Seeing the pitiful expression that crept onto Nicole's face as she spoke, Andrew couldn't help but soften a little, even though he knew she was most likely faking it.
He tossed the packed ammo box straight to Nicole and said,
"Take these for now. You can owe me for the three special warheads you're short on. After all, if you ended up kicking the bucket somewhere because you ran out of ammo, I'd be out one of my best customers."
"Yay! Andrew, you're the best!"
Seeing the instant grin spread across Nicole's face, Andrew could only shake his head helplessly. Cradling the ammo box like a precious treasure, Nicole stroked her Demara's Bespoke and said happily,
"Just you wait, my baby! I'm about to feed you 'til you're full!"
Watching her celebrate, Andrew reminded her,
"Before that, don't forget to pay up. Minus the thirty thousand Dennies for those three warheads, that'll be a hundred and twenty thousand, thank you for your business."
"Urgh..."
Hearing that number, even a mentally prepared Nicole couldn't help but feel a sharp pang of pain in her wallet.
She tremblingly pulled out her bank card, her hand shaking as she went to pay. Deciding it was better not to watch, Nicole squeezed her eyes shut and thrust the card at Andrew.
"Don't say a word, just take my money!"
Andrew was already used to Nicole's little routine every time she paid. He smoothly took the card, swiped it, and completed the transaction in one fluid motion.
Taking her card back, Nicole hesitated for a moment before speaking.
"Thanks, Andrew. I wouldn't have had such a smooth start without your help."
But as soon as the words were out, Nicole couldn't help but shiver.
"Eek... That sounded so not like me."
She cleared her throat and her usual cunning smile returned.
"But as a little payback, I'll give you a piece of intel for free. A very dangerous Ethereal has shown up in the Crete Hollow recently. From what I've heard, it should be a Level Five Ethereal."
Unaware of Andrew's identity as a Proxy, and only knowing him as a blacksmith shop owner with a side hustle, Nicole warned him seriously,
"So if you're planning to go into a Hollow for materials anytime soon, you'd better stay away from there. I'd rather not spend the money I saved here on a commission to rescue you."
She said it all in a rush, and before Andrew could reply, Nicole scampered away like a rabbit. All he saw was the faint, shy blush on her cheeks as she fled, as if running fast enough could make her previous words simply un-happen.
But hearing Nicole's warning only piqued Andrew's interest. As everyone knows, for a hunter, a powerful new monster often means a new piece of gear is about to appear in the crafting menu.
After seeing Nicole off, Andrew returned to his forge. It was time to craft the final and most important piece of the Dullahan set.
The weapon itself—a tachi.
He took the last two remaining Dullahan blades from his item box to use as materials. To test the effects and achieve a perfect separation into reinforcement components, a mountain of discarded materials was piled in the corner—proof of Andrew's efforts, and the final remains of all the Dullahans sacrificed for the cause.
"I knew I should've learned more from Gemma back then."
Forging ordinary ironware and forging hunter-series equipment are two completely different concepts. The biggest challenge in weapon smithing is figuring out how to perfectly draw out the potential of the monster materials.
For Andrew, for whom this was just a hobby, the difficulty was raised exponentially by the fact that he was working with brand-new materials.
But after successfully completing the full armor set, he was finally confident he could tackle the most important and difficult part: the weapon.
After endless analysis, research, and experimentation, and despite the countless scrapped materials, Andrew was now absolutely sure of his success!
As they say, where there's demand, there's a supply... of dead monsters. Each piece in that innumerable pile of remains was proof of a Dullahan that had met a brutal end at Andrew's hand.
"'What do you mean, brutal end! It was a sacrifice for a great cause, okay!'"
If the Ethereal remains on the ground had any consciousness, they would surely be cursing him out right now.
Fortunately, these Ethereals weren't like the dragons from the hunter's world; there were no conservation laws protecting them. As long as the Hollows existed, these things would be generated indefinitely.
So, if he needed more, he could just go hunt them. Otherwise, at Andrew's rate of consumption, he would've stripped the entire ecosystem bare and it still wouldn't be enough.
Cranking the forge's flames to their maximum, he placed the blade that would serve as reinforcement material directly into the furnace, heating it until its jet-black color turned a blazing orange-red.
Not all Ethereal materials were organic tissue. A good example was this arm blade, which, despite growing out of Ann arm, possessed properties that made it stronger than steel.
After continuous heating at the forge's high temperatures, it even exhibited a steel-like malleability.
He split it along its green veins. The two long blades were a perfect fit to be combined into the material for the tachi. Even the very tip was gradually shaped into the point of the tachi under Andrew's hammer.
He placed the Dullahan arm bone that would form the core into the furnace. After heating and softening it, he immediately moved it to the power hammer, forge-welding it into a rectangular billet. Once that was done, he began to hammer and draw it out, shaping the spine of the blade.
Heat, hammer, heat, hammer. He finished the basic shape, leaving a groove to fuse the Dullahan arm blade material, and fitted the previously separated components to the blade's body.
Heat, hammer, heat, hammer. Until the materials no longer distinguished one from the other, merging into a single, complete blade blank.
Following Andrew's design, the once-severed green veins on the blade were reconnected, forming a brand-new network across its surface.
After adjusting the finer details of the blade with a hand hammer, the blank of a massive tachi now lay before Andrew's eyes.
He began the final heating of the tachi, sprinkling salt on it to judge if the temperature was right for quenching. When the moment was perfect, Andrew lifted the massive sword with a single hand and immediately plunged it into a tank of oil.
The intense heat caused a violent flame to erupt from the oil, but Andrew was unfazed. A hunter who could withstand dragon fire could completely ignore such a tiny blaze.
Once the temperature had completely dropped, the quenched Dullahan tachi was essentially complete.
The edge, formed from the arm blades themselves, was already incredibly sharp without any need for grinding. The perfect shape of the blade, even unfinished, made Andrew eager to give it a couple of test swings.
He fitted the guard and hilt, then wrapped the handle with a sinew-like tissue he had separated from the materials. With that, the Dullahan Tachi was truly complete.
But next came the final, and most crucial, step.
Andrew placed his hand gently on the hilt. Dragon-elemental energy slowly flowed into it. Under his tense gaze, the energy spread upwards along the veins, filling them until it covered the entire blade.
When the blade was completely covered and the process was a success, Andrew let out a huge sigh of relief, his tense body finally relaxing.
"I finally did it!"
-
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