A Blade from the Ruins
"It's been a while, hasn't it?"
"What? Oh, the walk?"
"The walk, sure, but it's also been a long time since you saw Balduin."
Bella, matching her stride beside him, nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, I guess it really has been. When was the last time we saw him... where was it again? Another city, right?"
Bennett adjusted his pace to keep step with her fragile frame, pointing ahead. "Almost there. Hang in there just a little longer."
"Maybe I shouldn't have tagged along," she groaned, blowing out a soft sigh. "Feels like we barely walked at all, but I'm already exhausted."
Reaching Balduin's workshop, Bennett kicked the door open with a solid thud.
"What kind of bastard—ah, figures. Who else could it be but you?"
"Long time no see, Master Balduin," Bella said with a bright smile.
"Well, look who it is! If it isn't our little peanut!"
"...Peanut?" Bennett's brow furrowed. The dwarf had barely spent any time around his sister, yet he was already tossing around ridiculous nicknames.
"Aigoo, look at you! You've grown so much, little peanut!"
"I'm still tiny, though?"
"You're taller than me, aren't you? Then you're big!"
"Pfft!" Bella burst out laughing.
"How about some water?"
"Yes, please!"
Balduin fetched a cup of fresh water for Bella with a beaming, grandfatherly grin. The moment his eyes landed back on Bennett, however, his expression instantly soured into an irritated scowl.
"And what are you doing here? Your sister's welcome anytime, but you sure as hell aren't."
"I came to check on weapon development."
It was part of the contract Bennett had forged with the Dwarf Kingdom after handing over a pristine, functional firearm recovered from the Closed Police Headquarters. In exchange, he was granted regular access to their classified development manifests, allowing him to inspect the progress on weapons, armor, and gear whenever he pleased.
"Thanks to you, those intelligence bureau spooks have been crawling all over this place," Balduin grumbled, crossing his thick arms. "Do you have any idea what a massive headache that is? Prattling on about 'security breaches' this and 'containment risks' that, screaming bloody murder over the slightest misplaced screw. They're grilling me alive every damn day!"
"Since when did you ever care about things like that?"
Still grumbling under his breath, Balduin thrust a stack of documents into Bennett's hands. The pages were dense with technical schematics and inventories detailing both completed items and projects currently under development by the Dwarf Kingdom's military arm.
"Hmm. Nothing that impressive yet."
"What, did you expect us to mass-produce functional firearms out of thin air in a single week?"
"I thought a dwarf could pull it off."
Meanwhile, Balduin took the opportunity to inspect Shooting Star, which hung beneath Bennett's coat, and let out an audible sigh of relief. "Looks like you swung it around a bit less this time. Not a scratch on it."
"I need a sword."
"...A sword? Weren't you always partial to batons and daggers?"
Bennett reached into his coat and withdrew his tactical baton. Its steel core was snapped cleanly in two, ruined by an overwhelming impact it had failed to withstand.
Balduin paused, then clicked his tongue in sympathy. "Lasted pretty damn long for human craft. But you want to switch to a sword instead of getting another baton?"
"...Feels like I'll be fighting things that aren't human far more often from now on."
Until recently, blunt trauma from a baton had been plenty sufficient against human thugs and mercenaries. Lately, however, the frequency of bizarre, inhuman adversaries had climbed sharply. In Bennett's pragmatic assessment, a weapon capable of severing flesh and bone was far more versatile than a blunt stick.
"I've got plenty of swords," Balduin grunted, gesturing for Bennett to follow him toward a display section deeper in the forge. As the most widely used weapon on the continent, an entire stone wall was lined with racks of gleaming blades of every conceivable shape and balance.
"You still can't wield mana, right?"
"I use a different kind of power."
"If it isn't mana, what is it? Divine power?"
Instead of answering with words, Bennett drew forth his otherworldly power, coiling it smoothly around his right hand. Perhaps because he had called upon it so frequently in recent battles, its response time felt subtly faster, answering his intent almost instantaneously.
Fzzzt.
Unlike the brilliant azure luminescence of refined mana, his anomalous power manifested as a faint, shimmering distortion, like a heat haze rising off sunbaked asphalt. Though nearly invisible to the naked eye, it exerted a quiet, distinctly alien presence that chilled the surrounding air.
Balduin's bushy eyebrows drew together in a deep frown. "...What on earth have you been getting into lately? In all my years, I've never felt an aura like this."
"I haven't been doing anyth—"
Bennett stopped himself. Come to think of it, an absurd number of violent incidents had piled up recently. Over the span of just a couple of months, he had lived through enough life-threatening catastrophes to fill several years of ordinary mercenary work.
"...It's been a busy stretch."
