Pride of the Dwarves

Dwarves were a stubborn race.

Their personalities were stubborn, of course, and that stubbornness extended to the quality of their work as well.

Therefore, they wouldn't accept jobs they couldn't understand themselves, and even when they did accept work, it would take time to complete.

Word came from those dwarves. The furnace was finished, so bring a mountain of mages with you.

That meant they would be using magic while forging the katana, but it wasn't like they could simply gather mages on command.

Currently, Ogress was developing plans for golem soldiers, centered around the former Manesh. Mages were absolutely necessary for that, but…

"Oh my, shall we go?"

Guinevere herself suggested it.

Apparently the process they needed right now was more about the theoretical side of magic than the practical application. And if Guinevere was going, that meant the court would essentially be relocating to the dwarven village.

However, dwarves lacked common sense that way—they didn't care whether it was a king or queen coming to visit.

"With that said, Carla absolutely cannot drink any alcohol."

She gave the warning in advance. Dwarves might lack common sense, but they weren't inhuman, so they surely wouldn't make a pregnant woman drink.

Carla was riding in a specially-made suspended carriage designed to minimize shaking, along with Shizuna.

Guinevere was also aboard, making it a de facto gathering of VIPs.

"So, what are you two hiding?"

Guinevere asked abruptly. She turned her Dragon Eyes toward Shizuna.

"Eh, we're not hiding any…"

"We are hiding something, but I can't say it yet."

Unlike Shizuna, Carla, who had known Guinevere longer, answered honestly.

"Oh my? Is this secret something related to Ria, by chance?"

"It is related to Ria, so I'll tell you after I talk to her first."

"Hmm? Well, as long as you're not leaving me out."

She might have seemed brazen, but Guinevere was actually lonely.

Being left out of her friends' circle was especially hard on her emotionally. It was a childhood trauma.

The group, protected by golem soldiers, headed toward the dwarven village. That's when Irina caught up with them.

They had sent her a letter, and apparently she had come racing down the road wearing her orichalcum armor on Rudolph's back.

"Onee-chan!"

Irina embraced Ria firmly, and she had brought a letter from Maal.

"… What!?"

Reading the contents, Ria couldn't help but clench her fist around it.

"Irina, is what's written here true?"

"Yeah～"

The letter said that Maal was getting married.

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

"Uu～aah～"

Ria agonized atop Matsukaze's back.

Once you become a queen, you can't easily attend a friend's wedding.

"Fio～, prepare a gift to send her. Something edible would be nice if possible. I'll write the letter myself."

It felt like everyone close to her was getting paired off one after another. Gig was also approaching marriageable age for an ogre…

"Ah～, I should probably have a proper wedding ceremony with Carla too…"

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

It was supposed to be a joyous occasion, but troublesome matters just kept piling up.

The night before they would reach the dwarven village, the four of them finally managed to have their meeting.

Ria, Carla, Shizuna, and the dragon Irina.

There, Carla matter-of-factly revealed that she had grown male anatomy and had mated with Shizuna.

Hmm, Ria pondered. Even assuming Shizuna was pregnant, that wasn't a problem. If it was Carla's child, she could love it fully as her own.

The problem was why she hadn't been able to join when they did it.

Watching Ria lost in thought, Shizuna grew anxious. This was, to put it bluntly, nothing other than infidelity.

But Ria didn't concern herself with that.

"If it's Carla and Shizuna's child, it's the same as my own child. Don't worry about it. However…"

Ria's expression changed sharply, and she glared at Carla.

"Next time you two do it, I'm watching. No, I'm joining in."

"Understood."

"You're okay with that!?"

Shizuna's scream echoed through the night.

"Actually, how about we do it now?"

"I don't mind, but…"

"She's pregnant! Don't strain her body!"

In a rare occurrence, Shizuna's opinion was accepted that day.

Since they had sent advance notice to the dwarven village, the head foreman and foremen actually came out to greet Ria's group for once.

The head foreman looked at Carla and spoke:

"She's quite a beauty for a human. Whose bride is she?"

"Mine."

The head foreman turned his eyes toward Ria, who had answered without a moment's hesitation.

"… Humans marry between women as well?"

"No, I'm just a special case. By the way, I have another bride and one more fiancée."

"I see."

The dwarf quickly gave up on trying to understand.

"Well, whatever. More importantly, come look at this. What do you think?"

