The Dwarf of the Hillside
Every time the hammer swung, sparks leapt into the air.
Red-hot metal changed shape, and from the furnace’s fury a new tool was born.
The dwarf studying the finished piece clicked his tongue.
“Damn it all. No matter what I do, it’s nothing but impurities!”
“We really ought to leave here soon. What good is fine metal if the salt ruins everything? There’s not a speck of proper maintenance to be found in this blasted place.”
Maybe they had arrived at the wrong time.
The muttering dwarves were spitting out rough, unfriendly words one after another.
“If that’s how you feel, then you should go dig the ore yourself! Young punks just beat the anvil all day long and call it work.”
“Why would I be digging a mine?”
“Hey! Whoever dragged this bastard here can go get buried in the quarry today.”
“It was my brother who brought Grimbold here.”
“The bastard who just said that gets no beer.”
Luca tugged at Lawrence’s sleeve.
He seemed to have been staring blankly without realizing it.
“Excuse me, I have a question.”
“Huh? What’s this now? Hey. A human’s here.”
“Why’s that so surprising? They do this every time a human shows up. There’s a human village nearby, so of course humans come by. Isn’t that right?”
“What? Then since there’s a Horn Boar village around here, I guess Horn Boars must come by every day too?”
“Enough with the fighting! He’s a guest, a guest! Somebody show them around and point them to whatever they want.”
The words kept flying, but not a single dwarf came forward.
“Um….”
“Still no one’s coming out?”
“Whoever thinks they’re nearest to it, go.”
“…….”
“Look at that bastard Grimbold, not even answering.”
They were all too busy shoving the annoying task onto someone else.
They were no different from mercenaries who’d rather be flogged than take on the leader’s role.
Dwarves or humans, it seemed that in this regard they were exactly the same.
“Fine. Damn it, I’ll go myself.”
The dwarf who had been hammering the anvil got to his feet.
Wiping the rust from his hands in a perfunctory way, he greeted the two of them.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen anyone from the Order. You must be new this time, then? Right. What would you like to look at?”
“We’re not really here because we want to buy something. I just came to look around.”
“You can even tell what you’re looking at? From the way you’re carrying those things, you look like you don’t know a thing.”
The dwarf’s eyes were fixed on the sword and spear at Lawrence’s waist.
“I’m not saying it to be cruel, but if you try using those in real combat, you’re liable to get beaten half to death. Since you’re here anyway, have something made. Sword or spear, doesn’t matter. Anything you pick off the ground would be better than that.”
“They’re weapons I’ve only used a few times. I don’t particularly want to change them.”
They had cost a few silver each, after all.
Maybe they weren’t much to a dwarf’s eyes, but if the rumors were true, Lawrence doubted there would be much in this place that could satisfy such exacting craftsmen in the first place.
“Is that so? Then just take your time looking around. Let me know if you need anything. But you did bring money, right?”
“I brought more than enough.”
“Now that’s a pleasant thing to hear.”
The dwarf returned to his work and resumed hammering the anvil.
Lawrence and Luca began to examine the forge together.
On the shelves sat shields that favored practicality over splendor.
Armor was almost nowhere to be seen.
Inside wooden barrels, ownerless swords and spears were jammed in at random.
There were none of the bows or crossbows one would normally expect to find in a smithy.
In their place were heavy weapons like axes and hammers.
The whole place felt unmistakably dwarven.
The heat refused to let up, smoke rising from the furnace in waves.
They had barely looked around before sweat began to run down Lawrence’s face again and again.
“Isn’t it hot?”
“It’s bearable.”
It would be better to tell him if she was struggling and shouldn’t have to endure it.
Lawrence led Luca farther away from the furnace.
What appeared there was a room that looked as if goods had simply been piled up and forgotten.
Inside the untidy space were all manner of odds and ends in weapon form.
Rusty swords were easy to spot in the wooden barrels crudely wrapped with cloth, and there were dozens of spearheads with no shafts attached. Weapons of uncertain purpose, impossible to say what they were even meant for, rolled around in the corners of the room.
The surprising part was that even these failures, which had no market value at all, were on an entirely different level from the sort of things one commonly saw sold in town.
The stitching. The joints.
All of it had been finished with meticulous care.
They had simply not been maintained.
Scrape away a little of the rust, and the blade underneath still shone with a chilling sharpness.
He tried making a test cut, and with a dry whisper the cloth split cleanly.