"And you have the nerve to tell me I stir up trouble," Balduin snorted, waving toward the weapon rack. "Go on, look around. Every blade on that wall is reinforced with a heavy dose of Green Iron, so you don't need to worry about them snapping. As you well know, the single most important trait in a weapon is how durable it is."
Bennett couldn't agree more. Throughout his ten years as a ranger and mercenary, shoddy equipment had nearly cost him his life on more than one occasion.
Shring—
One by one, Bennett drew blades from the racks, feeling their weight and testing their balance with sharp, measured swings. Infused with Green Iron through proprietary dwarven metallurgy, each sword bore a faint emerald sheen along its tempered surface. Balduin was undeniably a master of his craft; the balance and edge geometry of every piece were exceptional, cutting through the air with a crisp, whistling shriek.
"Take your time. Try swinging as many as you like. Best way to choose a weapon is to hold it yourself."
After testing half a dozen different models, Bennett tilted his head, his brow furrowing slightly.
"What's the matter? None of them suit you?"
"It's not that they're bad. Just... none of them feel quite right."
"Picky bastard, as always."
Balduin stroked his braided beard in contemplation, then turned and rummaged through a locked iron cabinet in the back. When he returned, he laid an elongated case on the workbench and popped the latches. Resting inside was a solitary hilt—completely devoid of a blade.
"...There's no blade."
"Just take hold of the grip and channel that strange aura of yours into it."
The dwarf's face was tight with anticipation. Following the instruction, Bennett wrapped his fingers around the textured hilt and pushed his psionic energy into the core mechanism.
Clack-clack-clack-shhhk!
With an intricate, mechanical hum, interlocking plates of matte-black metal burst outward from the hilt, stacking atop one another in rapid, precise succession. Segment by segment, they rapidly assembled into the profile of a heavy broadsword. Finally, a slender, tempered spine surged up through the center, piercing the core of each plate.
The seam lines contracted with an audible snap, locking every segment into a single, seamless, indomitable edge.
"Ha! I had a feeling, but I'll be damned if it didn't actually work!"
"...What is this thing?"
"An artifact salvaged from deep inside a dungeon. Fully restored."
Bennett's eyes widened. "From a dungeon?"
"Fixing the physical casing wasn't hard," Balduin explained, leaning against the workbench. "The trouble was that the moment I finished repairing the internal mechanisms, the blade retracted on its own and locked down. I tried everything to deploy it again, but the damn thing refused to react to mana in any shape or form. Seeing that bizarre aura you just pulled up reminded me of it, so I figured I'd see what happened."
Balduin shook his head in bemusement, gazing at Bennett with newfound intrigue. "To think you'd end up being this thing's true owner. Well? How does it feel?"
Bennett raised the weapon and inspected it closely.
It was utterly unlike any blade forged on the continent. Where standard swords gleamed with polished steel or the emerald luster of Green Iron, this weapon's surface was coated in a deep, light-swallowing matte black. It carried a heavy, imposing silhouette. The blade was noticeably thicker and broader than conventional swords, yet it possessed none of the clumsy awkwardness of an executioner's blade.
Every line and contour radiated a cold, functional brutality—engineered purely for lethal combat.
How did he like it?
I love it.
The mechanical precision of its deployment. The subtle, sunset-orange afterglow that rippled along the edge when channeled with his energy. The faint, spring-like elasticity beneath an overwhelming core of solid rigidity.
It was flawless.
"So, how much?"
"Don't play coy when you've got no intention of paying anyway," Balduin scoffed, waving a hand dismissively.
Bennett felt a brief pang of indignation—he had genuinely intended to pay for once—but seeing as the dwarf was offering it for free, he wasn't about to argue. He promptly sheathed the dormant hilt at his hip.
Bennett's eyes narrowed slightly as the notification faded. Thanks to the system prompt, he now had an official name for the weapon.
Chainsword.
"What about the bolt tips?" Bennett asked, shifting topics. "Did you finish the batch?"
"...Aye. Took enough out of me, too."
The storage crates, previously empty, were now packed to the brim with freshly forged armor-piercing heads and specialized enchanted tips. Bennett swept every last one into his inventory without leaving a single scrap behind.
It began as an ordinary morning.
Donovan dragged his heavy body out of bed, checked the clock on the wall, and cursed under his breath as he hurried into his uniform.
Thud, thud, thud!
"Coming, I'm coming!"
Wrestling with the stiff fabric, Donovan scowled. Setting aside the oversized Drake Family crest emblazoned across the chest, this security uniform was an absolute nightmare to put on and take off. Managing to finish buttoning up just in the nick of time, he grabbed the standard-issue sword and gear leaning against the barracks wall and shoved his way outside.
"Begin roll call!"
"One!"
"Two!"
"Three!"
Dammit, what is this, the army?
Having spent most of his adult life operating on the wrong side of the law, Donovan had never grown comfortable with rigid military discipline. Still, he had no choice. Failing to serve out his contracted term with the Drake Family carried consequences he had no desire to experience firsthand.
