Dragon’s Bloodline Chapter 83

Pride of the Dwarves

Dwarves were a stubborn race.

Consequently, they wouldn’t undertake work that they themselves couldn’t comprehend, but even so it would take time to complete even if they accepted it.

In other words, it meant that magic would be used together with them forging the katana, but it wasn’t like they could simply just go out and gather mages.

“Oh my, shall we go?”

—Guinevere herself was the one to propose it.

The steps they needed to take right now, although it’s magic, were more about the practical implementation of it than the theoretical side. Since Guinevere was going, that meant that a substantial part of the court would be going to the dwarven village as well.

“And so, Carla absolutely can’t drink alcohol.”

They had to take precautions in advance. It wasn’t like dwarves were irrational, they probably wouldn’t make a pregnant woman drink alcohol.

Together with Shizuna, Carla rode on a specially made suspended carriage.

“So, what are you two hiding?”

“Eh, I-I’m not hiding anything.”

Unlike Shizuna, Carla, her long-time acquaintance, answered her.

“It is related to Ria, so I will talk about it after talking with her.”

It sounded insincere, but Guinevere felt lonely.

In particular, not getting between friends was an emotion burden for her. It was a childhood trauma.

Defended by golem soldiers, the group faced the dwarven village. Just then, Irina joined them.

“Onee-chan!”

“… What!?”

“Irina, is this true?”

In the letter, it said that Maal was getting married.

The groom was her childhood friend who had participated in the recent war.

“Uuu~aaah~”

She’d somehow wound up becoming a queen, so she wasn’t able to easily participate in her friend’s wedding.

It felt like her friends were all getting hooked up. Gig was also about to be the marriageable age for an ogre here soon…

If she didn’t properly explain the Dragon’s Bloodline, Carla’s child would end up being treated as illegitimate.

Even if it was something that should be a happy thing, her troubles just kept on increasing.

*

The night on the day after they reached the dwarven village, the four were finally able to have their meeting.

There, Carla quickly explained that she had sprouted the manly feature and mated with Shizuna.

Ria thought about it. Assuming that Shizuna was pregnant, that wasn’t the problem. If it was Carla’s child, she’d love it as though it were her own.

Seeing Ria lost in thought, Shizuna felt uneasy. Simply put, she’d cheated on her.

“Carla and Shizuna’s child is the same as mine. Don’t worry. However…”

“The next time this happens, I’ll be watching. Rather, I’ll be joining you.”

“Understood.”

Shizuna’s shout echoed through the night.

“I don’t mind, but…”

As something rare, Shizuna’s opinion was actually accepted.

*

Since they’d let the dwarven village know they were coming this time, the head foreman as well as the formal actually came out to great Ria and her group.

“You’re a beauty for a human. Whose bride are you?”

The head foreman shifted his attention to Ria, who’d responded immediately.

“No, I’m a special case. By the way, I have another bride, and a fiance.”

The dwaf quickly let go of the topic and consented.

As for what the head foreman took Ria to, it was a semi-spherical furnace in the center of the village.

Let alone weapons, it looked huge enough to produce a giant ship’s deck.

The dwarves had started researching something related to a furnace that could be called a godly furnace.

It started out normally at first, they made a furnace from heat-resistant bricks, but it wasn’t able to perfectly resist heat.

So next, they tried a mithril furnace. Since mithril could be given magic enhancements, it could withstand even higher temperatures.

So they were left with two choices: orichalcum and hihiirokane. [2]

But even so, they weren’t enough against the heat needed to process the god dragon’s fang.

And so the dwarves took out their last resort. First off, they made a made a building of heat resistant bricks outside with a large scaffolding frame. Coating the inside of that with orichalcum, followed by hihiirokane, they made areas that could produce heat directly in the furnace.

“Raising the temperature inside the furnace without raising the temperature of the furnace itself. It’s difficult.”

“However, that requires a lot of mages…”

And thus they needed Manesh’s mages to be mobilized.

“Looks like it’ll be pretty hard…”

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that all of the dwarves in the neighboring areas had gathered in order to make it. Moreover, they had only built the furnace needed to make the weapon.

“Ka~y”

However, even that still wasn’t enough.

“It’s my turn now.”

“Thermonuclear Darkness Exploding Hell.”

Ria put the fang into it with her bare hands.

It was a specially made mallet using a mixture of putting orichalcum into adamantium. Once it hit the fang several times, it lost its shape.

“Yes!”

It was a scene similar to being a single step away from hell.

By the end of the day, just by turning the fang into a metallic form, all of the mallets had broke.

And so once again, they forged the fang, stretching, lengthening it, and folding it.

The people being Ria’s yes-men were dwarven master artisans. Among them was the foreman.

