1.
I immediately got to my feet and headed for my room.
Let’s think about this simply.
There was the equipment compatibility visible only to me. And I could arbitrarily swap out someone’s equipment and check it.
Then, based on that, I could make equipment suited to Dolores….
"No."
I wasn’t thinking I could just whip up perfectly suitable equipment in an instant.
Hell, I’d never made equipment in my life.
If there was one thing I’d learned in graduate school, it was that you couldn’t do anything well on your first try.
But it didn’t have to be perfect, did it?
If I could at least make equipment better than what she had now.
Dolores’s current glove compatibility was 1.1. Wouldn’t it be stranger if I couldn’t raise it above that?
"Dolores will notice, right?"
If the equipment improved, even just a little.
Wouldn’t she know the instant she put it on?
I pulled up the status window again.
The words written beneath her gloves had been bothering me for a while now.
─────────────────
[White Gloves of Gorgonew] [★★★★★]
[Unique Equipment] [Compatibility: 1.1 / 100 / Extreme Poison]
[Suppressing the progression of the severed meridians through a cooling effect.]
[However, the wearer’s yin energy and the equipment’s yin energy interlock and amplify one another, permanently sealing seven of the nine meridians of the Nine Yin Severed Meridians.]
─────────────────
"The best treatment is to freeze the wounded area."
- Gorgonew, the Great Sage -
─────────────────
‘The best treatment is to freeze the wounded area….’
So these gloves were probably flash-freezing her. To keep her condition from worsening.
Maybe they were buying time until a cure could be found.
The problem was that while the freezing appeared to halt the progression….
Her yin energy was accumulating inside, causing permanent blockages.
She simply didn’t know because all her senses were frozen.
"Good."
I slowly nodded.
Either thaw the freezing, or equip her with something compatible.
That alone would let Dolores feel something for the first time.
And that could serve as proof.
In that case, it was time to become a blacksmith.
I had made up my mind and settled on a direction.
So what did I need to do next?
"Yuna? How do I become a blacksmith that even a beginner can manage? Hurry."
Read the reference materials, obviously.
Because I had an excellent professor.
That thing she had shown me earlier had just been bait.
[I’ll recommend four resources~]
Several instructional materials Yuna had recommended appeared before my eyes.
[🔒] [An Introductory Guide to Elven Equipment Crafting]
[🔒] [Frostblade Tribe Cold-Element Equipment Crafting Method (Commentary Edition of a Private Tradition)]
[🔒] [Blacksmithing Textbook Containing the Secret Arts of the Sun Dwarves]
[🔒] [■Λb■y■■s5■]
There was one difference from the articles I had seen so far. Every one of them had a lock emoji at the very beginning.
"What’s with the lock?"
[Traditional materials posted to the community by Inner Tower residents who have lived in the tower from the beginning.]
[They can only be viewed by verified members of the race or authorized individuals.]
"Then I can’t read them, can I?"
I was Korean.
Uh, if we really wanted to get technical, I was descended from Hwanung, so I was pretty far removed from dwarves.
Hold on.
But it didn’t seem like she’d put things I couldn’t read on the recommendation list.
"Hey, don’t tell me you…?"
[😏]
Wow, there it was.
That unbelievably punchable face.
[Hehe, it’s me.]
[🔑] An Introductory Guide to Elven Equipment Crafting
[🔑] Frostblade Tribe Cold-Element Equipment Crafting Method (Commentary Edition of a Private Tradition)
[🔑] Blacksmithing Textbook Containing the Secret Arts of the Sun Dwarves
[🔑] ■Λb■y■■s5■
All the lock emojis changed into key emojis.
That meant they were unlocked, right?
"This actually works…."
Suddenly, I understood why I had lost my job.
Yuna had been absurdly competent.
I was just shocked that it worked even in another world.
Anyway, now I had to choose.
First, the elves.
Second, the Frostblade Tribe.
Third, the Sun Dwarves.
And the fourth one—what the hell was that?
I opened the fourth document first, but it was covered entirely in black screens.
It gave off a pretty sinister feeling. It was probably just an error caused by all the black screens.
[Λbys5]
Though there was one strange word in the middle.
I’d skip this one for now.
"As for the second one…."
It was probably out.
The problem right now seemed to be yin energy in the first place.
Not that I was slandering the Frostblade Tribe, whom I knew nothing about, but it was somewhat removed from the direction I wanted.
Which meant…?
"Do you know anything about the Sun Dwarves?"
The name itself sounded warm. I had a good feeling about it.