“Lord Lawrence.”
As Lawrence looked around, Luca called to him.
In front of the girl stood a greatsword larger than she was.
It had a rough, blunt design, and since it had apparently been left untouched for some time after being made, the greatsword was coated in dust just like the other things around it.
“Doesn’t it seem similar to the greatsword Mr. Kyle uses?”
“Isn’t it impressive? It’s our proud masterpiece. There are only a handful of greatswords larger than this in the entire kingdom.”
The voice was full of pride.
Its owner, however, was not Lawrence.
Apparently he had come in behind them without their noticing, because the dwarf came striding past the two of them with long, purposeful steps.
“It seems a little smaller than the greatsword I’ve seen.”
As if agreeing with Lawrence, Luca nodded too.
“You’ve seen an even bigger greatsword than this?”
“Yes. I saw one not long ago, too.”
Lawrence described Kyle’s greatsword.
The corners of the dwarf’s mouth lifted beneath his unkempt beard.
“Then you must have seen a decorative greatsword. The greatswords we make are on an entirely different level. It sounds nice to call a sword something that can cut anything, but if there’s no one who can actually use it, then it’s nothing but a decorative blade. This one, however, can be used in real combat.”
“I’m not sure about that. From the way it was swung, it didn’t look that way to me.”
“What? It was swung?”
“Yes. I nearly lost my head.”
He could still feel the chill around his neck.
If the tip of the greatsword had not been covered by a strip of cloth, that would not have ended as a simple matter of bloodshed.
“Nonsense. There’s a human out there swinging a greatsword even larger than this one?”
“I saw it too. I’m not lying. It was a red-haired man who visited the village recently. Dwarf, you must have missed him.”
As if she refused to be taken for a liar, Luca raised her voice.
Lawrence explained that everyone gathered there had seen it. Even the dwarf, who had seemed skeptical at first, finally nodded.
“Amazing. If what you say is true, then that man has already surpassed human limits. He might be what I’ve heard called a Sword Expert.”
“A Sword Expert?”
“You don’t know? It’s a great realm that only those who have honed the sword to the limit can reach. I hear they can wield Aura that cuts through anything. I’ve never seen one myself, though, so I can’t say for certain.”
Lawrence remembered having heard rumors about Aura as well.
The ultimate sword that could cut through anything.
But only those who had reached the pinnacle of the blade could wield it.
It was the stuff of legend, the Sword Master spoken of in stories.
“Right. A Sword Master. A Sword Expert is the rank just below that.”
“That sounds almost like magic.”
“More like reality than magic. Think about it. Is the physical power gained from swinging a sword tens of thousands of times the same as magic, where fire suddenly bursts forth from nowhere? At the very least, we dwarves trust the sword more.”
Come to think of it, that made sense.
The fruit of endless training with a blade.
Magic that awakened and controlled the mysteries of the world.
If one were asked which seemed more like reality, the answer was obvious.
Leaving the room where the greatsword was kept, Lawrence got to the point.
“I need a small pouch.”
“That’s easy enough. All right. What sort of pouch do you want?”
“I need one that can hold a pocket watch.”
He took the pocket watch out of the bag.
“No, no. If you made something like that, wouldn’t the pocket watch be miserable? A tool is happiest when it can fulfill the purpose for which it exists.”
The dwarf fetched a wooden board from behind him.
A carving knife moved back and forth across the board.
With a soft scratching sound, a fine sketch was completed.
“How about this instead? A tool that lets you check the pocket watch while it’s still inside the pouch. You press the front, and the watch’s cover opens along with it.”
“…….”
“Hey, human. Are you listening?”
“Ah, sorry. I was startled because you drew it so well.”
It seemed as though he had sketched it straight from the thought as soon as it occurred to him.
He hadn’t expected the rough draft to come out at such a high level.
“Wa-ha-ha. I’m pretty good at drawing, aren’t I?”
The dwarf laughed at Lawrence’s praise.
“I’m sorry to spring this on you after all this time, but the truth is, I wanted the pouch to cover the crest on the pocket watch.”
“A crest, you say... May I have a look?”
“Of course.”
Lawrence handed over the pocket watch.
The dwarf first lifted it up and set it down again, as though checking its weight.
Next he examined the inside to see whether it worked properly, then studied the back and front in turn.
“Hm? What’s this?”
The dwarf’s expression changed as he looked at the lion crest.
Rising from his seat, he went and fetched a monocle.
