Chapter 28: A Curse of Legend

“Hey Gerhard, are you there!?”

On a calm day when the summer heat had subsided, the silence was broken by a visit that was more like a blow than a knock.

Gerhard, who was reading in the enchantment workshop inside the castle, looked up with annoyance.

I regret to say that he is an acquaintance. The blacksmith master of this city, his name is Borvis.

I didn’t ask for it, but if the master himself had come out, I couldn’t let my apprentice handle it. It was a hassle, but if we neglected such a part, it would be troublesome later on.

When I opened the door, there stood an old man with a tanned beard. A heavy wooden box is placed at his feet.

“Yo, the ten daggers you ordered. Freshly made.”

“Good work. Jocel, bring them inside.”

“Yes, sir.”

After calling out to his disciple, Gerhard took out his wallet.

“Ten gold coins, please check.”

I handed over the money and Borvis counted it lightly before putting it in his pocket. I wanted to close the door, but for some reason Borvis would not budge.

“… what, go home”

“Hey Gerhard. A dagger would be nice, but when will you be asking me to make the next offering? It’s about time you need it, right?”

Borvis looked impatient and flirtatious. For a blacksmith, handling a dedication is the highest honor and a financially delicious job. It was also a source of pride for him that he was the best blacksmith in the count’s territory.

Suddenly, the connection was cut off. It was no wonder that Borvis was worried..

“The hero is very fond of the sword he has recently acquired. He won’t be needing a new weapon for a while.”

Gerhard said coldly that he was not interested.

“For the time being, until when?”

“Well, I don’t know when. Ten years from now, twenty years from now, or maybe he’ll spend the rest of his life with that sword.”

“We’re in a desperate situation, what an irresponsible thing…!”

“Responsibility, responsibility. You are the one who is mistaken. I’m not doing this for you.”

At Gerhard’s words, Borvis seemed to have lost the energy to argue.

“Go home already. Or do you want to be kicked out as a suspicious person? There’s no need to even call for a knight now.”

“…I’m going home for the day. Just one last question, what did you order that dagger for?”

“It’s for training apprentices in the art of enchantment.”

“For that reason…?”

Borvis was wide-eyed with astonishment. The weapon he had poured his heart and soul into was just for training. In some cases, they could not control the flow of magic power and would be destroyed.

The words “for such a thing” were forever circling in my head.

Before I knew it, I was forcibly pushed out and the door was closed.

He reached into his pocket to feel the gold coins. With a vague sense of uneasiness, as if he had sold something important, Borvis turned on his heel.

“Do you know each other?”

Jocel, who had put a bolt can opener on the door, turned around and said.

“It’s a thing called a rotten relationship. It’s not that he’s bad at it…”

Gerhard opened the wooden box and checked the dagger inside, a look of disappointment on his face.

Jocel also went around to the other side and looked into the box.

“What a truly magnificent sculpture.”

Both the scabbard and the hilt were decorated with gorgeous silver. There were even small jewels embedded in it. It looked familiar. Perhaps it was the same ornament maker who had decorated the Wailing Sword.

“Is it possible to make a profit with one dagger and one gold coin?”

“IImpossible. At the very least, three gold coins a piece. If you want to do business, you have to take at least ten gold coins to make ends meet. You know, you idiot. ……”

Gerhard understood Borvis’ impatience and sorrow.

He probably made the product without regard to profitability in order to get the Count to like it as much as possible, which would lead to his next job.

How disappointed he must have been when he learned that it was not only not for the eyes of the Count, but was treated as an expendable item, so to speak, to be used for practice in conjuring spells.

Gerhard grabbed the dagger and checked the workmanship of the blade. It is very carefully made, and the strength is perfect. That’s all.

“I’m so excited…”

“Exciting, isn’t it?”

Jocel tilted his head at his master’s strange way of speaking.

“Remember the time when you wielded the wailing sword. You want to wield it forever, which is a feeling you can’t experience with a mere sword.”

“Indeed.”

“To put it another way, a sword that doesn’t make you want to cut people is not a sword.”

“…I wonder if that’s an exaggeration.”

