Blacksmith

Flint gestured for me to enter the home. Following his order, I stepped into the home and made my way towards the kitchen. I dropped off the vegetables, making sure to place them gently so as not to bruise or destroy them. While putting the vegetables down, I saw a golden haired blob, most likely Cordelia, watching me with an interested look. I motioned for her to come to me, and carefully, she approached me.

“Do you want to help?” I asked her after she had finally reached me.

“Yes.” She muttered, making it hard to hear what she said.

“What was that?”

‘Y-yes!” This time being louder.

“Okay. Grab these and place them here.”

With her help, the speed at which the vegetables were put away increased, if only by a minor amount. Finishing off the job, I raised my hand to her to give her a high five.

“Don’t hit me, I’m sorry!” She cried aloud, just quietly enough as to not alert Flint.

“No, I’m not going to hit you. Huh. Okay, look. This is a high five, not a slap.” I flexed my fingers outwards to catch Cordelia’s attention. “We bring our hands together as a way to show a good job done.” I explained with a slight sigh of relief at the fact that Flint did not hear what she had said.

“That’s strange.”

“Do you not want to do it then?”

“No I do!” She exclaimed, following through with the high five.

“Good work!” I replied to her effort.

Cordelia lets out a laugh at the praise she received. She then decided to go back upstairs, skipping instead of walking. I made my way over to Flint, looking for my next job. My limbs were beginning to feel numb after all the work. I tried to shake the feeling off so as to not cause more trouble for Flint. Hopefully he would find me useful enough not to throw me out.

“W-what should I do next?” I asked Flint.

“Next?” He responded slightly confused.

“Yeah.”

“Well, I was going to have you only do small amounts of work for this week and then explain to you about the shop next week. But I guess since you already know about it, I might as well teach you how to use the forge. But first, you need to eat.”

“But I’m not hungry.”

“No more buts! You’re eating whether you want to or not. I won’t have a repeat of yesterday on my forge.”

“O-okay.” I reluctantly agreed, taking a seat at the table in the room next to the store and the kitchen.

“Hmm hmmmm, hmm, hmmmm hmmm!” Flint began humming while cooking.

“What are you humming?”

“Huh? It’s just a little lullaby I sing to my daughter at night.”

“How does it go?”

“Let’s see. In the wayward land, you will see a garden of truth. In the frosty world, you can see the light come through. Tear down those walls, as adventure is in sight. Don’t let those who stand in your way be right. Victory will come, when you see the truth. But for now, think of these in your sleep. Ahem.”

“Woah! You got some chops! What does it mean?”

“I have no clue. Cordelia just likes it, so that’s what I go with hahah.” He laughed at the prospect.

He placed a plate of food in front of me. The aroma caused me to start drooling. The size of the meal was huge, trouncing the size of all the meals I had in this world, even being more than yesterday's peez. It seemed to be entirely vegetables, most likely using some of the new ones I had brought.

“I can’t eat all of this.” I responded to Flint’s generous cooking.

“Aw, come on, you gotta. I can’t trust you to use the forge unless you eat properly.” He replied to my worry.

“O-okay.”

I ate slowly as opposed to how I had eaten yesterday. By eating slower I should be able to eat this entirely, instead of reaching max capacity earlier. Even with this method however, I still wasn’t sure if I could finish it. I took solace in the fact that each bite tasted heavenly. After roughly fifteen minutes I had concluded my meal, taking a sip of water to fully finish.

“I-I did it!” I exclaimed at the feat.

“Well done. Now follow me. Let’s teach you how to use this. Maybe one day when you’re good enough, you can start helping me with actual work. But until then, you’ll only be learning how to make weapons. I can’t trust a newbie with commissions after all. Ah, but maybe the weapons the soldiers take I could let you make.” He smirked at the remark he made.

He guided me back to the room which held the forge and served as the store. The shining blades, bows, and crossbows looked more elegant than violent. Each of the weapons gave me a certain sense of comfort instead of the reaction I thought I’d have to seeing them. Each of them seemed so gentle.