[I’ll crawl for the keyword Sun Dwarves.]
A moment later, a title that seemed desperately earnest caught my eye.
[Title: Fuck, aren’t dwarf enchants rigged?]
[Author: Anonymous]
Why me? Why me? Why me?
Everyone else easily gets to 19 stars with a few clicks, so why does mine blow up over and over again?
Why am I the only one getting destroyed? I spent four times the expected value.
IdidthequestIkilledgoblinsIdideverything
I lived a good life, damn it.
Anonymous: I got it on my first try.
└ Anonymous 1: You fucking bastard.
└ Anonymous: Not everyone can be lucky. You are the guardian of balance.
└ Anonymous 1: (a "Huh…" emoji)
The reactions were no joke.
As I skimmed through several posts, I found one common sentiment.
‘Enchanters are dopamine. Equipment is boring as hell.’
Dwarves had two paths.
One was enchanting equipment, and the other was forging equipment.
Enchanting seemed to be the more popular one. In the past, people apparently trusted dwarf-made equipment without question.
These days, though, that was no longer the case.
They called it blacksmithing, but apparently they made it with mass-production machines. The quality had fallen considerably because of that.
It wasn’t bad, but it just felt decently usable.
Anonymous 3: Look at the odds.
└ Anonymous 1: Is there any way to just get equipment? Not the fucking mass-produced kind.
└ Anonymous 3: There aren’t any dwarves who make it. Yeah.
└ Anonymous 1: (a "Huh…" emoji)
It seemed that, very, very occasionally, there were blacksmiths who still made equipment themselves by hammering metal.
But to get equipment from them, you apparently had to save their lives or something.
Most dwarves seemed to be absorbed in enchanting. It felt like mass-produced equipment was all that made it onto the market.
So dwarves were….
"I guess they’re valuable."
In other words, they seemed to be a popular race with considerable prestige.
The problem was that there were hardly any blacksmiths now.
"I’ll go with this one, then."
The name suited my needs, and their skills seemed certain.
I wasn’t sure whether I should be sneaking a look at a textbook containing a race’s secret arts.
Still.
It would be rude not to listen when I could.
Click.
"Let’s go."
I opened the unlocked article.
2.
Inner Tower, 89th floor.
A land where lava flowed.
Ricardo, High Chieftain of the Sun Dwarves.
He sat alone upon his throne.
Ever since the Outer Tower had opened, his race had enjoyed its greatest golden age. Demand overflowed, and their reputation soared.
There was one problem, however.
"Why in the world does no one walk the path of the Heirs of Fire…?"
Dwarves had two paths.
Blacksmiths and enchanters.
Those who made equipment, and those who strengthened it.
Among them, those who passed the trials handed down by their ancestors were called elite blacksmiths—the Heirs of Fire.
The Heirs of Fire were overwhelmingly more difficult.
But since the Outer Tower opened, climbers’ demand had concentrated on enchanters.
Demand for blacksmiths had risen as well. Yet not a single person had passed the trials and declared themselves an Heir of Fire.
From the younger dwarves’ perspective, there was absolutely no reason to hammer iron before a blazing furnace and endure the trials.
With a few clicks, they could enjoy wealth as enchanters, or make a decent living as ordinary blacksmiths by simply running equipment-making machines.
The Sun Dwarves’ technology was recognized well enough in the Outer Tower even at ordinary grades.
[🔑] [Basic Blacksmithing Textbook Containing the Secret Arts of the Sun Dwarves]
To access this textbook passed down from their ancestors, one had to complete the one hundred ordeals imposed by those ancestors.
You could become an enchanter merely for being a dwarf, without undergoing any ordeal.
Even ordinary blacksmiths could earn plenty of money.
Who would deliberately bash their head against the path of the Heirs of Fire?
In the end, not a single young dwarf had opened this textbook recently.
Dwarves who had given up on becoming elite blacksmiths.
Only so-called elite-blacksmith dropouts remained.
Ricardo closed his eyes.
"Back in my day…"
He was having such an old-fashioned thought.
If there was any consolation, it was that the elves and the Frostblade Tribe were not in much better shape.
Just as he was reflecting on how the once-admired Heirs of Fire had fallen to this state—
Rumble….
The Sun Dwarves’ furnace began to boil.
Ricardo’s eyes slowly opened.
"What did you say…?"
This reaction appeared in only one circumstance.
When the textbook was opened for the first time by someone newly initiated as an Heir of Fire.
Which meant—
Someone had just opened the textbook. A new Heir of Fire had appeared.
