by Fujino Omori
Welf’s rage-filled warning made them freeze on the spot.
While the howl of the High Smith instilled fear in the soldiers, it was intended for Bell and Tsubaki as well.
“Stand up! On your feet!”
“…!”
Discarding his magic sword and white cloth full of weapons, Welf grabbed his father’s collar with both hands.
Once Wil was back on his feet, lip split and bleeding, the red-haired young man delivered another blow.
“UGAH!”
“The ‘pride of nobility’? Have all of you forgotten the need that drives all smiths?!”
The flurry of punches and verbal strikes drove Wil backward, but he raised his head, cheeks burning red with rage.
Wil channeled that anger into his fists and threw a punch the moment that Welf’s face was exposed. It connected with the young man’s jaw.
“Compared to honor, our futile desires are nothing more than trash!” Wil unleashed his mind and fist at the same time, making Welf recoil. However, the young man was quick to strike back. The dull impacts of their punches sounded throughout the warehouse. Knuckles dug into cheeks.
Both men staggered, struggling to maintain balance as they exchanged powerful blows. Wil was clearly surprised by the strength of his son’s punches. Welf launched another verbal tirade.
“The hell you callin’ trash?! Can’t hear you, you done-for old man!”
“You…you…YOU FOOLISH BOOOOOOOOOOOOY!!”
Overcome with rage, Wil knocked his son’s arms out of the way and jumped in close with his right fist held high.
However, every time his father’s fist connected with his face, Welf was quick to counter with an elbow or a punch of his own.
The onlookers, including Bell, watched in stunned silence, their eyes intently following every move.
The current situation and their physical pain long forgotten, father and son continued to intensify their fighting. Nothing else mattered to them anymore.
“A weapon only needs to be strong! Pretty words don’t change a thing!”
Brown hair and red hair whipped back and forth with each blow.
Both father’s and son’s faces were already a swollen mishmash of black and blue, with streaks of blood leaking from broken skin. Red droplets scattered every time another punch connected.
His father’s fists continuously pummeled his face, but Welf held his ground. The young man refused to show any pain as he powered through the impacts and retaliated.
“GHA…!”
Wil lost his balance and staggered backward. Welf roughly wiped the blood off his face with his forearm.
“Right now, I’m no different from any other guy who swings a magic sword!”
“…!”
“Is that real power? Is it our fate to keep making these things?”
On one side, a Level 2 High Smith. On the other, a Level 1 descendant of fallen blacksmith nobility.
Despite the absurdity of it all, Welf put all his being into every punch, his spirit behind every blow.
“Of course it isn’t! It can’t be!”
His father’s eyes went wide as Welf drove his fist directly into the man’s jaw.
“A weapon is part of its wielder! A valued partner that stays by their side through thick and thin, carving a way forward! A piece of their soul!”
“That’s…that’s nonsense…!”
“As smiths, we have to take pride in providing that kind of weapon!”
Catching a glimpse of the white-haired boy out of the corner of his eye, Welf delivered three more blows.
He poured all his soul into his blood-splattered fists.
“…We’ll have nowhere to go if we get run out of the kingdom! The name of Crozzo cannot survive without the glory of nobility! We will not survive…! Why can’t you understand that?”
The bloodline had lost its noble status, its pride. The moment the family was exiled, it would lose the only way that Wil knew how to live and would die out before long.
The only way to save their family was with magic swords.
Wil insisted that the power lurking in their blood, the magic swords it could produce, was the only path to their salvation. His powerless punches barely connected, but his voice was still as passionate as ever.
“You’re alive, aren’t you? Your hands can still swing a hammer, grasp metal!”
“…!”
Welf grabbed his father’s collar and pulled him in close.
He glared directly into the older man’s eyes, his throat trembling as he shouted:
“A hammer, metal, and a burning desire! With those, you can forge a weapon anywhere! Nobility, kingdom—they don’t mean shit!”
Wil bore the brunt of his son’s rage as Welf tried desperately to make his father see the truth that was in plain sight.
Hephaistos watched as Welf repeated the words that were on the verge of being forgotten.
“—‘Listen to the metal’s words, lend your ears to its echoes, put your heart into your hammer’! You and Granddad taught me that, didn’t you?”
A smelly workshop covered in soot.
His youth, when he worked alongside his father and grandfather, putting hammer to metal.
A time before the latent abilities in his blood awakened, when the disgraced family was determined to make a new name for itself without magic swords. A time when three generations of smiths came together to make that a reality.
Days that had once existed in their past.
Welf awakened those memories in his father. Wil’s eyes quivered.
Flexing the powerful muscles in his arms and tightening his grip on his father’s collar, Welf was nearing tears as his voice exploded once again.
“Where did that pride go?”
Those words hung in the air, echoing throughout the warehouse.
They lingered in the ears of Rakia’s soldiers, the High Smiths, and Bell. No one moved.
His breathing ragged, Welf kept his grip on his father’s cloak and broke off eye contact by looking at the floor.
Wil’s face was an absolute mess. The older man’s eyes widened, and he let his arms drop.
