The Runesmith

Roland was in a bind. He was looking at a small half gnome girl shaking her body side to side. She was looking at him with those large orbs that she called eyes. The young girl had climbed through an open window and seen him runecrafting.

“Hey...how did you do that, that’s an enchanted sword for sure! You can enchant swords? Are you an enchant smith!? I knew it, you lied about your age. You have to be tier 2 for that!”

The girl had come to the conclusion that he was at least an enchant smith. She wasn’t able to distinguish between enchanting and rune smithing. This wasn’t the problem though, his secret that he somewhat wanted to keep hidden from others was now revealed.

“I’m not old you idiot and this isn’t a regular enchanted sword…”

To be honest, Roland was a bit tired of hiding here in this town. He had to wear that black robe and had to avoid people. He feared that either assassins would find him or someone related to his noble house would recognize him. If they reported it to his father he would probably get yanked back home.

Though at this point he had already used up two class slots, there wasn’t really a way for him to go back to being a soldier. At most his dear father would probably stick him in the army’s smithy to make magical swords for them. Roland wasn’t sure how forceful he would be in his methods, maybe he was overthinking it and he would be fine. Still, he was paranoid after the first assassination attempt and now there was even a second one. For now, he looked at the cute girl that was stomping her little feet on the ground.

“Who are you calling an idiot, you are the idiot… you idiot!”

The girl puffed out her cheeks and started acting out by shaking her hands around widely. Helci was behaving below her age bracket but he wasn’t sure. Not like he knew many seventeen-year-olds. The only reference to them were his old party members. He wasn’t that good with people, so this was giving him a headache.

“I’m going to have a brain aneurysm…”

“An aneurasm?... is that an enchantment?”

The pouting girl tipped her head to the side and asked, not really knowing what Roland was talking about.

The younger male placed the freshly made runic sword on his workbench. He didn’t have time to enjoy his new creation. He even wanted to try inscribing some premade steel weapons to then sell them to his boss. Now on the other hand he had this to worry about.

He looked at the not so smart looking girl and raised his eyebrow. Was he worrying too much? Would anyone even believe what she was saying? Who would she even give this information to, she was only a simple adventurer with no real pull in this city. He could also try a different approach by just asking her to stay quiet about this. He didn’t feel like this girl had an ulterior motive.

“Hey Helci, can I ask you something?”

“Um, sure…?”

She nodded.

“Do you think a tier 2 Enchant-Smith that is close to 13 years old is a common thing?”

The girl looked at Roland not really sure where he was going with this question. She was someone that had just recently started her adventuring. Her life was mostly spent at the orphanage with the church or at the inn. This didn’t mean that she was ignorant of her environment, she had already gone through some experience.

“13-year-old Tier 2 enchantsmith…probably not?”

“That’s right and do you know what people do to uncommon things?”

Helci rubbed her chin and then pointed at Roland.

“They want to have it? ...oh... “

She realized where Roland was going with it and quickly shouted.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone! Your secret is safe with me!”

Roland blinked, would it be that easy? There were ways of making people talk even if they didn’t want to. He wasn’t sure but Helci might have already signed a contract with his company. The gnome manager might have had foresight to sign something like a nondisclosure agreement.

Not like he could do anything about this now though, he wouldn’t actually hurt the girl. She wasn’t strong but didn’t seem like a liar or someone that gave away other people's secrets.

“Hey! You can trust me...“

She trailed off at the end while glancing at the bronze sword that he made. Her eyes were speaking for themselves and he knew what this meant. He wanted to smack her head a bit but he knew that if you wanted something you needed to either pay or work for it.

“If you stay quiet about it, I’ll enchant your sword…”

He needed to make a trade, the girl was quite honorable from what he knew. If he did something for her, she would probably feel obliged to keep quiet. Enchanted and runic weapons were really costly and he knew that Helci was quite poor. She would probably need to scrape by a lot before she could afford a weapon like that.

