1.
To be honest, I had thought about it sometimes.
Of course, the very fact that I had crossed over into another world was impossible to explain.
But if I had to explain why...
Maybe I...
"Was dead?"
I had wondered if I died and ended up crossing into this world.
Of course, I don’t remember. I don’t even want to remember.
Overwork had always been like an old friend to me.
And I never had the mental room to take care of my body.
So I had simply lived this life the same way I lived the last one, carried along by inertia.
If there was one difference...
"Get enough rest."
Maybe it was that, in this life, there were adults who could tell me to rest.
Dolores was like that, and Harngar standing before me was too.
I nodded for now.
If you asked whether I couldn’t understand what he meant, that wasn’t it.
[If you continue working while standing in front of a fire for a long period of time...■]
[Hm? If you continue working while standing in front of a fire for a long period of time...■■]
No way.
[...Aha, so my brother did something to me.]
[Safety management, health management guidelines aren’t working... Hm.]
In the end, whatever I had put on Yuna had been found out too.
Terrifying little sister. Kim Yuna.
"......"
Yeah.
So what if I just took a little rest?
Maybe I should try making something called a weekend.
"Yes, well."
"......"
"I’ll rest. When it’s time to rest, I should rest."
Honestly, I didn’t really like it... but if this was what Dolores wanted too, then...
Resting was the right answer.
When I replied with a dissatisfied look, clearly doing it against my will, Harngar nodded.
"Will you promise me?"
"...Yes, well."
"...Good. Hearing your answer is enough."
Swoosh.
He turned away with an oddly relieved expression.
"It seems it is time for me to return."
"What?"
Hey, what exactly did you even do?
You didn’t teach me a single dwarf secret, training method, or crafting technique.
Was he a scammer or something? Maybe I had just been having a weird dream.
"W-wait a second. Resting is fine, sure, fine."
"......"
He looked at me.
"Then when am I supposed to grow? The truth is, my benefactor doesn’t have that much time left."
Dolores was basically living like a ticking time bomb right now.
Yes, I had bought her more time, but when someone carrying a time bomb was right there beside me, how was I supposed to relax and just rest?
You said you’d help me. Was this your solution?
He slowly turned his head.
"Who,"
"......"
"said you had to rest 'here'?"
"...What?"
What was that supposed to mean?
I had never been good with wordplay.
Just as I narrowed my eyes and tilted my head at his riddle-like words—
"Descendant."
"Yes."
"What does this place look like to you?"
"A workshop."
"It looks exactly like your workshop, but it is not your workshop."
Then—
Harngar raised a hand overhead.
"This is the first time."
"The first time for what?"
"The first to use it, and the first to see it."
Looking at me, he slowly pulled the corner of his mouth up into a grin.
Then he—
"Purgatory."
murmured something low.
Fwoooosh!
A massive flame swirled into his grasp.
Then it took shape, becoming a gigantic hammer.
The instant I saw it, I couldn’t look away.
What was it made of?
What material? How had it been forged? What mineral was—
No.
It wasn’t even on that level.
"How in the world... could anyone possibly make that?"
It was so wondrous I could barely even dare to look at it with my own eyes.
Humility, forcibly injected into me.
Yeah. That thing was a humility injector.
And then the identity of the equipment came into view.
─────────────────
[Purgatory - Catastrophe][★★★★★]
[Exclusive Equipment] [Compatibility][100/100]
─────────────────
There was once a craftsman who imprisoned himself within the purgatory called death.
Fire chose of its own will to rest in his hand.
Before that noble resolve, even the gods shall bow their heads.
─────────────────
"It doesn’t matter if it is late. Even if— even if I die, it doesn’t matter.
A masterpiece is something like that."
- 11th Workshop Master, Harngar -
─────────────────
Its appearance.
The Origin Script.
The grade, the compatibility.
Every single part of it surpassed any piece of equipment I had ever seen.
