At the dawn subtly filtering through the wooden bars, my eyelids twitched and fluttered. My head was still somewhat dizzy, but I gently opened my eyes and raised myself up.
“Haaaam….”
Yawning, I lightly rubbed my eyes. Perhaps because I’d had a rough night’s sleep, I still felt a lingering trace of fatigue.
Maybe because I’d seen some very unpleasant things yesterday, even after waking up, a small irritation like glowing embers washed over me.
It was because of those dark mages I’d killed yesterday.
Don’t they say that if you see even one cockroach, there are hundreds hiding nearby?
What I’d confirmed at the dark mage’s hideout that I’d smashed yesterday was that the countries around here were still relatively fine, but if you headed further south and crossed the mountain range dividing the continent from north to south, they seemed to be swarming in considerable numbers.
And it seemed they had also extended their influence to the Central Continent, which you reached by crossing this continent to the west and then crossing another sea.
To sum it up.
“Wh-what a pain….”
It was truly a pain. If I saw them right in front of me, of course I’d strike them down immediately, but when would I ever deal with all of them spread across the entire continent?
Simply circling the continent without stopping would easily take ten years; if I had to search them out one by one and thrash them, it would take twenty, maybe thirty.
That, too, was only if they sat still and took it—during the time I spent thrashing them, they would spread again like a malignant tumor, I could clearly see.
I didn’t want to.
I really wanted to throw everything aside and just live leisurely.
But if I left them alone, thinking of how they would dirty souls somewhere again, I couldn’t help but exterminate them.
And most decisively.
“‘That person,’ huh….”
The déjà vu I felt from the handwriting in that single autographed letter. The tone, the sentence structure.
Several faces flashed through my mind and vanished, but one face remained.
“…….”
Deep inside my head, I found myself unable to settle on a complete conclusion, despite being half-certain.
Because it was a thoroughly unpleasant conclusion.
After a very brief deliberation, I decided that nothing was certain until I saw it with my own eyes, and set the matter aside in a corner.
◇
Perhaps because he’d slept in a comfortable bed rather than on dirt mixed with snow for the first time in days, Kasian inevitably overslept.
With a hand full of warm love, I zapped Kasian with electricity, then finished a simple breakfast and left the inn.
Perhaps because he’d been shocked by lightning first thing in the morning, he looked thoroughly sulky, but it was his own doing, so I listened with one ear and let it flow out the other.
“Yesterday you were so kind to Eilla; why are you like this to me….”
Eilla was the name of the little girl who had helped with subjugating the dark mage yesterday.
When I came out after smashing the dark mage’s head, it was already late at night, and because the effects of the dark magic hadn’t completely faded yet, I had entrusted her to Kunroteu.
“Eilla is a kid; you’re not.”
“I feel like I was getting zapped by lightning even when I was that age, though.”
“You’re learning magic, so it’s different.”
“Tch….”
Kasian made an expression saying he couldn’t accept it, but didn’t open his mouth any further.
Considering what he would go through later if he said any more, it was a wise thought, since it would only be his own loss.
And anyway, in just a little while, he would forget all about it and get excited again in good spirits.
Because we were on our way to receive the commission reward right now.
We came out onto the main street for a moment and walked toward the market, then entered a slightly narrow alley, turned down several small alleys, and went deep inside.
Yesterday we had entered from the market, whereas this time we entered from the central road, so at first I was confused whether this was the right place, but as I went a little further inside, the road I had seen yesterday reappeared.
Going this way and that through the alleys, a smithy radiating heat from inside since the morning the sun had just risen came into view.
Pushing open the old, poorly-opening door and entering, Kunroteu welcomed us, hammering away as expected.
But unlike yesterday, inside the smithy there was not only Kunroteu but one more person: Eilla, whom we had brought here yesterday.
“Unni!”
Eilla, who jumped up from her chair and ran over, looked completely different from yesterday. Her skinny body and short stature naturally hadn’t changed, but she was no longer covered in soot and dust.
Her hair was still hacked off unevenly, but with the grime washed away it had returned to brown, and though her clothes were crudely made, seeing her in proper attire, she looked exactly like a girl her age.
I stroked Eilla’s head and then sat in a chair.
“I came to collect what was promised. A staff that this lad can use.”
When I tapped Kasian’s back and pushed him forward, Kasian jutted out his lips slightly as if displeased once again, but anticipation instantly spread across his face at the words “new staff.”
“Of course, my friend. Have you ever seen me break a promise?”
“You didn’t give me the Gollet gold coin we bet on that arm-wrestling match.”
“That was invalid. Did you not cheat back then?”
“What do you mean, cheat.”
Kunroteu pretended not to hear me and chuckled, heading into the storage.
Sounds of digging through dirt and tearing something apart could be heard for a moment, followed by a jar shattering with a crash.
A short while later, Kunroteu came back out of the storage holding a silver-gray ingot with no luster whatsoever.
“Hey, that’s….”
“It’s Menelkium. I thought about it deeply; an old friend and benefactor like you came to visit, so I ought to do something like this for you.”
Menelkium, or also called Immutable Gold, was an incredibly light metal, yet possessed a ridiculously hard nature in its solid state.
The problem was that to process it, you had to melt it until it liquefied, or at least softened, but even raising the temperature to the point where iron vaporized into gas wouldn’t faze it.
