A Craftsman Chooses His Tools (3)
Although I had stirred up chaos across the entire world, not just the Gallery, I had no intention of actually giving the alloy away.
Its mere existence had already caused an uproar. If I truly handed it over, the world would descend into chaos in the fullest sense of the word.
I had not forgotten the dwarf’s warning. All I had done was put out the immediate fire.
Unless it’s an actual nuclear weapon, it’s difficult to prevent wars.
History had already proven that. Dynamite and the Gatling gun were prime examples.
We have weapons and resources this powerful, so surely people won’t go to war anymore, right?
Until nuclear weapons appeared, people merely celebrated their new toys and continued waging war. Two world wars had even erupted in the process.
The Mithricon I possessed could follow a similar path. Therefore, not giving it away was the best option.
If circumstances truly became desperate, the king of the affected nation would have to beg me for it. The first step would be creating a registered account.
He would also have to provide an object or witnesses capable of proving that he really was the nation’s ruler.
If he was willing to expose his entire "private life," I might consider giving him one Mithricon ingot.
If he could not even do that, he was unqualified to be a leader. What value did his petty pride have compared to his country?
This stuff is lying around everywhere here, yet it causes an uproar outside. How strange.
I examined the Mithricon ingot from various angles. On the surface, it was merely a dull gray ingot.
It was difficult to believe that releasing even one of these onto the market could start a war.
If the dwarf had not warned me beforehand, I probably would have distributed them without a second thought.
If I’d done that, the world really would’ve turned into Dragon Ball.
What would have happened if I had released this into the world?
Not by giving it to an acquaintance, but by listing it at auction.
Thankfully, I understood at least some of its value. Otherwise, I might have accidentally destroyed the world.
For the time being, I’ll have to monitor the Gallery closely.
What concerned me most was public opinion.
Due to the Gallery’s nature, public sentiment fluctuated wildly.
In other words, it was difficult to view anything objectively through the Gallery.
I could at least ask the other registered users for their opinions, but...
This is difficult. Really difficult.
I closed the Gallery. It had undoubtedly grown quieter than before.
No one could tell whether the earlier commotion had been mere hysteria or the calm before the storm.
All I could do now was prepare for the worst.
In other words, I needed to make some spare Mithricon ingots.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
To do that, I needed to mine more mithril.
As for orichalcum, simply picking up what had fallen onto the cave floor would provide more than enough.
The only problem was the mithril growing naturally at the back of my cave.
"...."
Mining it took forever, and afterward, I had to gather it all and mix it with orichalcum.
I really wish I had one more worker.
Kkobong was the only worker I had who could use his hands, and he could not handle all the work by himself.
One might ask why I did not put Ludwig to work. I had initially intended to.
The man had lost a foot, not his hands. I did not care how much he glared at me like I was human garbage.
Clap!
The problem was Ludwig’s mithril ankle.
The closer he approached the naturally growing mithril at the back of the cave, the more strongly his ankle stuck to it like a magnet.
Fortunately, it did not fuse with the vein. The problem was that separating him from it was extremely difficult.
"Pull!"
"Uoooooh!"
Kkobong and I had to combine our strength just to pry him loose.
Consequently, I had no choice but to exclude Ludwig from the mining work.
However, mining was not the only issue. A chain of other problems soon emerged.
Damn it. Now I have to make all the tools myself again.
Apart from the tongs, I had no choice but to craft all my other tools personally.
Otherwise, they could not withstand the hardness of Mithricon and quickly wore down or broke.
They were absolutely necessary, especially for creating the holes where the handles would be inserted.
"Kkobong, I’m going to the cave. Keep mining while I’m gone."
"Understood."
I visited the orichalcum cave to replenish my materials, then began making the various tools.
Between the forge’s heat and the summer weather, sweat poured from my body like rain.
In the end, I had no choice but to wrap a towel around my head like a bandanna. This was exhausting.
Why am I putting myself through all this?
There was a common situation in games.
Whenever you advanced to the next stage, all the materials you had worked so hard to collect became completely useless.
This was not exactly the same, but the fact that I had to perform grueling physical labor remained unchanged.
What made it even more absurd was that those materials would become useful again in the distant future.
