Three days—that was how long it took Smith to return carrying something wrapped round and round in white cloth.
"I'm back, my goddess."
"Fortunately, you are not late."
"..."
Other than Welf, who was glaring at him with a sulky expression, apparently still dwelling on the rebuke Smith had given him before leaving (...which was only natural), everything was as usual. It almost felt as though nothing had happened at all, aside from the three days Smith had been gone.
"So, brat."
"Don't call me brat! My name is Welf!"
"So, brat, I gave you enough time to think."
"...."
"Will you throw away your name, or will you throw away your convictions and stubbornness? Choose."
"I... I..."
Hephaestus could only watch these two children. They were both her children and smiths; if she carelessly stepped in and interfered, that itself would be an insult to them. So she simply watched in silence.
"I... I don't know.
After this blood awakened, my family, who had been drunk on the heat of the forge, became drunk on the heat of magic swords. They fell into corruption, doing nothing but crying out for magic swords.
Watching them, I swore that at least I—at least I, whose blood had awakened—would never be intoxicated by the heat of magic swords. I would live relying solely on myself as a blacksmith.
But after hearing what you said last time, a voice has kept echoing from somewhere deep in my chest."
Welf spoke as he struck his chest—his heart—hard, as if he could feel something there.
"The blacksmith in me cries out that if I truly want to challenge the supreme realm, I should rise above the curse of my blood and use the heat of the forge to contain even the heat of magic swords.
But everything in me other than the blacksmith cries out even louder. It tells me to cast aside that blood and move forward alone. It says that the heat of the forge alone is enough for me to soar."
He struck his chest hard once more. With every blow, a fierce spirit radiated from him.
It felt as though scorching heat were spreading outward from Welf, as if he were standing before a forge.
"So I made a decision that is completely selfish and just like a child throwing a tantrum. That's okay, right? I'm a child, after all."
"...Tell me."
"I will abandon the name Crozzo.
Of course, I'm not throwing it away forever. At the very least, after I reach Level 2 through my own strength, and after I can forge magic swords even while suppressing the power of this blood, then I will take up the name Crozzo again. I will embrace even the power of magic swords and challenge the supreme realm.
So watch over me until then. Help me put my soul into every strike of my hammer. Temper me more harshly than anyone else!"
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
"...Soft."
"...!"
"Soft, soft, soft!
...But that is why it is endlessly pure. You may simply be a greedy bastard. You may be an idiot who cannot distinguish what to discard from what he cannot let go of. But I will believe in you and see where it leads.
If you keep hammering and hammering, the impurities will work themselves out.
My goddess, until this guy has a place at Babel, I will put him to work at my shop. Not as an apprentice—more like an assistant?"
"Hey, who the hell do you think you are, putting me to work as an assistant?! I'm Welf! Welf!"
"Then open your own shop if you don't like it. Don't get cocky when you don't even have a shop of your own."
"Urgh...!"
As the two smiths continued their conversation, in which one side was being thoroughly crushed, Hephaestus drew their attention with a cough.
"Ahem. So, what did you make this time? Another Noble Phantasm?"
"A Noble Phantasm?"
"It is a kind of unbreakable magic sword that I alone can make in this world."
"...?!~?!?!?!?!"
"Although, despite what I call it, its mechanism is completely different from a magic sword, so there is nothing for you to learn from it. The Noble Phantasms I make are, at their core, [reproductions] of armaments from the fantasies I remember.
With the power of my magic, I use these two hands to bring the fantasies in my memories..."
As he spoke, he looked down at his hands. At his ugly palms, thick with calluses from years upon years of hammering.
"...into the light once again. That is the Noble Phantasm I make. That fantasy could be the sword of the hero Albert, or a weapon from a faraway foreign land. Perhaps I can even cram a concept from a fantasy into a single sword.
In any case, I rose to this point with the power I was given and these two hands. Even the armor I am wearing was made by drawing out an image from my memories."
"Enough of the heavy talk. Hurry up and introduce the weapon already."
"Yes, yes, I'll do it. Since you asked."
As he spoke, Smith picked up the roughly seventy-centimeter-long bundle of cloth he had placed on the sofa and slowly began unwrapping it.
Once the cloth was fully removed, what it revealed was a single-edged blade of quite an unusual shape.
