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Chapter 129: Proper tools and facilities are obviously necessary for work, but human relations are often just as important

After that, the angry mob of armorsmiths (or at least, I assume they were all armorsmiths) slunk away quickly – as quickly as they could.

Their disagreement had attracted a lot of attention already, and once Ragnall stepped in …

Well, there are a lot of people crowded into the narrow streets trying to see what’s going on.

Yeah, yeah, I get it. Or like, I was made to get it.

Rank A adventurers are a big deal, huh …

Sure, he was getting a lot of looks before, but the situation right now is a lot more intense.

Before, people were noticing his white-grey hair, but just because Ragnall’s albino look is rare doesn’t mean a guy with white hair is definitely the A Rank White Demon.

There are a lot more odd colors of hair in this world, after all. Even black hair is fairly rare, though not as a rare as white or white-grey.

Most of the passersby were wondering if he was the White Demon, but no one was actually going to investigate some random guy they were passing in the streets.

Also, I guess there’s something intimidating about asking a formidable A Rank adventurer about his identity, maybe.

Right now, though…

Three men make a tiger, after all.

Now that there are so many people thinking that he’s the White Demon, it seems more believable or something.

I mean, Ragnall hasn’t confirmed he is who he is …

People are weird.

Also, why the hell are they focusing on me too?

Your A Rank celebrity’s over there; what does it have to do with me?

I mean, I thought I was pretty used to getting stared at throughout my life, but this time, I feel like the looks from the crowd feel unpleasant.

How to say it … it’s not like the gazes give me a malicious feeling.

Instead, it’s kind of like this clinging, uncomfortably lingering feeling, like they’re looking me over from top to bottom.

… I have a sudden urge to dig some of their eyes out.

“Alright, alright. Stop scaring the crowd. You have business to deal with, right?”

Ragnall claps me on the shoulder, shoving me towards Andira-san.

Ah.

It’s not like I was intending to scare them away, but with how some of those guys were looking over here, the death glare just came out on its own.

Actually, I didn’t really have any business, but I might as well check in with how our armor is doing.

Since there’s magic involved, armor and blades can usually be completed in a day or two, but we gave the Kartinez sisters an order for 4 complete sets.

Also, they’ll be using materials with a high degree of difficulty to manipulate.

Drake scales don’t need magic plasma like the fins, but … the type of fire needed to make them malleable isn’t much different.

I have a lot of wyvern and manticore leather so I forget it a lot, but they’re also high-level, extremely rare items.

Most people would have trouble handling the hoard we fought, and according to Ragnall, it’s difficult to attract so damn many of them like we did.

Anyway, I’d like Hibiki-chan and me to get our new armor before we had to go and quest for the Forge, so it would be good to ask about when they’ll be done.

“Okay, then I’ll see you later. Will you be heading back to the inn?”

I asked before heading inside.

“In a bit. I’m getting a bit stiff, so I’m just going to head to the Labyrinth for a bit.”

Ragnall rotates his arm as he supports his shoulder.

He’s definitely more of a guy who prefers to raid than craft, after all.

Can’t expect him to hang out while we’re talking about women’s clothes over here.

As Ragnall leaves, the crowd tried to part to let him through, but the streets are too narrow so he still needs to force his way through a little.

… I’m a little irritated at the whispering going on after he leaves, so I grab Andira-san by the shoulders and shove her through the door.

She’s surprisingly docile.

Come to think of it, where did Desmond go?

… Where did Desmond go?

Not that I blame him for ditching us with all that fuss, but I honestly don’t know if he just slunk out or if he got swallowed up by the crowd.

That said, even if he did accidentally get separated from us, he probably isn’t going to follow us in.

He seems to be trying to keep as inconspicuous as possible, and Ragnall really isn’t inconspicuous.

Guess we’ll find him later on, back at the inn.

When we entered the shop and I closed the door, Andira-san seems to wake up and she quickly turned to me.

“You didn’t tell me that you knew the White Demon!!”

… Ah.

Another Ragnall fangirl…

No, I get it, A Rank adventurers are super famous, right.

If I was with the Scarlet Torch, there’d be a similar kind of attention on them.

Probably.

“Yeah, well…”

“So is that where you got the materials from? So that’s how things are …”

I hunted most of it … well, Seimei-san hunted a lot of it, but it’s not like I didn’t hunt some of it myself – yeah, she’s completely in a world of her own, so I don’t bother correcting her.

Whatever, let’s just get this over with.

As I grumpily walked past Andira-san, who was glancing back over her shoulder in excitement as she followed me, Lizette-san appeared, wiping her hands on her apron.

Honestly, from my first impression, Andira-san seems like the no-nonsense, business-side of the Kartinez sisters while Lizette-san is the sociable, customer service side.

