Chapter 53: The Tin Knight and The City of Clockwork — Act 2 (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 53: The Tin Knight and The City of Clockwork — Act 2 (2)
“Damn it all. What a mess.”
Smith Geppetto, the artisan of the doll workshop, grumbled to himself.
The parts for magic dolls were varied, and many of them were vulnerable to moisture.
One of an artisan’s duties was to inspect these parts to prevent them from breaking down, a task that was part of Smith’s daily routine.
But today, for some reason, the work he repeated every day wasn't going well.
The cloth he needed to wipe away rust would tear, he’d accidentally knock over the can of maintenance oil, and just as he was about to settle down and get some real work done, the city guard would come by to poke around. In any case, nothing was going right.
“Haaah.”
A sigh escaped Smith’s lips.
In truth, he knew.
The preceding incidents had been unpleasant, but looking at them coolly, none of them were a big deal on their own.
The problem was Smith’s own state of mind.
Just as a sick person reacts irritably to even the most trivial things, so too did Smith.
It wasn't a problem with his body.
It was a problem with his mind.
More specifically, two recent customers had thrown his mind into disarray.
「This old clunker is in pretty bad shape, so I want it repaired. Can you do it?」
「I wish to give my knight a fine gift, but the other shops just don't measure up. Can you show me what you can do?」
The doll with the black witch was so old he couldn't even guess its age, but the mystery and technology left in its body were as beautiful and exquisite as a masterpiece painting.
It was, so to speak, a masterwork crafted by a gathering of ancient, genius artists.
The doll the white witch brought was the opposite.
From head to toe, it was the very definition of cutting-edge. If the Tin Knight was a case of ‘I know the method, but the level is too high to replicate,’ this one was closer to ‘I can't even begin to guess what kind of technology they crammed into it.’
Compared to the doll the white witch had brought, every so-called new product from the most renowned makers in this city would be treated as old-fashioned.
Considering that Tik-Tok's magic doll industry was number one in the Empire, it was truly a marvel.
Black and white.
As if by design, the two contrasting witches had each entrusted their magic dolls to Smith, and Smith, as an artisan, had accepted.
The result was disastrous.
At least, that’s what Smith himself thought.
Of course, it wasn't that Smith had made a mistake or failed to complete the commissions.
He had flawlessly repaired the Tin Knight’s mana circuits, which had been a complete mess of rags and patches, and he had neatly tuned the body of the White Knight, whose overall balance had been thrown off by an over-focus on the performance of each individual part.
Both clients had nodded without complaint, but in Smith’s own assessment, the outcome was a 70 out of 100 at best.
The fact that the missing 30 points were not due to his own lack of ability, but to his equipment and circumstances, made Smith all the more depressed.
If it were purely a lack of skill, he could humbly accept his shortcomings and work to improve. But external factors were not something he could change through effort alone.
If only he still had the workshop his grandfather left behind, things would have been different, but that was an impossible dream.
Smith’s grandfather, Pollen Geppetto, was a doll artisan hailed as the most skilled in all of Tik-Tok.
Even mages, who generally held no high opinion of magic dolls, would come from all over the Empire, saying they could trust a doll made by Pollen.
Some had even offered enormous rewards to hire Pollen as their exclusive artisan, but Pollen had refused every single offer.
This was why Smith was always complaining about his grandfather, calling him a “damned old geezer.”
If he had just accepted one of those offers, the Geppetto family would never have been cornered like this.
In fact, despite Pollen’s great fame, the Geppetto family was not very wealthy.
When a valuable customer came by, one was supposed to flatter them a bit and play along to get them to open their wallets, but Pollen had the worst aptitude for that sort of thing.
He was a brilliant artisan, but not a brilliant merchant.
For Pollen himself, that wasn't a problem.
No matter how eccentric his personality, as long as his skills were up to par, there were always those who would praise it as artisan spirit and integrity.
But Smith’s father was not the same.
Lacking the skill of his father, Pollen, he had to endure immense pressure from being compared to him. After Pollen’s death, as the customers’ footsteps grew sparse, he also had to worry about financial difficulties.
The expectant gazes of those around him.
