Reincarnated as an SSS-Ranked Blacksmith Who Refuses to Forge Weapons-Chapter 215. A Good Run

An hour went by in the arena, and the fighting stopped in a strange way, like storms do before the worst comes.

The gods had pulled back a little, not leaving, but taking a step back to think. As Valthor stood at the far end of the arena, divine energy gathered around him like static before lightning.

Kael’thas walked around the First Forge from a distance, her eyes taking note of structural flaws with the skill of a master craftsman looking at a rival’s work.

Moira stayed completely still. Her threads reached out, but they weren’t actively reading anymore; they were just keeping their connection to everyone else in the room.

Since Moira told Greg about the threads, he hadn’t moved from near Bork. He had been trying to figure out the problem with the Key of Infinite Possibility by staring at it the same way he stared at things he couldn’t understand.

He turned it over in his prosthetic hand, hoping that it would show him some hidden function or loophole that would change what the Goddess of Fate had said was unavoidable.

Bork was sitting on a piece of arena stone that had been turned upside down. For once, his headphones were around his neck instead of over his ears.

He was eating something that Thomas Chen had made from scratch, using reconstituted grain and what looked like salt scraped off the floor of the divine arena.

Thomas came up nervously, rubbing his hands together. "It’s simple, not fancy, and unlike what you’d get in a good restaurant, hahaha."

"Well... it’s because I don’t have the right ingredients here other than what the arena gives me... but at least it’s warm, and the first thing that made it good food is the warmness of it."

"You don’t need to make anything fancy for me. This is gas!" Bork took another bite and nodded in thanks. "You’re doing a good job."

"Gas...?"

"Oh, that’s the word for ’delicious’ in the dwarf’s language." Bork laughed. "Forgot to tell you that."

Thomas was truly shocked that someone would say something kind in a death arena. "Thank you! That means a lot."

...

The Brotherhood had spread out around the area, and each member was coping with Bork’s situation in their own way, while everyone remained aware of the circumstances.

Moira had told everyone in the arena about it. They were in that kind of quiet where people who love each other don’t know what to do with what they know.

Marina sat with her Frying Pan of Eternal Flame on her lap, not looking at anything. She knew what it was like to lose a whole party.

She had been here before with Kael, Denna, and Ryn. The look on her face was something they had seen before, and it was horrible.

Lylia had gotten close to Greg without touching him, just close enough to be a steady presence. Her ladle was close by, but her hands were empty and still.

Seraphine was so focused on her notes that she was flipping through pages of ice magic theory as if she could find the answer to fate-threads in formulas for temperatures that were absolute zero. She shook a little as she wrote.

Elwen had stopped drawing altogether. She had her journal closed in her lap, with a pencil tucked into the binding.

She just sat there with her hands folded and stared at nothing in particular.

Felix was unusually quiet; he didn’t make any jokes or references to gaming or protagonist energy. He sat next to Donetta, who put her hand on top of his in support without saying anything.

Mira stood near Bork and rearranged the scattered arena stones by size, simply because she didn’t know how else to occupy her hands. The spirit manifestation looked more real than usual, like grief had made her heavier.

"Hey, Mira," Bork said softly. "You don’t have to do that for this old pal, ya know?"

"I know, Mister Bork with the great beard," Mira said, her usual cheerfulness strained. "I just like to keep my hands busy in this kind of situation."

"Yeah." Bork looked at his own hands, which were strong and calloused, like a dwarf’s working hands that had been unable to work for years. "Me too, kid."

He looked at Greg, who was still staring at the Key as if it had answers written in invisible ink. Bork’s face didn’t show that he was trying to avoid or joke about what was coming.

It was direct and honest, which made Greg’s chest feel tight.

Bork held up his headphones, the Headphones of Harmonic Peace, which were still in excellent shape after three years of use.

"You know what’s funny?" he said.

They hummed softly because of the magic music that Greg had put into them. "I forget I have these things on sometimes because I’ve been wearing them for so long."

Greg looked up from the key. "Bork, I’m still looking for—"

"Do you remember how I was when I got to Ferndale?" Bork kept going as if Greg hadn’t said anything. "I couldn’t even be in the same room as a smithy."

"My own clan kicked me out twice... and even some settlement bastards wouldn’t let me in because they thought I was cursed."

Bork then laughed. "Hahaha! I really thought I was broken, like there was something wrong with me... A dwarf who can’t stand forging is like a fish that can’t stand water."

Greg said firmly, "You weren’t broken."

"I know that now... because of you and also because of these." Bork turned the headphones over in his hands with care. "You didn’t ask me what was wrong."

"And you didn’t try to fix me or tell me to just get through it... you asked what I needed, and then you did it."

He looked straight at Greg, and his face was serious. "That’s who you are, Boss."

"That’s the whole thing right there, all in one afternoon with a stranger you’d never met."

"You saw a problem and made something to help. No judgment, no conditions, just kindness."

Greg’s jaw got tight. "I’m going to find another way!"

"The Key can do more than we know, and I know that there has to be some function or property—"

"Maybe," Bork said again as he put the headphones back on.

For a moment, Greg could hear the soft music, which was a calming tune that didn’t seem to fit with what was going on around them.

"Maybe fate is just fate... but I’ve had a good run since I put these on!"

"I got to be part of the Brotherhood of Peace!"

"What’s even better is that I got to forge again without feeling nausea... and that’s still... to be part of something worth dying for."

He smiled, the real Bork smile he always got when he found a legendary item in Greg’s junk pile. "Not bad for a dwarf who couldn’t use a hammer."

Greg held Bork’s shoulder without saying a word. The dwarf’s way was firm and short, a gesture that said everything words couldn’t.

Dorin had been watching the conversation from across the arena.

Now he walked up slowly, his pipe unlit for once. He sat down on the stone next to his grandson when he got to Bork without asking.

They sat in silence for a long time. Then Dorin spoke, and his voice sounded like it had been around for sixty years.

"I need to tell you why I didn’t come."

Bork looked at his grandfather and waited.

"Three years ago, when I died, it wasn’t really death..."

"The reincarnation happened right away and was kept secret... it wasn’t done by those three gods, but by something ancient."

"The authority that oversees the First Forge itself gave me the Divine Forgemaster System and one job... which is to observe."

"When the defiant reincarnator gets to the First Forge... help him."

Dorin’s hands tightened around his pipe, which was not lit. "I knew this was going to happen."

"I saw the threads, not as clearly as Moira does, but enough... I stayed away from you because I was afraid that if you knew I was alive, you’d come with me."

"I would have," Bork said without thinking.

"I know. That’s why I stayed out of sight."

Bork’s voice was carefully controlled. "And you knew about my thread? This?"

"Not specifically... the threads don’t give you names or faces."

"They give you shapes, patterns, and prices... I knew that someone close to the Warhammer Saint would have to pay a price when the gods were finally confronted."

"And it’s someone who mattered to him who would have to make a choice."

"And you didn’t tell us? And you didn’t even tell him?"

Dorin looked his grandson in the eye. "Would it have changed what you did...?"

"Would you have left Greg’s side if you had known?"

There was a long silence between them. Then Bork answered with complete confidence.

"No..."

The dwarven resistance to showing emotion was beginning to break down as Dorin’s voice became more rough. "I know it... That’s why I didn’t warn you," Dorin said. "I know my grandson..."

"If you are an Ironbottom, then... even if it means losing everything, we do not try to avoid the things that are important to us!"