Though the sun hadn't risen up yet, hammers and saws clanged all over. Walls were being rebuilt. Graves were being dug up. Childrens were still huddled inside their houses, silent.
I walked through it all, cloak pulled around me, and stopped in front of the blacksmith's forge. The structure was still intact even after the beast wave, its stone walls burned but not shattered.
Within, the blacksmith was already standing, sleeves rolled to his elbows, his large hands smudged with grime.
"You're early," he grumbled, although his shining eyes softened a little when he saw me. "You brought them?"
Carefully, I placed the three items on his workbench.
A piece of Ironbark Wood, dense and dark as stone.
A piece of glittering Moonstone Ore, pale light rippling within it.
And the Fang of the Bloodfang Wolf, still warm with lingering power.
The old dwarf's eyebrows shot up. "Hells. You actually did it. Most adventurers would have fled before a creature like that. But you—" He looked me up again, "—you're not most adventurers, are you?"
I didn't say anything. He didn't pressure.
He dried his hands, however, and gestured towards the back of the workshop. "Go on. If you are really interested in having a sword, you will require a metal that will suit your nature. I will allow you to look around. Don't waste my trust, young one."
I followed him through aisles of rows of tool cabinets and piles of half-constructed arms to a room that was nearly as much a vault as it was a lab. The walls were laden with ore, each one releasing elemental charge softly. Some burned soft flames, others throbbed soft ice, some frothed with soft spouts of lightning.
I extended with my Sense. I swept them all together. Something was amiss in all of them. They were too pointed, too wild, too off-kilter. And then, way down to my left in the room, I felt it.
A black ingot the same length and width as my forearm, its exterior black with thin veins of silver through it, like roots scattered throughout stone. The moment I picked it up, something inside me stirred. A muffled vibration that harmonized with my energy flow. It resisted not. It diffused.
[Ebonveil Iron]
[Rank: SS-]
[Resonance: Life and Death]
The name had come to mind like a breath of air from out of the darkness. I felt the manner in which it consumed darkness, the manner in which it asserted dominion without spilling a drop. Perfect for a sword that would be used to bring death and life.
"This one," I panted.
The blacksmith advanced and put a hand on the ingot. His eyes went narrow, then opened wide. "Ebonveil, eh? Most of its type reject human energy altogether. But it reacted to you." He looked at me like weighing something dangerous.
He stroked his beard, and then finally nodded. "Well then. I'll work it into the hilt of your short sword. This will be some time, however. Two days, at least. You'd do better to make the most of it."
I nodded my head. "I'll be back in two days."
Before I could turn around to leave, a gentle chime rang in my head. The familiar, otherworldly touch of the World System caressed my soul page.
[Green Leaf Village Guardian has been appointed.]
[Special reward granted: The Guardian gets to come back to this village once a month, distance-free.]
And so the system itself had appointed me the guardian. I hadn't asked for acknowledgment, but it would prove useful.
The forge doors groaned as I stepped out into daylight. The sun rose higher today, casting gold upon the village roofs. Children stared from windows, farmers strengthened the barricades, guards polished dented armor.
I prodded my cloak forward and navigated the less busy streets. I couldn't help but think about the Ebonveil Iron, how it had pulsed with my magic as if it was alive within me. Unsettling, yet comforting at the same time.
It was when I spotted her.
Alenya Dawnsunder.
She lingered in the alleyway's shadow, arms crossed, sword strapped to her back. Her fiery red hair burned in the light, and her eyes were cold and intense which fixed on me the instant I came into view.
There was no one else present. Only us, in the silence after the storm.
I stopped and she didn't budge.