"Ahem!"
My father got our attention after waiting for my mother's lecture to wind down a bit.
"Alright, I've got what I needed. Could you two step aside and stand right against the wall?"
We did as he asked. The very next instant—without any "spatial warping" or special effects—a car appeared right in the middle of the office: a 2004 Ford EcoSport.
Old, yes. But still fully functional, thanks to the tweaks my father had made over the years to keep it roadworthy. That is, until it finally gave up the ghost because of... *this*.
As you'd expect, having a car in the room made things cramped for the three of us—especially given my father's size. But things got even tighter.
At the far end of the container-office, right in front of the car's hood, my father did something that caused a basic, generic blacksmithing station to appear (the kind you'd see in games like *Skyrim*).
Realizing there wasn't enough room between himself, the forge, and the car, he made the most logical choice.
With seemingly minimal effort, he pushed the 1.18-ton car backward, moving it back more than twenty-five centimeters. And he did this on a carpeted floor—a surface that, I'm certain, would make it hard enough just to slide a rubber ball across it, let alone four tires still attached to a chassis complete with seats, an engine, and everything else inside.
He didn't seem to be exerting any more force than someone would use to push open a slightly stuck door.
'I know this is unlikely to happen, but if I ever annoyed him enough for him to hit me like he did when I was a kid... would he be able to control his strength? And besides that...'
"Mom, didn't you say his [Item Box] was full with the car?"
'I still don't get how a car can fit inside; so far, the only limit that thing has is weight. And even that isn't really a constraint.'
"Yes, it was."
"So~~~ where did *that* come from?"
I asked, pointing toward the forge, while my father broke and snapped the iron apart with his bare hands, tossing the pieces into a... well, there's no other way to say it: a pot. He was putting all the metals into a huge iron pot after breaking and separating them almost as if they were paper.
"Something your father got once he decided on his job class. Before that, it was just the furnace and a hammer."
And in just two days, it turned into a forging station with a furnace, a measuring table, an anvil, a rack with other hammers, and some tongs?
'If it's like in games, the more my father crafts items using his job class—or his own abilities, independent of it—the more experience he gains, and the faster the job evolves. Kind of like my Fighter job, which is at a pretty high level (probably), given the number of fights I've gotten into lately—more than in my entire life up until now.'
But then, what else has my father done besides the masks and working on the car?
And a small observation.
'If he got a basic workstation, why didn't I get so much as a training sword or something, anything, when I chose the Fighter job????!!!'
"Hmm? Didn't it just get a bit warmer?"
For the past few days, the temperature hadn't changed at all—hovering around 14 or 15 degrees—but now I could feel it gradually rising. Being near a forge, that would be perfectly normal—*IF* the furnace fire were lit, which it wasn't.
My mother chuckled as she watched me take off my coat.
"Look at your father's hands, and you'll understand."
I did as she said and noticed his hands were redder than usual. I also saw that the way he separated and broke the metal was unconventional—as if cutting, separating, and breaking metal with one's bare hands were ever a normal thing to do.
His reddened hands seemed to warm the metal almost instantly, making it malleable enough to cut through iron like paper. Twist it, tear it away from other pieces, and so on. He would then fold the iron until it formed spheres—rather ugly ones—which he placed into that pot.
"Aaaah... he's using some kind of magic, right?"
"It looks like it, but no. It's just part of his constitution—or something like that—now."
A special constitution, huh? Like how my body is weaker in the light than in the dark—though I haven't really had a chance to compare the two yet. Or like Mari's "Mana-Beloved" trait; I still think that's an incredibly overpowered ability, on par with a Unique Skill.
"And would you know the name of that 'constitution'?"
"Hmm, I think it was something like, forger's hands, incandescent hands, or something like that."
That would hardly come from a dwarf, much less a giant.
'Could that have been the father's unique ability?'
Possible, but if that were the case, it would be a rather weak unique ability compared to mine or even Maria's. I get additional experience for resisting things, Mari gains additional experience for acting passively and siding around the house.
The ability to heat and shape metals with one's hands, okay, it's impressive and useful for artisans (like my father is). But for a general scenario, where combat will most likely become an integral part of our daily lives, it doesn't seem like a very versatile ability immediately.
*Whoosh*
The heat intensified as soon as Dad lit the forge, placed the "pot" on the fire, and immediately turned his back and turned to the car.
"...Is this how blacksmiths work with iron? I'm sure turning your back while working isn't a good option."
(A/N: it isn't, but for the story it is)
Regardless of what I think, he did it. As soon as he turned around, he opened the handle and started tinkering inside.
"Clara! Can you come here and help me a little?"
My mother quickly left my side and went to him, having to stay close to the wall to get past Eco.
They talked a little in low voices, and my mother took something out of her [item box]—correcting me, she took some things out of her [item box]. Then she went to the forge where the iron Dad had placed was slowly turning redder, and put some powder on top of it before returning.
I looked at her with the question written all over my face, but she just shrugged and signaled for me to keep watching.
My father then removed the motor and battery from the Eco and placed them on the table; he also took out the large magic stone and several smaller ones (compared to the large stone and my father, they were about the size of my thumb).
'Where did they get so many?'
There were at least half a dozen of them—larger than the standard ones, though not as big as the large stone or the magic stone belonging to Commander Kobolt that Mari had shown me.
Generally, the magic stones I'd found so far ranged from the size of a fingernail to half a finger. These were the size of a whole thumb, whereas Commander Kobolt's had been the size of half a ping-pong ball.
'Something stronger than the standard type but weaker than an elite, or something like that?'
But exactly how many enemies there were, how frequently they appeared, just how strong they were, and—once again—when they'd had the time to gather so many stones... those remained very important questions.