This is the final update of the year.
Thank you for your support this year.
I hope you'll continue following along next year.
When I saw someone running toward me, I tensed up, thinking another scammer had shown up.
The onlookers who'd been watching me started buzzing again too, apparently thinking a new scammer had arrived.
But that was just me jumping to conclusions.
The person heading my way was a woman — someone I knew. More precisely, she was an associate of an acquaintance.
"Hello. You seem to be in a hurry, but is there something urgent you need from me?"
The woman I'd spoken to was a female dwarf who worked at the workshop of "Kelly" — a female dwarf and blacksmith who ran a shop I frequented.
"I'm so glad I caught you~! Actually, a weapon order addressed to Tenma came into our workshop, and I was told to come let you know it's been completed."
"A weapon order addressed to me...? What's that about?"
I was wary of a weapon order I had absolutely no recollection of, and it must have shown in my voice.
"Yes. Addressed to Tenma, specifically. I shouldn't say this too loudly, but the client is His Grace the Grand Duke."
Ernest.
He had commissioned my weapon to be forged, but I couldn't understand why now of all times.
We'd built a reasonably friendly rapport, but this was so out of the blue that I was thoroughly confused. The female dwarf said she'd explain the details at the shop, and since Kelly's workshop had been one of my destinations anyway, I cheerfully went along with her.
"Oh! You made it! This is the commissioned piece. I know you just got here, but go ahead and give it a swing!"
When I opened the workshop door, Kelly was right there waiting and handed me a sword.
The sword was entirely black, with a blade length of about 80 centimeters and a handle of roughly 40 centimeters. It was slightly smaller than the Adamantine sword I had previously returned to Ernest, but it appeared to be a blade of comparable quality.
And as its most distinctive feature, a dragon engraving adorned the side of the blade from the base to roughly the midpoint, with the grooves filled in white metal, giving the whole thing the appearance of an art piece.
After examining every inch of it, I gave it a few swings each — right hand, left hand, and then both hands together.
"It swings surprisingly well for its size — maybe because the balance is so good."
Being made of Adamantine, it was heavier than an iron sword of the same size, but it was lighter than my previous Adamantine sword, so it wasn't particularly a problem.
"Glad to hear it! Then let's move on to the fine-tuning."
With that, Kelly took the sword from me, unwrapped the cloth from the handle, and laid out several types of materials she had prepared in advance in front of me.
"I'll wrap each one around the handle for now, so just pick whichever you like."
I examined each of the colorful materials laid out before me, one by one.
Beast hide, reptile hide, shark hide, bird hide, black cloth and white cloth — each available in several different thicknesses.
After spending over an hour going through every single material:
"None of them really felt right. If I had to pick, the shark hide — but the texture was so rough it felt like gripping sandpaper. After that, maybe the thicker cloth."
That was the conclusion I arrived at.
"Well, that shark hide came from a Monster, so the roughness is to be expected. Regular shark hide would probably fall apart the moment you ran Magic Power through it. If none of the other materials appeal to you, cloth is probably the safest bet."
Kelly put away the materials other than the shark hide and cloth, looking somewhat bored.
The other animal hides weren't bad to grip, but their surfaces were a bit slick, and I worried they might slip right out of my hands during a full-force swing.
It might have been overthinking on my part, but considering the possibility of blood or water getting on the grip, I figured a material with even a bit more traction would be better, so I ended up ruling them out.
"Well, cloth is the most commonly used material on adventurer's weapons, and in a way it's probably the most compatible material for adventurers. But since this is an Adamantine sword, I can't help wanting something more than just the usual."
Kelly said it was just a blacksmith's vanity, but I understood the feeling.
This sword was well-crafted and looked impressive, so if possible, I wanted the handle wrapping to be something special too.
But if the right material simply didn't exist, there was no way around it — I'd have no choice but to compromise. That was when something came to mind.
"Hey, Kelly. What if we wrapped cord around this?"
I pulled the cord from my bag, tried winding it around the handle area, then handed it over to Kelly.
"Sure, it's different, but isn't that a little too different... Wait, the grip is actually pretty nice. But yeah, this isn't gonna work as is."
Kelly gripped the handle and was surprised by how good it felt — more than he'd expected — but the look of it was too ugly, so he rejected it.
Still, I pressed on with him.
"No, I'm not saying we'd just wrap any old cord around it. We'd tie cord from this material, and then wrap that cord around the handle. Doesn't that sound interesting?"
I handed Kelly a few strands of the material and asked for his opinion. He took them, felt them out, tugged on them a bit, then broke into a grin.