He wanted to offer putting runic inscriptions on her arrows at first but that wouldn’t be quite possible yet. His runecrafting skill would need to be leveled up further. From what he saw the runic structures were getting smaller the further he leveled his skill up. He theorized that when he got it to about level 7, he would be able to fit lesser runes on them. Common ones were out of the question, he would probably only be able to do that after achieving a tier 2 class.

“An enchanted sword…”

The girl took a step back. She knew well that magic weapons were what a true adventurer desired. It was also a sign of wealth and prosperity. Only when you started wearing magical armor and weapons could you call yourself a true adventurer. It was a sign of prestige and a first step towards the top.

“Enchanted armor… enchanted bow…”

Roland raised an eyebrow as he saw the girl mumbling to herself. He could have sworn that she even started drooling for a while. He had underestimated how poor Helci actually was. Her life consisted of scraping by, she didn’t even have a large silver coin in her pouch. She was more or less just living day to day and spending whatever she earned. Whenever she came here she would eat with him, from the rations that the company supplied to save.

“Stop, an enchanted sword is the most I can do for now. I’m still just an apprentice, I never even tried enchanting a bow either…”

He didn’t even have any bow enchantments. Making a sharp bow or one that started flaming wouldn’t really work. You actually needed to enchant the arrows and not the bow to empower them with magic. A good enchantment for a bow was something that made it lighter to pull, silent or hard to break. There were some powerful runes that could produce a bow that didn't need arrows and exchanged them for magical ones. This was something far too advanced for someone like him though.

He also couldn’t make the superior runic weapons that had mana stones in them either. Roland theorized that he might be able to learn that skill from a skill book like the one the manager gave him. He wasn’t sure if it was a tier 2 or tier 3 skill though, probably at most he could get a basic version of it. This would probably lengthen the crafting process extensively.

The girl looked a bit saddened by the fact that she wouldn’t be getting an enchanted bow. Still, she recovered quickly while pulling out her shortsword. She was of a smaller stature compared to a human so this was almost a long sword to her.

Roland looked at the sword to identify it. Considering he was a blacksmith now, he was able to identify basic weapons made from regular metals.

He had a whole list of various stats now, he couldn’t see some of the subcategories quite yet though. For instance, the damage type that showed up. If he leveled up his skills he would be able to see a letter next to it, ranging from F to S. The information varied, the sharpness was indicated by a percentage but other statics could be counted by a letter or some kind of word instead. It was quite confusing and there was no uniform grading system there.

Roland looked over the short sword, it was slightly banged up. If the weapon’s sharpness went below 40% the weapon would get a ‘dull’ debuff. The damage it could output would also go down. At 0% it would lose its slashing damage and turn to blunt damage that was lower.

Helci looked at the taller youth that was eyeing her shortsword strangely. He waved it around and even poked it with his finger a bit. His eyebrows went from squinting to farrowing and he even started to scoff while examining the short sword.

“I-is it that bad?”

The girl was slightly disheartened that the weapon she had spent a large chunk of her coins on was getting scrutinized. This and her bow was the only thing she could afford, she was already saving a bit on the arrows as Roland was making them almost for free. She only needed to supply the raw materials like the iron or steel stocks and the premade arrow quills.

“Bad? No, it’s fine, but it needs some sharpening… what kind of enchantment would you like to put on it. Mind you, I can only put lesser ones on this and it will probably take over a week or two to make. How about a sharpness one? Those are quite popular”

Roland replied hoping that she would go for the easy sharpness rune. He wasn’t quite sure what the adventurers liked to have on their enchanted swords. The sharpness enchantment when activated didn’t actually change the sword's structure.

Instead, it surrounded the blade part with a thin layer of mana that smoothed things out and made it sharper. After mana stopped being injected the blade went back to being a regular piece of metal. This type of enchantment drained mana slowly by the second. It was similar to the scorching rune and differed from the spell runes that took a chunk of a user's mana when activated.

“What kind of enchantment? I can choose?”

The girl’s big eyes sparkled and she started to bounce about the room. This also made Roland’s eyes momentarily wander down to a certain bouncy body part. He quickly shook his head, the hormones in this body were starting to make things difficult for the old man on the inside.

