Zig was visiting Ernesta Armory again, oblivious to the negotiation happening at the guild.
Kirk’s staffers should be interrogating that assassin I captured right about now. He doubted the hit man would talk, but there were various ways of making a man sing, even if he didn’t want to, from torture to drugs and everything in between.
“That isn’t really the problem…but they’ll figure it out.”
He decided to leave the professionals to it. There was nothing he could do to help, anyway. Zig wasn’t very good at torture. Although he had been instructed how to do it back when he was a mercenary, his instructor gave up after seeing that Zig simply didn’t have the aptitude for it. Clearly, Zig had no objections to hurting people, but he was terrible at holding back.
Torture was precise work. You needed to hurt someone enough to force them to give up information. Various types of pain and pacing were necessary, and you also needed to be good enough at talking to see through their lies. Too much would make them die of shock or blood loss. It needed a craftsman’s skill set, really.
When Zig was told to break someone’s fingers, he broke all of them in one go, nullifying the stages of pain. Peel off the guy’s fingernails? Well, he did all of that in one go too. His instructor kicked him out after seeing Zig’s utter lack of understanding in the field.
Zig specialized in killing his opponents as fast as possible. Little wonder he was bad at torture.
Amateur that he was, he could still get other amateurs to talk. However, the assassin this time was different.
“You know, we didn’t have magic back home…” Zig pointed out to himself and wondered how magic could be implemented in torture. What interested him was how healing magic could keep the suspect in a perpetually healthy state.
“I wonder what happens if you heal someone when they’re being stabbed.”
“Zig, can you not speculate on such violent things outside the store? You’re scaring away the customers…”
He turned to see Sciezka, a familiar face by now, giving him a concerned smile. Apparently, he had been thinking out loud. From the corner of his eye, he saw a young adventurer quietly back away from him.
There were a decent number of customers in the shop despite it being in the afternoon.
“Sorry, I’ll be more careful.”
Zig bowed in apology, and Sciezka’s professional smile returned.
“Thank you. So, what brings you here today?”
He took out a magic item from his pocket and showed it to her: a circle of metal about the size of one’s palm. A spiderweb of cracks was spread out from the center, clearly indicating that it was broken.
“I want Gantt to look at this.” It was the magic item Zig’s attacker wore yesterday, the one that created a barrier around him. He kept it, since it could very well be evidence.
He had handed it to Kirk earlier in the morning, but Kirk declined and said he should be the one to look into it. Kirk said that he didn’t want it to be known that the guild was investigating an ordinary magic item.
“Do you know what it does?”
“It made a barrier. A small one.”
Sciezka examined it, then charged it with mana, since activating a defensive spell wouldn’t be a problem inside the store. However, the magic circuit engraved into it was broken, and the seal failed to activate.
“You want us to look into it and not fix it?”
“Yeah.”
The thing broke from the impact of Zig’s kick, but Gantt was familiar with creating both weapons and magic items. He should’ve been able to figure out something about it.
“Very well. Right this way.”
Sciezka wondered why Zig wanted to inspect a broken magic item, but she didn’t say her question out loud. She knew that Zig didn’t have mana and didn’t know the implications of him wanting to investigate the magic item.
As he nodded in gratitude to her, Sciezka turned to him as if remembering something, the ends of her hair brushing against her shoulders. What she had on her face was not her usual professional smile but a genuine one, and it was so gentle that it captured Zig’s attention immediately.
“As a sidenote, the wound will close around the blade itself.”
Zig only nodded at her answer to his earlier question. He wasn’t about to be so foolish as to ask how she knew that. She would definitely say that it’s a secret.
Zig followed Sciezka through the sales floor into the room where Gantt was working. He was wearing a jeweler’s loupe and seemed to be engraving letters into a metal object.
Sciezka remained silent, knowing how sensitive the task was, and instead knocked on his workbench to draw his attention.
“Gantt, is now a good time?”
“No, I’m busy. Can’t you see that?” Gantt continued working on his project, not even bothering to look at Sciezka. His tone was blunt too, showing how focused he was. The intricate engravings he was making seemed to be a magic seal.
It looked like this was a bad time.
Just as Zig was about to show himself out, Sciezka stopped him and knocked on the workbench again. Gantt let out a great sigh as he was once again interrupted and finally relented. He made a show of setting his tools on the bench and glared at Sciezka with the loupe still over one of his eyes.
“Tch… Now look here! Don’t you know how precise I have to be right now?! You know what, you don’t have to know. So why don’t you shut up and—”
“Are you sure? Are you sure you want to turn away the customer who brought you from stockpiling your unwanted equipment in our store to third place in sales?”
“Just stop interrupting—what was that?”
Gantt shut his mouth before he could launch into a rant. His eyes then went over to Zig, who was standing near Sciezka. His other eye had been closed, since he needed the one that wore the loupe in full focus, so Gantt had completely missed Zig.
Gantt’s beard twitched a few times before he looked at Sciezka again and bowed deeply. “I am truly sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to me.”
Gantt quickly lifted his head. “Hey, sorry about that, Zig! What’s happening?”
Zig narrowed his eyes and scratched his chin at the all-too-casual apology.
Sciezka’s free hand suddenly pulled on Gantt’s beard. Although the pain was clear on his face, his eyes quickly locked on Zig’s equipment.
“Happy to see you’re already putting that weapon to use, though! What do you think of it?”
“You’re tougher than you look. Not bad. Durable, sharp, perfect balance and weight.”
Gantt happily beckoned Zig to his workbench and made space for him. The blacksmith couldn’t wait to see his creation. Zig gave a wry smile as he set the weapon on the desk and removed its fabric covering. Gantt took off his loupe and ran his fingers along the dark red blades, squinting to get a better look.