without sweating the gold I currently had.

Which, put another way…

"Means I should've built these a long time ago."

Thinking about all the efficiency I'd thrown away made my stomach twist a little, but I told myself it wasn't too late and started placing buildings one by one.

Buildings sprang up one after another. Estimated completion time: three hours.

But the Completion Package I'd bought earlier flexed its absurd presence and finished every single building instantly.

"Nice. Looking a lot better now."

With a few buildings filling in the empty lot, the scenery was finally starting to look decent. Roads stretched out from the temple at the center, connecting the forge, the smeltery, the mine, and various other buildings.

It even had a bit of a medieval fantasy vibe. The ground was still just grass, though.

…Was there a decorating feature?

Now that I'd put up buildings, I was getting greedy about dressing the place up. I dug through the shop for quite a while, but unfortunately there was no decorating package to be found.

"Tch. Maybe it unlocks later or something?"

I set the disappointment aside and closed the game. Homework done, buildings up—that was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠enough gaming for today. With grease-free hands, I pulled up YouTube and kept eating pizza.

Pizza, beer, and entertaining videos. Everything was perfect.

"Now this is the life."

And so a thoroughly satisfying night passed by.