1.
I made my way across the dark garden toward the workshop.
The door shut behind me.
Dolores’s socks were clutched in my hand.
I’d kept calling them socks to make things easier, but they were more like oversocks—something worn inside the shoe portion of one’s equipment.
They were, without question, a type of equipment.
"...They really are cold."
[Tmir’s Ice Platforms]. Even while I held them, an icy chill seeped out.
They seemed like excellent equipment in every way. Both aesthetically and functionally.
The surface, made from a blue mesh-like weave, was densely studded with ice crystals like gemstones.
When I held them under the moonlight—
Sparkle.
Every crystal reflected light at a different angle.
"...Jesus."
I knew they were no ordinary item, but I hadn’t expected craftsmanship of this caliber. The outside was rough, covered in ice-like jewels, but...
The inside was as smooth as velvet.
It was designed to handle cold while comfortably enveloping the wearer’s feet.
Equipment that had it all: function, beauty, and comfort.
And now I had to make equipment to replace it.
Looking back objectively on my last attempt, the replacement for the White Gloves of Gorgonew I had made before—[Apprentice Blacksmith’s Warming Gloves]—had been the product of quite a lot of luck.
There had been relatively fewer details to consider, and the process itself was simple.
That was only clear in retrospect. I wasn’t saying I’d made them badly.
But this time would be different.
I had to do well in every field and at every stage.
I wasn’t going to expect to finish it in one go.
"First..."
I began the process I had planned from the beginning.
Following the same principle as the warming gloves, I intended to make warming socks.
This would prove whether simply making them warm, like last time, would be enough.
The Sun Dwarves’ list of beginner sewing techniques was quite extensive. Warming gloves were one of them, and warming socks were as well.
This time, too—
"I’ll start with tanning."
That afternoon, thinking about her socks, I had soaked leather in oak-leaf infusion. I had also hung it outside to dry.
I brought the dried leather in from outside. It was fluffy and in great condition.
I might have rushed out at dawn without warning, but that didn’t mean I came unprepared.
There wasn’t much difference between the processes for gloves and footwear.
Make a pattern, cut the material, then sew it together.
The cutting and sewing processes didn’t so much require special tricks as...
"They’re honest, aren’t they?"
Simple. The more you did them, the better you got. Just like studying.
So I thought this would be easier than last time, but—
"Ah, what the hell?"
Maybe I had underestimated the fact that feet were bigger than hands.
The structure was more complicated, and so was the size. Even though my skills had improved, it took longer.
"...If socks are this hard, how am I supposed to make underwear?"
Underwear would probably require far more detail in terms of clothing construction.
Still, that was a problem for later.
Slide...
At least this time, I didn’t prick my fingers.
That was what I meant by honest. I’d stabbed my fingers like crazy last time.
Which meant I really was improving.
Slide...
Scritch.
Snip.
Before I knew it, I had completed a fairly neat-looking sock.
"..."
The finished sock looked like a black oversock.
"Huh..."
I had a lot to say about it, but it wasn’t completely finished yet, so I held my tongue.
I looked outside for the final step.
"What the..."
I thought I still had plenty of time left, but dawn was gradually breaking.
"How many hours have passed?"
[Six hours....]
Considering the gloves had taken eight hours last time...
I really had improved.
"Good."
I took the finished sock and stepped outside.
Beneath the sky just before dawn, where pale navy and gray mingled, I held the sock up in both hands.
The sun was rising, slowly, beyond the estate walls.
Swoooosh...
How much time passed?
The hands supporting the sock gradually began to feel warm.
And an apprentice’s pattern slowly engraved itself upon the surface of the leather.
A grayish engraving across the black leather.
Sizzle...
As it welcomed the rising sun, the pattern was completed.
Clutching the oversock, I returned to the workshop.
I was certain now.
This was too embarrassing to call a sock.
Back in the workshop, I tightly gripped Dolores’s sock—not a sock—in my hand.
Yes, the very one she had been wearing until this morning.
[......?]
Then—
Squeeze, squeeze...
I closed my eyes and kept kneading it.
"It really is soft."
[...Pervert.]
It wasn’t like that.
Then I touched the oversock I had just made.
"This one’s stiff. Just as I thought."
That was how it felt to me.
To check the result, I thought of Dolores.
A status window appeared, with numerous slots still locked.
But now, there were two open slots.
One for oversocks and one for gloves. The oversock slot above the current footwear slot was empty.
Then I picked up the newly made oversock.
Would the freshly completed Lionel MK.2 Warming Oversocks be...
─────────────────
[Apprentice Blacksmith’s Warming Oversocks] [★☆☆☆☆]
[Unique Equipment] [Compatibility] [- /40]
─────────────────
『If socks are this hard, how am I supposed to make underwear?』
- Apprentice Blacksmith L -
─────────────────
Ah, fuck.
"Goddammit."
I got screwed over again. Seriously.
Wow.
I couldn’t even think whatever I wanted while making things.
Now I’d become a potential underwear maker.