All focused on the two smiths. A thick stillness descended on the warehouse.
“Enough.”
An old man’s voice broke the heavy silence.
One figure stepped forward from the group of Rakian soldiers and pulled back his hood.
Welf’s shoulders trembled the moment he saw the man’s eagle-like eyes between his white hair and white beard.
“Granddad…?!”
“Father…!”
Welf continued to stare at his grandfather as Wil turned to face him.
Garon Crozzo.
Quite muscular despite his advanced age, the man stepped into the moonlight with his spine straight and head held high. He was even taller than Welf, over 170 celch. The former head of the Crozzo family, he and his son Wil were the ones who had given Welf his foundation as a smith.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Welf had learned what a smith should be by watching this man shape metal to his will.
The red-haired young man did his best to hide the shock of learning his grandfather had come to Orario as well.
“…Granddad, you came here for the same reason as…”
“I did. I, too, was called upon to ensure your return.”
Welf stepped away from Wil, gaining some distance before turning to face his grandfather with his fists ready.
The eldest Crozzo, however, cast his gaze on Wil, who’d fallen to his knees.
“But, enough.”
“…!”
“Your will is too strong, much like tempered steel.”
The corners of Garon’s lips curved upward, sending a jolt along Welf’s spine.
Never once in all his life had Welf seen his grandfather smile.
“Back when you were still a youngster, I was never sure if forcing you to make magic swords was the right decision…Looking at
you now, it’s my greatest regret.”
There was a great deal of remorse in his low voice.
When his talent was discovered seven years ago, and Wil was dead set on forcing him to forge one Crozzo Magic Sword after another, Welf had looked to him for help. Instead, the elder Crozzo had stared down at his grandson with an emotionless face and said, “Do it,” in no uncertain terms.
For Welf at the time, Garon himself was the very essence of a smith. Receiving that direct order was an incredible shock and pushed him to the brink of despair. That event had become the main reason Welf ran away from home, from the Kingdom of Rakia, to start a new life.
Hearing his grandfather’s true feelings caught Welf by surprise. But there was an edge to Garon’s expression.
“However, the blood in your veins will never disappear. The curse of Crozzo will hound you for the rest of your days, endlessly drawing you back to the path of magic swords,” Garon continued, eyes burning with a passion that time hadn’t taken away. “Despite this fate, are you certain your will won’t bend?”
His words had a great deal in common with Tsubaki’s; their content was almost identical.
They both pointed to the makings of the blacksmith and whether or not he would access the power hidden in his blood.
He hadn’t been able to say anything to Tsubaki. At that time, a feeling of powerlessness had shaken his will.
That was then—this was now.
Standing before his father and grandfather—his link to the Crozzo family—reminded him of a conviction he couldn’t afford to bend.
“No way in hell!”
Welf responded to Garon without missing a beat.
He let his level of devotion be known, especially to Tsubaki, who was standing not too far away.
“I’ll forge a weapon that puts magic swords to shame! Our bloodline means nothing, and I’ll prove it! I’m not just a Crozzo—I’m my own man!”
He would make a weapon his way, something that wasn’t a Crozzo Magic Sword.
He put words to the ambition that drove him to create something godlike.
“…Cheeky young’un.”
Garon narrowed his eyes after Welf made his case.
Almost as if he was happy to see how much his grandson had grown.
“We won’t pursue you any further.”
“But, Father! If we don’t…our place in the kingdom, it’s as good as gone…!”
Wil looked up from his crouched position, voicing his objection to Garon’s decision.
Every muscle in his wizened face strained under his bloody skin as he pleaded to the elder Crozzo. The old man responded calmly.
“We will start over. Not as blacksmith nobility but as smiths.”
Wil couldn’t say anything back. His gaze slowly dropped to the ground as he clenched his trembling hands into fists.
Then Garon made eye contact with his grandson.
“‘With a hammer, metal, and a burning passion, a weapon can be forged anywhere’…was it? You couldn’t be more correct.”
Garon looked away from Welf and over to the goddess who had taught him this valuable lesson.
He narrowed his eyes down to a sliver, as if trying to peer straight through her, before going into a deep bow.
“We surrender, oh Goddess. The responsibility is mine and mine alone. Please have mercy on my companions.”
“…Fine, then. I shall.”
Hephaistos slowly nodded, accepting his declaration of defeat.
No one among the Rakian soldiers voiced any objection. Their defeat had been a foregone conclusion the moment that Wil’s Crozzo Magic Sword shattered. Completely surrounded by High Smiths, they knew they were in no position to resist. Dropping to their knees and discarding their weapons, they held out their hands for the members of Hephaistos Familia to tie them up.
“Idiot.”
“…”
Tsubaki busied herself with restraining the soldiers but still found time to get in a verbal jab even without looking at him.
Welf could hear the disappointment in her voice as she led the prisoners away, but he said nothing.
He stood in the center of the charred warehouse, battered and bruised as he watched Rakia’s soldiers be escorted out the exit and toward Guild Headquarters.
