My Quiet Blacksmith Life in Another World: Volume 12

1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-7183-9019-5
Verlag: J-Novel Club
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 250 Seiten

Reihe: My Quiet Blacksmith Life in Another World

After surviving a recent assassination attempt in the capital, Eizo worries that he and his family might someday need to flee from enemies trying to invade the forge. They decide to investigate a possible escape route out of the Black Forest, and that can mean only one thing-it's time for a camping trip! But given the forest's dangerous reputation and the threat of another attempt on Eizo's life, this journey through the wilderness could be quite harrowing. As they trek deeper into the murky woods, they stumble across Latifa, a spirit who asks for help with a deadly situation: A tree monster is lurking in the shadows and wreaking havoc on anything that wanders nearby! With the lives of forest dwellers on the line, can the resident smith and his family grind their arboreal foe to a pulp? Or will this new, powerful enemy utterly stump them?

Autoren/Hrsg.

Tamamaru

Weitere Mitwirkende

Kinta

Piyo

Leseproben

Chapter 1: An Investigation

Counterfeit Forge Eizo products had been found circulating in the capital. As the “Eizo” whose name was being tarnished by these fakes, I’d decided to help out by participating in a little performance that was planned to resolve this issue. We’d learned that the fakes were being produced by the duke’s faction within the kingdom, and even representatives of the empire—including Anne, of course—had cooperated in our little ruse. This plan had been successful, and the kingdom had been able to launch a full investigation into these fakes.

Meanwhile, the duke’s faction had sent out assassins to attack the Eimoor manor. We’d also learned that the duke was looking into the location of my forge, but nothing had happened yet. Since I’d left the capital and gone back home, I’d fulfilled two of my scheduled orders for Camilo, and the forge was still as peaceful as ever. It seemed Marius (or Count Eimoor, as he was formally called) was swamped with work these days, but Camilo had reassured me that he and his new bride weren’t having any major issues. So long as they were both alive and well, that was good enough for me.

One beautiful spring afternoon, after my family and I had lazed about and enjoyed dinner, I brought up a suggestion.

“You want to investigate the Black Forest?” Diana asked.

I nodded. “Yeah. ‘Investigate’ might sound a little callous though, since I know this is the beastfolk’s home, but...”

I glanced cautiously at Samya, who took a large bite out of her piece of foliage bird. She swallowed her mouthful and gave a small shrug.

“Eh, I don’t mind,” she said. “Investigating might help everyone. There are tons of things that even my kind don’t know about within the forest.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Remember that monster we beat?”

“Oh, you mean the troll?”

“Yep. Beastfolk usually don’t venture into caves like that.”

“Fair enough... So you guys have just the bare-bones intel of this forest.”

“Something like that. Obviously, there are exceptions—like when we chase monsters down—but the things we know about the Black Forest probably outnumber the things we know.”

She took another bite of her foliage bird. Most of society saw the Black Forest as one large plot of land. They’d managed to map out the rough perimeters of the forest, but the inside remained a complete mystery. Forge Eizo was located in the southeastern region of the forest; if you considered just the longitude, with the center of the forest as the meridian, we would be on the eastern edge of it. The road that connected the city to the capital also cut through the eastern part of the forest. I’d heard that there was a road to the west portion as well, but according to Diana, it wasn’t maintained, and guards rarely went to patrol that area.

“But investigating the forest? Where’d that idea come from?” Samya asked. She swiftly polished off her foliage bird and went on to attack the venison.

“As you know, we’re being targeted by the duke’s faction,” I explained. “Or so I think. I’ve been told that they’ve tried to locate our forge.”

At once, the air turned tense. For the past couple of weeks, there’d been no incidents, and our days had gone by slowly and peacefully. That didn’t mean my worries were all laid to rest, though. Plus, I’d been attacked at the capital. Juliet and Romeo had claimed that they only targeted evil people, but for some reason, they’d attacked me and Marius—had the assassins been tricked by their employers?

Juliet had claimed that she would take care of this situation, but I hadn’t received any news from her yet. Since I trusted her, I didn’t want to hire anyone to look into this matter. I didn’t mention that detail to my family, though.

“We’ve laid traps around our house, and we all have weapons. I’m confident that we can chase away any average intruders.”

Seriously, if we went up against a small squad, we could annihilate them without issue and without casualties.

