[Roderik
Age: 38
Level: 43/60
Class: Blacksmith
Talent: A
Opinion of you: 60
Loyalty: 60%]
Roderik’s eyes narrowed, fixed on the young man before him.
"I am Ethan Goldenveil, Lord of Goldenveil and your sovereign," Ethan declared.
Roderik’s expression remained unchanged, his mind still sowhat clouded.
Only after a long mont did he finally kneel, bowing his head.
"What do you want from , my lord?" he asked, with less respect than Doran had shown, but more than Evelyn.
"Not much." Ethan shook his head. "I want you to beco the blacksmith of Goldenveil."
"I..." Roderik seed to have words stuck in his throat, his eyes fixed on the floor. "I understand, my lord."
Ethan’s lips curved slightly, and he placed his hand on the man’s shoulders.
"Co, I’ll show you your smithy." He smiled, guiding him out of the mansion.
Roderik couldn’t help but let out a disappointed sigh as he looked at the settlent, but the disappointnt vanished the mont he saw the forge.
Old, dilapidated, and abandoned.
The door creaked as it opened, releasing the heavy scent of coal and old iron.
Ethan entered first, his eyes quickly scanning the interior. The furnace occupied the center, large and sturdy, connected to a bellows still intact.
Beside it, a solid anvil, marked by use but far from damaged. Workbenches stretched along the walls, laden with hamrs, tongs, and precision tools.
Further back, a small slting furnace shared space with neatly arranged crucibles and molds, while a quenching tank rested near the exit.
Silence hung in the air for a mont.
"It’s humble, but..." Roderik murmured, taking a few steps forward, his gaze steady as he took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the sll of coal. "It’s good."
[Roderik’s Loyalty increases by 2]
[Roderik’s Opinion increases by 2]
The blacksmith’s lips curved as he wandered around the forge and the anvil, his calloused hands caressing the tal.
Ethan simply smiled at the sight.
It was good to see a passionate man in his natural place.
Doran was like that too when he trained the guard.
He was a born soldier, just as Roderik was a born blacksmith.
Opening the system inventory, Ethan pulled out a few items he hadn’t yet distributed to the people.
Blacksmithing tools.
There was even a Grade C blacksmith’s hamr among them, all clean and brand new.
Ethan didn’t even have to offer anything. Roderik imdiately snatched them from his hands, examining each one with delight.
The quality was no worse than the tools he’d had before!
"Uh... there’s still so old coal in here, but the iron is very low quality..." Roderik grumbled, drawing a sigh from Ethan.
He would ask the people of Goldenveil to start gathering all their old, useless tools and bring them to Roderik.
If he could lt it all down, he’d have plenty of steel and iron to work with.
Honestly, Ethan even regretted a little that he hadn’t brought any of the goblin weapons, having thought them too inferior.
Of course, a rusty goblin axe wouldn’t be much use to the guard, but if lted down, it could be turned into a dagger, alloyed with other tals and turned into a sword, or into several arrowheads.
They didn’t have a source of tal yet, and all tal was precious.
"This house is yours now, as is the entire smithy. Your only obligation is to accept requests from the people of Goldenveil and its guard. If you want an assistant to help, I think that would be interesting; there must be so talented young person around here worth teaching the art of forging."
Roderik heard those words and nodded, using his own aura to create a spark and light the forge.
It would take quite so ti to heat it up, and once he did, he would begin lting all the available tal, already preparing to receive the first requests.
"Don’t rush the forge. For now, I have a request of my own for you: shields."
"Shields?" Roderik was surprised.
Not swords or tools, but shields?
"Yes." Ethan nodded.
Doran was teaching the guard a style of fencing that relied heavily on the use of shields.
The guard would need them, just as the citizens of Goldenveil would need to be ready to defend themselves when those damned goblins attacked.
With a soft breath, Ethan left the forge to Roderik and then took money from his personal reserve: the fifty gold coins he’d received from his father when he left.
Added to what was in Goldenveil’s vault, the total ca to ninety-five gold coins.
An ordinary commoner wouldn’t usually earn a single gold coin in ten months of work, so it wasn’t wrong to say that this was, essentially, a lifeti’s fortune.
Ethan even had a few thousand gold coins in a bank account, money given to him by his mother, but obviously he had no access to it and was in no position to travel to the realm of the burning ice to withdraw it.
Still, those ninety-five coins would be very important when Goldenveil received its first rchant.
Soon after, he visited Doran, whom he ordered to gather all the scrap tal from the settlent, going from house to house and taking everything to the blacksmith’s workshop.
Doran was also to place the order for the shields with Roderik, specifying the shape and weight, ensuring a smooth start to production.
When it was all done, with a happy smile, Ethan returned to Alice and Evelyn.
He had a few little gifts to spoil them with and was eager to raise Evelyn’s talent to Rank B, and to see what skill he would gain from that Rank C random mana skill book.
He could only hope it would be sothing useful for Alice.
anwhile, the people of Goldenveil were getting excited, gathering to welco the new blacksmith.
Won prepared their best recipes, and the n prepared the beer and at for roasting.
Even the beautiful daughter of a huntsman, thirty years old and still unmarried, ca to take a look at Roderik, full of interest in Goldenveil’s new blacksmith.
They were sad that their Lord wasn’t attending the welco, but knowing he was alone in the manor with his two beautiful wives, they cheered up.
Apparently, it wouldn’t be long before they could hear the cries of their new young master!
Their Lord was such a diligent worker!
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