'He wasn't joking when he said I would work on the same thing until it's up to standard,' I thought, staring down at the hunk of metal that was supposed to be a knife. At this point, it looked more like a bent spoon that had been beaten by an angry ogre. My arms ached from the repetition, and every strike of the hammer still echoed in my bones.
Thirteen hours. Thirteen hours straight of hammering, heating, hammering again, cooling, and hammering once more. I could feel the dull ache in my wrists, the sting in my palms despite the gloves, and the sweat soaking into my shirt. Even my tails felt sluggish, dragging across the dusty floor instead of swishing with energy like they normally did.
It just didn't want to take shape. No matter what angle I struck from, no matter how careful or how heavy, the stupid blade either warped awkwardly or snapped like a brittle twig. My frustration had reached the point where I wondered if the metal was cursed.
"How the hell?" I muttered under my breath, glaring at it like I could force it into compliance through sheer stubbornness.
With a growl, I slid the half-formed blade back into the furnace. The glow of the coals bathed my face in waves of heat, and the hissing firelight reflected in my eyes.
"Sigh, the heat is annoying," I said aloud, letting my voice carry into the cavernous forge room. Grunting, I pulled the bellows to get the fire roaring hotter, then waited for the stubborn piece of metal to glow red.
After what felt like an eternity—though it was probably less than a minute—I used the tongs to pull the knife out. The heat shimmered against the air, warping everything I saw behind it. I set it on the flat top of the anvil, hefted the hammer, and swung down with what I thought was a reasonable amount of strength.
Clang!
I created a sharp dent and a small stretch in the blade's length. It was progress, even if it was slow and pathetic progress.
"Stan said this length is enough to make a sword, but blades are typically around seventy centimeters long. "This thing isn't even seventeen," I grumbled, glaring at the stub of a weapon. It was barely big enough to butter bread, let alone serve as a blade.
In a fit of irritation, I swung harder.
The sound that followed wasn't the solid ring of a hammer against steel. It was the crack of something snapping under too much force.
The tip of the knife broke clean off, clattering across the forge floor.
I froze, my hammer still in the air. Then I lowered it slowly, staring at the ruined work.
…
….
…..
"That's the twenty-sixth time I did that," I said, my voice flat with disbelief. Twenty-six broken blades, twenty-six wasted starts, and nothing to show for it but piles of scrap.
I dumped the broken shards into the crucible with the rest of the failures, letting them melt down into slag for recycling. My motions had become mechanical by now—feed the furnace, melt the scraps, pour, wait, repeat. Start over. Again.
"Starting over again?" a voice asked.
I turned slightly. The dwarf at the next furnace had been watching me for hours now, occasionally tossing in commentary like he was some judgemental overseer. His apron was already streaked with soot, his hammer resting casually on his anvil as if mocking how natural the tool looked in his hand compared to mine.
"Yeah. Hit it too hard again," I admitted, shoulders sagging.
"You have too much strength to work with this sort of metal. Why did he give it to you?" the dwarf asked, the same rhetorical question he had asked me at least four times already. His tone said he didn't expect an answer, and I wasn't about to waste the energy giving him one.
'How can I be so bad at it?' I thought, dragging my hand across my forehead to wipe away the sweat, though it only smeared soot across my skin. The metal hissed and popped inside the furnace, taunting me with the promise of yet another failure.
Once the scraps melted, I pulled the crucible carefully and poured the molten mess into a waiting mold. The glowing liquid spread, filling the shape with a sluggish crawl.
"Now I just need to wait a few more minutes for it to cool down," I muttered to myself, forcing patience into my voice. I reminded myself of the last time I'd been too impatient. Four times, actually. Four times I'd tried to shape the blade before it had cooled properly, and four times the molten metal had run out, burning holes in the floor or destroying my shoes. My poor boots. One of them still had a hole through the sole from where molten steel had kissed my foot.
I folded my arms and waited. Slowly. Painfully.
Once the glow dimmed, I dunked it in the water bucket just to be safe, steam hissing up around my hands. Only then did I dare touch it.
"Sigh, let's try the experiment again."
[72 hours later]
The forge room smelt like burnt metal and sweat. My body felt like it had lived here, molded by the heat and dust. I was worn out, sore, and irritable, but I had something to show for it this time. Thirty-one short swords sat on the table, lined up in rows like soldiers. Each one was slightly different, each marked by the tiny mistakes I had made along the way.
"Is this really all you could do in three days?" Stan's voice cut in, laced with disbelief.
"Well, yes," I said, shrugging helplessly. "I struggled to keep my strength back."
"Struggled to hold back?" Stan looked up at me, brows knitted together like he didn't quite believe what he'd heard.
"Yeah. "My strength is almost three thousand," I said casually, not realizing until too late that maybe that wasn't normal to say.
His eyes widened slightly. "How old are you?"
