Side: Smith
...I was sleeping soundly over the weekend when the busty loli goddess came running in, completely out of breath, saying Lady Hephaestus at the northwestern Main Street branch had summoned me and that I needed to hurry over. So, half-asleep, I came here.
I mean, of course I knew that contract would naturally be used to make the Hestia Knife... but because she paid for it, she has the right to watch the process? This is where the butterfly effect carries on from?
Honestly, if she had any conscience, I thought she would use it for renovations to the Apollo Familia's Familia Home rather than the Hestia Knife, which costs in the hundreds of millions. Still... I figured it was fifty-fifty. Whether she would bill the full hundred million valis without considering the future, or keep her conscience and wipe out the debt later at a reasonable price. Well, in the end, she chose the Hestia Knife.
In any case, getting to watch Lady Hephaestus hammer away in person is quite the windfall, but...
"...Will I even be able to understand it?"
"Hm? What do you mean?"
"I mean, I'm truly happy to see the work of the goddess of smithing in person... but I'm worried whether, at my current level, I'll be able to understand even a speck of it."
"Hmm... I wouldn't know about that."
As I made small talk with Hestia, I thoroughly cleaned the small workshop on the first floor of the Hephaestus Familia's northwestern Main Street branch.
Lady Hephaestus would be forging a weapon here herself, so as a member of her Familia—and as the absolute inferior party here, thanks to Hestia—it was only natural that I help with the preparations.
Across from where I was cleaning, I could see the goddess taking out a mithril ingot and pondering something. What was it?
Hmm... They said his main weapon is a knife, but what sort of shape should I give it?
...That was what she was thinking.
Whenever I read the original work, there had been one point that bothered me.
The original Hestia Knife's exact specifications were never mentioned, but judging from how it looked in the anime, its handle and blade were almost the same length, and without a crossguard, it was nearly the size of a kitchen knife.
Even if a knife was his main weapon, at that size, it would not even reach the heart when stabbed into the chest of a large monster. Think about it. A knife with a blade only ten centimeters long might be convenient in combat against people, since it is easy to carry and can exploit openings—but Bell would primarily be fighting enemies far bigger than himself: monsters.
I remembered thinking that, crossguard or not, at the very least the blade ought to be longer.
...Since I'm here to see it, should I try changing the type of knife?
How about persuading her to make the Hestia Knife—which at most looks like a throwing dagger—into a [Bowie Knife], with a longer blade and a crossguard?
...Someone might think I was agonizing over something utterly trivial, but this was unexpectedly quite an unsettling issue for me.
Ever since I was reborn in this world, I had come to recognize it not as a world from a book, but as my own entirely separate world. That did not erase the fact that this world was based on a single book called DanMachi.
I knew this was a world where plot, storylines, and narrative necessity no longer existed, where things like fate, corrective force, and paradox did not forcibly twist the world into shape... but honestly, I was afraid of what changes might come from completely altering the form of what could be called the original work's biggest central item.
Up until now, the time period had been before the original story began, and those were parts that had barely been mentioned. So I had not thought too seriously about making and selling weapons as I pleased, or twisting all sorts of minor incidents.
But now that the original story had truly begun, and I was about to charge straight into it and change things head-on, it weighed on my mind.
.
.
.
.
.
.
...Since when did I ever mope around and agonize over things like this? I just barreled ahead.
So what if something changes? So what if something happens?
Now, I had the power to smash through it head-on—and other people who would smash through it in my stead.
"Lady Hephaestus?"
"Hm?"
"If you're considering the weapon's appearance... how about this?"
I grabbed a suitable piece of parchment from a nearby table and sketched out a few lines.
What I drew was a thick Bowie knife with a twenty-seven-centimeter blade and a thirteen-centimeter handle.
It was a single-edged knife, and because it was thicker than an ordinary knife, its cutting power was better than that of other knives. With a combined handle-and-blade length of forty centimeters, it fell somewhere between a knife and a short sword, making it easy to deal with both extremely close-quarters and close-range combat.
Some Bowie knives were categorized as enormous knives reaching nearly seventy centimeters long (...at which point they could no longer really be called knives), but since this time's user, Bell Cranel, said he used knives as his primary weapon, this would be more than usable.
Honestly, daggers any smaller than this are used primarily not for combat, but for dismantling monsters to extract magic stones or for miscellaneous work. Think about it: most monsters one encounters upon descending into the Dungeon are giants or large species, far bigger than humans.
Does it make any sense to say you will kill such monsters by stabbing them with a paring knife? Of course, there is the advantage of quick recovery and a smaller area to guard, but there are limits to that. At the very least, it should be long enough to reliably pierce the heart when stabbed into a large monster's chest.
"...For those reasons, I believe a knife in this form would be better, Lady Hephaestus."
"Hmm... It's not a bad approach."
"Thank you."
"What do you think, Hestia?"
"Well, I don't know anything about this, so I'll just trust whatever you make—whatever you say is best. You are Hephaestus, the goddess of smithing, after all."
"Ha... It's been a while since my blood has boiled like this. Smith, get ready."
"...Yes!"
"Oh, and... be careful not to go blind."
"Pardon?"
"I recommend closing at least one eye."
"I'm not sure what you mean...?"
"You'll understand once I begin."
Then, with Hestia's adorable signal, flames rose from the forge...
The instant the hammering began, I barely understood what the goddess had meant.
Every single hammer blow was simply overwhelming.
When I reached the supreme realm, I had felt as if another eye had opened. And now, that eye was trying to burn out, unable to bear the overwhelming principles before it.
Unable to force my eyes shut, pure principles far too advanced for me were being driven into my mind.
In the end, I could not endure it. The fuse inside my head snapped with a pop.
.
.
.
.
.
.
"Gasp—!"
When I came to my senses, the Hestia Knife had somehow already been completed, and Hestia was jumping up and down in delight.
I definitely remembered the forging process.
I remembered helping beside her, too.
But as though my brain had forcibly put a filter over it, I could remember nothing of that overwhelming hammering.
"Ha... hahaha... Is this supposed to be you boasting that this is the true strength of the goddess of smithing...?"
"You should consider yourself unlucky. If you had spent another ten years tending fires and heating steel before seeing this scene, you might have gained at least a speck of insight. But right now, your [caliber] is far too low. Trying to glimpse principles unsuited to you became poison. You erased everything to protect yourself."
"Seriously... when you put it like that, I can't exactly blame anyone..."
"You're tired, aren't you? Since today happens to be Monsterphilia, go have some fun and shake it off."
"Yeah, well... I'll try."
Now then, where was Hestia...? She had already left.
"Then, take care, Lady Hephaestus."
"Mm-hm."
As I stepped out of the northwestern branch and looked over the streets, the festive atmosphere was in full swing here as well, fitting for a festival spanning all of Orario. Hmm... maybe I should stroll around while eating some street food.
"Husbandooo~~~!"
"Gah?!"
A voice that should absolutely not be heard here rang out behind me...!
Thudthudthudthudthudthud
Thudthudthudthud
Thudthud
Thud
"Husband! I'm here! Give me a baby, give me a baby!"
"Why the hell am I your husband?! And shut uuuup!"
Today, too, Orario was peaceful~