Chapter 312: Standing at the Crossroads of Great Achievement

Smithing, in essence, consists of three steps: softening the steel, beating the hell out of it, and cooling it. Strictly speaking, it's probably more complex than that, but at minimum, those three actions are always performed.

However, this particular forging—to restore Areadbhair—presented an entirely different aspect from the norm.

Bilac: "Nn—oooOOOORYAAAH!"

Burn. Heat. Raise the firepower endlessly and sear the decayed blade. Inside the furnace, where the heat continued to climb as if even a single moment of cooling would ruin everything, such ferocious heat raged within that prison that the shabby blade seemed to have melted away into the light itself.

Bilac: "This sword… is flame. So to wake it up… I need heat enough to burn away and crush the dull, rotted iron…!!"

Sunraku: "S-So basically, just crank up the temperature as much as possible…"

Thanks to the game's pain cutoff, Bilac's workshop had still taken on the atmosphere of a sauna—but as if even that wasn't enough, the flame housed within the furnace only intensified its light and heat.

Bilac: "Guh………ORYAA!"

Bilac threw in more fuel, and the flames surged higher. Heat reminiscent of the shock heat wave X Broccoli had blasted me with back then spewed from the furnace's mouth—the sole outlet—into the workshop, and Arameese was looking close to death at this point.

Sunraku: "Emul, take Arameese and evacuate. And while you're at it, bring me some water."

Emul: "R-Right, hai na…"

Arameese: "O, younger sister of the maiden… my face, u-bubub being dragged is…"

As I saw Emul off, dragging Arameese out of the workshop with a scrape-scrape sound, I sat back down inside the workshop, which was nearly whitewashed by the light.

Sunraku: "Bilac… if it comes down to it, I'm dragging you out too, you hear me…!"

Bilac: "Heh-heh… You just sit there and watch…!! It ain't enough yet, the firepower's still lackin'… the real show starts from here on out…!!"

Firepower, huh.

Sunraku: "By the way, Bilac, what's that gemstone?"

Bilac: "This here's a fire-startin' magic stone… processed in Cazzeria."

In short, it's an even lower-tier equivalent of a disposable Magic Scroll—an item for scattering around phenomena that barely even qualify as magic. And among those, she's been chucking the ones with particularly high firepower into the furnace as a primer.

Sunraku: "Hey, with those… does it just have to be magic power, any kind'll do…?"

Bilac: "Nnnh…? No, that won't work. It's gotta be somethin' imbued with fire magic… —hey, hold up, what're you…"

See, I happen to have some… "fire-attribute" ore on me.

Sunraku: "The Lowenava Amber Crystal, y'see… if you look real close, you can tell what's sealed inside it…"

In the one I used for the Levin Trigger: Hazard, black sparks were scattering inside the amber. And in the one I'm holding now—yeah, a fresh amber crystal I just picked up at Crystal Nest Cliff a bit ago—wrapped in amber hues, I can see a blazing crimson fire raging inside.

I don't have any particular use for them, so I'm carrying a fair number of amber crystals, but among them, this one in particular radiates an aura of being the most intense.

Sunraku: "Bilac… stand back a bit."

If I recall, Lowenava Amber Crystals have a ranking system based on their quality. Perfect. Let's call it a lucky draw and enjoy the gamble.

Inside the workshop, now a sauna hellscape, the memory of the cannon arm I cultivated in that baseball game roars to life.

Sunraku: "Heaven, Earth, ONE—BALL!"

An amber crystal roughly the size of a golf ball, with crimson flames sealed within, is launched from my hand with an ideal speed boost. So perfect a straight pitch that even I want to applaud myself, the amber flies into the light, melts in the heat, and vanishes…

Sunraku: "Whoa."

Bilac: "Ngyah."

In the next instant, the inside of the furnace—which had been radiating pure white light—is repainted entirely in shades of crimson. The flames, freed from their amber cage, spew aftershocks from the furnace mouth, and my body, having thrown itself in front of Bilac as a shield on reflex, is blown to smithereens.

Blackout, then fade-in.

Sunraku: "Hah!"

Respawn! Thank god I saved at the Palace of Rabituza beforehand! Nice going, past me!!

Emul: "S-Sunraku-san! There was some kind of really bad sound, wa!?"

Sunraku: "Checking on Bilac comes first. Move out, you bastards!"

Arameese: "A maiden in peril!? O my whirlwind, howl and soar!!"

Chasing after Arameese, who true to his words ran off at a breakneck pace, we returned to Bilac's workshop. There, we found Bilac lying in the hallway in front of the workshop, eyes spinning—likely blown back by the aftershock of the heat wave. And the workshop itself had returned to its normal light levels, as if the earlier fury had been a lie.

