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

Episode 61 – A Brief Respite

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Once the golem had been successfully destroyed, the demons suddenly stopped attacking.

They didn’t seem to have given up, though.

Perhaps they were simply waiting for reinforcements to arrive.

They would probably continue their assault –which would be their final, greatest attack– once that happened.

Now that things had settled for a bit, we went to talk with the person responsible for the camp’s defense.

“I’m Dwight, this camp’s supervisor. Thank you very much for your help.”

Under an almost half-burnt tent, a fierce-looking knight shook my hand.

“I’m sorry for asking this of you, but do you think you can continue to help us until we’ve repelled the enemy forces?”

“Of course. It’s not as if I’m in a position to withdraw either way. What’s the current situation?”

“You have my thanks. Please have a look at this map.”

Supervisor Dwight spread a large map over a long desk.

Garnet, Sakura, and Noire –who had just arrived– all looked into the map with me.

“The ‘Demon King’s Castle Field’ looks like a curved rectangle, and is divided almost evenly into rocky mountains and flatlands. The Demon King’s Castle and the towns of the demons are on the flatland.”

Several small red and blue triangular plates were placed on the map.

From their position, it seemed that blue represented the units of the Kingdom’s Army, and red represented the unit of the Demon King’s Army.

“The rocky mountain area is further divided into two deep valleys, one of which we have taken for our Kingdom of Westland. So far, so good, yes?”

“Yes, sounds pretty clear to me. The invasion of the flatlands has reached a standstill, so you tried to open a route to the other side of the valley to break that situation.”

So far, it was an adaptation of Garnet’s earlier explanation to Noire.

Supervisor Dwight nodded slightly and continued talking.

“Thanks to your contribution, our first wave of reinforcements arrived safely and we were able to escape a disaster, but there is one strange thing about it.”

“Which is…?”

“As of now, the demon reinforcements are approaching, but I can’t help but thinking that it’s a bit too early for them to dispatch them after the siege was lifted.”

When he mentioned that, it made a lot of sense.

Not much time had passed since I repaired the suspension bridge.

The dispatch of reinforcements should have happened after the situation had been reported, and yet they were already right in front of our noses.

“…Do you mean that the guards could have been on schedule from the beginning?”

“Maybe. There are other possibilities, but I don’t have enough information right now. Keep in mind that unexpected things can happen.”

After that, Supervisor Dwight explained the status of the base’s equipment, and told me the priority of which equipment should be repaired first.

An army was different from a party of adventurers in many ways after all.

A party of adventurers challenges high-ranked dungeons, so all members are required to have a minimum ability.

If you can’t traverse the unknown territory to some extent on your own, you won’t be able to explore a dungeon since it would be too dangerous.

One would need to have powerful spells, physical enhancement skills, or even simple battle techniques.

Since I couldn’t do any of those, I couldn’t thrive as an adventurer.

On the other hand, the army led by the Knights had room for success even for someone who specializes in a single area and has no other specialty.

The main reason for this difference might be a matter of “scale”.

A party of adventurers rarely has more than a dozen people, and even more rarely do they go over that number.

However, a dozen people is the bare minimum for troops, and some troops go well over hundreds of men, even thousands.

With such large numbers, an army can afford to make up for an individual’s shortcomings.

I knew I was probably right about all this.

However…

“(I would never have thought about giving up making a name for myself as an adventurer.)”

The reason why I wanted to be an adventurer wasn’t a calculated thing, but something more of a longing.

I wasn’t trying to do it because I thought I had the aptitude to do it, but rather because I wanted to. So it didn’t matter if there was another field that I was suitable for.

“Mr. Luke.”

I was suddenly stopped as I was leaving the tent.

The voice was that of a small boy.

It was Nagi, an adventurer from the east.

“I saw the sword used by Shiranui. It was a sword made of scarlet gold. It seems that my advice wasn’t heard.”

“Kirigakure! This is between me and Mr. Luke. There’s no need for you to intervene.”

Previously, I had been told by Nagi that “it would be wise to decline if Sakura were to ask me to make a Hihiirokane sword.”

He even added that this was “even more so because Sakura seems to be in league with that woman.”

When I asked Sakura about that, she said that “She had made a big mistake in the ritual that involved that sword long ago, so Nagi was simply being overly concerned.”

In response to that, I made a sword made entirely of Hihiirokane as requested, but…

“The haunting ceremony is dangerous! You of all people should know that better than anyone else! Do you want to repeat your father’s mistakes?”

“…! You’re wrong! My father used a faulty medium! With a perfect scarlet gold sword, the ceremony can be completed even if its pattern is distorted!”

Sakura and Nagi were exchanging words violently as if crossing swords with each other.

Since they had both come from the east, they should have been using their own native language, but they dared to argue with each other in the Westland language.

Perhaps they were trying to get us curious about what this was all about.

After all, Nagi’s words implied that Sakura was trying to do something dangerous, while Sakura implied that Nagi’s claim was wrong.

I had no way to fully understand exactly what they were talking about, but I could naturally read that much at least.

“H-Hey, L-Luke… W-What, what should we do…?”

“Nothing. We shouldn’t poke our noses into another’s business. If we do anything, it should be because they specifically asked us to.”

With a strong tone of voice, Garnet stopped Noire in her tracks, who was nervously looking around.

“You say you can complete the ceremony? What makes you so sure about that!? Are you trying to cause trouble for the people here rather than just dying alone?”

“I’m not trying to cause trouble! If everything goes wrong, I’ll gladly throw my life away! I’m well prepared to do that!”

“Hey, Sakura!”

When she said that she would “gladly throw her life away” like that, I was unable to contain myself and tried to cut into their conversation, but then a completely different intervention destroyed the serious atmosphere.

“Nagiii! Oh, I’m so glad to see you’re safe!”

“Oh, Melis–”

Nagi’s partner, Melissa, appeared out of nowhere, interrupting what I was about to say and tightly wrapping her arms around Nagi’s head.

That was because Melissa was one head taller than Nagi.

As a result of the frontal hug, Nagi’s face was buried in Melissa’s voluptuous breasts.

“You idiot! What do you think you’re doing, crossing that valley alone! Do you know how worried I was!?”

“S-Stop… Ow… There’s people here…!”

Nagi was desperately beating on Melissa’s back, but her passionate embrace didn’t seem to loosen up in the slightest.

Now that the mood had made a complete about-face, Sakura and I turned towards Garnet and Noire and left those two alone.

Right after that…

“We’ve seen the enemy reinforcements from one of our watchtowers! Everyone, to your stations, quickly!”

A commanding voice echoed through the camp, rivaled only by the sound of a horn.