Chapter 44: 43. I’ve Lost Half My Life
1.
There is good news.
The source is, of course, me—Lionel.
I think there are about three things.
The first is that I came up with a good idea.
As payment from the princess for the earrings, I would demand a top-of-the-line furnace.
At the very least, an ultra-high-temperature furnace.
I had been suffering through this for weeks because I did not have a furnace.
I had to wring one out of her somehow. This was so unfair that I could not just give these away for nothing.
The second thing was...
As I worked, I found myself scrutinizing the princess’s face for an exceptionally long time.
To give the conclusion first, the princess had a beautiful neckline and well-defined features.
If a matchmaking agency were evaluating her looks, they would probably say she had distinct features, porcelain-white skin, and an impeccably maintained appearance.
Top tier.
...Of course, while she was older than me in this world, she was still young, so I did not evaluate her appearance beyond that.
I did not have any particular thoughts about it, either.
To begin with, it was purely research into the question of, "What would suit her?" There were no ulterior motives involved.
If I had my way, I would like to see Gaia’s face.
It was just a shame there was no way to use that as a reference.
It seemed that, for a human, the fastest way to see a god’s face was to climb the Tower and achieve outstanding results.
The third thing was...
"Say my name."
[Match Rate: 97.7%]
I had done it again.
At a time when I had made no progress at all, I spotted a tiny mole on the left side of the princess’s neck, directly beneath her ear.
"Oh!"
Something clicked into place.
[.........]
I had finally done it.
I think that was around the third week.
This was seriously fucking exhausting.
Gaia, you had better be prepared.
"I’ll make you something so good that you won’t even think of any other crappy divine item."
From now on, she would look only at me and wait for me.
In the end, I completed the White Iron earring frames, as well as the Ocher Crystal frames that would support the gems inside them.
Now all that remained was to cut the Green Jade properly and set it inside.
Gem cutting itself was absurdly easy compared to what I had just done.
I barely had any experience setting gemstones.
But at least, fuck, this was within the realm of human capability.
All right, there were three stages.
The first was cutting.
The stage where you cut the rough stone and give it a general shape.
I raised the Green Jade above my head and held it to the light.
As expected, I could see hairline cracks inside. Every gemstone had grain, so you had to inspect its internal condition carefully.
They said that if you handled it without seeing those lines, it would simply split cleanly in two.
Avoiding those grains when cutting the gem was the foundation of the Children of the Forest’s gem-cutting techniques.
Precisely avoiding the grain, I set the chisel against a safe point and lightly struck it with the hammer...
Tap.
Crack.
With a clean sound, the Green Jade split into the size I wanted.
"All right, now."
The second stage was grinding.
Carving the gemstone was a little tiresome.
If the angle was even slightly off, light tended to become trapped inside it in all the wrong ways.
There were usually two methods. One was a faceted cut, which made an angular gemstone by cutting distinct faces into it.
Or there was the cabochon cut, which smoothed it into a dome.
There was nothing to deliberate over.
Gaia had more of a soft, rounded feeling than an angular one.
Scrape... scrape...
I ground the surface of the Green Jade into a round, domed shape.
Normally, that would have been the end of it.
But the Children of the Forest possessed a secret technique.
I flipped over the polished Green Jade and, on its back...
Scrape, scrape.
I engraved a grid of facets so tiny they were practically invisible.
This was the essence of the Children of the Forest’s craftsmanship.
The outside was a dome, but the minute grid on the reverse side caught the light and reflected it back from within.
"This way..."
The Green Jade looked as though it were softly glowing on its own.
Because it reflected light wildly inside itself.
The final stage was polishing, giving it a shine, and that was not particularly difficult.
I slowly rubbed the surface of the Green Jade with a cloth.
How much time passed?
Gleam.
The Green Jade gradually cleared and became translucent.
"...Oh."
It really was a fine gem.
I nodded in satisfaction.
Then I brought the finished Green Jade to the frame.
First, I spread the Ocher Crystal rim that would embrace the Green Jade slightly apart.
If I used any more force here, all the painstaking work I had done would be ruined.
Careful...
Tap.
I slid the Green Jade through the opened gap.
Then I closed the spread Ocher Crystal around it again, gripping the Green Jade firmly in place.
