The next day, when Shin stepped out of his room, Retoneka was there.
“Shin-dono, please take me as your apprentice!”
As soon as their eyes met, she bowed deeply and shouted with determination.
Shin had already sensed someone was on the other side of the door. Somehow, he’d had a feeling this would happen. So, he gave the answer he had already prepared.
“I don’t take apprentices. Look elsewhere.”
He didn’t sugarcoat it; he turned her down clearly and firmly.
They had only interacted briefly the day before, but he could already tell that she was extremely serious about blacksmithing.
If Druk vouched for her, then her skills were likely high. Considering her age, she could be seen as a representative of the next generation.
However, that had nothing to do with this decision.
As someone who intended to return to his original world, Shin couldn’t commit to an apprenticeship of uncertain length. And by now, many of the training methods he had used were no longer practical.(And those eyes…)
Even yesterday, Shin hadn’t had a particularly good impression of Retoneka.
At first, her desperation had seemed like the passionate eagerness of someone serious about blacksmithing, excited to encounter unknown techniques.
But when he discreetly observed her while Druk was forging, after his own demonstration was over, he became certain—it wasn’t just excitement.
There was something else in Retoneka’s expression: a desperate intensity bordering on ferocity. The darkness in her eyes as she stared at the iron reminded Shin of something he had seen all too often in the past.
(It couldn’t be… or could it?)
He didn’t want to believe this girl was consumed by revenge.
But from his experience, Shin couldn’t dismiss the dangerous aura he sensed from her.
“Please. I have to make stronger weapons!”
“This is one of the most advanced research institutions in the world. Just being able to study here is already a great fortune.”
Unless you were someone like Shin, the Black Faction stood far above other existing technical groups.
Shin didn’t know what skills Retoneka had inherited, but here, she could learn what she lacked—and even be exposed to unknown technologies.
For a craftsman, the Black Faction was something of a paradise.
“But even with everything here, it’s not enough to create what I’m aiming for. I know how privileged I am to be here. Still, I—”
“Retoneka!!”
A voice laced with anger cut her off. The one who arrived with a scowl was Druk Yulk.
“Don’t trouble our guest first thing in the morning!”
A clenched fist came down on Retoneka’s head. It made a loud thunk that didn’t sound like a light tap.
That said, Retoneka was a Chosen One. Even if her skills leaned toward production, her stats should be higher than an average person’s.
She crouched down, holding her head, but her HP had barely dropped. In fact, Druk’s hand was turning red instead.
“Discipline means the fist. That’s the way of the dwarf blacksmith.”
Because of the dangerous nature of their craft, joking around or slacking off could result in serious injury.
That’s why dwarves taught with both words and fists, regardless of age or gender.
As for why Druk was here and not at the cafeteria, it was because another dwarf had spotted Retoneka and informed him.
Apparently, this wasn’t the first time something like this had happened.
After sending Retoneka back, Druk bowed his head.
“Sorry about that before breakfast. She asked to become your apprentice, didn’t she?”
“Yeah. I turned her down.”
“Good. Please don’t give her false hope.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, what’s her story?”
“It’s nothing uncommon.”
Retoneka had been taken in by the Black Faction because her family had been killed by a dragon.
Druk and the others hadn’t seen the incident firsthand. They heard what happened from a young Retoneka and went to check her home.
At the time of the attack, she was six. Her father had placed her on a horse to escape and stayed behind to buy time.
Further down the road, Druk and his escorts happened to be collecting rare metals and took her in.
She had lived alone with her father at the base of a mountain, away from town. Dragons had been sighted flying near a nearby village.
When Druk and the others cautiously inspected the site, they found her house in ruins and fragments of dragon fangs and scales.
Her father was gone. All they found were shredded remnants of his clothes, leading them to believe he had been eaten by the dragon.
“People dying from monster attacks, it’s a common story in this world.”
Druk said it plainly, but the bitterness in his voice couldn’t be hidden.
Across the world, few cities had robust defensive walls. Most towns and villages lacked proper defenses.
According to Druk, there were even joint research efforts between the Black Faction and the Blue Faction—the originators of construction tech—to reinforce towns with better defenses, even if they couldn’t reach the level of magically enhanced city walls.
