1.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d opened my eyes to such a pleasant fragrance.
And even more so when it was a woman’s scent.
Not Ruby’s, of course. Dolores’s.
When I looked beside me, Ruby and Dolores were already gone, and the blankets had been neatly folded.
The same went for Dolores’s spot. Nothing but her scent remained on the pillow.
I could hear Ruby chattering outside.
So I was the only one who’d slept in.
I should wash up.
"Good morning..."
"Wow, sleepyhead’s finally awake."
"Yeah, morning to you too..."
Calling me sleepyhead first thing in the morning...
Dolores smiled softly and waved.
"I’ll go wash up..."
Naturally, I was about to head out toward the washroom outside.
But just then, Dolores caught my shoulder and turned me back inward.
Toward the washroom inside the villa.
"Wash up in here."
"...Yes."
This time, I didn’t refuse.
You could call it learned helplessness.
I’d learned yesterday that trying was pointless anyway.
Standing before the basin, I saw the little face in the mirror—the one I was gradually getting used to.
Damn, this kid really is handsome.
As I washed my face, I called Yuna.
"What’s Ariel Plaza?"
I’d heard that was where we were going today.
I thought it would be convenient to learn about it in advance, but they’d said I couldn’t enter the Tower because of my age.
Which naturally meant the Outer Tower.
[Good morning.]
[Just a moment.]
As I rinsed with water, a hologram appeared.
[Ariel Plaza. It’s the largest commercial plaza outside the Tower, located right beside the Empire.]
[Climbers, merchants, nobles, mercenaries... no matter what they do, everyone passes through there. You can think of nearly everything traded in the Empire as passing through that plaza.]
"Equipment too?"
[Of course. Weapons, materials, magical tools, clothing, food, information—everything.]
[Even mercenary contracts.]
[It has seven districts. Don’t imagine some rural market just because it’s called a plaza.]
I nodded as I brushed my teeth.
One surprising thing about this world was that its infrastructure was fairly well-developed in everything except the scenery.
The toothbrush I was using was part of that.
Well, whatever.
I could just think of it as going to a department store or outlet mall.
Since I could look at things and tell them apart, I could buy something decent as appropriate.
I roughly dried my face with a towel and stepped outside.
There was a change of clothes waiting by the door, and by now I simply put them on without resisting.
"Are you dressed?"
"Yes."
Dolores and Ruby were already ready to go out.
Dolores wore a whiter dress than usual.
Ruby was putting on her shoes beside her. Between her expression and her brisk movements, she seemed very excited.
Outings are nice, after all.
Especially when you’re young.
As I walked over, I pointed down at Ruby’s feet.
"Your shoelace is untied."
The little shoes had cute shoelaces, and one of them had come loose.
Dolores smiled silently and crouched before Ruby, intending to tie it for her.
Tsk. What a spoiled kid.
If you’re thirteen, you should handle what you can yourself.
"Hey, do it yourself."
"..."
"How old are you?"
Of course, I said it while carefully watching Dolores’s reaction.
She might like doing this sort of thing, after all. But she only smiled at me and did nothing to stop me.
In that case, perhaps...
Maybe she simply didn’t know when to stop indulging her.
I’d help her with that.
"..."
Ruby’s face turned red.
She had no real argument against it.
I carefully crouched in front of Ruby.
"You crouch down too."
Ruby reluctantly crouched.
I held one side of the lace and slowly showed her, explaining each step.
"Cross them into an X like this, loop it once, and pull."
Ruby copied me. Her fingers were short, so the laces kept slipping away.
"It’s not working..."
"Then keep trying until it does."
Ruby pressed her lips together and grabbed the laces again.
She managed the crossing this time, but lost them again when she tried to loop them.
"It’s okay. It’s your first time."
"..."
Her eyes were fixed on my fingers. She didn’t intend to miss the demonstration.
When I showed her one more time, she followed along fairly well this time.
Swish.
It was ugly, but she did tie a knot.
Still, she was pretty good at it.
"It’s not hard, right?"
"...Yeah."
"You can do it."
Ruby looked down at her toes and nodded.
Her voice was quiet, but the corners of her lips had curled up slightly.
Sure, she talked tough, but I thought she was really cute and well-behaved at this point.
After all, hadn’t she accepted my sudden arrival in no time at all?
She’d been living alone with Dolores, so she had every reason to be jealous.
Tap, tap.
I didn’t stroke Ruby’s head like Dolores did. I just gave it a couple of pats.
Then—
"Eek."
"Eek?"
This little brat.
I only realized after standing that Dolores had been quietly watching from behind us.
Ruby sprang to her feet, turned toward Dolores, and rushed at her with a delighted expression.
"Master, I did it!"
"Well done. I’m proud of you."
I, too, roughly got up and was about to leave.
Then Dolores quietly whispered behind me.
