Ch.148148. The Blacksmith (3)

After some time had passed, Lancelot, who had briefly fainted from excessive shock, regained consciousness.

“So you need one set of armor and a rapier?”

“Yes, that’s right!”

Lancelot, the blacksmith Hephaestus, and I gathered closely around a table, designing the equipment set that Lancelot would possess.

First to be decided was Lancelot’s weapon, the rapier, following the design that Lancelot had already conceptualized.

It featured a round hand guard similar to that of a rapier, protecting the hand, along with a thin yet undoubtedly sharp blade that boasted cutting power on a completely different level from his previous stiletto.

Of course, the characteristic flexibility of the thin blade was unavoidable as long as the laws of physics existed, but this could actually be used quite effectively if utilized properly.

The gently bending blade creates a trajectory that twists and turns when swung, making it virtually impossible to counter without sufficient defensive capabilities to ignore the attack.

While the blade’s excessive flexibility might make it difficult to defend against enemy attacks if it bends too severely, this could be easily compensated for with a few magical enhancements.

Thus, the discussion about the sword was resolved in just a few minutes, but many topics still remained undecided.

For example, what form Lancelot’s armor should take.

Having never worn proper armor before, Lancelot had no experience and couldn’t decide what kind of armor to wear, so the blacksmith Hephaestus and I showed him several samples.

First was Sample #1, the quintessential knight’s full plate armor.

Covering the entire body without gaps using metal plates, it guaranteed a considerable level of protection, and the uniform defense across the entire body provided stability to the knight wearing it.

Additionally, Aura users could achieve tremendous defensive capabilities by surrounding such full plate armor with their Aura, and despite its heavy metallic appearance, even a standard full plate didn’t burden the wearer significantly.

While it remained a mass of metal weighing about 20-30kg—roughly half the weight of full combat gear in the Republic of Korea Army, to put it in understandable terms—full plate armor was designed from the outset to distribute weight across the entire body.

Though the metal plates themselves were only about 2mm thick, their angles were intricately designed to supplement defensive capabilities.

Unlike the thick, cumbersome armor depicted in some novels, this was an engineering masterpiece designed to allow for intense combat without hindrance while wearing it.

Thanks to this, even Lancelot, whose swordsmanship was based on flexible and swift movements, could choose full plate armor without major issues.

The second sample was equipment designed entirely for swift attacks and technique.

At first glance, it looked like the elegant uniform of a stylish gentleman wearing a musketeer hat and a coat with prominent collars, but the true value of this outfit lay in the fact that it was made from thread extracted from metal.

Despite its flowing, cloth-like appearance, it was essentially no different from wrapping a sheet of metal around the body, with the inevitable issues of weight and stiffness largely resolved through materials and magic.

Particularly with clothing made from metal-fabric, quality varied tremendously depending on the craftsman’s skill—someone of blacksmith Hephaestus’s caliber could likely produce a garment with weight and comfort nearly indistinguishable from ordinary cloth.

Naturally, this outfit had less defensive capability than rigid metal armor, but in exchange, it offered exceptional versatility, providing broader options for various magical enhancements.

Especially when considering physical enhancement effects, this clothing-type armor allowed for incomparably stronger enhancement effects compared to other armor types.

The final option was a compromise—following the example of that rogue knight we had seen before, adding a few simple parts over clothing armor.

This meant adding only necessary parts like a breastplate, shin guards, gauntlets, and shoulder guards over the clothing—essentially a type that prioritized balance.

With these three options presented before Lancelot, we left him alone for a moment, respecting his will to decide, while I…

“Please use these materials.”

“Oh, I see. These are quite good materials.”

I handed over the materials I had prepared for crafting Lancelot’s equipment to blacksmith Hephaestus.

For the main material, mythril, I had scraped together everything I had, including pieces I had previously set aside as having no particular use.

I also prepared purple bloodwood (紫血木) from the New Continent for making the handles, along with some surplus primitive beast hide for various uses.

Oh, and various gemstones as a bonus.

With all these materials piled up, Lancelot finally expressed his decision…

“Alright, let’s begin now.”

And with that, blacksmith Hephaestus’s course of action was fully determined.

※ ※ ※

In truth, this was practically my first time directly observing the process of refining and working metal.

In my previous life, I had at least seen metalworking through various social media, but this life was different.

I spent my childhood in a village so small it didn’t even have a blacksmith, and afterward spent most of my life as a druid’s apprentice—how could I possibly have had the opportunity to witness metallurgy?

So this was essentially my first time seeing a blacksmith refine metal, but… there was one thing I could be certain of.

-Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!

That certainty was that the refining and metalworking taking place before our eyes was far removed from what would occur in an ordinary forge.

What unfolded before me was sublime and beautiful enough to be elevated to the realm of great art.

Surely “Blacksmith Hephaestus” was an ordinary mortal without any supernatural abilities, so the crafting techniques and metallurgy he displayed were literally established through pure skill and technique.

Yet… despite the absence of any magical phenomena, every action flowing from Blacksmith Hephaestus’s fingertips generated some kind of mystery.

Without any intervention of supernatural forces, purely through his own skill, magical power was being generated.

“…!!”

As far as I knew, there existed a technique among barrier-forming magic that could create magical effects without actual magic by properly utilizing architectural methods, building structures, and even wallpaper patterns.

Sophia’s arrangement of various objects to assist in forming a temporary otherworld when using divination was a lower version of this technique, but… that wasn’t the important point here.

In any case, in this world, it was possible to draw out something magical through specific actions without direct magic, and the most representative example of this phenomenon was precisely the metal crafting technique that Blacksmith Hephaestus was now demonstrating.

Even though I should be perfectly capable of describing the process despite my lack of knowledge in metallurgy or metal crafting techniques, I now found myself unable to express in language the skill that Blacksmith Hephaestus was displaying.

Treating the fantasy metal mythril, heating it, hammering it, cooling it, applying something to it repeatedly—all these actions were not only perfect to my eyes but seemed so sacred that adding any commentary felt disrespectful.

And while I was lost in a daze, mesmerized by these proceedings…

“It’s complete.”

“…?!!”

Just as Lancelot and I were half-entranced by Blacksmith Hephaestus’s movements, his single statement brought my consciousness back to reality, and I couldn’t help but marvel at the mythril equipment he had completed.

These pieces, crafted with such precise workmanship that they might be more valuable as works of art, consisted of a set of full plate armor made from solid mythril and an intricately crafted rapier.

The silver full plate armor, complemented by a surcoat made of red-dyed mythril fabric, was a beautiful masterpiece with large, primary-colored gemstones embedded in each part to facilitate magical enhancement.

The rapier, housed in a scabbard of silver-dyed purple bloodwood reinforced with mythril, was also an extraordinary work—somewhere between a side sword and a rapier in design, perfectly sized for Lancelot.

“Master Hephaestus, I sincerely thank you.”

“Well, there’s no need for thanks. It was Hecate’s request, so this much was easy.”

As I received this set of mythril equipment that approached the realm of art, I sincerely expressed my gratitude to Blacksmith Hephaestus and thought:

Now, it was my turn to step forward.