My 【Repair】Skill Became an Almighty Cheat Skill, So I Thought I’d Open Up a Weapon Shop

「Is something the matter? If you would like to place an order for a weapon, please come visit me when the shop is open, please.」

I said and observed, trying not to offend the three knights who surrounded me.

Since all three of them wore a helmet, I couldn’t see their faces at all. What did catch my eye was how they were all different heights. One person was short, another was average, and the last one was tall and bulky.

The average person was about my height, and the tall person was over a head taller. The remaining person only reached up to my shoulders. That knight was about the same height as Silvia.

「Hey you. You’re Luke from White Wolf Forest, aren’t you? We are the Silver Wing Knights.」

The small knight spoke first, using a rude tone that was unlike that of a knight’s.

Judging from the pitch of his voice, this small knight was probably a young boy.

If I didn’t see the armored figure and only heard his voice, I would’ve mistaken him to be a girl.

「You know why we stopped you here, don’t you?」

「Who knows? I have no idea.」

「Don’t play dumb!」

The small knight was about to lunge at me, but the average knight grabbed his shoulders to stop him.

「Hold on, Garnet. You’re going to make the situation get worse if you keep talking.」

「Shut it, Felix!」

「I am the one in charge of this mission. Shall I inform Carmine-dono that you have disobeyed his orders?」

「M-my older brother has nothing to do with this.」

Since I was an outsider, I didn’t understand any of that conversation just now. Either way, the small knight seemed to have calmed down.

This time, the average-height knight named Felix stood forward. He took off his helmet, exposing his face.

「Greetings. I am one of the Silver Wing Knights, my name is Felix. There is something important we would like to discuss with you, so may we please have some of your time?」

He was a somewhat feminine-looking but handsome young man. It felt like the conversation would proceed more smoothly with him than the knight called Garnet.

「If you don’t mind me asking, what will happen if I refuse?」

「Unfortunately, this is public business, so if you refuse, things might get rather rough.」

Felix basically just threatened me, but since he also sounded apologetic, I didn’t feel like resisting.

Instead, I felt some sympathy for him, since he probably had no say in doing this troublesome job either.

「…Alright, I get it. Can I ask that we continue our talk back at my shop? We’re standing out a little too much here.」

Other people were watching at us from a distance.

Since it felt like the town has finally accepted me, I wouldn’t want any bad rumors to start up.

「Let us do that then. Please guide us there.」

As I lead the group of knights back to my shop, we passed by Spring Leaf Pavilion.

Silvia happened to be standing outside, cleaning the entrance.

「Ehh?! Luke-san, what’s going on?!」

Silvia looked at us in shock, dropped her cleaning supplies and rushed over.

In Silvia’s eyes, it probably looked like the knights were taking me away for questioning.

「No clue. I’m going to hear what they have to say later. I don’t think it’s going to be anything good though.」

I shrugged.

If they had a normal reason for wanting to talk to me, then Garnet wouldn’t have lashed out at me like that.

Although I didn’t know what I did wrong, I knew at the very least that he thought of me as someone who deserved to be condemned.

「…I-I’ll go too! That’s okay, right?! I’ll let my mom know!」

「H-hey, you don’t have to…」

Silvia rushed into the inn immediately after.

「Mom! I’m going to Luke-san’s shop! Eh? N-no! We’re not doing anything of that sort!」

……Her mom must have said something weird.

Felix forced a smile through this awkward situation, and we waited for Silvia to return.

Afterwards, I invited the group into my home behind the weapon shop so we could continue our talk.

「Huh? Only the two of you are here?」

For some reason, only Felix and the tall knight came into the shop.

「I’m having Garnet keep watch outside. The conversation will get complicated otherwise.」

「Thank you for being considerate.」

It was just as he said.

I didn’t understand why they would even bring someone like Garnet in the first place, but they must have their circumstances. Perhaps Garnet was the son of a prestigious knight.

In any case, I suggested that we sit at the dining table to talk.

Felix, who felt like the representative, sat directly across from me. However, the tall knight firmly refused to take a seat and instead stood behind Felix. His large frame made him stand out quite a bit.

Silvia was the last to take a seat. She sat down quietly on an empty chair.

「Vice Chief Felix, will it you allowing the civilian to sit in on this conversation?」

「Yes, it should be fine. Since she’s here, let’s have her be Luke-dono’s witness. Can you give me the “Witness Agreement Forms”?」

「Understood.」

The large knight took out two identical documents and placed them on the table. Felix began explaining the contents.

