Let's Try Hammering Some Iron
“Hmm...”
I had one problem. This iron rock was proving awfully hard to come by.
It had taken a full day's travel to reach a mountain where the stones littered the slopes, and even then, there was no telling how much dirt we'd have to shovel away before any of it appeared. What if we dug and found nothing at all? The worry gnawed at me.
“Whew. Well, we've got to go anyway. Alright, let's move out!”
“Yes!”
The group set off with baskets loaded full of potatoes and leather water pouches strapped to their waists.
“Akta, is it far?”
So asked the spirit, trailing along with us.
“Yeah. We have to walk until the sun disappears.”
“That's why you packed so many potatoes?”
“Yep. It's far. My legs are dying.”
“Tell me about it. Hang in there.”
The spirit seemed genuinely curious about everything we did. Last time, it was charcoal they wouldn't stop asking about.
Speaking of which, we'd also learned about coal — a burning stone much like charcoal — so gathering firewood had become a much rarer chore.
“Over there.”
By the time the sun was sinking, we reached the mountain scattered with the stones.
It wasn't cold today, but beasts could come prowling, so we'd need a fire going.
“Do we have much water left?”
“We'll have to go fetch more from the mountain nearby.”
“That's rough. Here, I've got it.”
The spirit really was something else. Water conjured out of thin air, straight into the pouches.
I found myself wanting to ask whether it could make iron rock too.
“Haaah...”
I woke up from a dream where the spirit was handing me iron stone. Damn it. And it was going so well.
“Well then, we're off to dig.”
“Yep. Good luck.”
First things first, we attacked the earth with our stone mattocks.
Dig, and dig, and dig again — my back felt like it was going to snap in two.
“Akta, is digging all we do?”
“Huff... huff... Yeah. There'll be plenty of stone under here.”
“Ugh. Move over, let me see.”
The spirit looked like it was about to do something. We hurriedly stepped back with the others.
KA-BOOOOM!
“HUUUUUAH!!!!”
What have we even been doing all this time? With a single wave of the spirit's hand, the entire hillside simply vanished.
As the dirt peeled away in sheets, something dark and stony began to glimmer beneath.
“Ah! Stop! That's the part we need!”
The spirit was about to sweep the iron rock away along with the dirt, so I scrambled to stop it.
“Right. Okay, you take it from here.”
“Amazing!”
“So that's iron ore, huh?”
“Iron ore?”
That black stone we needed — shovel off the mountain's skin, and there it was, heaped up like a small hill.
The spirit really was something else.
I'd tagged along out of curiosity about what Akta and his crew got up to all day — and these guys were going through absolute hell.
“Wow... So this whole time, you've been trying to dig iron ore with a stone mattock?”
Come to think of it, they really didn't have anything but stone mattocks, did they?
Given that they were digging away out here, had they actually found something? They were hacking away at the mountain with everything they had, but the tools were the problem. The stone mattocks were weaker than I'd expected — they kept snapping and shattering just trying to break the soil.
Fine. I'd step in and clear the dirt for them, at least.
Rumble-rumble-rumble—
Sorry, grass and trees, but I scooped up the soil along with everything else and packed it away into my pocket dimension.
Aigoo, their jaws are going to hit the ground.
Their mouths hung wide open as they stared.
“Ah! Stop! Enough!”
As I dug away the last of it, a friend's frantic shout rang out.
Hm? That dark, greasy-looking stuff — apparently that was the iron ore?
“Good enough now?”
“THANK YOU!!”
They were so worked up the greeting barely qualified as words. Akta went sprinting up the mountain to get at the iron ore.
Or should I say, picking it up off the ground?
Is this the open-pit mine that was supposed to be in Manchuria?
I knew roughly where it should be, but one spot looked much like any other, so I couldn't say for sure...
The guys scraped the stones together in piles, devoured an incredible amount of the potatoes they'd hauled along in their baskets, then started shoveling rock into those same baskets by the armload.
“Haneul, we're heading back!”
“Full as ticks,” they said — I just hoped they didn't give themselves indigestion on the walk home.
Before I could say a word, they practically sprinted off toward the village. Wait, seriously? Isn't all that heavy?
“Idiots. This is where you bring a cart...”
For the sake of all the trips these friends would be making from now on, I figured I'd pave a road using the dirt and stone I'd just cleared away.