This sense was only something the craftsmen could give it. Some of the swords had the same cloudy gems I had seen on the jewelry before. Except there were more colours than just blue this time around. Why would these weapons have gemstones attached to them? Were they just aesthetics?

“Hey, what’s with those?” I questioned Flint while pointing to one of the odd stones at the guard.

“You don’t know? I guess they only started getting popular recently. Those are magic crystals.” He responded to the question, as normally as possible.

Magic crystals? Maybe they just call gemstones “magic crystals” overall instead of naming them individually? Pushing the fact I didn’t know further could let on too much about me, so maybe it’s better if I just kept my mouth shut. I guess whoever orders these weapons enjoys having the idea of seeing a pretty crystal on their weapon.

“Are they expensive?” I continued with a different line of questioning.

“Immensely. When they get ordered, we make quite a bit of profit, not as much as others do in different towns, though.”

“These cloudy ones are that expensive?”

“Well, yeah. The clearer the stone, the more expensive it gets. Sometimes the price of them gets ridiculously expensive. Although, for people who haven’t seen clearer stones, they may sometimes pass it off as a different gemstone.”

“I see.” I responded realizing just how much they could be worth.

I stopped asking further, and only kept examining the stone on the sword. I guess it does follow that the more expensive ones are clearer. So it does resemble my world in that aspect, at least. By the looks of it however, it seems clearer crystals were far rarer than cloudy ones. If I could somehow get my hands on something like that, I might even be able to get out of the situation I’m in.

“All right, enough dilly dallying. Let’s start by teaching you the basics.” Flint called aloud, getting my attention.

He showed me how to transform a fair chunk of metal into a blade. He did this by cutting it out in the shape he wanted. After which, he refined the edges. Then he began heating it in the forge, where he would use his hammer to shape the blade precisely how he or the client wanted. He explained to me that I was going to be making the basic shapes instead of trying to personalize the blades. Since I didn’t have enough skill, this came as no shock to me.

He showed me the proper way to cool it down and refine the edges, making it as sharp as he could, without destroying the blade. Watching him in action was like watching a master painter create a masterpiece, or like watching a grandmaster chess player. The sheer skill and refined actions of his came through in every step he did, with the end result being a beautiful blade which Flint described as being one of his worst works.

He explained to me in the same level of detail how to make the other weapons as well. When it came to metal, he began to get a little heated. Normally they would use iron or steel, but with the recent boom of silver, the nobles apparently started getting all their tools created in pure silver. However, with the trend the nobles were following, this also caused others to follow in their footsteps.

Nowadays the only metal people want in their tools is silver, almost completely abandoning iron and steel. But, he also explained how some people still bought weapons with the original materials, saying how those people were the smart ones.

“Those damn nobles.” He spoke aloud but quickly covered his mouth after the words got out. “Anyways, it’s time for you to start trying to make a sword.”

“U-uh, right!” I responded, unsure if I was really ready for this.

I followed the steps he described to the best I could. My work was more clunky and didn’t show the same prowess that Flint’s had shown. I kept forgetting steps, causing me to start running around the place, trying to remember. The real issue of forgetting came when I forgot to cool the sword properly in time, causing it to be far too brittle and easy to break. Seeing the brittle sword, Flint could only sigh for the sorry excuse in front of him.

“It’s fine. You won’t get it the first try. But if you keep practicing everyday, eventually you should get the hang of it.” He encouraged me, seeing my dejected expression.

“But won’t that put too much strain on your resources if I keep wasting metal?” I asked.

“No, it's fine. Once you get the hang of it we can start doing orders far more quickly and then we can bring in more profits. Think of it like an investment if you know what that is.”

“R-right.”

“Let’s call it for today. Go wash your face, then come have dinner. I expect you to eat all of it.”

“Yes sir!” I replied with a tinge of sarcasm.