But right now, Andira-san is fangirling over there, while Lizette-san looks like she’s going to yell at her to get back to work.

“Andira, if you got the crowd to go away, let’s get to work. Were you able to borrow the tools or not?”

“A-ah… that’s right…”

Just like I expected.

Andira-san snapped out of her fangirl mode quickly, scowling as she said,

“No, I didn’t. Those stingy geezers won’t lend it to us unless we give them materials in return, and upfront.”

…Ah.

Right.

This entire thing going on is about the materials I handed over.

And I may have forgotten, but special materials usually need special tools.

My normal tools, that I made and acquired back in Nyl City, are enough to take care of both the manticore hide and the drake scales, so I haven’t had to think about it for a while now.

Well, when I really think about it, some people might think it’s extremely wasteful for me to use mithril/galvorn smith’s hammer and adamantine-infused anvil on normal magic metals.

But I say it’s stupid to go out and buy something cheaper specifically to use on cheaper metals.

Or like, if you have something nice, why wouldn’t you use the best tools at your disposal?

Well … maybe my smithing methods can be considered special or something …

A-anyway, if it’s just tools they need … well, there’s no way I’d lend out my personal tools, but …

“If you’d like, I could help you smith some tools,”

I say as Lizette-san and Andira-san are looking depressed.

… Lizette-san is giving me a confused look, which makes me realize I haven’t really told them I was a bladesmith.

But I’m kind of surprised they didn’t figure it out.

Why do you think I was carrying around so many raw materials?

There’s no way normal adventurers would just lug that stuff around, right?

Especially since most people in this world don’t possess Inventory like we gamers do, so things like corpses and non-treated skins would go bad really quickly.

While I’m reflecting on this, Andira-san shook her head.

“I don’t really know what you’re planning on, but we don’t have the money for it. If we did, we wouldn’t be in so much trouble.”

She furrows her brows in frustration.

I tilt my head, a little confused.

Lizette-san sighed and sat down on a little stool in the shop.

“We might be able to go into debt to buy things like adamantine anvils and galvorn shears, but shock furnaces and whirlfire altars? We don’t even have the space for that, let alone the ability to buy them and have them constructed.”

… Right… I also don’t have to worry about the facilities because I’m pretty much a non-attribute barrier master…

Am I a cheat of a ridiculous proportion?

… …

I decide to ignore it for now.

Anyway, the problem is the Kartinez sisters’ tools.

Although we could take our business elsewhere, to a place that can handle these materials, I don’t think there will be another armor shop with this quality of armor that also focuses on feminine designs.

And, well, because of a certain gamer, I don’t think we can ignore the design aspect.

As for just having the Kartinez sisters make the armor with more accessible materials (for them) … if you have high-quality materials to use, it seems silly to settle for anything less, right?

What, the simple answer would be to smith them tools or help them out for free?

Hm… I don’t know why, maybe the indoctrination given to me in Nyls worked, but I definitely feel that a pair of shears with adamantine or mithril-galvorn blades or whatever would be far too much to give for free.

Besides … it’s not like I have an unlimited amount of adamantine or galvorn.

It’s expensive stuff, you know?

I was able to buy some of it at a cheaper cost from Helward’s Forge, but that kind of discount isn’t going to be easy to get now that I’m not at Nyl City.

And, well, although I can probably smelt magic ore that could do the job, adamantine, galvorn, scarletite, and mithril are the metals that best incorporate rare and high quality monster materials, like powdered drake scales and the like.

And technically, mithril is a magic ore, so I just need to obtain silver and craeftite.

Silver isn’t cheap either, but adamantine, galvorn, and scarletite are on an entirely different level of expensive due to their different reactions to monster materials compared to iron (and steel), silver, and copper.

Well, anyway, I can’t (or don’t want to) just use mithril for everything, so I can’t just ignore how much of the more precious metals making the Kartinez sisters tools would take.

Besides, even if I gave them the tools, they still wouldn’t have the facilities to actually process the materials.

Andira-san scowled.

“I went to make a deal to rent a space at Felixon’s forge, but, well…”

“Even if Felixon’s a nice enough guy, when you work at a forge that’s big enough to handle materials like manticore hides, it’s inevitable that the forge will be big enough to house smiths of all sorts of characters.”

Lizette-san gives a snort as she replies.

So … it’s that, huh?

They asked a friend, or at least someone they have some degree of trust in, but everyone else found out somehow?

… I guess it’s impossible to keep it a total secret, when you’re talking about super rare materials.

But man, those guys were being so pushy, ganging up on the sisters like this.

And it’s only been, what, 4 or 5 hours since they first got the materials?

