Chapter 160: The Bear Goes to the Capital Blacksmith

Chapter 160:
The Bear Goes to the Capital Blacksmith

 

THE NEXT DAY after I finished my breakfast, I went to the front of the estate to give Shia and Ellelaura my farewells.

“Yuna, please visit next time you come to the capital. You can come anytime too, Fina.”

“Yeah, I’ll stop by.”

“Thanks for everything, Lady Shia.”

“Thank you, Yuna. There are still some places in the castle I haven’t shown Fina. Next time, maybe we won’t be interrupted by any busybodies.”

“Okay,” Fina responded, but she looked troubled. Had the king really been that terrible to her? Poor thing. I had to protect her next time we went to the castle.

We watched Shia and Ellelaura head out from in front of the estate as they went to the academy and to the castle for work, respectively. From there, Fina and I left for Ghazal’s blacksmith shop in the capital.

Fina held onto my bear puppet as we started to walk.

Maybe she’d been lonely after getting split up for a while. I let her hold my hand—not like I had any reason to shake her off, you know?

“Are we still going home, Yuna?” Fina asked me as we walked in a direction that wasn’t toward the bear house.

“I wanted to stop by Ghazal’s place once before we head back.”

I wanted to ask Ghazal something, and there was also the mithril knife. I had some mithril now after slaying that golem.

With Fina holding my hand as we walked, we arrived at Ghazal’s blacksmith shop.

“Pardon us. Is Ghazal here?” I called inside.

Ghazal came out from inside. “ I was wondering who it was, and here I find you, strange-looking lass.”

“Good morning.”

“What’s brought you at this godforsaken early hour?”

It wasn’t that early. Didn’t a lot of people work right now? “I guess I came to let you know the golem situation at the mines is resolved. Ore should start coming over before too long.”

“You don’t mean—was that your doing?”

“I helped a little.”

I gave him a simple summary of what happened at the mines. “A mithril golem,” he said finally. “I can’t believe it. And for you to be the one that took it down!”

It wasn’t that surprising, but I let him have this. “Anyway, I thought I could order a mithril knife from you with the materials from the golem. Can you do it?”

“You’d be best served asking Gold. Since he lives in the same city, I think that’d be more convenient.”

“I was just curious. But from what you said, wouldn’t making a mithril weapon take a while?”

“Aye, working with mithril is tricky.”

“Right. So I thought I could order them from both you and Gold.” I was thinking of making two knives for butchering and two knives for fighting.

“I understand why, but you’re living in Crimonia. Far less hassle for you to go to Gold, I’d say, with the travel time between here and there.”

“That’s okay. I have a way to get here right away.” Gotta love that bear transport gate.

“I see. If you’re sure, you’ll hear no qualms from me.”

“Thank you. In that case, I’ll pull out the mithril golem.”

I took the crumpled mithril golem out of my bear storage and placed it in the shop’s passageway.

It just barely fit.

“This is the beast?” Ghazal approached the collapsed golem to check it out. He held an arm and a piece of the body and inspected them. He looked serious. Ghazal looked at the destroyed sections of the golem. Then he said something unexpected.

“What is this…this knock-off?”

“Knock-what?” I tilted my head, puzzled.

“Exactly! This is a mithril golem, and it isn’t a mithril golem.”

“Um.”

Ghazal showed me a piece of the mithril golem he was holding. “Here and here, the color of the cross section is different.” He pointed at a cross-section with his thick finger. He was right—the color really was different. “The exterior is mithril, but the inside is iron.”

“What, seriously?!”

“I’m not lying to you. If you returned to Crimonia, Gold would also verify this.”

I didn’t think he was lying, but…the inner metal of the golem was iron? I guess “knock-off” made some sense, then…

“But there is mithril in it, right?”

“About half of it, or maybe a third.”

Well, if that god really had set up this golem then god was a real scrooge. The outside was mithril but the inside was iron? Wasn’t that like plating? It was like fighting a gold golem and finding out it was just gilded. What a rip-off.

“You want me to make you a butchering knife, you said?”

“That is what I wanted, but can you make two fighting knives?”

“Two of them? For both you and the girl?”

“No, no. Both would be for me. I want one for each hand.”

I’d started wanting knives after seeing the way Senia fought. It was cool, seeing her slay iron golems while dual-wielding.

“Two-weapon fighting then?”

“Yeah.”

“Fair enough. You ordered them, and so that’s that. Okay, hold out your hands.”

I held out my hands just as he said, bear puppets at the ready.

“Are you meanin’ to make a fool of me? I told you to show me your hands ’cause I want to know their size and shape. I need to make knives suited for them.”

“But I hold knives with these gloves.” I opened and closed the mouths of my puppets.

“You can do that later. Take off those weird gloves and show me yer hands, lass.”

Jeez, fine. I took off my bear puppets and showed him my hands.

“Hm. Very tiny.” Ghazal touched my palms. It felt a little weird. “And they’re soft. Are you really going to fight holding knives with these hands?”

“I mainly use magic, but yeah.”

“Then I guess it’s fine. But don’t come crying to me if you don’t train up and get a little bloody with those baby hands of yours. Well, I got the size of your hands. Next, show me again with those strange gloves.”

I equipped my bear puppets. Ghazal put his hand in the mouths of my bears and checked my palms. “Good material.”

“You can tell?”

He nodded. “Hrm. All right, I’ve mostly got it. So, in a hurry, are you?”

“I’m not really in a rush. It’s fine if you take your time.” I asked roughly what day they would be complete, and if it would be okay if I returned around then.