Ricardo rose from his throne.
"Find them."
The voice he uttered in a low murmur soon turned into a thunderous roar.
"Hurry, at once! Bring this exemplary young person to me!!"
Ricardo shouted loudly.
Even the lava must have churned.
3.
I spent several days studying the blacksmithing textbook.
Several days out of a week was a huge chunk of time.
But I thought this was worth devoting that much effort to.
However.
The foolish thing I had done was—
I had underestimated this world’s blacksmithing textbook.
In other words, I had underestimated making equipment.
No, I’ll be honest.
I never thought it would be easy. I had braced myself going in.
"…I think I’m going to die."
I just hadn’t braced myself enough.
It was fucking hard.
Where’s a machine? I want to make mass-produced equipment too.
The introduction itself was already insane.
[A 100-kilogram hammer is essential. Having completed the ordeals, you should be quite capable of wielding one.]
What the fuck.
The problem was that the "you" who had completed the ordeals wasn’t me.
What I learned while studying was that this textbook was not for ordinary blacksmiths.
It was for elite blacksmiths who had endured the harshest trials among blacksmiths.
Heirs of Fire.
It was a textbook for them.
So, blacksmiths who actually hammered metal were already scarce enough.
And even among them, this was a high-ranking profession so rare it was practically treated as legendary.
"Heirs of Fire…"
The name was grandiose enough. No wonder the difficulty was absurd.
Fortunately, the hammer wasn’t mandatory, merely recommended.
If it had been mandatory, I would have opened the elven document immediately.
The textbook’s first pages were spectacular.
Greatswords, plate armor, mana-infused shields….
I skipped all of it.
[Metallurgy]
Because all that belonged to the metallurgy section, where you melted and worked iron at high temperatures.
And I was in a position where I had to cautiously pick up even rocks, let alone iron.
So.
What I ultimately turned to was the—
[Leatherworking]
—section’s
"Insulated gloves."
This was it.
Literally, a pair of leather gloves that were a little warm.
The materials for these were simple, and so was the process.
Above all else.
Dolores’s constitution was cold-element.
Then conversely, if I gave her equipment imbued with warmth, wouldn’t her compatibility rise, even a little?
The supplies were simple too.
Leather was even easy to acquire.
"Wild animal hide?"
This was a livestock shed.
When I approached the instructor and told him, "I need leather as a material for magic," he readily gave me permission.
Dolores’s convenience extended even to things like this.
Thanks to that, I got a workspace in one corner of the livestock shed.
Calling it a workspace was generous, though. It was just one bucket, one scraper, and one wooden board.
Which brought me back to why I had felt like I was dying earlier.
What I was doing right now was….
"Huff… huff…"
Cleaning rawhide.
Otherwise known as tanning.
Scraping fat and flesh off livestock hide, soaking it in water, then scraping it again.
The textbook said, "Rub it with utmost care."
If care were all it took, there would be nothing in the world people couldn’t do.
"I think I’m actually going to die…?"
No joke, my arms were trembling.
The fact that this body was a little kid was a problem to begin with.
On top of that, the spotted cow was ridiculously huge.
Of course, if the animal was big, its hide would be big too.
The hide was large enough to cover the entire floor of a workshop.
At this point, when I had no detailed knowledge of tanning.
Was it really right to do this without even knowing the knack of it?
It absolutely wasn’t because I didn’t want to finish all of this that I was looking for an easy way out.
Clap clap.
I wiped away the sweat pouring down my face and clapped my hands.
"Yuna?"
Give me some pro tips for tanning.
This was probably why humanity had lost its jobs.
If I kept living like this, I felt like I’d become a finger princess.
[…….]
Yuna seemed to stare at me in disbelief for a moment.
See? This is supposed to be AI? I couldn’t believe it.
[Hmm… it’s not like I only gave you one book….]
[How about looking at the elven method for softening leather?]
The unlocked elven document appeared.
I had only chosen the Sun Dwarves’ textbook earlier. I never said I wouldn’t read the others.
"Yeah, open it."
They were all unlocked anyway.
Nothing strange would happen.
[Because they are a small race, they developed softening methods that use natural materials, apparently.]
What?
No, then that was perfect for me.
A small person without any strength.
I immediately read the document, and this was my summary.
First, crush oak leaves and extract their juice.
Second, mix the juice into water and soak the hide overnight.
Third, take it out the following day, and the grease will have separated.
"…That’s it?"
[The tannins in the leaves relax the leather fibers.]
