As always, dawn broke.
As before, the day's routine began, and people spilled out into the streets.
Merchants to their shops.
Receptionists to the Guild.
Chefs to their restaurants.
Adventurers to the Dungeon.
Everyone was the same as usual.
Ordinary days of daily life, not all that different from any other day.
And yet she, Tsubaki, had been changing little by little with each passing day.
In a bad way, too.
Clang! Clang!
"No. This isn't it. Something more... something more, there has to be something more...!"
Physically, she had not changed much.
After all, she was a Level 5 first-class adventurer.
A superhuman body grown and honed by the grace of the gods would not wither so easily.
But the expression on her face was entirely different.
Dark circles under her eyes, so deep they looked ready to spill down her cheeks at any moment.
Bloodshot eyes, veins standing out so vividly they looked ready to burst.
Cold sweat streaming down her face nonstop, despite the heat radiating from the forge.
Lips chewed raw and ruined from frustration and impatience.
And her entire face had grown gaunt and hollow from severe stress and however long she had gone without sleep or food, leaving even her cheekbones starkly exposed.
"No. This isn't it!"
Clang!
Anyone could see it: she had become so wrecked that no one would ever believe this was the same woman from just a short while ago.
Even her proud hammering, once so light and deft, had turned rough, savage, and irritable.
Little by little, she was falling apart.
No, she herself was the one tearing herself to pieces.
Just like the piles of scrap metal—failed works—heaped up like mountains around her.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
"Damn it! This isn't it either. What... what the hell was different? Could it have been magic? No, that's not what this is about. It wasn't that. That light back then wasn't something like that. Something... something more amazing, something more fundamental..."
That said, the piles of scrap she had made were not trash.
Each and every one of them was a superior weapon, crafted by the hands of a first-rate blacksmith.
They were the kind of top-quality goods that could be displayed in a weapon shop and sold without shame.
And precisely because of that, to Tsubaki, these heaps of scrap were nothing but garbage.
No matter how many more times she struck them with her hammer.
No matter how many more times she melted and cooled them in the forge's flames.
No matter how many more she made, nothing changed.
She still could not even begin to catch up to a single thread of the brilliant radiance she had seen on that field.
"No! No! That's not it!"
Crack!
In the end, she swung too hard and shattered even the hammer in her hand.
Of course, the skin on her hand tore, and the muscles beneath were mangled.
Maybe even the bones had been injured.
And yet, what spilled from her mouth was not a pained groan, but only a cry thick with frustration.
Though she was a woman, she had always been as stalwart as an iron man among men, but before she knew it, she was sobbing and sniffling like a girl in the throes of heartbreak.
"No... sob, this wasn't it..."
At last, she covered her face with bloodied hands and burst into tears.
What she wanted... the radiance she was chasing now was not, contrary to what others might have expected, the barrage of light that had swept away the monster horde that day.
She had not cared about something like that in the slightest.
But.
"How... how could something like that... that light..."
Even now, she could not forget it.
The faint radiance that had flowed from the sword itself when he swung it.
That moment when what she had once thought impossible for a weapon shone brighter and more dazzlingly than anything else.
The sight of it, made by her own hands, shining even more brilliantly than before by a margin beyond comparison.
The bearing that had drawn every eye beneath the dazzling sunlight, proudly proclaiming its own vitality.
Something impossible to put into words... no, precisely because of that, a realm beyond, yet one she could see clearly with these very eyes.
A golden sword that, even if only a little, undeniably and unmistakably contained that supreme level of attainment.
A level beyond that, visible only to her, the one who knew blacksmithing better than anyone else.
That trace was driving her mad.
In other words, she had been completely captivated by the brilliant, seductive, and bewitching mystery of the golden sword.
That was why no matter how much she hammered, no matter how excellent a work she produced, she could not calm down at all.
Rather than calming down, she only grew more and more frantically desperate for it.
Even with her eyes closed, she could see it. Even with her eyes open, it kept flickering in her mind.
So she could not bear it and kept lifting the hammer again and again.
As if the moment she stopped here, she would choke or have her heart burst and die.
And so, at last, she reached her limit.
She realized the answer she had desperately not wanted to accept.
"No. I can't do it. Not as I am now...!"
She could not imitate even a single grain of sand from that light.
Faced with the limit of that hopeless reality, she finally collapsed into despair and frustration.
Like someone who had seen a massive cliff they could never overcome and simply sat down in defeat.
"Haa."
Her patron goddess, Hephaistos, who had been watching that pitifully broken figure from behind in secret, let out a sigh.
This was not what she had sent her there for.
It should have been nothing more than a little outing to get some fresh air.