“Ah, but what type of mithril are we going with? From what you said, maybe the mana type?”

“Type of mithril?” I tilted my head.

“You were going to make a mithril weapon without even knowing about mithril types?”

I couldn’t help it—mithril weapons hadn’t had types in my game. Ghazal gave an explanation to me, since I had no clue.

“First off, you can draw out the pure strength of the mithril and focus on the blade’s sharpness. This is called the mithril-specialized type. It’s generally used by people who can’t use magic. For the other type, you can mix the mithril with magic potions and supplement it with mana. That’s the mana type. These are used by people who can use magic. Since the mana-type mithril is mixed with other materials, it’s not as sturdy, but you can harden it by supplementing it with mana.”

“And everyone has some mana, right?” If they didn’t, then they couldn’t illuminate light mana gems or get water from water mana gems.

“It’s not the same. If you haven’t mastered magic to a certain degree, you can’t use mana-type mithril.”

So you needed a lot of mana to use mana-type mithril.

“Okay. Which one should I go with, do you think?”

“Depends on the user. Typically, when a mithril-specialized weapon clashes with a wielder’s mana type, the specialized mithril wins...but if the weapon is made from mana-type mithril, imbued with mana, its strength changes to match the user. If you can’t use magic, then go with the specialized type. If you have confidence in your mana, go with the mana type.”

Ghazal continued with his detailed explanation. I’d had no idea these distinctions even existed. In that case, I would go with…

“Mana-type mithril knives, please.”

“Then I’ll get you two mithril knives.” Ghazal took part of the mithril golem. It was only a piece, but it seemed heavy, and yet he lifted it without issue. Was that a dwarf thing? “I’ll return any leftovers.”

“So how much will it cost?”

“Ah, yes. Since you provided your own mithril, about…” He listed off a few figures.

I didn’t know market rate, but it sounded all right to me. I didn’t think Ghazal was trying to take advantage of me or anything.

“Good. Then you can pay when you pick up the knives.”

“Okay, I’ll pay next time I come.”

With the discussion about payment over, I thought back to the iron golems. “Oh right. Would you like a souvenir?”

I put the mithril golem leftovers away in my bear storage and pulled out an iron golem I had defeated with an electric bear punch. The creature towered in the passage.

“What’s that thing?”

Ghazal was shocked when he saw the iron golem. Well, I guess it would be scary to see a pristine iron golem pop up out of nowhere.

“It’s an iron golem. I thought it might really tie the place together. If it was standing in the entrance, wouldn’t that really fit your aesthetic?”

“Do you want to scare my customers away?!”

“I just thought it was a good idea. If the golem was holding a sword and shield, I think it would really draw the eye; be good advertising.”

“So what, it’s supposed to be my door-keep?” Ghazal was astounded. “Besides, I can’t accept something this expensive for free.”

“It’s fine. I have a lot of them.”

I didn’t have many uses for the iron golems. I could stand to lose one.

“You have a lot of golems? What are you? Gold said in his letter that despite your appearances, you’re an excellent adventurer and I should lend you a hand.”

“I’m just a C-Rank adventurer.”

“You’re just a C-Rank? And people believe that?” Ghazal looked at my bear outfit dubiously. “All right. I’ll take the iron golem as payment for the mithril knives. I’ll provide maintenance for those knives free of charge.”

“I’ll pay the fee.”

“Don’t need it. But I’ll have you know that if that thing gets in the way of business, I’m getting rid of it.”

“In that case, I’ll put it in the corner of the shop.” I strained a little with my bear puppets and moved the iron golem to the corner. “Shouldn’t get in the way here.”

I looked over my shoulder. Fina and Ghazal stared at me in wonder.

“What is it?”

“Yuna...”

“You’re amazingly strong despite those soft hands of yours.”

Oh, duh. I suppose frail girls couldn’t normally lift iron golems.

“Well, uh,” said Ghazal, “I’ll get right to it. You can come to pick them up when they’re done.”

As I went to leave the store, I remembered something. “Oh, right. Can I show you something, Ghazal?”

“What is it?”

I took out the Bearyllium I’d obtained after slaying the mithril golem from my bear storage. “Do you know what kind of stone this is?”

I handed the Bearyllium over to Ghazal, who took it and inspected it closely. Just in case, I kept the name Bearyllium to myself. If no one knew it by that name, I didn’t want people thinking I’d named it myself.

Ghazal looked at the Bearyllium from different angles before finally shaking his head. “As far as I know, I’ve never seen it before.”

Even a dwarf didn’t recognize this stuff? Exactly what was Bearyllium? “It dropped where I defeated the mithril golem.”

More accurately, it had been buried.

“I see it’s no ordinary stone, but I know nothing more about it. Maybe my master would know.”

“Your master?”

“Yes, back in my hometown. Not someone I could consult immediately.”

“Where’s your hometown, Ghazal?”

“A town near the mines where dwarves have gathered. I studied my master’s blacksmithing technique there.”

“A town where dwarves have gathered? Really? Oooh, is it far?” A dwarven town, like in a fantasy. I had to go there.

“It’s quite the journey, yes.”

“Can you tell me where it is?”

“Do you want to go?”

“Someday, yeah.”

I had to visit the dwarf town—oh, and elven country, too. I wondered if Sanya would tell me where that was? My excitement was growing by the minute.

“If you really do go, I’ll write you a letter of introduction for my master.”

“Really?! Yes, please.”

“In that case, I’ll have that ready when you come to get your knives.”

“Thank you.”

Dwarf town. There was a dwarf town!