“Oh well, I see, I was out of line. Hahaha ……”

Gerhard put away the dagger while laughing, and tightened his expression again.

“I should be ashamed to talk about him…”

He sat in his chair and often thought about it. He seemed to be searching for the right words to say to cut to the chase.

“Jocel, what do you think of the legendary sword?”

“……Eh?”

Jocel was perplexed by the question, which was so vague and unsettling.

“I don’t want to have a difficult conversation with you, and I won’t be offended if your answer doesn’t match the one I’ve prepared. Just tell me the image you somehow associate with it.”

“If that’s the case, then there’s romance.”

“Romance? It’s certainly a word that makes you feel romantic. But…”

Gerhard looked out the window. His gaze seemed to be looking farther than the courtyard.

“I don’t think a craftsman should feel anything more than romance.”

Unable to grasp his teacher’s intentions, Jocel decided to listen in silence.

A craftsman’s technique must always move forward, forward and upward.

There is no way that a sword made hundreds of years ago is superior to a modern sword, and this should never be admitted. Such a simple logic is covered up by the word “romance” and makes people’s eyes glaze over.

It was forty years ago. I was an adventurer with three companions, challenging the labyrinth in search of the Holy Sword.

Over the years, I repeatedly dived into the labyrinth. I believed that if I could just get my hands on the holy sword, all kinds of honors would come my way. No one guaranteed me that.

With an unknown number of challenges, we were able to reach the deepest part.

I was lucky along the way, and everything seemed to mesh well together.

Never again would such good fortune occur, and if they missed this time, they did not know when they could come to the deepest level next time. So everyone began to think that we must break through with this at any cost.

The most dangerous traps are the ones that are planted in fortune. As an adventurer, you have taken yourself out of the natural option of fleeing at the first sign of danger.

A huge demon appeared as if guarding the treasure. It was the first of its type I had ever seen, and naturally I had no idea how to deal with it properly.

It sounds good to say that we fought bravely, but in essence, we were blinded by greed. We defeated the demon, but two of my friends were sacrificed. When I saw their corpses, I finally understood that I had done a shallow thing.

…… Well, that reflection was fleeting. We had forgotten about our friends when we put our hands on the treasure chests, saying plausibly that we were doing it for the sake of those who had died.

The best sword, the strongest power is available.  opened the treasure chest believing that all kinds of wealth and honor would fall into my hands, and what I found was …….

It was a bronze sword.

Falling in love with the holy sword, sacrificing two companions, and even leaving humanity behind, the result is the bronze sword.

I guess what was written in the ancient texts was not a mistake. In an age when people fought with stone axes and clubs, it is no wonder that a hero with a bronze sword was a matchless warrior. But that was only a few hundred years ago. If you shoot an iron sword at a modern battlefield, it will break, and it won’t be able to pierce iron armor. Such is the nature of technological progress.

We were so frustrated that we smashed the holy sword on the spot and left the labyrinth.

I didn’t report to the Adventurer’s Guild that I found the holy sword. Some idiot who didn’t know that might continue to challenge the labyrinth, but I didn’t care anymore, it didn’t matter.

As you are probably aware, the other survivor is Borvis. We quit the adventuring business. We felt we had no right to continue.

In my second life, I decided that the only way to create great weapons was to create them myself, so I became an apprentice to an adjunct spellcaster, and Borvis knocked on the blacksmith’s door…

“…. I shouldn’t have said so much.”

“No, that was very helpful.”

It was a good story, Jocel hurriedly corrected his trajectory trying to say something like that.

“You can go home for today. Tomorrow, we will start training for the spell.”

“Master…”

“Maybe it’s because I remember the old days, I want to be alone for a while.”

After being told that, he couldn’t even argue back, leaving Jocel saying he’ll see him tomorrow.

In the workshop, where the silence had returned, Gerhard took out the dagger again and stared at it.

Borvis is a really skilled blacksmith. Gerhard continued to do business with him not because he favored his former colleague. It was because he believed he was the best blacksmith in the citadel.

However, in the ten years since Borvis became the master blacksmith, his skills had not progressed at all. Protecting his position as master had become everything to him.

“Why…”

Gerhard’s voice was tinged with sorrow as he muttered this.

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