episode_0027

“Welcome! Are you here to see the weapons?”

A tout from Pegma Workshop quickly approached with a business smile.

“No, I want to meet a blacksmith. Is it possible?”

“Well…it depends on the craftsman. Who do you want to meet…?”

“I want to meet Petra.”

“…Yes?”

“Petra. Isn’t it possible?”

” Well… Petra is… a little… in trouble. ”

“Why? Is it because she’s Pegma’s granddaughter?”

“Ahaha… To be honest, yes. If you interfere with the work, you may get angry later… It will be much easier to meet you once the work you are doing now is finished… ”

“When does it end?”

“Okay. That’s fine with me too…it could take a few hours or it could take a few days.”

“Hmm…”

After thinking for a moment, I held out the noble seal symbolizing the Delheim family.

“Can’t it be like this?”

“This is the Marginal Delheim family…!?”

“I’m the youngest there.”

“Hmph! Sir, excuse me! Now, now, could you please wait a moment…?”

“Yes.”

As soon as I nod, the tout rushes out and enters the workshop.

Petra, who was hammering with a slightly frowning expression on her face, looked at me with an annoyed expression and sighed.

Petra soon cleaned up her surroundings, came closer and looked down at me with an expressionless face.

You’re taller than I thought. My upper body was short and my legs were long, so I looked small when I was sitting.

“I heard that you came to see me. Can I hear what the business is? I can’t be away for a long time because I have some work to do.”

Smirking,

The dry, husky voice makes my face relax.

If Vanessa feels listless and bored, Petra feels hard and emotionless.

After all, it’s a happy thing to meet in person and hear the voice of a character you’ve only seen in games.

“Hello. My name is Delheim de Zanderom.”

“Yes? Ah yes. My name is Petra.”

Her eyes widen at my respect and polite self-introduction.

I guess it’s because it’s the first time I’ve seen a noble show such an attitude toward a commoner.

“So why did you come to me…?”

“I will speak directly and bluntly. Are you interested in working under me?”

“Yes?”

She looked down at me with her eyes wide open.

“May I ask why you chose me?”

“Of course, I need your skills.”

“Then you guessed wrong. My abilities as a blacksmith are far inferior to those of the other craftsmen in the workshop. He is a novice blacksmith who has just left his training. Please give suggestions to others other than me.”

“Hmm, you are decisive. And it looks familiar. I guess this isn’t the first time a proposal like this has been made, right?”

“…It happened a few times.”

Her expression shows contempt and disgust for a moment.

Although she disappeared in an instant, I could easily guess what happened to her based on that expression.

“I guess the approach was aimed at your beauty and body, right?”

“……”

“I don’t have that side either. Because you are beautiful and have a special charm.”

“If it were an offer like that, I would decline it regardless of my skills. Well then, I have to finish my work so I’ll stop.”

I grabbed her wrist as she quickly tried to escape.

“But, I really need your skills.”

“Phew…as I said before, I…”

“What I am talking about is not the skill or skill in making swords. Miss Petra. I’m talking about the ‘abilities’ you have. It’s your unique ability that others don’t have.”

“…!”

Even if I just said that, she quickly realized what I wanted to say.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Nevertheless, it is played off.

“Ahaha. I understand that it comes out that way. It would be a difficult ability to get caught.”

“……”

“So, I want to talk in a place where no one else can hear. Preferably with your grandfather. I think that will progress the story a bit…what do you think?”

When she looked up with a confident smile, her sturdy expression became slightly distorted.

“Ha…”

She sighed softly, shook off the hand holding her wrist, and glared at him with sharp eyes.

“…Please wait a moment. I have to tell my grandfather first.”

“As much as you want.”

With a leisurely hand gesture, she quickly entered deep into the workshop.

A few minutes later. We sat down with Pegma and Petra in the office on the top floor of the blacksmith shop.

“Hmm… Hello. My name is Pegma and I am just a blacksmith.”

The man who greeted me with a heavy voice was a man with white but voluminous hair and a beard, huge muscles like rocks, and a body as thick as a mountain. The flaming veins and writhing tendons are threatening. Although she had a few lines of wrinkles on her face, it was hard to believe that she had a grown granddaughter.

“Nice to meet you. My name is Delheim de Zanderom.”

When I offered to shake his hand, he took it without hesitation.

Although the size is large, the inside of the hand full of calluses and the feel of the extremely thick fingers make you wonder if they are really the same person. If you get hit by this, even if you are surrounded by auras, you will still be seriously injured.

