Kays Translations

Chapter 73: After The Festival

Lutz and Claudia were in the bedroom on the third floor at dusk when the festivities were over.

They were not sleeping side by side. Claudia was sitting on the bed and Lutz had his head on her thigh. It is a posture of a knee pillow.

“This outfit is a little embarrassing.”

“Isn’t it fine, I want to appreciate Lutz-kun’s work today. If you don’t like it, you can move on.”

“This soft pillow won’t let me go…”

“Fufu, that’s right. Staying true to your own desires is the key to enjoying life.”

Claudia stroked Lutz’s head while laughing. It was a good day, I was satisfied with the fact that I was able to see Lutz’s dignified appearance rather than the success of the technology disclosure.

“How are you feeling today?”

Lutz answered while folding his fingers.

“One, It was a good day for the city’s development.”

“Yes Yes”

“Two, I don’t want to do it again”

“Haha, that’s right. Are you still nervous about showing off your skills in front of seniors who have been around for decades?”

“It’s not that I’m nervous, it’s just hard to do.”

Claudia pinched Lutz’s cheeks with her fingertips.

“It was worth the trouble. You  taught the technique for free, and gave them the sword for free, but I’m sure you didn’t lose anything. This is an investment.”

“Didn’t they need a question and answer period or something?”

I have not cut corners in sword making, I have not cheated. I have shown them everything I have. Even so, no matter how intently the masters watched, there must have been a number of things that could not be understood just by looking at them.

“It’s fine. They usually tell their students to watch and steal techniques, so we’re just going to have them do it.”

“They’ll have to go through the hardships of apprenticeship all over again, huh? It’s not easy at their age.”

“What we expect them to do is to mass produce katanas that are of a certain quality and that can be sold at least for a while. It is not about making great katanas.”

Claudia said with the cold voice of a merchant.

“And the katana will spread throughout the continent, and all those who seek a great katana will knock at the door of this workshop. All manner of honor will be yours.”

Whether he knew about that ambition or not, Lutz was already sleeping. Claudia caressed Lutz’s cheek with kind eyes.

“Thank you for your hard work, Lutz-kun.”

Claudia lay on her back and fell asleep.

Thus ended a turbulent day. For a day that would change the history of Count Zander’s domain, it was a surprisingly quiet conclusion.

More than half of the master craftsmen back at thier workshops were hammering iron without sleep. They wanted to do it while Lutz’s sword-making was still burned into their eyes.

Oliver was also one of them.

It’s a pity that I couldn’t get a freshly made sword, but I have another sword to use as a sample. In that sense, I had an advantage over other masters.

“I’ll do it. If I lead in katana making, I’ll be the first of the masters. I’m going to shut them up with my skills. Lawrence-san will be pleased with me…”

I dreamed with my eyes open and kept hammering away at the iron.

Until now, it was like I was fumbling around in the dark, but today, or should I say yesterday since the date has already changed, the whole picture has come into view with the disclosure of the technology.

The sword takes shape in Oliver’s hands. It’s been a long time since I’ve experienced the joy of making things.

Still, there are many things I don’t understand.

Why prepare two wrought irons and what is the difference between them??

Before quenching, I put the soil in place, but I don’t know how to put it. I wonder if it’s okay to paint it properly.

I don’t even know what the furnace temperature is for quenching.

Dip the bright red-hot sword into the water, make sure it has cooled down, and then pull it out.

When Oliver saw the sword, he was shocked and dismayed. The blade was cracked. The blade pattern also looked somewhat vague. He could not even have a premonition that the blade would become beautiful if it was sharpened.

I knew from the beginning that it wouldn’t go well. Still, while I was playing, I was hoping that maybe everything would go well.

I feel like I’ve been cursed from the sword to my face. “You’re an idiot,” it said.

If there is only one cause, the story is simple. For example, if the furnace temperature is too high, then it should be lowered.

However, when the problems are complex, it becomes complicated. As you change this and that, you may end up changing even the things that were right.

You have to explore the problem, change the way you do it and build it again, over and over again.

It’s like stepping into a labyrinth where you don’t know when it will end or where the exit is. There is only a way for a first-class blacksmith to go through there.

……Do I have the resolve to do that? I don’t think I’m old enough to be frantic in front of the furnace anymore, racking my brains about this and that.

Oliver closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

……There is. There are good reasons to do so.

The words of the elder suddenly came back to my ears. Are you sane and doing blacksmithing?

Next, I remembered my origins as a blacksmith.

As a young boy, I was sent to work at a blacksmith’s shop as if I was being forced to work for a living, and nothing was going well. When I was crying in the back of the workshop, a young man from a merchant family approached me.

