The Boreas family held a very big party. They prepared a lot for Eris's tenth birthday. Even the whole Boreas family's castle became very lively.
Shirou, as Eris's sword teacher, naturally had to prepare for Eris's birthday. Specifically, he needed to prepare a birthday gift.
Shirou had given gifts to Rudeus and Sylphy before. The gift for Rudeus was a short sword he made, which wasn't anything special, but Rudeus was very happy to get it.
For Sylphy's birthday, Shirou didn't prepare much at the time. He simply taught Sylphy some cooking skills.
So, basically, Shirou had hardly ever prepared a formal gift for anyone.
And Eris, as the young lady of the Boreas family, with her status, wouldn't be allowed to receive simple gifts from others.
If he needed to give Eris a gift, he had to choose carefully and couldn't give her something cheap.
Shirou thought about this for several days and finally came up with a good idea: use a weapon he made as a gift for Eris.
However, his reputation as the blacksmith Muramasa was too great now. If the weapon he made was too outstanding, it would easily make people think of the connection between him and Muramasa.
Therefore, he couldn't make weapons in his usual way. It would be best to make weapons in a less common way.
Luckily, Shirou had just had some ideas in this area. Because he had reached a bottleneck in blacksmithing, he had thought about many interesting ways to forge weapons.
Some of these were not just weapons of Servants, but also things even more interesting than those.
For example, copying the Black Keys from his original world, creating weapons that could form a blade just by injecting magic, and could be easily carried at other times.
If it was something like that, it shouldn't be considered rude to give it to Eris as a birthday gift.
While Shirou was racking his brains, thinking about how to recreate weapons like Black Keys in this world, time was passing little by little.
Every day, Shirou learned Light Sword from Ghislaine in the morning, taught Eris swordsmanship in the afternoon, and went to the workshop in the evening to make weapons.
He lived a life that could be described as repetitive.
Shirou's Light Sword skills were probably only at the very beginning stage now.
Like Isolte, whom he had fought before, he had just seen the edge of being a Sword Saint, but was still far from becoming a real Sword Saint.
However, he was at least moving forward step by step, and he believed that if he had enough time, he would definitely learn the real Light Sword and become a Sword Saint.
Besides Shirou's own swordsmanship, Eris's swordsmanship had also improved a lot.
Maybe the battle with Isolte had greatly motivated her.
After Eris returned to Boreas castle, she spent all her time practicing swordsmanship. She was much more serious than before.
Most surprisingly, Eris was even more serious about her other lessons, including learning to read.
This was clearly the biggest growth the young lady had ever had.
Comparing herself with others of the same age often helped people grow the most.
Of course, in this process, Shirou's role as a teacher and his example had a huge impact.
Every time Shirou taught Eris, it wasn't just about swordsmanship, but also about teaching Eris the principles of how to behave and live in the world.
The old Eris was like a mad dog, showing a fierce attitude towards anyone who looked down on her, and even directly hitting people.
But Shirou told her that was wrong.
Power wasn't for showing off, and it wasn't for making others respect and fear her, but for improving herself and constantly surpassing her own limits, and even the limits of the world, on a road with no end in sight.
And Shirou did that himself.
Although he was very strong, he was never arrogant. He even often gave sword training to the Boreas family's knight Swordsmen and got along well with the common people.
Children are always easily influenced by the people around them, and naturally imitate those they are close to.
When Eris saw his behavior, just like when she saw her grandfather Sauros's behavior, she was subtly influenced, becoming more serious than before and more able to control her emotions.
However, Eris's personality was still impossible to change completely. She was still so irritable and easily excited, but now when she was irritable and excited, she wouldn't hit people right away. Instead, she would try to stay calm and try not to hit first, until she really couldn't help it.
In short, everyone in the Boreas family had seen the young lady's changes.
The Boreas family now had a very high opinion of Shirou and even considered him a member of the family.
So, in fact, even if Shirou casually prepared an ordinary gift for Eris's birthday, no one would say anything. They would even think that this was how family members should behave.
However, Shirou was still too serious about things himself. He wouldn't allow himself to do anything rude, so he was still racking his brains for Eris's birthday gift.
…
Eris's birthday soon arrived.
On her birthday, the mansion's hall and the courtyard leading to the hall would be open.
Boreas was one of the four lords, so they would receive gifts from all over the territory and invite the nobles in the town to come.
Because Sauros was a rough military man, his original idea was to have a casual buffet-style party, and even allow commoners to attend. But such an unrestrained approach was obviously impossible to pass. Philip, in order to stop him, suggested that nearby middle-class nobles should also be able to attend, and changed it to a ball format.
This approach was equivalent to discouraging most of the lower-class commoners without status, and only allowed middle and upper-class wealthy merchants and nobles with experience in balls to attend.
On this day, the people in the mansion were running around in circles, busy preparing for the banquet.
You could see a maid with dog ears running in the corridor.
Generally speaking, maids would be strictly forbidden from running, but this family seemed to be very special after all. When they were busy, even the maids ran, and at full speed.
To avoid getting in the way, Shirou walked along the edge of the corridor.
He hadn't seen Eris for several days.
It was said that Eris, as the main character of the banquet, was receiving special etiquette training these days, so even her swordsmanship lessons had been forced to stop.
Eris was, after all, a noble's daughter, and even the young lady of the Boreas family, so her basic noble etiquette couldn't be too bad.
