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Chapter 182




Lukas left the arena without bothering to watch the match.
That match would probably be won by the man named Kaytai. Although the Dragonman called Toirask was relatively strong, he hadn’t fully matured yet.
The place he headed to next was a blacksmith. Of course, there were dozens of blacksmiths in Lirua, but the one he went to was the place that Ashstar had left the Ancient Dragon’s skull earlier that day.
Clang! Clang!
The clanging sound unique to smithies resonated through the entire area. The blacksmiths were all busy with their work.
These blacksmiths had appearances closer to humans than to Dragonmen, and many of them were old.
Lukas approached one of them. This blacksmith was sitting on a chair and wiping sweat from his forehead as though he’d just finished his work.
“Customer?”
He asked in a blunt tone.
Lukas nodded and said.
“Yeah. I would like to commission an item.”
“Hmm. Wait a minute
”
The Dragonman looked at Lukas with slightly hazy eyes for a moment.
“
aren’t you the Dragon Hunter who left the Ancient Dragon’s skull here earlier today?”
“That’s right.”
The blacksmith’s face immediately brightened.
“Hoho. I see. Are you thinking of entrusting us with the skull now?”
His voice was even more excited than his expression.
Now that he thought about it, Lukas realised that these blacksmiths had probably been eager to process the skull from the moment he asked them to store it for him.
Of course, since he hadn’t decided on what he would do with the Ancient Dragon’s skull yet, he refused.
“No.”
The scene was a replay of what happened earlier.
The Dragonman’s excited expression rapidly devolved to one of disappointment.
“Then what kind of commission would you like to order? We have most of the materials that you might need here in our forge, but the quality isn’t very good compared to that. And on that subject, the cost would be a bit high too.”
“Didn’t I entrust another set of materials with you as well?”
The Dragonman tilted his head in confusion for a while before nodding with an ‘ah’. The impact of the Ancient Dragon’s skull had been so big that he had completely forgotten it.
“You mean the corpse of the Ancient Dragon’s offspring.”
“Yes.”
“Well, it is a mutant, and the strength of its bones and scales are pretty good, so it wouldn’t be a problem to use it as materials.”
The blacksmith nodded.
In particular, the long, flexible tail could be used to make a unique piece of equipment, whether it was a weapon or armor.
“Fine. I’ll get started on it right away.”
“Please do. How much will it cost?”
“It’ll probably cost around 3,000 erus. You can pay when I’m done.”
“Understood. How long will it take?”
“Hmm. Well. I’ll have to figure out where to start, but I think it’ll take at least a week
”
“
”
At least a week.
Lukas rolled this thought around in his head for a while before nodding. It was a bit longer than he would have hoped, but it couldn’t be helped.
“All right.”
“Then you can come back to me in a week.”
After saying that, the Blacksmith turned around without hesitation. It seemed that he was preparing to work again, so Lukas decided to leave the smithy.
Clang!
That was until a clear sound rang out.
It was definitely the sound of metal striking against metal.
But in this environment where the sounds of hammers striking metal came from every direction, it was only this sound that caught Lukas’ attention.
He turned towards the direction the sound was coming from.
Clang!
The person behind this sound was so eye-catching that Lukas couldn’t help but wonder how he hadn’t noticed them before. But after thinking about it for a moment, he realised the reason.
It was because compared to the large Dragonmen, her physique was rather small. Right, it was a female Dragonman.
Even though she wore baggy clothes, was covered in soot, and her face was scrunched in concentration, she could still be considered beautiful.
Clang!
The sound of the hammering was extremely clear.
Lukas grabbed the blacksmith who had turned his back to him and pointed to her.
“Who is that woman? Is she also a blacksmith?”
“Her
 don’t mind her.”
The blacksmith replied with a strange expression on his face. Lukas had a feeling that he shouldn’t ask any more questions.
He turned to look at the woman again.
By then, the blue-haired woman had put down her hammer with a slight frown on her face. Was she done with her work?
That was probably the case. Her gaze turned to the table beside the anvil she had been working with.
“
”
Then, her eyebrows twitched slightly and her lips parted.
“Rytol! You son of a bitch!”
Although it wasn’t very loud, her voice strangely resonated through the entire smithy. It reminded Lukas of Kangki’s voice back in the arena.
The blacksmith in front of Lukas flinched when he heard her shout.
It seemed that he was the very same ‘Rytol’. With his back hunched, he carefully approached the woman.
“
what do you need?”
Why was he being so polite?
Contrary to Lukas’ curiosity, Nekdu frowned with an unforgiving expression.
“What do I need? You little pig-nosed bastard, what did I tell you yesterday?”
“
If it’s the hirometal that you mentioned, I put 10kg below your anvil.”
“Besides that! The towels and water in case I get thirsty while working! I told you to leave them beside me, didn’t I?!”
“Ah.”
“Ah? You little bastard.”
The woman seemed to be less than half Rytol’s size.
In truth, it wasn’t that bad, but when compared to the Dragonmen who were usually 2m tall and extremely muscular, she appeared thin and fragile.
Nevertheless, Rytol simply lowered his head, seemingly unable to respond to the woman’s cursing.
Lukas continued looking at the woman.
Maybe.
She was a really good blacksmith. He didn’t know much about blacksmithing, but he did know a lot about ‘sound’.
And the sounds she made with her hammer were not normal.
But that wasn’t the only thing that caught Lukas’ attention.
[Blacksmith of Lava Nekdu]
“
”
Unlike Bargan and Ashstar, she didn’t have any ‘loyalty’ stat.
Perhaps it was because she and Lukas were complete strangers. Nevertheless, besides a name and a title, there was one other thing that Lukas could see.
[Difficulty: B]
It was the B difficulty that he was seeing for the first time.
At that moment, their eyes met. Nekdu opened her mouth.
“What’s with this wimp?”
It seemed that this was the impression that all Dragonmen had upon seeing Lukas for the first time.
Rytol hurriedly whispered.
“That’s him.”
“Am I supposed to know this person? I hope he’s not some trash sent by Kangki aga-”
“He’s the one who entrusted us with the Ancient Dragon’s skull.”
“
”
Nekdu’s expression dropped immediately, then she hurriedly changed her words.
“N-, now that I take a closer look
”
She looked at Lukas with an expression that seemed to say she was doing her very best to think of something nice to say.
“He is a really muscular and handsome guy. Ha, haha. I must be tired from working all night, which is why I couldn’t recognise such a handsome man.”
“
”
Lukas was at a loss for words