CHAPTER 4 - BLACKSMITH, THE UNDERRATED PROFESSION

"Kyoji Aito, so you're Japanese huh…" the man said nonchalantly while looking at me.

I can't see his facial features because he's standing in the shadows but from his barely visible body outline I can tell he's incredibly muscular and almost 7 feet tall.

"How long have you been in the demon realm?" the man continued questioning.

"For almost a day, I found myself here at around what seemed like a few hours before midnight" I said.

"So how exactly did you get into the demon realm?" The man says finally making eye contact with me, his green eyes that evidently glowing in the dark.

"I don't really know, I think I was accidentally brought here by some demons who tried to kill me while I was in the human realm" I said while giving them a questioning look.

It was my own hypothesis that some demons wanted me dead because I'm some kind of abomination, but I guess my existence is secret to the masses.

For now, I just have to focus on answering their questions which would temporarily guarantee my life.

Escaping is probably no longer an option and hoping for them to send me back to the human realm would be naive.

Since they have seen how strong I am and given my identity as an abomination, they would never release me to the outside world unchecked, lest I wreak havoc in the human realm or worse I start working for their enemies… the saints or something.

So based on my answers I could end up being immediately executed, imprisoned until further notice, experimented on or enslaved, which may be my most favorable option if this world has some kind of slave mark or soul contract that would force me to obey them.

Although the final option would take away my freedom for a long time or maybe all of eternity, it could secure my life while not restricting my movements a lot and I could even learn more about this world.

While it's still likely that I may get experimented on, I would have more use to them besides that.

"Do you know anything about the people who tried to kill you and why they tried to kill you?" The man says.

"I don't know much, I never knew demons existed until yesterday, one of them is named Ryan but he was very weak and they addressed the person who sent them to kill me as 'master'" I said seriously, trying to communicate my unfortunate situation to him.

"As for why they tried to kill me, I can only guess that it's because I'm some kind of abomination" I concluded.

"What do you mean by you never knew demons existed until yesterday?" the man says walking forward and finally revealing himself under the dim lighting of what looks like an interrogation room.

His facial features became clear and I could finally see what he looked like.

He has bright golden hair in a low cut hairstyle, a nice blonde mustache, his face is incredibly handsome that gives off a more manly vibe, currently twisted in an expression of confusion.

"Uhhh… I meant exactly what I said, I never knew demons existed until yesterday" I said.

The man looked at me with a questioning gaze as if trying to find some fault in my words before continuing.

"Who taught you how to use magic and how long have you been practicing magic?" The man asks seriously.

Oh wow, I can already tell that my next answer would shock them silly… This could have been a nice face-slapping[2] scene if I wasn't attached to a chair.

"Nobody taught me, I discovered magic about a day ago and I'm sure I have been practicing fire magic for at least 10 hours" I said as I shook my head.

"NO! That's impossible!! The strength he's displayed using magic could not have been obtained in one day"

"Even though his mana reserves could be connected to his condition, it still doesn't explain how he's able to use fire magic even if it's the basic of the basics <fire ball> to that level in battle"

"Unless he inherited a high affinity for fire magic" the girl I fought before that has been quiet all along suddenly starts shouting in disbelief.

I smirked confidently as even though I had confirmed it earlier when I met Oliver, her reaction has cleared all doubt regarding my affinity for fire magic and my conclusion is that it is clearly abnormal….. in a good way.

"Amelia, mind yourself, I allowed you in here because you said you were merely curious about him and you promised that you wouldn't disrupt his interrogation" the man said sternly.

"Y..yes sir" Amelia responds meekly.

"So you've never been approached by anyone from the saint or demon race before yesterday?" The man asks.

"Yes and I don't even know who Saints are and I don't think I've ever met one" I said.

The man seemed surprised and stared at me before he sighed.

"*sigh*"

"This means that you've been living as a normal human until yesterday" the man says.

"Yes" I said dispiritedly.

I've been answering him all this while and even though I know I'm in no position to ask questions my curiosity might just get the better of me if this goes on.

It's like when you miss a whole week of school and then when you attend classes next, you end up being the only person that's lost in the whole class.

You can only stay quiet for so long before asking a stupid question.

"What do you know about your parents?" The man says.

Realization suddenly hits me after he says that. Since I'm not human, that definitely means that my parents aren't either.

From what I remember, mum is a demon and dad is probably a saint, which is surprising because from my experience demons seem to hate saints and the same could probably be said about the saints.