“If you can make good swords, you’ll be popular with women.”

…… Hmm?

Was that the reason? I wonder if it was a more dramatic encounter, but he said so in his memory.

Perhaps it was a strange match, but I became friends with a young man ten years older than me. He was also the heir to a merchant family, and he encouraged and supported Oliver in many ways. The only problem is that even though he became a master, he was not popular with women.

Looking back on my life, I have come to understand something. I am a fool.

When I realized that, I didn’t get depressed or belittled, but rather, I felt refreshed and invigorated.

…… Let’s let the idiots enjoy life in their own stupid way, shall we?

“Okay,” he said, tapping his knee and standing up. Now let’s adjust the temperature of the furnace.

A few days later, Oliver visited the elder’s workshop with several failed pieces.

The sample katana is here. That was not the goal in itself, but if there was another master to see the sword, he wanted to exchange information. At least there will be an elder.

When I was guided by an apprentice to a room where swords were displayed, there were three masters I knew. They, too, seemed to be at a standstill.

Greetings from a moderately old master,

“Let me see that.”

He said.

“Eh?”

“Isn’t it a failure? The one we brought is sitting right there, so go ahead and look at it.”

I guess he was trying to tell me that he knew what I was here for and that there was no need to talk about anything else. It was the impatience of a craftsman.

“Wow, that’s terrible.”

The masters giggled at Oliver’s failed attempt. It was not an insult to the others, but rather an empathy that they remembered.

There is a large crack on the blade.

“This is it, the temperature of the furnace was set too high.”

“That’s a good answer, motherfucker. And here’s the result of setting the temperature too low.”

Oliver untied the cloth wrapped around the katana. There is no warp, and the blade crest is vague. I can’t feel anything like the strength of a katana.

The sword of a coward who fears fire and fears failure.

The masters laughed again, but again with sympathy.

“Well, it’s not cracked, so we can sell it.”

“You mean this shriveled cock? I’m over fifty years old and this is a shameful play.”

“I don’t like it either. But I guess you need the next best thing to being told to put your sword away for whatever reason.”

Blacksmithing is a business, and sometimes you have to use those loopholes.

Oliver could not deny it, but he did not want to confirm it either, so he remained silent.

“Isn’t it better if the temperature of the furnace is high? When Lutz dipped it in the water, the bubbles were pretty intense.”

Another master said.

I see, Oliver was only looking at Lutz’s hands. He thought again that information exchange is important.

“The result of this is this scrap iron.”

“So I’m just saying, maybe there’s something else going on.”

“What is the cause?”

“That’s why we’re all in here flashing our dirty little faces at each other.”

That’s true, too, Oliver showed with a shrug.

“The other day I went to talk to Lutz…….”

The relatively young master said. Although young, he is in his mid-forties.

“You were taught me that much for free, and you’re still trying to get more? Don’t you have any pride? ….So, how did it go?”

“I was turned down by a sister who couldn’t tell whether it was her tits or her ass. She didn’t ask me about my conditions or anything, and said she was sorry.”

Any hope that this might be the case was dashed. All the masters’ shoulders slumped at once.

“I guess they decided from the beginning, ‘We’ll teach you up to here, and we’ll leave you alone from here.”

When I was wondering what to do next, an elder came from the back room.

“What’s the matter, you guys are here again, you’re bored.”

“If there’s a new hint, I’ll be busy all at once.”

“About that…”

‘ the elder whispered.

“I think it was made by dividing the wrought iron into two pieces, one relatively hard and the other soft.”

That’s it, the eyes of the masters were wide open.

“It’s not like he made them finer to make them more flammable.”

“I suppose that’s one thing, but when I think about what it means to go to the trouble of splitting the work into two parts and then forge a weld. That’s how I came to that conclusion.”

“But why did you, elder, tell us that?”

Oliver looked at him quizzically, “Why didn’t you just shut up and keep it to yourself?”

“This is a loan. If you guys know anything, please let me know. Honestly, this is not a problem that you can worry about and solve by yourself.”

“Understood,” the masters nodded in unison.

The new clues gave strength to the weary eyes of the masters. I’ll take this, I’ll take my leave, and they ran off to their respective workshops.

“They can’t help it, at all….”

The elder scratched his head with a wry smile. He had been holed up in the forge for so long that grease and dandruff had accumulated on his fingertips, and he slapped them away with both hands.

“Well, let’s try another one.”

The elder returned to the blacksmith shop again, muttering in a slightly deranged state of tension after three all-nighters.

The problems were piling up, but the realization that they were gradually getting closer to the truth filled the old man with energy.

Thus, the masters repeated trial production and information exchange, and a few months later, a few swords that looked like Katanas began to appear on the market.

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