The Great Sage Who Did not Remain in Legend - 43.3

It seemed Mergin’s guess was correct: it was likely the sword the old man had forged for Rikka during her childhood. Feeling relieved that his assumption was right, Mergin said, “Dad, is this good enough?”

“Perfect. To have someone understand the creator’s intentions like this is the joy of being a craftsman. It’s rare to find someone like this, which is why I can’t give up being a craftsman. Rock, do you have that?”

“I-I still don’t quite understand…”

“Mergin, who did you learn this from?”

“My sword master and the blacksmith. I often went to watch them forge and sharpen swords. They’d get mad at me for being a nuisance and often hit me.”

“It’s only natural for them to get angry. Why did you keep going to watch?”

“Because it was interesting. I liked the feeling that the soul of the forger was being engraved into the sword. I enjoyed watching not just blacksmiths but craftsmen creating things in general.”

“Did you tell that to the blacksmith?”

“No. But if I went often, they’d have me help out sometimes. Though they wouldn’t let me do much other than nod along.”

“What did you help with?”

“Adjusting the furnace temperature. Well, I was basically a bellows.”

“You were managing the furnace?”

“They’d hit me for being too slow with the temperature. By the end, though, I hardly got scolded anymore.”

“Do you have any swords forged by that blacksmith?”

“I gave away my favorite one recently. I have someone else’s though.”

“Show me.”

Mergin had borrowed Maverick’s sword and Gain’s sword as backups since he would use the demon sword and demon axe for the Demon King subjugation.

“This is a longsword. I also have a knife that was made for me, though it’s not a sword.”

Maverick’s longsword was forged before he met Mergin. The knife was made after they met.

“Did the same person forge this?”

“Yeah. But the knife was specifically requested by me. The sword I had was made similarly to the knife. The longsword was likely made before I met him.”

“A sword made the same way as this knife…”

The old man was looking closely at the knife.

“Can you tell the difference in the manufacturing process?”

“The knife has heart steel in it.”

“What is heart steel?”

“You know how the longsword is made by adjusting the mix of soft and hard metals, right?”

“Yeah.”

“This one isn’t made by mixing two kinds of metals; it’s made by hammering together separate metals. It has a softer metal called heart steel at its core, while the outer metal is hard and sharp. This makes it resistant to breaking while still being sharp.”

“You combine them by hammering… I see.”

After mumbling something to himself, he went somewhere and returned with a chunk of metal.

“Mergin, do you know what this is?”

“Hmm, it’s hard to tell just by looking at it.”

“This is a difficult material; even when heated, it only turns red and can’t be processed further. If you can use this, I think it would be useful for that outer metal.”

“Can I touch it?”

“Go ahead.”

Mergin reached out to touch the chunk. Oh, this is…

“Wasn’t this originally more rounded with spikes?”

“No, it had no spikes and was circular. It’s said to be metal that someone processed.”

“No spikes? But I think it might be this…”

Mergin said, pulling out a much larger chunk of metal than the one the old man had.

“What is this?”

“This is a metal found in monsters. There are creatures that eat ores like iron, and part of the eaten ore accumulates in their bodies. It’s said that the spine of a long-lived one becomes this. I think this is a smaller version of that, since the flow of magic is similar.”

This was Misty’s research result. The mysterious chunks of metal occasionally found in mines had long been a mystery, but Misty hypothesized they might be bones from monsters. That hypothesis was proven when they defeated a giant rock worm that appeared in the mines.

“What kind of monster?”

“A rock worm.”

“Huh? There’s no way something that big could come from such a monster.”

“The rock worms your dad is talking about are at most about a meter long, right?”

“I’ve never seen one that big.”

“They quickly get hunted by miners because they weaken the tunnels. They need to grow to at least about 5 meters long before you can get this. The one I have was about 15 meters long.”

“Huh?”

“We took down one that lived quite deep underground. Do you want this too?”

“Y-Yeah.”

Grumman, the old man, wondered what kind of person this was who casually pulled out strange metals and asked, “Do you want this?” as if it were nothing.