The Republic of the Holy City.
A neighboring nation, it shared a border with the Kingdom of Valsein to the east. At the heart of the country stood a massive Grand Cathedral, the ancestral home of the Saint, who was said to hear the very voice of God. Unlike the Kingdom of Valsein, which was ruled by a monarch, this country had no king. With the Saint as the nation's symbol, the land was governed by a council of high-ranking clergy and local influential figures.
Chief among them were the holy knights, protectors of the Saint and the Grand Cathedral, who were revered by every citizen. To manufacture the specialized swords and armor used by these elite warriors, a massive smithing workshop under the direct control of the holy knights had been established near the cathedral.
One of the blacksmiths working there was Elsa.
She was a young woman with short, unruly navy-blue hair trimmed near her jaw, with her bangs tucked behind one ear to keep them out of her eyes. She had pale gold eyes and a short, slender build; it was not uncommon for newcomers to mistake her for a workshop errand girl rather than a master of the forge.
However, her cheeks and fingers were marked by numerous small burn scars, and her right hand was calloused and hardened in a way that defied her age.
She might have looked unreliable at a glance.
But once she gripped a hammer, it was a different story entirely.
"Hey! I told you not to touch that! If you move it now, you'll ruin the tempering! These are swords that the holy knights entrust their lives to—if you're going to do a half-hearted job, don't touch them at all!"
Watching the apprentice hurriedly pull his hand back, Elsa turned the glowing red blade with her fire tongs. Though her youth was striking, her ability to judge the color and sound of iron was second to none, even among the veterans. She possessed the rare skill to adjust a weapon's center of gravity to perfectly suit the knight who would wield it.
"Acting high and mighty as usual, I see. Don't go thinking this workshop belongs to you just because you’ve received a little praise."
The speaker behind her was Dario, a blacksmith in his thirties. Until recently, everyone assumed he would be the next workshop head, but lately, the number of holy knights specifically requesting Elsa’s work had been on the rise.
"If you have time to talk, why don't you fix that breastplate that was returned yesterday? They said the fasteners were misaligned and digging into their side. You should look at your own work before you lecture me."
A nearby craftsman snorted, and Dario's cheek twitched with annoyance. Elsa paid him no mind. When the day's work was done, she double-checked the suspension gear she would need for the following day before leaving the workshop. There were no abnormalities in the locking pins or the chains.
◇
The accident happened the following day. She was using the chains hanging from the ceiling to lift a heavy iron plate from the furnace to move it to her workbench.
"Higher on that side! Stop, hold it right there!"
A sickening creak echoed through the room. She looked up to see one of the metal fittings beginning to warp.
"Wait! Stop winding! Everyone, get away from there!"
Before the warning could leave her lips, the locking pin snapped, and the chain gave way. The suspended iron plate plummeted from one side. Directly beneath it stood a young apprentice, paralyzed with shock on the floor.
"What are you doing?! Move, fast!"
"My legs... I can't...!"
"Ugh!"
Elsa rushed forward and shoved the apprentice aside. She tried to throw herself clear, but her foot caught on a pair of fire tongs. She lost her balance, and though her body fell outside the impact zone, her left arm didn't make it in time. The limb from the elbow down was pinned between the falling iron plate and the stone floor. The dull, sickening crunch of bone echoed through her entire being.
"—-ugh, AAAAAAAAGH!!"
She couldn't even breathe through the white-hot agony. As the other craftsmen shouted and scrambled to lift the iron plate, she saw something through the haze of her blurred vision: a locking pin rolling across the floor.
It was riddled with old cracks. It wasn't the one she had inspected yesterday.
"Why..."
The apprentice she had saved peered down at her, his face pale with horror.
"Elsa-san! I'm okay! So—-"
"Then... call a healer... hurry!"
By the time she squeezed the words out, the world went black. When she finally woke up, her left arm was gone from the elbow down.
◇
Several months had passed. Even after the wound had closed, the phantom limb would occasionally ache. She would wake in the middle of the night from a sensation like her fingers were being crushed, reflexively trying to clutch her left hand before remembering it was gone. Even so, she never stopped practicing swinging a hammer with her right.
"...As if I'd give up on being a blacksmith just because I lost an arm."
On the day she returned to the workshop, she found another craftsman’s tools on her workbench. Her patterns and journals had been cleared from the shelves. The swords lined up against the wall were the exact models she had spent months refining—the specific blade thickness and balance were unmistakably her work—yet the tags now read "Dario-style Improved Sword."
"...What is this? These are my swords!"
Dario appeared and coldly informed her that any techniques developed within the workshop belonged to the collective, not any one person. When she was summoned by the workshop head, she was told that the accident had been officially recorded as a result of her own negligence. She was dismissed that very day.
"Hah?! I checked everything the day before! Even the pin that fell during the accident was different from the one I inspected!"
They refused to listen. She was told that the armaments of the holy knights could not be entrusted to a one-armed smith. To make matters worse, she was held financially responsible for the broken materials and the damaged suspension gear. Her remaining wages were seized as reparations. Her patterns and notes were confiscated as workshop property.
"I still have my right arm! My eyes work, and so does my head! I’m telling you there are ways to work around it! Don't just decide my life is over without letting me try!"
The decision remained final.