After studying the crest closely for a while, he finally spoke.
“Grimbold! Come here a moment!”
“I’m busy right now, Mr. Kam.”
“I said come here, so come here! I need you to take a look. Craftsmanship is your specialty in this forge, isn’t it?”
“…….”
A sigh followed.
The dwarf who came out in response to Kam’s call looked much the same as he did.
“What are you doing wearing a monocle?”
“Honestly, that mouth of yours... Never mind. Just look at this.”
The other dwarf studied the pocket watch with obvious reluctance, but only for a moment.
Like Kam, his eyes changed as well.
After examining the crest for some time, Grimbold spoke.
“Is this yours?”
“It was given to me as a gift.”
“And from whom did you receive it?”
“Must I tell you that?”
“No. Forget it. The answer’s enough for me.”
As though there was no need to say anything more, Grimbold continued.
“To receive as a gift a thing blessed by the earth... They must think highly of you. Whether that someone is a man or a woman.”
“Well... I’d like to think so, but I’m not sure how they feel about it.”
He let a little of his own private truth slip out.
Luca seemed startled for some reason, but Lawrence paid it no mind.
“Still, is there some kind of problem?”
“There’s no problem with the item itself. If anything, you could call it a masterpiece. This was made by one of our own kin.”
“I had no idea it was made by a dwarf.”
Now the roaring lion crest made sense.
It was not merely the work of some unknown craftsman, but of a dwarf.
It felt like an expression of Lurizisa’s goodwill.
Even though this was hardly a situation for happiness, a small smile settled on his lips.
“You said you needed a pouch? Give me two days. I’ll make you a pouch worthy of this pocket watch.”
“I’d appreciate that. How much do you want for it?”
Grimbold put a hand to his chin.
“I don’t need money. Since it was made by one of our kin, I’ll do this much as a service.”
“Grimbold. If you’re not taking a single coin, then you’ll be supplying all the materials yourself. Got that?”
“My apologies. It seems I’ll need to take a little after all. Instead of money, I’d be grateful if you brought some snacks and beer. How does that sound?”
When it came to money, dwarves and humans were no different at all.
* * *
That evening, after returning from the dwarves, the dream he had been waiting for finally came to Lawrence.
The landscape guided by the dream of the Spirit World was a grim forest.
No, there was no mistake.
Thorny brush and sharp trees.
The Shadow Forest he had longed to see was spread out before him.
“…….”
All manner of thoughts rose and faded like ripples.
The first time he had visited this place, he had still been a child who did not even understand the concept of perception.
Those days when he had been frightened by his first nightmare and knew only how to panic.
At the end of that road, he had seen those red eyes, and he had been so afraid of ever meeting them again that he had even feared falling asleep.
When he came here the second time, he had begged for instruction without hesitation.
The outside world he had entered after leaving Hilton Village.
For a boy who had not yet learned a single proper spell, it had been far too much to bear.
Did the Red Eyes know that the Shadow Spear he had learned then had now become his main offensive spell?
The boy of the past was gone now.
Lawrence, becoming a man at last, rose to his feet.
Among the thorn bushes, he saw tufts of fur rolling around in circles.
Now and then, feet would emerge from the fur and scurry about.
He called out to the fur ball hurrying along.
“Hey. Hold on a second.”
But the fur ball did not stop.
Rather, startled that he had spoken to it, it hurried to hide itself among the thorns.
Trying to start a conversation was pointless.
Every fur ball he saw was intent on running away.
“Please. Can’t you listen to me for a moment?”
In the end, he had no choice but to voice the request he did not particularly want to make.
Two fur balls stopped at his plea.
“What is it, beloved child?”
“Spriggans are busy. We have to go quickly.”
The voices were not exactly friendly.
Perhaps they really were in such a hurry, because the fur balls, the spriggans, kept fidgeting their feet nonstop.
“Sorry for taking your time. I’m looking for someone, or rather, a neighbor.”
“A neighbor? Who is the beloved child looking for?”
“The Red Eyes... No. I’m looking for the spirit of this Shadow Forest.”
“…….”
At once, the spriggans fell silent.
“If you don’t know, I’ll ask another neighbor.”
“We know where it is.”
“If it’s the beloved child’s request, then there’s nothing we can do.”
“All right. We’ll lead you. Just follow us.”
“But we’re going to run ahead. We’re scared.”
The spriggans rolled off in circles.
Lawrence began walking after them.