1.
When I opened my eyes, I saw a ceiling that had become familiar by now.
And a familiar face, too.
"Good morning."
"Morning to you too, Lionel."
Dolores smiled down at me.
"Take your time getting up once you’re fully awake."
She brushed a hand over my forehead once, then slowly walked out.
Watching Dolores’s retreating back, I prepared to get out of bed.
A lot had happened yesterday.
So much that it was hard to even put it into words.
I’d received an order for new accessories from the princess.
I’d gotten a Three-Lion Emblem made of platinum from the Emperor.
And I’d had Richard obtain every mineral I wanted.
An empire really was an empire. They had every mineral imaginable.
Whatever I named, they brought it out, so I took everything I could.
I’d been up until dawn yesterday, going through the list with Yuna and collecting minerals.
Ordinarily, I should have slept all day.
"Up like lightning."
When there’s something you’re excited about, you naturally wake up fast.
I sprang out of bed.
Then I headed straight to the kitchen, grabbed a ciabatta roll, stuffed it into my mouth, and chewed away.
The Dolores duchy was famous for its delicious bread.
As I crossed the garden toward the workshop—
"...Huh?"
I rubbed my eyes again.
Following the garden toward the side opposite the front gate led to my workshop.
It wasn’t large, just a decent size.
But off to one side of the garden, a huge building was being put up with bang, bang, bang.
"...What is that?"
I had no idea what the building was for, but it was pretty big.
Well, that wasn’t important.
Tilting my head, I continued toward the workshop.
Creak.
The moment I opened the workshop door, a satisfied smile slipped out.
The minerals I had received from the imperial palace yesterday were neatly stacked along the wall.
I’d planned to just toss them down and go to sleep, but apparently some diligent house spirit had come by and organized everything.
The most important thing was to be grateful when someone did your work for you while you slept.
"Thank you."
I gave a small bow, smiling as I headed to the table in the center of the workshop.
There lay an accessory: the Sun Rising Pendant.
As for the Moonlight Essence Necklace, it seemed to keep listening to what I said, so I left it back at the estate. It was kind of unsettling, that thing.
Now then...
I had to make an accessory that would separate the two of them.
"Yuna."
[Mm.]
"Shall we have a discussion?"
From what I’d learned, this world had originally had folk religions.
Just as the world I had lived in had all kinds of myths and religions, this world seemed to have been no different.
Even before the Tower appeared, there had supposedly been saints who wielded power based on divine energy. So people must have known that something truly existed.
Then the Tower appeared.
And when people actually went inside it—
"They really exist?"
The names people had prayed to and believed in for hundreds of years turned out to be real.
Belief normally existed because it couldn’t be definitively confirmed, but this world had verified it through the Tower.
Of course faith would grow stronger.
That was the background behind the gods of this world.
Setting that aside, I looked down at the Sun Rising Pendant on the table.
There was something else that mattered.
First, the hypothesis I had come up with.
Who was Solau and Selaea’s mother goddess?
Even in Greek and Roman mythology, all gods had genealogies.
Who gave birth to whom, who fought whom, who ate whom.
And who cheated on whom with whom.
I was certain things wouldn’t be any different here.
"Who is Selaea and Solau’s mother goddess?"
[Just a moment.]
While I waited for Yuna to crawl through the information, I picked up the Sun Rising Pendant.
Though it was a little distance away at the estate, it was still linked to me.
It wasn’t anything complicated. I wanted to see what level an accessory containing divine energy was at.
To be honest—
I had extremely high standards.
Maybe because I’d only seen the excellent craftsmanship of the Children of the Forest and the outstanding forging of the Heirs of Fire, but now just looking at poorly made work was enough to make me nauseous.
In that sense, the Sun Rising Pendant was...
"I can handle this."
I really could handle it.
It was so unremarkable that I wondered whether the craftsmanship was even the issue. The difficulty wasn’t especially high.
Of course, the workmanship wasn’t bad enough to have any glaring flaws.
But neither did it feel beyond my reach.
[Crawling complete.]
"Yeah."
I put down the pendant and focused on Yuna’s words.
[Selaea is the goddess of the moon, while Solau is the god who governs the sun.]
[Their mother is Gaia, goddess of the earth, and their father is Caelu, god of the heavens.]
"Gaia...?"
That name sounded awfully familiar.
Well, perhaps the idea of a sky father and earth mother emerged similarly in every world.
[Gaia is also called the goddess of harmony and abundance.]
Yes, this was it.
Please stop those two siblings from fighting.
Though it did seem like one of them was being bullied rather one-sidedly.
All right, then.
Now the question was how.
For the first time in a while, I opened the Heirs of Fire textbook.
I hadn’t had any reason to open it since making the stockings.
Honestly, I’d already read it more than ten times, so I had all the information in my head. Besides, it was the Apprentice Blacksmith textbook.
I was a Formal Blacksmith.
How dare it...
Still, since I was a complete novice at metallurgy—melting down iron in preparation for making accessories—I opened it to review the basics.
Slide.
