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Right. The harvest festival was over, and my life returned peacefully as usual. Actually, that was a lie. Hahaha.

Uh, it’s really peaceful, though.

Now that the open-air class was over, I didn’t have any particular business with Triela and the others, not to mention the Autumn’s dropped temperatures and frequent rainfall, and the troublesome nature of going outside, so I didn’t continue going to their house and instead spent my days forging swords and training my other skills as I secluded myself.

Also, you see. On the last day of the harvest festival, I found out about something that I didn’t want to know… Being able to live peacefully was a blessing, for real.

Leaving that aside, ‘the adventurer Vector’ rang a bell in my mind. I tried digging up my memories, and I realized I had heard about him before.

‘Red-haired Vector.’

If I remember right, he was an adventurer who gained popularity at a stretch three years ago. A swordsman with dark red hair and eyes. Yeah, that was the same as Beck’s appearance. I think he was fifteen years old at that time. With how their age was also the same, they most likely were the same person.

This country was located a middling distance from the northernmost reaches of the continent, where it frequently snowed during the winter months, with the mountain snowfall undoubtedly increased by the mere presence of powerful ice monsters and demon beasts that appeared from time to time.

If you didn’t know, people call those unique monsters the “masters of winter”. If no one vanquished them they would go into hiding once winter ended to build up their power for the next year’s.

While I was still living in the orphanage three to five years ago, one such beast was spotted nearby. I’m certain that it was the master of winter whose death popularized the adventurer Vector – I remember it well as the three fools made a stir about the subjugation at the time.

When I was living in the orphanage, the last winter didn’t snow much, so he should’ve defeated it in the previous year.

But when I secluded in the forest the next year, the snowfall increased. Maybe another monster appeared again.

Well, it turns out that the promising adventurer had royal blood… I kind of want to ask him what would happen if he died. Actually no, I didn’t want to know the answer.

By the way, most royalties had bright red or light brown hair and eye color. I hadn’t heard any gossip about royalties with dark red features recently, so that man was probably using the [Disguise] skill. Probably just like how he cheated his name in his status.

I learned a lot more from the information I peeped, but I wanted to forget it. Let’s not talk about it anymore. Don’t think too badly of me, please.

I also learned many things about [Analysis] skill after realizing that I could see another person’s status with that skill.

I was wondering if [Analysis] was only the level-up version of [Appraisal] that let me see the detailed information of an item, but it turns out I could see through [Concealment] and [Disguise] with it.

I needed the [Detection] skill to see through [Concealment] and [Disguise], but apparently [Analysis] included that function as well… Thinking that it was weird, I tried using [Analysis] on the skill itself. And I found out that it was ‘a top-level skill of [Appraisal] that covered multiple [Appraisal] system skills.’

Just by seeing the skills’ name, I could get a gist of the orders… or maybe not. Ah, but [Detection] and [Appraisal] were two high-level skills of a similar level, right? But now that I had learned [Analysis], I didn’t need [Detection] anymore.

Then again, the effect seemed to multiple if I had various skills with the same function…? If so, there’s no loss in learning it. But I’m not sure how to learn low-level skills… Should I go to the guild’s reference room next time?

That’s how I devoted myself to my blacksmith training while thinking about my skills not very seriously. Until that afternoon came.

On that day, I wrapped up my work in the morning a little earlier than usual and moved to the dining room. But there was no one there, other than the landlady and staff working there.

As I wondered if I should take my time and wait until everyone gathered, the landlady started serving the meal and asked me to call everyone, so I willingly agreed. I ate delicious foods every day thanks to her, so I could at least do this.

That’s why I went around each workshop and called everyone one by one, but I couldn’t find Master and the apprentice kid.

How strange. Oh, that’s right, the apprentice kid should be in charge of customer service, so he should be at the front desk. Without any delay, I went there to find him. And he was here as expected.

“Ah, Ren. What’s wrong?”
“I came to call you since it’s time to eat lunch… Do you know where’s Master?”
“Master is currently talking to the customers. I’m not sure if they’re discussing business or consulting something else…”

The apprentice kid pointed to the corner with a chair and table for business negotiations. When my gaze moved there, I saw Master. I see, he was undoubtedly talking to customers. It seems like the apprentice kid doubled as a server and standby staff. Hmm, what should I do?

Hmm, the customers were two men… Eh? Fgwh.

Ah, uh. It was Vector. And Neil.