His father, Wil, and grandfather, Garon, hands tied behind their backs, were among them.
At the last possible moment before leaving through the open doorway, Garon flashed him one more grin. Welf burned that image into his memory.
Even once his family members were gone, Welf continued to stare at the open door like a statue.
“Welf…”
Bell and Hephaistos had stayed behind.
They looked at the red-haired man, standing alone in the moonlight shining in from overhead.
The light of magic-stone lamps started to fade from the streets of Orario as night came to an end. The moon overhead became faint as the eastern sky took on a lighter hue.
Welf sat cross-legged beneath the last of the night sky as it steadily became brighter all around him.
He was on the roof of the warehouse. High above the ground and doing his best impression of a stone statue, he kept to himself without saying a word.
“…”
Bell stood a little ways behind him, unsure what to do.
The clash with the Crozzo family behind him, Welf wanted to be alone. So he had climbed up to the roof, taken a seat near the edge, and hadn’t moved since. Bell understood the young man wanted some space and kept his distance.
He’d been outside in the chilly night air for several hours now and was very cold. However, the white-haired boy couldn’t just leave the young man behind.
Unable to find the right words, he settled for staring at the man’s back the whole time.
“So, the two of you were up here.”
“Lady Hephaistos…”
The clanging of the goddess’s boots against the steel roof announced the arrival of Hephaistos. Bell turned to face her as she walked up behind him.
She came to a stop shoulder to shoulder with the boy, squinting her left eye as she observed the young man beneath the sky that grew brighter by the moment.
“Bell Cranell. Can you leave this to me?” The deity asked if she could be alone with the smith.
Bell stood wide-eyed for a moment but responded with a short nod. He made a quick bow and left the situation to the goddess before climbing down off the roof.
Hephaistos walked up to the young man as the boy’s footsteps grew fainter in the distance.
“The Rakian soldiers are now in Guild custody.”
“…”
“Their path of entry has also been revealed. An informant let them inside on the promise that they would start a war. Their main objective was to acquire you, though whether or not there were others remains to be seen…”
Welf remained sitting with his legs crossed even as Hephaistos gave him a factual update on the current situation.
She wasn’t looking at him, though. Instead, her eye was focused on the open skyline as she continued her report.
“The Guild will negotiate with Rakia to pay for their release. Even if talks fall through, they’ll be released outside the city once things die down.”
“…I see,” whispered Welf after hearing the fate of his father and grandfather.
Daybreak had arrived. The two were side by side, watching the sunrise.
“…Am I out of my mind?”
Welf finally said something as sunbeams reached out to them from the eastern sky.
His decision to leave the blood in his veins in the past and find a different route to a higher realm occupied his thoughts.
The young man’s gaze didn’t leave his lap as he spoke to the goddess.
“Maybe. Who knows?”
“…”
“Tsubaki is not wrong. Children like yourself are only allotted a brief window of time. In order to reach where we deities stand, you must commit everything y
ou are toward accomplishing that goal.” Hephaistos laid everything out plainly. “But,” continued the goddess as Welf pushed his lips together, “you’ve made a commitment, have you not, Welf?”
“…I have.”
“Then never doubt yourself. There’s nothing more fragile than hollow steel.”
Then the Goddess of the Forge turned to Welf and smiled.
“If there’s one thing that we look for in children, it’s a will powerful enough to make the impossible possible. We want to witness that moment when the children called heroes overcome incredible odds and fight when all hope is lost.”
All deities wanted to look upon “children” who defied logic and reason. The goddess said in a soft, gentle voice that she knew of the potential those like Welf possessed.
“…I will catch up to you—my way.”
Climbing to his feet, Welf reaffirmed his ambitions to the goddess.
There was no uncertainty left in his voice. He squared his shoulders and looked directly into Hephaistos’s eye.
“Is only catching up enough?”
“…I’ll surpass you.”
The eye next to the black bandage squinted, as if the goddess was enjoying the moment. Welf also cracked a grin.
Hephaistos’s expression was something similar to a mother taking pride in her child’s growth. Then she reached out with her right hand.
She started to run her fingers through his hair, gently patting him on the head.
“—Wh-what do you think you’re doing?!” Welf tensed, blushing bright pink as he swatted the goddess’s hand away.
“Oh, you don’t like this?”
“I-I’m not a kid anymore! Do that to someone Bell’s age!”
“Hee-hee. It’s really cute how you try to act like a big brother. I like that about you, actually.”
“!!!!!!!!!!!”
Hephaistos enjoyed a lighthearted giggle as Welf’s ears burned bright red.
Indeed, he put on the air of the eldest brother around his new familia, but he couldn’t maintain it in front of this deity.
“Dammit,” he swore under his breath, and hid part of his blushing face with his forearm. For a moment, seeing that smile from the fiery-colored deity nearly made him fall for her. He scolded himself for it.
But more than that, the fact that he couldn’t say anything back reaffirmed the feelings that he had for her. It was just as Tsubaki had said: He admired Hephaistos as a goddess, as a smith—and as a woman.