1.
"A hammer... That brings back memories, Henrik."
"Haha... It wasn’t anything like that."
"All right. Good, then."
Dolores lightly tapped her clenched fist against her open palm.
Tap.
"Take your time choosing, Lionel. Ruby and I will go check out Book Street."
"Okay."
"I need to buy her some magic books."
Honestly, it was more comfortable without Dolores around.
Ruby’s eyes were sparkling beside Dolores.
After chicken skewers and candy, now it was books. Today was this little brat’s birthday.
"Wait for us once you’ve chosen. Henrik? Mia? Please look after Lionel."
"Yes."
"Don’t worry~"
Dolores and Ruby left.
Jingle.
The bell rang, and the store fell quiet.
Unknown hammers densely lined the dusty display racks.
From here on out, this was my time.
‘Let’s pick one.’
Without a word, Henrik took a hammer from the display.
I examined every single one he pulled out.
The first hammer was...
─────────────────
[Bone Hammer] [★★☆☆☆]
[Compatibility] [—/40]
─────────────────
『Whether these are the bones of some beast—or of ‘someone’—cannot be known.』
— A Mage Wandering the Gorge of Lamentation —
─────────────────
Fuck.
Why did it have to be this creepy right off the bat?
"...That is a Bone Hammer. It is for forging, but it has a rather strong cursed property."
Oh.
This old man had a good eye.
He was seeing precisely what I saw.
"I’m fine with you speaking casually to me."
"No, that is all right."
A flat-out refusal... I reconsidered the situation.
A noble—and the child a duke claimed was family—was demanding that he speak casually...
Yeah, insisting on it might actually be a burden.
"...Okay."
I simply behaved and inspected the hammers Uncle Henrik took out.
But as it went on, none of the hammers particularly appealed to me.
Either their scripts felt deeply unsettling, or their star ratings were simply too low.
I wanted to take the best one available, at least...
People said a master never blamed his tools, but every master who said that used excellent equipment.
Still, Uncle Henrik was remarkably good at explaining them.
─────────────────
[Ash Forge Hammer] [★☆☆☆☆]
[Compatibility] [—/20]
─────────────────
『The last heat left behind when a volcano died.』
— Unknown Author —
─────────────────
"This hammer is made from compressed volcanic ash. Its thermal conductivity is excellent, making it suitable for metallurgy, but the handle is rather weak."
"Oooh."
─────────────────
[Mine Tunnel Repair Hammer] [★☆☆☆]
[Compatibility] [—/20]
─────────────────
『The walls struck by this hammer never collapsed. Not once.』
— Rutz, Supervisor of the Third Mine Shaft —
─────────────────
"This one was used by miners repairing tunnels. It’s sturdy, but for delicate work, it’s a little..."
"Ooohhh..."
In the end, they were all pretty bad.
Still, I was trying them one by one, just going through the motions, when...
─────────────────
[Basic Enchant Hammer] [★☆☆☆☆]
[Compatibility] [—/20]
─────────────────
『Do not dare think enchantment is luck. It is effort.』
— Ogeron, the Fourth Wise Craftsman —
─────────────────
An Enchant Hammer?
Just as I was intrigued by that unusual term—
"A Wise Craftsman?!"
I inadvertently blurted out the words written below.
Why was a Wise Craftsman showing up here?
"Ah, this hammer... is not actually for forging."
The corners of Henrik’s mouth twitched.
"Do you know about enchantment?"
"Ah, not—not very well."
His mustache twitched as he opened his mouth with an expression that said, ‘Got you now.’
"Equipment has grades, expressed by the number of stars."
"Yes."
"Enchanting is the act of raising an item’s standing separately from those stars."
Henrik held up one of the hammers beside him.
"Let us assume this hammer is one-star equipment. When you enchant it, its one-star performance remains the same, while new power is layered over it, one layer at a time. This is called reinforcement."
"Like +1, +2, and so on?"
"Yes, exactly. An item’s stars are determined at birth. Its materials, the creator’s skill, the process. They cannot be changed."
What was this incredibly familiar system?
It was a system most men in my old world would probably know.
The enhancement system from an extremely popular RPG.
And then...
"However, what makes that possible is enchantment... Please wait a moment."
Henrik squeezed his eyes shut for some reason, then suddenly headed to the counter.
He ducked his head beneath the table.
Creak, creak.
What was that sound?
I tilted my head and looked down slightly.
What the hell?
He was turning the dial of a safe.
[8918, hehe.]
No, Yuna, you’re not supposed to look at things like that.
The safe opened, and Henrik took something out.
A small pouch wrapped in cloth.
He carefully untied the pouch and pinched out some of what was inside with his fingers.
It was blue powder.
"This powder is the key to enchanting."
Henrik held out the fingers holding the powder for me to see.
"You sprinkle the powder over the equipment, then strike it with a hammer to infuse it with power."
He carefully sprinkled the powder over the Bone Hammer from before.
Ssshhh...
Blue particles settled across the hammer’s surface.
For a moment, it looked as though he had scattered stardust over it.
Henrik picked up the Enchant Hammer.
Tap.
He struck it.
The powder glimmered faintly. I thought it might be soaking in, but—
Tap.
"..."
"..."
Tap.
Nothing changed.
And it vanished.