...Not that I denied it.
I’d have to make some someday. Yeah, yeah.
"..."
Either way, they said I would need to go to a high-level appraiser to see this item properly.
For now, I might as well check it.
[Would you like to replace it?]
Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much at this point.
But then the interface opened.
─────────────────
[Apprentice Blacksmith’s Warming Oversocks] [★☆☆☆☆]
[Unique Equipment] [Compatibility] [13 / 40]
─────────────────
[The warming effect of the sun engraving partially and slightly suppresses the wearer’s amplified yin energy.]
[However, the inherent grade, material, and appearance of the materials do not suit the wearer’s stature.]
[The strength of the material likewise does not suit the wearer’s physical characteristics.]
[The wearer’s charm is diminished by half.]
─────────────────
The compatibility had, naturally, increased.
But at the same time, the feedback was incredibly sharp.
It felt like the system was deeply disappointed. To be honest, so was I.
It was like the things I had subconsciously suspected were all falling into place.
Let’s look at them one by one.
The first line of the evaluation was good.
The issue started with the second line. One might question what it meant by grade and material.
But the gloves used the same material, and there was no problem with those?
That wasn’t it.
What I realized upon seeing [Tmir’s Ice Platforms] was that it was relative.
There was a difference in their upper limits, in how much effort had been put into the design.
Gorgonew, which had been Dolores’s gloves, and my gloves didn’t look all that different. Adding a bit of personal bias, mine were actually more refined and cooler-looking.
But when I looked at Tmir’s platforms... the materials and level of workmanship were overwhelmingly superior.
Not to mention their appearance. Those socks were pretty enough to wear on your head.
Not that I wanted to wear them.
Maybe that gap in their upper limits is why it says they don’t suit her.
Naturally, the replacement had to be better than the equipment she was currently wearing, but it also had to suit the wearer’s stature.
Right now, I was making a relative equipment replacement.
Which meant it had to excel in most respects.
Next.
The third line: it didn’t suit her physical characteristics.
I thought I understood that one too.
I crumpled the oversock in my hand.
Creak.
It was quite stiff. Since I’d wrapped the leather all the way around into a cylindrical shape, it had also become rather thick.
Dolores had slender ankles.
Unless someone had a sturdy build like Eric, it seemed hard to pull off. Simply put, it would be uncomfortable.
Especially for wearing around the house.
And finally—
The wearer’s charm is diminished by half.
"I accept that."
I nodded and gave it a standing ovation.
Clap, clap, clap.
[......?]
Her charm absolutely would be diminished by half.
This was what had kept bothering me throughout the whole process.
I lifted [Tmir’s Ice Platforms].
The crucial point of Tmir’s Ice Platforms was that you could see what was inside them.
If they were stockings, they would be around ten to fifteen denier.
The transparent kind where you could see everything through them.
In other words, see-through.
These SEE-THROUGH socks showed nearly all of the lovely, delicate, beautifully shaped feet of Dolores without any filter.
Add just a little lighting, and it would be absolutely perfect. SHIT.
But these blunt-looking oversocks hid all of that.
"No, no."
This absolutely would not do.
This was the most serious problem.
Dolores was going to wear these oversocks while walking around the estate.
They had to be semi-transparent. That was the answer.
The discomfort that had plagued me all along finally eased.
"Whew..."
[Pervertpervertpervertpervertpervert]
[Die... no, not that.]
[Anyway, how about you hold your breath, seriously? ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ]
Ignoring Yuna, I placed the oversocks on the bedside table.
"How am I a pervert?"
[Anyone who knows what my brother did during the fifteen minutes after he happened to see a picture of a woman in stockings, looked around, and turned Yuna off: ㄱ- ☠️☠️☠️]
Wait, how did she know that...?
I had definitely turned her off properly...
With the most detached expression I could manage, I ignored Yuna’s words.
So.
"All things considered, replacing them will be difficult."
They might work temporarily, but they failed as a permanent replacement.
That was my conclusion.
"Six hours wasted."
I calmly said so and nodded.
[Then why are you smiling...?]
Was I smiling?
I might have been.
Actually, I was incredibly happy right now.
Even when I was pursuing my doctorate... and in everyday life too, really—
I didn’t like it when things fell perfectly into place and succeeded on the first try.
It was a personal belief of mine, but I thought results like that always had an element of luck mixed in.
There was room for a lucky break to have played a role. You also couldn’t rule out the possibility that it was a success you couldn’t reproduce.
That was why I loved failures like this.
Why?
They presented a new milestone for moving forward.
Because I had failed, there were mountains of things to learn. How could anyone dislike a failure that showed you every possible point to fix?
It meant I could produce a better result.
With my own hands, without luck.
Besides.
There was no kinder failure in the world than one that wrote out three or four lines of feedback for you.
Not even my professors went this far.
"It saves me the time of figuring out why I failed?"
This was something I ought to be grateful for.
If I really was a pervert, then it wasn’t because of semi-transparent eight-denier stockings and feet.
