Hone to Issho no Isekai Seikatsu

 Adventurer Life Day 76 (Sat) – Noon – Goldew Town – East Side – Blacksmith Shop – Backyard

After the usual hunting and tree cutting, we returned to town and completed our exchange with the guild.

“I’d like to get in contact with you after noon today. It would be good if you could stay in the guild until then if possible.”

That was what the Guild Master Lucia had asked me.

This morning, a messenger came to the guild, saying that the chief of this town would like to meet with me, my party members and Gratt shortly after noon.

For that reason, Lucia wanted us to wait for a bit at the guild.

However, there was something I wanted to do within that time.

I was wondering about the pure iron I gave to Dandro from before.

In addition, there’s also some new weapons I will need to buy for Gawain and his subordinates.

If I leave someone here, I can join with them immediately once the town chief comes.

With that, I decided to go to the smithy with Centurion, while Benedetta and Gawain stays in the guild.

Phillips still remains in the coin because of how much he stands out when in town.

Dandro’s apprentice, Hugo, has his workshop located slightly from the right side from the direction out of the guild. It’s a short walk from here, so it’s not too unreasonable.

On the steep cliffs from which the workshop stood, large waterfalls poured in abundance, making a deafening sound around the area.

When arriving at the workshop, there was an old man with a firm body and another man about 2 meters tall with his back bending over.

Both of them seem to be sitting on a stump, talking to each other. There’s no doubt they’re both Dandro and Hugo.

As we approached, Dandro noticed us and called out.

“Ohh, Nemo. Sorry about this, but the armor still isn’t ready yet.”

“Ahh, right. I suppose that would be the case. Not much time has passed yet.”

It was the specially made armor for Phillips. Though, I wasn’t too surprised about that. It wasn’t the reason I was here to begin with.

“Oh, and another thing. Lemme introduce you to my disciple. Hugo, my proud pupil.”

“Thanks to you, Lord Ediel was more than happy with my teacher’s work. And even that pure iron. This workshop will always welcome you.”

For the first time, I spoke face-to-face with the owner of this workshop.

He looks to be in his late 30’s. Black hair, blackish brown eyes, and a really tall stature.

For a blacksmith, his skin color is surprisingly light.

The person looks to be someone really nice to talk to at a glance.

However, aside from the pure iron, I wondered how Hugo knows about the armor incident since even Dandro seems to be confused by that.

Dandro looks at me, trying to say he didn’t say anything.

“— Ah. You see, helpers from the mainstore who came here had mentioned how before setting off with the orc subjugation mission, his conspicuously silvery armor is what caught their attention. It’s already known that my teacher was involved with the making of it, and right now, I can take some guesses about how he went about it.”

(I got caught…)

Was it really that obvious? I wonder what I did for him to come to that conclusion…

“Ah, well, it was something more of a guess though. There’s not many people who knows about your relationship either, so I don’t really think it’s something to worry about.”

“…”

Even if the existence of the skills ‘Engraving’ and ‘Plating’ hasn’t been known, I still have the responsibility of keeping it a secret.

However, because of my sudden strong relationship with Dandro, and my status as an adventurer with divine blessings, I suppose it wouldn’t be strange to make a connection between that.

(It might be difficult to return back to Olbia…)

“SPEAKING of which… ORC subjugation?”

“… A skeleton? What… I mean, who is this?”

“A member of my party. He’s a skeleton I summon from my divine protection, but he has intelligence and acts on his own.”

“Hello. I’m CENTURION.”

“Ooh… It can talk.”

We continued talking to each other in such a manner.

“A horde of orcs?”

“Yeah. They’re coming from east of Comnes, and have been sustaining themselves with the abundance of vegetation growing there. I’ve heard they had invaded a settlement northeast of Olbia and caused some major damage there.”

“East of Comnes…”

There was the problem with the forest wolves appearing near Comnes before.

So the probable cause of that was from the orcs huh…

(Since its Olbia handling it, would that mean that the orc group hasn’t attacked Comnes?)

I breathed a sigh of relief knowing that the people from the first town I had visited were safe for the time being.

But from Olbia’s point of view, having a horde of dangerous monsters running amok around the territory isn’t something to ignore.

“Well, word is that Olbia had already dispatched a sufficient number of troops and adventurers to handle the problem, so there’s no need to worry. Even if there was something, I doubt they would require help from this town.”

“I suppose that’s right.”

The horde of orcs are last seen devastating in the northeast forest of Olbia, the opposite side from Goldew.

As such, Goldew would be situated outside the range of which the monsters can attack.

I’ve never heard this kind of rumour before…

— Dandro came out of the main building. I didn’t notice, but after a while of talking with Hugo, he seemed to have quickly gone inside the main building and came back with a lump of steel in hand.