"Well now, this could turn out to be quite interesting... The question is whether we can gather enough of this stuff in bulk. Can we actually pull it off?"
"No problem. This material is something I have easy access to, and if I look around, there should be some in my bag too."
Having heard my confident declaration, Kelly started roughly calculating the amount of material needed for the cord.
"Alright! I've got a rough idea of how much we need! But you can never have too much, so Tenma — gather as much as you can and bring it back ASAP. If everyone in the workshop pitches in, we should be done by morning!"
When he said that, all the female dwarves in the workshop simultaneously stopped what they were doing and immediately lay down.
"Tenma. It's going to take a while to gather the material anyway, so we're going to sleep now to prepare for an all-nighter. Wake us when you've got it. Here's the key to the place!"
Kelly casually pulled a key from inside his chest and tossed it to me.
"Don't lose it! And no funny business without getting consent first!"
At that, all the female dwarves burst out laughing, saying things like "You're welcome anytime!"
They seem to trust that I won't misuse the key, but I wish they'd stop saying things that put me in an awkward position when trying to respond.
I laughed it off with a vague smile and took off running to gather the materials. My destination was Grandpa's estate.
Along the way, the pedestrians I passed gave me strange looks, but I didn't care.
Among them, I caught hints of a few people I knew. But I was in a hurry, so apologies to them — I pretended not to notice and kept running.
Once I arrived at the estate, I decided to start gathering materials right away.
"Come on! Shiromaru!"
Full of excitement, I called out to Shiromaru in a way I normally wouldn't. Shiromaru came running over, tail wagging furiously, drool hanging from his mouth...
I removed the collar from Shiromaru, who had arrived right in front of me, returning him to his original size, and then pulled the materials from him.
"Kyaain!"
In my hand, I held a bundle of Shiromaru's fur, more than I had expected to pull out. Shiromaru's fur — this was the true identity of the material.
Shiromaru's fur strands were about 30 centimeters long at most, but this was clearly not enough to make a rope.
"Shiromaru, just bear with me for a bit, okay~"
Seeing my face, Shiromaru flinched and tried to run away.
"...Double treats for today and tomorrow."
Shiromaru's ears perked up, and he hesitated to flee.
"The day after tomorrow's... no, how about double treats for a whole week!"
Hearing those words, Shiromaru turned back toward me and lay down. A massive amount of drool dripped from his mouth.
And just like that, the provider of the material I sought was subdued by the promise of doubled treats for a week. Behind him, the flying glutton was also lying down, drooling.
For now, I tossed some meat into Shiromaru's mouth as an advance payment, then began collecting the materials.
Being careful to make the spots where I plucked fur less noticeable, I pulled fur from all over Shiromaru's body, but it was hard to gather enough.
"Hey Tenma, wouldn't it be faster to cut the fur rather than forcibly pulling it out of Shiromaru?"
"Oh..."
At Namiitaro's advice — he was crawling around on the ground taking a stroll — I snapped to my senses and pulled out a pair of scissors (made of Mithril) from my bag. Shiromaru, for his part, had an expression that seemed to say he wished I had figured that out a little sooner.
After that, my work speed improved dramatically, and while I was at it, I used the fur collection as an opportunity to give Shiromaru an all-over trim.
Thirty minutes after I started shearing. Having put the fur that exceeded my expectations into a basket and tossed it into my bag, I moved to the mansion's kitchen and started cooking.
I had some time to spare, so I decided to make a late-night snack for Kelly and the others.
Since I wanted it to be easy to eat while working, I planned to prepare several kinds of sandwiches.
I boiled water in a large pot and made hard-boiled eggs. In the meantime, I sliced a large amount of ham thinly, and stir-fried thinly sliced beef in a sweet and savory sauce.
Once the eggs were done, I peeled them, added mayonnaise and a little seasoning, and mashed them together to complete the filling.
All that was left was to sandwich it between slices of homemade bread buttered on both sides, and it was done. I hesitated over the drinks, but decided to put a large amount of tea into the stock pot. The aroma and taste would probably be worse than when it was freshly brewed, but it was better than nothing.
After confirming that the ingredients and cooking utensils were in my bag, I headed to Kelly's workshop.
On the way, I stopped by the stalls to pick up some extra treats for Kelly and souvenirs for Shiromaru and the others. Arriving at the workshop, I unlocked the door with the key I'd been given and opened it, finding a "Temporarily Closed" sign hanging on it.
"Kelly. I brought the ingredients."
I called out to Kelly, who was sleeping in the center of the workshop with a futon thrown over his head. He started to move, rustling, and crawled out from under the futon. For some reason, he was shirtless... though thankfully, his pants were caught around his knees.