The impatience to achieve something quickly.
The perfect conditions were set for him to be scammed.
Swindlers wagged their tongues, promising him wealth and fame to rival his father’s, and he fell for the temptation.
The result was predictable.
All the various legacies his grandfather had left behind fell into the hands of others, his parents, lost in despair, ended their lives at an early age, and Smith and his younger sister were kicked out of the workshop his grandfather had used, forced to eke out a living in the back alleys.
Location is a crucial factor in business.
No matter how skilled Smith and Sinc were, the customers who came all the way to a crime-ridden back alley were usually oddballs or the unsavory sort.
Even then, they were lucky if anyone came at all; there were many days when only dust blew through the shop.
It wasn't as if they could move the shop to a more visible location, either.
The lack of capital was one problem, but the swindlers who had stolen his grandfather’s workshop would never allow it.
Unless some convenient miracle occurred, Smith was destined to remain stuck in this back alley.
“...Damn it. What am I doing, wallowing in self-pity?”
Smith scratched his messy hair.
He had chided his sister, saying, ‘If you can’t do it, you can’t do it. Don’t be pathetic and blame your tools.’ Yet here he was, lamenting his own situation with thoughts like ‘if only my grandfather had been a little kinder to others’ or ‘if only my father hadn’t been fooled by those swindlers.’ Even he had to admit it was a pathetic sight.
Blaming his idleness for these useless thoughts, he was glaring at the innocent shop door when it happened.
With the sound of creaking hinges, a customer arrived.
Like a fisherman who had finally felt a bite on his long-awaited line, Smith shot to his feet.
“Welcome—oh.”
Greeting her out of habit, Smith flinched in spite of himself.
The black witch who had given him so much to worry about was standing there.
She was such a striking customer that there was no room for mistaken identity.
A beautiful face, so cool it was alluring.
Form-fitting black clothes that clearly showed off her well-proportioned body.
To Smith, who lived in the back alleys, she looked like a walking trouble-magnet.
Meaning, men who thought with their loins instead of their heads would flock to her like flies to a Venus flytrap.
Thinking about it, something was a little strange.
If a woman this conspicuous had been wandering the back alleys, rumors would have surely spread, but not a single one of the local idiots had mentioned anything about her.
Smith couldn't even imagine that something like ‘magic that makes it difficult for anyone but the person you intend to speak with to see you’ could exist.
‘Is it because she covers herself with a cloak? No, honestly, I don’t think that’s something a cloak could solve.’
As his thoughts reached that point, Smith snapped back to his senses.
The customer’s appearance wasn't what was important right now.
“Ahem. What can I do for you?”
Insisting that he was different from his grandfather, who had been terrible at customer service, Smith greeted the customer with a relatively friendly attitude.
Due to his gruff appearance, he looked more like a beefy bouncer guarding the entrance to a nightclub, but Smith himself didn't realize it.
The witch answered.
“I’m here to request additional enhancements.”
“Oh? Did you find the gems in such a short time?”
Smith’s question was natural.
The Tin Knight’s mana tank had its capacity considerably reduced from long years of abuse, but it was still superior to most of the common ones on the market.
Finding something better than that was no easy task.
As expected, the witch shook her head at Smith’s question.
“Not that. The mana circuits. You said there was still more you could work on, right?”
Smith was disappointed.
“If you’re talking about the detailed circuits, that’s beyond me. And I believe I told you that implementing them wouldn't make much of a difference.”
“You said it yourself. The thin and thick circuits are like blood vessels in a human. It might be meaningless for an ordinary magic doll, but for a magic doll that’s close to human, it might have meaning.”
“Well. Um.”
Smith was at a loss for words.
He prided himself on having knowledge and skills regarding magic dolls second to none in Tik-Tok, but a ‘magic doll with a human soul’ was a matter in a realm unknown even to him.
Since it was an unknown realm, he couldn't outright deny the witch’s hypothesis as wrong.
However.
“...Even if that’s true, it’s impossible to reproduce those fine circuits in our workshop.”
So give it up.
Smith spoke with the nuance of telling her not to cling to a hopeless dream.
