"It’s probably better if you see the process yourself. Come along.”
The dwarves led me toward their forge.
Calling it a "forge" felt a bit misleading though. It was just an ordinary house. Granted, that house happened to contain bellows, furnaces, hammers, and piles of every ore imaginable, but still.
For a race supposedly unmatched in metallurgy, it honestly looked less specialized than an Imperial blacksmith shop. It seemed that the line between their living space and workplace didn’t exist at all.
Of course, those thoughts vanished the moment one of them casually shoved his hand into molten metal.
"?"
"Hmm..."
As I stared in disbelief at the sight of someone touching liquid steel barehanded, the dwarf frowned.
It wasn’t because it was hot, but more like he was dissatisfied. He glared toward one of his companions and grumbled,
"You melted weird stuff again, didn’t you? Why’s the temperature so low?”
"Why’re you always blaming me when something isn’t right? I wasn’t even here today!”
Without exchanging another word, they naturally divided their tasks.
The speed felt less like craftsmanship and more like a factory assembly line calculated down to the second.
"If a human’s using it, we can’t make the alloy too heavy…”
"Hey, don’t make it too sharp. He’ll cut off his own leg putting it in the sheath.”
"You idiot, at this sharpness it wouldn’t even cut bamboo.”
-Fssssssh!
Metal melted before being hammered, polished, and refined.
The lump of steel I had brought transformed into the shape of a sword in less than 10 minutes.
In an Imperial forge, the quenching process alone would take over an hour. The true master craftsmen merely dipped the blade several times into something resembling oil, wrapped the handle in leather with practiced ease, and handed it to me.
"This should be more than enough for a human.”
"...Will the quality be alright?”
"Heh."
At my question, the dwarves lifted the corners of their mouths as though they found my naivety amusing and then gestured for me to see for myself.
"Well, to be honest, I haven’t really seen many great and famed swords..."
"Then now you will.”
"...?"
Confused by the strange response, I lifted the faintly red-tinted short sword and instantly understood.
"..."
"What do you think?”
I forgot what I was supposed to say. This absurd level of craftsmanship left me completely speechless.
No matter how many times I swept over it with my Tide Sense, I couldn’t find even the tiniest scratch. Not the slightest imperfection
The balance between left and right, top and bottom, had been adjusted with almost obsessive precision. It was a masterpiece of an era. I could confidently say every Knight in the world would gladly pay a fortune to own it.
After turning the sword over a few more times, I finally came back to my senses and smiled.
"Um, thank you very much.”
"...Your expression doesn’t look all that happy though?”
The dwarves tilted their heads in confusion at my awkward smile.
One of them smacked the others on the back of their heads, approaching me with a benevolent smile.
"You idiots. He said he doesn’t know much about swords. He’s just a brat. Maybe he simply doesn’t understand.”
"Is that so?”
"Listen here, lad. What you’re holding right now is a masterpiece unlike anything any human has ever created or possessed. If you bring that to your emperor, I guarantee he’ll reward you greatly.”
I nodded while listening, then replied—
"Ah, so this level counts as a masterpiece.”
"..."
The dwarf’s benevolent expression instantly twisted.
Seeing the look demanding an explanation, I lowered my head and respectfully held out the sword with both hands.
"My apologies. It’s just that swords around this level are fairly common products throughout the country I call my home, so I don’t think this quality would be enough to convince our Emperor.”
"P-product?!”
Of all the words, they reacted to "product" the strongest. They stared in utter shock, their eyes as wide as saucers, before they glared at me.
"What we make are not products! They’re works of art! And humans cannot create these works of art! Not knowing is one thing, but insults are another!”
"Ah, I’m sorry. I truly had no intention of insulting your honor. But I can prove that this belongs in the realm of a mere ‘product.’”
"What?”
"Would you all mind stepping outside for a moment?”
Holding a piece of steel ore in one hand, I spoke casually.
"Even if I’m inexperienced with swords, I’ve secretly watched and learned from the craftsmen of the Empire. Give me 10 minutes. I’ll make a ‘product’ superior to the sword you just forged.”
I deliberately emphasized the word "product." The dwarves blinked before bursting into incredulous laughter.
"Do you even understand what you’re saying? A brat who barely knows swords thinks he can make something better than craftsmen who’ve practically bathed in molten steel their entire lives?”
"Yes. That is indeed what I’m saying.”
"—Up until now, we could dismiss this as the childish rambling of an ignorant youth, but from this point onward, that particular remark we cannot let slide.”
The heavily bearded dwarf among the group stepped forward, fiercely glaring at me, his eyes positively menacing.
"From this point onward, your words had better carry more weight than any metal in existence. Do you understand?”
"I understand.”
I nodded and gave them the gentlest smile I could offer.
"It seems that after spending so many years trapped beneath this desert, you gentlemen have lost your touch.”
As their expressions gradually became terrifying, I quickly continued.
"If you don’t believe me, let’s make a wager. The steel our nation gifted you. Those ores were taken from a newly discovered mine.”