“But in the worst case, staying holed up in our cabin might not be a good plan,” I explained. I didn’t hear any sighs or draws of sharp breath—not from Lucy, Maribel, or anyone else in the family. “Should that time come, we’ll need to abandon this place entirely. But we probably won’t be able to use our normal route to flee...”

“Yeah,” Helen agreed. “Anyone nefarious would probably know it already. I reckon a ton of soldiers would be stationed on lookout in that area.”

I nodded. “And it’ll be tough for us if we head out into the city streets like good little targets waiting to be ambushed. Clearly, they’ll find an opportunity to attack us.”

Maybe we could fake our departure and divert the enemy’s attention on the city streets, but honestly, there was no end to the strategies we could come up with. I pushed that thought out of my mind for now.

“And that’s why I want to investigate,” I concluded. “I want to find another escape route for us—one that cuts through the Black Forest. It might be a bit far from here, but I need to ensure that we can swiftly make our escape.”

“I see...” Lidy muttered, a gleam in her eyes. She claimed that there were many rare plants, herbs, and mushrooms within the forest—she must’ve been excited to do some foraging.

“I’ve already told Camilo that I’d like to take a break from orders for a bit. And I stocked up on supplies last time we were in the city,” I said.

Rike downed her mug of liquor and turned to me. “How long of a pause are we taking?”

“Three weeks. We’ll have to travel through the forest and back for our investigation, and it takes a bit over a week to go one way. I don’t think he’d mind if we delayed a bit more, honestly.”

When I’d asked Camilo about this, he had furrowed his brow in concern at first, but he’d swiftly understood my goal. After that, nothing more had been said about it, and he’d simply prepared what I’d needed.

Helen, whose ears were sharp when it came to mission details, asked, “Why’d you choose that span of time?”

“Eh, no specific reason,” I replied. I shrugged, which caused Helen to narrow her eyes, and went on. “I’m not basing this on much concrete evidence, but I think a route out of the forest that would take a week to travel would be best for our situation. After all, it’s difficult to mobilize a whole fighting force in secret for an entire week. If the enemy chooses to leave behind some choice soldiers on lookout, I hope that we’d be long gone by the time they came for us—or close to it. And I also think a week is long enough. That will allow us to take a lesser-known, roundabout route of escape.”

Helen crossed her arms and closed her eyes. “Guess so. Sounds like a plan.”

“My goal for this investigation trip is just to find out whether there’s even a route like that. I wanna scope things out and see if we could sneakily flee this forest in a week’s time. If there isn’t anything like that, we’ll think of a new strategy.”

I glanced at Samya, who nodded at me, and I nodded back.

“We can spend tomorrow preparing for departure,” I said, “and then leave the following day.”

“Can I go too?” Maribel asked with a slight tilt of her head.

“Of course,” I replied.

“Yippee!”

Three weeks seemed like a long time to be away from the cabin—especially if any fairy emergencies happened to crop up—but I had a plan for that as well.

“I’ll leave a note behind for the fairies,” I said. “If needed, they can alert Lluisa, and she’ll contact me.”

The master of the forest would definitely have a rough idea of where we were in the forest at any given time. If there was an emergency, she would tell us immediately. And if she brought the fairy over, I could treat them in a flash. The city and the capital had only thin ribbons of magical energy, which made it difficult for me to create a magical jewelstone when in those places. But on this trip, I’d be staying within the magically dense Black Forest, so there’d be no issues.

“Then let’s take tomorrow off,” I said.

Everyone responded positively to that, and we all helped to clear off the remnants of dinner from the table.

???

The next morning, I fetched water as usual. This water wouldn’t be used for forging work but for meals and other daily necessities. We weren’t heading out today, and it was rare that we got a visitor, but if Gizelle or someone else decided to pop in on us, I wanted to be ready with fresh water. (Though I didn’t think any humans would randomly appear at the forge, since I told Camilo my plan.) Plus, it was nice to have water to clean ourselves—hygiene was important.

So, I fetched the usual amount of water from the lake and took the time to wash off my daughters, Lucy and Krul, in the lake. We’d probably fetch more water tomorrow too, but that would be to carry with us on our investigation mission. Obviously, I couldn’t ask the tiny Hayate or Maribel to carry water, so Krul, Lucy, and I were the ones who needed to haul it around. There was,...