Perhaps those words were directed not at the witch before him, but at himself.
“Then why not just build a new one? One just as good as the one your grandfather used.”
Smith’s eyes flew open.
*
-There is an artisan here with the skill to repair the Tin Knight.
-However, he has been deprived of the high-end equipment he originally used, making it impossible for him to display his full capabilities.
To this, Dorothea’s conclusion was simple.
-Then isn't the solution to just give him good equipment? What? History and tradition? A building filled with family memories? Can you eat that to fill your stomach?
Of course, the Tin Knight did protest.
[The ‘Tin Knight’ insists that this is the part where you're supposed to help him reclaim the workshop of his memories!]
“No, as long as the tool’s performance is similar, who cares if it has memories or not.”
[The ‘Tin Knight’ points out that you should follow the standard story progression!]
“Standard progression, my ass. There’s no such thing in this world.”
Dorothea didn't know the long, convoluted story of the Geppetto family.
Frankly, she wasn't interested.
All that mattered to her was the fact that if she provided Smith with a good environment and tools, she could commission the work she wanted.
“I'll give you the workshop once it's built. In return, all future work related to this guy will be free of charge. How about it?”
Smith was flustered.
“W-wait a minute. What do you mean by that? You'll build me a workshop? Just to commission one job?”
“Whether it's ‘just’ one job is for me to decide. So, are you interested?”
Of course he was.
He was, but.
“...Haaah. It’s impossible. If I try to crawl out into the open, the Stromboli Company won't just stand by. They’re one of the biggest names in the magic doll industry, and with a Count’s family backing them, everyone trembles before them.”
“Does that list of trembling people include the lord of this city?”
“Huh? Uh, hmm. I guess not. Tik-Tok is a major city, and the Lord isn't someone who can be easily ignored.”
The Stromboli Count family and the lord of Tik-Tok.
Smith didn't know exactly which one had the upper hand, but at the very least, one couldn't easily bow to the other.
And for Dorothea, that was enough.
“As long as the lord of Tik-Tok doesn't personally step in to side with them, it doesn't matter. At least we won't be blocked by official procedures.”
“It’s not that simple! All the related technicians will be watching them, and if I try to recruit workers, I’ll only get drifters! Do you think I can build a proper workshop like that!? I know you have a lot of money, but this kind of thing requires the specialized skills of those involved!”
“I can take care of that. You just have to decide whether you'll do it or not.”
Smith couldn't understand on what grounds the woman before him was so confident.
What on earth was the source of this confidence…
‘...Could it be?’
No, there was one possibility.
It was.
‘Was she actually a noble? A big shot who could look down on the Stromboli Company!’
Thinking that, everything seemed to fall into place.
Her habit of speaking down to everyone, that arrogant attitude, and that suspiciously large amount of money!
‘Right, I heard that among the nobility, there are many who pour money into making their children superhumans who can freely handle mana, like skilled knights or mages. That staff. And the magic doll. Even the strange outfit could be a kind of mage’s robe…!’
Smith trembled.
The ‘once-in-a-lifetime opportunity’ he had so desperately wished for was right before his eyes.
And Smith, who believed his family had suffered because of his grandfather’s stiff-necked pride, had no intention of making the same mistake. (Smith's father had been scammed after a similar thought process, but people tend to think they'll be fine, even without any basis for it.)
“I’ll do it! I will! If you can really build me a proper workshop, I'll do all repairs and upgrades for free!!”
And so, one naive artisan fell for the witch's temptation.
*
[The ‘Tin Knight’ asks how you plan to gather the technicians!]
[The ‘Tin Knight’ points out that just paying a lot of money to unskilled people will result in a shoddy product!]
“You worry too much. Have you forgotten what city this is?”
Dorothea raised her staff with her right hand.
Simultaneously, she rotated her left hand counter-clockwise, transforming the chain ring into a birdcage.
And then she spoke.
“—All you guys who prided yourselves on your professional skills in life, gather 'round. If you're too shy to have your skills compared to others, feel free to stay away.”
《GUOOOOOOOH!!》
At the witch's taunting call, the souls of Tik-Tok began to stir.