“So, what she wants to make is—”
“Yeah. Creating a weapon to kill the one who killed her father—that’s what drives her now. She aims to bestow skills onto weapons of Legendary rank and above.”
Adding skills to weapons, this process has a success rate that depends on the weapon’s grade and the skill being added.
Someone like Shin could almost always succeed, but if your skill level or proficiency were lacking, failures were extremely common.
From Shin’s perspective, special effect skills that boost damage against specific races were particularly difficult.
To embed that kind of skill into a Legendary-class weapon required a very high level of ability.
And if it failed, the materials used for the skill imbuement would be lost.
Many of the materials that used to be relatively easy to obtain had now become rare and valuable.
Trying such a risky process with a low chance of success came with a mountain of problems.
“I understand her situation. By the way, is it okay to ask about her skill set or level? I’ve got a rough sense of what kind of level is needed to achieve certain results.”
“There’s still a lot we don’t understand about imbuement, but it sounds like your master has some long-lost knowledge.”
“He used to compete with blacksmiths from before the fall of the old civilization. If he ever came here, I bet a lot of the unexplored tech would be solved instantly.”
“That’s both reassuring and terrifying. Still, I can’t disclose the skill build of one of my own. But someone like you, Shin-dono, might be able to make a solid guess just by watching her movements and finished work.”
“If I see the real thing, I can get a decent idea. But unlike my master, I can’t see through everything.”
Just as Druk Yulk said, if he observed her blacksmithing or looked at her finished work, Shin could get a rough grasp of Retoneka’s skill level and technique.
But it would only ever be a rough estimate.
Depending on the kind of imbuement, even a single skill level difference could drastically affect the success rate.
Whether or not the strict math from the game still applied in this world was unclear—but the system was clearly that unforgiving.
Even though he hadn’t yet decided whether to offer advice, if he did, it would be best to have precise data.
“I see. But to be honest, I don’t want Retoneka to complete what she’s aiming for. Improving one’s craft should be something that helps others, that brings happiness. That’s the core belief we hold. Well, maybe that’s a funny thing for a guy who makes weapons to say.”
Even if a weapon was used for harm by someone misusing it, that shouldn’t be the creator’s intent from the start.
That was a principle of the Black Faction.
That said, the nature of weapons is destructive.
No matter how beautiful or carefully crafted, a weapon is ultimately a tool meant to destroy its target. That reality can’t be denied.
Yet in this world, advancing weapon and armor quality is essential for fighting off monsters.
Without that progress, it’s impossible to fight high-level threats.
Even Chosen Ones with overwhelming stats could be killed if all they had were fragile weapons that shattered mid-fight.
“We can’t control how the things we make are used.”
There’s no guarantee that a weapon crafted with care will only ever be used against monsters.
Still, they continued to forge better ones.
Having seen much of this world, Shin understood that.
Influenced by the game world, this reality made humans—aside from a few Chosen Ones—the weaker race.
A sturdy wall or armored soldier might vanish in seconds if a few high-level monsters showed up.
Though Shin had never witnessed it firsthand, it wasn’t rare to hear of small villages being wiped off the map by monsters.
“Well, in any case—she might try again, but feel free to keep turning her down.”
“Understood. By the way, how successful has she been with skill imbuement? From what I’ve seen, if a Chosen One has production-based skills—especially blacksmithing—they should be able to manage it.”
Shin didn’t know what the average Chosen One was like in this world.
But with blacksmithing skills and the right materials, he thought they should at least be able to produce something functional, even if not perfect.
She was called a production-type Chosen One, so it was hard to imagine she lacked blacksmithing skills.
By game logic, if you had even modest skill, the success rate wasn’t zero.
In other words, if she could break through the wall of probability, there was a chance she could succeed in her goal.
“That’s the thing—I’m not sure either. Honestly, with her talent, I think she should’ve succeeded by now. Maybe it’s a skill issue, or the materials, or something else entirely. But there’s definitely something missing.”
“Something missing, huh…”
If that weren’t the case, perhaps the rules of imbuement had changed.
Shin didn’t voice that thought, he just nodded slightly.
At the very least, when he performed imbuements, nothing strange had occurred.
The imbued effects worked correctly, so, just as Druk said, Retoneka was likely missing some crucial element.
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