Nati

I was ready to set up shop.

Despite that messy encounter yesterday, my priorities did not change. We got half a ton of leather, waiting to be processed. The former Cranta Proper was about to experience ball games at an unprecedented scale.

After all that excitement I slept like a log and woke up before Charlotte for the first time. Before I dashed to inspect my diligent minions, I remembered an issue. Even after a week, I still couldn't remember most people here by name. I wasn't introduced properly in the first place and I started to feel bad about it.

It would have been embarrassing to ask them after all this time, but most of the names still eluded me, even the women I worked with. I rushed the chieftain with questions the moment she opened her eyes.

"How's the woman called, who made the first ball?"

"Who was it?" She seemed rather sleepy and confused. Orcs usually slept in their clothes and even washed while wearing them. They didn't cover much and seemed more practical than stylish.

"That's what I'm asking. We talked a lot, but I don't know her name and it's embarrassing." I explained as she got out of her stalks of straw.

"Maybe she doesn't have one, it's not uncommon with orcs." She surprised me. "They select their names as they see fit. Usually, it describes their achievements or their roles within the tribe, like the leader of the hunters is simply the Hunter. The blacksmith also refers to himself as that."

"Then how come you have such a human-sounding name?" I kept bothering her, as she prepared to leave. "And Hana too."

"It was what my master gave me, I got stuck with it." She said rather unceremoniously. "Otherwise, I'd be referred to as the Chieftain. Hana was also called Hank by their owners, but they didn't like it."

"What about Mabel?" I asked, still unsatisfied. Charlotte was already outside, but I rushed after her. "She's a child, but already has a name."

"She's just fascinated with humans. She picked it for herself." She explained. "Normally, we'd refer to the kids using the sounds they most often make. Lots of babble and growling sounding ones."

"Sooo, how should I address someone I don't know?" I asked, unsure.

"A hey you should suffice." She concluded and headed out for her usual morning routine. "I have to check on Hana and their sister."

"Can I go too?" I asked, but she shook her head.

"The shaman was already annoyed by those two." She claimed. "He doesn't like people. Nothing against you though."

"Does he have a name too, or just shaman?" I yelled my last question.

"Oh, he does," Charlotte giggled before disappearing behind a treeline. I was left hanging.

Well, I had places to be anyway. The village was bustling already, and I wanted to check out the wyvern skin acquired by the hunters. They brought it back after I went to sleep, and now it was spread out to dry. I didn't meet the creature in person, but its hide was huge, the texture similar to a lizard's skin, colored dark yellow.

"We will be tanning it locally." The leader of the hunters said the first thing when he saw me. "It's too valuable to contract out for the beastfolk, but we will have the shaman speed up the process. I have plans with this."

I was shocked when I first heard about how long it takes to tan the hides. They probably did not want to wait that long with this fine catch either, and maybe this meant I got to meet the shaman in person. Charlotte was the only one who visited him daily.

The kids were out playing some weird game that seemed like their strange mix of soccer and dodgeball. I stopped by to take a look but couldn't understand the rules. Mabel was their referee, and they had fun.

The older ones were in large-scale ball manufacturing already. They improved the process a lot in just two days since the prototype. The result was rounder, leaked less air, and even tied the stem without sticking out too much. They did not waste any leather we bought.

"I estimated, that we can make around two hundred with this much material." I got the report. I had no idea how many villages were nearby to trade with, but the number seemed excessive. "It will take some time though, only three of us can make small enough stitches... The others help with the preparations, cutting the leather, waxing the seams, and testing."

"I don't think we have to rush anything." I tried to calm them down, and although I was proud of the product I brought from another world, without actual craftsmanship, it wouldn't have been nearly as successful.

"Don't use up all that." The blacksmith came complaining. "You promised me a larger bellow, and the sooner I have it, the sooner I can get to work. Do you happen to have some ideas for me too?"

"Well, I will have to see your workshop first," I confidently claimed. "If I know what I can work with, a strong maybe."

I found it soothing to watch people hammer away all day, which was probably weird, but I got hooked on blacksmithing videos in my previous life, and my tail swished slowly when I thought about the prospect of seeing it in person. I never expected that this knowledge would be useful someday.