As I pressed and tamped the ground down all the way toward the village, I felt less like a deity and more like a piece of heavy machinery.
“Next time, they'll be able to walk this with carts, right?”
Ever since the iron ore gathering began, the blacksmith workshop had been buzzing with life.
TANG! TANG! TANG!
They were hammering away at a fist-sized lump of iron — and their tools were still, of course, stone.
If they just had a proper hammer, everything would change....
Should I give it a shot myself?
“Akta, mind if I borrow this?”
“...”
TANG! TANG! TANG!
What focus. Too busy hammering to even hear me, apparently.
I lit the kiln that had been sitting idle nearby and got to work.
“Let's try making a gift, shall we?”
My friends couldn't do it, but I had a way.
Grind the iron ore and charcoal into powder, mix them together, wrap the blend in telekinesis, and plunge it into a fiercely burning fire — what happens then?
This. The heat passes straight through while the charcoal itself never catches — and as a bonus, I blew air in with telekinesis to stoke it.
Before long, a red-hot lump, riddled with holes like a sponge, was sitting in my palm.
Oh. So this is sponge iron? What a curious-looking thing.
“Now it's time for a little muscle.”
To consolidate the sponge iron in the fire, I squeezed it hard. Very hard.
“Hm? Why is this thing acting so sketchy?”
The lump was glowing white-hot inside the fire. It wouldn't burst, right? I mean, I was the one pressing down on it with telekinesis?
And it had shrunk quite a bit too?
“Eh, whatever. Let's just hammer it!”
I vaguely recalled something about hammering it out and folding it over and over being good for the metal. Maybe I should have paid closer attention back then?
My friends will figure out the fancy stuff eventually, right? All I need is something decent to get them started! Keep it simple. Keep it simple.
THOOM! THOOM! THOOM!
What the—? What is that noise? I was slamming a telekinetic hammer down onto a telekinetic anvil, and the sound was terrifying.
GRRRRRUMBLE—
I was trying my hand at forge-welding, and now this was the sound it made?
So I kneaded and shaped it as best I could, and produced the head of something like a modern sledgehammer — an eight-sided lump of metal.
I wedged a wooden stick in as a handle, and boom: a perfectly respectable hammer!
Why is it respectable though?
It had a strange sheen to it, silver mingled with a dark, smoky luster.
Ah... is this a defective product?
Would it shatter on the first swing? The thought made me nervous.
“Better than stone, at least, right?”
KA-CHING! KA-CHING! KA-CHING!
Oh. The sound of Akta's hammering had changed. Something was taking shape, it seemed.
And the lump had grown noticeably bigger than that finger-sized sliver from before.
He looked absolutely thrilled about it, too.
.
.
.
Not wanting to interrupt, I waited a good long while before Akta finally wiped the sweat from his brow.
“Phew~”
“Akta!”
I seized the moment. Wait any longer and I'd be standing here all day.
“Hm? Oh, Haneul. Good to see you.”
“Here, I made you a gift.”
I handed over the hammer, and he looked genuinely moved.
“Ah! Thank you! What is this thing?”
“A hammer. I made it for you to hammer with.”
“Oh! I see. A tool for working iron!”
“Go on, try it out.”
“Thank you — I'll put it to good use.”
KA-CHING! KA-CHING! KA-CHING! CRACK!
“...”
“Huh?”
The stone on the floor had shattered. Ah... right, the anvil matters too...
“...”
Leaving the thunderstruck Akta behind, I quietly relocated.
I had sins to atone for. Back to work it was. Returning to the forge, I kneaded together an even bigger lump than before.
I'd better make him an anvil too...
The lump glowed white-hot once more.
What is this? Am I making some new divine substance or something? Nah, no way~
It wasn't even Earth's-core pressure — I was just squishing it flat with telekinesis, that's all.
Right? ...Right?
With that faintly uneasy feeling, I set about forging the anvil.
“Is there anything special about an anvil? A thick hunk of iron should do it, no?”
Space inside the forge was limited, so I couldn't make anything too grand — an anvil about two forearms wide and a hand-span thick.
CRASH!
Apparently the floor stone had broken again.
“Akta, set this on the ground and use it...”
I sidled over and set down the thing I'd made, calling it an anvil. Ah, I'm so sorry.
