My quiet blacksmith life.., p.25
My Quiet Blacksmith Life in Another World: Volume 3, page 25
The demons had gone into battle prepared to lose their lives, but the crimson-haired human woman stopped short of killing them. Nilda considered this less of a mercy and more of a humiliation.
Upon their return to the castle, Nilda went straight to the parlor to report the details of the incident to the Demon Queen. She anticipated severe punishment for daring to live on so shamelessly in defiance of her defeat.
However, the queen barely looked up from the documents she’d been pouring over. She said only, “I see,” before losing interest in the conversation and returning to her paperwork.
Nilda was now on her way back from the parlor, headed for her private room.
The biggest shock to Nilda was the queen’s indifference to the report of loss. She hadn’t been disappointed nor had she shown any other emotion. It may have been the queen’s way of showing kindness, but Nilda would have rather faced her wrath or been scolded harshly.
Instead, Nilda returned to her room, her heart tight with pain. She had to think about what to do next.
Admittedly, from the demon kingdom’s perspective, there were no issues with how the patrol had concluded. Her party had sustained few injuries, and even the heaviest wounds would heal eventually with rest and recuperation. The damage to their weapons was another story, but there was nothing to do about that except repair and move on.
Even so, Nilda felt responsible. Their failure had been her fault. She would step down from her duties as commander and take a break.
In the meantime, Nilda would pursue the hints that the red-haired human had given her and procure herself a weapon of equal caliber to the mercenary’s. Or rather, she would hunt down the blacksmith who could forge a suitable weapon.
Having made up her mind, Nilda decided to set off early tomorrow morning. She turned in early.
The next day, she woke up unusually refreshed. After eating a hearty breakfast, Nilda paid an audience to the Demon Queen’s chambers.
Bright-eyed and awake, Nilda sipped at the tea, which was one she liked. The Demon Queen listened to Nilda’s decision with her eyes closed. After Nilda summarized her plans, the queen opened her eyes. “Do you really believe a new weapon is the solution to your problem?”
“That’s...” Nilda’s words trailed off and stuck in her throat.
Had her soldiers’ weapons been of a higher caliber, then the demons wouldn’t have lost so easily to the human’s blade. However, that was only one detail in a much larger picture. Nilda would’ve been defeated anyway because of the mercenary’s monstrous speed... That was her greatest weapon.
Nilda recalled that, when the woman’s allies had come running, they’d called her “Lightning Strike.” Certainly, she’d earned the nickname.
Obtaining a better weapon would be pointless if Nilda couldn’t think of a way to combat that speed.
But...even so...
Nilda fixed her gaze on the Demon Queen and opened her mouth to speak. “No. I acknowledge that the weapon alone won’t solve anything. I cannot train myself to move or attack as swiftly. However, once we are on an even playing field with respect to our weaponry’s capabilities, I will strategize on how to deal with her speed. Even if victory is out of reach, I am determined not to lose again.”
The Demon Queen returned Nilda’s steady gaze. Time seemed to stop between the two of them for just a moment. Nilda swore she could hear the sound of her sweat trickling down her forehead in the perfect silence.
At last, the Demon Queen’s composure cracked. “Heh,” she chuckled.
Nilda’s face twisted in confusion.
“Your words have pleased me more than I expected,” the queen stated.
“You are too kind, Your Majesty,” Nilda replied.
“If you’d been consumed by a desire for revenge or had merely been coveting a new toy, I would’ve stopped you from stepping down.”
“Do you mean to say...?”
“Your growth benefits the kingdom,” the Demon Queen declared. “In truth, I’d been thinking about relieving your party from their duties temporarily. Minor or not, most everyone suffered some sort of injury, no?”
“Yes, the most critically injured will need a month to recover,” Nilda answered.
“In that case, you shall have your month of sabbatical. I will take over command of your troops in the meantime. You may go wherever you please for your search,” the Demon Queen said.
Nilda kneeled. “Thank you very much!”
The Demon Queen, satisfied, nodded without another word.
By the time the sun had climbed midway up the sky, Nilda, dressed in traveler’s garb, had come to the border between the demon kingdom and its neighbor. It wasn’t her first time leaving the kingdom, but she still felt the creep of nervousness.
Nevertheless, filled with determination, she took a step forward and crossed beyond the border of the demon kingdom into the fate that was awaiting her.
The Story of How We Met V: Emergency in the Elven Village
“These numbers are concerning,” the young-looking man muttered with furrowed brows. Monsters had always spawned periodically in that cave, but upon investigation, the nest had turned out to be considerably larger than usual.
This handsome man had long, pointed ears, and despite his spry looks, he’d been alive for over three centuries. Old in spirit but youthful in appearance, this man was the chief of the elven village.
“We have to deal with this problem posthaste,” the chief mumbled to himself.
If the monsters had been few in number, then the elves would’ve easily taken care of them. But alas, that was not the case. Monsters spawned from stagnant magic, though the exact mechanism was still unknown—once they’d started to spawn, the monsters themselves became a source of stagnant magic from which new monsters spawned, leading to an insidious cycle. The population could increase limitlessly, and if left unchecked, the monsters would eventually overtake the village.
