Master Blacksmith (1)
Since I'd packed our belongings well in advance, all it took was to swing into the saddle and go. At the sound of my father's command, the delegation set out on the long road home.
We had only just cleared the capital's gates when it happened.
"Don't tell me—that bracelet..."
Adras tilted his head toward me.
"Isn't that the bracelet from the catalog? The one they said was made by the first-grade artisan Yanoshi?"
The moment Adras gawked and carried on in awe, every knight's gaze snapped toward us.
"That's the one."
"Didn't they say it was out of stock back then? That you'd have to wait fifteen years to receive it?"
"The order went in before I was born."
Father turned his head away with a needless cough.
The clerk at the Driss Trading Company had said the piece was commissioned twelve years ago. Meaning Father had prepared a gift in advance for the child who had yet to be born.
He could have taken a little more credit for it, honestly.
Then again, I couldn't quite picture the man bragging over a gift.
The journey home was peaceful. Our only incident was a brief stop at Marquis Legdar's domain, where we whiled away a modest hour showing off Ruby.
"The fortress city is in sight!"
"We're home!"
When the tall walls of Esterji Fortress City rose over the horizon, the knights erupted in cheers.
Returning home after more than two months stirred feelings I hadn't expected. It struck me anew that this place truly was where my roots lay.
For the first few months after being born as Iden, I had simply assumed this world and the Central Plains were connected somewhere out there. I'd believed my place was beside my late master's grave, and that one day I would have to return to it.
But now it was my days as Jangpyeong that felt strange, like a half-remembered dream. My master's face had blurred at the edges, and all that remained was the ache of missing him.
"The Grand Duke has returned!"
The domain's residents poured into the streets to greet the delegation. With no formal welcome ceremony arranged, it was closer to utter chaos.
"Long live the Grand Duke!"
Still, one thing came through clearly: Father had the people's support. Unlike folks anywhere else, the commoners of Esterzy territory knew exactly who it was that shielded them.
"You've all worked hard. Go on, unpack and get some rest."
Father headed for the ducal residence with the nobles who had come out to meet him. He'd told me to rest, but he himself showed no sign of doing any such thing.
"Will you be returning to the palace, Lord Iden?" Thalia asked.
"No, let's head to headquarters together."
The items I'd bought at the capital's market filled an entire cart. I wanted to see the knights' faces light up as they received their new equipment.
"Lord Iden! We've been waiting with bated breath!"
The moment we entered the headquarters' front yard, Vitten and the knights came pouring out of the building.
I held a brief inspection in the courtyard. The members had grown beyond recognition in my absence.
"How goes the training?"
"Forty-one lower-tier and thirty-two mid-tier, my lord. The mid-tier Awakened have grown by leaps, and most of the remaining lower-tier members are on the verge of promotion."
A staggering result. With thirty-two mid-tier Awakened, no one would sneer at us as a mere mercenary band anymore.
"Shaka's growth in particular has been remarkable. Just a few days ago, she manifested Telecontrol—the higher evolution of her Telepathy."
"What kind of ability is Telecontrol?"
"She controls other people's bodies with her will alone. From what I hear, once she's mastered it, she could puppet dozens of people at once like marionettes."
"...That's more than anyone could handle."
"For now it's merely a nuisance, of course. At most, she can interrupt a man mid-shave."
Vitten gnashed his teeth with pride.
To think that girl—already so high-maintenance back when all she had was Telepathy—would end up hijacking other people's bodies too. At this rate, her "strongest" might not be just talk anymore.
I'd have to figure out how to keep her in check before she caused a real catastrophe. Character education, perhaps. Or partially applying sealing arts.
"By the way, we're one man short. Is someone on duty who couldn't come out?"
"I was just about to raise that very matter. Bellin is in poor condition. We may have to consider an early discharge."
"Early discharge? Why, all of a sudden?"
"He suffered an overflow."
"What? How?"
"It seems he absorbed a fifth-grade mana orb incorrectly and it went badly for him. I've applied a talisman as a stopgap, but his progress isn't good."
Vitten's voice was heavy with gloom. I hurried to the infirmary inside the headquarters. In a spacious ward with more than twenty beds, Bellin was the only patient.
"L-Lord Iden."
The moment Bellin saw me, fat tears began to drip down his face. The Bellin I remembered was a cheerful, sturdy young man. The figure before me was a patient wasted away to a toothpick.
"I'm sorry. My own greed got the better of me, and..."
I took his wrist and let a single thread of true qi flow into it. The energy couldn't advance so much as an inch past his wrist; it was blocked outright.
Bellin's body was in worse shape than mine—even with my severed meridians. Every last one of his qi channels had already sealed shut; his life as a warrior was as good as over.
"It isn't your fault, Bellin."
In this world, humans grew strong in two principal ways: Awoken Abilities and mana orbs. But a mana orb was a material harvested from living creatures, and anything taken from a living thing inevitably carried impurities—there had never been a guarantee of one hundred percent safety.
"You simply did your best as a knight. Hold your head high. You're retiring from the ranks, not being cast out."
Bellin swept his tears away with his sleeve. I turned to Vitten and gave my orders.
"Help Bellin through the discharge process, and make his severance generous. He shouldn't have to worry about putting food on the table."
"Understood, my lord."
The faces of the watching members were grim. This would inevitably cow the other knights as well. Every bout of training was, in effect, a spin of the roulette wheel with their own lives on the line.
Leaving the infirmary behind, I made for the pill refining workshop. If there was to be no second Bellin, we desperately needed pills we could trust.
"Young Lord Iden, welcome back."
Kaspar greeted me with a smile.
"How's it going, Kaspar? Any progress?"