As soon as he sat down on the soft sofa and took a sip of the tea the waiter brought, his mouth opened.

“I think you know about our granddaughter’s secret…how much do you know?”

“If it’s about ‘ability’, I probably know better than you.”

“…Who else knows that besides you?”

“Don’t worry. Aside from you, I’m probably the only one on the entire continent who knows about it.”

“Is that so?”

For a moment, a creepy look of murder appears in his eyes.

“Phew… Then, where and how did you know that my granddaughter has powers?”

“That’s a secret. Even if I tell you, they won’t believe you anyway.”

Even if you say that this world is a game and that you know it because you have used Petra’s abilities often, you will only end up sounding like you’re crazy.

“If you want my daughter’s abilities, don’t you need to take her to Delheim? I think it is sufficient in the form of a transaction.”

“Of course I want your abilities, but what I really want is my granddaughter. I made that offer because I wanted to have her. I have a bit of a collecting obsession.”

“…Ha, now, you want to add my granddaughter to your collection…?”

“Yes.”

“Haha, puhahaha!”

Tangible mana explodes from his body as he laughs cheerfully.

His spirit, which he did not hide, was at the intermediate level of a sword expert.

“That’s amazing.”

Come to think of it, if Petra is raised well, she will rise to sword master in the latter half of the game.

It’s a really useful character in many ways. I wanted more.

“You want me to hand over my granddaughter to the vanity of a damn nobleman? Nonsense! Did you know that such a threat would work? Know that I will never hand over my granddaughter to you, even if it means handing her over as a slave to the imperial blacksmith!”

“Ahaha, you’re good at telling jokes. I would rather kidnap Miss Petra than hand her over to the imperial family.”

“Noooom! Before that happens, I will kill you with my own hands!”

A thick hand filled with aura approaches without hesitation. If I catch it in that hand, my head might explode.

“Master!”

“Ugh…!”

“Heriot, Xenia. You guys don’t come forward. Pegma, please calm down for now. There’s still something left to say. Besides, I am of Delheim blood. A nobleman. How are you doing this to take care of everything?”

His face becomes even more distorted as he evades his grasp and deftly jumps behind the sofa.

“I would rather kill you and then think about it than be deceived by your vulgar tongue!”

“Now, wait a minute! grandfather! calm down! If you kill a noble, things will get really big!”

Petra quickly stepped forward to block the way, but Pegma raised her aura even more and let out a hot snort.

“Get out of the way Petra! It would be easier to kill that guy now! Since I have connections with other nobles, I can use that to get away with it! This guy has that much power!”

“There is no way such connections could work for Delheim, a frontier white man! Look at the situation calmly!”

“Keu…!”

As Petra almost clings to him, Pegma’s snort calms down a little.

“Phew…”

“Have you calmed down now? Then let’s talk again.”

“You bastard…!”

“Oh, don’t worry. I will make it clear that you never tried to persecute me by force.”

“…You damn bastard…!”

As he sat down and glared at me so hard that the veins in his eyes stood out, I sat down across from him and smiled.

“Actually, I expected Pegma to react like that. I heard it was quite a bit of a stretch. Still, I tried poking it just in case, but it didn’t work either.”

Moreover, I am also having a lot of concerns about this type of coercive means.

In fact, if your goal is just to collect them, it doesn’t matter if you go to the extreme and just kill them and take the bodies. That alone will satisfy my desire to own it to some extent. However, to put it another way, it also means that further satisfaction can never be achieved.

So, what is the limit I can tolerate in order to satisfy my desire for possession?

Can I be satisfied with making a character my property even if it means plunging him into an abyss of misery and despair? No, I want to see the character as happy as possible.

However, human desires are not creatures that can be controlled arbitrarily.

Some compromise will be inevitable, and only by setting an upper limit can we act clearly.

So how should the upper limit be determined and based on what criteria?

“You just stabbed me? You guys are saying that now…!”

“Calm down. I have no intention of harming Pegma or Petra.”

“Are you telling me to believe that now?”

“So, I’d like to take Miss Petra later and borrow her ability first. Is that possible? Of course I will pay the price.”

“It’s a no-brainer! Taking your granddaughter with you! I won’t even allow you to use that ability!”

“You seem too emotional. Please do not write recklessly and think calmly. Even so, I am a noble. In other words, everything can be done by force.”

“Hmph! Are you threatening me again? If you want to try it, give it a try!”

“……”

I can feel my patience wearing thin.

He wiped the smile off his face and licked his lips.

There’s nothing you can’t do.