The head foreman led Ria to a hemispherical furnace that had just been completed in the center of the village.

"… It's… very big."

Rather than for processing weapons, it looked massive enough to forge a giant ship's deck.

"Aye, we needed a furnace like this to process the dragon fang. And the furnace alone won't do it either."

And so the dwarves began their research into what would later be called the Divine Furnace.

At first, they made an ordinary furnace using heat-resistant bricks, but it couldn't withstand the heat at all.

That level of heat wasn't enough to process the dragon fang.

Next, they tried a mithril furnace. Since mithril could accept magical enchantments, it could withstand even higher temperatures.

But even that had its limits. It couldn't endure the magical power needed to raise the temperature high enough to process the dragon fang.

This left them with two choices. Orichalcum and hihiirokane.

Orichalcum was simply high in strength and resistant to heat. Hihiirokane wasn't as strong, but it was the ultimate material for magical enchantment.

But even those weren't enough heat to process the divine dragon's fang.

So the dwarves resorted to their final option. First, the outer building frame was made from heat-resistant bricks. The interior was coated with orichalcum, and finally, the part of the furnace that directly produced heat was made from hihiirokane.

As for fuel, they used charcoal made from the World Tree. Since that fuel alone wasn't enough, they planned to supplement the shortfall with magic.

"Raising the temperature inside the furnace without raising the temperature of the furnace itself. That's the difficult part."

Such a feat was possible with hihiirokane.

"However, that requires a lot of mages…"

And thus Manesh's mage corps was mobilized.

"This has become quite the undertaking…"

Ria said as if it were someone else's business, but this was for a weapon made from the divine dragon's fang. It could be called a godslaying weapon, a divine treasure.

It was no exaggeration to say that all renowned dwarves from the surrounding areas had gathered for this. And that was just for building the furnace before they even forged the weapon.

"Well then, here we go～"

"Okay～"

Guinevere and Irina lit the furnace. The charcoal produced from the World Tree ignited magnificently, easily pushing the furnace's temperature past several thousand degrees.

But even that still wasn't enough.

"Now then, I'll begin."

Carla began her incantation. In tandem, countless mages chanted cooling spells.

"Thermonuclear Darkness Detonation Hell."

Flames of darkness filled the furnace.

Ria thrust the fang into it with her bare hands.

The heat gradually softened the fang's form. When she pulled it out, she hammered the fang into the shape of a katana.

It was a specially-made hammer of adamantite mixed with orichalcum. Even that would lose its shape after only a few strikes.

"Switch!"

"Yes!"

Sweat didn't even have time to flow before evaporating the instant it formed. If she breathed carelessly, her lungs would burn and she would die.

It was a scene one step away from hell itself.

By the end of that day, all the hammers had broken just from turning the fang into a metallic form.

The entire next day was spent repairing them.

And then they forged the fang again. Stretching it long, folding it back.

Tempering it. The mysterious impurities within the fang scattered as sparks.

The ones assisting Ria were veteran dwarf craftsmen. Among them was the foreman.

When it came to katanas in this region, he was the foremost expert.

Though this katana had the shape of a katana, its forging method couldn't truly be called katana-making. There was no core steel or edge steel, just a single fang being folded repeatedly into the shape of a katana.

The guard and handle were also the same. Everything was produced from a single fang. Magic was used for their shaping.

Then, Carla and Guinevere bestowed upon the blade every enchantment they knew.

Normal weapons could only hold two or three enchantments, but this katana absorbed magical power infinitely.

"Let's leave about twenty percent open. When Serge returns, we'll have him add spacetime magic."

"Yeah～. But even I have to say, we made quite a ridiculous weapon. Can anyone besides Ria even use this?"

Even Guinevere's magical power would be depleted after swinging it a few times.

It was a weapon suited for Ria, who had vast reserves of magical power yet hardly used any of it.

When they reached the final stage, it was the dwarves' turn once more.

Sharpening the blade.

Honestly, even without sharpening, it was a weapon that could destroy most enemies with a single swing, but a katana must be sharpened.

They used a philosopher's stone created from a dragon's liver to sharpen it. Since it was normally kept in storage, many dwarves came to watch it actually being used.

And one month after fire had been put to the furnace…

At last, a single katana was completed.

In its standard form, it had a blade length of two shaku three sun five bu (approximately 71 centimeters) with a curve of three bu three rin (approximately 1 centimeter), and a beautiful wave pattern shone along its wide, straight temper line.

