Chapter 163 - Artificial Magic Sword Creation (5th Attempt) - The Magic Sword of Destruction
In the Green Tower's workshop, Dahlia and Volf both changed into their work clothes.
Lately, between developing the Auratello, presenting the expedition stove, and then Volf's expedition, they hadn't been able to work on the artificial magic sword at all.
Now that they finally had some free time, both of them were eager to get started.
After visiting the bookstore, they had stopped by the weapon shop where Volf had bought his dagger.
The white-bearded shopkeeper remembered Dahlia, even though she had only visited the shop once before.
When he asked how the enchantment on her dagger had gone, she admitted that things hadn't been working out quite as she'd hoped. He laughed and told her, "Of course it's not going to go smoothly if you're not used to it. It’s even said that a blacksmith's apprentice needs to forge a thousand blades before they can be considered full-fledged."
His hearty laughter brought back fond memories of her father.
Afterward, the shopkeeper recommended that she try something one size larger than a dagger, saying it would be a good learning experience. So they decided to buy a longsword suitable for magical enchantment.
Dahlia wasn't confident enough to choose a longsword herself, so she left the decision to Volf.
They settled on the length quickly, but then the shopkeeper and Volf began discussing the material—whether they should prioritize sharpness or choose a blade with more toughness and flexibility.
While they were discussing the sword, Dahlia went into the adjoining room to look at women's shoes with magical enchantments.
However, by the time she returned, Volf was calling the shopkeeper Flores, and the shopkeeper was addressing Volf by his first name.
Whether it was Volf and Ivano or Marcello, male friendships seemed to lose their sense of formality remarkably quickly. For a moment, she found herself wishing she were a man, too.
"Then, for this attempt, I'd like to use a longsword and place two layers of magic-sealing silver at the joints, with the layers oriented in opposite directions."
"A longsword at last!"
Beside her, Volf looked as though he might practically jump with excitement. Suppressing a laugh, Dahlia checked the workbench.
On it lay an affordably priced longsword suitable for enchantment and a small box containing magic-sealing silver.
The sword had a black grip and a plain silver guard with no ornamentation.
Its scabbard was dark gray, and its blade a dull silver. Though unremarkable in appearance, the sword was substantial in both length and thickness, and heavy enough that Dahlia could barely lift it.
She had been startled by its weight when moving it, and even more surprised when Volf mentioned that he sometimes fought with two swords on expeditions.
If Dahlia tried to swing this sword, its own weight would pull her along with it, and she doubted she could even raise it quickly in an emergency.
Impressed, she nevertheless turned her attention back to the task at hand.
The metal box, just large enough to fit in both hands, was filled with magic-sealing silver.
When she opened the lid, the viscous silver shifted slightly across its surface in response to her mana.
Dahlia didn't say anything, but she was a little flustered.
Magic-sealing silver was an unusual metal classified as a special mineral. When enchanted, it changed from a liquid into a solid. If she accidentally channeled too much mana through it and caused it to harden, it would become unusable.
Dahlia's mana had increased sharply recently, and even when she thought she had it under control, it occasionally fluctuated. She reminded herself to stay focused as she began the work.
"For this one, shall we go with the self-sharpering enchantment on the blade, water magic for cleaning on the guard, a wind magic stone to enhance speed in the grip, and weight reduction on the scabbard, as before?"
"If it's possible, could you enchant the blade with fire magic instead of the self-sharpening effect?"
"Something like Lord Grato's Ash Hand?"
Dahlia had seen it herself. In Grato's hands, it was a peculiar sword that radiated intense heat and mana.
She had heard that it roasted monsters cleanly and was even useful for making dried meat, but both its heat output and its mana were on an entirely different level.
"Exactly. Ash Hand is incredibly efficient for making dried meat. It even helps preserve freshness."
No matter how she looked at it, that didn't sound like something a member of the Monster Subjugation Squad would say. It sounded more like the wish of a fisherman or someone living in a fishing village.
"I can't reproduce it to that extent, but I might be able to manage a little firepower. Just give me a moment…"
She jotted down numbers and worked through the calculations. To avoid any injuries, she recalculated everything twice before determining a safe range.
"With my current mana, I can safely enchant it with up to three fire magic stones. That'll only generate enough heat for small fish or green squid, and I'll need to give the scabbard a heat-insulating enchantment. Is that all right?"
"Of course!"
She placed a metal plate with a heat-insulating enchantment on the workbench, then laid out the sword components that Volf had disassembled for her.
First, she enchanted the blade with fire magic using three fire magic stones.
She placed the magic stones to the right of her fingertips and the blade to the left, then slowly channeled mana from her fingertips through the space between them.
Instead of her usual rainbow-colored mana, a light that shifted between red and orange flowed from the magic stones to the blade in thin, threadlike lines. A gentle heat spread through her fingertips, but because she had intertwined it with her own mana, she wasn't in danger of burning herself.
She had explained all of this to Volf beforehand, but he still looked terribly worried as he watched.
After a while, the blade took on a faint reddish hue, and the heat became visible to the eye.
But how long would the effect last?