"Hey!"
Still half-asleep and baring his skin, I threw the futon back over his head.
"Whoa!"
Startled awake by the impact of the futon, Kelly looked around while still covered, retrieved the clothes he'd thrown off, and put them back on.
"Here, these are the materials for the rope. I had Slarin clean the dirt off, so they should be usable as is. Also, this is your late-night snack. I brought drinks too, so when you're hungry, everyone just help yourselves."
I handed the basket containing Shiromaru's fur to Kelly, who had put on his clothes and stood up, and placed the basket with the sandwiches, the stock pot with the tea, and all the various foods I'd bought at the stalls somewhere that wouldn't get in the way in the workshop.
"Hey, Tenma. You just saw a woman's naked body, couldn't you at least act a little flustered or embarrassed? ...The total lack of reaction is kind of hurtful, you know..."
Kelly seemed annoyed that I didn't react, grumbling while still pressing his chest against mine and lifting it up.
So...
"Whoa, I saw Kelly naked! Oh no, my heart's pounding so hard, I'll never be able to sleep tonight!"
I delivered the line in a flat, expressionless monotone, just to see if it would get the reaction I was hoping for. Sure enough, the female dwarves watching us from the back of the workshop were clutching their stomachs, stifling their laughter.
When I kept going, hamming it up even further, the female dwarves could no longer hold back. They doubled over, howling with laughter.
And Kelly, having seen my reaction, seemed to realize how embarrassing what he was doing must look. His face gradually turned redder and redder.
"Tenma, I'm sorry, so just stop it! And you lot—quit laughing already!"
Finally unable to endure the shame, Kelly surrendered. While he was at it, he started shouting at the female dwarves still laughing in the back.
But seeing Kelly's face turn beet red as he yelled only made the dwarves laugh even harder.
Watching the female dwarves laugh without any sign of stopping, Kelly suddenly went quiet. After a while, when their laughter had started to die down a little, he spoke.
"You two... Do you have any last words?"
It was the kind of voice that felt as if rage were radiating from every inch of Kelly's body—quiet, yet terrifyingly intense. Bathed in that aura of fury, the female dwarves dropped to the floor in a full prostration, trembling from head to toe.
"Oh, right—Tenma. I'll have it finished by tomorrow morning, so get here before noon. I'll need your help with the final adjustments and to test the feel of it."
Kelly's anger was somewhat restrained toward me, but it was still enough to break me out in a cold sweat.
I nodded slowly, being careful not to let anything foolish slip out of my mouth, and made my way out of the workshop at an unhurried pace.
After closing the door and getting a few meters away, I thought I could hear Kelly's furious shouts and the female dwarves' screams, but I didn't look back. I simply kept walking.
I'd played it off as a joke around Kelly, but honestly, my heart had been pounding like crazy. Seeing a woman's body far more beautiful than I'd ever imagined—one I definitely hadn't been prepared for—yeah, it didn't go as far as actual desire, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited.
Since being reincarnated in this world, I'd seen a woman's naked... a woman's body more than a few times, even without any real experience with women. But I'd never been this worked up before.
It wasn't so much that I liked Kelly specifically—it felt more like the first time I started becoming aware of girls back in middle school in my previous life. ...Because I'd rarely felt that kind of sexual awareness toward women before, I'd half-convincingly wondered if something was broken down there. Turns out everything was normal after all. I wasn't sure whether that was a good thing, and I had no idea why it had to be Kelly of all people, but...
There was no way I could let anyone—especially the girls—find out about this. So instead of heading straight back to the mansion, I decided to kill some time browsing the market stalls and open-air shops to get my composure back.
The problem was, I'd become something of a celebrity by now, and wandering around looking like this risked causing a scene or landing me in some kind of trouble. So I decided to put on a quick disguise. The result...
"Excuse me, young man. Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?"
A police officer.
—and was dragged to a police box.
I'd been
questioned
,
and
brought
in.
As expected, the grimy hood pulled low over my head and the rare craft item I'd bought from a street stall apparently weren't doing me any favors. I'd figured that acting all sneaky and suspicious was the wrong move, so I'd been walking right down the center of the road with full confidence — but that apparently made me look even more suspicious.
After being hauled to the soldiers' post and led into what looked like an interrogation room, surrounded by a handful of soldiers, I pulled off my hood. They were so shocked they nearly collapsed, and then they kept bowing their heads over and over like drinking birds, profusely apologizing.