Wild animals corrupted by magic were one thing, but monsters born of pure magic had only one goal: to kill every living thing.
The village would be doomed. That deadly scenario had to be avoided at all costs.
The village chief rushed away from the cave and ran back to the village at top speed, trying not to waste even a second.
The monsters must be exterminated and the safety of the village secured.
⌗⌗⌗
“Are you positive?” I asked the village chief—my brother—after he’d explained the shocking situation. He’d burst into the house in a state of agitation.
“Unfortunately, I am,” he said grimly. “There may even be an alpha-type among them.”
I’d never seen an alpha before. I hadn’t even hit my second century in age yet, but my brother had encountered one when he was young. Immediately, I could tell how serious the situation was by his discomposure.
My brother grabbed the village’s sacred sword and ran back out of the door. I quickly followed him, taking up a post next to the wooden plank that was installed near our house. With all my might, I began striking the plate with a hammer, sounding an alarm that was part of a system to alert our people of danger.
Even with my meager strength, the sound of the hammer strikes boomed throughout the village, and in no time, folks dressed in armor gathered in the village square. It was difficult to tell everyone’s ages since elves kept their youthful looks, but young or old, man or woman, anyone who could fight would fight. Every warrior in the square was a familiar face to me.
To protect our home, everyone had answered the call to arms. I was moved by the pure showing of spirit and resolve.
Sheila, my childhood friend, was also among the crowd. Her presence alone gave me strength. I called out to her. “Sheila, you’ve come to help too?”
“Of course. I know how important this is for the village, and by extension, how important it is for you, my friend,” she said with a wink.
My brother strode in front of the crowd, the mithril sword gleaming in his hands. The hidden power of this sword was a secret to most; only my brother, I, and a select few others knew. I fervently hoped we wouldn’t have to draw on the sword’s true strength.
“With my own eyes, I verified that monsters have spawned in great numbers within the cave. An alpha might have spawned as well,” my brother reported to the villagers.
Upon hearing the news, several of them, the ones who knew how terrifying an alpha could be, swallowed nervously.
But there were other people like me who weren’t familiar with alpha-level monsters. Nevertheless, we could read the air, and we all understood how serious this matter was. The eyes of everyone in the crowd hardened.
“We will set off immediately,” my brother declared. “I want to eliminate this nest as soon as possible.”
The crowd nodded as one. My brother gave a firm nod back. Together, all the villagers started moving in the direction of the cave.
Of course, I was going too. All elves could use magic to some extent, but my brother, Sheila, and I were the most powerful. Sheila would be staying behind in the village just in case anything happened.
If it came down to it, I’d face off against the alpha with my magic. A shiver ran down my spine just thinking about the prospect, but I couldn’t run away. The fate of our village was on the line.
I was the younger sister of the village chief, so hiding away at home because I was scared...wasn’t an option.
Determined, I followed along at the back of the crowd, keeping a close watch on our surroundings.
In the cave, the battle raged. My brother and I stepped to the side and prepared our spells. In the meantime, the situation grew grimmer around us.
There was a large group of monsters that had already spawned. The majority were small specimens, but monsters were monsters; they weren’t the same as the animals we hunted in the forest.
We had been steadily hewing them down, but not without a cost. Three people had already been injured in a scuffle and two others incapacitated. Our numbers were dwindling.
Even so, we had the upper hand. At this rate, we would make it out victorious one way or another.
But the light of hope vanished before our eyes when it appeared.
A bellow shook the air when it emerged from the inner chambers of the cave.
“GROARRRR!”
It was as tall as two men—one stacked on top of the other’s shoulders. Its muscles bulged, and horns sprouted out of its forehead.
We were facing an ogre.
“Damn it! Our luck’s run out!” my brother cursed. He and I took out a few underlings as we tracked the alpha.
A few elves armed with swords approached the ogre, but it swept them aside with a single swipe of its arm. My brother and I cast spells, restraining it with our magic, but the ogre was going to be difficult to kill. If we could take it down, then a large portion of the stagnant magic in the cave would disappear all in one go. This would turn the tides in our favor, but...
“This is bad...” my brother mumbled beside me.
Stagnant magic always attracted more magic. If we didn’t act soon, monsters were going to start spawning anew right before our very eyes.
“Lidy, buy me some time,” my brother said.
“Got it. But what are you—”
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to use the sword,” he said, one corner of his mouth twisting upward.
The true might of the sword was not actually its mithril blade, but rather, its ability to store magical energy. By sacrificing one’s life force, a person could access the magic inside of it. Doing so could lead us to victory...but it could also force us to abandon the village.
It was a relief that I wasn’t the only one who wanted to avoid such a resolution. I threw out a series of minor spells, like ember, flash flare, and whirlwind, attacking the monsters with small bursts of flame, whizzing balls of light, and sharp gusts of wind.