With the expedition stove, she could simply replace the magic stone itself, but that wasn't an option here.
Even if this was just an experiment, she couldn't help feeling that it was a bit of a waste to use the sword like this.
She had heard that there were mages at the royal castle who could remove enchantments. Perhaps she should talk to Volf about asking one of them to remove the enchantment once the magic wore off.
For the scabbard, she decided to use some of the armored crab shells she had in storage to apply a heat-insulating enchantment.
Armored crabs were crabs measuring over two meters long that lived among rocky areas and sandy terrain. As their name suggested, they had sturdy shells.
Their shells had some heat-insulating properties, and fire magic was ineffective against them. According to the monster compendium, they were vulnerable to ice magic.
"So armored crab shells can be used as materials for heat-insulating enchantments, too. I'd always thought they were only good for reinforcing armor or shields."
"They can also be made into pots. They're handy for boiling medicinal herbs that can't be prepared in metal cookware."
What Dahlia had on hand was the leftover shell after the large, flat sections of the armored crab's shell had been removed, broken into small pieces. Even these fragments were perfectly suitable as heat-insulating material.
"Volf, have you ever gone on a subjugation mission to hunt armored crabs?"
"No, I haven't. Adventurers go after them in winter, when they've slowed down, so they rarely multiply enough to warrant a subjugation mission. I have hunted and eaten them for food, though."
Armored crabs were delicious, both their meat and their crab tomalley. They were a seasonal delicacy that also appeared in the capital's markets during winter.
People said there wasn't a single part of an armored crab that went to waste and that made perfect sense to her.
Bringing their conversation to a close, she poured her mana all at once into the powder, a mixture of red and white.
Armored crab shells didn't require the dissolving solution used for magical tools. When infused with mana, the powder became a liquid-like substance before forming a thin film.
So, as soon as it liquefied, she poured it into the inside of the scabbard and applied the enchantment as though spreading a thin coating over the surface.
Once that enchantment was complete, she lined the inside of the scabbard with magic-sealing silver.
Magic-sealing silver was one of the methods of compound enchantment that Ozwald had taught her.
By inserting magic-sealing silver at the junctions and orienting it during the enchantment process, she could prevent the mana from repelling. To achieve this, she oriented the mana in the first layer of silver outward and the second layer inward, then fixed both layers in place with a stabilization spell.
She had made both the armored crab shell coating and the layers of magic-sealing silver as thin as possible to ensure the sword would still fit, but she was a little concerned.
If the inside of the scabbard had become too narrow and the sword caught when drawn in a hurry, it would be unusable. She decided to have Volf check it later.
As before, she enchanted the guard with a cleaning effect using a water magic stone and the grip with speed enhancement using a wind magic stone. To ensure the mana could be properly contained here as well, she carefully installed two layers of magic-sealing silver, with their mana oriented in opposite directions.
She took a little pleasure in watching the silvery substance crawl sluggishly like a slime as she applied the enchantment in a thick, solid layer.
The amount of mana used in the enchantments differed considerably from the previous attempt.
The amount of mana absorbed by the guard and the grip had increased dramatically.
Perhaps it was because they had switched from a dagger to a longsword, or perhaps the materials themselves were better. Either way, the sword had absorbed more mana than she had expected.
For safety's sake, she hadn't infused any more mana, but depending on the material of the sword, even Dahlia might be able to apply a more powerful enchantment.
"I'll check the blade before we put everything back together."
Touching the blade with her bare hands would be a little dangerous. Even with her fingers a few centimeters away, she could feel a considerable amount of heat.
When she dripped some water onto it, it sizzled faintly before slowly turning into steam.
"Shall I go upstairs and get a scrap of dried fish or something?"
"Let's try it with this."
Volf took a small package out of his breast pocket. Inside was a piece of dried kraken, folded up neatly.
"...Volf, why do you have that in your pocket?"
"Emergency rations."
Volf answered matter-of-factly, then eagerly placed the dried kraken on the blade.
The dried kraken slowly curled up, then began to sizzle.
Volf picked it up, split it in half, and offered one piece to her.
Dahlia thanked him and accepted it, though something about the situation didn't quite sit right with her.
Nevertheless, the dried kraken had been heated to just the right temperature and cooked to a pleasantly tender texture
"This seems perfect for heating up small pieces of dried seafood to eat..."
"Why would we go out of our way to cook food with a sword? What do you think the expedition stove is for?"
She was a little exasperated by his determination to use the magic sword they'd just made, no matter what.
Come to think of it, he'd also taken home the Sword of Lamentation they'd made earlier, the one that did little more than trickle water. What on earth was he using it for?
Knowing Volf, she wouldn't be surprised if he told her he simply enjoyed looking at it.
"Anyway, it looks fine for now, so I'll put it back together."
Volf slipped on his work gloves with practiced ease and began assembling the longsword.
"No repulsion... and quite a bit of water comes out of the guard, too."
He put the longsword together without any trouble, and a steady stream of water flowed from the guard, spreading over both sides of the blade. It was on an entirely different scale from the tiny amount of water produced by their previous attempt.