"We know that already. We’ve dug through every land in the world, yet we’ve never heard of metal with such strange properties.”
"You dug through the land, which is exactly why you missed it. That particular mine is beneath the sea.”
"B-beneath the sea?”
The dwarves immediately started whispering among themselves.
"Beneath the sea? I guess we’ve never tried digging there before…”
"Wouldn’t there be some under lakes too?”
"You idiot. Under a lake isn’t any different from under the ground."
"So humans used some kind of weird magic to reach a place that deep? Seriously, humans are really strange creatures.”
-Clap.
I brought my hands together once to get everyone’s attention, then said the thing I knew they’d want to hear the most.
"However, what we brought here was merely ore scraped from the very entrance of the mine. Mining hasn’t even properly begun yet, and our investigations have revealed minerals unlike anything ever seen or recorded before.”
"...Never seen before?"
"Yes. And if the sword you forged turns out to be of higher quality than the one I created, I’ll make sure ownership of that mine will be transferred to you.”
The dwarves immediately looked intrigued.
But the grumpier-looking ones still weren’t willing to bite so easily.
"Even though there’s no chance of that ever happening, what if your sword turns out better?”
"Hmm."
I tilted my head as if I’d never even thought about that.
"In that case, just make another one."
"...What?"
"As I said earlier, I need proof that I met all of you. So if I win, simply forge me another sword that satisfies me. I want nothing else.”
"Has this bastard gone insane? Do you even own the rights to that mine?”
"I’m a fairly important person myself. If I were lying, then how could I possibly have brought such a dangerous criminal here, bound and captured?”
"H-huh. I suppose you have a point.”
The moment I brought up Brimdal, the dwarves immediately accepted the explanation.
"What are the conditions?"
"I shall work within the same time frame. I’ll forge a sword here in 10 minutes. Then we compare it against yours under equal force. Whichever blade gains damage or breaks first loses. What do you think?”
"I’ll warn you now. No matter what tricks you use, whatever strange nonsense you do with the metal, you won’t surpass our work. We once forged a copper sword that sliced through steel ingots like pudding.”
"In that case, you should start preparing to excavate those new ores.”
At that point, their anger completely disappeared from their eyes, with utter greed replacing it. One by one, the dwarves began leaving the forge.
"You’d better not go back on your word!”
"What a foolish human..."
"He probably has some talent and got overconfident. Aren’t humans just a race that lives by being full of themselves?”
"They’re just uglier, shorter-lived elves. No redeeming qualities whatsoever.”
......That last remark hurt a little more than expected.
The heavily bearded dwarf who remained scratched his neck while watching the others leave, looking thoroughly displeased before glaring at me again.
"What are you plotting?”
"Hm?”
"You capture Brimdal, bring ore our race has never seen before, and criticize a perfect sword. No matter how I look at it, you’ve got an ulterior motive."
"Then wouldn’t I have included something else in the wager?”
I spread my arms innocently.
"It’s not like I asked for something impossible if I win. All I asked for was another sword. If you win, you gain the rights to a mine. If you lose, you spend another 10 minutes forging. Is there some kind of problem with that?”
"Hmm..."
The dwarf still stared at me as if something bothered him, before eventually, and quite reluctantly, leaving the forge.
-Thud.
The door shut, and I was left alone beside the furnace.
"...This is so damn exhausting."
Letting out a sigh, I walked toward the furnace.
At least provoking the dwarves had succeeded.
Now came the next step. I had to beat them through my sword’s quality alone.
Was that possible?
'Absolutely not.'
The blade they had made was among the finest weapons I had ever seen.
I’d barely even handled solid metal before, much less molten steel, so how could I possibly beat them?
Using seawater to secretly cut their sword at the moment of impact wouldn’t work either. If an obviously inferior sword defeated a superior one, they’d immediately realize something was wrong.
I had to create a blade the dwarves themselves would acknowledge as a masterpiece and then win a genuine contest between masterpieces.
Fortunately, that much was possible.
Since the material I would use wasn’t metal.
"...What?"
I reached into the cup and grabbed Nightchaser by the back of her neck, pulling her out.
Apparently reading something from my expressionless face, she immediately started dangling from my fingers with a nervous look.
"Hey, you can enter anything, right?”
"Why did you drag me out just to ask this nonsense? It’s not like I can enter literally anything.”
"Regardless, your current form is just a fake Linmel extracted from my memories, right? Which means you can imitate other things as well.”
"...I’m no longer an Outer God. What remains of my power is just a tiny, faint fragment. I have absolutely no idea what you’re plotting, but stop right now.”
"You see, I’m actually not that good at forging swords, so I figured I should just use some exceptionally high-quality materials instead.”
I seized Nightchaser even tighter using my Authority of Creation.
She twisted wildly in panic, trying to escape, and then I moved her toward the molten steel.
"If you prefer becoming the Emille Bell, I can arrange for that as well.”
"..."
From the moment the dwarves accepted the wager, they had already lost.
It was only natural.
Because those ignorant dwarves had no way of knowing about the advanced concept known as an Ego Sword.