The ogre was largely unaffected by my attacks, but I was able to protect the other villagers and keep blows from landing on my brother.
Of course, I had to watch my own back too. But the other villagers were looking out for me and intercepting any strikes that headed my way. So far, I was fairly uninjured.
I was grateful from the bottom of my heart for my brethren—they were risking injury and even staking their lives to protect me.
And so, I kept up my barrage of magic. I had begun to lose sense of time when my brother yelled out, “Everyone, get down!!!”
All the elves immediately dropped to the ground. As I crouched, I peered at my brother.
Our eyes met.
His expression was lonely, but he flashed me a gentle smile. His hand moved to the sword strapped to his waist.
“Brother! You mustn’t!!!” I screamed, trying to get back on my feet.
The moment my brother unsheathed the sword, a bright white light filled my vision and a thunderous roar echoed around the chamber.
By the time I came back to my senses, everything was over, and there were no monsters moving around me. The ogre had vanished...along with my brother.
He had disappeared, and the only traces of him left behind were the broken pieces of the mithril sword. These shards were the greatest proof of what he had done.
I rushed over and collected the pieces of the sword, ending up with pebbles and bits of rock clutched in my hands as well, but that was neither here nor there. I’d sort everything out later.
Once I had all the shards, I turned and looked around me. My fellow villagers, in various states of injury, were sitting or lying on the ground.
“There are a few monsters still remaining, but let’s retreat for now!” I called out to everyone. “In our state, we won’t be able to finish them off. We’ll return another day to wipe out the rest! I swear it!”
Shouts of agreement rang throughout the cave. We lent our shoulders to the injured, carrying them when necessary, and together, made our way back to the entrance and then back home.
In that moment, I vowed to myself—I would repair the sword and return to hunt down every single monster.
However, I didn’t yet know how much my life would change after meeting the blacksmith...
⌗⌗⌗
“That’s when you went to Eizo’s forge?”
“Yes. A merchant who’d dealt with mithril told me the location.”
“He’s the one who established the renowned Bertrand Company, right? Camilo Bertrand?”
“Exactly.” Lidy smiled softly, her eyes glazed with nostalgia.
She now gave her family name as Tanya. Elves didn’t share the dwarven custom of taking on a forge’s name as their own, but she’d made her excuses—after all, when she’d lived at the forge, she’d once been family with a dwarf.
I’d finally come here to the elven village after persistently questioning Rike for its location; she’d been reluctant to tell me. And when I asked Lidy about Eizo’s whereabouts, she’d sidestepped that question, also stating that she’d promised not to say.
Despite the years that had passed, Lidy still looked like a young woman. It had taken me a long time to arrange a meeting with her and even longer before she finally shared her story with me.
I encouraged her to continue the tale—no, the legend—of the blacksmith who’d changed her life.
And as she resumed her story, she wore an expression of joy.
Afterword
To all my new readers, it’s good to meet you for the first time. For my three-peat readers, it’s good to meet you for a third time. And for those rare unicorns for whom this is our second meeting, well, it’s good to meet you again too. By day, I’m a man who’s past the age that Japanese superstition deems calamitous, and by night, a light novel author writing under the pen name Tamamaru.
I owe you all my deepest gratitude for your glowing reviews, which helped to secure the birth of this third volume even as the second volume had just been put out into stores. Those reviews are the reason why you are able to read these words right now. Thank you very much.
We’ve finally reached the third volume of the series, and the plot of this volume has diverged greatly from the web novel.
In the previous volume, I made a couple of small changes and edits that didn’t affect the story in any major ways, like the gang going fishing before Lidy returned home. However, the timeline of this volume is fundamentally different from the original. The last arc concludes the same way, but the journey to the destination is different. Lidy is gone for most of the book, so there are some discrepancies with the Tanya family’s interactions with Krul.
When editing the manuscript, I worked to the bone to make sure I had included the right number of people. I also had to keep track of which characters were in the know at any given time.
Having done this, I’ve now gained a new appreciation for all the great web novelists upon whose shoulders I stand—they have made it look so easy to add and remove characters at the drop of a dime, along with cutting and editing major swathes of the story. They are true professionals.
The readers who have followed the web serialization likely already suspected this, but I’d planned for Lidy to make a comeback after the second volume. Her reappearance in this volume is why the story of her encounter with Eizo wasn’t included in volume two.
Actually, there’d been a previous draft where Lidy didn’t become one of the family—I’d originally conceptualized her to help explain the elven race in this world, and she was to pop in to give the occasional advice on magic and magical phenomena. However, Forge Eizo already had a forest expert, blacksmith expert, and society expert, so I decided that the gang needed a magic expert too. Thus, in order to bring Lidy into the fold, I prepared a rather elaborate plotline.
I’d intended it to be a more lighthearted story at first...
I’m serious.
But Eizo is fundamentally a man who’s perfectly content with sequestering in the Black Forest and feeding himself off his blacksmithing work. It takes no small army to drag him out of his reticent lifestyle. That was how the monster subjugation force was born.