Alternatively, there were materials you needed to use from the beginning of the game until the very end.
"Wait, I’m already out of charcoal?"
In my case, "charcoal" fit the latter example perfectly.
Now that I had begun practicing metallurgy in earnest, my charcoal consumption had risen sharply.
Even without the forge, wood had already had countless uses in the forest.
I could not produce charcoal carelessly either. I had no choice but to construct a dedicated charcoal kiln.
Naturally, the kiln would be made from bricks. Besides producing charcoal, it would also be useful for melting metal.
Unless I discovered another new mineral, I probably would not use my makeshift furnace very often from now on.
[Wild Grylls: Do you know how to build a charcoal kiln?]
[Passing Dwarf: Yeah, I do.]
[Wild Grylls: Do you need anything in return?]
[Passing Dwarf: We’ll call it even for the hammer you gave me last time. I’ll send you the blueprints.]
I obtained instructions for constructing a charcoal kiln from the dwarf. The construction itself was not difficult.
The problem was that everything was closely connected to "fire," leaving me drenched in sweat.
A forge, a charcoal kiln, and various other facilities—the number of structures around the shelter continued to increase.
I even had to dismantle and rebuild the brick barricade I had painstakingly erected.
At least the other beasts rarely attack this place...
I would genuinely want to cry if everything I had worked so hard to build was destroyed.
After finishing the charcoal kiln, I asked Ludwig for help.
"Mister, please handle the logging. Kkobong is busy mining."
"Understood."
[You certainly know how to work us to the bone.]
I smiled at Cain’s remark and replied.
"Would you like to watch the wood transform into charcoal from inside the kiln?"
[O Ares, please deliver me from this hell of indolence.]
What hell of indolence? This was the sort of place where refusing to work only hurt you in the end.
In any case, our thorough division of labor allowed us to make steady progress.
I did not neglect my training along the way. I could not forget my original purpose simply because I had become absorbed in smithing.
We repeated the same routine for approximately three days. It felt as though I had spent every waking hour working in the forge.
Stretching this out like taffy is exhausting.
I also forged a pickaxe along the way. Making the pickaxe was even more difficult than making a hammer.
Not only did I have to use a fairly large ingot, but I also had to create a large hole through its center.
Nevertheless, I somehow managed to complete it and hand it to Kkobong.
Clang! Clang!
"How is it? Does it work well?"
"Much better."
Thanks to the Mithricon pickaxe, Kkobong could mine mithril much more easily.
In the process, we discovered something new: the vein was remarkably large.
No matter how much we mined, more mithril kept emerging. I could not even guess where the heart of the vein was.
"Mister, how’s the axe?"
"Excellent."
I had forged not only a pickaxe, but also an axe.
Wood was not particularly hard, but Ludwig could not use mana.
Therefore, I made him a Mithricon axe to make his work more convenient.
That should be all the tools I need.
After spending three straight days hammering metal, my ears were beginning to ring.
Other than that, however, I was perfectly fine. Even the stamina I expended recovered quickly.
Vwoooom!
Whenever I had spare time, I practiced controlling my aura. I used the Mithricon sword rather than the Heavenly Demon’s Sword.
I silently gazed at the blade, across which a green galaxy had unfolded. An Aura Blade enveloped it.
Even the Heavenly Demon’s Sword had produced an extraordinarily long Aura Blade, but the one extending from the Mithricon sword was far longer.
As people had said on the Gallery, mithril was a mineral that perfectly embodied the phrase "carried by your gear."
And since it had been combined with orichalcum, its performance had been boosted even further.
Surprisingly, however, the Mithricon sword suited the current me quite well.
Controlling it is surprisingly easy.
Because the aura expanded to such an enormous size, shrinking it was conversely easier.
Whenever I tried compressing the aura with the Heavenly Demon’s Sword, it erupted like a fountain. The Mithricon sword was different.
I should practice with this for the time being.
Ludwig—an excellent worker, no, an excellent assistant at Grylls’s shelter—watched Grylls practice controlling his aura with the Mithricon sword.
The green galaxy was mesmerizing enough to make one lose oneself merely by looking at it.