So is that the reason why they call me an abomination? Don't tell me that I am the first "Thing" to be born from a demon and saint parent despite their obviously long history, is that how much they hate each other?

Well since mum is a demon, is it possible that she's in the demon realm?

Damn, I should probably make finding her my first priority.

The person who wanted her to come to the demon realm was called….umm... yes! The Devil king, he's the one who wanted her to come back to the demon realm.

Wait, then who sent those demons to kill me? Was it the Devil king?

No, that's not possible, mum killed everyone who saw me that day and if he knew I existed since then why didn't they kill me until today.

I'm guessing the Devil king doesn't know I exist because the people who were sent to kill me were weak, he either underestimated me or some other high level demon found out about me and abruptly decided to kill me.

"*sigh*" I sighed.

Whatever the case may be, finding mum in the demon realm is my second priority.

Why is it suddenly my second priority? That's because surviving here is obviously more urgent and challenging enough.

What about mum? Mum is super strong and she probably grew up here. As for me, I am but an ant in the demon realm and my identity as an abomination has put me on the edge of death ever since yesterday.

"Ahem!"

The man questioning me had been watching the different changes in my expression, quietly waiting for my answer before coughing slightly to release me from my daze.

I would love to lie or hide somethings that may implicate me or mum, but I have no Idea if they have anything to detect if I'm lying.

I mean even the human realm has lie detectors(Polygraph[3]) and those have an accuracy of or higher than 80%, just imagine what they could make with magic.

"My mum is a demon while my dad is probably a saint and both of them left me ten years ago due to an incident"

"Before she left, mum was confronted by some demons that claimed to be messengers of the Devil King who wanted my mum to return to the demon realm so as to remove any unpredictable variables when the demons and saints start cooperating against a common enemy…." I said until I paused and realized that there are some loopholes in my theory.

If demons hate the saints but are conspiring with them against a common enemy then why was I attracted the moment they identified me as a saint?

Did they have a fallout during these ten years and are now back to being enemies?

Who is their common enemy, is it another race that I don't know about?

I glanced at Amelia and the man in front of me to probe their expressions too but I saw nothing but shock after they heard what I said.

"Hey! Is he lying!?" Amelia asked frighteningly.

"No! No! And that's the scary part. Aito, are you sure of what you're saying? Tell me everything that happened ten years ago and I mean EVERYTHING! Don't leave any detail out, as much as you can remember" the man says while shouting at the top of his lungs with a scary look on his face.

I feel like they are overreacting but I still comply and begin to explain in detail what happened ten years ago which I now vividly remember thanks to my most recent nightmare.

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(30 minutes of heartwarming sob story later)

"S**t s**t S**T, f**k f**k F**K, those c**k je***ng p***y li***ng a**e f*****g w***es @!!$%&*₩¥£€#@!?$% (incomprehensible rabble)[4]" the man curses on and on before he finally leaves me alone with Amelia in the room while jamming the door behind him.

"....." Amelia.

"....." Me.

We stared at each other in silence for some time.

. . . . . . . . .

"So can we have a rematch when you're on your break or something? I didn't even see you use magic when we fought, Oh and maybe you could also teach me more about this world" I said with a smile, breaking the awkward silence.

"Hmph, how can you be so carefree? And no, I can't tell you anything unless I'm told to and you are being interrogated, remember" she says while looking at me as she sat down on one of the chairs opposite me which makes me wonder why they were standing the whole time.

"Well I can't help it, it's the way I am and the fact I'm alive is enough to make me happy"

"I mean you went straight for my heart that time so I'm glad you changed your mind and decided not to kill me" I said as I shivered while remembering what happened when we fought.

"Well I was sent to kill a saint not an abomination and I thought you might be useful and congratulations you were useful" she said with a smirk while finally making eye contact with me.

She seems nice and easy to talk to and strong to boot, it's just that she's too….um….gory… I mean jeez, imagine someone with a face like that smiling while covered in blood with her hand t going all the way through your stomach.

Jeez I just shivered again, I hope, I just hope I didn't get PTSD from my experience with her, either that or it's cold in here… yep it's definitely cold in here… I wouldn't get traumatized from just that and Yeah, that nightmare had nothing to do with her.

"But I don't see why we can't fight. I mean you could say that you're "investigating" how much I know about magic" I said while making air quotes with my eyebrows.

"Are you some kind of battle maniac or what?" She said as she shook her head.

"As tempting as your offer seems, I have no position in the military so I'm not even supposed to be here while you're being interrogated, I'm only allowed here because I know some people and besides you're not going anywhere with those cuffs on" she says with a smile on her face.

