"Me, going to Solingen?"
The City of Swords was packed with forging factions and merchant groups who did business with the Hephaestus Familia.
To the people there, the Divine Smiths were basically rock stars.
Naturally, Hephaestus herself held a massive amount of influence in Solingen. This "business trip" was just a routine run to renew contracts with their partners.
For regular people without a Falna, crossing the monster-infested wilderness to reach Orario was a death sentence.
But for high-level adventurers, it was basically a paid vacation.
Since Hephaestus was going in person, the Familia would send a ton of heavy hitters to guard her.
Even if they ran into a couple hundred armed bandits on the road, it wouldn't even slow them down.
Sending someone from their camp made sense.
But why send him?
"Well, I'm not forcing you," Tsubaki said, leaning against the doorframe. "I mean, if you want to go, I can totally put a good word in for you!"
"Just for that?" Noah sighed. He didn't see the point in running errands.
If he had that kind of free time, wouldn't it be better to just keep his own shop open and make some money?
"Don't you want to take a trip? It's the City of Swords! Don't you want to check it out for yourself?" Tsubaki pushed, acting like this was the opportunity of a lifetime.
'I just got back from another world, okay?'
To Tsubaki, being stuck in Orario might feel suffocating. But Noah didn't want to waste his time on a sightseeing tour.
Plus, the whole "check it out for himself" pitch was backward.
Orario was in a league of its own.
When it came to weapons and gear, the labyrinth city was easily ten or twenty years ahead of the outside world.
"Do you have anything else you wanted to talk about, or did you just come here at the crack of dawn to bug me?" Noah asked.
"Other things... well, I guess there's something else." Tsubaki suddenly started fidgeting.
She was decades old, but she was acting super weird!
"Why is an old lady like you acting like a shy maiden?"
"Huh? What's that supposed to mean?!"
"Nothing. Just spit it out..."
Noah took a sip of his hot tea, glad that it finally took the edge off his hangover.
Tsubaki coughed twice to clear her throat.
She carefully pulled a small bag from behind her back, set it on the table, and slowly untied the string. Noah peeked inside.
It was the batch of magic crystals he'd processed for her a while back.
"They broke?" he asked.
"Yeah... they broke," Tsubaki muttered.
Noah just stared at her.
The half-dwarf flinched under his deadpan glare, turning her head and whistling like she was totally innocent.
"Got any more?"
"Nope."
"Noah-boy! Come on, just make a few more for me! I swear I won't break them this time!"
"This is the real reason you came over, isn't it?" Noah sighed. "That whole business trip thing was just a bribe to soften me up, right?"
"Eh? Was I that obvious?"
"Tsk."
"No, no, wait! It's not like that," Tsubaki waved her hands frantically. "I really want you to take the trip. You haven't left the city once since you got to Orario, right? And didn't you ask me a long time ago how to get out of town?"
She had a point. He did ask about that. Back then, he wanted to hunt down some Black Dragon scales to use as forging material.
He gave up on that idea pretty fast.
The reason was simple: he didn't have a way to process them.
The old books said a single Black Dragon scale weighed a thousand pounds. On top of that, they were totally immune to physical weapons, water, and fire.
Their defenses basically broke the laws of physics.
Even a Level 6 veteran would break their weapon trying to scratch one.
The scales were way tougher than Orichalcum. Nobody in Orario could smelt that kind of material right now.
It always made him wish he had some kind of crazy, magical "Heavenly Flame" to melt it down.
He honestly didn't know Hephaestus left the city, but from what Tsubaki was saying, she visited Solingen every so often.
Then again, a god's idea of "every so often" could mean a hundred years.
"I don't plan on leaving right now, and I'm not exactly sitting around with nothing to do. I've got three custom weapon orders I haven't even started yet, and the deadlines are coming up fast. I'm busy."
Before Tsubaki could argue, a new voice called out from the workshop door.
"The Artisan Spirit is right. I'd be pretty annoyed if you dragged him out of town right now, Cyclops."
"Huh?" Tsubaki turn around, looking pretty surprised.
The newcomer was an Amazon.
You didn't really need to specify she was a woman, since the whole Amazon race was female.
"Antianeira?" Tsubaki crossed her arms.
Recognizing an alias meant the woman was a high-tier adventurer. Noah used his Truth Seeker skill and saw she was Level 3.
"Has the Ishtar Familia still not learned its lesson?" Tsubaki's voice dropped, giving off a seriously dangerous vibe.
