Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody, Vol. 5

by Hiro Ainana

  “Yes, thirty percent of the iron used in the duchy is refined here.”

  I wasn’t just acting impressed to be polite. The technology was different, of course, but this facility was on the same level as the ironworks I’d seen in my old world.

  “The smoke is purified when it passes through that pipe there. The inside of the pipe is lined with a catalyst transmuted from water stones and wind stones, which cleans away the soot from the smoke without needing any additional magic power supply.”

  I see. It probably keeps the overhead lower than using Magic Items or magic to purify it.

  Moving on, I also got to tour a rotary kiln and a roller. The latter used a huge magical furnace that was some kind of magic tool, as far as I could tell. This furnace required magic to run, as evidenced by the men stumbling around in robes like sorcerers on the verge of exhausting their magic.

  “That seems to be quite a difficult endeavor.”

  “Indeed. We would normally have more hands on the job, but gnomes are currently visiting home, so we’re short on people.”

  As I nodded along to Jojorie’s explanation, my heart went out to the men working overtime due to the staff shortage.

  Hearing heavy footsteps, I turned to find a group of little giants around ten feet tall carrying finished bars of iron and steel. According to the information from the AR display, they were a different clan from the little giants we’d met in the Mountain-Tree Village.

  I was able to get a fairly thorough tour, but they hadn’t yet shown me the mithril-related facilities in the underground caverns. It was probably a highly classified part of Bolehart City.

  Unable to resist my curiosity, I decided to ask Mr. Dorial about it, just for kicks.

  “Are the mithril facilities underground, then?”

  “I-I’m surprised you knew about that. Did Viscount Lottel tell you, perhaps?”

  “No, it was just a hunch. Besides, I heard that this city’s mithril goods are the finest in the world, so I very much wanted to visit for myself if at all possible.”

  “Is that so…? I should like to allow it, then, but I would need my father’s permission for that.”

  Mr. Dorial crossed his short arms and furrowed his brow. Unable to watch her father fret any longer, Jojorie spoke up.

  “Father, why not simply talk to Grandfather? Surely even he would never command a total stranger to forge a sword or anything like that.”

  Jojorie, please don’t set up flags like that.

  “Hmph. Let’s see ye forge a sword. Then we’ll talk.”

  …Jojorie…

  I glanced over at her, but she quickly avoided my eyes.

  After squeezing through a narrow underground tunnel only a few feet high, we reached Elder Dohal’s workplace. In the back of the room, high-level dwarves were forging swords.

  They were all highly skilled. Each sword was higher in attack power, sharpness, durability, and other parameters than any you’d find on the street by more than half.

  And after I was introduced to him, he made the very request Jojorie had joked about.

  I sensed his eyes on the Silent Bell of Bolenan attached to my belt, but he said nothing about it. I presumed this Elvish treasure had no effect on him.

  “Father, Sir Satou is an acquaintance of Viscount Lottel…”

  “Hmm. Certainly we owe Nina a debt of gratitude, but that has nothing to do with this. Seeing someone forge a sword speaks volumes of their character. Zajuul, bring out a heated mithril ingot.”

  “Of course, master.”

  Mr. Dorial tried to intervene on my behalf, but Elder Dohal was hearing none of it.

  The brawny gray-bearded dwarf Zajuul prepared an ingot and the necessary tools for me.

  Well, I’d gotten to see someone working on a sword at a blacksmith in Muno City, so maybe I understood the process well enough to give it a shot. My “Smithing” skill was maxed out anyway, so it would probably be fine.

  I grasped the red-hot ingot with smithing tongs and placed it on the anvil. Then, steadying myself, I struck it with the mallet.

  A small spark flew through the air, and a shrill metallic clank echoed through the room.

  …Huh? Something felt wrong just now.

  Possibly sensing my hesitation, Elder Dohal took the tool from me and struck the ingot in the same way.

  After a single blow, he called Zajuul over and rapped him on the head with his knuckles.

