Chapter 8 - Gift

The next day, Red woke up early and locked himself up in the vacant forging room.

With the lack of customers. The old man didn't need to forge as often and spent his time outside the house, letting Red take care of the shop.

He picked silver and a bit of gold and went to town.

The first try ended in a failure.

Looking at that lump of metal and an unrecognisable animal that would haunt anyone in their dreams, he threw it in the forge straightaway.

Maybe even Grimm would get scared by it.

Second.. third... fourth...

Each step looked a tiny bit better if one squinted their eyes, but to complete it in four days?

"Watcha doing, kid?" asked the old man behind Red's back, making him almost jump.

"Ruby has a birthday soon." He said as an amusing smile appeared on the other's face.

"Ya making a metal Grimm doll for her?"

"Earrings..."

"..." He stared, speechless. From the thousands of possibilities, it looked the least like earrings.

Such a huge lump of metal would make one's ears fall off in no time.

"Let me show ya." He said and pushed Red aside.

The old man somehow changed in a split second and began the work.

"I doubt you wanna use the casting method with molds, right?" He asked, and Red nodded.

"Look, you need to start with drawing a design. I don't need it, but you do." He said and brought out a piece of harder paper.

Seconds later, a beautiful design appeared on the paper.

The old man then forged out two pretty thin metal cuboids and then began describing various processes.

With enough experience, one can start drawing on the metal straightaway. But it can be sometimes pain in the ass to keep deleting mistakes on small sheet of metal.

Of course, if one just needs a very basic outline, all of that can be ignored.

The process took half an hour as the old man described everything.

Things like saw blading the material, use of sand paper right to not overdo it, etc.

Thanks to the experience the old man gave him. Red managed to make 15 prototypes in one day.

Halfway through, he realized one problem.

What design?

Without any ideas, he decided to walk around tomorrow and see if he could find something.

Although he couldn't do the ultra detailed earrings. The thing overall didn't look too bad.

Next day, he woke up very early once again.

The streets still looked quite abandoned, with the occasional bird flying by and chirping.

Thanks to the nautical twilight. He had plenty of light before the Sun even came up.

Large streets welcomed its earliest vendors.

He walked around. Most of the early birds included breakfast street vendors that bantered with each other.

Most of the large shops would open in a couple of hours.

An open shop caught his eyes. Fragrant smell of flowers hit his nose as he walked in.

Another world opened before his eyes as he saw many interesting flowers.

Most he didn't know the names of.

Others were easily recognisable, but one thing seemed clear.

Every single flower received endless amounts of care to be brought up like this.

"Welcome, welcome! I'll be right there!" said a voice far in the back.

Not long after. A green head popped out of the corner.

Small, cute looking girl with green hair and flowers embedded in them, she looked a bit too young to be running this shop.

"What would you like to see, dear customer?" She asked and brought him around the shop.

He stopped near the roses. Ruby seemed to have the surname Rose, right?

"Fell in love, dear customer? Roses are always the perfect way to showcase your feelings." She said and brought him nearer.

"Birthday gift and a sign of gratitude. Does any flower represent gratitude?" He asked after thinking about it.

"You must have done your research, right? Let me show you the peach roses right away." She said, winked and brought him to another corner of the room.

Many colours of roses appeared.

"Here it is!" She said and began to talk more about peach roses.

In a flash, Red found himself outside the shop with a couple of peach roses in his hands and the girl's voice thanking him for a purchase.

He found a direction thanks to her.

At home, sketched a lot of variations to make it look a lot like a rose. An imitation that seemed close proved easy to make.

But he wanted it more detailed.

Another problem cropped up, and he didn't know exactly how to deal with it.

Peach roses do not look too different from any other rose. Moreover, he couldn't quite make the centre right.

The outside looked great, but the inside felt like an endless spiral and he tried to recreate it with little to no progress.

He didn't give up and spent the entire rest of the day making one.

Deep into the night. A silver rose appeared before him. He wielded a lot of petals and very thin silver to make the centre right.

The old man also gave him some tips on making flowers, but let Red do his own things.

Now with a finished product. He knew he couldn't paint it and even if he could, painted over silver would wear down and look ugly in the end.

"Ya sure threw a lot of effort into these. Thought that with ya reclusiveness, you'd never take too much time to make gifts..." said the old man as he looked at the earrings.

Red didn't comment on it and instead looked at the peach roses nearby.

The words of the flower girl kept echoing inside his head. If he couldn't pain the silver, then perhaps he could make an additional gift.

The material they gave him already exceeded anything he could afford a thousandfold or more, anyway.

What he didn't like when it came to Ruby. Was her lack of close range weaponry.

Moreover, she sucked at close combat. To the point where he doubted how she could even wield her own scythe.

She even had awakened her aura already and should have been way stronger than him.

So, he decided to make a dagger.

Maybe not the best or most durable, but it might come in handy if she carries it around and knows how to swing a bit.

He even found the perfect candidate for the handle.

Peachwood.

Alongside it, he chose a pretty light metal. With an aura, it wouldn't be a problem to fight with it for days.

Not to mention that it is more of a decoration.

Though he needed some more advanced technology to carve on the metal blade with his current skill level. He also intended to carve on the handle.

If he had a month or more. Then he wouldn't mind spending some on learning metal carving.

Overall, such skill seemed a bit redundant to learn.

He considered her his friend, one of the very few he had in both of his lives.

A gift filled with effort was a must. However, he still had a lot of things to complete...

Red began to work on his last gift.

The third day in, he managed to make a pretty good blade and added the handle to it.

He then spent the rest of his day designing the roses.

After all, one mistake and he would have to redo the entire blade and time didn't stay on his side.

Fourth day, October 31st, Red woke up at 2 AM and started to carve.

Slow and steady. That's how he spent the following 3 hours carving it. No room for mistakes or errors.

And at 5 AM, his work got completed.

Looking at his creation, he felt a bit taller. Maybe he won't have to get butchered by her family after all.

No one would reject a heartfelt gift, right?

Along with everything done. He had some time to spare to get ready for the upcoming birthday.

Thanks to the remaining time he had left.

Red decided to take the best course of action. In order to be as ready as he could, the books might help him.

Today the smell of the books possessed a certain level of gravity to them.

He walked around the book section until he found them, in the most right corner of the entire library.

'Art of meeting their family'

'101 on fathers & mothers'

'How to tame your father-in-law'

A sad-looking bookshelf held these three books. Nothing more than other books seemingly evaded that particular corner.

To his dismay, he didn't have enough time to finish all three. So, he chose the third one as the girls didn't have a mother.

While not usually mentioned in books. From the books like 'Taunting your enemy 101' or 'How to make your neighbour move in a week' he noticed a pattern.

Things that people didn't possess and most other people did usually became a sort ofPlus, tabboo.

Especially when it came to highly prized things such as money, status and family with the importance rotating depending on the person.

With Yang and Ruby, they surely didn't have an explosive status as no one recognized them. Plus they didn't seek attention when he hung out with them.

Their financial status too didn't compare to billionaires, even if they belonged to upper level household.

That left the option of family or psychopathic/sociopathic path. Of which both girls didn't look like the latter.

At least he hoped so. To lose his first friends so soon would be a shame…