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Half-elves Fall in Love (Web Novel) - Chapter 521: Craftsmen’s Village 1
Chapter 521: Craftsmen’s Village 1
This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml
We then left the palace and headed back to the temple. There was no talk about what to do with Neia in the future, which was eerie. What is the king going to do with us in the first place? Is he going to let us see and hear about this country and bring it back, or is he going to keep us out? I also wonder about Rainer’s own intentions. Is he just going along with the king’s policy, or is he going to keep us here and use us for some purpose, even though he has no intention of doing so? There is a suspicion of madness in the king’s will, and the power and will of treason in Rainer’s. And yet, on the surface, the country remains as it is for reasons beyond our control. Will we continue to be treated as guests? And will we be forced to put down roots here? ……That can’t happen. As long as Dianne and Laila have moved on, something will eventually happen to this country in the near future. No one will be able to stop it. Not even those silver dragons. Is Rainer using us as bait for that? Could it be that he wants us to lead the overthrow of the regime and then he plans to take over the reigns later in a more moderate way? ……That’s possible, but unnatural. It is possible if Rainer knows the amount of forces that could move for me. ……However, it is still questionable where and how he can find out about a dragon force that is comparable to this silver dragon Army. At present, Misty Palace and Sahul and Bauz might be able to help, but their interaction with me is only known around Polka and there is no way to know their total strength. There is no way they could have calculated that much. Then what is the meaning of what we are doing here and now? Tetes was mumbling along the way.
“Welcome back, my guests and Neia”
High Priest Duke was about to leave the temple, carrying his luggage on his back in his formal attire, while welcoming us.
“Are you going somewhere?”
“I heard that a chief craftsman had died in a nearby craftsman village. I’ve been asked to recite the funeral litany”
Does he do that sort of thing properly? Somehow I had thought that all weddings and funerals were treated as useless.
“Craftsmen’s Village……”
“Do you want to follow me”
“Are you sure?”
Tetes asked back and high priest Duke gave a complicated smile.
“I’m not ordered to take you……besides, it must be a rarity for you guys. I was also surprised when I saw it for the first time”
“……It’s so surprising”
“I’m not confident that I’ll be able to impress you guys from the outside world”
In case, it’s a place I went through when I was taken away, so it won’t surprise you as an exterior, but technically I’m very interested in it. No, if you’re going to a funeral, you might not necessarily be shown that aspect of it.
“Take me there, please”
“Alright. Come”
I thought that Apple, who is not very fit, might not be happy about being made to walk for so long……aside from me, Tetes, Neia and Maia, but it didn’t seem so and she smiled at me. Come to think of it, Selenium and she has been on long journeys for a long time, so I guess she’s not physically as weak as I feared, if only for walking. When it came to long distances, I usually had Maia or Laila carry me, so it was something I hadn’t really thought about.
When High Priest Duke accompanied us to the craftsman village, the villagers looked at us suspiciously as we followed him. The villagers were all poorly dressed, thin and dirty looking and it was almost uncomfortable that we were so strangely clean and fit. Perhaps that’s why.
“These people are from the royal court”
High Priest Duke says so and gives them an answer to their question for the time being. They are not far wrong. That calmed them down for the moment, but then one of the craftsmen recognised Neia in our midst and he said ah.
“You are the hero……Neia-sama!”
“Neia-sama, you say? I heard that Neia-sama died a year ago”
“I am sure of it! It’s Neia-sama! That hat and that sword belong to Neia-sama!”
“……It’s been a long time. I have returned in shame”
Neia also greets them. This excites some of the craftsmen and confuses the rest. High Priest Duke calmed the confusion with a slightly louder voice.
“Be quiet! This is Longa-dono’s funeral!”
At the high priest’s words, the murmur suddenly became quieter. The high priest’s humanity……or perhaps his awe of the former hero. An instinctive fear of the man who had once held the power of execution seemed to make them obedient. So the high priest opened the scriptures and read out the funeral passages. Only then did we finally see the dead man, who was still in the early stages of being an old man.