“Here. This is the pure iron you gave as a present which had been forged into steel. Did you want to see this?”

“How’s it? Surprising huh? I also helped in making this.”

They sounded like they’ve been unable to hide their excitement while they ingot slowly forges.

It was of excellent quality, and they would both like to know if I could continue sending more of these pure iron over.

Judging the steel through Alchemist’s eyes shows that there are only a very few elements in there apart from carbon.

I guess it goes to show how high quality the steel is here.

(Well, there’s also some impurities that should be there…)

It is knowledge gained from the skill Alchemist’s Eye.

If elements like molybdenum and chromium are added, the strength of it could be better than this. But it’s a long way off for elements like that to be readily available.

In order to collect such metals, perhaps the Extraction skill could help me in collecting these.

However, the difficulty of Extraction depends on the size, the total amount, and the type of material that has been targeted.

For example, titanium can be seen for me in certain areas from the ground. However, the ratio is as low as less than 1%, and in order to obtain 1kg of titanium, I will need over a ton of earth to use it.

In order to handle that much, time and mana will be consumed exponentially, making it excruciatingly long to collect a substantial amount.

Well, that was from before. It’s quite possible that it had improved a bit right now from levelling up.

— Though, it’s not like it’s something I need to worry about.

The current technology of forging steel in this world isn’t really all that advanced. I don’t think anyone would have a way of accurately using these sorts of materials.

I returned the steel ingot back to Dandro.

Given the tension these two have, they had thought if there was another batch of pure iron I would hand over to them to which I had just shrugged my shoulders.

Noticing something off, I asked something.

“Something happened?”

“Well, the town chief told me to give priority to mild steel production over the usual steel products.”

“Mild steel?”

The moment I heard of it, the knowledge of it immediately popped into my head.

This is also the effect of the skill.

Mild steel is low carbon steel.

In general, it’s softer and not as strong as ordinary steel.

Hugo later explained it in the exact same as the skill had given me, so I was convinced the skill information was correct.

Hugo’s intention was to use pure iron for that sort of steel.

However, it’s strange why the chief would request for such a thing.

“I can take a guess. It probably has something to do with the town’s financial troubles.”

“?”

There was more context behind that, so I wasn’t able to immediately understand it.

In short, the chief has started to take some measures against the town’s shortage of income.

Local aristocrats have two means of collecting taxes.

One is taxation on income. For example, adventurers like us have our rewards deducted when exchanging materials. A portion of the reward goes to the guild, and another is for the town’s taxes (the guild will also get taxed as well).

Another method of taxation is through tariffs. Merchants importing and exporting goods through the town gates would be taxed to give them the legality of buying and selling them in town.

Returning to Hugo’s guess, I realized that the financial situation of the chief was becoming more difficult, and so he had instructed for some export-related goods to be produced so that it could be directly collected as tax.

“Because there are only a few adventurer’s in town, it’s hard to expect much income from the guild.”

“…”

Aside from the lack of staff of the guild itself, I’m keenly aware of the lack of adventurers in Goldew.

With the number of adventurers not enough, guild tax collection would have been rather poor.

Anyways, mild steel is exported to other towns and received in large quantities from other smithies to make steel products.

Hugo, who had opened his workshop in Goldew to pursue his own career himself, is quite disappointed being unable to make advanced products such as weapons.

Goldew has a high production capacity for iron and charcoal due to its location.

It’s not a bad offer for the workshop to just mass-produce low valued mild steel…

“If I can manage to surplus the needed steel, I can use the rest to make weapons.”

Hugo breathes out a sigh.

I can somewhat sympathize with him, being not able to run his weapons shop.

In this world, it’s a common view that fighting monsters is a human mission, which keeps the human society maintained, and is perceived as doing God’s will.

Weapons craftsmen also take pride in making weapons to fight monsters in hopes of being valued and praised for being known as a master crafter.

Nonetheless, the fact that he has no choice but to continuously make low value-added steel in order to help pay taxes for the town is a shame for a skilled craftsman.

But what can be done? It’s a societal thing in the end afterall…

When thinking if there’s anything I can do to help, a sudden mysterious image came to my head.

The image was something of a tube extending straight down from a cliff, which was a contraption that made it part of the overall structure.

What’s even more suspicious, the image that came to mind was full of in-depth insight, as if I already had experience in manufacturing such a thing.

(— I never made something like this before… Why do I know of it?)

I calculate the risk inside my head.

As a craftsman, they tend to keep technology a secret, so they’re quite trustworthy already.

Since Hugo is a person who Dandro trusts, there should be no problems with showing him.