What I had originally been reading was the Apprentice Blacksmith textbook.
I’d gotten through everything with this one book so far.
But then—
As I scrolled through the document’s table of contents, I spotted something below that I had never seen before.
[🔑][A Textbook for Heirs of Fire Who Have Become Formal Blacksmiths]
"What?!"
I leaped up from my chair, my eyes widening.
There was something like this?
Wait a second.
It could be some Abyss phishing scam again, so I needed to be careful.
I might fall for it three times, but not a fourth.
But this time, something was different.
Unlike last time, when it had been locked up, this one was marked open with a key icon from the start.
"Yuna, did you mess with the lock yourself?"
[No, not me.]
[And this document is linked from the Apprentice Blacksmith document.]
Then its source was definitely legitimate, wasn’t it?
"Heh heh heh."
I rubbed my hands together eagerly and smacked my lips.
I’d already been starving for the pursuit of new knowledge.
I immediately opened the textbook.
The words written on the first page caught my eye.
─────────────────
『Remember, heir. Keep this in mind, heir. Take pride.
Before your forge, even gods shall stand in line.』
─────────────────
"..."
My eyes widened from the very first line.
It started by tugging at my heartstrings.
The Heirs of Fire—blacksmiths sought even by gods.
Slide.
The table of contents followed.
─────────────────
[Prologue. To Those Who Carry On the Flame]
[Chapter 1. True Names—How to Name Iron]
─────────────────
Titles stirring enough to make my heart pound continued down the list.
Then—
─────────────────
[Chapter 5. Divine Implements, Divine Seats—How to Receive a God’s Energy]
─────────────────
I found it.
Fuck, this really existed.
"Yuna, I’m going to read this."
[Okay. Enjoy.]
With Yuna seeing me off as though I were going on a trip, I opened Chapter 5.
The Apprentice Blacksmith textbook had always spoken to me in a teaching tone.
For example—
『Keep this in mind. Without effort, there can be no result. Just because you overcame a mere trial does not mean you should act as if you have become something.』
『Do not grow arrogant over your talent. Constantly hone yourself, and spend more time in the forge than in bed...』
The apprentice textbook was packed, chapter after chapter, with passages meant to keep me alert and whip me into shape.
It felt like I was always getting beaten up for no particular reason.
Well, I agreed with it, so I did make sure to take it to heart whenever I read it.
But when I moved on to the formal textbook—
─────────────────
『Before crafting divine implements, there is one thing you must remember.』
『Having overcome trials and barriers over long years, you are now capable of anything. Your body is the wealth, the hope, and the future of the dwarves. Please, make sure to rest and preserve your health.』
『Even should a god deliver an oracle to your doorstep, what use would that be if your body cannot move? Prioritize your well-being above all else.』
─────────────────
Huh.
My professor’s way of speaking had become remarkably sweet.
『Should anyone hurry you, place iron in their hands and tell them to forge it themselves. Most will fall silent on the spot. Gods will be no different.』
Before it even began discussing the actual subject, it was worrying about my well-being.
Hold on.
Had I become a skilled professional now?
Apprentices were replaceable, but experienced workers weren’t.
It had been the same even in my old world, where AI was everywhere.
You worked the replaceable ones to the bone and treated the irreplaceable ones like honored guests.
That was how the world worked.
So, from the Sun Dwarves’ perspective, I was a skilled professional whose health needed protecting.
The dreamlike life of a respected professional.
I had never been treated like this even once in my previous life.
Smiling, I read through each line.
Scroll, click.
Scroll, click.
After receiving more than enough pats on the head from the bearded Heirs of Fire dwarf professor, I scrolled down, and at last the main subject began.
First, it said that divine implements—accessories or equipment imbued with a god’s energy—could not simply be made any which way.
『For a god to dwell within it, you must communicate with the intended recipient.』
In other words—
For beings on the level of gods, rather than just making something roughly and telling them to take it, I needed to look into their needs and intentions to create something custom-made.
『Thus, heir, there is something you must make before you begin forging.』
『A bell.』
A bell?
There was a picture beside the text.
It really was a bell—the kind that rang when you struck it.
『It is a tool of communication between the Heirs of Fire and the gods.』
『It is a one-way communication tool that announces to them that you will accept commissions.』
Ah.
So it was a notification bell.
If I made a bell and rang it, the gods would understand.
That the Heirs of Fire’s forge had lit its flames.
Then the gods would each commission what they wanted, and an Heir of Fire would choose one of them to accept.
So it hadn’t been a metaphor. Gods really were customers.
They submitted order forms and waited their turn.
But there was one thing that bothered me.
"We’re outside the Tower."
The place where gods existed was inside the Tower.
I wasn’t sure the sound would reach them if I rang a bell from here.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
I had expected it would take quite a lot of research and investigation to make an accessory for a god.
But the textbook had already paved such a smooth road for me.
Click.
There was no reason not to do it, was there?
If it could be done, I’d do it.
Pulling up the corners of my mouth, I gripped a pair of tongs in my hand.
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