By lunch, we had twelve more high-quality spheres, and the kids did thorough testing on them, tiring themselves out enough to fall asleep after eating. I was eager to head over to the blacksmith's shack. He had open-top bloomeries outside, looking like stubby chimneys with a hole at the bottom. It was nothing like the furnaces I saw in my favorite videos.

The world's technologies seemed ancient, which meant I had a better chance to improve on them, even with my limited knowledge.

"You promised us better needles." My craftswoman complained, arriving right before me. "After I sewed a single ball, the point's gone."

"I can sharpen it again, tools lose their edges." The blacksmith said, investigating the needle. "If I make it too hard, it will break easily."

"Maybe your heat treatment is the problem," I noted, but he looked puzzled. "Are you cooling the needles in oil or water?"

"Water from the stream, why?" He asked curiously.

"Iron with low carbon content will be too soft. If the steel is rich in carbon, it will hold its edges better, but if you cool it too quickly, it will shatter." I explained, pulling up my YouTube knowledge. "Oil will make it cool slower, and then you could heat it back up until red hot for some extra tempering. That will ease the stress within the metal."

"What kind of oil would I use though?" The blacksmith pondered.

"Can you bring us the leftover lard from lunch?" I asked the seamstress. "In the meantime, I'd love to see how you make the iron."

"Fine, I wanted to make more needles anyway." The blacksmith shrugged and started with an explanation. "I usually go to the swamp and dig up black sand from the bottom of the stream. If I'm lucky, I'll find some ore too. Or sometimes we trade with the other tribes nearby."

He grabbed some firewood, the freshly made below, and prepared a bloomery as the next step. He brought some of the black sand too.

"I start the fire and pour in the sand. With this bellow, I can increase the heat faster." He demonstrated the process. "As I keep adding more charcoal, some impurities will burn off, the iron drops down, and I'll dig it up, then hammer the ingots until the rest of the impurities are removed."

It was a slow process, but I saw something similar online before. He did it by the book and also fired up a furnace indoors to heat the ingots from earlier and demonstrated the full process without wasting time. He threw black sand and charcoal into the bloomery too.

"Once the iron is orange or yellow hot, I can start forging it." He noted, showing me his anvil. It had different grooves on one side. "I hammer the hot iron in here, make a hook on one end, and drop it into the water. Once it cooled down, I will sharpen it, and it's good to go."

"Could you use a piece with more charcoal this time? If we cool it in lard, it should not shatter." I promised, but he wasn't convinced yet.

"We can try, but it will be a waste of time..." He said as the seamstress returned with the fat. I had her warm it up on the furnace until it boiled and the ingots glowed yellow hot by that time too.

The blacksmith was finally able to demonstrate his proficiency with the hammer. Flexing his huge green muscles, he never missed a beat, even though the target was tiny. Once everything was done as he explained earlier, he tried to hammer a narrow point into the needle. He only had to reheat it once to finish, then dropped it into the boiling oil.

"Now we wait. It'll take a while to cool down." I nodded. He went back to the bloomery, adding more black sand. "Once done, put it back into the furnace, and keep it red hot for an hour. Then let it cool in the air, or the lard again. That way it won't break and will hold its edges too."

"That is quite some time for a single needle." He complained.

"Well, you can heat treat them all at once. This method will work on spears and arrowheads too." I shrugged, but this reminded me. "Do you even have bows in here? I haven't seen the hunters use them."

"We don't have a bowyer nor a fletcher." He shook his head, but he seemed intrigued at last. "Don't tell me you can make those too?"

"Only primitive bows. They wouldn't be that useful." I pondered, sweating. My hair got stuck to my skin from the hot furnace. "A good one would need more knowledge, special materials, and years to make."

"I might try to make a few javelins because we don't have any ranged weapons here." He complained as I started to get lightheaded.

"Yeah, I have to pass on the bows," I repeated, but then it hit me. "If we had all the tools, making a crossbow would be technically easier. Some spring steel, a roller trigger mechanism, and the hunters could save up some sinew as a bowstring. The bolts could be even made of cast iron."

"A cross... bow?"

"Don't tell me, you don't have crossbows in this world?!" I yelled, getting excited. Against strong beasts and armored opponents, a crossbow would have been a game-changer. Way more than the balls.

"Why would you make a bow cross-shaped?" He asked, still confused. I couldn't help but smile, rubbing my palms together. My tail would not stop slowly swishing either. Now I knew what my next project would be.