The Boreas family, for the sake of Eris and their own reputation, would try their best to make Eris perform well.
However, Eris's etiquette training soon ran into a bottleneck.
Or rather, it made absolutely no progress.
Ms. Edna, the etiquette teacher, could be said to be exhausted and had made no improvements. She could only try to greatly increase the training time.
This was why Shirou hadn't seen Eris for several days.
Considering Philip's attitude, Shirou thought that he probably wouldn't have a chance to see Eris before the birthday banquet started.
So he simply focused on training his Light Sword himself.
But because his usual time schedule was disrupted, Shirou couldn't concentrate for too long even when he was practicing. He simply went to the forging workshop to make his Black Key, which was almost finished.
Although it was called a Black Key, it was actually just a magic tool with Black Key characteristics.
The main body was just a cube the size of a sword hilt.
Just by injecting magic, the blade could appear out of thin air.
It was a bit like the lightsaber in "Star Wars."
But the principle was completely different from that of a lightsaber. Shirou's idea for creating this sword came from his sword magic, or rather, it was simply his sword magic copied onto a magic tool.
Although it was an extremely complex tool, it wasn't expensive at all. It was just that the handmade construction was complex, so it probably couldn't be mass-produced. It would be a pretty good birthday gift.
After finishing the processing and forging of the Black Key, Shirou left the forging workshop and planned to look around the castle, wondering if anyone needed his help.
Shirou really liked to help others.
And Shirou soon found a figure in distress. It was a girl with long golden hair, wearing a delicate but not particularly gorgeous light red dress.
She was looking around, obviously visiting the Boreas family for the first time, and was a bit lost because the castle was too big.
Shirou confirmed that she probably didn't know how to get to the banquet hall, so he immediately reminded her, "Miss, do you need my help?"
"Oh?"
The golden-haired girl was startled by Shirou's sudden appearance. Seeing his simple but sincere face and glancing at his appearance, she smiled slightly, "If you don't mind, could you tell me how to get to the Boreas family's forging workshop?"
"Forging workshop?"
Shirou was hesitant, not expecting such a noble young lady to want to go to the crowded and messy forging workshop.
Seeing his hesitation, the golden-haired girl smiled and said, "I'm just curious about Boreas's forging workshop. I just want to go and see it. After all, I heard that the Boreas family are brave and good at fighting, so the weapons they produce must be excellent."
"It… might disappoint you."
Shirou didn't think that such a noble young lady would be interested in the forging workshop, so he kindly warned her.
But the golden-haired girl smiled and shook her head, "If I'm disappointed, I'll wait until you take me there, won't I? And judging people by their appearance isn't a good habit, blacksmith."
"How did you know?"
Shirou was slightly stunned, never expecting the golden-haired girl to be able to figure out his identity so quickly.
Does this person have mind-reading magic?
thought Shirou in shock.
The golden-haired girl smiled and said, "I don't have magic, but I often meet people of different identities, so I'm instinctively good at identifying people's identities. You look young, but your hands are rough, obviously you often hold a sword. In addition, your body is stained with some furnace ash and iron filings. You must have come from a place full of iron ore furnaces. Looking at you, you're not a cook, so you must be a blacksmith."
"…"
Shirou was silent.
He admired the golden-haired girl's ability to judge, being able to figure out so many things in an instant.
What is this person's identity?
As Shirou fell silent, the golden-haired girl smiled and said, "You're wondering about my identity, aren't you… Well, I'm just a guest coming to the Boreas family to attend the banquet. You can just call me Ariel."
"Ariel?"
Hearing this name, Shirou felt instinctively familiar.
But a name is just a name. In this world, there are so many people with the same name.
Even in the Boreas family, there are probably people named Ariel.
So Shirou didn't think too much about it.
After confirming that Ariel wasn't a dangerous person and really wanted to visit the forging workshop, he nodded silently, though a bit reluctantly, "Okay, I'll take you to the forging workshop."
"Thank you, you're a good person."
As Ariel spoke, she leaned in directly, getting close to Shirou.
The beautiful face tilted at a 45-degree angle, the girl's unique scent, and the slight perfume made Shirou almost faint.
Fortunately, his will was strong enough, and he wasn't captured by her.
In an instant, Shirou became very wary. He realized that this girl named Ariel was definitely not a simple person.
If possible, he should try not to have too much contact with her!
"By the way, what's your name?"
As Shirou thought, Ariel suddenly asked.
Ariel had never met a contemporary who was so steadfast after being charmed by her.
This made her a bit curious about Shirou, who seemed to be just an ordinary blacksmith.
And Shirou, with alarm bells ringing in his mind, couldn't get rid of Ariel's closeness and could only answer stiffly, "Shirou, you can just call me Shirou."
"Shirou, what a nice name."
Although it was just an obvious empty compliment, it was almost enough to make anyone who heard it from Ariel feel elated.
Shirou was no exception.
He instinctively felt an almost abnormal liking for Ariel.
He quickly calmed himself down, nodded silently, and led Ariel towards the forging workshop.
On the way, Ariel seemed very curious about Shirou and kept asking him all sorts of questions, but Shirou directly rejected them with a silent attitude.
Finally, knowing that she couldn't find out Shirou's identity, Ariel silently changed the subject, "By the way, Shirou, since you're a blacksmith of Boreas, have you heard of the blacksmith Muramasa?"
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