“Let’s just keep going. The only path is forward,” I said.
“Right!” Rike replied.
We continued to work; loud clangs rang out, filling the forge.
“Hmmm...” I groaned.
Rike sighed. “I guess we’re finally getting somewhere...”
We’d sandwiched a lunch break in the middle of our day but otherwise kept constantly forging. Maribel had worked so hard for us. It was now late enough for the rest of the family to return from their hunting trip, and that meant we’d be done for the day.
It was the last round of hammering, and the orichalcum had cooled down enough to harden again, preventing us from working on it. The three of us stared at the lump of still-warm metal on the anvil.
“Hasn’t changed much, has it?” Maribel asked.
“Not really...” I replied.
She gave a carefree cackle. I wasn’t angry at her reaction. That was partly because she was my daughter, but I also felt bad for making her work so hard with little to no progress. Above all, it was the truth.
“But it’s changed considerably from its original shape!” Rike said brightly.
This was also true. We weren’t completely at a loss. We’d slowly formed a vague—very vague—shape of a knife. Sorta looks like prehistoric stone tools.
I crossed my arms. “I guess we can brute-force our way through this over time, but it’s still incredibly hard to work with. Could someone really make a two-meter-long blade out of this stuff?”
Rike and Maribel pensively crossed their arms as well, though I had a sneaking suspicion that Maribel was just copying our actions.
“I guess a smith can take plenty of time to forge a sword for the hero,” I muttered.
That had been a legendary sword, after all. Maybe the smith needed a few years to finish forging it. Obviously, a blade of that size can’t be made in two to three days, but if the smithing process takes too long, surely the situation of the battlefield would shift. In other words, the smith forged the blade in a reasonable amount of time. But maybe I shouldn’t employ common sense for a material out of the realms of normalcy.
“Are you saying that there might be a method aside from using Maribel’s flames?” Rike asked.
“That’s my guess. But...” I trailed off.
I glanced at the fire spirit, who looked back at me with her head tilted in confusion and her arms crossed in front of her. She was so adorable that I couldn’t resist petting her head, and she squealed happily, finding it ticklish.
“I’d feel like she’d say that we’re doing something wrong,” I finished.
“Fair enough,” Rike said.
“Maribel, do you recall anything that Don Dolgo did all those years ago?”
“Huh? Hrmm...” Maribel groaned, this time crossing her arms thoughtfully.
“It could be anything. Like the meals you ate or stuff like that.”
“Meals? Hmm... I think he just ate normal food.”
I saw her doing her best to dig through her memories. I was just about to tell her that she could just drop it, since I had to learn how to process this orichalcum myself anyway. But before I could open my mouth, her face lit up cheerfully.
“I remember now!” she cried.
“You do?!” I gasped.
“Yep!” She gave a firm nod. “Um, the hammer! I remember it being more sparkly!”
“This thing?”
“Yeah!”
I showed her the hammer, which I hadn’t put away yet, and she nodded firmly.
“Sparkly, huh?” I muttered. “Which means...”
“Magical energy, presumably,” Rike finished.
In other words, this Don Dolgo must’ve added an ungodly amount of magical energy into his hammer before he’d struck the orichalcum. I’d been so focused on hammering the metal as fast as possible that I hadn’t added any magical energy to my tools.
“All right, let’s test it!”
“Agreed!” Rike exclaimed.
I rolled up my sleeves, and Rike stood up with gusto. But suddenly, the door of the forge slammed open.
“We’re home!” Samya called out, stepping inside.
Oh, right... Crap. It’s getting late.
“W-Welcome back,” I stammered. I decided to clean up my tools for the day.
“Really? They’re that common?” I asked.
It was dinner at our cabin, and I brought a spoonful of soup to my lips. According to Samya, this year, deer, rabbits, and other herbivores were a common sight, despite it not being spring just yet. Though Samya’s only turning six this year, so she really only has a couple of years to compare this one to...
“Hmm, I think I might know why,” I said, gazing up at the ceiling before I turned to look at Samya. “Remember when I first got here? And I defeated that big black bear?”
“Oh yeah...” Samya replied, catching my drift.
Indeed, I’d thrown myself into a grisly battle shortly after I’d arrived in this world. Samya had just decided to stay at the cabin, Rike had become my apprentice, and Camilo had been my new client who’d decided to purchase my wares.
“Maybe much of the ecosystem’s changed now that the bear’s gone,” I said.
“Sounds right,” Samya agreed with a nod.
Rike nodded as well. “Probably.”
That bear had been so powerful that I’d feared for my life. It could’ve easily taken on a horned deer or two, and it’d been pretty darn aggressive. It might’ve eventually been taken out by a herd of deer, or maybe hunted by a pack of wolves, but in the meantime, it would’ve caused devastating damage as it ran amok. Even if the bear could’ve been stopped, it wouldn’t have gone down without a fight; it would’ve killed as many deer or wolves as possible. Perhaps the bear’s very existence had been to keep population density in check.
“We defeated another after that, didn’t we?” Helen asked, sinking her teeth into a chunk of grilled, bone-in meat.