This old man also seems to have a very rebellious spirit, and I have no intention of losing because of that. When half-bones and half-bones meet, there is only a fight until one of them disappears.

good. Well, all I have to do is take Petra, so let’s do it first and think about it. You can leave the cleanup to your family.

“Come! You have finally revealed your dirty true colors! Let’s do it right!”

Pegma, who sensed that I was trying to kill her, pulled back the sofa cushion and pulled out a hammer as big as my head from inside. The handle is a little short, but if you hit it, it won’t just end there.

“Xenia, make sure the sound doesn’t escape. Harriet. You stop Petra from escaping.”

“Now, wait a minute, master. Are you really going to commit it? Anyway, Pegma is a formidable giant.”

“Just kill it and then quickly take it away!”

“Yes!?”

“Just kidding! I’m also thinking about that, so just move on!”

“Die, you nooom!”

“Inhale!”

The quickly drawn sword and his hammer collided head on.

“Wow…!?”

Although the quality and quantity of Aurors are clearly on my side, I am pushed aside by their enormous weight and strength.

furthermore.

“Pfft!?”

I was startled by the intense electricity coming through the sword and desperately tried to shake it off and widen the distance.

If I hadn’t reacted the moment the electric shock hit my skin, I would have been reduced to ashes on the spot without even being able to move.

“…is it a magic tool?”

Moreover, with this kind of power, it is not an ordinary magic tool.

“Hmph! What a rat! You managed to escape!”

“Whoa, that’s fun…!”

If you use things like that, I can’t look at it even if I want to.

Concentration.

It gathers consciousness to one point and accelerates thinking to its limit. The mana imbued with my will swirls throughout my body like a beam of light, strengthening my body so that it can catch up with my accelerated consciousness.

Blood pressure and heart rate soar endlessly.

However, muscles that are in a state of extreme tension actually melt away like water.

Just one contraction and relaxation. I plan to end it with that.

The sight of Pegma’s arm muscles working together to crush the hammer, then lift it high and strike it down, flows like slow motion.

The power of the magic tool, the hammer, cannot be ignored, but Pegma’s stance is actually full of loopholes.

“Whoop!”

The moment you bend your upper body and step out with your right foot.

The muscles of his entire body, squeezed to their limit, kicked the ground fiercely, generating friction heat as hot as lava.

Before the hammer, with its blue current bouncing, had achieved full acceleration, my sword had already pierced his chest.

visor!

“!?”

However, the sword hit his cloth clothes, let out a metallic sound, and bounced away.

Could it be that these ordinary-looking cloth clothes are also magic tools? No, there is no flow of mana for that matter.

So this is…equipment enhancement?

I glanced at Petra, who was being held captive by Harriet.

She was staring at me with her eyes wide open and shouting.

“That…don’t…!”

“I..no..om..!”

Pegma’s hammer, which has finally changed its course, slowly approaches.

“Whoop…!”

I quickly burrowed into his armpit, struck him in the back with the handle of my sword, made him fall to one knee, and held the sword to his neck.

“Whoa, whoo…!”

As I unravel my consciousness that had converged on one point, the surrounding scenery, which had slowed down, slowly returns.

“Stop, stop! I’ll do whatever you want!”

“Ugh…! What are you talking about, Petra? If you give in to this guy, you will have to listen to his endless demands! In that case, it would be easier to die!”

“Grandpa, stay still!”

Petra shouted and glared at me with eyes full of anger.

“Put away your sword. They do whatever they want!”

“This is it, this is why I feel like I’m a bad guy.”

“That’s right, he’s a bad guy. young master. Ugh… I’m a little disappointed to see a side of you that I didn’t know about. I never would have thought that collecting would be this crazy…”

“I already knew this, but it still gives me goosebumps to see it again.”

I ignored Harriet and Vanessa’s words and smiled kindly at Petra.

“Don’t worry too much. Haha, are you sure you would kill the grandfather you love?”

“…Black…!”

Petra cries.

In the image in the game, it is a rare scene to see her, who was infinitely strong like a strong female warrior, cry.

“Ahaha. cute. I want more.”

“……”

“You seem to be communicating well, so should we negotiate a little?”

“First, put away the sword…!”

“Then Pegma will attack again?”

“Grandpa! Throw away the hammer!”

“But Petra…!”

“Grandpa!”

“…Phew…!”

Pegma sighed deeply and eventually threw the hammer away.

“Well, it looks like the atmosphere for conversation has finally been created. Then, shall we talk calmly?”

I put away the sword and sat down on the sofa with a smile.