Rather than infusing into the hammer, the powder scattered off its surface and blew away.
Setting the hammer down, Henrik gave a bitter smile.
"Yes. If that had worked, I could have made a living through enchanting."
What? So it hadn’t worked?
"Most enchanting in this age is done using the Dwarf Company’s Enchant Rooms. They produce strikes at the level of an optimal master craftsman, giving the best odds of a successful enchantment. It is difficult to accomplish with a human body and senses."
"...I see."
It was quite interesting.
I was one of the Heirs of Fire, after all. Enchanting was probably far removed from me. Yeah, yeah.
Still, maybe it was force of habit.
I had held every other hammer at least once, so I naturally reached for this one too.
Swish.
The moment I grasped the Enchant Hammer—
─────────────────
[Enchant Interface Activated]
─────────────────
[Target Equipment: Unassigned]
[Powder Held: Not Detected]
[User Proficiency: None]
─────────────────
[Would you like to attempt reinforcement?]
─────────────────
"Huh?"
What? Could I enchant things?
I flinched instinctively.
Was spring finally coming for me?
If I could enchant things this effortlessly—
"Honey, just a moment~"
At that moment, the woman inside called out to Henrik.
"Ah, please wait a moment."
"Sure, go ahead."
Take as long as you need, if possible.
Henrik disappeared into the back.
I was alone.
Holding the Enchant Hammer, I looked around.
The Bone Hammer Henrik had sprinkled with powder and unsuccessfully struck earlier lay there, and the cloth pouch beside it was still open.
Thankfully, there still seemed to be powder clinging to the Bone Hammer.
─────────────────
[Target Equipment: Bone Hammer]
[Residual Powder: 2g]
[User Proficiency: None]
─────────────────
[Would you like to attempt reinforcement?]
─────────────────
It looked like reinforcement was possible.
"Yes."
What kind of method would it use to reinforce it?
Just as I waited expectantly—
[0:00:10]
"What?"
What was that supposed to mean?
Numbers appeared in midair.
Then...
A blue circle appeared over the Bone Hammer before me. It was about the size of a fifty-won coin.
But another, larger blue circle appeared around it.
The outer circle slowly shrank toward the inner one.
Closer and closer.
The two circles drew nearer.
The outer circle shrank until the two nearly overlapped, then crossed into the original circle’s interior. Soon, both circles vanished.
I had just watched without knowing what I was looking at.
[Uh, w-wait... This is—]
Yuna suddenly began trembling.
What was wrong with her?
[0:00:09]
[0:00:08]
What was this? A countdown?
A new circle immediately appeared in another spot.
Again, a shrinking circle followed it from the outside.
A Korean’s defining trait: when given a time limit, you have to do something.
Without thinking, I struck the Bone Hammer with the hammer in my hand.
The second circle was shrinking. The point where they overlapped had already passed, and just as the outer circle had become smaller than the inner one and was about to vanish—
Clang!
And then...
[Terrible]
An absurdly blunt insult suddenly flew at me.
That was a little harsh.
[0:00:05]
Time passed, and since nothing much was happening—
The fourth circle appeared. The outer circle shrank.
I struck again, just as before.
[Terrible]
Faced with another insult, I paused my hammering for a moment.
Then—
Clang!
This time, I struck when the two circles overlapped perfectly.
As rainbow-colored light appeared before my eyes—
[Wonderful!]
At last, praise appeared.
Wait a minute, this feeling in my hands...
[0:00:02]
[0:00:01]
[0:00:00]
─────────────────
[Refinement Total]
[Wonderful!] [1]
[Excellent] [0]
[Normal] [0]
[Bad] [0]
[Terrible] [2]
─────────────────
[Final Success Rate: 3%]
[Failure Rate: 97%]
─────────────────
【Attempting...】
─────────────────
Mr. Terrible.
This was kind of pissing me off.
[It says you’re t-terrible, big brother? Do we really need to do this?]
Along with Yuna’s verbal abuse, the result appeared.
【Reinforcement Failed】
The powder, which had been faintly glowing until now, completely lost its light.
"..."
So...
Had I just enchanted something?
I replayed what I had just seen in my head.
First, a blue circle appeared over the equipment. Then a larger circle approached as it shrank from the outside.
There was a moment when the two circles perfectly overlapped. Then the outer circle shrank further and vanished.
Wait, wait...
This was that, wasn’t it?
A smile slowly spread across my lips without me realizing it.
[...Big brother.]
Yeah.
[That’s not it.]
No, it is.
Yuna, I disagree.
That... has to be it, right?
The instant the outer circle perfectly overlapped the inner one. Pressing it then earned a good score.
Do it too early, too late, or miss it altogether, and it was a miss.
So both times, I had struck long after the circles overlapped.
That was why I got [Terrible].
"It’s a rhythm game."
So [Terrible] was right.
For a moment, when I saw the word [Terrible] twice, I worried that maybe I lacked the talent for enchanting.
But that worry vanished in an instant.
I didn’t need to worry about something like that.
Because... I was—
"I can do it legally now, can’t I?"
Someone who had devoted fifteen years solely to rhythm games.
An obsessive.
A toxic.
A thoroughly deranged player.
[Aaaah! How did you ever quit that, big brother?!]
To put it another way...
I was a rhythm-game addict.
And a rhythm-game demon.
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