Chapter 75: Making the Rounds
The next day started with a full house cleaning from morning.
Even though it had only been a little over two weeks, a house left unoccupied still got surprisingly dirty. Using damp cloths wrung out with water, they wiped away the accumulated dust, restoring the house to its former cleanliness.
There was also the laundry that had piled up during the journey. They’d had some of it washed when stopping by villages along the way, but there was still a considerable amount left. Normally, people would reuse clothes or just wear the same outfit to cut down on luggage, but because they could bring along plenty of spare clothes thanks to Infinite Storage, things had ended up this way. Still, the trip itself had been comfortable, so there was no real room to complain.
Splitting up the work, Jin and the others focused on cleaning and laundry, and somehow managed to finish everything before noon.
“Alright, I’ll be back by evening. Sorry about this, but could you handle bringing in the laundry for me?”
After lunch, Jin said this to Erza and Rachel before leaving the house to go make his rounds. He planned to visit the orphanage and the temple to give greetings and retrieve the duplicated potions, and then stop by Gantz’s blacksmith shop last.
Meanwhile, Erza was heading to the Adventurers’ Guild to meet Melinda, and Rachel was scheduled to help out at the clinic.
Starting today and for the next few days, Jin and the others didn’t plan on taking any requests. Each of them would act at their own discretion—training, resting, and so on. This was because Aria needed about four days to finish the handover process before quitting the guild.
They intended to resume adventuring together once Aria returned.
Leaving home, Jin headed first to the orphanage. Watching the children running around energetically, he found himself relaxing and smiling before he knew it. After meeting with Hilda and receiving her heartfelt thanks, the conversation naturally turned to Aria.
Apparently, early that very morning, Aria had come by to offer her greetings upon returning and had told Hilda about quitting the guild and joining Jin’s party.
“When Mint-chan found Aria afterward, she usually would’ve fled right away, but today she stayed and helped prepare breakfast together… Fufu, she was a little nervous and cautious, but she felt gentler somehow and charming.”
The scene Hilda described so happily warmed Jin’s heart as well. In fact, he’d also noticed that Aria smiled far more often than she used to.
“Jin-san, thank you. Please continue to look after Aria from now on.”
Being entrusted with Aria once more by Hilda, Jin nodded firmly without hesitation.
Normally, he would have spent a bit of time playing with the children, but today he was busy with other things as well. Leaving the orphanage, Jin headed for his next destination—the temple.
Upon arriving, he first went before the divine statue, offering a report of his safe return and prayers of gratitude.
There was no doubt that their successful journey and safe return were the result of the efforts of Jin and those around him—but Jin believed it wasn’t only that.
It wasn’t exactly faith, but offering thanks like this felt completely natural to him.
“Welcome back, Jin-san.”
As Jin finished praying and turned around, Clark called out to him. With Jin’s face having gained recognition unintentionally, one of the priests who noticed his arrival had probably informed Clark out of consideration.
“It’s been a while, Clark-san. We managed to make it back safely.”
Though it was a day late, Jin returned the greeting, and the two then moved to Clark’s office to speak privately.
“Once again, welcome back. And thank you very much.”
After they arrived, Clark bowed his head to Jin. Acknowledging the rumors in public would have lent them credibility, so Clark had deliberately waited until now.
“No, I feel the same way. The fact that all the children made it through safely is entirely thanks to you and the others. Because of that, I was able to see the children’s smiles again. Truly, thank you.”
Jin recalled what Orto had told him before dinner the previous day.
Among the children who had fallen ill with Mana Fever, the most worrying cases had been Airis—only four years old—and the two children from the orphanage. That was why Jin had left duplicated potions with Orto’s family and the orphanage, just in case.
Clark had been just as concerned, however, and had made sure a priest visited to check on them every single day. This wasn’t only for Airis; Hilda had confirmed the same was done at the orphanage as well.
Because of those efforts, Jin could now smile like this, and for that, he felt deep gratitude.
“Hearing that from you will make the priests very happy. Of course, many of them are parents themselves, and after hearing the rumors, quite a few wanted to thank you directly for finding a cure. I held them back on my own authority, but I’ll be sure to pass along your words to them.”
“Thank you. I’ve already resigned myself to the rumors, but I really appreciate your consideration.”
Jin was genuinely grateful for how Clark had respected his wish not to stand out.