I can’t help but ask,

“Do they really think they can just bully people into giving up rare materials?”

Lizette-san smiled wryly.

“Well, that’s what you get for being women in a primarily male field. It can’t be helped that subpar smiths will underestimate us and think they can bully us into doing what they want.”

“… But these are manticore and drake materials.”

And kelpies, nagas, and …you know, all sorts of high-rare sounding materials you’d only find in nearly max-level mmo gameplay.

I could see being extorted out of wyvern or mithril lizard materials, since they’re a little more common, although still rare, but …

… Did those guys really think they could bully someone into giving up manticore, kelpie, and drake materials?

I mean, that’s priceless stuff any smith, or armorsmith, would want to get their hands on.

Although I don’t really know how to process monster bones into a sufficient blade, I do know that weapons made of monster materials are also highly prized.

I mean, I used one of the drake’s tail fins and one of its pectoral fins for blades already, and boy, they were AMAZING despite my trial-and-error forging of them.

I’m reluctant to forge more blades out of the drake’s fins before I actually learn how to forge monster materials, though.

How great would they have been if I had actually been taught how to handle the materials … haaa.

So regretful.

A-anyway, monster materials and magic ore swords are the two most-used swords.

Of course, I was in Nyl City initially so there was naturally going to waaaay more magic ore swords, to the degree that most of the adventurers that kept Nyl as their homebase would prefer to use magic ore swords due to the ease of replacement and repair.

And, well, most of the adventurers in Nyl are the adventurers who live in Nyl, so basically, everyone used magic ore swords.

But around here, in Ploids, there are far more vertebrate monsters that would yield good materials, so all smiths and armorsmiths should be moderately well-versed in the basic understanding of how to process these materials.

Therefore, I assume that the armorsmiths in Ploids are DEFINITELY not treating them the same way I do, which is somewhat slightingly because I’m not skilled at dealing with them.

Instead, they should understand the burning desire to work with these materials as much as any of the other smiths in this city.

So why they thought they could intimidate the Kartinez sisters, who are actually quite skilled smiths, into giving up these materials is completely beyond me.

Andira-san snorted.

“Of course they understand how great the materials are. That’s why they actually grew the balls to harass us like this; normally they look down on us as a small store that can only get by selling specialized armor to a small group of people. A lot of those fools that were out front are the kind who use it to excuse why we, as women, can manage as armorsmiths without any male backing at all. Making excuses to ignore the fact that we have better abilities than them.”

Lizette-san sighed and said,

“It may be a bit our fault for wanting to continue this kind of niche work instead of competing head to head with them, but it just seems dumb to have to change what we do just to get back at some people.”

“Anyway, those kinds of shortsighted, second rate artisans have to rely on deluding themselves. Whether they think you’ll cave easily under pressure, or because they really think you don’t have good skills, or because they think you’re easy to trick, all because you’re a woman… anyway, we’ve already seen it all, with both smiths and customers, after we inherited our father’s shop, so it doesn’t really bother us that much anymore, but I guess greed can really escalate the entire situation.”

Andira-san crosses her arms grumpily before going back into the workshop.

Hm… I vaguely recall getting made fun of by a noble for the exact same reason a long time ago in Nyl, but I can’t say I’ve had those kinds of experiences myself.

It might because I practically had Helward’s Forge’s full backing most of my smithing career so far.

Or … maybe it’s because I don’t actually work with or for customers.

Come to think of it, I totally haven’t made anything on request… except for that shattered sword on the way over, but that was a weird situation to begin with …

I guess you don’t get angry customers if you don’t work for customers.

Money?

I can just go hunt a bunch of monsters or randomly sell off a sword I made for practice if I need to for living expenses.

There probably aren’t that many smiths who are also adventurers, after all.

I’m probably the only one, really.

Helward would go into Nyl periodically, but even he isn’t technically an adventurer, and it’s really only because it’s Nyl Labyrinth, a relatively less dangerous labyrinth, that he can go in to mine for materials every once in a while without escorts.

Like the Kartinez sisters, most smiths’ livelihoods depend directly on what they can sell.

I mean, it’s probably common sense that if you can’t sell your stuff you’re kind of screwed, but that’s not my situation, so I feel like I’ve been forgetting how normal people live day-to-day.

Honestly, it’s been five or six months now, and I still feel like I’m just floating through doing whatever I want, like I’m on vacation or something.

But more honestly, all that philosophizing on how I view the world is interesting and all, but what I’m really interested in is …

“Is it alright if I go with you to see the facility?”

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<a/n: I wish I could say I was just playing pkmn sword this entire time, but the delay was mostly aggravated from insomnia due to hypersensitivity, which is much less fun.>