novelraw Chapter 36 : Mage Hunting (2)
Chapter 36 : Mage Hunting (2)
Chapter 36: Mage Hunting (2)
The forge of old Gulak, the Ironhammer, was cramped and shabby.
The metallic scent of iron mixed with mold created a stench like rotting blood. Various tools for blacksmithing were scattered carelessly on the floor, while the racks meant for finished products stood completely empty. The rusted anvil, the bellows with holes in them, and the hearth as hollow as a corpse's eye sockets had long forgotten the days when they were filled with heat and sparks.
An awkward atmosphere hung between the owner and his uninvited guests. Feeling obligated to offer some hospitality, Gulak limped over with a tray. Inside the dented metal cups sloshed a murky liquid of questionable origin.
“My apologies for not having anything proper to serve you, Consul. It is a wine I brewed the year before last, though I'm not sure it'll suit your taste."
"No, it's fine. It's my fault for showing up without notice."
Gulak used the anvil as a table. Enrico let out a small groan after seeing that. Any other blacksmith who held anvils sacred would've been horrified at the sight. But Kadim showed no reaction whatsoever; he just calmly picked up a cup and downed the drink in one gulp.
Then he offered his honest opinion.
"Tastes like absolute shit. What is this, dog teat brew?"
"......"
The already awkward atmosphere turned even colder.
Enrico couldn't believe his ears. How could anyone say something so insulting? Trying to salvage the situation, he quickly took a drink from his own cup.
But he couldn't even swallow a single mouthful before spitting it back out.
"Ugh, gah! Ptoi, ptoi, ptoi! Wh-what the hell is this supposed to be, Gulak?!"
"......Dog teat wine, sir. My apologies, Consul. I guess it really wasn’t to your liking.”
While Enrico wore an expression of utter dismay, Gulak cleared away the cups he'd brought. As he stood up, he snuck a look at Kadim. The way he looked at the barbarian was just a little different now.
It took a while for the Consul of Remtana to recover from the shock of dog teat wine. Once he finally regained his composure, Gulak confirmed what he'd heard earlier.
"So you're saying this Atalan mercenary... took down the troll blocking the Twin Gorges?"
"Ahem, that's right. And alone, at that."
"And he saved your life too, Consul?"
"Yes."
"And that's why you introduced him to me?"
"Exactly. Say what they will, you’re still the best blacksmith in this city.”
"......"
Gulak's face hardened like coal at that, and Enrico forced his lips into a stiff smile. A heavy silence fell, and the two of them just watched each other, trying to read the other’s mind.
Kadim found this situation rather bizarre.
It wasn't so strange for a blacksmith to be mindful of a Consul, the guy is practically the most powerful person in the city after all. But it was definitely weird that the Consul was walking on eggshells around the blacksmith.
Even if the old man refused to work, the Consul had enough authority to force him...
What happened next was even stranger.
Enrico wiped the stiff smile from his face and rubbed his features. After some hesitation, he let out a heavy exhale, stood up from his seat—
And knelt before the blacksmith.
"......!"
Gulak's eyes widened at the sudden action. Enrico kept his head bowed as he spoke calmly.
“I know this is long overdue, but I want to apologize for everything you went through. A Consul is supposed to carry the city's burdens, but I neglected that duty, and I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to say it.”
"......"
"I know full well that you've long since stopped working as a blacksmith. But please, just this once, could you help my benefactor? This isn't something just anyone can do. Only a craftsman with your skill could handle this task."
Even in the dim light, Kadim could see that the old man was shaken.
His disheveled beard twitched. The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes quivered. It was the face of an old man who wanted to burst into tears but whose emotion had run dry, leaving him unable to cry.
It took a long moment for the storm inside him to pass. When he finally found his voice, he spoke with difficulty.
"......Please stand, Consul. You've done nothing wrong, so why kneel before a lowly metalworker like me......"
Enrico showed no sign of getting up. Only after Gulak limped over to help him did he finally rise to his feet.
"Fine, I'll do it. Good grief, with the Consul himself begging like this, how can I say no... At least let me hear what this is about first."
Enrico thanked him profusely and waved to the men outside. The soldiers waiting there struggled to carry in something big and wrapped in cloth. They pulled the cover off, revealing a sturdy suit of plate armor.
A gasp of awe left Gulak’s lips.
"By Remillion... this is......"