I couldn’t even bring myself to call it merely better.
It was superior.
The toughness of a dwarf who devoted himself without fearing death.
The Origin Script seemed to connect directly to those words.
"Even if it is late... it doesn’t matter...?"
Just now, he had told me I was the first person to ever see this in action.
If that was true...
The purgatory called death.
Even if he died, it didn’t matter...?
Just as my thoughts were about to reach something—
"Catastrophe."
BOOM!!!
Harngar slammed the giant hammer down onto the desk.
The shockwave spread out, missing me completely, and blew away the workshop walls.
Rumble...!
The walls of the workshop shattered and slowly collapsed.
The floor cracked... the ceiling caved in.
Everything around us crumbled, and then—
We were floating in empty space.
All around us were waterfalls of lava.
Red poured endlessly from above to below.
I couldn’t even tell where the floor was and where the ceiling was.
And yet, it wasn’t hot.
Holding the hammer in midair, he looked down at me and spoke.
"A place where the flesh is unnecessary."
He spread his arms wide.
"A place where one may forge with only will and soul. A furnace of the mind granted only to the descendants of fire."
The corners of his mouth beneath his beard pulled up as far as they could go.
His teeth showed.
"Welcome to the [Formless Divine Furnace]."
I clenched and unclenched my hands.
I was fine.
The pain that was always there was gone. Even when I looked far into the distance, my eyes didn’t feel hollow and strained.
"Do you understand now? Here, you do not grow hungry, your arms do not go numb, and your eyes do not blur."
"......"
"There is no body to collapse, so there is no collapsing."
He adjusted his grip on the hammer.
"So outside, eat, sleep, rest, and grow."
In that case...
In this place where my body didn’t hurt and I couldn’t grow tired...
"...Then I just have to hammer until I drop dead."
Having finally understood everything he had been saying—
"Nice!!!!!"
I shouted, clenching both fists tight.
I had always been short on time.
Twenty-four hours was never enough, so I squeezed nineteen hours until they bled dry, and even then sleep felt like a waste.
When I could see myself growing stronger, how was I supposed to sleep?
But now...
I could practice without putting strain on my body?
If that was true, then from now on, the density of my time would be different.
"Do I have to be asleep to enter this place?"
"Sharp of you. If you wish it before sleeping, then whenever you like."
I figured as much.
So then, I must have passed out the moment I entered the workshop after hanging up the nameplate.
The instant I lost consciousness, I came here.
"How fast does time flow?"
This was the most important part.
Even one-to-one would have been fine.
Dream time often felt faster anyway.
"At most, five times slower."
Five times.
When I heard that, I squeezed my eyes shut.
The moment I fell asleep...
I would enter the workshop of mind and time.
"I’ll rest."
I’ll rest well.
I really felt like I could rest comfortably now.
The dark clouds filling my vision cleared wide open.
My worries began to disappear.
Sleeping wasn’t wasted time anymore.
Once I thought that—
The strength slowly began to leave my body.
"...Looks like it’s about time."
Whoooom...
He swung the hammer.
My body... began to slowly fall beneath the lava.
As I fell, Harngar asked me in a low voice.
"Descendant, let me ask you one thing."
"...What is it?"
Thunk.
Resting the hammer on his shoulder, he slowly added,
"How was it?"
I didn’t need to ask what he meant.
Fwoosh.
At the edge of my falling vision, the hammer was still burning red.
"Of all the equipment I’ve ever seen..."
Without a moment’s hesitation—
"It was the best."
I answered instantly.
Until now, whenever I saw a good item, I always thought to myself:
How could I fix it? How could I make it better?
But in front of that...
"...It made me humble."
"...Haha."
The red river swallowed me.
"...That’s enough, then."
My eyelids grew heavy.
Even from far away—
"Go and get some proper rest."
Splash...
I could still hear his voice clearly.
"And next time—"
Beyond my fading vision, Harngar was looking down at me with a smile.