Click.
With that satisfying sound, the Green Jade locked into place.
A seed had found its own patch of soil.
One earring complete.
I finished the remaining earring the same way.
Click.
Like that.
The pair lay side by side on a blue cushion.
A beautifully crafted pair of White Iron earrings.
I had not been interested in earrings in my previous life, but honestly, I was confident that the ones I made were prettier.
At last, I took up the cloth and polished both earrings in turn.
The moment I gave them their final shine...
Ding.
─────────────────
[The Cradle of Earth] [★★☆☆☆]
[Unique Equipment] [Compatibility] [-/60]
─────────────────
[Divine Item] [Target God: None]
[Blessing] [None]
─────────────────
I chose the soil and laid its sprout within.
For these were hands that had thought of only one being throughout the entire process of making it.
A tribute to that warm, gentle earth—
which says nothing when trampled and opens its embrace even when dug into.
─────────────────
『I’ll make you something so good that you won’t even think of any other crappy accessory.』
- Formal Blacksmith L -
─────────────────
"Ah, fuck."
This was an emergency.
A full-blown emergency.
If there was one thing I had learned painfully while making equipment so far, it was that this Origin Script was absolutely not something within my control.
How was I supposed to regulate everything I said at every moment while crafting equipment?
It was not like I had that kind of personality, either.
"Oh my God."
And, for the record, God meant Gaia.
This was seriously bad.
Could this really pass as confidence?
Of course, I was confident in the accessory itself...
But from the perspective of the god and the princess who would receive it...
I’ll make you something so good that you won’t even think of any other crappy accessory.
...Honestly, it had every chance of sounding rude.
Well, at least it was fortunate that it had not copied my later thought.
She’ll only ever come looking for me.
"..."
I thought it over for a moment.
Then...
"Wait a second..."
I came up with an extremely good idea.
"I can just tell the princess I was thinking of Gaia, and tell Gaia I was thinking of the princess, right?"
It seemed I could lie and say the same words were directed at two different people.
I would call it an occupational hazard.
Now this was Solomon-level wisdom.
This way, there did not seem to be any major problem.
"Whew..."
Breathing a sigh of relief, I looked at the earrings.
For now, one difference from the equipment I had made so far was that these earrings probably did not bear the Sun Dwarves’ mark.
"They say divine items exist only in the divine realm."
At least, according to my professor.
『No accessory can possess two marks. Since it is a divine item, its mark will reveal itself only in the divine realm. Do not worry.』
When I offered up a prayer, the equipment would take form in the divine realm, and Gaia would receive it.
They said the mark would be engraved only onto that accessory.
That was actually better for me.
It meant I could give the princess these earrings without revealing that I was one of the Sun Dwarves.
That was an unexpected stroke of luck.
Sweet.
Just as I lowered my gaze to look at the earrings...
Bzzzz...
"...Huh?"
Something began to take shape inside the Green Jade.
At first, it was just a single trunk.
The trunk formed and intertwined within the green jewel... before becoming a single image.
"...A tree?"
What the hell was this?
As I stared blankly at the gem...
"Ah, wait."
Something came to mind.
There was one thing I could think of.
I had seen it before in a textbook.
Not a Sun Dwarves textbook, but a Children of the Forest textbook.
『A gem worked upon with all the heart of a Child of the Forest will sometimes come to hold that intent itself.』
At the time, I had considered it mere Children of the Forest romance—basically a superstition.
"I didn’t know it could do this!!!"
Then did this mean...
It was a Child of the Forest artisan’s mark...?
But the truly, truly fortunate thing was this.
『As the grain of each life differs, so too does every form.』
This mark was unique in all the world.
Like the countless leaves upon a single tree.
There was no chance of being found out.
In other words, just from looking at it, there was no way to know whether it belonged to a Child of the Forest or an Elder of the Forest.
Because every shape was different.
"I’ll just insist it’s some random mark."
I had no intention of needlessly letting people know that I had learned the Children of the Forest’s crafting techniques.
For the same reason, I did not want anyone to know I was one of the Sun Dwarves.
"Ha..."
Having made up my mind and sorted everything out, I stretched my back and carefully set the earrings atop the cushion.
"That took way too long."
A whole month and a half.