Antianeira held her hands up, showing she didn't want a fight.
"I didn't think the Captain of the Hephaestus Familia would actually recognize me," she chuckled.
"Guess I'm not a total nobody." She smiled and pointed right at Noah. "Relax, I'm not here to start a turf war. Artisan Spirit, you're a blacksmith, right? You aren't going to back out on a promise, are you?"
She reached into her cleavage and pulled out a folded slip of paper.
Noah recognized it instantly. It was one of his custom weapon tickets.
Truth Seeker confirmed it was the real deal.
"I'm pretty sure you weren't one of the three people who bought those," Noah said.
"Hehe, true. But after I spent a really fun night with the guy who bought it, he just gave it to me." She shot Noah a playful wink.
Noah just stared at her.
Good grief.
The old saying about heroes falling for pretty women was real. He wasn't trying to brag, but a lot of high-level adventurers were dying to get their hands on his gear, let alone the Level 2s and 3s.
Thanks to people like Alise, Bete, and the Amazon sisters showing off his weapons, his work always caused a huge scene.
Even Alicia's sword-staff made waves.
Gear for Magic Swordsmen was super rare, and a weapon that swapped between a staff and a blade was basically a dream come true for them.
He never expected some guy to trade away a custom weapon ticket for a one-night stand.
Did the guy just have zero willpower, or was this woman really that charming?
Well, she was definitely gorgeous, and she had a great figure.
Even though she worked in the pleasure quarter, she had this cool, tough warrior vibe.
Antianeira... Yeah, the gods were pretty good at giving out aliases.
"My name's Aisha Belka," she said, resting her hands on her hips. "So, Artisan Spirit, you aren't gonna tell me you hate how I got the ticket and refuse to make my weapon, are you?"
Tsubaki watched the whole thing, resting her chin on her hand.
"Forget how you got the ticket for a second. You haven't forgotten what your Ishtar Familia tried to pull on us, right? We definitely haven't forgiven you."
"Hmm? Making me take the blame for a bunch of idiots seems a little unfair, don't you think?" Aisha sighed.
She called her own Familia members idiots like it was the most obvious fact in the world.
She pointed at her own head and started laughing.
"That toad's head—did you guys really smash it in? Hahaha, that's a masterpiece." She laughed harder, eventually squatting down and holding her stomach because she couldn't stop cracking up.
Noah and Tsubaki just looked at each other, confused.
But then again, Phryne was the kind of person who probably pissed off her own team just as much as her enemies.
"Don't worry," Noah finally said. "I'll forge it, even if you are with Ishtar."
"Really?" Aisha looked genuinely surprised.
She targeted that guy specifically to score the ticket.
Sleeping with him was easy, but she honestly didn't think the Hephaestus smiths would actually honor it.
Just like Tsubaki said, their Familias just got into a huge fight. The Ishtar Familia got slapped with a fine, but they never actually apologized.
Aisha couldn't blame them, her goddess cared way too much about looking good.
Ishtar slept with so many male gods, she probably thought they'd all line up to back her in a fight.
Turns out, there aren't that many idiots in Orario.
The second the other gods heard Ishtar was picking a fight with the Hephaestus Familia, they bailed.
It was basic common sense: if you don't want your sword snapping in half while you're fighting a monster in the Dungeon, don't piss off the blacksmiths.
"You brought the ticket, and you got it through a fair trade," Noah shrugged. "I've got no complaints."
"Oh! How sensible!" Aisha purred.
She leaned forward over the table, giving him a great view of her cleaveage.
A really nice, sweet perfume drifted over to him. "If we end up working well together, big sister wouldn't mind teaching you a few special techniques in bed~"
Pfft!
Tsubaki choked on her tea and spat it everywhere. Half of it hit the desk, and the other half shot right out of her nose.
Noah just waved his hand, totally unbothered. "That won't be necessary..."
'Good grief,' he thought. 'I'm just a kid and I'm getting hit on? Is this Aisha chick a cougar or something?'
"Alright, then let's get down to business. Wanna hear what I need?" Aisha licked her lips, staring at Noah like he was a piece of meat.
Right at that second, a teacup slammed down onto the table right between them.
Thump.
Aisha blinked and looked over.
Haruhime, the fox girl who still smelled like sweet milk, was glaring daggers at her.
Haruhime had her guard turned all the way up, looking like a proud watchdog!
Noah-sama purity was on the line... and she was going to protect it!
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