Chapter 43 - A Pained Heart and Growth
"...If you made this, then show me the ingot it came from—or no, even the raw metal. Let me see it."
"Oh... well, sure. Just wait a moment."
I wasn’t entirely sure what had struck a chord with Master, but once he set his mind on something, there was no going back. Unless I brought him the ingot, he wouldn’t budge an inch—that’s just the kind of person he was.
I headed to the laboratory and retrieved several ingots I had produced during the process of making that piece. Some were satisfactory, others not so much. Each one bore traces of the trial and error I had gone through. Picking them, I returned to where Master waited.
"These are essentially black iron ingots. You know my Skill, don’t you, Master?"
"Craftsman, right? You’ve got that ridiculous Skill where you can shape metal into its desired form without even using a proper furnace. I know all about it. If you ask me, it’s just something that mimics shapes."
"Come on, don’t say that. Even if it’s just the shape, it functions well enough. For now, at least, it’s usable—like that knife you're holding."
"......I don’t like it, but yeah, I get your point. So, "that thing" is the basis for "this one," huh? Let me see it."
The master held out his hand. I placed one of the ingots in his palm. Almost snatching it from me, he began comparing it to the knife. Judging by the color... it must have come from the same batch I had made back then. It was safe to say it was the original, but...
"Where did you get this, Young Master? You call it black iron, but this isn't that, is it? What did you do?"
"Nothing much. I just mixed in a few things to make it fit better in my hand. That’s all."
"......I’ve never seen anything like it. But this texture... I know it (I've once touched it). There’s no mistake... Still, it’s different. What’s that one?"
Master’s gaze shifted to another ingot I was holding. There was no reason to hide it—it was just a product created midway through a finished experiment. I decided to answer honestly.
"You could say it’s one of the results of my trial and error. It’s just a different mixture of materials and quantities. Want it?"
"Show me. And leave it with me. I want to study it."
"Well, if you insist, Master. Oh, and give me back my knife. I’ll return your short sword."
"You don’t like it?"
"I can tell it’s a sharp sword, but it doesn’t cut well. Sorry."
"So it can pierce the carapace of an insect-type magical beast... as I thought. Alright, Young Master, I’ll be back."
"Yeah, sure. It’s strange enough for a busy man like you to come all the way here just to deliver a message from the guild. You could always just send a 'messenger' instead."
"This isn’t something I can leave to someone else. I’ll talk once I’m sure. See you."
For some reason, he left the Fortress in a foul mood. Well, I had managed to consult the master craftsman about equipping the soldiers, so I considered it a win. While I had already spoken to the weapons shop, they had told me it was difficult given the current circumstances. I had been at a loss, so getting the chance to talk to Master was definitely a good thing.
Time marched on without me finding any real solutions. Since my first campaign, Father and Eldest Brother had repeatedly ordered investigations into the movements of magical beasts in the Demonic Forest. The scouting magitech tools weren’t all-powerful. The floor in the Shallow Forest was littered with magic stones left behind by previously defeated magical beasts.
Not all the reactions detected by the tools came from living monsters or magical beasts. Faint responses were one way to distinguish between the two, but even so, the lingering traces of magic stones often frustrated the soldiers. The Adventurer Guild had accepted a standing request for assistance, and their work was yielding some results. Near the forest’s entrance, the number of lingering magic stones had significantly decreased.
But that was only up to a certain depth.
Perhaps it was considered work for beginner adventurers, as deeper inside, in areas where more experienced adventurers began to venture, the stones were still abundant. As we progressed into the forest, near the Middle Forest, the lingering magic stones became less frequent. The natural food chain took care of the rest—prey were consumed by predators. Their internal organs, a delicacy for predators, would naturally end up in the stomachs of the higher-tier monsters in the food chain.
This was evident when we examined the dung of medium and large carnivorous magical beasts. The abundance of magic crystals in their feces was striking. Magic stones consumed by monsters likely had their contained mana drained, which was then stored in the beasts’ own mana-accumulating organs. Scholars still had many unanswered questions about the ecology of monsters and magical creatures. In reality, we, who had observed the actual creatures, likely possessed more knowledge about them than others, even if just a little.
―――――
No matter how careful we were, this place was undeniably a battlefield. For the guerilla unit, it was an undisputed warzone. Encounters could happen at any moment, and despite our vigilance, complacency crept in with repeated missions. Some soldiers would begin to report no threats detected without properly looking or listening, their checks becoming half-hearted.
And the inevitable result of that negligence was...
"Frontline’s down! Medic!! Provide cover!!"
"Aaaaah! H-Help meeee!"
"What’s happening?! Where’s the threat coming from?!"
"Calm down! Right flank, fall back! Main unit, advance and flank the monster! Left flank, guard the rear of the main unit! All weapons authorized, I repeat, all weapons authorized! Protect the right flank! Move it!"
During this reconnaissance operation, we encountered a high-threat monster. It was a forest assassin, leaping between trees with its long limbs and attacking with its tail: the Jimpanzee. The hunters had reported sightings of this small but dangerous creature emerging from the mid-layers of the Demonic Forest, and the moment we arrived at the scene, we were ambushed.
Though I had experimentally armed a few soldiers with guns, the Jimpanzee’s movements were too fast to track.
Among the monsters, the Jimpanzee was small but highly intelligent, with a body size comparable to a large dog. Its arsenal of magic was vast and unpredictable, making it hard to pin down. Unless its movements were stopped, sniping it was impossible. The guerilla unit under my direct command had no choice but to handle the immobilization.
We pursued the Jimpanzee as it darted through the trees. The methods taught to me by Old Man were the distilled wisdom of those who had protected humanity from the forest’s threats for generations. They worked flawlessly. Flanking the Jimpanzee, we drove it into a vulnerable position using throwing weapons, herding it into a specific spot.
The location was a slightly open area of undergrowth in the forest. There were no nearby trees it could leap onto, forcing it to move on the ground. Once it was cornered, weighted capture chains were immediately hurled from all directions. I was among those who threw them. I trained relentlessly in the practice grounds to hone my accuracy.
The chains wrapped tightly around the Jimpanzee’s body without fail. With the combined effort of all the chains, its movements were significantly restricted.
In Old Man’s tactics, this was where the real work began. The enemy was a monster capable of using magic. If we didn’t maintain our distance, casualties would mount. Sometimes, the process could turn into a battle of attrition lasting more than three days—he had warned me of that.
--- Pheww.
A sound, like a heavy sigh, suddenly broke through the tension. The shooter on the ambushed right flank had fired a shot. The order to use all weapons had been given. The spotter on the right flank had spotted an opening, and the shooter fired. The shooter and the spotter coordinated perfectly, executing the long-range shot seamlessly.
"I" watched as the bullet’s trajectory cut a clean line through the air... striking the Jimpanzee in its shoulder.
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