kscans

Chapter 151 - A Fine Sword, It Seems ~Act One~ 1. Press Working

The harvest from Laurenzen was varied, but being able to obtain materials and tools unavailable in the Salt-Sour Mountain, taking the beginner's course hosted by the Adventurer's Guild, and acquiring the belongings of an alchemist were particularly great gains. And now, Yuri was about to aim for new heights, using those gains as sustenance.

To put it plainly, he was about to challenge himself to some serious smithing.

In the Adventurer's Guild's beginner's course, he had visited the workshop of a smith contracted with the guild and, under careful guidance, forged a single dagger. As he had secretly hoped, this unlocked Smithing (Basic), though he did not make it public. The instructor smith had told him that all that was left was to gain experience by forging more, and as for materials, he fortunately had a decent amount of wrought iron he had made while practicing Alchemy, though he decided to ignore the (Strange) suffix. He had also been able to buy a portable furnace, which at first glance looked like a shichirin charcoal stove, from the Smith's Guild. It came with their seal of approval that it was perfectly usable for simple tasks. He had also obtained a small hammer and anvil.

With both materials and tools at hand, all that was left was practice. He had learned proper smithing techniques, noting it was the guild's beginner course, and if he just put in the reps, he should be able to forge a decent mountain knife... shouldn't he...?

Yuri, who had enthusiastically challenged himself to smithing, would soon taste the bitterness of failure. During the beginner's course, the instructor smith had guided him every step of the way, but when he tried to work on his own again, he found it to be an incredibly difficult task. Well, if one could perform a smith's work on their own after just a beginner's course, the smithing business would be ruined. It would be strange if he could.

That said, perhaps thanks to his strange alchemy or magic, the process of carburizing wrought iron to turn it into steel was going without a problem. Looking at that part alone, he was on par with a professional smith. So, what was going wrong?

"Hmm... No good. I just can't get the thickness or width consistent..."

He had been trying to forge a mountain knife for a while now, but he could not make the blade's thickness and width uniform. It was far beyond what could be fixed with a whetstone or file. To put it bluntly, it looked like a child's clay craft and did not look like a blade. If it were just ugly, it would be one thing, but an uneven blade would have inconsistencies in the iron's hardness, worsening its durability. At worst, he could not rule out the possibility of pores in the blade.

Incidentally, why was he making an iron tool deliberately when Magic Stone Tools were sufficient for daily use? It was because the "light" characteristic of Magic Stone Tools could sometimes be a disadvantage. Hard and light Magic Stone Tools were useful for butchering and cooking, but they were not suitable for chopping. They demonstrated tremendous sharpness if you added a "pulling toward you" motion like with a Japanese sword, but it was a hassle to do that every time you were bushwhacking. It was easier to chop and send things flying with force, but for that, it lacked weight. In conclusion, a mountain knife made of iron was easier to use.

With that plan in mind, Yuri had been trying to forge a mountain knife for a while, but he was having no success at all.

"Hmm... Forging itself will just take more practice, but..."

He felt a sense of romance in the smith's craft of forging a heated lump of iron, but that was that. Obtaining ironware, especially blades, was an urgent and essential matter. If he could not forge a blade, he would have to make one another way. After all, counting on the Smithing (Basic) skill unlocked in the beginner's course, he had bought almost no blades in Laurenzen. It was a reckless plan.

"Then maybe like with the stone tools... No... this won't work either..."

He gave up on forging and tried to shape it with Earth Magic, but the fact that magic flowed through it less easily than through earth thwarted him. As previously stated, in this world of Forea, there was a grand principle that affinity for magic power was proportional to the length of time exposed to mana. This meant that substances that had never been exposed to the mana in the atmosphere, like iron ore buried deep underground, had difficulty absorbing magic power. This was one reason why many metal tools, represented by iron, did not have a good affinity for magic power. The iron sand Yuri had mined was a product of weathering, so magic flowed through it better than ordinary iron ore, but it was still inferior to the topsoil that was daily exposed to mana-filled air. As a result, its affinity for magic power was far higher than ordinary iron, but it had not reached the point where he could freely deform it with Earth Magic, at least not with Yuri's current abilities. ...Or, to be more precise, it was a hassle.

"Then... this is the only way."

And with that, the method Yuri adopted was, of all things, press working.

Of course, in this world, there was no such convenient thing as a press machine. What Yuri relied on was magic. He processed the steel into a uniform plate with his conveniently useful non-elemental magic and Earth Magic, and then, also with non-elemental magic, applied pressure to punch it out according to a mold. Even with his still clumsy skills, he should be able to make it in the shape he wanted this way. After that, he would just have to put an edge on it by grinding it with the rotary whetstone he had bought in Laurenzen. If he imbued the whetstone with magic power, the grinding efficiency might improve. It was not the art of a master or an artisan, if anything, it was the art of a strange man or a magic man, but as long as he could make something practical, that was enough. It was fitting for a beginner like him.

...According to the common sense of the world's mages, this way should have been more difficult.

In any case, he struggled with the unfamiliar work, but he still managed to create something like a mountain knife. The only miscalculation was...

"Smithing (Strange)...? What is this..."

The Smithing (Basic) he was supposed to have acquired in the beginner's course in Laurenzen had, at some point, transformed into Smithing (Strange) Apprentice. The "Apprentice" suffix seemed like it would disappear as he gained forging experience, but as for the (Strange) suffix...

"Hmm... I wonder if you get the character for 'strange' when you try to take shortcuts using magic? It probably means it's not the common way... but oh well. Technology and civilization are nurtured by a mind that seeks laziness."

This was last November, three days before he dabbled in the development of the automatic rifle.