kscans

Chapter 216 - The Artisans 2. The Ornament Artisan (Part 2)

"A magic tool?"

Surprised by the unexpected word, Yuri turned around to see Adon, who seemed to have finished his consultation, and the craftsman he had been talking to. It seemed this man had been the one who spoke.

"Yeah. Some craftsmen know alchemy, but most of us, including me, rely on magic tools. Well, you need a minimum of alchemy to use them, though."

To summarize the explanation of the young craftsman named Yagu, it was as follows.

Even though it's a decoration, as a part of a piece of armor, it needs to have a certain degree of rigidity. For a craftsman, it is apparently a mortal shame to have only the decoration blown off by an enemy's blow. However, unlike in cases where it is carved directly into the base metal from the beginning, an attached decoration inevitably has a weak adhesion point. That's where alchemy and magic tools come in.

"To explain using this torso decoration as an example, you bend it like this to follow the curve of the torso, and then you use a magic tool to harden it and attach it to the torso."

"I see. So, when they're on display, they're still soft?"

"That's right. It's easier to work with them that way."

It seems they first create a rough shape by casting, and then finish it by hand using tools such as chisels. In some cases, they also apply inlays or plating. They display them after they have been shaped to a certain extent, and then finish them according to the client's preferences and intentions.

"And then, at the finishing stage, as I said before, we use a magic tool to harden and attach it."

"Is it originally alchemy?"

"Yeah. But only a few craftsmen know alchemy. Most of us rely on magic tools."

This was not something he could just let slide.

Yuri possessed the strange skill of Alchemy (Strange) as a sub-skill of Rural Life Guide, but that fact was, at least from Yuri's perspective, kept secret. However, he did not hide the fact that he was studying alchemy on his own, and pretended that he was only trying things that could be done by hand. Therefore, it was not unnatural for him to be interested in alchemy, whether he could use it or not, and by extension, it was not strange for him to obtain that magic tool. He would get a justification for using Alchemy (Strange), though he would ignore the suffix. How could he not jump at this chance?

With this ulterior motive, Yuri listened intently to the craftsman Yagu's story. But from Yagu's perspective, the unexpectedly positive reaction to a story about a mundane task made him take a liking to Yuri. His story naturally became more passionate, which in turn elicited an even more positive reaction from Yuri, creating a wonderfully positive spiral. Even without the ulterior motive, it was an interesting topic for Yuri, who had the disposition of a producer, so their conversation became quite lively. But at a convenient point, Kudol guided Yuri's interest towards sword fittings. The talk about armor and helmets was fine, but he couldn't have him forgetting the purpose of his visit today. The reason they brought Yuri here was, above all else, to show him what "normal" sword fittings looked like.

The official story about the "Mottled Blade Sword" that Yuri had accidentally created was that it was an ancient artifact that Yuri's ancestor, who was probably a foreigner, had found in some dungeon. Or rather, that was the story they were planning to stick with. However, as it was now, it was just in a plain wooden scabbard with no decoration, so they all agreed that it needed at least one decoration befitting an ancient artifact. That decoration would naturally be made by Yuri. But since the setting was that it was excavated from a dungeon in a foreign land, it was fine for the design to be foreign in style, but a decoration that stood out too much was not good. So, Adon, Kudol, and Old Man Audel's intention was to show him the normal sword fittings of this country and guide him not to go too overboard.

At this point, Yuri thought.

Regardless of the official story, Adon and the others knew that the Mottled Blade Sword was actually made by Yuri. If he were to bring up a genuinely foreign, in other words, a Japanese-style design from his past life, here, it was inevitable that they would suspect where he had seen such a design. As Yuri was sticking to the setting that "my grandfather didn't tell me much about my homeland," he had to avoid any words or actions that would contradict the official setting as much as possible.

It was with that in mind that he had accepted Adon and the others' invitation, but there was actually another, more pressing problem.

To be blunt, whether it was from his past life in Japan or anywhere else, Yuri didn't really know anything about the design of sword fittings. In his past life, Isarai Yuuri had seen a historical drama or two, and it wasn't as if he had never seen a samurai doll for the May festival. When he was a child, his parents had taken him to see Japanese swords on display in a museum, and he had been impressed. But the crucial point was that he only vaguely remembered the design of the sword fittings. How could he design "foreign-style sword fittings" in this situation? Adon and the others' proposal was a godsend for Yuri as well.

(Is it a style like Baroque or Rococo? But if I designed it, it would probably end up looking like a furoshiki with a karakusa pattern. Well, it is foreign-style, so maybe that's fine, but...)

As Yuri was struggling, his eyes happened to fall on a candlestick next to him. Seeing a design that somehow reminded him of Gallé from his past life on Earth...

(Maybe I'll go with an Art Nouveau or Art Deco style design. Looking at it like this, it doesn't seem to stand out too much.)