"All guards accounted for and ready, my lord!"
"Very good."
Donovan risked a quick glance sideways.
Their captain, who normally strutted around like an arrogant peacock, was bowing so low his nose nearly touched the dirt, wearing the most obsequious expression imaginable. Standing before him was a young noble clad in fine attire, a sheathed sword at his waist, accepting the captain's groveling as nothing more than his natural due.
"I..."
Donovan and the other guards stiffened involuntarily.
The young man hadn't raised his voice in the slightest, yet his words cut through the crisp morning air with terrifying clarity, echoing directly inside their heads.
"...am a representative sent directly from the main house."
Silence hung heavy over the courtyard.
"The reason you have been gathered here today is regarding intelligence newly obtained by the family."
Intelligence? Donovan thought, keeping his eyes glued to the dirt.
"Hostile movements targeting our family have recently been confirmed," the noble continued, his tone chillingly flat. "We have received credible reports that certain factions intend to infiltrate or sabotage this production facility. In all likelihood, it is the work of our business rivals."
Anticipating what was coming next, Donovan's face soured.
"Consequently, we are elevating our alert status."
A collective, suppressed groan rippled through the ranks of guards.
"Inspection procedures for all personnel entering and exiting the premises will be tightened, and your shift lengths will be extended accordingly."
"Fuck my life," someone muttered under his breath.
SPLATT!
A wet, thunderous burst echoed across the yard. The guard who had spoken had his entire head vaporized into red mist.
Warm fluid and shredded fragments of skull spattered across Donovan's cheek. He blinked in dumb shock, his mind grinding to a halt. Just across from him, the headless corpse of a guard he had shared barracks with for months wobbled on its knees before collapsing face-first into the dirt.
Thud.
"How dare you."
Donovan choked back a scream, slapping both hands over his mouth to stifle the noise. The noble from the main house—who had been standing dozens of paces away on the raised podium just an instant ago—was now standing right beside him, staring down at the twitching corpse.
"Muttering vulgarities in my presence."
The young man's frigid gaze swept across the surrounding guards. Donovan slammed his eyes to the ground, breaking into a cold sweat, while every other man did the exact same, trembling where they stood.
Whoosh—
A faint breeze stirred, and by the time Donovan dared to glance up, the noble had already reappeared back on the podium, his posture pristine and untouched by a single drop of blood.
"Ensure that you redouble your vigilance when inspecting workers for concealed magical implements. This directive is for the prosperity of the family, but it is also for your own survival. Do you understand?"
"Y-Yes, my lord!"
Donovan and every guard present screamed their response at the top of their lungs, far louder and crisper than during any drill.
Seemingly satisfied by their volume, the noble's harsh expression softened by a fraction. "Good. That spirit pleases me. Should any of you apprehend or neutralize an intruder, you shall be rewarded handsomely. Give your all for the Drake Family."
"Yes, sir!"
With his hands clasped behind his back, the noble vanished into the main administrative wing. The moment he was gone, the captain's subservient posture vanished, instantly snapping back into his usual barking persona.
"Listen up, you blockheads! Before you head out to your posts, take one of these and put it on!"
"What are these, Captain?"
Donovan had never seen anything like it. It was a smooth, pebble-like object about the size of a coin. The captain picked one up and shoved it directly into his ear canal.
"Watch closely. You wedge it into your ear like this, and—"
"Oh, whoa..."
Having demonstrated its use, the captain gestured impatiently. "Take one each. These are prototypes undergoing field trials, so don't get any bright ideas about sneaking them off to a pawnshop. If any of you tries to steal one to sell on the street, I'll slit your throat myself."
"Understood!"
Donovan carefully took one of the devices and nestled it into his ear. He had expected it to feel uncomfortable, but it sat snugly against the cartilage, surprisingly natural.
A moment later, the voices of his fellow guards crackled directly inside his head with startling clarity.
—Holy shit. What kind of sorcery is this?
—No kidding! As expected of the Drake Family, brewing up artifacts like this...
—Shut your damn mouths! You weren't given those to shoot the shit. Keep the channel clear for essential operational reports only! And remember, the higher-ups are monitoring this frequency, so watch your fucking tongues.
The chatter vanished instantly, replaced by a tense hush.
—Move out to your assigned sectors. Double time!
Donovan trudged toward his post, feeling a heavy weight settle on his chest. Having a gizmo like this tethered to his ear meant their shifts were about to become infinitely more exhausting.
He navigated the sprawling interior of the factory. The building was vast, but nearly all of its floor space was choked with bizarre, towering machinery. Narrow catwalks and cramped corridors wound between the iron behemoths, designed with zero regard for human comfort—every square inch had been sacrificed to cram in as much processing equipment as possible.