  “How many decades have ye been working with mithril now, ye fool? I’ve said time and again that melting metal into an ingot is the foundation of smithing!”

  “Of course, master.”

  I didn’t quite understand what happened, but there must have been some problem with the ingot Zajuul prepared for me.

  Was that why I’d felt like something was a little off before?

  “All right, we’re going to the mithril furnace. Come with me, youngster.”

  “Certainly.”

  Guess Elder Dohal was going to take me there himself. I didn’t actually end up forging a sword, but I must have passed.

  Mr. Dorial and Jojorie followed behind me. Zajuul had already gone ahead, presumably to make some kind of preparations.

  I didn’t know what to expect from the furnace, but I was looking forward to it.

  Compared to the iron blast furnace I’d seen outside, the one for mithril was much smaller. It was probably only about a third of the size.

  Unlike the first one, it seemed to operate solely on magical power, so all that went into the hole in the top was mithril ore.

  The furnace, which wasn’t currently in use, was made of a red metal—according to the AR, the exceptionally heat-resistant scarlet ore.

  If I remembered correctly, the Japanese name for it was “hihiirokane,” a fantasy metal that appeared in Japanese mythology.

  This reminded me of the time I saw Shinto shrine–style archways in Seiryuu County or certain stories about heroes of the past. Why was there so much Japanese aesthetic mixed in with this fantasy world? Maybe it was just the effects of my translation skills, but it made me a little nervous.

  In front of the control panel for the furnace, Zajuul was shouting at several other dwarves.

  “Brother Zajuul… We only have poor-quality monster cores left, so we can’t produce enough heat.”

  “We need better quality cores or the magic furnace just won’t work, no matter how much we plug away at it, y’see.”

  “Och, if the gnomes were here, they could refill it from the emergency magic supply terminal there…”

  Exhausted, the dwarves were slumping to the ground as they explained the situation to Zajuul. It seemed to be a fuel quality issue.

  They looked miserable now, but everyone present was a fierce warrior of more than level 30. They all had the “Smithing” skill and some kind of magic skill.

  “You morons! The youth of Bolehart shouldn’t whine like this!”

  Zajuul was obviously a stick person, not a carrot person.

  “Lemme see your guts! We’re gonna work together to power up the supply terminal!”

  “Brother Zajuul?! A-all right, let’s do it, then!”

  “Och, will it really work with just us?”

  “We’ll round up all the bastards who are on break, too, o’ course!”

  They were going to make it work with sheer manpower.

  One of the engineers threw a pink core into the magic furnace and started it up.

  Then, with Zajuul leading the way, the group of ten men grabbed the “magic supply terminal” thing and started pushing magic into it.

  The crimson ore furnace took on a faint golden glow.

  However, they didn’t seem to be able to produce the magic fast enough, and the glow began flickering on and off.

  “Looks like you’re a bit short. Let me help out.”

  “If you’re helping, Father, then I will, too.”

  Even Elder Dohal and Mr. Dorial came to pitch in.

  Mr. Dorial was gr
inning and rolling up his sleeves, excited to get a piece of the action.

  I have enough MP to spare anyway, so I ought to help, too.

  “Sir Dohal, would you mind if I help as well?”

  “Just use a free terminal!”

  “M-master!”

  Elder Dohal easily granted me permission to help.

  Judging by the way Zajuul and the other dwarves gaped at him in disbelief, it was probably unusual for an outsider to be permitted to touch the equipment.

  I bowed to Elder Dohal and touched the crystal ball on the metal terminal.

  “All right, you lot! Breathe in time!”

  “““RIGHT!”””

  Elder Dohal and Zajuul alternately shouted “HEIGH!” and “HO!” to get a rhythm going.

  I almost lost it when I heard that signature phrase being shouted over and over, but I managed to keep a straight face.

  Trying to focus, I poured more magic power into the terminal. When I felt slight changes, I adjusted accordingly.

  At first, I put in only one point at a time out of fear of breaking the furnace, but it seemed to be able to handle a bit more.

