Blacksmith

During the day before the event, there were small changes. Haru had visited the Tower of Babel during the morning, having some free time since lessons wouldn't be held that day.

His goal was to learn at least the main processes of forging, he had vague ideas about how it really worked, but he had never seen the process in person, and he knew that not even knowing how to forge in itself, He wouldn't have had a chance to impress Hephaestus anyway.

'I wonder why my intuition is telling me to try so hard.'

Of course, it was true that trying didn't cost anything, but he was convinced that this was barely an attempt he knew would fail, and yet his intuition told him things wouldn't go this way, which was strange.

With him questioning himself why his 'intuition' seemed remarkably different from before, Haru made his way from the Shining Moon to the tower of Babel, and was again surprised by the beauty of the tower, high enough to disappear in the clouds beyond a certain height, but that was not all that attracted his attention. In fact, there were many people who were gathering in parties, probably to face the Dungeon. Although many adventurers prefer to be early risers, there are some who are not, and this was quite normal, at least for Haru.

Passing with great ease, Haru found himself in a short time inside the immense tower known as Babel, and immediately his eyes were captivated by the various shop windows. It was completely different from what he had seen outside the tower, here everything seemed to have a certain brilliance, which immediately took his interest, because in this environment, every single item had a price ranging on millions, and the previous Haru had very clear ideas about how absurd those numbers were for ordinary citizens.

But his goal today wasn't to buy, so Haru kept his eyes off the windows of things he didn't care about. His goal was to establish a relationship with some blacksmiths belonging to the Hephaestus familia, so that they could explain how blacksmithing worked, and if they could be so kind as to make him try, Haru wouldn't hesitate to pay a small sum.

'If only I knew, I would have asked that blacksmith to teach me something.'

If he could have paid you much better than the favour he asked for, Haru wouldn't have hesitated to ask. The only problem was that he had no idea this situation would happen at all, and so he was looking for a blacksmith who could explain the main process to him.

---

"I don't teach anyone my techniques."

Haru sighed at the blacksmith's rejection. Until now, he had visited three shops belonging to the Hephaestus familia, but everyone seemed to have no intention of explaining the process, let alone try it with their tools. Basically, for a blacksmith to have a personal technique was the one that most needed to be kept secret, and normally the event would be to the detriment of any blacksmith on Orario, as participating in it would mean hundreds of different eyes looking at one's work, But fortunately, Hephaestus seemed to be able to recognize a talent simply by observing the forging process. This meant that it was enough to beat the material a couple of times at most, to be disqualified or identified as talent, which on the one hand was positive because no technique was needed in that process during the first keystrokes, but it was at the same time filled with pressure, as for the blacksmiths a single mistake would have led to their failure, and to miss the opportunity to enter an S rank familia for sure was a great loss.

He had explored much of the 4th floor of the Tower of Babel, but no one had yet accepted his proposal, which somewhat discouraged him.

'Should I really give up? Is there anything I can do?'

His intuition told him to keep trying, but Haru no longer seemed convinced that he could explain he only wanted to see the initial forging process, nothing less. And instead all the other blacksmiths believed he was there to steal their techniques or even steal the tools from work at a single moment of distraction, which he had so far refused, but no one believed him.

The cause of it was probably his clothes. He realized that there was a wide difference here even between a person living in a village and someone living here, but the difference in clothing seemed to immediately label prejudices about people, and since people wearing the same clothes as Haru were considered rather poor, the blacksmiths could only think Haru was there to rob them.

Deciding to rely for the last time on intuition, Haru entered a shop that was placed differently from the others. Here in fact not all the weapons and armour of high quality were found, Haru could notice that the various equipment weren't of the quality that one would expect from the Tower of Babel, seen all the shops he had crossed so far, but he still chosen to make an attempt, If there was one thing he had taught, it was precisely that of not having prejudices about others.

Upon arriving at the counter, Haru saw how a man who appeared to be middle-aged stood there, and from his thick beard, he could only reach the conclusion the man was a dwarf.

"Good morning. I apologize for the intrusion, I know my request may seem a little reckless, but my name is Haru, and I'd like you to show me the basic process of forging."

Expecting another rejection without any hesitation, Haru said these words by making a small bow, to show the blacksmith due respect.

"...show ye how I forge?"

Haru was slightly surprised, what came to his ears wasn't a rejection, but a question, the blacksmith had decided to give him a chance.