Although this katana was in the shape of a katana, it couldn’t be called a truly forged katana, as it had neither a core metal nor edge metal and was simply a fang folded into the shape of a katana. [4]

Even its handle and guard were all made from the single fang. Magic was used for their formation.

Then, Carla and Guinevere gave the blade that was in the form of a katana the various bestowals that were in their knowledge.

“Let’s leave around twenty percent open. We’ll have Serge add space-time magic when he comes back.”

Even Guinevere’s mana would run out after swinging it several times.

Ria’s mana was ridiculously huge, huge to the point she couldn’t use it all, so it was a suitable weapon for her.

Now that they’d arrived to the final phase, it was the dwarves’ turn.

Even without a true sharpening, it would be a weapon that could kill countless enemies with a single swing, but katanas just had to be sharpened.

More than a month passed since it had first entered the furnace’s flame.

It had a normal form, two shaku three sun five bu (around seventy-one centimeters) long with a three bu three rin (around a single centimeter) curve, it had ripples shining beautifully down the wide tempering line of the blade. [5]

It’s color was as though darkness itself was shining, the color of Ria’s hair.

“Beautiful…”

From her birth all the way until now, she didn’t think something could be so perfect…

In this world, famous weapons had names given to them. Most were given names when they’re made with references to their origin, but many kinds would be given afterwards as well.

When the head foreman said that, many of the dwarves nodded in agreement. Certainly, most people would agree with using Valis’s name.

“This katana is named Godly Katana Gallach.”

The was the name of the sole katana producer in the village, the foreman’s name.

“T-to use my name…”

Saying that, Ria held the jet black katana over her head.

The dwarves were a stubborn race. That was well known.

For the strongest weapon born from the god dragon’s fang to receive a dwarf’s name… The meaning of that was understood by every dwarf.

Like a wave expanding outwards, everything grew loud.

The dwarf foremen clapped Gallach’s back.

Together with the katana, his legend was born.

*

“Well, you did a good thing.”

Gallah was not on Ria’s waist as she sat on Matsukaze’s back. It was too powerful, it couldn’t be used normally at all.

Guinevere had called out to Ria from inside the carriage.

Seeing that Fio and Shizuna didn’t quite understand what Ria meant, Guinevere explained to them.

“In other words, Ria gained all of the dwarves’ support just by naming a single katana with one of their names.”

Dwarves were obstinate.

Once they decided on something, they wouldn’t bend. Once they decide to do something for someone, they would never betray them.

Almost all of the nearby skilled dwarf artisans were in that place. She had obtained all of their support with a single naming.

Shizuna seemed to be a little disappointed, but in contract Fio just felt admiration.

“But I absolutely won’t betray them either. Shizuna, don’t worry about things like that, it’s bad for women who are carrying.”

Yeah.

Her morning sickness was awful, so they sometimes had to stop the wagon for her to vomit on the roadside.

Carla mysteriously hadn’t been showing any of the symptoms of early pregnancy, but that might just have been because of her constitution.

“Thanks to that, we were able to receive the dwarves’ full cooperation towards creation of the golem forces though.”

In truth, Ogress had all kinds of people other than humans affiliated with it, including demi-humans, ogres that took pride in their strength, beastkin, and dwarves.

“It’s so nice, Onee-chan. I want a special sword too.”

Everyone thought that, yet no one actually retorted back to her about it.

“Hmmm.”

Irina, not quite agreeing to that, clapped her hands.

“Wau!?”

“You’re always helping me, so I thought it’d be a cool name!”

It might’ve been in their imagination, but Rudolph’s face also looked like it didn’t want that.

“Well, I’ll name it Onee-chan then!”

(Wouldn’t it be alright to just call it Excalibur already?)

A golden orichalcum sword. Although the large sword Irina used held tremendous destructive power, it was a little hard to handle.

“Hmm? What’s that mean?”

“Heeh… Un, I like it.”

Like that, the Holy Sword Orfèvre was born.

By the way, the katana that Ria named Gallach was called another name by the dwarves later on.

That was: [Pride of the Dwarves].

Footnotes:

Random note: exercise is actually rather good for pregnant women, just not at that specific area…! Return

Hihiirokane appeared at one point in a previous chapter in passing, but hasn’t been really explained. Just think of it as a second kind of “fantasy metal” alongside orichalcum—it’s something used often in Japanese fantasy. Return

Note that I’m not sure if there’s only a single world tree or several, the Japanese doesn’t specify. Return

If you’re interested in what the core and edge stuff means, I recommend looking into how Katanas are normally made here. Return

Shaku = 30.3cm, Sun = 3.03cm, Bu = 3mm, Rin = 0.3mm. “Wide tempering line of the blade” = Hiro-Suguha = This Return

Orfèvre is French for goldsmith. Return