  After a while, I felt a very slight sense that the flow of magic was being blocked. It was probably an effect of my “Magic-Tool Tuning” skill. Changing my title to Tuner while I was at it, I focused on cleaning the magical path for them.

  “HEIGH!”

  I added five points of magic to give an extra push to the current from the dwarves.

  That seemed to be enough to clear out the blockage in the magic flow.

  The flashing glow of the scarlet ore began to stabilize.

  “HO!”

  This time, I pushed in ten points of magic power.

  Along with it, I corrected a slight distortion in the route of the magic.

  Yeah, that’s better.

  The golden glow of the furnace grew.

  “It’s stabilizing! You can do it!”

  Jojorie’s cheer put the spark back in the dwarves’ eyes.

  Looks like men are weak to the cheers of beautiful women in any world.

  The furnace began to let off a shrill sound as the repeated shots of magic started to cross the threshold.

  “Now! Throw in the mithril ore!”

  “Right!”

  At Elder Dohal’s command, the dwarf who was waiting on standby near the furnace tossed in the ore.

  “Mithril blast furnace preparations complete!”

  “All hands, equip light protection gear!”

  Zajuul followed up Elder Dohal’s words with instructions to everyone else.

  Immediately, the dwarves all pulled out dark goggles from who-knows-where and put them on.

  Um, what? I don’t have anything like that, though?!

  “Here, Mr. Satou.”

  Jojorie came up behind me and affixed something like sunglasses to my face.

  “It’s a light shield. The glow of the furnace can hurt your eyes even when you’re wearing these, though, so please avoid looking directly at it.”

  “Thank you very much.”

  I nodded gratefully to Jojorie just as Elder Dohal made another declaration.

  “Mithril blast furnace, commence operation!”

  “Right!”

  One dwarf moved away from the magic supply terminal and gave the control panel a hearty smack.

  The reddish-gold glow around the furnace gathered at the bottom, creating dazzling rings of light that floated upward rhythmically.

  It was a beautiful sight.

  The next moment, my eyes were overwhelmed.

  I must have been unconsciously using the “Night Vision” skill, rendering the protection of the light shield fairly useless, and the excessive brightness fried my retinas.

  Manipulating the menu that floated over my completely dark field of vision, I discovered that my status now read Blind.

  Luckily, my eyesight returned before I could start panicking about what to do.

  My “Self-Healing” must have automatically repaired my retinas. That’s a relief.

  > Skill Acquired: “Light Intensity Adjustment”

  > Skill Acquired: “Light Resistance”

  I got some weird robot-sounding skills in the process, so I maxed them out with skill points and activated them before my eyes could get burned out again.

  Then, as I gazed at the now moderate light of the mithril blast furnace, I heard Elder Dohal yelling at his crew.

  “Come on, you lot! The work’s not over yet! Keep the magical pressure going!”

  “““RIGHT!”””

  Apparently, I chose a poor time for the glow to distract me.

  I joined the dwarves in supplying more magic power.

  By the end, I’d poured in about three hundred points, but my MP recovery was fast enough that I could’ve kept going indefinitely.

  The dwarves, on the other hand, seemed to be pushing themselves too hard and dropped one after another from overwork.

  Eventually, the only two left standing aside from me were Elder Dohal and Zajuul.

  “Look at you, human! Seems I misjudged ya!”

  Zajuul chuckled heartily and smacked my shoulder with a thick palm.

  With my high VIT stat, I was fine, but it probably would’ve knocked a normal human flat on the ground.

  “Thanks for your help, Mr. Satou. Are you thirsty? You too, Mr. Zajuul.”

  I took a gulp of the liquid Jojorie offered me.

  Immediately, I felt alcohol burning my throat and caught the refreshing scent of rice wine in my nostrils.

  I nearly choked with surprise, but somehow I kept it together.

  “…Is this alcohol?”

  “Distilled rice wine from the city, yes. It won’t get you drunk like strong spirits would, but it’s good for you to drink after working up a sweat.”

