Start Working

Chapter 203

The morning breeze flew through the pond and brushed across the witchers' pale faces, reinvigorating them with a cool kiss. Letho and Roy were standing outside the blacksmith shop, enjoying their grilled fish. The moat on their left flowed quietly, and the clean, wide streets before them were filled with citizens who were hurrying to the marketplace for the day's errands.

The door of the blacksmith shop behind them was ajar, and not a sound came from within. Berengar had a hangover after having so many drinks with Letho the night before, but he woke up three hours later, when dawn was just about to crack. He wobbled across the streets with the help of the witchers and rented the blacksmith shop by the riverside.

Berengar—despite looking drunk—started to work. He emphasized on the importance of a quiet blacksmithing environment and chased the assistants out of the shop.

"Can we trust this guy?" Roy would still cringe when he thought about the amount of money they spent.

"Enough, kid," Letho snapped. "Berengar is not your regular blacksmith. He's a master blacksmith. He could work for a noble if he wanted to, and it's already kind enough that he's helping us out with this. His price and weird behavior are no problem at all. People like him have their own little quirks. Show some respect for him."

"Are you sure you're not exaggerating?" Roy thought master blacksmiths were worth nothing, but that was only because he met dwarves, who were all blacksmiths.

"Of course." Letho explained, "Effort and experience don't mean anything when it comes to things like this. Talent is important too. Talented blacksmiths are born with supernatural instincts, and they can fine tune a lot of details in ways most people can't. They can make better weapons thanks to that, and that's something people without talent can't do."

"So you're saying you don't have the talent to be a master blacksmith then? You worked on this for more than eighty years, after all." Letho shot him a look, and Roy quickly said, "Alright, I was joking. If Berengar could live the life of a noble, why'd he choose to live on the streets?"

"Because he used to be a witcher." Letho looked up, and the sun was rising through the horizon, sprinkling its warmth to the land. "He might not admit it, but he's more inclined to the life of a vagrant. Or maybe the nobles just don't like him."

Roy thought about that and concluded Letho's explanation with a more beautiful sentence. "So witchers are born with wanderlust in them. Gotta get Jaskier to write that down in his poem next time."

"And a lust for battle," Letho added quietly. "Remember that too."

A quiet, sizzling sound came from within the shop, and Roy stuck his head through the crack to take a furtive look. He was thinking that he would see a furnace burning brightly, and a burly, sweating blacksmith swinging his hammer down on a piece of metal. Alas, he saw none of that.

Berengar was bent over before the square table, holding something with both hands and stirring it up and down. Roy could vaguely see some grey, sticky sediment on his sleeve, and a small shovel filled with cement stood beside him. The handle was on the longer side, but the shovel looked like a brick with a circular protrusion. "What is he doing?" Roy looked confused. "He's a blacksmith. Why is he doing construction work?"

"You know nothing about blacksmithing, that's for sure." Letho's hairless head shone under the sun. "Do you think hammering is all it takes to make a weapon? Berengar is making a mold for the weapon.

"A mold?" A frown furrowed Roy's brows. He was not really sure how blacksmithing worked. Killing monsters, alchemy, and taming were right up his alley, however.

"The mold decides what the weapon will be. Whether it's a sword, dagger, or spear depends on what kind of mold the blacksmith makes. Once the soil is made into a mold, it'll have to be dried in the kiln."

Oh, I see. Like how porcelain stuff is made.

"Once the mold is made, the sword's materials will be poured into the crucible and melted down to get rid of the impurities. The mixture is then poured into the mold. Once it cools down, it becomes the base of the sword. The school's sword has engravings and grooves on the blade, allowing us to inject mana into it. We'll need a skilled blacksmith to make the engravings at the bottom of the mold for that. The 'sword' is just a base at that point. The surface is still rough, and it'll have to be scraped off after the blacksmith takes it out of the mold to make the surface smoother. Then the blacksmith will add all the necessary accessories like turquoise, azure, the crossguard, and the hilt. The sword will then be sharpened using whetstone and water."

Berengar created the mold as carefully as he could. He did it as slowly as possible. Just like he said before, this would be a long process.

Letho was showing Roy the basics of blacksmithing, using Berengar as an example. He would also test him on the Almanac of Creatures' content from time to time while working as a bodyguard.

A yellow flame the size of a petal leapt between Roy's fingers as if by magic. The flame was not hot. In fact, it was cooler than most fires used in magic tricks. All it could do was light cigarettes. This was a kind of magical training Roy came up with after he awakened his Elder Blood. Five points of mana was enough to last him fifteen minutes, and it yielded better results than casting signs all day. If he kept this kind of intensity up, he could level his Witcher Signs up by next year.

They spent their daytime hours outside the blacksmith shop, but at night, Roy would leap into Vizima's wilderness alone to practice his swordsmanship, archery, signs, and Blink. He tried his best to string those skills together and come up with a battle system he was familiar with. At the same time, he would use all the trap and survival knowledge Serrit taught him to hunt for animals. Ten EXP was not much, but Roy did not complain.

Once he was done with training, he would contact Gryphon through the telepathic link between them. Gryphon was in Cintra, but Roy could still talk about its daily life even though he was not around. The griffin was already six months old, and it was as smart as a four or five-year-old child. It could express a lot of emotions, like delight, anger, starvation, and even unease. The griffin was getting bigger now. It was the size of a pony, and locking it in a cage would stunt its growth.

"I'll have to find a quiet place in Vizima's rural area and summon Gryphon." Roy stared at the night sky and went into meditation. "It'd be great if I could disguise it, or taking it along with me is going to be a hassle.

Time flew by when Roy had a lot of things to do. One week had passed since he commissioned Berengar to make the swords. Berengar showed exceptional professionalism over the week. He would start working first thing in the morning and only stop at midnight. He even skipped out on meals and slept in the shop, since he had to control all the changes in the materials at all times.

His hair became a whole lot greasier in just one week, and it started to reek. He grew a messy stubble, and his eyes were bloodshot, though he seemed particularly excited. The silver sword and steel sword's bases were done. Now he just had to adorn the weapons with all the necessary adornments and sharpen them, and he would be done.

"Are all master blacksmiths this crazy?" Roy had nothing but respect for this mercenary now. If a regular human worked like him, they would fall gravely ill the moment they were done.

"Masters of a craft are always obsessed and crazy," Letho explained.

They thought things would go smoothly until the end, but things were never easy for them. On the eighth day, a man with crazy hair came to the blacksmith shop, and he was humming an eerie tune.