「This is an agreement form, which basically says that you will not speak of this conversation to unrelated parties without permission. Also, it can be used as testimonial evidence in case this goes to court. No magic was used to make this a binding contract, but if it is discovered that you broke the contract, you will be punished by law. 」

「Are you okay with that, Silvia? It seems like this『conversation』is a lot more serious that it sounds.」

Even though they said this was official business, they were being thorough. We weren’t having a simple talk; they were covering all possible liabilities.

The contents of the document were perfectly fair, and it didn’t feel like the knights were trying to trick or trap us into something.

At the same time, I could feel how threatening it was. In the case that something does happen, they weren’t going to pardon a young girl like Silvia.

「I understand. I just have to sign my name here, right?」

Silvia nodded with a serious face, ignoring my worries.

「By the way, why are there two copies?」

「One is for us to take back with us. The other copy is for you to keep.」

Silvia quickly signed her name on the document, and handed it over to Felix.

I asked Silvia if she was really sure about this, but she stood firm on her decision. 

「It’s fine. I’m not a kid anymore.」

「…Alright, if you say so yourself.」

It wasn’t rare for kids around Silvia’s age to act independently. After all, I ran away from home to become an adventurer when I was about her age too.

Since I wasn’t her guardian or anything, I might have been too overbearing on her.

「Luke-dono of White Wolf Forest, do you mind if I start off with some simple questions?」

Felix decided that I had enough time to gather my thoughts, and so he began the talk with that question.

「Luke-dono, you were hired by the hero Falcon into his party, correct? What were your impressions of the party members?」

「My impressions…?」

「I understand that you have your reasons for taking a break from adventuring. Please tell us your honest opinion of them.」

Could it be that this case was related to the hero somehow? For example, the hero was guilty of something, and now the knights were going around questioning all of his acquaintances?

「…Falcon was rather presumptuous. Every time he acted conceited and made a mistake, he would solve it using one of the many skills he was blessed with. He never learned from his mistakes.」

As a result of him solving his problems that way, a trivial mistake that he made caused me to get kicked out of his party.

Not only did he kick away the barrier stone in his half-asleep state, he carelessly returned it to a random spot.

He kept writing off his mistakes by bulldozing through everything with his skills, and that carelessness was what caused the party’s food supply to be destroyed.

Of course I warned him many times about being more careful, but he was not the type of person to listen.

「I don’t really have a good image of the swordswoman Julia either. She was basically the hero’s yes-man, and would boast about how the hero’s『special』. Ahh… The only thing she was strict on was the hero’s relationship with other women.」

Falcon and Julia were childhood friends born in the same town. In other words, they had a very intimate relationship.

However, due to his flirtatious behavior, Falcon would always try to make advances on other women, and Julia would interfere.

「Then there’s the white magician, Blanc… Her and the hero are the only ones I will never forgive for leaving me in that dungeon. Even when I first met her, she rubbed me the wrong way, but I never would’ve thought that she would abandon someone without hesitation like that.」

After the party lost more than half of their food supply due to Falcon’s mistake, Blanc was the one who suggested that they ditched me to save food.

Her and the hero truly had no human compassion.

For argument’s sake, if somebody said to me, 『You can make one person in the hero’s party suffer,』I wouldn’t be able to choose between the hero and Blanc.

「And finally, the last member… how should I put it…」

「Lady Noire, the black magician, right? Is it difficult to say?」

「No, it’s the opposite. There was nothing memorable about her, and I can’t recall if we even had a conversation.」

Felix looked surprised, but I wasn’t lying to him.

「She rarely asserted herself, and basically did whatever her sister… whatever Blanc told her to do. She probably doesn’t hold grudges, and honestly, she was the only one who did not act like the others in the party.」

My impression of Noire was completely the opposite of her sister Blanc; she had a flat character.

She left no impressions on me; there was nothing good about her, and nothing bad about her.

That was how little presence she had.

Rather, I felt bad for her. Her personality was messed up because she had a relative like Blanc.

If I changed the question from earlier to,『You can make the hero’s party suffer, but you can also save one person,』then I would immediately choose to save “Noire”.

To think that my impressions of these twin sisters were that different… Now that everything was at peace for me, it felt like a funny story.

「I see. Thank you for telling this to us.」

「If I may ask, what was the point of this conversation?」

I asked Felix, trying to get to the bottom of this whole talk. However, he hesitated, saying「Um, well.」With an exhausted look, what he said next was completely unexpected.

「The hero Falcon and his party have been classified as “unrepatriated”. We, the Silver Wing Knights, have been entrusted to investigate the reason for that.」