“How did he die……?”
“Illness. He was bad before”
A villager nearby informs me in a whisper to my mutterings.
“I heard that in rural areas some old men live a bit longer, depending on the crop. ……We breathe in smoke and iron dust. Longa still lived a long time. He hasn’t had a problem with food this year, as much as he has eaten corpses. That’s the saving grace”
Ah……. It’s common in the royal capital for craftsmen to get sick from occupational diseases. It’s not common in Polka, though. Metal is basically poison. Working with them is an accumulation of strain on the body. Poisoning of the metal itself is one thing, but the solvents used in the processing stage are also naturally bad. There is also damage to the eyes that see fire. Blacksmiths often go blind while looking at the fire and become one-eyed. It is not until they are older that it becomes fatal, though.
“Longa was weak from overwork. Then he caught a cold and the rest just got more and more complicated”
With a hearty sigh of regret, the craftsman mutters. ……Come to think of it, I wonder if there is such a thing as a doctor. I doubt there are any. A closer look around reveals that many of the older villagers have one cloudy eye, missing fingers or large burn scars that are still intact. They all suffer from the disabilities that blacksmiths are prone to have. There is no doctor to cure them. If they inevitably become unable to work on their own, they will surely be abandoned. When the high priest’s scripture ended, the villagers all raised one hand and fell forward on it in unison. This seems to be the manner of prayer in this country’s religion. After a few moments of everyone holding their hands outstretched in front of them, they came to a halt and when it was over, the villagers gathered around Neia again.
“……I knew it, but Neia is very popular with the craftsmen”
The high priest chuckles and closes the scripture.
“Was she popular?”
“Even craftsmen are people. Don’t they want to make good things for someone who is strong and kind? Because of their pride, heroes are often disrespectful and unfriendly to their subordinates. Many of them missed Neia’s affability”
“The heroes of today are not so bad……”
“Not to mention Rainer, Herman and Beatrice. Richard, too, is hard on his people. Brian barely has a bad reputation amongst the craftsmen”
“……Ah”
Is that true? It’s a little surprising that Richard, who has so much energy as a junior, is surprisingly not kind to people, but it’s also a point that makes sense. There are people like that. To his superiors, he was as healthy as a dog or something, but to his subordinates, he was a sloppy guy.
After watching the villagers squirming Neia for a while, the villagers turned their attention to us after a while.
“You made Neia-sama’s armor?”
“It’s a beautiful piece of armor, albeit a tad on the large side……but, can you please let me touch it?”
“Eh?”
“It looks good, but armor is supposed to protect”
The villagers enter a building that appears to be a workshop and shortly afterwards show a large scaled plate that appears to be a part of the suit armor.
“This is it. All you have to do is reinforce the key points with this. If you hit it with too much force, it will crack and break, but instead……”
“Can you erase the damage?”
“What do you know?”
“I’ve seen it break. I wanted to make something like it, but I didn’t have it”
“Is that why you made such old armor……?”
“No, it’s not that old……”
……Do they think the armor outside is 「Old」. That’s a bit of a dent.
“Could you please teach me how to make it? I would like to be able to do some repairs myself”
“Fine, but where are you from?”
“…….I don’t know if I should say that”
I choose my words carefully. Where do they think I’m from? I wonder if they would trust me if I said the outside world. The villager glanced sideways at High Priest Duke and said a word of understanding. He seemed to be able to guess that we shouldn’t pursue it in this village.
“You need a special tool to make this plate. It would be nice if you could prepare it yourself……”
“Tetes, come here for a minute. I need you to analyze what’s going on”
“Y, Yes”
I will have Tetes come and demonstrate how to make the plates. ……I’m starting to look like a workshop spy, but is this okay? Will Rainer even tolerate this kind of thing? Even as I thought about it, I couldn’t take my eyes off the construction method that interested me.