Seriously… What was this? A flag? I raised a flag, right? My face was wholly exposed too. This is the worst…

It’s my mistake for hesitating whether to escape or not. The moment Neil noticed me and saw my face, he became petrified.

He spotted me. I should’ve run when I had the chance…

“Neil? What’s wrong?”
“Eh? Ah, no…”

Vector noticed Neil’s unusual behavior and called him out. Master caught a glimpse of me and called out.

“Hm? Oh, Miss. What happened?”
“Ah, no. I came to call you since it’s time for lunch… I’m sorry for disturbing you.”
“Ahh… Sorry, I’m still busy right now.”
“Yes…”

Yeah, this was very awkward.

“Neil? Anything bothered you?”
“Ah? Uh, yeah. That’s… um.”
“Is there something wrong with that girl? She’s charming, isn’t she… Huh? I feel like I’ve seen her before…?”

Neil whispered something to Vector, who just noticed me. After a while, Vector’s expression when looking at me turned into one full of astonishment… Ugh, this is the worst.

“Hey, Vector. That girl is my important customer. Don’t mess around her.”

“Eh? No, no. It’s nothing like that,” Vector said with a shady laugh. I could only see him trying to hide his intention… Now that I learned the truth I didn’t want to know, this person became awfully shady. Also, he looked like a dishonest man.

“Haa… Let’s return to our topic. I’ll say this clearly; I can’t take this request. Please give up.”
“Can’t you at least try it?”
“Even if you said that…”

Thanks to Master forcefully returning to the business talk, they somehow lost their focus on me. But I feel like they would make trouble? Anyway, Master said that he couldn’t take their request. Just what kind of request was that?

“Arnold, you were the one who forged the sword I’m currently using… I’m not implying that this sword is of bad quality, in fact, there are hardly any blacksmiths in this country who can forge this kind of sword. Even so, I’m not confident enough with this sword for this particular subjugation request.”

“I heard that already. But like I said, it’s hard to make anything more amazing than that sword. It’s not an exaggeration to say that it’s my greatest work when I made it. If you want a genuine sword, I’m confident I can forge something better with my current skill. But you want a better mana sword. That’s… The attributes I can bestow to a sword is just a small bonus. I don’t mind forging the sword, but you should ask someone else to bestow it.”

“I don’t know any alchemists who can bestow skills to weapons above this level.”

“… How about the guy across the street? He’s better than me at forging mana swords.”

“That’s… No, you’re right. If we look at the bestowed skill level, he’s more skilled than you, Arnold. However, the quality of the sword is not enough. I also heard that you’re not close to each other after quarreling when you become independent. It’s impossible to make you cooperate with him to forge me a sword, right?”

“Impossible. Leaving me aside, I don’t think he’ll agree.”

Hmm. From what I heard, Vector wanted a mana sword. But Master couldn’t forge something with the level he wanted… Ah! By the way, Vector said he asked Master to develop his sword too before. So Master forged a mana sword! I didn’t know! Well, it should be some secret, so it’s normal he didn’t tell me.

Maybe it’s the sword on the table? [Appraisal]… Er, it looked like a one-handed sword with slightly longer blades, the best quality mithril sword. It was bestowed with [Fire Attribute Lv 2]… Hmm?

“If so, I don’t mind a mana sword with the same bestowal. Can you forge me a new one?”
“But that won’t be any different from that sword. Even if I made a good one, it’d be hard to pair it with the same degree of bestowal, you know?”
“You’re right, but I still want to be prepared as much as possible. And I prepared the materials for this time.”
“The previous sword is made of Mithril, you know? Do you have anything better than that?”
“Yes. I have prepared Adamantite.”
“Adamantite!?”
“Yes… I can’t find Orichalcum.”
“I know that… But Adamantite, huh…”
“You won’t make an excuse that you never handled it before, right?”
“I’ve dealt with it several times before. But it’s not a material suitable for bestowing skills… It may be difficult for me to grant something similar to the previous sword.”
“Uh… But I don’t have anyone else to ask! Can you please give it a try?”

Adamantite! I was about to scream, but I managed to swallow it.

I want to touch rare materials, how envious… Master, accept it. It’ll be super nice if you could show me the materials. If you could let me touch it, I would leap in joy! When that happens, I can feed you something delicious as a token of gratitude, you know?

As I was having such a thought, my eyes met with Master’s. What is it?

I responded by tilting my head. After looking at me, Master thought of something for a while. Then he approached me and talked to me.

“…Hey, Miss. Won’t you forge a mana sword for them?”

…Huh?