"Lionel, I didn’t know you’d ever tied shoes with laces before."
"Haha... I’m good with my hands..."
I gave a vague answer.
When we left the villa, a carriage was waiting outside.
I’d wondered how we were getting there, but it was by carriage.
Though calling it an ordinary carriage felt a little off. Something about it was different.
Something blue was inscribed around the wheel axles.
It was a carriage, but instead of horses, a blue-glowing chunk of stone was embedded inside it. Behind it sat a driver, like on an ordinary carriage.
Was that like an engine?
A horseless carriage...
[It’s a carriage made with magic engineering. It runs on mana stones. They say it’s about three times faster than a normal carriage.]
Even horses had lost their jobs.
Dolores casually opened the door.
"Get in."
The interior was more spacious than I’d expected.
Four seats and a small table. Thin curtains hung over the windows, and a basket of fruit rested on the table.
Ruby climbed in first and claimed the window seat.
I sat across from her, and Dolores got in last and shut the door.
Hummm.
The mana stone resonated as the carriage began moving without a sound.
Until we left the orphanage, the scenery remained the same.
Stables, fields, dirt roads, then more stables.
But less than ten minutes after the carriage started moving, the view outside changed.
The dirt road gave way to stone paving.
"How long will it take, by any chance?"
It wasn’t anything else.
It wasn’t as if I got motion sick or anything.
"It won’t take long."
"I see."
Before I knew it, houses made from various kinds of wood were passing beyond the window.
I leaned against the window and was about to close my eyes for a moment.
"Lionel."
Dolores called me.
"Ruby."
She called Ruby as well.
Ruby stopped chewing the grapes with a crunch, crunch and looked up at Dolores.
"After we return from the plaza, we’re going to the territory."
"..."
"..."
The territory—the Duchy of Dolores.
I’d heard about it last night.
"The three of us will be living together from now on."
The three of us.
Ruby’s eyes widened.
She looked at me, then Dolores, then me again.
"...Together?"
"Yes."
"Lionel too?"
"Lionel too."
Ruby hesitated for a moment.
"...’Kay."
Without another word, she picked up another grape and put it in her mouth.
Other than chewing faster than before, she showed no particular reaction.
I didn’t think she was refusing.
I didn’t have anything to say either.
I already had two family members.
Then, since we were family now, getting along would be important.
I held out my hand to Ruby.
"It’s nice to meet you, Ruby."
Ruby stared at me.
Then she reached across the table and clasped my hand.
"..."
"...Eat."
She had placed a grape in my hand.
What was this?
I accepted it and chewed.
"It’s good."
"I didn’t ask."
This little brat?
Dolores quietly laughed.
The carriage continued onward.
2.
Floor 88.
The Sun Dwarves’ first floor, the residential district.
The first floor of the Dwarf Company.
The Enchantment Hall.
A massive white hall, with no clocks.
Dozens of rooms lined the walls of the vast circular hall.
Every room’s door stood open, and light spilled out from within.
Whirrrrr, clang!
A familiar sound echoed throughout the hall.
The sound of machines hammering equipment in the enchantment rooms.
The sound of the greatest amount of money in the Tower evaporating.
And then—
Crash!
"Fuck!"
A scream erupted from Room Seven.
This was followed by the sound of something hitting the wall.
Whether it was the man who had just cursed or the remains of his equipment, there was no way to know.
Whirrrr... clang!
Crash!
"Ah... this is driving me crazy..."
A groan came from Room Twelve as well.
Just from the sounds ringing through the hall, you could distinguish success from failure.
Whirrrr... clang!
Ta-da-da-daa~♪
"Nice!! Ha... should I go for +16 too...?"
"Not a bad idea, sir. It’s worth a shot."
Even the sound of the dwarf in Room Three casually suggesting +16 enhancement.
For reference, from +16 onward, the chance of equipment being destroyed rises sharply.
The dwarf knew that. The customer knew it too.
Yet one still asked, and the other still nodded.
[You bear all responsibility for any enhancement attempts.]
With that single line, the Dwarf Company was invincible.
Climbers ascending the Tower entered the rooms one by one and sat facing their respective dwarves.
Equipment was placed atop the enchantment machine before the dwarf.
They prayed that it would not be smashed to pieces.
They held their breath.
They prayed.
They cursed.
It was a scene that looked more like a gambling house than anything else.
That was also why there were no clocks.
It should be an empty wallet, not a clock, that told you it was time to leave.
However.
Enchanting had not originally been like this.
You sprinkled enchantment powder over the equipment.
Then a blacksmith personally struck it with a hammer.
Until the powder seeped into the equipment.
One strike at a time, with care.
Success and failure certainly involved an element of luck, but a blacksmith’s focus and skill determined most of it.
The Dwarf Company had moved that entire process into machines.
The amount of powder scattered, the number of strikes, the pressure, the temperature—the machines handled all of it.
