Chapter 48 – I helped at the smithy!

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As I sat down to eat lunch, I saw Ril walking towards me with a little towel on top of her head.

 

“Ah, Ril. How was the hot spring?”

“Ruff!”

 

Ril raised her hands into the air and barked cheerfully.

Judging by how happy she looked, she must have really enjoyed it.

 

And then I saw that the fossilized egg she had found in the cave was still clutched in her hand.

 

When she was finished drying off, she put the egg on the ground and sat next to me.

Then she grabbed one of the skewered fish that were cooking around the bonfire, and began to eat it hungrily.

 

Once again, I was reminded of how fast she was growing… How long had it taken me before I was able to eat by myself?

 

Yesterday, I had asked Ashton and Haines about what they thought about her growth.

They told me that while there were kobolds who grew as quickly as Ril did, it was still quite rare.

They also told me that they were very happy to be blessed with such a wise heir.

 

However, it hadn’t even been a full month yet. What would happen when a year passed…

Things should be very amusing once Ril was able to talk.

 

I taught Ril what to say before eating, and then returned to my own fish.

 

Just then, something caught my eye.

 

Kamyu had been talking with the orcs up until a while ago, but now she was with Mappa, who had come out of the hot spring and was now at the smithy.

 

As Kamyu’s eyes and fingers occasionally went towards the ship, that must be what they were discussing.

Perhaps she was giving my suggestion serious thought. About using metal boards.

 

Mappa had accepted the challenge of drawing water out of the cave, so he would probably just nod and…huh?

 

When Kamyu had finished talking, Mappa folded his arms. He had a troubled expression on his face.

 

Then he suddenly started to draw on the ground with a tree branch. It was as if he had somehow managed to think of something.

However, he quickly shook his head in defeat and erased the drawing with his branch.

 

Apparently, this was a problem that even Mappa could not solve.

As Mappa had only just come out of the hotspring, he too had a towel on his head. But it seemed like thick steam was rising from it…

 

It was very likely that Mappa was thinking hard about the suggestion I had made.

 

Since I was the one to bring it up, it would be no good to stand here and watch…

 

And so I stood up and headed towards Mappa and Kamyu.

On the way, Ril picked up her egg and ran after me, and so I put her on my shoulder as I approached them.

 

“Are you two talking about the ship?”

“Ah, Lord Heal. …Yes, it’s about the idea you had for covering the ship with Mithril. If possible, I wanted to ask Little Mappa to do it. However, it seems like the only way to do it is to piece together very small plates.”

“But what’s wrong with that? …Also, what is this picture?”

 

I said as I looked at what Mappa was drawing.

 

I was more surprised by the level of detail, rather than what it represented.

 

So, Mappa wasn’t only a talented blacksmith and musician. He could also draw…

Back in my country, the nobles competed on a daily basis over who had the best singing voice or the best painting skills. But I had never seen anything on this level. In fact, there were not many who were that talented to begin with.

 

But leaving Mappa’s many talents aside, it was a very detailed work, and so it was clear what he was trying to convey.

 

It was a picture of the Leviathan biting into the ship… If the sheets of metal are small, the boat will be torn apart all the same.

 

Well, if you were going that far, I would also say it would be the same if the Leviathan swallowed you…

But I understood his point. The harder the safer.

 

Mappa then drew an arrow and started to work on a new picture.

This picture showed that if you surrounded the ship in several large sheets of Mithril, the Leviathan’s teeth would not be able to break through it.

 

“In other words… We need to figure out a way to do it with a single sheet of Mithril.”

 

I looked at the smithy and then to the ship.

 

If you wanted to coat that entire ship, it would require an immense amount of Mithril.

We had quite a lot of it in stock… But we would also require huge molds to pour it into. And we had nothing like that on this island.

 

In the first place, would it even be possible to melt so much Mithril at once?

 

I had seen Mappa work before, and knew that Mithril took longer to heat up compared to iron.

That was likely one of the reasons that it would be difficult to create large boards of Mithril.

 

Kamyu nodded at me.

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The Cave King will live a Paradise Life -Becoming the strongest with the mining skill?-