After Helci posed the question he felt like he had made a big mistake. He probably should have taken the blade and inscribed the rune of his choosing. Now he left the choice up to a girl that was in a perpetual state of poverty. Would she go for the cheapest option when someone offered something for free?

“Enchantment… it must be one of those sword attacks! The sharpness enchantment isn’t even that good!”

She crossed her hands over her chest and started nodding. Apparently, she wanted something else, an attack-type enchantment.

Just like mages had magic spells like the fire arrow spell that he frequently used. There were special skills and magical attacks that magical warriors utilized. These magical skills like the scorching ability were mostly something from the mana warrior’s repertoire. It was also a tier 1 class, similar to the mana scribe class.

The scorching enchantment was a lesser version of the flame sword enchantment that was accessible for a tier 2 Flame Warrior. Similar to the tier 2 elemental mage variants the magical warriors specialized in their own set of elements.

Scorching only made the blade heat up and produce a flame. It wasn’t much better than having a torch, the tier 2 version actually heated it up to the point of letting the user cut and scorch monster flesh. Then a tier 3 version that was called the Blazing Sword enchantment would even allow the user to melt through other metals.

When it came to tier 1 mana warrior skills that could be put on swords there were two main ones. The mana slash and the mana thrust. The first one produced a sharp condensed blade of blue mana that could be used as a ranged attack. The other produced a similar effect just with the thrusting motion and would punch a hole in the enemy from further away.

“I want a mana slash enchantment...but maybe the thrust is better…”

The girl did actually want one of those. This meant that he would need to make a visit to one of the weapon shops and get it. He could also just put a mana arrow spell on it instead. But such spells didn’t really work well with warriors specialized movements. They worked best with things like the wands he made. Aiming magic with heavy weapons was less than optimal.

The mana slash attack could be easily timed and activated during a fight. This made it slightly similar to the impact rune but it delivered magic damage which sometimes was a must to beat some opponents.

The impact rune only increased the weight of your weapon but didn’t add any magical properties. There were some monsters out there that were immune to physical attacks. Thus this type of enchantment was popular with the warriors that couldn’t become a magic swordsman.

These mana attacks also used up less MP than magic spells used by mages. This was mostly due to having a lower range of attack. The mana slash would travel 10 meters at most and the thrust went a little further.

“I have my arrows and bow, so the close-ranged mana slash will probably be better.”

Helci thought out loud while rubbing her chin. She was looking at her short sword that she retrieved from Roland. She performed some slashes and thrusts before coming to a decision. The mana slash would be the one that she would get.

“Mana slash? I don’t really know that one…”

The moment Roland said that Helci’s head dropped a bit along with her shoulders.

“But… I can learn to make it, you’ll just have to wait a bit…”

She quickly raised her head up after hearing his words, her eyes glittered and she jumped forward. Roland was surprised, the girl was really quick as she gave him a big hug. He wasn’t really used to shows of affection so both his hands were hovering in the air as he wasn’t sure what to do with them.

“You’re the best Roland, I’ll be sure to cook you up something great!”

Roland coughed a bit into his hand after the two separated. Various thoughts were going through his head, mostly ones that were affected by his teenage hormones. The girl looked up to the youth and noticed him acting strange, this brought a little smile on her face.

“So, you can make that kind of face…”

She giggled to herself while Roland turned around. He wasn’t sure what kind of face he was making but he felt defeated after getting teased by a kid.

“I don’t know what you are talking about, shouldn’t you be working?”

Helci gave Roland a salute before skipping to the side. He actually had a stove where the girl could cook in the warehouse portion. It was far enough from the smelter and the anvil so that no hot metal or iron shavings got into the food.

Roland gave out a sigh before grabbing a sword from the side. It was a premade product that he got from his company. With Helci already knowing his true skills he could just work normally. This might have actually been a good thing, now he didn’t need to hide his class from his assistant.

The sword he would be crafting a rune on was a regular steel longsword. He would be adding a basic sharpness rune on it. It would probably take him a while to do this after which he could go to one of the stores to ‘borrow’ a mana slash schematic. He had a lot of work on his hands and now even an eager half-gnome that would probably bug him for the item he promised her.