Chapter 315

Chapter 315: Chapter 315

Hephaestus discovered the next morning that Hestia had apparently forgotten how doors worked.

"HEPHAESTUS!"

The door to her office flew open.

Hephaestus looked up from a stack of Familia reports and found her old friend standing in the entrance with both palms pressed dramatically against the doorframe.

Bell stood several steps behind her looking mortified by the entire situation.

Hephaestus slowly lowered the document in her hand.

"Hestia."

"I need a favor."

"No."

Hestia’s mouth dropped open.

Bell quietly wished he could disappear into the hallway.

Hephaestus sighed and placed the report aside before Hestia could begin protesting.

"You entered my office by shouting my name loudly enough for half the building to hear. That means you’re either asking for money or asking me to forge something for free."

Hestia immediately crossed the room and planted both hands on Hephaestus’s desk.

"My child almost got killed by a Minotaur yesterday."

That changed the atmosphere.

Hephaestus’s irritation vanished.

Her uncovered eye shifted toward Bell, taking in the bandages beneath his shirt and the bruising still visible near his collar.

"Minotaur? On the Upper Floors?"

"Fifth."

Hephaestus’s expression hardened.

"That shouldn’t have happened."

"I know, and the Guild can investigate why it happened. Right now I’m dealing with the fact that Bell’s weapon was completely useless against it."

Bell instinctively touched the knife at his waist.

He liked the weapon.

Calling it useless felt slightly cruel!

Unfortunately, he remembered exactly how meaningless it had looked beside the Minotaur’s arm.

Hestia drew out the folded status transcription and placed it in front of Hephaestus, covering most of the information with her hands before exposing only the section she wanted her friend to see.

Hephaestus read the new Skill.

Her expression went completely still.

Bell noticed it.

That worried him considerably more than Hestia’s earlier reaction.

After several seconds, Hephaestus lifted her gaze.

"When did this appear?"

"Yesterday. It wasn’t there before the Minotaur encounter."

Hephaestus studied Bell for a long moment before turning back to Hestia. "Does he understand what this means?"

"No, and I haven’t told him the full details yet."

Bell looked between the two goddesses.

His concern increased.

Hestia straightened and placed one hand against her chest with as much dignity as she could gather.

"I want a weapon that can stay with him even if his growth accelerates. Something strong enough that we don’t have to replace it every few months. I’ll pay you back somehow."

Hephaestus leaned back in her chair.

Ordinarily, she would have refused.

Hestia had practically no money, and a weapon capable of remaining useful to a rapidly growing adventurer was not something a smith could produce from cheap materials and goodwill.

But there was another option.

Hephaestus’s eye moved toward the sword Bell carried.

Then toward the Skill transcription.

A faint smile appeared on her face.

"You’re asking the wrong smith."

Hestia blinked.

Bell looked equally confused.

Hephaestus rose from her chair and collected the paperwork on her desk.

"If you want a well-made weapon, I can forge one. If you want a weapon that grows alongside the person carrying it, there’s someone else in my Familia who specializes in exactly that."

Hestia’s expression changed as understanding arrived.

"You mean... Yōtōsai?"

Bell froze.

He knew that name!

He had spent his first day in Orario listening to adventurers talk about the Level Six blacksmith who forged living swords and can defeated an entire Familia alone.

Bell had imagined someone enormous.

Probably scarred.

Possibly terrifying!

Hephaestus walked past them toward the door.

"Rayleigh doesn’t take every commission that comes to him, and being my child doesn’t mean I can order him to forge a Zanpakutō for someone. If he thinks Bell isn’t suitable, that’s the end of it."

Hestia immediately grabbed Bell’s hand.

"Then we’ll convince him."

Bell stumbled forward as she pulled him after Hephaestus.

"Goddess, wait! Shouldn’t we at least make an appointment?!"

Hestia did not slow down.

Hephaestus glanced back at them.

"For once, your child is the sensible one."

...

Bell spent the walk through Hephaestus Familia’s workshop district becoming progressively more nervous.

The deeper they went, the more specialized the surrounding workshops became.

The constant ringing of hammers filled the air, furnaces cast orange light through open doors, and smiths carried weapons worth more than everything Bell owned without treating them as anything unusual.

Then Hephaestus led them away from the busiest section.

The workshop they eventually reached was large but surprisingly plain from the outside.

Bell would have walked past it without noticing anything unusual if not for the subtle pressure he felt the moment Hephaestus opened the door.

He stopped at the threshold.

There were swords inside.

Several were mounted carefully along one wall, while others rested on workbenches surrounded by tools Bell did not recognize.

None were releasing Magic, yet standing near them produced the unsettling sensation that the room was occupied by far more people than Bell could actually see.

A hammer struck metal deeper inside.

Bell looked toward the sound.

The man standing beside the forge was nothing like the terrifying image he had created in his head.

He was young.

White hair immediately caught Bell’s attention because it was close enough to his own color to make him stare before realizing how rude that probably looked.

The smith wore practical workshop clothes with his sleeves rolled above his forearms, and a sheathed sword rested within easy reach beside the anvil.

Hephaestus entered first.

"Rayleigh."

The hammer came down once more before the smith stopped and looked over.

His dark eyes moved from Hephaestus to Hestia before settling briefly on Bell.

"Hestia finally break something expensive?"

Hestia’s face tightened.

Hephaestus ignored the obvious danger in that question.

"She wants a commission."

Rayleigh rested the hammer against the anvil. "That sounds expensive."

Bell discovered very quickly that the legendary Yōtōsai was apparently capable of making his goddess visibly angry within ten seconds of meeting her.

Hestia took one sharp breath, clearly decided that starting a fight with the person she needed help from would be counterproductive, and pushed Bell gently forward instead.

"This is my first child. He needs a weapon."

Rayleigh’s attention returned to Bell.

The casual amusement in his expression faded enough that Bell straightened instinctively.

"A weapon from me is a little different from buying a sword off a rack. What’s your name?"

Bell swallowed his nervousness.

"Bell Cranel, sir."

The workshop went quiet.

Rayleigh’s hand, which had been reaching for a pair of tongs, stopped halfway.

Bell immediately wondered whether he had said something wrong.

Hephaestus noticed the reaction too.

Rayleigh stared at him for several seconds, and something in those dark eyes became so focused that Bell had the uncomfortable impression the smith was looking through his face and at something much deeper.

Then Rayleigh slowly set the tongs down.

"Bell Cranel."

Bell nodded cautiously.

"Yes, sir."

Rayleigh glanced once toward Hephaestus, who responded with the slightest narrowing of her eye as though she had noticed the same strange reaction.

When Rayleigh looked back at Bell, his expression had settled again.

"Come inside."

Bell stepped farther into the workshop.

Rayleigh reached toward the wall and removed a plain sword with a simple wooden hilt and scabbard.

It looked almost disappointingly ordinary compared with everything else in the room, but the moment Rayleigh held it out, Bell felt a strange pressure in his chest that he could not explain.

Rayleigh watched his reaction carefully.

Then he asked Bell a question that made him forget his nervousness entirely.

"Have you ever heard a sword speak?"