"Show me what you can make with both your hands."
That was the last thing I heard.
2.
I opened my eyes.
"......"
Cool.
And soft.
Plush. Springy. Incredibly, seriously so.
Everything in front of me was white—more precisely, my face was buried in something cool, so I couldn’t see very well.
A fragrant, pleasant scent filled my nose.
I could feel a light sensation at the back of my head.
Feeling like I was wedged somewhere, I slowly lifted my head and...
"......?"
There was a pair of snow-white breasts right in front of me.
What?
What was this?
What kind of reward was this supposed to be?
Was this my reward for deciding to rest?
After the workshop of mind and time came Dolores’s huge, pillowy boobs.
If that was the case, I was ready to rest for the rest of my life.
While I rolled my eyes around trying to grasp the situation—
Haa...
I heard steady breathing from above.
Dolores.
She had fallen asleep while holding me in her arms.
"......"
The whole sequence of events came naturally to mind.
I had probably just passed out in the workshop, and meeting Harngar had happened in a world inside my dream.
Dolores must have carried my unconscious body here and fallen asleep while holding me.
The thoughts connected one after another, but the thing in front of me was lowering my intelligence.
"Hehe, so soft."
So I spent about thirty more minutes enjoying being in her arms.
How much time had passed?
"Are you awake, Lionel?"
A gentle voice came from above.
When I lifted my head, Dolores was looking down at me with a warm expression.
So she had been awake.
And yet the arms wrapped around me didn’t loosen.
"Yes."
"...You fainted yesterday. Do you know that?"
"I think so."
Dolores pressed her lips together.
She closed her eyes slightly, as if thinking something over.
Then slowly... very slowly, she opened her mouth.
"My baby."
"Yes."
"I always want to respect your wishes. Whatever you make, however deeply you devote yourself to it, that belongs to you and to your own thoughts."
Stroke, stroke.
As if trying to soothe me, she slowly ran a hand down my back.
"So I was trying not to say this."
After that came Dolores’s long string of worries and requests.
"When I held you after you collapsed in the garden, you were far too light."
"You barely take any time off in a week."
"It doesn’t even seem like you’re growing taller. Ruby has been growing so much lately."
In the end, if I had to summarize what she was saying...
I was too young, so please stop working so much.
"...Hm? Lionel, couldn’t you work while resting a little?"
"Yes, I will."
"...Ah?"
She must have expected me to refuse outright.
Dolores’s eyes widened.
But the situation had changed a lot.
I could work while resting now.
Still, I couldn’t exactly tell her that directly.
So I pulled my face away from her chest and looked up at her.
"I’ll rest while I work now. Slowly."
"......"
Dolores’s eyes went round.
Not to brag, but up until now I’d been the kind of person who never listened no matter how much people talked to me.
So when I suddenly agreed so obediently—
"......"
The corners of Dolores’s eyes turned faintly red.
Ah, it wasn’t like that.
She looked at me tenderly, like she felt I had finally listened to her.
Just as the mood seemed like it was getting a little too sad and I tried to pull away—
Squeeeze...
"Huuup!"
Dolores hugged me tightly.
Poof.
My face was buried straight into something soft.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe.
"Thank you, Lionel. Thank you..."
Her damp voice came from above my head, but—
Cough.
Cough, cough.
Mom, I’m going to die like this.
I never thought my cause of death would be suffocation instead of overwork.
If I died like this, I’d probably rank number one on the list of best possible deaths.
That was what I was thinking.
And while I struggled for a long time in Mom’s embrace—
Right in the middle of Dolores’s chest, I finally found a split gap where I could breathe.
A valley, maybe.
I desperately sucked in air.
"...Hup."
"Thank you, Lionel. Get plenty of rest..."
And so, having barely found that threadlike gap for breathing...
...I quietly stayed in her arms.
Cough, cough.
And accepted the hug.
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