“Huh? Did something happen, guys?” Tida’s carefree voice echoed through the cavern before she emerged from the same gallery through which she’d left.
“Thank goodness you’re finally back, Tida,” I said.
Tida let out a little scream when she noticed Gaien’s arms. “Your arms are completely gone!!! What in the world happened?!”
“We were attacked by flame lizards,” I said.
“My dad protected me from their Flame Breath and... Please, Tida! Fix his arms!” Kagali wailed. She jumped on Tida, throwing her arms around the woman’s neck.
“Urgh! G-Got it. I’ll do it, so...let...go!”
“Kagali, she can’t breathe,” I warned, pulling her back.
“I thought I was done for...”
“Knowing your strength, you could have easily peeled her off,” I said.
“Actually, the thing I went to deal with was a lot harder to handle than I’d expected. I had no choice but to use my trump card, so I’m out of commission for a while. I can’t fight right now.”
Now that she mentioned it, Tida did seem exhausted. However, the mana I could feel coming from her hadn’t decreased all that much. Perhaps her “trump card” had nothing to do with magic. Despite her usual shenanigans, Tida was a cardinal of the Church of Ibris—the most influential religion in the world. She surely had a few tricks up her sleeve that did not rely on mana.
“Understood. I’ll protect you on the way back. You seem to have a lot of mana left, but will you be able to heal Mr. Gaien in your current condition?”
“Sure. I can still cast healing magic just fine. Regeneration requires some preparations, though, so he’ll have to wait a bit longer.”
Apparently, Regeneration required a magic circle and an altar. Kagali and I drew the circle while following Tida’s instructions, and after building an altar out of earth, I put down offerings on it. Thankfully, I always had wheat, fruit, and magic stones in my grimoire.
Gaien sat down in the center of the circle, facing Tida, who began to quietly pray. After roughly five minutes, she waved her staff, then thrust it down onto a specific part of the circle. That spot served as the conduit for the absorption of mana from both Tida and our surroundings. The magic circle turned the mana into light, which gathered around Gaien’s stumps and slowly took the shape of his two missing arms. When the radiance disappeared, his arms were back without so much as a scratch left.
“Phew, that should do it,” Tida said, wiping the sweat from her forehead.
“Thank ye so much. Ye have all me gratitude.”
“Don’t mention it. Extending a helping hand to those in need is only natural for a devout servant of God. If you really want to thank me, a nice bottle of liquor would be more than enough.”
“I’ll find one for ye as soon as we get back.”
Tida beamed at the promise of alcohol. Kagali also thanked her profusely.
“Now that me arms are back, I’ll finish taking care of our lord archspirit’s mana,” Gaien said.
“Master! Let me help!” Kagali pleaded.
Gaien rebuffed her as he got ready to resume his work. “Out of the question. Stay quiet in a corner, and stop calling me master,” he grumbled with a sigh.
“But you are my master! Everything I know about smithing, I learned from you!”
“I only taught ye that so ye’d be able to craft pots and kitchen knives. Ye started making weapons all on yer own!”
“And what’s wrong with that? I’m the daughter of the best weaponsmith in the empire!”
“That ye are. But I refuse to accept ye as a weaponsmith. Ye don’t have the resolve it takes.”
“The resolve it takes... What does that even mean?”
“The fact that ye can’t answer that yerself is all I need to hear.”
The merry atmosphere after Tida had fixed Gaien’s arms hadn’t lasted long. The father-daughter pair were already fighting. I sighed as I watched them in silence.
“I’m a proper weaponsmith! And I can forge swords!”
“No means no, Kagali.”
Kagali clenched her fists in anger. I was about to intervene to stop their fight from escalating when, against all expectations, Tida beat me to it.
“All right, all right, let’s all take a step back, shall we?” Her voice carried unusually well. “I couldn’t help but listen to your argument, and it seems the two of you don’t see eye to eye. Mr. Gaien, can I ask why you’re so opposed to Miss Kagali becoming a weaponsmith? Children wanting to follow in their parents’ footsteps is quite natural, and I’m not sure I see the issue.”
“Dwarves believe crafting weapons is a man’s job,” I said.
Gaien snorted. “As if I believe that nonsense. If ye can forge good weapons, gender matters not.”
Gaien seemed to be surprisingly open despite the general consensus among dwarves.
“Why, then?” I asked.
“It’s not a matter of skills—or gender. Kagali doesn’t have the resolve it takes, that’s it.”
“You’re still going on about that? What do you even mean by ‘resolve’?!” Kagali shouted, slamming her fist into a nearby rock.
“Exactly what the word means!” Gaien shot back, striking the stone with his own brand-new hand.
These two truly were father and daughter.
Tida stepped in between them to create some distance and defuse the tension. “Mr. Gaien, sometimes others can’t understand us without a full explanation.”
Gaien was about to retort, but he stopped himself and let out a sigh instead. He couldn’t argue with Tida after what she’d done for him. After a lengthy pause, he spoke.
“Weapons exist only to kill. Folks make up all sorts of reasons for it, saying they need to do it to eat or to protect what’s dear to ’em, but all those excuses don’t change the truth. When we swing a weapon, it’s to kill, plain and simple.” He looked straight into Kagali’s eyes. “All weaponsmiths must be ready to bear the weight of the lives taken by the weapons they’ve crafted. I see none of that resolve in ye. Yer forging swords with the same mindset ye’d use to craft a pot. If ye go on like that, the day will come when the weight of these lives crushes ye. That’s why I refuse to recognize ye as a weaponsmith.”
“I... I won’t...”
“Ye won’t let it get to you? Are ye sure of that, Kagali? What will ye do when a knife ye’ve made cuts the throat of an innocent child? Can ye shoulder that responsibility?”
Kagali’s eyes darted left and right as she stuttered, “Th-That’s...” She couldn’t give Gaien a straight answer to his question.