  Using highly alcoholic distilled liquor as a substitute for a sports drink…? I guess that’s typical for dwarves.

  “Zajuul!”

  “Yes! Master!”

  Zajuul pressed a button on the lower part of the furnace, and the door at the bottom opened, producing the freshly tempered mithril.

  Instead of a melted metal like iron, it produced about twenty solid ingots that looked like they weighed around ten pounds each.

  They were even in the proper shape already. There must have been a mold inside.

  Once they cooled, the completed ingots gleamed silver with a faint green finish.

  Hearing thudding sounds, I turned to see that a door on the side of the furnace had opened to discharge some blackish lumps. According to my AR display, it was mithril slag.

  …Clank.

  A metallic sound made me turn back around. There, I saw Elder Dohal hitting one of the ingots with a small hammer to check the sound.

  Then he pointed out a few that had met his standards, instructing Zajuul to bring them to the smithing area.

  “Come along, youngster. I’ll have ye hammer in turn with me.”

  “Master! A human child can’t keep up with your hammering!”

  “Silence, you! Don’t contradict my decisions!”

  I was going to be smithing with Elder Dohal.

  “Youngster! Ye’d best assume that ye won’t be sleeping till morning. Jojorie, we’ll need meat. We still have that smoked basilisk, do we not? Bring the whole thing here. We must fill our stomachs first.”

  So you can eat basilisk…? I had stowed away the corpse of the one I defeated before because its meat was poisonous, but maybe I should try to figure out how to remove the poison and cook it.

  Once we’d moved to the blacksmiths’ messroom and Jojorie had served us, I asked her to deliver a message and some food to Arisa and the others.

  We had already arranged to spend the night in the mayor’s guesthouse, so it shouldn’t be a problem.

  The whole process had taken such a long time that Mr. Dorial had already returned to his mayoral duties, leaving Jojorie behind.

  A huge lump of me
tal shook the floor with a thud.

  “What’s the matter, youngster? Is the giant smithing hammer giving you second thoughts?”

  Zajuul smirked and patted the handle of the enormous tool on the floor.

  It was basically just a huge unrefined lump of metal with a handle, and it looked like it could easily weigh a ton.

  According to the AR display, it was made with an alloy of iron and mithril.

  “A dwarf would be able to lift this with one hand, y’know. Put yer back into it!”

  The absurd size of it did intimidate me, despite Zajuul’s attempt at encouragement.

  Dwarves can lift this with one hand? They must be crazy strong.

  As if he could hear my admiration, Zajuul did indeed lift it up with one hand to demonstrate.

  I pretended not to notice that he was trying to impress Jojorie. I didn’t want to make a comment that might earn him another smack from Elder Dohal.

  Preparing myself, I put both hands on the handle of the giant hammer.

  Thanks to my absurdly high STR stat, I was able to lift it easily. If anything, keeping my balance was the hardest part, because my body was so light.

  I did my best to brace my legs and lower my center of gravity until it felt almost unnaturally steady.

  It was possible that my “Transport” skill made finding my balance easier despite the heavy load.

  While I practiced swinging the giant hammer, Elder Dohal peered into the pot his apprentices had brought.

  “It’s a little weak. Bring something stronger.”

  “Och, master, this is all we’ve got right now.”

  “Have Ganza formulate some more, then.”

  “Och, Ganza went back home to take care of some incident in Boleheim.”

  Guess the chemicals we were supposed to use for smithing didn’t meet Elder Dohal’s standards.

  As the person in charge of formulating them was away right now, it was a bit of a problem.

  If I’d known the recipe, I could formulate it instead, but I couldn’t imagine they would teach it to outsiders.

  “Jojorie! Go up to the surface and get me an alchemist. Anyone will do.”

  Those instructions were pretty vague…but if anyone would suffice, then maybe I could at least offer.

  “Lord Dohal, if you really do mean anyone, perhaps I could formulate it?”