"I'll go over there and give it a few swings."
He moved to the opposite side of the workbench and swung the sword toward the wall.
He probably wasn't swinging it with full force, but the sword sang as it sliced through the air. Dahlia instinctively flinched.
"It picks up quite a bit of speed. I think it'll be easy to handle once I get used to it."
"That's good to hear. Now we just need to see how long the enchantment on the blade lasts."
Volf returned and gently laid the sword on the worktable.
The enchanted longsword's blade glowed with a faint reddish heat. However, when sheathed, it looked almost exactly as it had before.
Just as she was about to ask Volf more about how the sword felt to use, Dahlia noticed a slight vibration in the heat-insulating metal plate.
Looking closely, she saw that the sword resting on it was trembling ever so slightly.
Worried that it had turned into the Creeping Magic Sword again, she listened carefully. A faint sizzling sound was coming from it.
Would this sword start making noises, too? Just as the two exchanged silent glances, it happened.
"Huh?"
The slight vibration grew stronger, and a strange, high-pitched resonance began to ring out.
"This doesn't seem to be going very well, so I'll take it apart!"
"No, it looks dangerous. I'll do it!"
While the two of them scrambled to react, the sword before them began to emit an ominous creaking and cracking sound.
In an instant, Volf pulled Dahlia and her chair backward, then stepped in front of her to shield her with his own body.
The next moment, a sharp CRACK! rang out.
"Volf! Are you hurt?!"
"Yeah, I'm fine. The joints just came apart. Nothing flew off in every direction."
On the table, the magic-sealing silver had peeled apart into its two layers at each joint, and the longsword lay disassembled into its individual components. About half of the scabbard had come apart as well.
"I'm sorry. I never imagined it would destroy itself like that..."
The calculations should have shown that everything was fine. What had gone wrong?
The magic-sealing silver had come from her usual supplier, and there was no sign of deterioration.
She had even checked the formula with Ozwald, so the amount of mana shouldn't have exceeded the magic-sealing silver's capacity to contain it.
Did that mean that even fixing two layers of magic-sealing silver in opposite directions wasn't enough to contain the mana completely?
Magic-sealing silver was highly effective at containing mana flowing in one direction. But perhaps when used in both directions, the two layers peeled away from each other, making them less effective than the standard calculations suggested. Was there some way to compensate for this weakness?
Naturally, she couldn't exactly tell Ozwald, "I'm making a magic sword," so she hadn't been able to consult him in detail about this particular problem.
Another possibility was that she'd infused more mana than expected. However, since she hadn't suffered from mana depletion, she could probably rule that out.
Whatever the cause, this outcome had been completely unexpected.
She had heard that when dealing with powerful mana, one solution was to insert or use a covering made from rare materials with high mana resistance. It looked like the next attempt at crafting an artificial magic sword would have to begin with researching suitable materials.
As Dahlia sat pondering the various possibilities, Volf gently stroked the scabbard, now reduced to separate pieces.
"It all fell apart... Maybe it really, really didn't want to be reborn as a magic sword?"
"Volf, please stop talking as though it has a will of its own."
As he spoke sadly to the disassembled sword, Dahlia tried to banish the frightening thoughts that were beginning to creep into her mind.
The sword in front of her was nothing more than a disassembled sword.
It had merely made a few noises. Her father and the spirits of her ancestors were not inhabiting it. Absolutely not.
"I don't think we can give this one a name, at least."
This attempt had ended without the sword ever truly becoming a magic sword. Giving it a name would be difficult.
"No, we should give it a name, at least, since we've come this far..."
"But it fell apart, remember? We'd end up calling it something like the Disassembled Magic Sword, the Magic Sword That Can't Be Assembled, or the Self-Destructing Magic Sword."
"Dahlia, why do you always try to give things such pitiful names...?"
When she suggested names that accurately described what had happened, he responded with an expression of profound grief.
"...Let's simply call it the Magic Sword of Destruction."
Volf announced this in a solemn voice, and Dahlia narrowed her eyes to the tiniest slits.
She knew she had no talent for naming things, but Volf's naming sense was hardly any better.
"Don't you think that's a little strange, Volf? It never even became a proper magic sword, and it was the sword itself that was destroyed."
"No, you have to capture the romantic ideal of a magic sword in its name, too."
"Does the name really need that kind of romantic idealism?"
"Romanticism is absolutely essential when naming a magic sword."
Volf declared this with a perfectly serious expression. In response, Dahlia silently let the glass spoon she'd been using to scoop up the magic-sealing silver roll across the table.
The spoon clinked as it rolled over. This time, Volf narrowed his golden eyes.
"...Dahlia, there's no need to throw the spoon, is there?"
"I'm afraid that kind of romanticism is difficult for me to understand."
"I really want you to understand it."
"Then can't you just keep it to yourself, Volf?"
"No, I want to share it with you. Allow me to explain, in thorough and painstaking detail, the romantic art of naming magic swords!"
"I'll have to decline."
It was a day when Dahlia came to fully accept that there were some things even she and Volf could never see eye to eye on.
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