How had it ended up like this?
"It can't be helped."
In the end, the goddess made her decision.
Though it was unlike her usual way of doing things, this time she would have to meddle a little, as a goddess should.
No, this was something only she could do.
Something she absolutely had to do.
Having reached that judgment, she approached her child, who had been brought low by overwhelming despair.
And then, without hesitation...
Thwack!
She brought the hammer in her hand down on Tsubaki's head.
Since that hammer was made of real iron, the sound rang loudly through the smithy, but Tsubaki only winced in pain for a moment.
After all, her body was still the superhuman body of a Level 5 adventurer.
Unless she used her divine authority, Hephaistos, who was not much different from an ordinary person, would have a hard time leaving even a scratch on her.
That was why the goddess could do this without much worry.
And thanks to that, Tsubaki's mind was able to return here, even if only a little.
"Ouch! What the hell are you doing, Lady Goddess!?"
"So you still have enough sense left to add the honorific. Anyway, get up. Right now, there's somewhere you need to go."
"No. I'm still..."
"As your goddess, I won't accept no for an answer. So get up. Now."
"Damn it."
At her goddess's sharp, uncompromising demand, Tsubaki scowled fiercely, but she was not so far gone that she would openly defy her patron goddess.
In the end, she rose from the spot where she had been unable to move even an inch and roughly prepared to head out.
Though there was hardly anything to prepare in the first place.
"Follow me."
Once Tsubaki was ready to leave, the goddess pointed the way with her chin and took the lead.
Tsubaki followed behind her like a chastened duckling.
Who could look at her miserable state now and imagine she was a first-class adventurer, the city's finest blacksmith?
Hephaistos could only sigh at the future ahead of her child, who still had a long road to walk.
Meanwhile, Tsubaki found this escort just as strange and uncomfortable.
"Where... are we going?"
"To the place you need most right now, and the place you should have gone to long ago."
After that answer, the two of them walked in silence.
Before long, they arrived at a certain place.
"Here?"
"Looks like the shop is open today, thankfully. I heard the owner locks the door whenever the mood strikes him."
It was an ordinary shop at first glance, but the atmosphere it gave off was somehow suspicious.
Tsubaki felt a vague sense of unease and took a step back, but Hephaistos opened the door without hesitation and went inside.
Then, beyond the shop counter, a man came into view.
"You came earlier than I expected."
It was the very same man who had recently come to see Tsubaki and introduced himself as a magus.
Tsubaki could not hide her shock.
"My, did you bring a goddess with you as well? I'd say it's rather improper for a grown adult to interfere in a squabble between children."
"Don't worry. On my friendship with a dear friend, I won't interfere in this matter at all. Burn it, boil it, do whatever you like—just settle it yourselves."
Since most of the information had already been gathered through a third party, there was no need for any pointless introductions between them.
Still, to think that the information she had needed so badly could be obtained so unexpectedly close by.
Hephaistos once again cursed and insulted the goddesses of fate, far away, who were no doubt having the time of their lives.
Honestly, those damned mischievous lunatics—back then and now... no, better not say any more.
"Well, if you say so. Though it seems the person in question still isn't ready."
At the man's words, the goddess glanced back at her child.
Anyone could see that she was clearly reluctant to meet him.
She, Tsubaki, feared his cold gaze more than anything else.
The fact that she had been wrong and he had been right.
The reality that he had it, and she did not, had wounded her soul so deeply it was terrifying.
But she could not keep standing there like an idiot forever.
"Tsubaki."
"L-Lady Goddess. Why are we here...?"
"From here on out, you handle it yourself."
"Huh?"
This time, even the goddess spoke with cold finality.
As her goddess, it was a deeply painful thing to say.
And yet, she could not meddle any further.
Setting aside her friendship with the man and her own vow for the moment.
If she did, her child would surely be driven to a point of ruin from which there would be no return, and so she spoke to her with a cruelty that was, in truth, born of concern.
"Make it, break it, do whatever you have to do—settle things with that boy. And once everything's sorted out, come back. Until then, I'm banning you from entering my Familia."
"No, what do you mean by—!"
After declaring that, Hephaistos left the shop alone, abandoning the bewildered Tsubaki behind her.
Left alone in the back, Tsubaki could only stare blankly at her goddess's retreating figure.
Then, after a moment's hesitation...
"I... ngh."
In the end, she too fled the shop, following after her goddess.
The man gave her departing back a sidelong glance.
"Hmm, I guess she's still not ready."
Well, not my problem.
With that, he lost interest and soon went back to his own work.
And so another day passed as usual.
For someone, though, it had become the beginning of the longest day of their life.