It looked like a one-handed sword, but it was too short and thick. The blade was at least ten centimeters wide, while its fifty-centimeter length was no more than that of a shortsword.
Moreover, when the blade was drawn from its sheath and inspected, there were five holes in the middle of its blade for reasons unknown, while five hemispherical indentations had been carved into its spine to line up with those holes.
It was the sort of thing that made one wonder whether it would not have been better to make it smaller and turn it into a dagger instead.
"Hmm..."
"What is this? It is definitely a blade, but why is it so short and thick?"
"Well... the hero who used it was rather short. I suppose it was made heavy enough to deliver sufficient impact despite being a blade suited to his size..."
"So, is it a Noble Phantasm?"
"...I made it as a Noble Phantasm. The materials and the base weapon were both mediocre, so its reproduction rate is rather low, but it is the best I can make."
Smith set down the sheath he was holding in one hand, lightly swung the blade in his right hand, and [called] its name.
[Lostvayne]
It was a wondrous sight.
Something seemed to ripple from the body of Smith, who had swung the blade, and before anyone knew it, another Smith was standing off to one side.
When the other Smith swung the blade once more, yet another Smith stood there.
Five repetitions later, there were six Smiths standing in the room.
"...Huh?"
"...What?"
"This is"
"the"
"Noble Phantasm"
"I"
"made,"
"[Lostvayne]."
Listening to six Smiths around the room each speak one syllable at a time was enough to drive a person insane.
"Ah, I get it, so hurry up and make the rest disappear! What is this chaotic mess?!"
"Yes, yes."
One of the six Smiths swung his blade again, and the other five blurred before vanishing as though they had never been there.
"This blade is called [Lostvayne]. It separates fifty percent of my magic power to create a clone that moves according to my will, and then that clone can split off magic power to create another clone. That is the power of this weapon, [Lostvayne]."
"Then it is divided in the order of fifty percent, twenty-five percent, twelve and a half percent, and six and a quarter percent?"
"No. From the moment it separates from the original body's magic power, no matter how many clones are made, it is all divided evenly. It is the same whether they are created one at a time or all at once.
Since my physical abilities are divided along with my magic power, it is meaningless unless you are a deep-floor adventurer looking to hunt comfortably in the middle floors, or an adventurer who uses counter-type magic with extremely low magic-power consumption.
For reference, the reproduction rate dropped to fifty-nine percent, so five clones are the limit. Even then, they disappear if they use up all their magic power. If I dismiss them first, I can recover the remaining magic power, though there is still some loss. And if they are defeated by an enemy, I cannot recover it at all."
"...That is a pretty difficult weapon to use."
Hephaestus said this while glancing at Welf.
Among the magic Welf had possessed when she checked during his conversion the day before was [Will-o'-the-Wisp], an ultimate counterspell against magic. Its chant was extremely short, and according to Welf, its magic-power consumption was also extremely low. When they had tested it directly against a low-ranking mage from Rakiya, it had caused a massive explosion...
Was this not a weapon that seemed to exist solely for Welf...?
While Hephaestus continued that train of thought, Welf was captivated by Smith's Noble Phantasm.
An unbreakable magic sword that was not a magic sword, yet was like one. A Noble Phantasm on an entirely different level from those magic swords he had loathed—magic swords that abandoned their masters and left on their own!
And Smith, who could make something so incredible... his senior!
He did not understand the headache-inducing talk about fantasies and reproduction rates. But he understood perfectly well that Senior Smith could make incredible things.
While Welf, too, was lost in his own thoughts, Smith suddenly tossed [Lostvayne], still in its sheath, at Welf—?!
Lost in thought, Welf failed to see the blade falling toward him and took it straight on the head.
Clang!
"Aagh, what are you doing, Senior Smith?!"
"Well, well? You are already calling me senior? Whatever. I'm lending that to you. Take good care of it."
"What...? Why are you giving this to me? Didn't you hate me?"
"I'm giving it to you because I hate you. Look at it, feel it, and surpass it. Hang it in a corner of your room and stare at it every day. Renew your vow to forge a magic sword that surpasses my Noble Phantasm—a great magic sword."
"...Yes!"
Seriously, this kind of fiery coming-of-age story atmosphere is awkward...