But then all of a sudden, the crowd started jeering Rondo.
"You won't accept it? It's clear that you lost and you still won't accept it!"
"I already said that this dwarf was shameless! His beard is definitely to hide his shame!"
"Ha, it's clear that his sword was weaker or else the lord's sword wouldn't have been able to cut through it! And here he's saying that he won't accept it!"
Rondo would have been embarrassed if it was a normal situation, but his curiosity and unwillingness to accept this made him ignore all these jeers.
I didn't mind this and just calmly looked at him as I asked, "What is there not to accept? Wasn't my sword better? Is there anything that I can explain?"
Rondo was about to say something, but then he realized the hidden meaning implied by my words.
To explain this would mean revealing the secrets of how to forge this sword.
This meant that what he was doing was shamelessly demanding Zwein to reveal the secrets of his forging technique.
This was considered taboo among the dwarves and punishable by death in dwarven culture.
After opening and closing his mouth a few times, all Rondo could say was, "I, I, I…"
Seeing him struggle like this, I gave a sigh before saying, "It's not as if I can't explain, but…"
I left my words hanging, but the meaning in them was clear.
Rondo's eyes lit up when he heard this.
That was right, if he paid a price, wouldn't he be able to buy this knowledge?
This was something considered acceptable in dwarven culture.
They knew that to progress one would need to accumulate knowledge and the first step in that was to share knowledge.
But they also recognized that knowledge was not cheap.
This knowledge was something that was gained from the hard work of someone else and to have them share it for free wouldn't be fair for them.
So the dwarves had a system where knowledge would be registered and then it could be accessed for a fee. A bit of that fee would be kept by the offices that managed this system and the rest would be paid to the person who registered this knowledge.
In the dwarven society, this was called a patent.
But there was nothing like this in the human's society…
So how was he supposed to pay?
I could see that Rondo was struggling over this matter and could guess what he was thinking, so I said, "I can't get a patent registered for this, so you can just pay me a small flat fee and we'll call it a consultation fee."
Rondo looked at me with a surprised look at first, but he still gave a nod in the end.
He knew that this was the best solution to this.
After thinking about it for a bit longer, Rondo suddenly thought of something.
He dug in his pockets for a bit before pulling out a small piece of white metal.
He presented this to me and asked, "Is this enough for a consultation fee?"
The moment that this small piece of white metal appeared, the entire atmosphere changed.
Those that didn't know weren't affected at all, but those that knew…their expressions immediately changed.
This was most of the blacksmiths and Haley.
The moment that they saw this small piece of white metal, their eyes started to glow and they almost started to drool.
This small piece of white metal was…mithril as expected.
It was only a small piece, but this small piece was already worth a king's amount.
That was just how rare and expensive mithril was.
If it was known that there was a piece of mithril here, there might have even been a war started between two noble territories.
Even I was a bit surprised that Rondo would be able to pull out a piece of mithril like this so easily, but I wasn't that surprised since I knew that the Silvermine Family behind him owned several mithril mines.
It seemed like this was an even better deal than I had thought..
I gave a slight nod and said, "That's fine, I'll take that as a consultation fee even though it is a bit of a loss on my part."
Haley immediately turned to look at me with a shocked look, but I just ignored it.
Rondo gave a nod in response to this since he knew what I was talking about.
But that was only the case in the dwarven society where mithril didn't have value.
In the Dwarven Kingdom, there was mithril all over that they could use since they controlled mithril mines. So in truth, mithril wasn't worth anything in the Dwarven Kingdom, especially such a small piece.
Using this small piece of mithril to obtain knowledge about forging…it really was a cheap deal for him.
Rondo said in a sincere voice, "Thank you. If I have a chance, I will repay you."
The crowd couldn't help being surprised by this.
One moment, this dwarf was questioning the legitimacy of this duel and the next, he was thanking their lord.
When they saw this, they couldn't help looking at Zwein with eyes that were filled with admiration.
I could feel these gazes and I just revealed a secret bitter smile.
It wasn't that great, it was just understanding the difference between human and dwarven society.
I was about to reach out to take the piece of mithril, but before I could…
Haley had already come forward and grabbed hold of the mithril.
Rondo knitted his brows when he saw this and didn't let go until I gave a nod to him.
Only then did he let go, but he still looked at Haley with a strange look.
Haley turned to me and said, "I'll keep this safe for you, alright?"
I just shook my head with a smile before saying, "I was going to give it to you anyway. It's not like I have a use for it."
Haley immediately revealed a beaming smile when she heard this before coming forward to whisper in my ear, "I'll thank you tonight."
I gave a cough to calm myself down, but I was feeling quite happy deep down.
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