With what had happened in the shopping district yesterday, the rumor that “an adventurer named Jin found a solution to the illness” was already becoming accepted as fact. Even so, that didn’t change how pleased he felt.
Just like in his conversation with Bean, the two exchanged sincere gratitude here as well.
After talking for a while about their journey and the current state of the city, there was one thing—just one—that Jin still needed to bring up.
“I see… so you met the Sacred Beast…”
As Jin described the Sacred Beast’s appearance, Clark murmured thoughtfully. Of course, Jin didn’t go into the details of his interactions with it, but, just as he had with Greg, he did tell him that he had received advice.
“Officially, the treatment method will be presented as something I came up with myself, and only an extremely small number of people know of the Sacred Beast’s existence. Since the temple has already given its endorsement for spreading this treatment, it’s possible that someone may try to probe you for information. But please remember that what must be protected is the existence of the Sacred Beast. We absolutely must avoid repaying a favor with betrayal.”
Jin spoke with a deadly serious expression, and Clark looked back at him with concern. Then, suddenly, Jin relaxed his face.
“Don’t worry about me. Thankfully, it’s the kind of treatment anyone could have come up with, so I doubt anyone will take action over something like this. Besides, Mana Fever itself isn’t exactly a common illness, so there probably won’t be that many people who care that much. For now, my name’s only gotten around within this city anyway. All I need to do is make sure my abilities live up to it.”
At Jin’s deliberately optimistic tone, Clark bowed deeply, filling the gesture with many unspoken feelings.
With his meeting with Clark concluded, Jin headed to his final destination: Gantz’s shop. Inside his Infinite Storage were all the duplicated potions he had entrusted to others.
He had received them back from Orto the night before, and from Hilda and Clark earlier today. Fortunately, because the treatment method had been spread quickly, not a single bottle had been used. What was more, despite knowing their effects, every last one had been returned intact, and no one had even asked about passing them on to someone else. It was fair to say they had repaid Jin’s trust with trust of their own.
If even one had been used, it might have been seen as a miracle drug that overturned conventional ideas of medicine, drawing even more attention than the treatment for Mana Fever itself. Of course, Jin didn’t think the people he had entrusted the potions to would leak anything, but if they had been used, there would have been a real chance of third parties taking notice. In that case, far more serious rumors would have been unavoidable.
Jin had half-expected that possibility when he handed over the potions, but the fact that things ended in the best possible way—“there was no need to use them”—was a huge relief.
“………………”
Lying the greatsword on its side, Gantz stared at it from point-blank range, then lightly tapped it with a hammer to listen to the sound. His expression was serious, yet at the same time lively and shining with excitement.
Jin had greeted him upon returning and thanked him for saving his life with the glaive and armor, and things had gone smoothly when he asked the cheerful Gantz to perform maintenance. But ever since Jin handed over the greatsword he had received from Gerd, one he’d missed the chance to appraise and had left stored away in Infinite Storage, Gantz had been like this, examining it nonstop with a professional’s eye.
From its appearance, Jin had thought it was a fine piece made of black iron, but Gantz’s unprecedented level of interest took him by surprise.
“This thing’s incredible. Jin, where did you get this?”
Finally lifting his face from the greatsword, Gantz asked him.
Jin explained the circumstances: his encounter with Gerd, the fight that followed, and how he’d ended up receiving the sword at the end.
“I see…”
Hearing that Jin had killed Gerd, Gantz’s expression turned solemn. Then, just like that, he began talking about the greatsword itself.
“At first glance, you’d think this was made of black iron. But in reality, it isn’t. No—more precisely, you could say it used to be black iron.”
Gantz paused meaningfully, then continued.
“This is Black Magisteel.”
It was a term Jin was hearing for the first time. Seeing his confusion, Gantz began explaining what Black Magisteel was.
In this world, alongside familiar metals like iron and steel, there were also fantasy metals such as black iron and mithril. There were others sung of in legends, like orichalcum, but those had not been confirmed to exist in modern times, and little was known about them.
Black iron and mithril, however, were rare but normally existing minerals found as ores. They were expensive, but still metals that anyone could obtain.
Magisteel, however, was different.