Nevertheless, I was a little hesitant, but the fact that the production volume of this workshop was at a bottleneck in making weapons is weighing on my mind.

I asked Hugo.

“Say Hugo, would you use any means in order to increase steel production?”

“If it is possible to use, then of course.”

The blacksmith replied immediately.

When I heard that, I asked for permission to work around the waterfalls.

Once the both of them returned back to the main building, I started to work along with Centurion.

What I envisioned was a device that generates wind power, which is an important tool for blacksmithing.

Earlier, I had heard from Dandro about the general idea for making steel, so it was easy to imagine how free access to wind would benefit them.

The good news was that there was nothing from Gawain about the chief arriving yet, so I was able to solely concentrate on building it.

I dug out some indents around the wall to use to climb with using modelling, and climbed to the top of the cliff.

Immediately beside the place where I climbed, right above the waterfall, there was a pool-like reservoir.

The water overflowing from that pond flows down the rock walls forming the waterfall seen from below.

I drill a hole beside the cliff so that it connects to the bottom of the reservoir, and naturally, the water gushes out of the hole.

With that, it goes through a 30cm diameter pipe going vertically down the cliff, to which it then turns across the ground, ending itself by the end of the waterfall.

The pipe was already made through Modelling, using the scraps of iron dumped near the workshop.

I return back to the pipe near the top of the cliff.

Feeling confident everything is done, I start using Modelling to make some holes from the top of the vertical pipe.

Once I did that, I felt some sort of suction from it. It was strong enough for me to find it a little dangerous to place my hand over it.

Finally, an empty tank was built on top of the pipe running along the ground.

Once the tank was connected to the pipe, the air pressure inside there increases.

(Did it succeed…?)

Once this was done, it was strange that there was no emotion felt from it, as if I had done something like this already before.

For the time being, I headed inside to report to Hugo.

“What the! There’s an amazing amount of wind coming from here!”

“Hey, just how were you able to know something like this?”

I called out to Hugo, but of course, Dandro also came out to check, and both were surprised by the device.

Hugo’s apprentices also seem to be about to take a look, but the both of them stopped that.

They stare at the device as strong wind continuously pour out of the pipe coming from the tank.

This is an air compression system from the other world, called a trompe.

It’s a simple structure that makes use of falling water to suck air, and have them stored into the tank.

Since there are no moving parts required for this, it would require only very little maintenance.

If the pipe or tank happens to be damaged, it can easily be repaired given that it’s right next to a smithy shop anyways.

It was the perfect device I just happened to think up on all of a sudden.

However, despite it belonging to the previous world, I really don’t think I knew of this sort of thing before, which makes things strange on how I was able to think it up.

On the other hand, the two blacksmiths were surprised and began to consult about the pressurised air and the location of the furnace. Very practical way of thinking, just as a craftsman would.

“To send all this wind into the furnace —”

“Would the wind be too strong to handle it —”

After discussing for a while, they agreed to build a furnace bade from bricks about 5 meters away from the air tank.

Apparently, they planned on making the pipes out of wood and steel, but so long as I’m here, there won’t be a need to make those.

Just as when the assembling of the furnace began, I got a message from Gawain back in the guild.

Judging by the height of the sun, it was getting close to evening.

… So much for ‘just after noon’…

“— It’s time for me to go now, there’s something I have to do.”

“Oh, alright. Thanks for this by the way.”

“We’ll finish the rest, and thank you too.”

I waved goodbye to them as me and Centurion hurried back down to town.

– Adventurer Life Day 76 (Sat) – Evening – Goldew Town – Central Town – Front of Chief House

We met up with Benedetta, Gawain and Gratt after walking to town from the adventurer’s guild.

I already know the location of my skeletons, so it was easy to find them with Gawain.

I made sure to have Gratt walking in front of us so that the one who look to be in charge here would be him.

The Chief’s house was located at the center of the town.

With Goldew situated inside and around the large rift from the cliff, the Chief’s place would be at the very back from that rift.

The walls from the sides have holes carved as doors and windows, all of which are neat and clearly indicates people live in them like a residential area.

However, the chief’s house at the end stands out compared to the rest.

It was a tall white building, most likely possible because of it using the surrounding walls to support it, reaching from the ground all the way to the ceiling inside the rift of the cliff.

This is probably the tallest building I’ve seen in my time in this world.

“It seems to be bigger compared to when I saw it before.”

Gawain had visited this place about 50 years ago.

Since it was a memory before his death, he still remembers it quite well.

“I will take you to the chief.”

The retainer coming out from the building says so with a bow.

And so, we went inside.

Hopefully, we can leave here without any trouble.