The New Gate

Kluck and the white-haired man didn’t look surprised. Or rather, they had no expression on their faces. They stared intently at the longsword on the stand with straight faces.

The other blacksmiths seemed to come to their senses when they met Shin’s eyes, and resumed their work.

Pretending nothing had happened, Shin returned his gaze to the longsword.

The longsword on the stand was darkening from the edge of the blade. As the magical power that had been trapping the heat in the iron escaped, the temperature was dropping. After a while, the blade changed to the color of steel. It gave off a dull glow in the light leaking from the other forge.

“Um, it’s finished.”

Shin called out to the supervisor after making sure that the longsword had completely cooled. He had been told beforehand that the supervisor’s job was to transport and store the finished product.

“Hmm? Ah, I see. That’s right. We’re supposed to keep the finished product here. Can I have it?”

The supervisor carefully wrapped the longsword Shin handed over in cloth and put it in a box in the corner of the forge. It seemed he was going to carry it all together to where the judges were.

Among the blacksmiths who resumed their work, only Kluck and the white-haired man, apart from Shin, completed their work that day. The remaining blacksmiths didn’t have good results, with some breaking the blade midway through, perhaps due to impatience, and others abandoning, saying they would start their training over again.

(Did I go too far? No, I did put magic into it, but I used almost as little as possible, and I didn’t use any skills. Besides, I wasn’t the only one who put magic into it.)

There were others who were doing the same thing, so Shin thought it would be okay, but he was getting more attention than he expected, which worried him.

He had already prepared himself for a certain amount of attention, but he didn’t expect the other blacksmiths to stop working to stare at him. Meaningless excuses ran back and forth in his head, thinking that it was common for craftsmen like him to lose sight of their surroundings when they were really concentrating.

“Sir Shin. Do you have a moment?”

It was Kluck who called out to the troubled Shin.

Behind him was a white-haired man from the same group. From what he could see, there were no visible external features that would indicate his race. Shin guessed that he was either human or dwarf.

“I was fascinated by your technique earlier. I thought it would be nice to talk about it over a meal. Oh, I’m not trying to find out any technical secrets! It’s just that after seeing that, I couldn’t stay still…”

It was half impulse, and Krueck made an excuse in a hurry. It was clear from his eyes, like those of a boy excited at a hero show, that he wasn’t thinking of anything sinister.

“It’s still early in the day, so it’s fine, but who are you?”

Shin turned his gaze to the white-haired man.

“First, let me introduce myself. My name is Jayf Calgan. I’ve known Kluck since before I came here.”

As one could tell from his participation in the blacksmithing competition, Jayf was also a blacksmith. Kluck added that his skills were superior to his.

They said they would like to talk about blacksmithing if possible, and Shin nodded. The two of them were clearly skilled compared to the others. Shin also wanted to talk more.

Not wanting to just stand there and talk, the three moved to the shop.

Kluck led them to a residential area. There were a fair number of people, but it was quiet compared to the festival-like hustle and bustle of the main street.

The shop was located in the middle of a narrow alley in such a residential area. It had an atmosphere like a little hideaway.

Jayf said something to the shop assistant, and the group was led to the back of the shop. When talking about blacksmithing, some things come up that you don’t really want to share with others. Wondering if this was out of consideration, Shin followed the two.

In the room I was shown to, a round table and chairs were prepared.

The walls were mainly white, and vases and paintings were displayed in the corners and on the walls. It was small, but not oppressive.

“This place is well soundproofed, so no one will be able to eavesdrop.”

It seems that some people follow influential blacksmiths around, hoping to get hints for their techniques from even a small conversation.

“I wish we could talk more casually. But even so, Kluck, if you’ve become acquainted with such a great person, you should have introduced me sooner.”

“We only met the other day. To begin with, I was surprised that you’d come here, and that you’re participating in the blacksmithing competition.”

Jayf replied without any shame, saying that he had wanted to surprise him a little. He seemed like a playful person.

“When you say you know Kluck, do you mean the one you belong to the same guild?”

Kluck answered Shin’s question.

“No, Jayf is a blacksmith who belongs to the association. Do you know of the Dwarven association?”

“I know there is such a thing, but this is the first time I’ve met someone who belongs to it. Now that I think about it, you two were the only ones other than me who used the magic technique. So that technique hasn’t been passed down to the general public?”

Kanezuka, who was known as the best blacksmith in Hinomoto, didn’t know how to use magic. Although, since he was able to forge Legendary-class swords, it’s possible that he was doing it unconsciously.

On the other hand, judging from what Shin had seen earlier, the two people in front of him were definitely doing it intentionally.

“Normal blacksmiths probably don’t know about it. It’s mostly treated as a secret technique or a special technique. The method seems to vary depending on the school and the user. What was it like around you, Sir Shin?”

“After I got out of the beginner stage, I just trained to infuse magic into it.”

He said training, but it was more accurate to say it was not training to hone his technique, but doing it a lot to improve his skills.

In the game era, once you reach a certain level of experience, you can automatically infuse magic into your forging. So it was only after coming here that Shin started to devise ways to infuse magic into his forging without relying on skill.

“Should I say it’s wonderful, or incredible? Sir Shin, did you learn it from your master?”

“Yes, that’s the basic method of my blacksmithing. The rest depends on the material.”

After hearing Kluck’s words, Jayf also wanted to know the name of Shin’s master, but Shin refused, saying he couldn’t tell him.

Shin did have someone in a similar position to his master, but that’s not what they wanted to know. In that case, since they didn’t actually exist, there’s no way to tell them.

“Hmm. What if I were to show you my technique and ask you to teach me how to infuse magic into things?”

As he asked, Jayf had the face of an craftman. He looked serious, but you could tell he was excited. He was definitely the same kind of person as Kluck. And at the same time, he was the same kind of person as Shin.

“Right… that’s fine. It seems like you all can already use the technique itself. I wanted to know more about how other blacksmiths do it.”

Perhaps because of the special environment of VR, the way people infuse magic into things during the game felt different for different people. Shin decided that if he could confirm how it worked in this world, he would be willing to accept the exchange.

“Well, I’ll start by speaking from the side that brought it up. I, or should I say, we, focus the magical power we gather in our hands on the surface of the hammer and push it into the material. If the amount of magical power exceeds the material’s tolerance, it will become useless, so it’s important to be able to judge that.

Jayf’s method was the same as Kluck’s, pushing magical power up to the limit of what the material could hold. It was like connecting a hose to a balloon and pouring water into it under pressure. The material had a certain amount of flexibility in terms of how much it could hold, but if you put too much in it would burst. This was what it meant when a material became useless.

If the magical power wrapped around the material was too strong or the blacksmith’s magical manipulation skills were inexperienced, it seemed that it was not possible to inject magical power in the first place.

“As you probably already know, this method doesn’t naturally transform the materials into weapons. In terms of weapon grade, if the blacksmith uses his best power, the most he can achieve is Mythology grade. I think Sir Shin’s method is completely different from ours. It’s probably a technique from before the ‘Dusk of Majesty’ that we lost.”

Jayf seemed to have sensed the limitations of his current method from his many years of experience, and he really wanted to talk to Shin.

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