Perhaps because Grylls was the wielder, the galaxy’s light seemed more intense than before.
It never ceases to amaze me.
The same applied not only to the sword, but also to the other tools. Grylls had made every one of them from Mithricon.
Thanks to them, their work had become much easier, leaving more time for training.
Ludwig had also made an interesting discovery regarding Grylls’s aura-control training.
Grylls had been unable to grasp the technique while using the Heavenly Demon’s Sword, yet with the Mithricon sword, he performed several times better.
Since the Mithricon sword amplified aura severalfold, Ludwig had assumed it would be more difficult to control.
Contrary to his expectations, however, the Mithricon sword was more suitable—at least for training.
He even uses an outrageously expensive sword for practice.
Ludwig wondered what would have happened if Grylls had trained outside the Forest of Four Seasons.
It would have been extraordinarily difficult. In a sense, teaching him would have been even more difficult than teaching a dullard.
A dullard was difficult to teach because they lacked talent. Grylls, on the other hand, possessed the kind of talent that made an instructor throw up their hands and ask what sort of absurd talent this was.
Vwoom! Vwoom! Vwoom! Vwoom!
It happened while Ludwig was quietly observing him.
A strange noise began emanating from the sword Grylls was using to practice aura control.
Looking closer, the towering mass of aura that had seemed capable of piercing the heavens had shrunk.
That reaction did not bode well.
Ludwig quietly began evacuating just as—
Fweeeeee!
The Mithricon sword flew out of Grylls’s hand and shot into the sky.
Everyone’s gaze followed it upward.
The sword soared so high that it soon became a star in the distant sky before disappearing. That alone would have been absurd enough.
But it did not merely become another star in the sky.
KWA-KWA-KWA-BOOOOM!
A gigantic explosion erupted alongside a flash bright enough to blanket the heavens.
Although the explosion had occurred far above them, its shock wave reached the shelter.
...Was that magic?
Even magic should not have been capable of something like that.
Ludwig looked at Grylls with a complicated expression.
Grylls himself appeared dumbfounded, clearly having no idea how he had done it.
Seeing his expression, Ludwig muttered inwardly.
A true craftsman doesn’t blame his tools.
But this one really ought to be more selective about his.
To anyone else, the Mithricon sword would have been a legendary blade straight out of myth.
But to Grylls?
Forget a legendary blade. It was a wheelchair or a pair of crutches made from the finest materials imaginable.
"So it really can be used like a missile."
Grylls, however, remained oblivious to all of that and merely thought, So this is how dangerous Mithricon is!
***
Meanwhile, the Mithricon sword Grylls had inadvertently launched high into the sky...
Grylls had no choice but to give up on recovering it.
It had not only become a star in the heavens, but had also caused an enormous explosion. There was no way it could still be intact.
Whoooooosh—
It was perfectly intact.
Not a single part of it had broken or cracked.
There even seemed to be aura remaining within the sword, as it occasionally released bursts of energy.
Like a rocket jettisoning its third stage after being launched into space, it continued flying farther and farther away.
Of course, it could not pierce the atmosphere like Cain had. It was metal, after all, so passing through the atmosphere would inevitably damage it.
The Mithricon sword continued releasing aura while maintaining a delicate altitude.
Eventually, as though it had exhausted all the aura remaining within it, it began to descend slowly.
Whoooooosh—
The Mithricon sword accelerated as it fell.
It crossed vast distances, passing from one region into another entirely different one.
From Grylls’s perspective, it did not matter. He could simply make another sword.
The problem was where that sword would ultimately land.
Would it fall before the Sinner of Eldorado?
No.
No one knew where the Sinner of Eldorado currently was.
Even if he had been fortunate enough to survive, he would not last much longer.
Then where would the Mithricon sword’s journey end?
Would it fall in some untouched wilderness and remain there forever?
Flash!
Not at all.
The sword abruptly vanished from the sky without leaving the slightest trace.
Then, the blade that had disappeared from the heavens embedded itself somewhere outside the Forest of Four Seasons.
No one knew precisely where it had landed.
"Grk?"
"Grrrk?"
However, one thing was certain.
It would bring no small amount of change to the world.