"Second, to be honest, I don't have much attachment to this treasure. Third is..."
The blacksmith's eyebrows twitched automatically, his expression showing utter incomprehension.
"Why? You don't have any attachment?"
"I got it too easily."
"You call this getting it easily?"
"If you, sir, were to ask me to hand over my mountain climbing skills, which I acquired through long effort and time, even I would never give them up. Because that's a part of me, earned through blood and sweat."
I merely looked at the greatsword lying beside me and said quietly, as if it were nothing.
"But since this greatsword came to me in a single moment while climbing the mountain, without any effort on my part, I can calmly accept it even if it suddenly leaves me someday, just as it suddenly came to me."
"Alright. I'm not completely convinced, but. Then, what about the rest?"
"Well, the third reason is for the children's dreams and hopes. If I don't give you the treasure, sir, I'll become someone who told a blatant lie to the children at this point."
"Are you kidding me right now?"
"No, I'm serious. I learned from my father how precious dreams and hopes are. To shatter them with my own hands in front of them..."
"Alright, then the last reason...?"
"Just..."
"Just?"
"I like you, sir. Isn't that reason enough?"
The blacksmith suddenly put his clenched fist to his chest, as if his heart felt tight.
"In this moment, I've gained a son I never had."
"Then you'll accept that greatsword, right?"
"Instead, I'll just analyze it very simply and disassemble it a bit, then return it to its original state."
"Do that."
The blacksmith added, with a slightly sheepish expression.
"Actually, I wasn't the first one to find you."
"I was unconscious then, so it doesn't count. I'm the judge."
"You're so arbitrary! So completely arbitrary!"
The blacksmith and I laughed together for a long time, loud enough to seemingly blow the roof off the smithy.
The next day, we sat facing each other with the sword in question placed on the smithy's old anvil. In the space, faintly filled with the smell of metal dust and soot, the blacksmith carefully brushed off his worn-out tools and began to speak.
"Though I may be an insignificant blacksmith in this remote country village, I am still a blacksmith. A burning desire for skill squirms within me."
"Those are truly wonderful words."
"Alright, then tell me everything you know about this strange treasure, without leaving anything out."
I calmly explained, recalling the moments I had used the sword while descending the Devil's Fangs.
"Well... if you grip the handle of this greatsword with both hands and apply pressure as if compressing it from top to bottom, strangely, a powerful force of flames erupts from the blade. In direct contrast to that, just by holding this handle, a transparent protective film-like thing forms around my body, safely shielding me from extreme external temperature changes."
"And the color of this blade is now a deep black, but when I first got this sword, it was a mysterious blue. The more I used this greatsword, the more it gradually turned red, and finally, it turned completely black like it is now. I think this color change is a kind of marker indicating the amount of energy remaining in this greatsword. That's all I know."
The blacksmith gently tapped the blade with his fingers, lost in deep thought.
"Hmm... It seems to have quite a complex magical treatment. Very elaborately done, too. Tapping the surface of the blade, the resonance is unusual. There's definitely an empty space inside. Oh, this is..."
Like a pure child who had gotten his hands on a precious new toy, the blacksmith became completely engrossed in the enormous sword, exploring it relentlessly. After a considerable amount of time, the moment to carefully examine the internal structure of that mysterious treasure finally arrived.
"Really... is it okay?"
With a serious expression, I looked straight into the blacksmith's eyes and said resolutely.
"Go for it."
The blacksmith gave a small nod, then used delicate tools to forcibly twist and remove the handle. In the place where the handle had been, a small gap was revealed. As he carefully widened the gap, a sticky orange liquid flowed out and seeped into the smithy floor.
"Huh? Uwaaaaaaaaaaagh!"
I didn't know what that strange orange liquid was, but I had a strong intuition that it was by no means an unnecessary component of this greatsword. Hurriedly, I knelt down and began to carefully gather the orange liquid that had spilled onto the floor with both hands.
*Chiiiiiiiiik...*
The moment I gathered the sticky orange liquid with my hands, an unpleasant sensation as if hot heat was seeping into my skin, along with a strange sound like it was rapidly evaporating, caused it to vanish like smoke.
"Aaaah... No... No..."
For a while, I couldn't say anything, kneeling and staring blankly at the floor. Just then, a trembling voice came from beside me.
"Oh dear, this shouldn't happen... This shouldn't happen..."
The blacksmith trembled all over, looking at me with anxious eyes.
"...Ah, it's nothing. Since it's already like this, let's see it through to the end."
"No, still... Hey, you! Were you lying!? Saying you got it easily, so it's okay to lose it easily!? Let's stop with the nonsense. Don't push yourself."
"No! If we stop here, it'll really be for nothing! Damn it! It's already like this, what more is there to worry about now!!"
"S... Sorry..."
After that, we spent ample time carefully disassembling the greatsword and then reassembling it to its original form. Not long after, I vaguely felt that due to today's events, the power of the greatsword's flames had weakened compared to before.
"Ugh... My hands keep feeling hot..."
***
It was a morning unusually clear and blue, without a single cloud. After days spent battling my injuries, I slowly raised my palm and repeatedly clenched and unclenched it.
*Zzzik… zzzik… zzzik… Thud thud thud..!*
With the movement, the bandages wrapped around my hand came undone weakly.