"Fifteen."
"Level?"
I narrowed my eyes. "I don't need to answer that, but I got an excellent class."
"Right… It makes sense why you struggled so much," Stan muttered, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
"So what now?" I asked, tilting my head like a curious fox.
"You go on. You'll be working with a lot of metal when you work with Steve, and this will be one of them. So go on." He shoved another box across his desk toward me.
I looked inside. The metal ingots were stacked neatly like bricks and gleamed faintly in the forge light.
"Fuck," I muttered. Then a grin crept across my face. "Well, at least I can experiment on everything."
"Hmm. However, I mentioned that I wanted to try out the impure metals as well. Stan set another box beside the first one; this second box was filled with scrap metal that was bent, scarred, and mismatched.
"Okay, how should I work with the scrap metal?"
"Heat it, treat it, and fold it. It will be able to take more of a beating than the steel, but if it flakes, it's useless."
"Fold it?" "Okay, so I created my weapons," I muttered while tapping my chin thoughtfully.
"Folding metal to make blades only works when you work with impure metals. Remember that, okay? Avoid using this tool on pure metals, because it will weaken. Stan's voice sharpened, his eyes locking onto mine to make sure I was paying attention.
"Huh, I see. So pure metals don't need to get folded, but impure ones do?"
"Yes. Pure metals strengthen through heat treatment. Folding stretches them and weakens them. However, when folding impure metals, the process combines them and blends their flaws.
"So when I fold impure metal, they actually merge better because they're impure," I said, nodding.
"Yes, just like that." Stan waved me away with a snap of his fingers, treating me like a hurried apprentice.
"Alright then, I am getting back to work." I scooped both boxes into my inventory with a smirk.
"Good. Come to me when you've made fifty impure weapons and fifty pure ones. Of course, these thirty don't count."
"All right, it will do."
"Close the door when you leave," Stan said, already pushing the weapons I'd made to the floor as if they were clutter in his way.
[Steve POV]
Knock, knock.
"Come in."
"Brother, I have brought you something interesting," Stan said, barging in with a box.
"What is it?" I asked, looking up from my paperwork. My eyes landed on the blades. Thirty-one short swords, none with handles.
"Why did you bring an unfinished product to me?" I asked, brow furrowing.
"Well, these unfinished products are made by your 'disciple,'" Stan said sarcastically.
"You gave her steel to work with first?" I asked, incredulous.
"Yeah, it was the best one to start learning at," Stan said, shrugging.
"Yeah, if you have little strength, but not for her." I slammed my fist against the desk, annoyed.
"Yeah, I realized that I had made a mistake." But look, it took her four days to make thirty of these. She learns rapidly," Stan explained.
I leaned back, studying the blades. "Well, she is Stacy's daughter," I said approvingly. They were raw but impressive, especially for a beginner.
"Adopted."
"It doesn't matter. Those two are from the same bloodline, and I'm sure they know that."
"I don't know. Anyway, I let her start on impure metals now," Stan said.
"Good. She needs to understand the difference between folding and heat-treating."
"After that, let her go straight to Adamite. She doesn't have a lot of time."
"That doesn't make sense. Even if she doesn't have time, she still needs to learn the basics."
"She'll get them done in one day."
"What?"
"All one hundred weapons will be done in twenty-four hours."
I blinked. "Impressive, considering she took four days for thirty before."
"She knows how to control her strength now. She'll do it in one day."
"Tsk, whatever," Stan muttered, clicking his tongue as he stormed out.
"There's a reason why I am the Smith King, brother," I muttered, looking at the intermediate short swords again. For someone without even a smithing class, it was extraordinary.
[Kitsu POV]
"Right, impure metal is weaker than pure metal," I said, holding up the broken halves of a katana. I had been so sure I'd done everything right this time, only to watch the blade split under pressure.
"I've been making my weapons like this all this time… including my guns," I muttered, frowning.
"Didn't I fold it enough? Or did I fold it wrong?"
"You folded it wrong. Uneven. "Some places had six folds, while other places only had one or two," a dwarf at the other furnace explained without even looking up from his own work.
"Huh, are you serious? I messed up that badly?" I asked, laughing awkwardly.
"Yes." The dwarf's tone was as flat as a hammer's strike.
"Haha, alright, let's start over," I said, trying to muster some enthusiasm.
"You can't just melt it and start over, Fox," the dwarf said, giving me a withering glare.
"Then how do I reuse this?" I asked, genuinely curious.
"Sigh. Give it here. Let me show you. Remember, I'm only going to show you once." He took the broken pieces from me with a heavy sigh.
"Okay, thank you. Sorry, I haven't even asked your name. My name is Kitsuna." I extended a hand.
"I'll keep calling you Fox. My name is Giga," he said without taking my hand.
"That's fine with me," I said, shrugging.