They use all this just to brew and bottle drinks?
Donovan couldn't even tell whether the apparatuses were mechanical marvels or monstrous magical constructs. Indicator lights flickered intermittently in the dim gloom, accompanied by a ceaseless, low-frequency hum that vibrated up through his boot soles. He couldn't begin to fathom what the devices actually did, but that was just how this place had always been. Navigating the belly of the facility always left him with an unsettling, hollow sense of his own insignificance.
The main gates, at least, were slightly better. The air wasn't nearly as stifling as inside the processing halls.
A sizable crowd of early-shift laborers was already gathered outside the iron barrier, waiting for the facility to open. A few impatient workers banged on the grating, shouting for someone to unlock the doors, but Donovan merely glanced at them and walked past. He didn't care about their complaints; management decreed that the gates opened at a precise hour, and he wasn't about to risk his neck bending the rules.
—Open the main gate.
"Copy that, opening now."
Previously, orders had to be relayed by runners dashing across the compound, but with these ear-pebbles, communication was instantaneous.
Hauling open the heavy iron gate, Donovan and the guards assigned to his detail formed a checkpoint to inspect the incoming crowd.
"Line up, single file! Take it slow!"
Naturally, the workers ignored the command, surging forward in a desperate wave. Donovan gritted his teeth and shoved his baton out to maintain order.
"I said single file, damn it!"
Every person entering the compound had to pass through a device known simply as the 'Scanner'—a door-shaped frame completely devoid of a door, its metallic pillars densely inscribed with intricate, unrecognizable runes.
BEEP—!
Donovan had no idea how the contraption operated, but whenever that high-pitched alarm sounded, protocol demanded an immediate, invasive search.
"Hands above your head! Don't move!"
"Hey! Where do you think you're touching?!"
Donovan and the other guards ignored the protests, patting down male and female workers with clinical thoroughness. From chest cavities down to the lower abdomen, hands probed aggressively. When several workers raised their voices in outrage, Donovan cut them off without hesitation.
"Refusing a physical search means immediate termination. Direct orders from the family."
"Wh-what...?"
Technically, it had been the captain's command, but invoking the Drake Family was far more effective. The noisy crowd silenced itself in an instant.
To laborers who lived day-to-day on razor-thin wages, the word 'termination' was synonymous with a death sentence. Most of them hadn't even known what the word meant until they started working in this factory, but they understood its terror all too well now.
"Flash your pass. Good. Next."
The morning rush was hectic, but the relentless tide of workers gradually slowed to a trickle as the shift hour approached.
—Gate detail.
"Go ahead, Captain."
—We're sealing the outer gate shortly. Donovan, hold your position outside. The rest of you, report back to the inner staging area.
"Understood."
"Look at this lucky bastard, getting to loaf around on solo guard duty," one of the guards muttered with a grin.
"Heh, have fun out here, Donovan."
Donovan waved dismissively as his comrades filed inside, yawning widely as the iron gates clanged shut behind them.
"Man, how long until the weekend? What a drag..."
Tap.
A faint scuff of a boot touched the stone behind him. Donovan started to turn his head—
Before he could register the movement, a gloved hand lunged from his blind spot and clamped over his face like an iron vise.
"Mmph—!"
There was no time to panic. A brutal, overwhelming torque wrenched his skull sideways.
CRACK!
All strength vanished from his limbs as his body collapsed toward the pavement. His vision swam with encroaching darkness, consciousness bleeding away into cold void.
The last thing his dimming eyes caught was a face emerging from the shadows.
Wh-what the...?
Looking back at him was a man with his exact same face.
The question died unanswered in Donovan's throat as his world plunged into total oblivion.
The false Donovan—Bennett—dragged the limp corpse into the shadows of a recessed alcove. Working with swift, practiced efficiency, he stripped the body of its equipment: the peaked cap, the tight-fitting Drake security uniform, the standard-issue sword, and the reinforced leather chestpiece.
As Bennett prepared to pull on the uniform, his fingers brushed against the guard's ear, and he paused.
'...The strike team from back then had these as well.'
During his previous clash against the Drake Family's knight and mage, he had noticed similar devices on their bodies, though he hadn't had the luxury of investigating them amid the chaos. After a moment's consideration, Bennett pried the smooth pebble from Donovan's ear and slotted it into his own.
—All clear inside the factory floor?
—Yes, Captain. All workers are at their stations. Production is proceeding normally.
—Good. Keep your eyes peeled and make sure nobody pisses off the nobles!
—Understood!
Recognizing the device as a short-range communication transceiver, Bennett's eyes sharpened with interest.
I'll definitely need to keep this.
Casting a brief, cold glance at his surroundings, the disguised ranger adjusted his cap, rested a hand on the hilt of his concealed Chainsword, and walked calmly through the entrance of the Drake Family factory.