"...Fine. I'm done with this place! If you won't investigate the accident properly and just decide I'm useless the moment I'm injured—all while stealing my designs—then I don't want to forge a single thing here anyway!"
Ignoring the workshop head's furious shouting, she packed her personal tools and her favorite blacksmith's hammer into a bag. As she turned to leave, she heard Dario’s low, mocking laugh. They were alone.
"Heh... You’ve certainly got spirit. I'll give you one last gift before you go. I was the one who swapped that locking pin for the old, cracked one."
The bag slipped from Elsa's grip.
"...What?"
"I swapped it after you finished your inspection. The accident was a bit more gruesome than I intended, but the results were perfect."
"How could you...? Because of you... because of you!! My arm...!!"
"You’ve been an eyesore for a long time! A girl like you, acting so important... being pampered by the holy knights just because you're young... Before you showed up, I was the best here! I was the one who was supposed to be the next head! You took that from me."
Laughing, Dario looked down at her missing limb.
"With only one arm, you'll never forge a decent blade again. That's what you get for being so full of yourself. Besides, there's no proof. The accident report says it was your fault, and nobody's going to believe a failure like you."
Elsa's right hand twitched toward her hammer, but she forced herself to stop. If she struck him, she would only be giving him exactly what he wanted.
"Oh, and I've already spread the word to every other forge in the Holy City. Everyone knows you caused an accident and tried to blame your coworkers. No one will hire you....Actually, I probably didn't even need to do that. Who would hire a one-armed blacksmith? You'd have to find a real eccentric for that!"
"...Go ahead and laugh. You haven't stolen my skill. I'll forge even with one arm, and one day, I'll make something that puts your stolen swords to shame."
"Do it if you can. First, you'll have to find that eccentric to give you a job, won't you?"
Elsa said nothing more. She picked up her bag and walked out of the workshop.
◇
She visited every forge in the Holy City, but Dario had been telling the truth. The rumors had preceded her—she was known as the blacksmith who had been fired for a dangerous accident. No one would even let her demonstrate her skills.
—Then I’ll just go to a country where the rumors haven't reached.
It took five days by shared carriage to reach the western border of the Republic. Thinking that no one would know her in the Kingdom of Valsein, Elsa spent the last of her money to cross the border.
But her luck didn't change. In the barony near the border, they rejected her the moment they saw her arm. In the next domain, even when she explained her history with the holy knights, they simply shook their heads. "How do you expect to hold the iron?" they asked. In the county further along, she begged them to let her forge just once without pay, but they wouldn't even listen.
At first, she cursed their lack of vision, but by the time the fifth shop turned her away, she had run out of spite. It was another ten days of travel from the border to the Razgrim domain, passing through several noble territories. She hadn't planned on going that far, but as she drifted from town to town looking for work, she ran out of money for inns. Soon, she was down to a single meal a day.
It wasn't because of the rumors anymore. It was simply because she had only one arm. That alone was enough for everyone to say no.
"...Is there really nowhere for me?"
By the time she lost count of the rejections, she found the words slipping out of her mouth for the first time. Still, she couldn't bring herself to discard her hammer. She kept walking the highway aimlessly until she saw a signpost that read "Razgrim Domain."
Elsa knew almost nothing about the politics of Valsein; the name meant nothing to her.
"...Anywhere is fine now."
Worn down by despair, Elsa stepped into the unknown territory.
◇
As I watched the soldiers drilling at the training grounds, a realization finally hit me: their equipment was a mess. Their breastplates were all different shapes, and their swords and shields were a mismatched jumble. Even for me—someone who usually thought "if it works, it works"—it felt like a bad idea to bring them to the royal capital as the personal guard of a duke.
"I should probably get matching gear for the three hundred we're entering in the tournament, right...?"
Clarice looked over the troops and agreed. Since we were attending the Founding Festival under Alecia's royal decree, where every noble in the kingdom would be watching, looking like a band of scavengers would reflect poorly on her honor as well.
I had an arms merchant provide a quote for three hundred new sets of swords, shields, helmets, and breastplates. When the estimate arrived the next day, I stared at it for a long time, unable to move.
I scanned the numbers from top to bottom, then went back to the start. I double-checked that it was indeed for three hundred people, but the final total didn't get any smaller.
"...Clarice. Just to be absolutely sure, this is for the three hundred tournament participants only, right? This isn't the cost for the entire army?"
"It's just for the three hundred. That's the price for buying everything new. It's not a typo, so I suggest you start accepting reality."
I quietly placed the estimate back on the desk.
It was way too expensive! Forget about making back our travel and food costs with the fifth-place prize money; buying this gear would mean a guaranteed massive loss!
"...We’re not buying new equipment. If it's going to cost this much, we're better off repairing and using what we already have. There's no reason to throw away chipped swords or dented armor if they can still be fixed, right?"
"I figured you'd say that. If we can make them look uniform through repairs, it would definitely be less wasteful... Should I reach out to the local blacksmiths?"
"Yeah. Get estimates from a few places. I want someone who isn't just cheap, but good enough to make sure the gear doesn't fall apart mid-tournament. As long as it's cheaper than buying new, I'll be happy."
As Clarice made a note in her ledger, I glanced at the estimate one last time.
"...Even for three hundred people, does military gear really have to cost this much?"
It seemed that becoming a duke didn't mean my wallet would magically get any heavier.