Sunraku: "Well, at least you're alive…"

Things going "I casually tossed in some fuel and it exploded, killing the young lady" wouldn't be a matter of taking responsibility—it'd be an execution-level offense. In a sense, we were saved, but…

Arameese: "O maiden, surely this calls for a kiss from one who loves you…"

Bilac: "Drop dead!"

Arameese: "AGOOH!?"

A kick uppercut with rabbit leg-strength is just not okay… Pressing my palms together for Arameese, who'd been knocked out in a beautiful arc, I offered a hand to the now-conscious Bilac and helped her up.

Bilac: "The hell did you go and chuck in there…"

Sunraku: "Nah, I'm surprised too. Didn't think the firepower would spike that much."

Bilac: "Spike? It more'n doubled… But, well, 'cause o' that, the decayed blade is perfectly restored."

Inside the furnace, the light and heat from before had vanished like a lie. Amidst that fury which had seemed to burn everything away, a single sword remained, sitting quietly.

Bilac: "At long last, one of the Gratefuls has regained its true form… I'd call this Areadbhair Repair."

Sunraku: "Whoa…"

A sword whose tip pulsed with "flame" like veins running through a leaf. Still dazed despite my apparent calm, my arm strength couldn't match the weight, and the unsteady blade fell with a simple downward drop—no swing behind it—onto the anvil…

Sssss.

Sunraku: "No way."

Built to withstand heated steel, the anvil—which should have been no half-hearted hardness—melted away as if it were cheese. And wait, this wasn't even the edge. The flat of the sword touched it and did this?

Bilac: "Wha—ya damn fool! Don't put it on the floor, the floor!!"

Sunraku: "WHOOOA!?"

I realized it had begun sinking into the floor, melting through it, and hurriedly lifted Areadbhair. Judging it too dangerous to keep holding, I placed it back into the furnace, and at last, all of us let out a breath and released the tension in our shoulders.

Arameese: "What incredible heat… Could it be that the sword has absorbed every last bit of that previous inferno into itself?"

He muttered, gazing at the floor, which had melted and caved in the shape of the sword.

Sunraku: "Even I'd have a rough time handling this."

A greatsword can be used as a shield or even as a blunt weapon, and in those applications, you end up touching the blade quite a lot. But if I did that with this sword, it wouldn't be strange for my hand to melt right off. Still, granted, slamming it into an enemy would probably make for an extremely effective blow.

Bilac: "I know that… This thing can't be handled without a sheath."

I see. If I carelessly tossed it into Inventoria and caused a catastrophe, it wouldn't even be funny. If there's a sheath that can encase this diabolical blade, then nothing could be better.

Emul: "But, but! Is there even a sheath that can hold a super-hot sword like this, wa?"

Sunraku: "Yeah, that. A sheath heavier than the sword itself would be rough."

But as expected of Bilac the "Master Craftsman"—the eye of the smith who'd discerned Areadbhair's true nature had apparently already arrived at the answer.

Bilac: "Certainly, to forge a sheath that can withstand this heat, we'd have to go so far as to rebuild that furnace into one… But seein' as there's this handy thing called magic in the world, we'll manage somehow."

Sunraku: "In concrete terms?"

Bilac: "Have that Effuielle fella lend a hand, and make a sheath that holds the power of water. For that, we'll need a material with strong water power…"

Rumble, rumble, rumble.

Slaygiven Caryangler materials (leftover)
Materials from monsters that served as the Slaygiven Caryangler's underlings
Kaisen-Oh materials
Atlanticus Lepnorca materials (leftover)
Arctus Regalex materials (leftover)
And a ton of other marine products from Ruluiath

Bilac: "…………"

Sunraku: "…………"

With a biiig grin spreading across my face beneath the Staring Bird Mask, its lower half burnt away, Bilac let out a long, long sigh…

Bilac: "Right then, first thing's first, repairin' that mask of yours."

Sunraku: "Much obliged!"

The durability is seriously in trouble.

I mean, of course that happens when you chuck in a bomb with a top-tier "mountain fire" sealed inside it.

The Kōenju, source of the Lowenava Amber Crystal, sounds like it'd have high fire resistance just from the name—and indeed, that's exactly right. The flames that burned even the Kōenju to ashes… just what on earth happened in the past?

Divine Era Person: "There's somethin' in the volcano, damn it! Let's check it out!"

Chive Butterfly: "Ah-choo!"

SF's classic template of stepping on a landmine just 'cause you had to check it out—I poke fun at it every time I see it, but I love it.