Bonus Short Story

Blacksmith and Customer

“So that cloth... Is your weapon in there, sir?”

A large object wrapped in dark cloth was leaned up against a wall in the smithy. The blacksmith eyed it as he spoke to the ferocious-looking customer across the desk from him.

“Yeah. Lots of eyes in town, you know. I wouldn’t want to scare any little ones, so I’ve wrapped it up.”

...Dark cloth, so the blood doesn’t show through. The blacksmith gave a little groan at his customer’s knowledgeability of how to hide his shadiness.

“A warrior of your caliber must be wielding a proper blade with a well-known name, eh? Let me guess, there’s magic in the blade?”

“No, it’s standard make, no name. It has to fit my build, of course. I tend to be rough with them, so the expensive, finely crafted sort doesn’t work well for me.”

...I see. Leave a named sword at the scene, and the trail could lead right back to you. It only makes sense for someone in his line of work. The blacksmith nodded to himself as he read between the lines.

“So how’s work lately, sir?” asked the smith.

The smith’s daughter Nell had brought them some baked sweets and tea, unafraid of her father’s customer. Each time the man picked one up from the tray, the white dog on his lap stole it out of his hand. The man sent the smith a sharp look at his question.

“Oh, that’s frightful,” the smith shuddered. “It’s all right, sir, I won’t blab to anyone, I swear.”

“I’m cutting trees.”

“Trees, eh?”

“Yes. Trees.”

“Trees” must be slang for something. I’m almost certain it means “members of enemy organizations.” The blacksmith gulped, catching on to the man’s hidden meaning.

“S-So how many ‘trees’ would you say you’ve cut?”

“I don’t bother to count. I do it every day.”

“Th-That many?”

“It’s my job. There’ll be no place for me if I don’t do it.”

The blacksmith gulped down his tea to hide how his lips were shaking.

“At first, I thought my job was just to cut them down, but...then I was ordered to strip them all, since they’d look better that way. And the cutting was fine, but the stripping I wasn’t used to, so that was pretty rough.”

“Y-You skin them to set an example?!”

The man only responded with a short “Hm?” and a raised eyebrow.

“No, nothing! Sorry.”

“Hmm? Have you ever stripped one, Master Smith?” The man was chattier than usual. He must have been getting into the conversation.

“Of course I haven’t!”

“Oh, yeah? Well, the key is to do it while they’re still fresh. If you leave ’em too long, it gets harder to do the work. But when they’re fresh, you can get your blade under the bark and you pull...and it just comes right off.”

“Eep!”

“Sometimes you can just cut into it and then use your hands to peel it all away in one go.”

“Oufh...”

“I’ve heard some people strip them while they’re still standing, and then just leave them there and wait for them to die.”

“That’s terrible...”

“Apparently bugs will eat the bits you miss, so the wood ends up looking better. How you do it is...”

“I-I get it! You don’t need to give me the details!”

“Oh? Well, anyway, it was hard at first, but the blades you made for me really helped.”

“S-So you were stripping them...with the blades I forged for you...”

“Yeah. They really get the bark off clean. Really clean.”

The teacup fell from the blacksmith’s powerless hand to the desk. The white dog reached out and dexterously righted the cup with its paw, but the smith failed to notice.

“And not just stripping them, of course. They’re good for getting any cumbersome protrusions off, too. They can be hard to carry if you don’t do that, after all.” The villain thrust his hands out in all directions to demonstrate.

“Do you mean...”

“Yeah, you gotta get rid of the branches.” The man bared his teeth and swung an imaginary sword up and down.

...Needless to say, the blacksmith immediately gathered that “branches” was a euphemism for “arms and legs.”

“The cleaver is all I needed to get it done, but the others used the axes you forged for them, Master.”

“My axes...? No, I know. I understand. They were made...to be used...” The blacksmith muttered, a bead of sweat running down his temple.

“When they’re all easy to carry, we load them on a wagon and then take them to the others who are waiting to prepare pillars and stakes...”

“That’s enough! I-I get it...”

“Yeah? Hahahahaha.” The man twisted his beastly countenance into a grin. Like he was happy. Like he truly enjoyed the topic of conversation.

...To the smith, he looked like a lion chewing up his prey.

“Well, I should probably get going. Please deliver the goods to my inn again.”

“R-Right. You got it, sir.”

The thug left the shop, oblivious to the way the blacksmith let his shoulders drop in weary relief.

Outside of the shop, a conversation was taking place:

“I wanted some cookies, too...”

“Too bad, ain’t it? Let’s buy some on our way home. Enough for me, too.”

“You want more?!”

The voices could be faintly heard inside the shop, but the blacksmith was staring blankly at the ceiling, unlistening.

“Oh, Master...” Sensing the customer had left, the smith’s apprentice finally showed himself. “I’m sorry. I’m just too scared of that guy.”

“I don’t blame you. He’s a demon wearing human skin. And I’m a demon’s accomplice...” He laughed self-deprecatingly. “But it’s in a smith’s nature to want even a demon like him to make use of the blades you forge... What a twisted business this is.”

The smith laughed at himself once more and slowly closed his eyes. “Ahh... When will he let me forge him a real blade...?”