Apparently, detaining a tournament finalist, surrounding him with several men, and interrogating him had been noticed by their superiors — and when they realized the report might go all the way to the royal family, they figured they weren't just looking at ruined careers; they could lose their heads.
Well, I didn't think the king would do anything of the sort. If anything, he'd praise the soldiers for faithfully carrying out their duty while secretly having a laugh at my expense behind the scenes. In this case, detaining a suspicious person like me was, in fact, the correct course of action. But soldiers who didn't know the king's
personality
could never reach that kind of understanding.
If this continued, they might become too shaken by the incident and start second-guessing themselves on the mission, so I needed to smooth things over.
Just as I was thinking about asking someone to summon a knight I knew, a few knights appeared — apparently checking in on the patrol situation.
"Anyone in here? I heard you caught a suspicious character... Wait — Tenma?"
One of the knights who stepped into the interrogation-like room was, conveniently enough, someone I knew — Edgar, who served in the Royal Guard.
I couldn't help but grin at this stroke of luck, but the soldiers, on the other hand, looked even more pale-faced than before.
Edgar spoke to me before even bothering to hear the soldiers' side of things, so I explained the entire situation as objectively as I could.
"Pfft— No, my apologies. That must have been quite the ordeal... Sergeant."
"Yes..."
Edgar called out to the sergeant while holding back his laughter. The man who had been addressed as the sergeant wore a look as though he had already given up on everything.
"Thank you for your hard work. Please keep up the good work on your duties."
"...Huh?"
The sergeant, who had clearly been expecting a reprimand, didn't seem to understand what Edgar meant and let out a bewildered voice.
"There seems to be some misunderstanding, but you didn't do anything wrong in this matter. The one at fault was Tenma, who was dressed in such a confusing disguise. He himself seems to be reflecting on it, so let's consider this matter settled."
"I'm terribly sorry for all the trouble."
Without missing a beat after Edgar's words, I bowed my head to the soldiers.
"Tenma, you're free to go. I understand why you dressed up and how you felt about it, but at the very least, just wear a hood from now on. That mask is way too suspicious."
Saying that, Edgar handed me back the mask I had been wearing—the kind of creepy phantom-of-the-opera-style mask—while holding back his laughter.
"I'll be more careful. And please, keep this a secret from the King and the others... They'll definitely tease me about it, no question."
As I took the mask back, I quietly asked Edgar to keep it quiet so the soldiers wouldn't hear.
Edgar nodded while once again suppressing his laughter.
After that, I received advice on my disguise. The advice didn't just come from Edgar—I also had the soldiers who found me weigh in. Ultimately, it was decided that the most suspicious element besides the hood was the strange mask, and the conclusion was to ditch the mask, pull the hood deep over my head, and if a soldier called out to me, show my face and explain the reason.
I thanked Edgar and the soldiers and left the guard post, setting out to resume my stroll through the market stalls. However, starting from around the time I left the post, I noticed a trio of people following me.
At first, I thought it was Lily and the others, but when I casually checked at a corner, it wasn't them—it was a group of three unfamiliar men.
I considered heading back to the guard post and having them handle it if things turned troublesome, but when I used Appraisal, they weren't complete strangers with no connection to me, nor did they seem likely to harm me. So I judged it would be fine to ignore them as long as they didn't approach me first, and I continued browsing the stalls.
I spent another two or three hours touring the stalls, but the trio following me still hadn't said a word.
I had bought plenty by then, so I decided to head back to the manor.
Even when I arrived back in front of the manor, the trio showed no sign of approaching, so I went straight inside.
Even after I entered the manor, the trio seemed to hang around nearby for a while, but at some point they must have given up, because their presence vanished.
I'd almost certainly be seeing those three again before long. I figured I'd just ask them about today's events when that happened, so I went ahead and pulled out the food I'd bought from the stalls.
Shiromaru and Solomon swarmed the grilled meat and skewers, while Jeanne and Aura descended on the fruits and other sweets — each pair working off their frustration at being cooped up inside by stuffing their faces.
Slarin and Gramps watched the scene unfold over cups of tea.
Today's
spoils
were delicious, varied, and full of rare finds — a haul impressive enough to make me truly appreciate what a Royal Capital festival was capable of.
Tenma reacting to Kelly's nudity wasn't because Kelly happened to be Tenma's type or anything like that. It was simply that he saw
the completely
unexpected nude body of a woman
in a sudden flash
before his eyes, and that's all there was to it.
Kelly is not slated for heroine promotion... or rather, since there isn't currently a main heroine, every unmarried woman who has appeared and befriended Tenma is, in a sense, something of a sub-heroine.