Chapter 55: Going MyWay?
  His Excellency placed the red-hot metal material he had grasped with the brazier tongs onto the anvil and hammered it repeatedly to shape the blade.
  
  It seemed that the forging had already been completed to a certain extent. After watching for a while, he entered the process of tightening the steel while lowering the temperature and adjusting the thickness.
  
  Once that was finished, he reached a stopping point, and the blacksmith’s hands finally stopped.
  
  “…Are you all bored? There’s no point in just standing around in the forge.”
  
  “It’s peacetime, so even the King has some free time.”
  “You need to relax sometimes, right?”
  
  Revia, who always goes her own way with a natural attitude, aside, Eleia, who was there before us, lets out a dry laugh.
  
  “Fufu, there were other things I wanted to do, but…”
  
  “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. I’ll treat you to lunch outside.”
  “Such thoughtful consideration… As expected of Onii-sama♪”
  
  Glancing at her brother Lloyd smiling at his sister, who had become cheerful with a change of heart, old man Souichirou sighed slightly and walked to the wall, grabbing a long Japanese sword that was leaning against it.
  
  I had noticed it in my field of vision and was curious, but it seemed to be the masterpiece I was to receive, as he came up to me and offered it.
  
  “You’ve asked for a lot… If you weren’t Genzo’s grandson, I would have given up.”
  “…Were you acquainted with my grandfather?”
  
  Slightly surprised, I received the sword and drew the blade from its scabbard engraved with magic formulas. The exposed blade emitted an indescribable color.
  
  “It’s a Cursed Forged Blade called “Shiranui,” made from a fusion of mithril and tamahagane. As requested, it can cut through and dispel magic up to an intermediate level.”
  
  “Thank you. With this, I won’t fall behind the magic users.”
  “Hey, this weapon… It has non-attribute magic power, doesn’t it?”
  
  Revia, who had been watching from the side, tilted her head and glanced at me with a suspicious look.
  
  “Claude, you’re a Rare Human, so you can’t use magic, right?”
  
  “Yeah, Blaze devised a mechanism for me.”
  “Whoa, my father did?”
  
  To explain, a magic crystal, the same as the one used for the Clawsolas’ power, is stored in the hilt. When the blade is drawn from its special scabbard, it becomes imbued with magic power.
  
  Well, the crystal itself is disposable, so it needs to be replaced like a battery, but it meets the required specifications for an anti-magic weapon to be used by a human.
  
  As I was briefly explaining the main points to the red-haired mage, Lloyd, who had been listening nearby, had his eyes shining like a child’s.
  
  “Souichirou-san, will you apply this mechanism to the sword you’re making for me too?”
  “No, it would take too much time and money.”
  
  “Muu, you don’t care about my brother at all, do you?”
  “…Kurato, do something about it.”
  
  Eleia, narrowing her eyes, corners him, and he throws the troublesome matter at me with a careless attitude.
  
  There’s no helping it, so I tell her that I’ll discuss it with the Chief Magician, who also serves as the treasurer, and when she’s satisfied, her brother bows his head apologetically.
  
  “I’m sorry for the trouble.”
  “I’m just going to ask, don’t worry about it.”
  
  “Even if you say so… Oh, how about you all join us for lunch?”
  “Hmm, is it Lloyd-san’s treat?”
  
  The handsome man with silver hair and blue eyes nods at Revia, who shows a cunningly cute smile, and we end up going to lunch as a group of four. We express our gratitude to the forge master and head towards the city of the royal capital.
  
  At the Clawsolas station we stopped by on the way, the frame of the new Clawsolas had already been assembled, and it had reached the stage where the magic-forged armor would be attached to the exposed artificial muscles.
  
  ‘I’m glad things are going well.’
  
  Looking at the maintenance soldiers working under the command of Foreman Jax, I was thinking that at the time… but soon, urgent news would arrive from the neighboring Lichtea Principality.
  
  In the interception city of Radiole, which became the starting point of this incident, the Clawsolas belonging to the Principality, the successor Clawsolas Albus, and the accompanying soldiers were deployed, glaring at the approaching army of Aberrations.
  
  『Everyday life is fleeting, isn’t it, Regiment Commander Dorel?』
  『No, we should be ashamed of our shortsightedness.』
  
  Although there had been no large-scale invasions in the past few months, there had been sporadic skirmishes on the front lines, and they had been so busy dealing with them daily that they had lost sight of the bigger picture.
  
  They failed to notice the fact that despite the frequent battles, the number of Aberrations they had defeated was small. They allowed the “Hour of Ruin” to conserve its forces, and the result is the current predicament.
  
  『Not only the small ones, but there are quite a few medium and large Aberrations too.』
  『What’s with that weird honorific?』
  
  『No, I’m getting nervous…』
  
  Even the veteran Dorel could understand the feelings of the young knight who responded to his mage partner with a slightly lowered voice and faltered in his words.
  
  According to the reports from the scout unit that had been monitoring the Aberrations advancing from the border, they were outnumbered, and enemy Clawsolas piloted by higher-ranking species had been confirmed.
  
  Although the Principality’s Knights regiment defending them possessed more than a dozen giant knights, it was expected to be difficult to suppress the enemy’s large-type Aberrations, and the medium-type Aberrations would have to be left to the infantry and magician units.
  
  ‘We know we’re at a disadvantage, but we can’t retreat without a fight.’
  
  Even though it was called an interception city, many civilians lived there, and some of them, due to their circumstances, had not followed the advice of the lord, Margrave Bercred, and were now hurriedly fleeing from the east gate.
  
  Furthermore, it was clear that if the defensive line was breached, the damage to the interior would be enormous, so in order to halt the enemy’s advance until reinforcements arrived from the allied nations, they needed to inflict significant damage, even in the worst-case scenario.
  
  As the tension inevitably rose due to various circumstances, the swarms of small Aberrations deployed on both flanks of the enemy lines made the first move.