Chapter Ninety-Two: Strange Forging

The moment Lancer stepped into the basement, a strange sense of familiarity washed over him. He had seen this place countless times in the real world. Liz might not have been the most beautiful girl in Sword and Sorcery, but when he first saw her crouched beneath the bridge, Lancer had still wanted nothing more than to beat the living daylights out of Kirito. And no, it was not because that guy only ever socialized with Asuna and no one else. Lancer had read the novels, after all. He was just itching to complain about why Kirito had been so single-minded at the beginning, only to turn into... well, that later.

Could he really not have shouted, “You are all my wings!”

Just as Lancer was drowning in his odd memories, Asuna and Liz stood behind him in utter speechlessness. They could understand why he had frozen when he first came in, but why had he then started shouting, “You are all my wings!” Neither of them understood what the line meant at all, so they could only exchange a helpless glance.

Bang!

Lancer took a heavy blow to the rear!

Lancer suffered a critical hit!

Lancer was subdued! The last line was pure nonsense.

“Asuna, what was that for? That really hurts!” Lancer rose to his feet, rubbing his backside with no trace of dignity.

“You idiot, who told you to block the doorway?” In the safe zone, no damage could be dealt. Of course, suicide was possible, but Lancer was obviously just pretending.

“Fine, fine.” He stood up and walked over to the forging table. “All right, tell me what you want me to make.”

Right now, Lancer only wanted to finish this as quickly as possible. It was not that he disliked being with beautiful girls, only that a certain glutton had started throwing a fit...

“I want food! Food!” Because she was, by nature, an electronic songstress, she could do all sorts of unreasonable things in a digital world—like rolling around in the air.

Even though only he could see it, it was still incredibly embarrassing. Even if she was only nominally here on vacation, she was still, at the very least, a nominal pet.

“Just a moment. I’ll have it done right away.” Lancer helplessly handed over his emergency rations. Of course, Asuna and the others could not see any of this.

After thinking for a moment, the two of them said, “Anything is fine, as long as it’s a regular weapon.”

They did not want to be like Lancer and carry a giant scythe. It was certainly powerful, but first, almost no one knew how to use a scythe; second, it was simply too bizarre. In the whole game, Lancer was probably the only person using a scythe as a main weapon. Even if it was only a prototype, a conventional weapon would be better. Weapon attributes were valued differently depending on the type of weapon. For example, an extra-damage effect on a weapon with attack speed A and attack speed D were worlds apart. So even if Lancer made a scythe, they would not have it appraised, because attributes were not as simple as A, B, C, and D.

“Okay, then how about a Tang saber?”

Lancer suddenly remembered that he had once used that weapon often. But now it hardly mattered, and since long weapons were useful for rescue, he had not given much thought to making anything else. This time, though, he could try and see whether he could forge another fine weapon.

“A Tang saber? What’s that?” In the real world, neither Liz nor Asuna were the sort of girls who liked swords and blades, so naturally they had never heard of it.

“A Tang saber is a weapon from ancient China. It’s said to have been lost to history, and it was the prototype of Japan’s tachi. The tachi is excellent in almost every respect, but it has one weakness: it’s too brittle. A typical samurai would carry at least two swords for that very reason. The Tang saber doesn’t have that problem, but it was far too difficult to make, so it disappeared from the world. In a game, though, it can still be crafted. By the way, the spearhead of Japan’s Dragonfly Spear was made using Tang-saber craftsmanship.”

Lancer figured it would be quicker to explain it in terms of Japanese weapons, since that would make more sense to them. After he finished explaining, he began taking out the materials.

Lancer was also something of an oddity in the game. Everyone on the front lines basically knew that he had all sorts of S-rank materials in his possession. But because very few people focused on auxiliary skills, giving them those materials would have been a waste, so no one ever cared much. Over time, no one even knew what treasures Lancer actually had.

Asuna was surprised at first when she saw him producing one material after another, but before long she had gone numb to it.

“Okay, these are the ones I’ll use.” Lancer held up the core of a steel golem, planning to make it into the blade, then took out a dryad heart for the hilt, and finally a spider sac. Asuna did not even know where the last item came from, since none of the floor bosses had ever been spider-type.

“Wait, um...”

“Just call me Lancer, the same way you do with Asuna.”

“Mm. Lancer, isn’t the skill description just to put mineral materials into the furnace to refine them, and then use the forging hammer? Why do you need wood and that strange sac?” Liz’s level was not particularly high, but it was not low either, or she would never have been able to run a little shop. So to her, Lancer’s behavior looked extremely strange.

“Oh, this? How should I put it...” Lancer smiled. “What you said is indeed the simplest method. But if you do it that way, what comes out is often just a matter of luck and level, so the uncertainty is huge. If I personally work different materials into the piece myself, it’s much more troublesome, yes, but the final value is definitely better than simply separating those three materials and using them on their own.”

At first, Lancer had made weapons the way Liz had described. But once, when he was bored and wanted to test the results of his own handiwork, he turned off the guidance mode. On that occasion, the skill called Weapon Master actually resonated with the forging process, and that was how the scythe had appeared. Perhaps because it had been his first time, it had produced a magical sword. After that, he had tried many more times, but only managed S-rank results. Since he was born lazy and hated tiring himself out, he rarely used this method, and only did so when people he was close to asked him to forge weapons.

“Let’s begin!”

Lancer picked up his tongs, and in an instant he seemed like an entirely different person.

His usual impression was that of someone hopelessly unreliable, but the moment he used the tongs to place the steel core into the furnace, the leaping flames bathed his face in firelight, and he himself seemed to become part of the blaze.

At that moment, Lancer was overflowing with excitement. He felt certain he would make something remarkable this time. Why? He could only say that his Weapon Master intuition told him so.

Even with the guidance mode turned off, after just over ten minutes the steel had already reached a state suitable for forging. He lifted it out with the tongs in his left hand, seized the hammer in his right, and brought it down hard.

Clang!

The steel began to tremble in a steady rhythm. With every strike, and every return to the quenching bath, and every time he sent the weapon back into the fire, Lancer’s eyes grew brighter. He kept his gaze fixed on the blade blank in his hands. After dozens of localized quenchings and repeated foldings of the steel, he could basically confirm that the blade itself had taken shape. What remained was to turn it into a true sword blade. That final step, however, did not really require him to do it personally. This was a game, after all, not a lesson in becoming a blacksmith, and without years of practice, an ordinary person could not hope to forge a proper sword shape.

Thus, in a burst of light, a silver-white blade appeared upon the table. The odd thing was that the hilt had not appeared with it. Lancer answered their confusion through action.

He took out a small dark-red knife and carved the wooden core a little. Soon it had become a hilt. But he was still not done. Next, he wrapped the hilt in the spider sac, then fixed it in place with the tongs, and finally fitted the hilt onto the blade.

With another flash of light, the weapon was truly complete.