Ugh, that was exhausting.
Looking back, it had been a truly brutal job.
Having a fit over wirework, surpassing machines, and scrutinizing the princess’s face.
But seeing the earrings before me made some of that hardship melt away.
"I made this by hand...?"
I was not joking—machines did not seem like they could even compare.
I had no idea I possessed this kind of talent.
But it was not over yet.
For now, they were merely well-made accessories.
I carefully placed the earrings in the case I had prepared and rose from my seat.
"To the temple."
It was time to offer these to Gaia.
2.
In this world, each region had several temples dedicated to different gods.
Since every temple served a different god, the important thing was that if there was a god you wanted, you had to go to that god’s temple.
But the Imperial Palace’s temples were a little different.
Minor local gods with too few worshippers, or nameless lesser gods, could not even maintain temples of their own.
So apparently, people sometimes erected only a statue for them in one corner of an Imperial Palace temple and offered prayers there.
"Makes sense."
There had to be more than one or two gods, after all.
But Gaia was a different story.
Gaia, the Goddess of Earth, was one of the most famous gods in this world.
Thanks to that, temples of Gaia were scattered throughout the continent.
What was particularly interesting was...
The largest of them all...
...was, by coincidence, located within the Dolores Duchy.
Well, since she was the Goddess of Earth, it was not strange for a vast territory like a duchy to have a temple devoted to her.
Thanks to that, I could skip the travel time.
Even in the early morning, when there was not a soul in sight...
I could head to the temple with Mama guiding me.
"Did you make the earrings well?"
"Yes. They’re not bad."
"May I see them?"
"..."
I could not.
Apparently, a divine item had to be shown to its god first, no matter what.
Unable to bring myself to refuse, I hesitated and stopped in the middle of the road.
"...All right, dear."
Dolores nodded and took my hand again, but her cheeks were slightly puffed out, making her look a little sulky.
"I’m sorry."
"No, it’s all right."
Dolores smiled and shook her head.
As we continued talking like that, we arrived before the temple before we knew it.
Creak...
When the door opened, the interior came into view at a glance.
There was an audience chamber inside, where one could meet a god.
In front of it lay an open prayer hall where worshippers offered their prayers.
Calling it a prayer hall felt a little vague. It was more like a worship space.
"Normally, if you are offering a tribute, you entrust it to a priest."
Swoosh.
Dolores pointed toward the audience chamber.
"But this time, why don’t you go in and greet her yourself, Lionel?"
"Okay."
That seemed right.
I opened the door to the audience chamber and stepped inside.
And then...
"..."
I stopped walking.
A space neither particularly large nor small.
It was surrounded on all sides by stone walls, without a single window.
At its very center...
A statue of a woman stood alone.
A more modest stone statue than I expected, carved from earth-colored rock.
There were no jewels or gold.
Just seeing the pose, her arms spread as though she were about to embrace something, was enough to tell me who this god was.
I slowly approached the statue.
The problem came after that.
How am I supposed to offer this?
No matter how hard I thought, no particular procedure came to mind.
There had been no explanation in the textbook telling me how to offer a divine item like this.
Just when I was beginning to wonder if it had all been a scam...
Fuck it.
I decided to just do whatever felt right.
Click.
I opened the case I had taken from my clothes.
Then I knelt on one knee before the statue.
Holding the earrings in both hands, I raised them toward the statue.
"This is a divine item I crafted..."
The voice of a boy who had yet to go through puberty echoed through the audience chamber.
"My skills may be lacking, but I put all my heart into it."
However...
There was no answer.
The statue simply remained standing there with both arms outstretched.
Of course. It was not as though a lump of stone could talk.
Without much thought, I closed my eyes.
Then, as I raised the earrings I held a little higher...
Fwoom...
Light began to leak from the earrings held high above my hands.
"Oh, oh. Oh...!"
For a moment, I nearly acted frivolously.
But realizing that this was an audience chamber, I barely held myself back.
I could not make a fuss in front of Gaia, of all people.
Fwaaa...
The earrings shone more brilliantly upon my hands...
Hum...
Then the light subsided.
I cautiously lifted my head and lowered my hands.
And the changed earrings came into view before me.