[It can replace the dwarf-style tanning process. To an extent.]
In other words, all I had to do was leave it soaking overnight, and it would be clean by tomorrow morning.
The dwarven equipment-making method was quite detailed about the equipment and its descriptions.
But it was remarkably unhelpful about tanning… so if I replaced just that part with the elven method?
This was amazing.
‘This is how papers are written in the first place.’
I recalled something a senior from graduate school had said.
He said the key was to appropriately cite other people’s research and reinterpret it in your own way.
At the time, I had been rather arrogant and hated hearing that, but now I could understand it somewhat.
I’d make a mixed stew out of it.
"Oak… oak…."
To be honest, I knew nothing about plants.
I trusted Yuna’s knowledge and headed for the mountain behind the orphanage.
"Is this it?"
[That’s a pine tree.]
"How about this?"
[You idiot, that’s a paulownia tree.]
Sorry, but how would I know that?
Fuck, it looked like it should be around here.
Then—
"Hey, this is it. This has to be it."
Comparing it with the photo Yuna displayed on the screen, I approached the tree.
No matter how I looked at it, it was an oak.
[Oh?]
[Correct, hehe.]
I immediately plucked a handful of leaves.
According to the textbook, I needed twenty leaves per hide.
I had no intention of doing this halfheartedly.
My personal creed was to do everything perfectly.
As long as I scored a hundred, I was first place without needing to compare myself to anyone else.
Of course, that conviction had been shattered by assholes who scored 110 and 200.
They said life could take you anywhere.
I never thought it would take me this far.
I returned to my prime workspace in the livestock shed.
I filled the bucket with water and crushed the leaves with a stone to extract their juice. According to the textbook, I only needed to mix this juice into the water and leave the hide soaking overnight.
Plunk.
The hide sank into the moss-green water.
"…Is that it?"
I would be able to check the results tomorrow morning.
I sat down beside the bucket.
I had done everything I could. That was enough for today.
Once I leaned my back against the wall, my entire body finally began to ache.
The recoil from digging away at hide instead of dirt seemed to be hitting me now.
"…Let’s sleep for now."
My eyes closed.
In my experience, most things worked out if you followed the book.
…And if it didn’t.
I’d think about it then.
Because I believed in the power of books.
I had almost spent the entire day rubbing leather….
I could only offer my thanks to the elves who had written such a book.
4.
At that moment.
19th floor, the Great Forest.
The deepest heart of the elves’ Silver Forest.
Erien, the High Chieftain, sat atop the roots of an ancient tree.
For the record, she was also picking at her nails.
The scout kneeling before her lowered his head.
"…The investigation, the investigation results? Where is the promising, gifted heir who opened our ancestors’ records?"
Her voice was trembling.
It was understandable.
The elves’ circumstances were no different from the dwarves’.
In fact, they were worse.
If dwarves were famous for equipment, elves were famous for accessories and gemstone craftsmanship.
But being famous and still going strong were two different matters.
Once every few decades, the elves had to hold a rite for the World Tree in the Great Forest.
To receive the World Tree’s blessing of prosperity and abundance.
That rite absolutely required gemstones that only elite craftsmen could create.
Those who opened the ancestors’ records and passed the trials.
The gems made by elite craftsmen called the Children of the Forest.
The issue was that only three Children of the Forest currently remained.
Their mistake had been complacency because they were a long-lived race.
Because they lived so long, they believed someone would always remain to fill the role.
By the time they realized how careless that had been, it was already too late.
Before they knew it, elves who crafted accessories had become exceedingly rare.
All three of them were old masters with backs bent as far as they could bend—forget apprentices, they were elders nearing the rites they would soon have to conduct.
They were rather far removed from being Children of the Forest. They were Elders of the Forest.
In the end, they needed gemstones to conduct the rite, but the three could not be reached.
There was no way to know whether they were dead or alive. Bluntly put, they were not people Erien could just order to come and go because a rite was being held.
They would do it if they felt like it.
She had been fretting helplessly when the good news came….
The moment Erien received the report that someone had opened the ancestors’ records, she rose from her throne.
Some young elf had opened them.
How could she possibly not find them? The thought filled her with pride.
They had to be raised.
To survive, there was no other choice.
"We have identified the reader’s location."
Erien leaned forward.
"Where are they?"
"…The Outer Tower."
"The Outer Tower…?"
Erien’s lips trembled faintly.
If they were in the Outer Tower, she couldn’t catch them—no, bring them here.
Were they really an elf? Really one of their kind…?
"……."
Erien fainted.
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