“Sob... Thank you. Sniff.”
Well, he wasn't going back to stone, that much was clear — he kept right on swinging the hammer I'd given him.
Broken stones were scattered all across the floor.
KA-CHING! KA-CHING! KA-CHING!
The sound of ringing iron began to fill Akta's smithy once more.
“Thank you, Haneul! This thing is wonderful!”
Laughter bloomed across the face of a man who'd been sobbing moments ago. His tail was practically wagging.
What was being made here now was sponge iron — and for this era, that much would be more than enough.
TA-DANG! TA-DANG! TA-DANG!
Their hands had gotten quicker, it seemed — now the hammering rang out in a steady, rhythmic beat.
Keep working hard, my friends. Once something good comes of it, I'll have more to give you too.
Although...
That thing they called a forge? Two of them were taking turns blowing air into it through what looked like a long tube, mouth to pipe. Whoa, that guy's going to pass out for sure?
“Koff. Koff. Koff.”
Ah, he'd inhaled the wrong way. That's dangerous — hot air like that scorches your lungs!
“Good grief...”
They made everything so hard on themselves. I headed off to the production workshop, a simple bellows in mind.
“Hi there, Turu~”
“Hello to you too, Haneul.”
Turu, master of the workshop. His main business was wheel-making, and today he was taking it easy.
“This is called a bellows. It's for blowing air into a fire.”
I sketched out a simple design — something shaped like a snail shell, with a fan spinning inside that pushed air out through a nozzle.
You know the one? From those old historical dramas, where someone stands in front of a forge cranking something round and round.
“You build it like this, and when you turn the handle, the wind comes out.”
“Fascinating.”
“Go ahead and make one. The forge will thank you.”
“Understood!”
Since it would be used at the smithy, I placed one extra order — a clay nozzle for the intake.
.
.
.
Surprisingly, the bellows took quite a while to build. He seemed to be refining the design as he went?
Once I'd taught him wheels, he'd apparently grasped the concept of gears on his own — there was now an extra wheel with a handle attached.
At this rate, he'll be inventing sawteeth and waterwheels without any help from me, won't he?
“Thanks, Turu.”
“A fine lesson it was.”
That's right — he'd had some kind of insight, hadn't he? I found myself a little curious what he'd come up with next.
Maybe watching them advance on their own would be more fun than handing them everything myself?
“Huff. Huff. Huff.”
Today's designated blower looked positively green in the face, one breath away from passing out.
“Everyone, I brought you a gift. Give this a try.”
“What is it?”
“It's called a bellows.”
For my curious friend, I aimed the bellows right at his face and gave the handle a little turn.
WHOOOOOM—
“Whoa!”
Oh? Not bad? Sure, it made a mess of his hair, but look at it fly.
Yikes... I really should look into how soap gets made, shouldn't I?
“With this, blowing air will be a lot easier.”
“THANK! YOU! SO! MUCH!”
Ow, my ears. He was beaming ear to ear — clearly over the moon.
“It's wood, so it can catch fire. Attach this nozzle to the forge opening when you use it, got it?”
“Got it!”
Somewhere down the line, I'd just saved a friend who would have either passed out or run away for good — one of the two.
Squeak-squeak
The wood-on-wood friction was a bit loud. No bearings or anything, so what could you do?
“Ooooh! The fire's getting stronger!”
The smithy crowd was losing their minds over it too. Well, fair enough — more air does mean a hotter fire, doesn't it?
“Ohh! Haneul, what is this thing!”
“Oh, Akta's here too? I just had it made~”
Even I could see the flames burning fiercer — no way Akta couldn't.
“Turu made this one, so make sure you return the favor and make Turu some tools too, alright?”
Mustn't forget the workshop. Better tools mean better work coming out of it, after all.
“Of course!”
“And build plenty of them so you can all take turns — the fire'll get even hotter that way, right?”
“True! Thank you!”
“Well then, work hard. I'm off.”
On my way out, I noticed kiln after kiln lined up for making charcoal. They must burn through an enormous amount of it.
Hmm. Coke would be a stretch with this level of technology... I'd have to think that one over.
My friends were already experimenting on their own, tossing all sorts of stones into the fire. There was no way metallurgy would come easy. Nothing for it, then. Back to the grind, my friends.