It was already dark. In the blacksmith shop, the father and son sat around the broken dining table next to the stove. The dinner was still black bread and vegetable soup. The fire was listless, and the dim flames reflected the shadows of the three of them on the mottled wall. The flames pounded and the figures shook with them. Old Tom looked at Richard angrily, and Richard lowered his head and just chewed the bread. Several times, my father seemed to want to say something, but in the end he didn’t say anything. He just shook his head and turned to Donner, “Master Merkel is such a good person!”
Donner didn’t understand why his father said this for no reason, but he still made a sincere expression to his father and nodded vigorously.
“Your brother doesn’t know the world is high, so you can play with him. Knight? Where is the son of a blacksmith who is a knight? Have you ever heard of a blacksmith who is a knight?”
Donner still nodded, then reacted and shook his head. He had never heard of the blacksmith’s son becoming a knight, and in fact he did not recognize any other blacksmith except his father, let alone their sons.
When his father got up to scoo up the soup, Donner kicked Richard under the table, and then grimaced him while Richard looked up at him. In order to hold back his smile, Richard buried his head and chewed the bread more vigorously. It seemed that it was the black bread in front of him that blocked his knighthood.
“Mr. Merkel said he would come here tomorrow morning. Tell him carefully, how did this sword come out… If you can’t remember, just say it.”
Donner still nodded, his father seemed to have forgotten that he would not speak.
Although Merkel was only a first-class knight, he served as an official in the Knights School, responsible for managing the school’s weapons. He was a mercenary when he was young, and he was very knowledgeable. However, when he saw the strange patterns on Richard’s sword, he was no less surprised than those around him.
Such a strange sword actually came from the hands of a young man who had never stepped out of the island of Lant, and it is said that this was his first work, and he had never made any iron tools before. This is obviously not explained by luck or coincidence. In order to satisfy his curiosity, he suggested to Richard and his son that he would keep the sword for one night and visit the blacksmith shop in person tomorrow morning. Old Tom was still panicked when he looked at the broken half-standard sword on the ground, so of course he agreed immediately.
In the guest room prepared by the fat brother-in-law, a strange long sword was placed horizontally on the desk, and on the spread of letter paper, Mr. Merkel from Donne City was writing a letter.
My dear Victor,
I hope that when you see this letter, your mind has not been broken by those weird ideas.
Well, you must still remember my sister’s Jennifer, right? Follower, crying man Jennifer! She is now a mother of two children.
She married to Lant Island in the south of the empire, a small island that cannot be found on the empire map, but here, I encountered a strange thing, and I think you may be interested.
Here I witnessed a fourteen-year-old child cutting off the imperial long sword with a strange sword. The sword he used was actually the first work of his brother, the son of a blacksmith, a novice with no experience.
What surprised me even more was that this sword was covered with strange patterns. I had never seen such strange patterns. It was different from the patterns used for decoration on the fine steel sword made by the dwarfs in the north. It was far more detailed and mysterious than that one. I have a feeling that it is these patterns that make the sword sharp and tough. I even wonder if this has something to do with magic?
I tried to ask the child, but it was difficult to get any useful information from him. Oh, I probably forgot to say that he is a mute.
How about it, have I successfully aroused the interest of a museumist?
I will stay on the island until the end of September, and if you are ready to come and hunt, you can find me in the island’s tavern.