Its color was like radiant darkness. It resembled the color of Ria's hair.

"Magnificent…"

Ria gazed at it, captivated by the katana.

From birth until now, she had never thought anything could be so beautiful…

"You should give it a name…"

In this world, famous weapons were given names. Most were named when created, based on their origins, but many were also named later.

"Wouldn't Black Dragon Katana Valis be fitting?"

When the head foreman said this, most of the dwarves nodded. Certainly, no one would object to naming it after Valis.

But Ria had a name in mind that she had been thinking of for some time.

"I name this katana Divine Katana Gallach."

Gallach.

That was the name of the only katana smith in the village, the foreman's name.

Unsteadily, the foreman—Gallach—stepped forward. Exhausted from days of continuous sharpening, his face was so haggard it hardly looked like a dwarf's.

"Y-you're naming it after me…?"

"Kotetsu was also named after its creator. More than anyone, you made this katana possible. That's why, Gallach."

Saying that, she raised the jet-black katana above her head.

"I take the name of the one who put the most effort into forging this blade! I name this katana Godslaying Gallach!"

Dwarves were a stubborn race. This was well known.

However, it was less well known that they were also deeply sentimental.

For the strongest weapon born from a divine dragon's fang to bear a dwarf's name. Every dwarf understood what that meant.

Like a wave, murmurs spread.

Like an explosion, cheers erupted.

The dwarf foremen slapped Gallach on the back.

Here, a single katana and its legend were born.

"Well, you played that beautifully."

The feast continued for three days and three nights, and Ria's party, finally released, was on the road back to Manesh.

Gallach was not at Ria's waist as she rode Matsukaze—it was too powerful to use normally.

What hung at Ria's waist now were Kotetsu and a short sword forged by Gallach.

From inside the carriage, Guinevere called out to Ria on horseback.

"Don't say that. If the katana hadn't turned out well, I would have honestly named it Valis."

Guinevere explained to the puzzled Fio and Shizuna.

"In other words, Ria gained the support of every dwarf just by naming a single katana after one of their own."

Dwarves were stubborn.

And simple.

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

The fact that Ria had given the name of a still relatively unknown foreman to a weapon that would surely be recorded in history had moved every dwarf deeply.

Nearly every renowned dwarf craftsman in the region had been in that place. She had gained the support of all those dwarves with a single naming.

"So there was an ulterior motive like that…"

Shizuna seemed slightly disappointed, but Fio was instead impressed.

"In exchange, I can never betray them either. Shizuna, dark thoughts are bad for the baby."

Yes, that's right.

Shizuna had, as expected, become pregnant.

Her morning sickness was severe, and they sometimes had to stop the carriage for her to vomit by the roadside.

Carla strangely showed no early pregnancy symptoms, but perhaps that was just her constitution.

"Thanks to that, we've secured the dwarves' full cooperation for producing the golem soldiers though."

Guinevere was satisfied with that.

In fact, with this, Ogress had brought under its umbrella the ogres, beastkin, and dwarves—all major forces among the non-human demi-humans within its territory.

Even when fighting against the Demon Lord's army in the coming Millennium, they would be able to form a considerable united front.

"I'm so jealous, Onee-chan. I want a special sword too."

Irina said, but no, an orichalcum sword is already plenty special.

Since everyone thought that, conversely, no one bothered to point it out.

"Then just call it Valis. Valis actually made it, after all."

"Hmm～"

Not quite satisfied, Irina clapped her hands.

"Then, Rudolph!"

"Wau!?"

The one most surprised was the Rudolph she was riding.

"You're always taking care of me, and I thought it was a cool name."

"No, that would be confusing. Wouldn't it be better not to?"

Rudolph's face also seemed to show displeasure, though it might have been their imagination.

"Then you name it, Onee-chan!"

Ria thought maybe Excalibur would work, but she happened to have a name in mind.

A golden orichalcum sword. The greatsword Irina used had tremendous destructive power but was a bit unwieldy.

"How about Orfevre?"

"Hmm? What does it mean?"

"It means 'goldsmith' in another world's language."

"Heh… Yeah, I like it."

And so, the Holy Sword Orfevre was born.

Incidentally, the katana that Ria named Gallach would later come to be called by another name among the dwarves.

That epithet was: "Pride of the Dwarves."