─────────────────
[The Cradle of Earth] [★★☆☆☆ → ★★★☆☆]
[Unique Equipment] [Compatibility: - / 80]
─────────────────
[Divine Item] [Target God: Gaia]
[Blessing: Supreme — Protection of Earth]
└ Blocks external interference affecting a target designated by the wearer with the power of earth.
[Blessing: High — Earth’s Embrace]
└ Condenses the power of earth to restore the wearer’s vitality.
─────────────────
※ It has safely reached the master of the divine realm. ※
─────────────────
First of all...
The first thing that caught my eye.
It had gained a star.
I never thought my first experience with three stars would happen like this.
My own solo crafting skill was still only two stars, but...
As a divine item, with Gaia’s blessings added to it, it seemed to have evolved into three stars.
Nice.
Now these stars would become a goal for me to aspire to.
I did not feel bad about it.
And then there were the two changed entries: the blessings.
"Legendary."
This was genuinely unbelievable.
Throughout the entire process, while I had been making earrings for the princess, I kept thinking inwardly that...
They were, after all, the princess’s belongings.
What about the prince who was left behind?
That thought had kept coming back to me.
Even if the princess’s Sun Rising Pendant was protected, the prince would eventually wither away.
Taking off the Moonlight Essence Necklace would remove the debuff, but it would not restore the vitality that had already been drained.
So, being a little greedy inside...
It would be great if the prince could wear the Sun Rising Pendant, while the princess could sustain herself with these earrings...!
Even though I had prayed with that completely greedy mindset...
She granted it all.
With this, the prince could wear the Sun Rising Pendant, and the princess could wear this Cradle.
If she designated the prince as the target of her protection, both of them would be safe.
I was perfectly satisfied.
Gaia had perfectly granted the blessings I wanted.
Then...
Ding.
A message appeared before my eyes.
─────────────────
[Oracle]
[Gaia, Goddess of Earth ▸ Formal Blacksmith L]
『To think there would be someone who would make something so lovely and noble... for me.
My gratitude is so great that this mother has bestowed the greatest blessing she could give.』
『Over the long years, I have received so very many things.
But what you have given me today is by far the most beautiful among them.
I am not joking, dear. I am truly astonished.』
[Remaining Oracles: 6 / 8]
─────────────────
Once again, Gaia sent her thanks in the form of a long letter.
It seemed that after delivering a divine item, my opportunities for oracles were refilled for a final farewell.
Sorry, but I was the one who wanted to thank her.
I was glad she liked them.
Just as I began to smile happily...
Ding ding ding.
─────────────────
[Oracle]
[Gaia, Goddess of Earth ▸ Formal Blacksmith L]
『I do not know from which temple you have called to this mother.
But someday, I dearly wish to see your face and sit together, chatting warmly.』
『...My child. Please, come find this mother again.』
[Remaining Oracles: 4 / 8]
─────────────────
...Another one came.
I did not know what to do with myself because she truly liked them so much.
There had been some rather provocative words written there, but it seemed Gaia could not see that part.
Thinking no further explanation would be necessary, I rose with a smile...
Ding ding ding.
─────────────────
[Oracle]
[Gaia, Goddess of Earth ▸ Formal Blacksmith L]
『It says, "I’ll make you something so good that you won’t even think of any other crappy accessory."』
[Remaining Oracles: 3 / 8]
─────────────────
My body jolted.
"..."
I froze solid.
What should I do? Should I immediately offer up an apology?
But...
Contrary to my expectation...
─────────────────
[Oracle]
[Gaia, Goddess of Earth ▸ Formal Blacksmith L]
『Yes, it truly was so.
I truly cannot think of any of the others, not even a little anymore...
My child? Your item was the loveliest and finest. It was the best.』
『I think it will remain so, to the point that the countless things that came to me before now feel meaningless.』
[Remaining Oracles: 1 / 8]
─────────────────
"..."
I had prepared countless excuses.
But at Gaia’s oracle, which seemed to rejoice with her whole being...
I swallowed every one of my excuses.
What kind of Solomon was I supposed to be?
"...Th-thank you."
I bowed my head toward the rough, earth-colored statue.
───────────────
『Come find me again... Until next time, all right?
Do not overexert yourself, my child.』
───────────────
With that final oracle...
I slowly left the audience chamber.
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