It was because of this.
"I need to work on the materials."
It seemed our mottled cowhide had its limits.
Just then, I spotted the sacks of ore Dolores had brought, piled in one corner of the workshop.
I’d been so focused on making stockings... no, oversocks, that I hadn’t paid them any attention.
I headed over.
There were all sorts of ores in their raw state.
Then—
"...?"
A note had been tucked into the pile.
It was written in Korean. How strange.
[Lionel! Below is a list of the ores!]
[Iron Ore x4]
[Copper Ore x3]
[Flame Ore x5]
[White Ore x2]
[Obsidian x6]
[Ice Crystal Ore x1 (This is quite a valuable ore, so I only brought one for now. Tell me if you need more!)]
And so on.
There was a ridiculous amount. Dolores’s generosity truly was as vast as the heavens.
"..."
Looking at them, Tmir’s platforms seemed to have gemstones set into them too.
To measure up to those...
"There are lots of gemstones too, right?"
[Let me search for a moment.]
Yuna searched.
[There are lots of ores, but there are also quite a few raw gemstones.]
[A lot of them are expensive.]
Really?
So her expectations of me were high after all.
Then I’d do it too.
Let’s surpass Tmir for once.
The problem was that while I had theoretically raised my level quite high in metallurgy...
Gem cutting.
I was naturally hopeless at that, and I hadn’t even read a theoretical text on it yet.
Apparently, gemstones in this world contained a power called mana.
So simply cutting them didn’t count as craftsmanship. You had to follow strict procedures as well.
The dwarves also seemed more focused on ores and metallurgy than gemstones.
That was probably why the elves were famous in this field.
"...Can I do it too?"
It wasn’t as though I had never opened the elves’ documents.
I had read them before for that leather-softening method.
"..."
Now that the tension had drained away, I was starting to feel a little sleepy.
But if Sun Dwarves equipment-making techniques and elven gem cutting were combined, what kind of result would that produce?
"Wouldn’t I be the first?"
Equipment that combined only the strengths of both.
That curiosity kept sleep at bay.
[🔑] Beginner’s Guide to Elven Equipment Crafting.
I’ll read just a little, then sleep.
I opened the equipment crafting guide to the gem-cutting section specifically.
"...Gem craftsmanship begins with physical labor...?"
I already felt uneasy from the very first line.
No, right? The elves were the ones who had figured out an easy way to soften leather.
I trusted them.
Then, at that moment—
Ding!
Something appeared before my eyes.
【You have received a message!】
【You have received a message!】
Huh?
A message?
[Uh, huh?]
Yuna sounded flustered.
One thing I had learned in life was that Yuna did not get flustered very often.
And when she did, rather than some mere human like me jumping the gun—
"..."
The right move was to stay still and wait for my elite AI little sister to finish assessing the situation.
[Brother, wait a moment, okay?]
Where had the message come from?
Not long after, Yuna began a razor-sharp briefing.
[Okay, I’ve got it sorted out.]
That’s what I’m talking about! I knew I could count on you!!!
[First, a message did arrive for you.]
[They probably identified the user through logs of who accessed the documents, then sent it.]
[The Sun Dwarves’ documents and the others didn’t have a logging mechanism like this.]
That made sense.
I went in and out of the Sun Dwarves’ documents like they were my own bedroom, and there had never been any feedback.
[But it looks like the elves really, absolutely wanted to find whoever viewed them. That’s why they embedded a security device in the documents themselves.]
I see.
[But that’s as far as it goes.]
[All they can do is identify an unknown user and send a message through the system.]
[That’s all.]
[At most, the messenger function can probably tell whether your location is inside or outside the Tower.]
[They can’t trace you back.]
So all they could do was send a DM through the Tower’s system.
"Then the conclusion is..."
[That it’s safe to read it.]
I nodded.
My mind relaxed in an instant.
Grinning, I was about to open the message.
But then—
[Wait, wait! Brother, hold on?]
[Things you must absolutely never do in DMs.]
[1. Reveal your identity.]
[2. Give them your address.]
[3. Strut around going, ‘I’m the one who made the +20 gloves.’]
[Got it?]
Y-Yeah, I got it.
She was treating me like a baby.
I wasn’t that bad.
[......]
"Ahem."
Excited, I opened the DM window.
【WhereAreYouChildOfTheForestPleaseComeBack】: Hello? I am Erien, High Chieftain of the Great Forest, of the elves.
【‘WhereAreYouChildOfTheForestPleaseComeBack’ has changed their nickname to ‘High Chieftain of the Great Forest, Erien’.】
【High Chieftain of the Great Forest, Erien】: Do you need my help?
There was—
"..."
[...?]
A rather pathetic-looking DM waiting for me.
And the moment I read it—
【High Chieftain of the Great Forest, Erien】: Ah!! You read it!
【High Chieftain of the Great Forest, Erien】: Future Child of the Forest! Where are you currently living, by any chance?
The interrogation immediately began.
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