On the other hand, it was correspondingly rare, and mana flowed through it tremendously well, so if one were to make a staff, it was truly the highest-grade metal, but…….
“You can’t process that by yourself.”
“That’s why I brought it out while you’re here. When else would I get to properly work with something like this?”
“Hah, well. I suppose it doesn’t matter.”
Creating ultra-high temperatures was a very easy thing for me, after all.
I did feel somewhat used and uneasy, but a single ingot like that was worth enough to buy a small castle in the northern continent, so it was a profitable deal.
“Haha, I’ll be counting on you alone.”
“You’ve got a silver tongue.”
I placed the ingot on the anvil and gathered mana from my surroundings.
What I manifested was heat. Unlike when attacking people, it condensed in an instant without the slightest resistance, heating the ingot.
The silver-gray ingot soon began emitting light on its own. Passing from orange to yellow, reaching pure white light, it soon emitted a slight bluish glow.
It was a signal that it had become hotter than the surface of the sun, and it was the optimal temperature where the Menelkium neither completely melted nor remained solid.
Nevertheless, the heat didn’t escape from the ingot at all, so the anvil upon which the ingot rested remained cold.
“Keep it just like that!”
Clang! Clang! Claaang!
Each time Kunroteu swung his hammer and struck the heated ingot, the ingot stretched long. Slowly and with force at first, then increasingly fast and delicately.
Despite little time having passed, the ingot, which had been a perfect rectangular prism, had taken a shape close to a long rod.
Next came sculpting the metal into a staff’s form. Kunroteu, without even wearing gloves, shaped it with his bare hands.
When I glanced back, Kasian was watching with his mouth open in wonder, but it was plain to see he was looking at the staff itself, not the smithing technique.
An easy guy to read.
The work continued for a moment of embedding a core with mana into the sculpted staff and carving out channels.
Even though barely enough time had passed for the sun near the horizon to lift its head slightly, Kunroteu had completed a staff.
Though ninety percent of the work was mine.
The completed staff was slightly taller than Kasian’s height. Intaglio decorations, which made one wonder how they were made by bare hands, were regularly engraved, making the staff anything but plain.
On top of that, the end was blunt so it could be used as a blunt weapon, but since it was so light to begin with, that was only an auxiliary feature.
“You there, lad, was it Kasian? Come here and try putting some mana into it.”
As Kunroteu said, Kasian grabbed the middle of the staff with both hands. And as he slowly infused mana, the circuits carved into the staff resonated with Kasian’s mana.
“Ooh…!”
“Be grateful to your master. It’s a precious staff you can’t get anywhere.”
“Thanks, mister!”
“Hah, goodness….”
Perhaps because it was a child’s praise, Kunroteu didn’t show it much, but he seemed subtly pleased that his creation was being complimented.
Setting that aside, I had basically made the whole thing. I should hit Kasian later. Not to vent, but because this was all part of his education.
◇
“Are you planning to keep her here?”
“The people inside still aren’t in their right minds, are they? Though you said they’d return to normal in about a month, it’s a bit much to cast out a child I’ve already taken in.”
Just as he said, the dark mages who had continuously maintained that dark magic had already been eliminated.
The magic’s influence wouldn’t vanish instantly, but in about a month, their souls would return to normal.
I could blow away the influence of the dark magic directly, but even for me, directly touching so many souls was a bit burdensome.
“She’s a child you only met last night. And, honestly speaking….”
I swallowed the words that she didn’t seem to have much talent. I glanced at Eilla; she was talking with Kasian and not paying attention here, but if she heard by any chance, it would be disastrous.
Nevertheless, the meaning was properly conveyed. A blacksmith taking in a young child usually meant taking them as an apprentice.
“So what if I do? Didn’t you once say there is a saying: ‘Even brushing sleeves is a connection.’ I still don’t know where that saying comes from, though.”
Even brushing sleeves is a connection.
“Certainly, that saying is true.”
I smiled slightly and put on the coat I had taken off.
“You’re heading south?”
“That’s right.”
“It’s been exactly 120 years. Since the time we first met.”
120 years. It no longer felt like such a long time, but looking back, it was a period during which quite a lot had happened.
“Take care of yourself. Don’t make me wait a hundred years again this time.”
“Well, I’ll think about it.”
I stood up from my seat, shouldered the backpack I had laid in the corner, and spoke to Kasian.
“Let’s go. Time to move again.”
“Huh, but we’ve only been here a day; you’re leaving already?”
“You got your staff fixed. We need to go to a new place.”
“……Yeah, just a moment.”
While Kasian went to get his staff and backpack, Eilla, who had been talking with him, gently grabbed my sleeve.
“Unni… are you leaving?”
“Yeah.”
“Can we… meet again?”
Again. Honestly, I couldn’t give a definite answer. Considering I would be going around eradicating dark mages, I might become somewhat busy.
But.
“Yeah, someday. Let’s meet again.”
“……Yeah.”
I gently embraced and patted Eilla, whose eyes were slightly brimming with tears, then opened the door.
When we stepped outside, Kasian hurriedly put on his backpack and ran out after us.
When Kasian stopped and looked back, seemingly reluctant to leave, I turned around too and saw Eilla waving her hand broadly, and behind her, Kunroteu waving his hand lazily.
I also waved my hand slightly and moved my steps.
Now, it was time to travel again.