I stood up from my lowered stance and swung the door open. A muffled clattering sound startled me, and I quickly crouched back down. Nothing unusual happened after a few beats, so I relaxed and straightened back up, glancing around me.
The inside of the cabin looked like a ski lodge, except there was no second floor. Instead of a modern-style kitchen, there was a separate area with a dirt floor where a traditional Japanese charcoal stove stood, alongside a shelf for dishes and cutlery. There was a rope running through the kitchen, and beyond it was another door. Something on the other side of that threshold had probably created the sound I’d heard when I’d initially opened the door.
I closed the front door—there was another round of clacking—and slid the latch closed. The room was large; there was more than enough space for the sizable table and several chairs. In the rafters, I could see something that looked like wooden clappers. The sound earlier had been muffled, so these couldn’t have been the cause. Something else must’ve triggered it. My curiosity was piqued, but I let it go for now.
In the corner of the room, there stood three more doors. The first one led to a bathroom. I reasoned that, since I’d yet to come across anywhere to sleep, one of the remaining two doors must open to a bedroom. However, the next door I tried revealed a study with a large desk and bookshelves. The last doorway ended up leading to the bedroom. It was sparsely furnished with a wide bed, a nightstand, a desk, and a small stool, which reminded me of the cheap, bare-bones rooms that businessmen booked during work trips.
Now, onto the main attraction: the place where the magic—or smithing—happened. I was eager to see the equipment that had been prepared for me, but I also hoped it was practical. I wasn’t going to take on apprentices; it was just going to be me for the foreseeable future, so even if there were a fancy charcoal blast furnace for smelting, I wouldn’t be able to operate it alone.
With my heart pounding both in excitement and in worry, I crossed the kitchen and opened the last door.
Inside the room was everything you’d expect to be in a blacksmith’s toolkit. There was a hammer and anvil, a small hearth for a crucible, and even a bloomery on a bed of charcoal for ironworking. I was equipped to make both Western and Japanese weapons from iron—or steel—along with small items like arrowheads. Thanks to the data installed in my brain earlier, I now knew how to use all the equipment. That headache had been a worthy price to pay.
A counter stood in the middle of the workshop, beyond which was a small open space. The door on the far wall with an elaborate latch led back outside.
“I see. This space doubles as a storefront for customers,” I mused aloud.
The first set of rooms made up the living space, whereas this side of the cabin was pure business. If I’d forgotten to latch the front door to the living space before coming to the workshop, the clappers would alert me to any customer that tried to enter that way. The rope I saw earlier was also connected to the door in the workshop that led outside, so I would be alerted the other way around too. It was a simple but effective rig.
I took one last look around the workshop before returning to the living area. It didn’t feel like home per se, but I couldn’t return to my former world even if I wanted to. Besides, I didn’t have any relatives or a girlfriend. The only person who would’ve been troubled by my death was my manager at work. But even at the company, I was easily replaceable—a cog in the machine—so maybe it didn’t make a difference.
Either way, there was no turning back now.
I shook my head to clear my thoughts. My stomach gurgled loudly, begging for food. I know that the body can’t lie, but couldn’t it have picked a better time? I sighed and went back into the kitchen to check on what food items had been stocked. If only there were microwaveable meals...but I wouldn’t count on it.
The pantry contained vegetables (mostly potatoes and the like) and smoked meat (pork, I thought), along with some legumes that looked like soybeans and lentils. A nearby jar was filled with cured meat, likely also pork.
I’ll try making a stew. I filled a small pitcher with water from the large water jar and poured it into the pot situated on the charcoal stove. I thought I’d have to manually build a fire with the charcoal and kindling, but I wanted to give magic a go.
According to the installed data, there weren’t any complex incantations for casting magic. Instead, I was meant to channel the motes of something or other—again, the data wasn’t big on specific details—that danced in the air around me.
As I concentrated, my fingertips grew hot. It worked like an adiabatic compression system, similar to the ones used in diesel engines; I acted as the piston that compressed the gas in the cylinder. The temperature rose and rose, and then, whoosh, the flames blazed up in front of me. The fire soon gave off a warm glow and flickered merrily.
“Wow, I really did it,” I said, touched by the proof of my accomplishment and the sensation of magic still burning on my fingertips. It was a completely novel experience for me, after all.
The Watchdog had said that I wouldn’t have much magical ability, but this was certainly plenty for everyday life. While the idea of starting a fire from raw materials was romantic, using magic had been much less effort than using flint or generating heat through friction. There was a limit to what I could do though—I couldn’t sustain the heat over long periods of time, so I could only ignite things that were easy to burn.