Episode 27

From the next day, I headed to the smithy to increase my stock.

For now, I’ll make some knives.

There’s still time until the next market, so I’ll focus on improving quality.

First, I melted Irea Magic Ore and made a single plate.

I melted several pieces of Irea Magic Ore into a plate roughly the size needed for a knife, and one plate was completed.

Next comes the work of improving that plate’s quality. I hammered the plate with a small mallet.

The work I’m doing now is called tempering.

Because Irea Magic Ore contains many useless impurities inside, tempering drives them out.

I strike the plate with the mallet and make sure to give it proper heat. I keep hammering the glowing red plate again and again.

This increases the plate’s overall strength. Once that’s done to a certain extent, I analyze the internal mana pattern.

After tempering, I adjust this mana information. The internal pattern still isn’t good, so I work the mallet to correct it.

The mana pattern runs like a line, but it’s bent left and right. I need to make it a single straight line.

If I don’t strengthen it properly here, I won’t be able to perform the Enchantment successfully.

I hammer it repeatedly, and once the best possible plate is finished, I begin making the knife.

I move the plate to the anvil and then apply heat.

I hammer it into the shape of a knife, forming it into the shape I want.

When it has taken shape, I prepare Water magic. I plunge the heated knife into a spherical pool of liquid and it lets out a sizzle.

After the quenching is done, I give the knife a quick inspection.

The blade is about 15 cm. Maybe it’s a bit long? But knives are roughly this size. There’s a slight curvature to the blade. I tried hardening some earth and cutting it, and it sliced cleanly. The sharpness is fine.

I wrap the grip with monster hide and it’s finished.

It can be used in combat, and it’s also useful for dissection.

The production took roughly three hours. Tempering takes time, but it gives a level of quality that Irea Magic Ore normally couldn’t produce.

If you temper properly, you can achieve a forge quality comparable to using one or two ranks higher Magic Ore. So spending time on tempering is by no means a waste.

All that’s left is to mass-produce knives before the market starts.

I kept making knives one after another, taking breaks now and then.

By the end of the day I had made about three.

I enjoy smithing itself, so it’s a lot of fun… but if I overdo it, Alicia gets worried.

Alicia came to pick me up at both lunch and dinner, and if she hadn’t, I might not have noticed.

“Don’t wreck your body, okay?”

We were walking to the dining hall to have dinner together when Alicia said that to me.

“Well, um… my working hours are less than when I was at the court. It’s not a problem.”

“…Is that so? But you can’t use that as your standard.”

Alicia puffed her cheeks out.

“Yeah. If anything, being able to live healthily has actually made me feel better.”

“If that’s the case, then okay—don’t overdo it and do your best.”

Alicia smiled sweetly. We’re only walking from the smithy to the manor, but I’m holding her hand as we walk.

We walk through the manor toward the dining hall. The day is drawing to a close, but the servants still move about busily.

When they notice us, they stop and bow. I think they’d do better to just focus on their work, but that’s part of their duties too.

That said, I’m still just a smith, not someone who should be receiving such formal bows.

For now, I have to work hard to become a blacksmith worthy of such respect.

For Alicia’s sake, too.