In this world, dense concentrations of mana, such as mana pools, could sometimes form spontaneously. Metals that were exposed to such dense mana for long periods would absorb it and undergo a transformation. These became extremely rare metals known as Magisteel, with Black Magisteel being one of them. Among transformed metals, iron became Magic Iron, steel became Magic Steel, and black iron became Black Magisteel. Mithril, on the other hand, already had properties that allowed mana to pass through it easily, so no transformed variant had ever been confirmed. As of now, only these three—Magic Iron, Magic Steel, and Black Magisteel—were recognized as metals transformed by mana.
According to Gantz’s theory, mithril itself was iron that had transformed from silver, which was originally highly reactive to mana. Because it didn’t require such dense mana to transform, it could be found in relatively larger quantities. In fact, mithril was also known by another name: Magic Silver. The idea carried a fair amount of credibility.
“This Magisteel stuff isn’t something you find very often, but when it is found, there are basically two cases. One is discovering it in ore form. Like you can probably imagine, the possibility isn’t exactly zero—but I’ve never actually heard of it happening. Well, maybe it has, and I just don’t know about it.”
As Gantz said, it was hard to imagine ordinary ores buried underground overlapping with mana pools, which were thought to form on the surface. Jin nodded, and Gantz continued.
“The other case is when it’s found in ruins or labyrinths. In those cases, it’s not ore—it’s weapons or armor. Ruins are at least a thousand years old, and they tend to accumulate mana pretty easily. Weapons that’ve been stored there for that long sometimes end up transforming. Labyrinths are pretty similar. Some of them have existed for hundreds of years, and the gear left behind by adventurers who died there can also change over long periods under the labyrinth’s mana. Still, they’re said to exist only in fairly old labyrinths, and only in the deeper layers, so you don’t see them often.”
Gerd had said he lost his companions while exploring ruins, so this greatsword might have been something he’d found there. Thinking that, Jin asked Gantz to confirm.
“So this is that Magisteel?”
“Yeah—and not just any of it. This is top-tier Black Magisteel. Setting legends aside, you could call it the finest weapon there is. You inherited something incredible.”
Gantz’s gaze toward Jin was gentle. Being given a weapon by someone you’d killed in a life-or-death battle was an ending no one would normally imagine. Precisely because of that, Gantz was concerned for Jin—no matter the circumstances, there was no way killing someone wouldn’t weigh on him.
Taking in Gantz’s words, Jin fell into thought, agonizing over how he should handle the greatsword.
“But what should I do with it? I know full well that I’m the one who should use a weapon I inherited from Gerd-san, but honestly, I’ve grown used to the glaive you and I made together, and there’s also the wooden sword. I thought I could entrust this greatsword to Erza, but the most important person, Erza herself, refused. I don’t want to waste Gerd’s final wishes, but… what should I do?”
Since Erza already used a greatsword, there wasn’t much advantage in Jin switching to the same type of weapon. Jin felt that if Erza, someone he trusted, used it, it wouldn’t betray Gerd’s will, but Erza insisted on seeing it as something Jin himself had inherited. And letting it sit unused was out of the question. Caught between those thoughts, Jin found himself at a loss.
Then Gantz tossed out an answer lightly.
“Just reforge it into a glaive.”
“Huh?”
Being told to completely reforge an already-finished greatsword into a totally different glaive, Jin couldn’t help but reply blankly.
“Haha. Come on, Jin. You’ve learned a bit of smithing yourself, haven’t you? When you hear that it’s a metal with mana properties, doesn’t something click?”
(Smithing… a metal with mana properties… an object… material?!)
It hit Jin immediately.
“…Oh! It’s just like monster materials!”
That’s right—monster materials were, in a way, very similar to Magisteel. Hides and shells imbued with mana were considered monster materials. Because they carried mana, they were durable—and Smithing Magic worked especially well on them.
“Exactly. Because it’s a mana-infused material, Smithing Magic can be used to its fullest. It’ll probably take a fair amount of time for the mana to settle, and it’ll need some skill, too. But if you leave it to me, I’ll finish it properly—count on it!”
Facing such a rare material, Gantz accepted the task with obvious enthusiasm.
Completely changing a weapon’s form from the ground up wasn’t easy, even with the help of Smithing Magic. But Gantz was determined to see it through, so as not to let Gerd’s feelings go to waste.
“Please, I’m counting on you!”
Gantz’s proposal was exactly what Jin had hoped for. With this, Jin felt he could honor Gerd’s will—without forgetting either his own sins or his pride.
And so, Gerd’s greatsword would change its form and be reborn as a glaive. However, showing its new shape to Jin would still require some time.
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