Chapter 391: Side 9: Looking Up at the Superior Version

[At Level 5, invade with a bad-rumor bombing campaign, plant a legendary tree, then charge in with a lovey-dovey invincible blast... Amazing. Truth really is stranger than fiction... (excited)]

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The blacksmith Imron. A player who has reached the highest blacksmithing job, "Master Craftsman," and is more famously known as the owner of the Holy Hammer Mjolnir.

For example, the Sacred Blade Excalibur required you to solo reach a hidden area in the deepest layers of a labyrinth where powerful and vicious monsters roamed.

For example, the Sacred Spear Caledfwlch only appeared when multiple people gathered in the same place, with the last one standing at the end of PvP gaining ownership.

So, what was the condition for obtaining Mjolnir? To create a weapon using Mjolnir... just that. Being a "Master Craftsman" wasn't an absolute requirement, and your level didn't matter much either.

However, the condition was "within a monster house where huge numbers of monsters spawn."

Strength to defeat monsters? No.

Speed to create weapons? No.

What the Holy Hammer Mjolnir sought was sincerity. Even if your body is torn apart and devoured by beasts, even if your body is ravaged by poison, even if death itself bears down on you, about to crush your very skull... Only the sincere are worthy to grip this hammer... Those were the words carved into the deepest part of a certain cave where the Holy Hammer Mjolnir was enshrined.

To put it as simply as possible: a "test of nerve." Countless blacksmiths challenged it, fell... and in the end, the one who took the hammer was a mere level 45 player. By forging a single knife with no special abilities, yet without making a single compromise, he was recognized as its owner. A player who, even in the center of a crucible of atrocity, surrounded by monsters that evoke instinctual disgust and use the most brutal attack methods, could still hold fast to a heart of steel and pour his entire being into smithing... His name is Imron.

Imron: "Whhhhy are weapons I don't know about being made somewhere I don't know abouuut—mooooo!!!"

That very player was now, right in front of Psyger-0, flipped over on the ground, flailing his arms and legs.

Imron: "Re-Legacy Weapon is WHAT!? I don't know it! I don't know anythiiing about thaaat!!"

Psyger-0: "Ah, um, a Re-Legacy Weapon is..."

Imron: "Wait! I'm still the blacksmith chosen by Mjolnir... I can guess that much! To put it bluntly, when you max out a Legacy Weapon, its category changes, right!!"

Psyger-0: "No, that's wrong."

Imron: "Haaaaaahnn!!"

Slamming and thrashing on the ground, letting out high-pitched shrieks... this middle-aged man, clearly character-created to look like a consummate craftsman holding a golden hammer, was Imron. Looking down at him, Psyger-0 began to doubt her own memories. Had the person her older sister had negotiated with really had this kind of personality? If her memory wasn't failing her, he should have been a player who communicated with role-play as a base, just like the Shining Knights of the Holy Shield (Saint-chan Defense Squad).

Imron: "Guh... Curse you, Arthur Pencilgon... So the rumors that you're some kind of demon that toys with human hearts were true..."

On that point, Psyger-0 couldn't say anything either, since the bargaining chip for this negotiation had been provided by the mastermind, Pencilgon.

Psyger-0: "Um..."

The three screenshots entrusted to her by Pencilgon. The first and second were photos of Sunraku holding a mechanized iron fist, and Sunraku holding a mechanized round shield. And the third...

Psyger-0: "Um, well... if you want to see this third one... then, I'd like you to cooperate with 'Wolfgang.'"

Imron: "Gh... That's dirty. This is basically one of those sealed magazine sections... No, wait, hold on... cough, cough. But I'm a fully-fledged blacksmith myself. If there's a technique I don't know, I can't just stay quiet. A request for my cooperation must be about smithing, so... hand it over. Your screenshot... come on."

Just as Pencilgon had predicted, at the place "straight ahead, past the sea of trees while searching for a new area where ore might be mined," the top-tier blacksmith player she encountered fixed an intense, unwavering stare on Psyger-0. That extraordinary expression... it reminded her of the look in her sister's eyes whenever Lycagon was involved. Without thinking, Psyger-0 thrust the photo out between herself and Imron, like a shield.

Imron: "Huh? What's this, just a sword..."

Psyger-0: "I-it's a Grateful... that's been strengthened to the rebuild stage..."

Imron: "...Re-build?"

A moment of silence. Imron staggers backward. A sigh leaks from his lips, and the unending stream of breath eventually turns into a groan. Then, with its pitch rising even further, it becomes a shout.

Imron: "HAAAAAAAAAHHH...!!↑↑"

His head, cradled in both arms, tilts further and further back. Before long, his entire back is arching backward as he starts writhing in agony. To put it mildly, from Psyger-0's perspective, he's the type she'd rather not get involved with. But even putting all that aside, the power of Mjolnir as a "smithing tool" had made Pencilgon decide it was worth cutting the trump card—a walking top secret for "Wolfgang," the very Joker.

At that moment, Imron suddenly grips the golden hammer hanging at his waist.

Imron: "Frustration!!"

The sudden shriek makes Psyger-0's armor clang. And simultaneously, a pressure grips her neck. It's the "enemy attack" signal from Diale, disguised as a cloak. Her thoughts, which had been slacking slightly from the mental exhaustion, switch to combat mode. But before she can even reach for the Iron Flail at her hip, Imron's actions take the initiative.

Imron: "Blitz Forge!!"

Imron pulls several scales—likely from a dinosaur—from his Inventoria and tosses them straight up into the air. The instant he strikes them with the Holy Hammer Mjolnir, they transform into a single sword, like a plastic model left in the raw colors of its materials because the paint job was skipped. Imron snatches it up, and in a lightning-fast motion, he takes a ready stance with the generated one-handed sword and hurls it with all his might toward the shadow of a tree. The hastily forged blade, slicing through the air, strikes a small dinosaur just as it was about to leap onto its prey.

Imron: "Tch... Talk later! Time to show you what Maximum Firepower [Attack Holder] can do... ya hear!"

Psyger-0: "His role-play is running wild..."

Several minutes later, after they'd finished off the attacking monsters without much trouble, Imron opens his mouth as if he's resigned himself.

Imron: "Alright, fine. In for a penny, in for a pound... No, I'll suck my way down to the very fingertips of the bastard who made this poisoned bait... So? I can expect proper returns, right?"

Psyger-0: "S-sure..."

What surfaced in Psyger-0's mind was Pencilgon, spouting nonsense with a grin that was the furthest possible thing from words like "reassurance" or "guarantee": "Well, if you rile him up enough, he'll spill the info. Sunraku-kun is just a super-twisted tsundere." With a gaze mixed with resignation, Psyger-0 turned her eyes to the sky, thinking that, in the extreme, she could just shift the blame...

Imron: "That aside... what's that scene, clearly different from the sea of trees, visible through the gaps in the branches? What is it, I wonder?"

Psyger-0: "Huh?"

The situation doesn't allow Psyger-0 to have her head in the clouds. What leaks through the gaps in the trees is... a desert region where brave and fierce-hearted people dwell... the Diltseo Great Sand Sea.

[There is actually a reason why the monster names sound so scientific.]