Chapter 16: The Blacksmith’s Challenge

Two weeks after Gerhard’s visit to the woodcutter’s village, Claudia arrived. She was accompanied by a jolly-faced donkey and a gloomy-faced blacksmith.

Before the confiscation of her property, she owned a horse and cart, but now that she has reduced the scale of her business, she decided that a donkey would be better suited to her needs.

Donkeys are not as sociable as horses and are one size smaller, but they eat less and are easier to raise.

Above all, as soon as Lutz took one look at him,

“cute……”

He even built a hut for the donkey. He loves it.

Claudia spoke to the men sitting on logs as chairs in the plaza, which was named the meeting place.

“Is there something you need to do with the blacksmith? Today, I brought the blacksmith with me, so he can sharpen it right here!”

I asked, and stroking his stubble a man of advanced age replied.

“Oh, in other words, it’s not necessary to leave it for a while.”

The man looked at Lutz curiously, and Lutz bowed silently. Lutz intends to concentrate on helping Claudia this time.

“Yes, it’s always a cash payment with a smile! Right here, right now! I’ll make your tools of the trade shiny and new!”

Then one of the woodcutters looked more amused than impressed.

“Wait a minute”

He got up and came back from the house with an axe.

“Brother, can you sharpen this thing?”

It was a terrible axe. The blade was in shreds and had rust and corrosion on it. It would be useless for anything more than felling trees or scaring birds.

Lutz took the axe and checked it carefully, licking the whole thing.

“It’s only rusted on the surface. There is no corrosion inside. How about polishing it to a shine and paying 50 copper coins for it?

“Can I pay the money later?”

Lutz’ fighting spirit was ignited by being told defiantly that if the performance was poor, he wouldn’t pay. I’ll polish it so that I can see your goofy wig.

First, he lowered the sharpening tool from the donkey’s back and assembled a whetstone that was rotated by a foot pedal. Sitting on the toolbox, he rotated the circular whetstone to apply the blade.

Sparks flew violently with a high-pitched sound.

A cheer goes up from the gallery.

This whetstone is hot and not suitable for detailed work, but it is the perfect tool when you first want to roughly trim the edge of the blade.

Fixing the blade is to shave the blade down to the dented part. If this were a sword, it would become thin like a needle after being sharpened many times, but with an axe, it would be fine if it was slightly sharpened due to its large shape.

After a good amount of sparking, I checked the blade. The tip was clean and the rust was removed. Next, I took out the rough grindstone and wet it with water.

The gallery is still staring at me, which is a little tricky.

“Well, from here on out it’s going to be very plain and boring. There won’t be any sparks.”

“Well, just go ahead and do it.”

They don’t want to leave.

Apparently, if this sharpening goes well, he seems to be thinking about ordering one himself.

For lumberjacks, good or bad tools directly affect the efficiency of their work, so they want to use the best possible ones. If you try to cut down a tree with a rounded axe, you will only be wasting your strength.

On the other hand, they are not very well paid and do not want to spend a lot of money on maintenance.

It was natural to want to leave the sharpening to a blacksmith who was as skilled as possible.

It’s no longer an atmosphere where you can say, “Don’t look at me because I’m distracted.” In the first place, it is unavoidable to work while being watched when you are on a business trip sharpening.

This is not a one-on-one, this is a war between woodcutters and blacksmiths. Lutz made up his mind and slid his axe back and forth over the whetstone.

I rubbed until the resistance was gone, then switched to a finer grindstone and rubbed again. After repeating this several times, the gaze became unnoticeable and I could hear nothing around me.

Lutz, the axe, and the whetstone. The world consisted of only these three.

Before long, my hand naturally stopped. At the same time, sounds and sights returned to the world. It seemed I had been concentrating too hard.

As I expected, the viewers were bored, and the number of galleries was reduced to about half of what it had been.

“Please take a look.”

Lutz handed over the axe to the client who stared at it. If you get stingy, why don’t you explain in detail what went wrong? Or tell me the name of a blacksmith who is better and cheaper than me.

Such caution was futile. The client was happy to see the axe and let it go.

“This guy is amazing, the axe lying in the corner of the barn is like a legendary weapon!”

I thought that was indeed too much of a compliment, but I did not feel bad. The client paid me fifty copper coins easily without any deception.

It seems that last time he was criticised by an idiot in the Knights Order, he was very upset. It was Lutz who regretted that he suspected the customer too much.

“Now, is there anything else you’d like me to sharpen?”

When I opened my hand and confirmed that I could still hold it, I looked up and there were woodcutters carrying a large number of axes. Some women brought knives and scissors.

Axes alone are a light estimate, and there are probably twenty of them. For woodcutters, axes are close to consumables. There were any number of axes lying around in the warehouse.

It may increase in the future, but it will not decrease.

“Cl, Claudia-san ……?”

With one last hope, he looked at his business partner, but she only gave him a cruel and charming smile.

“You have to take care of your customers.”

There had not been many sharpening jobs. It was a hassle for the customer to have to deposit the axe and wait a while, and for Claudia to have to transport it.

The sharpening trip this time was a great success. When we were only business partners, it was not possible to take Lutz out casually. Now that we have become a community of mutual destiny, this is the only way to do business.

Requests to create weapons are tasty business, but you never know when they will come. It is a lifeline for blacksmiths to secure a clientele of uninterrupted demand from the lumberjack community.

Lutz, who had not even a single millimetre of room for objection, had no choice but to obey.

In the end, I stayed for three days and continued sharpening, and on the third day, when I was exhausted, a strange guest appeared to visit Claudia and I.

Previous chapter | TOC | Next chapter