"Armor worn by a high-ranking Paladin of the Empire. And inside it are fragments of a Divine Armament," Kadim said flatly.
Gulak rubbed his eyes in disbelief, then slapped his forehead.
“Well, I’ll be damned. You live long enough to see everything. Never thought I'd see high Paladin equipment in my lifetime... How in the world did you get something like this?”
"It's complicated. Nothing good will come from knowing, so I'll skip the explanation. And obviously, you can’t tell a soul you saw this.”
"......"
"Anyway, I want you to make a weapon out of this stuff. Think you can do it, old man?”
Gulak's mind had already left the room. He examined the armor with meticulous care as if lost in a trance. He wasn't just looking; he was touching it, tapping it, stroking it, pressing it, and he even tasted the damn thing. He got so close he almost singed his face on the Divine Armament’s fire.
Only after a good while passed did the blacksmith finish his inspection. He was dripping with sweat as he gave his amazed report.
"Iron and cobalt... meteorite and hardened silver, plus a few other things mixed into this alloy. The combination of heat resistance and strength is absolutely brilliant. The engraving and the riveting work are pure art, and there's some mysterious power in there that even I don't know. Damn, I’d love to get a look at the inside, but that blasted Divine Armament fragment is making it too hot…”
"......"
"But wait, you can't touch that thing because of the blasted rejection reaction, right? And if you melt everything down completely, the blessings infused in it will disappear. How the hell am I supposed to turn that into a weapon?”
Kadim explained the plan he came up with step-by-step. Truth be told, even he wasn’t entirely sure it would actually work.
After hearing the full explanation, Gulak snorted.
"That's ridiculous. You think metal is clay you can just shape and stick however you want? There isn't a blacksmith in the entire world who could do that kind of work."
Just as Kadim was about to feel disappointed, the old man added quietly.
"Except for the ancient dwarves who ruled the north, and Remtana's Ironhammer here."
Ironhammer Gulak grinned, revealing his broken front teeth.
It was a smile that oozed pride in his own skills.
"......Then I'll be counting on you."
Gulak nodded vigorously.
For the first time in ages, the heat of a furnace kindled in the craftsman's eyes. Like a man possessed, he shouted with excitement.
"I'll start working right away, so don’t you worry about a thing, Consul! Let's see, first I need to clean everything thoroughly, strip the rust off the anvil, fix the bellows, buy firewood and charcoal... Ah! Say, mercenary. I noticed earlier you can really hold your liquor, need some more? I've got some left......"
Kadim almost cursed out loud. Did this old coot already forget I told him it tasted like garbage?
But since he'd already commissioned the work, he figured it wouldn't hurt to humor him a bit. He readily held out his empty waterskin. Gullak grinned ear to ear and filled it to the top with that dog-milk booze. He must have been in a really good mood because he even offered to do extra work Kadim hadn't asked for.
"Hey, need me to fix up your other weapons? It won’t take long. I can check them out whenever I have a spare moment.”
After some thinking, Kadim handed over only his Mosquito, keeping his axe hidden. The dwarf-made axe wasn't in bad shape anyway, and if he showed that too, the blacksmith would probably waste half a day gawking at it.
"Well now, you've really put this blade through hell... To make what you ordered and fix this sword up, it’s going to take at least fifteen days to finish everything. Go look around the city or something and come back then!”
By the time they finished, the sun had set and dusky evening light filled the streets outside. The Consul, the barbarian, and the soldiers filed out of the shabby forge one by one.
Even as they walked away, the sounds of the excited blacksmith bustling around didn't stop.
***
“...He’s a pitiful old man. It’s one of those cases where being too talented actually ruined his life.”
On the way from the outskirts toward the city center, Enrico told Gulak's story without being asked.
“He’s a local born and raised in Remtana long before I took off five here. I heard he was a genius with iron ever since he was a kid, and everyone around here knew about him.”
Back then, there were many monsters around Remtana, so plenty of mercenaries were permanently stationed there, which naturally meant high demand for quality weapons and armor. It was only natural that Gulak, the most skilled blacksmith, earned good money and fame. He eventually married a local girl, had a son, and lived a pretty good life.
But the Mage Tower's extermination order changed everything.
They launched a massive campaign that completely wiped out the monsters. The mercenaries who hunted them for a living all left town. After struggling for years with no business, Gullak finally decided to leave Remtana for the larger city of Delutana.
