CH 161

“Bringing a girl into your room at this hour… Chris would be jealous if she knew…”

I don’t know if Rurika is being honest or just trying to hide her embarrassment, but it doesn’t matter because Hikari is already waiting inside anyway.

It’s not long before Rurika notices Hikari, and looks embarrassed while shrugging.

“Did you call Hikari too?”

I prompt Rurika to sit on a chair, while Hikari nods and dangles her legs.

I guess she’s a little tired of waiting.

I told her to come here after she was done with her bath, but she came here earlier than I expected, so we talked about what we did today while we waited for Rurika.

Apparently I was right, and Rurika really has been thinking about getting a new weapon, but hasn’t for monetary reasons.

I ask Hikari if she wants a new weapon too, and she says she wants a mithril dagger. She knows how sharp they can be from seeing Talia’s in action.

“I called you two here because I want to make new weapons.”

This is pretty sudden for them. Rurika tilts her head, and Hikari’s eyes shine.

I explain in a way that Rurika can understand, that I can use Alchemy like smiting too, and I can use that to make weapons.

“Your main weapons are daggers and swords, right? I want to know how you want them to be.”

They say that if I can make them look like the weapons they currently use, that would be good.

Rurika’s twin swords have a boorish design that emphasizes practical use above all else, with a special focus on sharpness and durability. And yet, they still couldn’t break the skin of that goblin king.

Hikari’s has simple ornaments, and the base of the blade is jagged like a survival knife’s. When it cuts, paralyzing poison enters through the wound, so it’s also a kind of magic item. That makes it relatively good at conducting magic energy.

It’s probably because of this dagger that Hikari manages to make magic energy flow, despite not being great at it.

And then, I start taking from the Item Box the materials I need to make weapons.

“W-wait. Is that what you’re using?”

“Hn? Yes?”

“Isn’t that mithril?”

Of course it’s mithril. But I just picked it up, so it didn’t cost anything.

“No no, I can’t accept that.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s never a bad thing to strengthen our party. And it’s a waste to just keep it in the Item Box, isn’t it?”

“Have you thought about selling it and buying a new weapon? It’s mithril we’re talking about, so you could use that money to buy even a weapon with magic attached. And what about you, Hikari? Are you fine with this?”

“Yes. Leave it to master.”

Rurika doesn’t say any more, probably because she realizes she’s alone on this. She looks kind of tired, but I’m sure that’s because of her long bath.

Also, magic weapons? I don’t know if I can buy ones with the abilities I want. Even if I do have the money, it doesn’t matter if it can’t buy me what I want.

I make magic energy flow, and make a blade. I can feel the magic energy being sucked out of me very quickly. I check my status screen while doing it, and see that the mithril blade is finished just before I have to drink a mana potion.

I think I know why. The level of my Creation skill probably isn’t high enough to meet the level necessary to work with mithril.

Also, I’ve tested this before, and if I do run out of MP and fail, I also lose the materials.

But anyway, I’ve finished the blade of one of the twin swords.

Rurika is staring at it with her mouth half open.

Should I drink a mana potion? Well, I’ll just finish this one.

I check to see if I recovered enough MP, make the handle of the sword, and connect it to the blade.

I’m pretty sure there’s all sorts of things wrong with how I’m making it compared to how it’s made by actual blacksmiths, like the order for example. But I don’t know how a blacksmith makes a sword in the first place, so I can’t compare it anyway.

“Can you check its weight?”

I hand it over to Rurika, and she timidly accepts it.

She can’t swing it in here, so all she can really check is its weight and grip. Worst case scenario, I’ll have to make adjustments as she uses it in the dungeon.

“Yes, nothing about it feels wrong to me. But I won’t really know until I actually use it.”

She has the mithril sword in her right hand, and one of the swords she usually uses in her left.

“All right. I’ll make the other ones tomorrow. One in the morning, and one at night. I guess I could make them now, but I’d have to drink a lot of mana potions.”

I say while shaking an empty mana potion bottle.

I actually wanted to finish one set, but at this rate my stomach is going to be full of mana potion.

By the way, I started with Rurika’s weapons because they’re simple and easy to make.

“Ah, you made this with alchemy too, right? Is it possible to fix it?”

Rurika takes out a bracelet like she just remembered it. I know what that is. It has a magic stone embedded into it instead of a jewel, and it’s cracked.

“I can, but can I do it after I get a magic stone to replace it? Ah, is Chris’ broken too?”

I ask, and Rurika starts firing words at me very fast.

While they were traveling, the magic stones on the accessories I gave them broke all of a sudden, and they thought it was a bad omen. And then they bumped into Siphon, heard that I died, Chris became even more closed off, and this and that. I’ve actually heard all this from Chris already.

And so, I decide to tell her about the special effect attached to the magic stone, and how that’s what caused it to break.

I feel like I’m one step away from being seen as a stalker, but I tell her the truth and say I needed to know where they were so we could meet again.

Rurika says there’s no use worrying about it now, and accepts my apology.

She says that I could have just contacted them through the guild, like I did at the start, but the problem is that I was pretending to be dead at the time, so I didn’t know if that option would be available to me.

She makes me promise to make something for them when I get magic stones, but I was planning to do that anyway.

The next morning my MP is full, so I don’t waste time making the other sword. Rurika is so happy she hugs me when I hand it to her.

Chris is stunned, Sera is surprised, and Rurika’s face turns deep red once Hikari points out what she’s doing.

What? I didn’t do anything wrong.