From there, Haru began to explain in detail, making it clear he had no intention of robbing him of his techniques or anything like that, but that he was simply interested in attending the event to be held the next day, which intrigued the blacksmith.

"..Ye want to attend Hephaestus-sama's event, and ye don't know how to forge?"

Obviously the blacksmith was curious. It had been known for a long time that Hephaestus sought only the finest talents that could be found among the several generations of blacksmiths, the very reason for the existence of these events. Long story short, Hephaestus would turn all her attention to talented people, not those who didn't even know how to start forging.

"Exactly, even though I said that it was just a test before I evaluate other options, I feel attending this event is important, and to even just show up there, I must actually know the process that is required to be evaluated."

The blacksmith had kept an eye on him the whole time to see if there were any lies mixed in between, but realizing that the boy was not only telling the truth, he was also serious. This made the blacksmith change his questions.

"..Are ya okay with someone like me? I'm not even totally part of the Hephaestus familia, I'm more a blacksmith who only deals with reselling small pieces that other blacksmiths in my situation can't sell, are ya sure ya're okay with this type of blacksmith?"

While the blacksmith made sure that Haru had no ulterior motives and that he was really here for what he had asked for, Haru again focused on the bizarre way of talking another race was used to. But he always saw it in the positive, once again in front of him there was a variety that was intriguing, but not being in the situation to get lost in his thoughts, Haru answered in no time at all the question of the blacksmith.

Surprisingly, the blacksmith agreed to briefly show him the forging process, on condition that he would pay for the material and if he wanted to then try on another material, he would have to pay for the second one, which Haru immediately accepted.

Having gathered quite a bit of information about the process, Haru asked the blacksmith to let him try to forge a single material, and while the blacksmith observed what Haru did, he cleared his throat in clear astonishment.

"..Ye have to put more effort into it. It's obvious how that hammered lacked experience! Just because you paid extra on materials, I'll give ye this advice, keep trying again when ya can, and ye'll see that ya can definitely produce something decent."

Looking elsewhere and giving him this advice, the blacksmith had his arms crossed at his chest trying to look like a person with high experience, and since that made perfect sense, Haru nodded, further thanking the blacksmith and paying him the amount requested without hesitation.

As Haru was leaving, the blacksmith could only look at the work that Haru had done. Two or three hits were enough to make the metal exactly as he had asked, but Haru had explicitly said that this was the first time he had found himself with a hammer in his hands.

'A genius? No, the material has some imperfections although the work was done with an accuracy almost scary, that boy was definitely not normal.'

The blacksmith could only swallow. He pretended that Haru's work was nothing special and that he would need much, much more work, but in reality he too was shocked by the result to admit it, so much so that he chose to continue his work from the state in which he had remained it, as it was still good.

---

Now waking up with the event in mind first thing, Haru wasted no time changing his clothes in cleaner clothes. On his return from the tower of babel in fact he had by chance crossed a clothing store, and not wanting to show up at such an important event with clothes of very low quality, Haru had spent a bit of Valis change his outfit. Unlike his previous world in fact, in this world the style was slightly different and even if he preferred clothes that were wider, in the store there were no sizes beyond the normal ones, So he was 'forced' to buy something a little more adherent to what he was used to, but he didn't pay much attention because the clothes had no decoration, which made him chose to buy it anyway.

Going down the stairs, the first thing he encountered was Ryn's eyes who, seeing him in new clothes, was pleasantly surprised, and after he exchanged greetings with her, he set out for breakfast in the kitchen. Haru remembered that this was also the last day he could stay here, after which he would have to look for another place to stay, or pay another couple of days and find the necessary Valis as soon as possible.

After breakfast, Haru again crossed the road that separated the tower of Babel from the Shining Moon and could immediately notice one thing. His simple change of clothes had been enough to change people's looks, if before he could feel nasty looks and some eyes with expressions of contempt behind his head, now instead he was almost ignored, but at the same time he could see how the workers who were out maybe for a break or to clean were wearing 'gentle' looks, almost as if to invite him to enter their shops. He realized that even a change of clothes was enough to change the vision of the citizens in such a radical way, and the thing wasn't to his liking at all, but he kept moving toward his goal and decided to leave these thoughts for a later time.

---

(Next chapter is the Event, I promise it's worth waiting a few more hours.)

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