Want to read more?
The next 10+ chapters are already available on my Patreon!
By joining, you'll get:
📖 Early access to future chapters
🗳️ Polls to shape the story
🎁 Exclusive content for Patrons
🔥 Bonus scenes & content you won't find anywhere else
👀 Don't fall behind—others are already ahead!
👉 patreon.com/FanfictionTakashi
(If link doesn't show, just search on Google: FanfictionTakashi Patreon)
------------
But the moment Loki released her hands and Hephaestus felt the true weight of the sword, she knew something was wrong.
Something was very wrong.
The sword felt too...right.
It couldn't be. It was perfectly balanced. Solid and firm, Hephaestus knew immediately that what she held in her hand was a broadsword. She'd made enough swords in her eons of existence to identify their types by touch alone.
"Loki," Hephaestus said. "This is a sword."
Loki gave her an odd look. "Yes, Hephaestus. That is a sword. I thought we'd gone through this already."
"No, that's not what I meant. This is an actual sword. One an adventurer would have no problem bringing to the Dungeon and betting their life on."
"What?" Loki asked. "Did you think I wanted to build a sword for Aiz-"
"-Forge a sword-"
"-only for her to hang it in her room like a painting?"
"Yes," Hephaestus said. "That is exactly what I thought."
Loki harrumphed and looked away. "Well, you thought wrong. Aiz is gonna use these swords in the Dungeon and she's going to love them."
Hephaestus forced down the skepticism that rose from hearing those words. She'd doubted Loki just now, but the wrapped-up sword in her hands had quickly disproved that. She swallowed. She'd have to treat the weapon and, grudgingly she admitted, its creator with the respect they deserved.
She set it down on the table, and ignored the big grin on Loki's face as she went about unfurling the bandages that covered it.
The light came so suddenly she instinctively brought a hand up to protect eye. For the briefest of moments, Hephaestus had thought she'd cast a look at the Sun, only to remember that she was in her Forge, where the only light came from the torches on the wall and the hearth in the middle.
Then...where had the light come from?
"Not bad, right?" Loki asked.
Hephaestus looked down. Glistening steel greeted her gaze, and she had to squint for a few seconds as her eye struggled to comprehend the sheer radiance of the polished sheen in front of it.
And this was just the sheathe.
As more of the bandages came off, Hephaestus was acutely aware of the increase in brightness in her normally-dark Forge.
Delicate engravings on the pristine metal told a story, and Hephaestus forced herself to bear through the glare to read it.
An orphaned child, taken in by the Spirit of a lake. Trained by the Spirit, the child grew up to become a Knight and-
Hephaestus stopped when she realized something. She looked at Loki.
"What?" the other goddess asked.
She looked back down at the sword. It was one thing to forge a sturdy and good sword. It was a whole separate matter to beautify it as well. The delicate diagrams etched into the scabbard were pretty. That was all they were supposed to be. So why had she felt the magic in her body tremble when she'd read them?
"Loki," she said. "Is this a magic sword?"
"Yeah."
"I never taught you how to imbue magic into metal."
"It's easy! Magic is one of my domains, you know."
No. It wasn't easy. It was the most difficult aspect of forging a sword, and most smiths wouldn't even consider learning to do it until they had a few years under their belt.
Magic was volatile and unpredictable. The rigid, static nature of metal made them difficult to combine. It was why magic swords were so valuable, and why they were more likely to break. Magic and swords were inherently incompatible. There was constant a clash between the natures of the magic and the metal, and a poorly-trained smith would have that tension literally explode in their face before the sword was ever completed.
Imbuing magic into a sword was the highest level of swordsmithing there was, and Loki had dared to call it easy.
Hephaestus would have berated her right there and then. There was just one problem.
The sword before lacked the inner turmoil that most magic swords had. It was why it had taken her so long to recognized the arcane power that lay beneath its shining surface.
She couldn't hold back. Deciding to further inspect the beauty of the sheath later, she pulled out the sword from it.
The gasp forced itself out of her mouth.
She'd crafted countless weapons in her life. The weapons in her Forge in Heaven could part seas with a single swing, bisect mountains with a clean slash, pierce into the Earth's core with straight thrust.
But none could manage to steal her breath away with a single glance.
Layers of layers of enchantments were woven into the metal itself. Seamlessly. Expertly. Magnificently. The sword's metallic fi
nish completely betrayed the unadulterated magic that made up its true core.
------------
Want to read more?
The next 10+ chapters are already available on my Patreon!
By joining, you'll get:
📖 Early access to future chapters
🗳️ Polls to shape the story
🎁 Exclusive content for Patrons
🔥 Bonus scenes & content you won't find anywhere else
👀 Don't fall behind—others are already ahead!
👉 patreon.com/FanfictionTakashi
(If link doesn't show, just search on Google: FanfictionTakashi Patreon)