The dwarves merely pressed buttons.
It was fast. Time efficiency had improved overwhelmingly.
Naturally so, since every bit of human labor had been eliminated.
And then.
One more thing became possible.
The amount of enchantment powder sprinkled over equipment...
Could now be adjusted.
And on the floor above that Enchantment Hall.
In a place that could never be seen from below.
The hall’s noise only rose faintly through the floor in a low hum, while the room itself was quiet.
Floor 88 stretched below the window.
Rivers of lava flowed, conveyors moved, and mass-production lines spewed fire.
It was a beautiful sight, and this room stood above it.
"...So?"
The person seated in the chair spoke.
"Puram did not appear willing to talk."
With his head bowed, a dwarf in a suit reported.
He was the very dwarf who had gone to Puram’s appraisal shop.
"Preserving his position cannot be solely out of sentiment."
The chair creaked.
The seated man leaned forward and picked up the papers on his desk.
"...Do I need to make him see sense?"
The dwarf in the suit couldn’t answer.
The one to whom he bowed his head.
The seated figure’s legs stretched long beneath the desk.
They were too long to be a dwarf’s legs. They belonged to a human.
On the screen before him was footage of the appraisal device shining brightly through the windows of Puram’s appraisal shop.
"An Heir of Fire. To think something like that could truly still exist in this day and age."
The hand flipping through the documents had long, smooth fingers, without a single callus.
A hand that had never held a hammer held the dwarf business in its grasp.
"We need to find him."
The man put down the documents.
After they put dwarf technology onto mass-production lines, there had been no shortage of controversy and trouble.
The traditionalists had ground their teeth, craftsmen had left, and those who remained had been relegated to corners, like Puram.
But the revenue was beyond comparison.
The era when one hammer produced one sword a day, versus the era when one machine stamped out a hundred swords a day.
There was no need to ask which one was business.
But an Heir of Fire...
The man’s fingers slowly tapped the desk.
An elite blacksmith’s equipment was on an entirely different level from mass-produced goods. He knew that.
The problem was that no one knew where that gap came from.
They could not analyze the process, nor could they acquire the equipment, so they could not replicate it.
At least, not until now.
"If we capture the Heir of Fire, extract his techniques, and put them on the mass-production line..."
The man muttered as he watched the light of the appraisal device on the screen.
"We may be able to mass-produce elite-grade equipment."
The dwarf in the suit raised his head.
Something flickered through his eyes for an instant.
"...An Heir of Fire’s techniques are not suited to mass production—"
"Are you a dwarf, or are you a businessman?"
"..."
The man stood.
"That isn’t for you to decide."
Lava flowed beyond the window.
Every mineral would pass through this floor. Every material would pass through this floor.
If there was only one bothersome point—
It was that the one who had brought in the equipment was Dolores, ruler of the fifth floor.
There was no denying she was a burdensome opponent.
"...There’s no need to rush."
The man turned off the screen.
"A blacksmith will eventually come back here."
Whether for materials.
Or minerals.
Whatever it was, he would come looking.
That was when—
Bang!
"Mr. Elliott! High Ranker Gale is attempting +20 enhancement on Mana-Infused Bracers!"
"...+20."
The man called Elliott turned his chair around.
"Which attempt is this?"
"Four attempts so far, and four destructions."
Mana-Infused Bracers.
One of the higher-grade pieces of archer equipment, it amplified the strength used to draw a bowstring when worn.
It was indeed the most suitable equipment for aiming at a high enhancement level.
There was no remedy if unique equipment got destroyed. Mana-Infused Bracers were high-grade equipment that could be acquired in reasonable quantities.
And the fact that he had obtained four of them...
"His persistence is remarkable."
From what he had heard, every equipment slot except the bracers was already enhanced to +20 or higher.
The final piece. He would never be able to back down.
─────────────────
[+19 → +20 Enhancement]
[Success Rate: 16%]
[Destruction Rate: 15%]
[Failure Rate: 69%]
─────────────────
A real-time probability table floated before his eyes.
People trusted only these probabilities when attempting enchantments.
"You’ve certainly tried a great many times."
‘Gale.’
Were you perhaps thinking that it would work this time?
But regrettably, probability consists of independent trials.
"Lower it."
At Elliott’s command, the amount of powder that the machine in Room Nineteen, where Gale waited, would sprinkle over the equipment was reduced to one-tenth.
And then—
─────────────────
[+19 → +20 Enhancement]
[Success Rate: 2%]
[Destruction Rate: 29%]
[Failure Rate: 69%]
─────────────────
Five consecutive destructions were nothing unusual.
"Would you like to break through that 2 percent?"
Go ahead and enhance it.
If it succeeds, it’s yours.
...And if it gets destroyed, you can simply buy another one.
Where?
"Increase the production volume of Mana-Infused Bracers."
Naturally. At the Dwarf Company store.
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