"I wouldn't say none."
He brought over a pill clumped dark as coal and showed it to me.
"While you were away, Young Lord, I racked my brain in my own fashion. This one pushed the yield rate up to sixty percent."
Put the other way, it meant forty percent of the mana contained in the materials was being thrown away. An impressive feat—but also proof that a long road still lay ahead.
"If there's anything I can do to help, just say the word."
"The trouble begins beyond sixty percent. The theoretical foundation seems to be in place now, but one stubborn difficulty is giving us no end of grief."
"What difficulty?"
"First, have a look over here, if you would."
In the direction Kaspar pointed, shattered distillers lay piled high.
"As the yield climbs, the distillers can't endure it. To push the process any further, we need apparatus capable of withstanding the power of high-grade mana orbs."
I had expected durability to rear its head eventually. But seeing steel distillers crumpled like sheets of paper, I had a sinking feeling the fix would not come easy.
"So we need a sturdy metal."
"Precisely. It must be durable enough not to dent even when struck by sword-qi."
"What about Oradium? Or Doomsteel, for that matter?"
Every weapon that had caught my eye in the premium hall had used one of those two metals, after all.
"Oradium would be beyond perfect."
Kaspar's tone quickened with excitement.
"The only catch is that Oradium is a substance only Master-tier fabrication-type Awakened can work. But within the duchy, an artisan of that caliber..."
"There isn't one?"
"Not as far as I know. Most Master-tier fabrication-type Awakened are attached to the great trading companies headquartered in the capital."
Yeah... figures. Even the equipment people sported around the capital had looked a cut above from the start.
"There is also the option of commissioning the work through another guild."
"That would be far too much of a hassle."
Researching pill refining would mean endlessly reworking the distillers along the way, and we couldn't very well shuttle back and forth to the capital placing orders each time.
Which brought me around, once again, to the same conclusion: somehow, some way, I had to secure a fabrication-type Awakened. It wasn't just distillers, either—there was a whole laundry list of things that needed making.
A vast garden lay carpeted in white sand, planted thick with strange flora that looked fit for a desert.
I spotted Lucian atop a dune at the garden's center, standing with his hands clasped behind his back beneath an awning pitched right there on the sand.
This was Lucian's private residence. It was the first time I had set foot in his home since we'd known each other. I crunched across the sand to his side.
"It's been a while, Young Lord Iden."
Lucian turned to me with a knowing look. In his hand floated a pink fruit drink.
"I've tried mixing Sparkling Bay with Flame Ginger. Care for a glass?"
"Gladly. Though what's with the desert in your backyard?"
"I would be grateful if you'd take it as an expression of yearning for what lies beyond one's reach."
Which I took to mean he'd simply torched a mountain of money.
He poured the drink into my glass in a smooth stream, then spoke in a sly tone.
"You have the look of a man about to ask a favor. As always, that is."
"You're uncanny. Actually, I did come with a rather difficult request."
"I am not your magic pouch, Young Lord. You do recall that our contract remains valid only under the condition of mutual benefit?"
"Hear me out. You won't be losing anything."
Lucian handed me the glass with a faint smile.
"Very well. State your business."
"I need an artisan with a fabrication-type Awoken Ability. I hear such talent is devilishly hard to find, but I figured if anyone would know something, it would be you."
Lucian's eye for anything that turned a profit was uncanny. He had been the only one to recognize Ruby as a Magma Dragon, after all.
"A fabrication-type Awakened, you say."
Lucian's eyes glittered with interest.
"If such talent happens to be lying idle somewhere, I'd appreciate an introduction myself. I'd grovel on the ground if that's what it took to bring them in."
"So you do know someone?"
That look. It was always that look when he scented a cut of the profits.
"I do know of someone—though 'merely knowing of' would be the more honest phrasing. For me, a talent I can do nothing with might as well not exist."
"Who is it?"
Lucian simply sipped his drink in silence.
"I'll install a permanent illusion trap in your office. You do remember sailing through that tax audit unscathed thanks to me, don't you?"
"I remember. You turned Birch—the self-styled 'greatest illusionist of the duchy'—into a laughingstock. That said, we've since moved anything incriminating over to a warehouse, so an illusion trap isn't worth much at the moment."
"How about your mansion, then?"
"Then we have a deal."
Lucian extended his hand, and we shook on it firmly. His safety was good for me too, so as far as I was concerned, the terms cost me nothing.
"I can give you the information. Whether you can accomplish what even I gave up on, however, I cannot say."
"Just give me the name."
"Ruka Rain."
"...Rain?"
I stared at Lucian, refusing to believe it. His enigmatic smile confirmed my suspicion.
"Head of the Rain family—and your maternal uncle, Young Lord."
Now I understood why it was supposed to be difficult. All contact with the Rain family had ceased entirely after Mother's death. They hadn't sent so much as a word on my birthdays, and I'd long since resigned myself to never meeting them.
"Ruka Rain was once a fabrication-type Awakened with a brilliant future ahead of him. But after his two elder brothers fell in succession on the northern front, and Her Grace the Duchess, Lady Ophelia Rain, passed away as well, he settled the family estate and vanished. No one knows his whereabouts today, but..."
Lucian let the moment hang.
"Someone leaves a single flower at the Rain family tomb every year."
"How do you know all that? Even I don't know where the Rain family tomb is."
As with Ruby, his information network was exceptional to the point of excess. I half suspected he had some Awoken Ability behind it.
"Did I not just tell you? He liquidated the estate. Property that a fallen noble dumps on the market cheap is natural prey for greedy merchants."
He gave me a knowing smile.
"Besides—who but our trading company would take on the job of delivering flowers grown in the Demonic Realm?"