“Even if you're a free citizen, moving your official residence to another city costs a massive transfer fee. All the money Gullak had saved up still wasn't enough. So he had no choice but to use his savings to relocate only his wife and son's citizenship first. He planned to make enough money here and follow them later.”
But the Consul before Enrico had no intention of letting that happen. A skilled blacksmith was a precious human resource that was difficult to replace. He coerced Gulak into staying by demanding that he pay double the normal relocation fee.
Gulak ground his teeth at the unfair treatment, but there was nothing he could do. A Consul wasn't someone a mere blacksmith could stand up to.
He endured his longing for his family while desperately scraping together money for years. Finally, he gathered the massive relocation fee and paid it to the Consul.
"But that Consul didn't keep his promise. Instead of granting permission to go to Delutana... he framed Gulak, confiscated his assets, and severed his heel tendons."
"......"
Now Kadim understood why the blacksmith had stopped working. Why both men had shown such awkward reactions. Why the Consul had knelt before the blacksmith.
He felt no particular emotion about it. It was just another common tragedy of this world he'd witnessed countless times over the past three hundred years. If anything, what seemed more alien to Kadim was the sight of a Consul apologizing for something that wasn't even his fault.
Sensing the gaze, the Consul added a few more words.
"The Consuls of the Alliance are distinctly different from the Empire's Lords. Most Lords rule the same territory for their entire lives, but a Consul stays in one city for ten years at most."
"......"
“But as I said, the responsibility is the same. We must take responsibility for all the burdens of that place. Even if it's not my fault, that man's resentment and injustice now rest on my shoulders. I'd been meaning to visit him anyway, but there were so many pressing issues I couldn't find the time. Thanks to you, I finally got the chance to go and apologize.”
"...Being a Consul must be tough."
"It's a position where you learn a lot and find it rewarding. Well, it would be a lie to say that is the only reason I serve as a Consul..."
While they talked, they arrived in front of the Consul's residence. Enrico suggested Kadim stay here for a while and help search for traces of the mage but Kadim declined. A large barbarian constantly coming and going from such a place would attract far too much attention.
Instead, Kadim chose to stay at an inn in the central district.
"Welcome to the Drunken Ox!"
As soon as he stepped inside, a waitress with short hair gave him a cheerful welcome.
Being a proper city, the place was way better than backwater inns like Ekul's Feast. When the server mentioned that they could get a hot bath for ten Ludens, Duncan looked like he’d gone to heaven. But he completely panicked when she said that for 100 Luden, she could send a woman to "help" him scrub.
"Ha, haha, well... No thanks, I, uh, have a wife back home......"
Duncan politely declined in a roundabout way. Even when she teased him, saying his wife would never know unless he brought the girl home with him, he wouldn't budge. The barmaid eventually changed targets, following Kadim all the way into the bathhouse and persistently trying to make a sale.
"Our girls are really good, you know? For a gentleman with a big build and a big... oh my, Remillion above......"
"......"
"E-even Atalan men with, uh, big packages all left satisfied......"
Faced with the barbarian's solid muscles and endowments, the barmaid blushed and swallowed hard. As her gaze slowly traveled upward and reached his harshly scarred face, she finally gave up on the sales pitch.
Holding a woman had been a luxury he'd abandoned since developing his madness. Kadim simply scrubbed off the accumulated grime and returned to his room.
Duncan was already there, lying on the cotton-stuffed bed and looking like he was melting into the mattress. It was the happiest he'd seen him since they started this trip.
Seeing him like that brought back a fading memory.
Memories of lounging on a soft bed all day doing nothing, ordering fried chicken on a whim and chugging cold canned beer. Old memories that might forever remain just memories.
This was why he hated staying in nice places.
With a bitter twist of his lips, Kadim prepared to go out again.
"Take your time sightseeing around the city, Duncan. If you get thirsty for booze during the night, help yourself to what's in that waterskin."
"Understood, my lord! But, uh, what will you be doing?"
"Mage Hunting."
"......Pardon?"
Without adding any explanation, Kadim leapt out the window and landed softly, unbefitting his massive frame.
The cool night air brushed against his rough skin.
Since it was a small city, not many lights were on. The moon was gone, and only a few stars were scattered across the sky.
But that was more than enough for the barbarian's eyes to pierce through the night's landscape.
'The Consul said that the mage went in and out of the north side a lot... I’ll start looking there first.'
Kadim shot through the night air. The towering form of the barbarian warrior melted into the pitch-black darkness.