Volume 4 Chapter 2.3

Volume 4 Chapter 2.3

「Do you know why I failed, Mio-chan？」

「I do, but I doubt you’d understand just by me explaining.」

「Oh……」

Haruna’s shoulders dropped immediately at Mio’s reply. The current problem was feeling the processing elements on an intuitive level. Most normal humans would definitely not be able to understand even with an explanation.

「What I can say is that the breaking during the forging process is because you keep trying to stretch it too far. You just have to pay attention to how you strike.」

「It makes sense in my head, but I really don’t know when I’m breaching it.」

「And that’s just where you strike a bunch and figure it out.」

「That’s what it comes down to, huh.」

「You aren’t yet at the level where you can follow along and copy.」

With these kinds of machines that didn’t interpose traditional techniques, you couldn’t 'steal” anyone’s move until you were able to do the work from scratch by yourself. You had to fail over and over again while being scolded by your boss and the higher-ups, compiling work after work diligently and neatly until finally you attained the skill.

In that sense, Haruna was kind of blessed. Other than food, she generally wasn’t seen as a source of revenue or a replenisher of consumables. Even if she were to fail, she would be using novice materials, which could generally be gathered in large quantities without difficulty. She was already contributing a good amount with stands and street concerts, so the team had a good amount of funds. Thanks to that, no matter how many mistakes she made, no one complained about her, and Haruna was able to focus solely on polishing her skill.

Then again, in such a lukewarm water-like situation, it was difficult to say whether or not this was good for polishing one’s skill.

「I’ll just try a bit more.」

「Hang in there, Haru.」

Haruna reinvigorated herself, tossing the failures in the furnace and glaring at the fire, thermostat, etc. Unlike smithing, where she couldn’t tell she was improving, Haruna had begun getting an understanding of smelting. Now she could correctly time when she took out the ingots, making sure that it was properly quenched.

「This time, I at least want to get to tempering it.」

「Good luck.」

With Mio’s encouragement, Haruna psyched herself up before she began hitting the ingot, molding the shape. Though she herself had lamented the lack of progress, Haruna’s handiwork with the knife had improved quite a bit from when she had begun. And then, finally……

「The quenching didn’t work, but……」

「You might have held back a bit too much on that.」

「But if I redo it, then……」

「You’d better not. Wait till it’s annealed.」

「Ah. Then I’ll anneal it.」

With annealing and everything else, the knives they made for practice took way too much time to make. Even when they were made, it wasn’t like the knives would be used, so Haruna figured she may as well just follow the correct procedure through all the way, putting the knife in the furnace for annealing and looking at the thermometer as she adjusted the temperature accordingly.

「So, Haru.」

「What？」

「I don’t think you need to be so urgent for something as simple as sewing……」

「No way, this is a matter of life and death.」

Focusing a good amount on overseeing the annealing, Haruna gave Mio a curt reply. Hiroshi would have been able to finish this process in just a few seconds, but Haruna had to take her time with it, plus she had to control the temperature a certain amount by herself or it would get tough.

Still, Haruna had enough leisure to chat with Mio, so she decided to pass the time by doing that.

「A matter of life and death？」

「Mhm.」

「How so？」

「Many reasons, but the main one is underwear, I guess？」

Concerned about this environment filled with men (although they were pretty much all dwarves), Haruna told Mio about her truly serious problem in a lowered voice. All this time she had yet to separate her eyes from the thermometer, moving the temperature back up whenever it got too cool. This level of conversation must not really distract her.

「Underwear？　Why？」

「Cause I can’t get my hands on cute underwear without making it myself.」

「Especially with bras？」

「Mm. The same was true for Japan, but a lot of the time you can’t even get a good designed bra for anything past D-cup.」

「Is that bragging I sense？」

Mio made a rather dark comment on Haruna’s unique “worries”. Though she had grown quite a bit recently, Mio was far from even a C cup, plus her stature had all but halted, stretching and shrinking by one millimeter. When you realized she still probably wouldn’t be over 105 centimeters tall upon entering high school (even without this weird flux in height) you could tell this was rather heartrending.

「Bragging? Mm, more like the cold hard truth？」

「And with that statement, you’ve made enemies of me, Mako, Lina-san, and Nazaria-san all at once.」

「Although I would say that regardless of chest size, whoever likes you is going to like you for you. The rest is just a problem you have to settle yourself.」

Haruna adjusted the temperature back down from being slightly too hot as she commented on Mio’s anxiety with a pained tone, possibly convinced that Mio’s worries took greater priority over hers. When it came down to it, even when you saw the design of a bra is important, it was just an issue of trying to appeal to the male in question, but in Haruna’s case, there was a strong, symbolic implication that she had given in and rewired her brain.

In other words, she was a maiden in love and wanted to ensure that she was always at the ready, even in areas that weren’t visible.

「……I always think this, but you really are a cheater.」

「How so？」

「Because, you’re already so big, and yet you wear clothing that doesn’t go with the size all the time.」

「Really？ I still struggle, you know……」

Haruna would definitely fit in the big-boobed category, and yet she looked good in just about anything. Even when you had her wear clothing that looked silly with big breasts, something clouded the senses and she still ended up looking perfectly fine without pressing her chest down or anything; quite the fearsome phenomena. From Mio’s standpoint, it wasn’t as shoddy as “looking slender”, but a fragment of something more sinister, no doubt. Makoto went a step further and just referred to it as “the heroine effect”.

「Anyhow, I feel like there are loads of enemies prowling around for this matter, so I definitely want to be able to make my own.」

「And it has happened before, so I can’t deny that……」

Green with envy at Haruna’s bust size, Mio had previously forced her to wear strange-designed underwear that she made. If that had caused Haruna to be wary of her, then Mio really couldn’t complain.

「Still, if all you wanted is to make underwear from spirit thread, you’d have to at least be able to make proper throwing knives……」

Haruna began grumbling in a pained tone for a different reason this time as she looked at the knife she was in the middle of annealing. This seemed to be the first time in her life that she had come to such a standstill with something, and right now Haruna appeared to have lost some self-confidence.

In the end, once Haruna had finished annealing the throwing knife, its shape was still an odd failure, the balance improper and unfit for throwing in a straight line. It was a truly pitiable product.