I shivered as I saw her face, jeez why is it so cold in here.

I am persistent in asking her for a fight because I want her to tell me more about this world... well at least not on purpose, she might let some things slip out and I get to see how she uses magic and test my strength against her too as well as try out some new things with magic.

Don't misunderstand, I'm not some masochist looking for round two beating from my new found mistress or anything like that.

"Oh yeah that reminds me, what's up with these cuffs? I'm sure they are not normal, seeing as they are used on someone who can use magic" I asked in no relation to S&M.

"Of course they aren't normal, they are made from an alloy of special metals….uh.. I forgot their names but when linked to a person's body, they disrupt his mana flow and one of the special metals is an amazing conductor of mana that can be used to make some amazing weapons or artifacts. They aren't really costly but they are extremely valuable" she answers thoughtlessly.

After hearing what she said, I tried to move the mana in my body for the first time since I woke up.

Although I can still feel my mana flow, the moment I try to control it I feel some other mana invade my body from the cuffs on my arms which causes my mana to disrupt and flow randomly in my body.

It hurts a little even though I had only tried to move mana to my eyes and I can barely feel my mana flow after the attempt.

"Wow!" I said in amazement.

"Oh then from what you said I'm guessing you have your own weapon made out of such a metal" I ask trying to get as much information from her as possible.

"Not Really!" Exclaimed as she slid her hand around her wrist band and two short swords manifested out of nowhere and she displayed it in front of me enthusiastically.

They are a pair of single-edged swords with both the blunt edge and the shape edge curve in the same direction to form a pointy tip (a pair of Wakizashi).

"Mine is different and it's made from another metal alloy and I forgot its name too but this metal is even more amazing, as it can be programmed to change shape meaning that any alloy with even ten percent of this metal can be programmed to change shape and the blacksmith can even imprint spells on it".

"That means that once a blacksmith imprints his own spells into a weapon and someone else uses it, the amount of mana the blacksmith would us to cast the spell would be the exact amount of mana the person would use to cast the spell through the weapon with no time at all" she explains.

Woah! Aren't blacksmith amazing then.

"That's not all, if the weapon is made from over fifty percent of another special metal then it can store enough mana for backup spells, but only for spells stored in said weapon and once the weapon absorbs your mana then you can't take it back unless it becomes your soulbound weapon"

"But the problem with these metals is that they are too costly, high grade blacksmith can't even recreate them with <creation magic> unless you have as much mana as the demon royal, unfortunately most people like that look down on blacksmiths even if they have talent for the craft, so only few who have good amount of mana and low talent in magic or no outstanding elemental affinity end up with the blacksmith profession"

"Well it's not like I can blame them, it's in our blood to strive to be strong and respect the strong and that's what differentiates us from humans. Who would want to stay in one place forging weapons, and creating metals, when you could practice magic and become stronger, that's why the spells you can get imprinted on a weapon are mostly the basic spells" she said, her eyes shining brightly in excitement.

"Well thanks for the explanation and by the way you seem quite knowledgeable in this field Amelia. Are you perhaps…." I said while checking her reaction when I called her name for the first time.

"Oh! No! I come from a blacksmith royal family but I have no talent for blacksmithing so everything I said is really just some things I learned a long time ago. But I sometimes imagine crafting a great soulbound weapon for myself while practicing magic and combat at the side to make myself invincible hahaha" she says, talking shyly at first before laughing out loud while enjoying her fantasies.

'Well of course you have no talent in blacksmithing, you can't even remember the name of a few important metals' I diss her silently in my mind.

Well thank God no reaction from being called by her name I nearly freaked out when I said her name by mistake.

"So what determines your talent in blacksmithing?" I asked.

"Well first you need to have talent for <mana manipulation> and <creation magic>, a high amount of mana and high brain power or intelligence" she explains as she puts away her sword and sits down.

Wow the blacksmith profession sounds awesome, I'll look into it when I can.

It wasn't long after we finished talking when the man who was interrogating me before came back into the room.

[Author's Notes]

1. Word count - 3006 words

2. A situation in many novels whereby the main character previously weak gains unscientific strength and humiliates others ignorant of his new power level (Not Directly Copied off Wikipedia).

3. Polygraph, incorrectly referred to as a lie detector test, is a device that measures physiological indicators such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration etc. while a person is asked and answers a series of questions (Not Directly Copied off Wikipedia)

4. Do you think the MC would take the blacksmith path to become invincible?

5. No… the answer to the previous question is no.