'My body has finally recovered to some extent...'
The dazzling sunlight pouring through the wide-open window and the clear, refreshing chirping of birds roused me from my place.
While I had been unconscious and collapsed, almost all the villagers had come to check on me with worried faces. But notably, the one person I had so desperately wanted to see was nowhere to be found.
"Lea…"
Without hesitation, I decided to head to Lea's house. Opening the creaking wooden door and crossing the empty clearing, just as I approached Lea's house, a suffocatingly eerie aura forced me to stop in my tracks.
"Huh!"
Only after coming down from the mountain did I see a true demon, something I couldn't even have imagined on that notorious Devil's Fangs.
"Don't you remember what I said back then? I said I'd kill you if you made my daughter cry. People called it a joke. You were probably one of them. But you know, I've never... said such things. As a joke."
His lifeless, ash-gray eyes were cold and eerie, as if they would mercilessly snatch away all life in the world. The deadly killing intent emanating from his entire body seemed to have a physical form, creating the illusion of sticky, black liquid flowing down.
The sharp killing intent, as if digging deep into my skin, tensed every muscle in my body, and a suffocating pain, as if an invisible hand was pressing down on my throat, overwhelmed me. But I barely managed to squeeze out my voice.
"Father... what... what do you mean by that...? Lea cried?"
That being was definitely Lea's father. At the same time, past memories I had completely forgotten began to surge uncontrollably. It was something from a distant past, over ten years ago. As usual, my father had continued his dangerous prank of putting his hand into the hot furnace, and when young me burst into tears out of fear, it was the day Lea had a huge fight with my father.
Seeing Lea's steadfast figure confronting my father, as if protecting young me, Lea's father had called me aside to talk.
'Was it ten years ago...'
***
"If it's alright with you, how about just the two of us take a little walk? It's a bit less suffocating outside. For you... it'll be even more so."
"What is it about?"
"Let's just say it's a secret conversation between men. You know it spoils the fun if I say more, right?"
"Yes, okay."
Wanting to escape the stuffy space in front of the smithy's furnace, I nodded lightly, a momentary curiosity even stirring at Lea's father's words.
Lea's father looked at my silently standing father and made a request.
"Please."
"You're leaving me alone with this kid? Of all times, now?"
"Yes. Don't do anything stupid with my daughter and wait patiently. It won't be long."
"Pre's father, let's talk too."
I faintly saw Lea smiling deeply as she grabbed my father's clothes. My father let out a groan, as if he couldn't handle Lea.
"Ugh..."
"Well then, let's go."
Leaving my father behind, who looked somewhat pitiful, I followed Lea's father out of the smithy. Stepping out from the smithy, which had been filled with intense heat, the night air was quite chilly but felt refreshingly pleasant.
It felt as if my hazy mind had instantly cleared. Perhaps we had been subtly intoxicated by the intense heat of the smithy, and our actions had become a bit overly aggressive.
Lea's father led me to a narrow alleyway right next to the smithy, where darkness lay thick. There, relying on the faint starlight, we sat side by side on an old box of a suitable size.
A silence hung in the air for a moment. As if whispering to the stars in the night sky, his faint silhouette in the darkness gazed into the void, and Lea's father spoke first.
"A long time ago, I once dedicated everything I had to my dream."
He dedicated everything to his dream. For some reason, I thought those were very romantic words.
But his appearance, reflected in my eyes as he spoke those words, looked deeply exhausted somehow, and seemed so precarious that he might shatter at any moment. He had seemed so fearsome and strong when he was by Lea's side.
"But, in the end, I couldn't achieve my dream."
"Why? How could that be?"
Immediately, I realized how rude a question I had asked.
"I had no talent. Not even a bit."
Since I didn't know him well yet, I couldn't rashly say anything about this heavy story.
"I risked everything on my dream, and since I couldn't achieve it, I thought I had lost everything in the end. When I returned to my hometown after a long time, even its traces had vanished. I had no place to return to, no one who remembered the old me; no one was left anymore."
"But now... you have Lea, don't you?"
After a moment's hesitation, I carefully placed my hand on my chest and pointed to myself.
"I... I'm here too."
But he shook his head and continued with a bitter expression.
"This might be a bit shocking for a young boy like you, but I was roughly getting my affairs in order and planning to quietly disappear from this world."
If you lose everything, do you really have to do that? Is there really no other way? Can't you start over from the beginning? Surely, a life started anew would be better than the first.
Now, I could neither easily agree with nor fully understand the blacksmith's words. I clenched my fists tightly, trying hard to suppress the surging defiance, and my fingernails dug deeply into my palms.
"At that time, I saw a newborn baby abandoned on the street. Since a baby only has its parents when it's born, I thought that young baby, too, had lost everything in the world."
The blacksmith's voice began to tremble slightly, and as he roughly grabbed his own hair, as if to tear it out, I sensed that a shocking story, incomparable to what had come before, was about to begin.
I felt so sorry for his pained appearance... I was scared, but I cautiously approached and gently held his trembling hand.
"I had a truly ugly and dirty thought. The baby was in the same situation as me. So... together..."
"Live together? Because you're in the same situation?"
"Let's leave together. This terrible world."
My goodness.