ERTHMB Chapter 57

The Broken Sword Her ankle recovered quickly. Thanks to not only Ian but also Gelda joining forces to keep Helena under close surveillance.

‘He told me not to go wandering around until today, but……’

Helena repeatedly confirmed that Ian was not outside the window before stepping out onto the Platanus tree path. Being cooped up in her room was becoming unbearably stuffy.

However, after walking for just a few minutes, she spotted a familiar figure in the distance. Black cropped hair that resembled a lion’s mane.

‘Gelda……!’

If she got caught this time, she didn’t know what kind of lecture she’d have to endure. When it came to nagging, Gelda was even more exasperating than Ian.

Helena opened any nearby door and rushed inside. She had no time to look around. She simply leaned against the door with her back and let out a sigh of relief, grateful for the close timing.

However, she immediately let out a scream. In her haste, she hadn’t thought there might be someone inside.

“Kyaak!”

“Ahhhhk!”

The other person was also startled by the sudden bird-like sound and burst out with a similar reaction. Of course, it was a much deeper, rougher, and more robust sound.

Helena was startled again by that sound and screamed once more. This time, the other person made a soothing sound as if trying to calm her down.

“Shh-.”

Flam, who had been lying comfortably on a long chair covered with a blanket, sat up. Their eyes met beneath his thick eyebrows – round, wide-open eyes.

“……What brings you here?”

Helena’s gaze wavered here and there. She felt sorry for waking him from his afternoon nap, and she couldn’t find the right words to answer.

But her wandering gaze gradually fixed as it took him in. Helena couldn’t understand why she was looking at him like she was playing a spot-the-difference game from the back page of a daily newspaper.

He was the same as usual, but not perfectly the same. Something was subtly different. Helena only realized what that sense of incongruity was after Flam had completely stood up from his seat.

‘Ah. His left arm……’

The hand that was always covered with a black glove was completely invisible. It was naturally empty, as if it had never been there from the beginning.

Flam, noticing the gaze fixed on his left arm, hurriedly turned around.

“Oh my, I forgot to put it back on.”

He fumbled around the side table next to the chair with his right hand. The prosthetic arm, missed by his frantic touch, fell to the floor.

The slight creaking she had occasionally noticed about him finally made sense. Helena quietly approached him and picked up the prosthetic arm.

‘……It’s worn out.’

The iron surface was full of scratches and patches where the paint had peeled off. These were the years he had lived with this hand.

Helena silently held out the prosthetic arm to Flam. He accepted it with a somewhat hesitant expression.

While he assembled the prosthetic arm, Helena looked around the smithy.

Swords and axes lined up along the ocher-painted walls, various worn tools, chunks of metal still glowing red, the smell of accumulated ash and wood. The interior was sweltering, as if tempering had just been completed.

Everything that stimulated the five senses was a trace of Flam. It was his mark.

So Helena inadvertently blurted out:

“You’re an amazing person, mister.”

“……Hm?”

Flam looked up while putting gloves over his prosthetic arm. Helena still kept her eyes fixed on the countless weapons he had made as she asked:

“How did you find the resolve to stand before the fire again?”

“…….”

The answer didn’t come immediately. Helena slowly turned around to face him.

His right eye, without an eyepatch, was a deep blue like the ocean. The heavy cobalt blue soon disappeared between the finely wrinkled eye-smile.

“Well, well. You’re quite peculiar too, miss. No wonder Gelda brought you over…… Everyone else usually wonders first how someone ended up like this.”

“That kind of thing…….”

Helena hesitated for a moment, then decided to just say what came to mind.

“Rather than that…… everyone has their own reasons for despair. But there’s only one vague piece of advice about overcoming it. I find that one thing too difficult…… So I wanted to know how it was for you, mister.”

The ambiguous smile Flam had been maintaining turned bitter. The wrinkles around his eyes disappeared and his deep blue pupils were revealed again.

“Then I’m not sure I’ll be much help. Truth is, I still find it difficult too.”

“But you’re still Flam the blacksmith. This smithy is your space. After losing something precious, how did you manage to protect all this? I, I…….”

“No. At first, there’s nothing you can do but despair.”

Flam picked up Helena’s unfinished words. It was strange to share such a gaze with someone whose past, let alone present, she barely knew. Yet Helena couldn’t shake it off and asked:

“……Did you feel that way too, mister?”

“Of course. When everything you’ve been doing as naturally as breathing becomes impossible overnight, you’d have to be inhuman not to crumble.”

He answered while bending his prosthetic arm this way and that to check if it was properly connected. The voice that followed with difficulty also felt like his eyes. It seemed to contain a night sea with gentle waves rippling.

“But what can you do about it? I was born to handle iron from the beginning.”

Flam approached the furnace. With skillful movements, he worked the bellows three or four times, and flames burst forth.

Helena quietly drifted along with the wave-like story told by this fire-like man.

“It seemed too unfair to let my whole life disappear just because I lost one arm and one eye. I still have three limbs left.”

While the flames rose, he strode across to the opposite workshop with large steps. When he returned, he was carrying a thick iron hammer.

Then he put a piece of cut wrought iron into the flames. When the iron turned red-hot, it was taken out onto the anvil. Flam began hammering it without hesitation.

“So I picked up the hammer again. It didn’t matter how long it took, I just wanted to make something. After hammering all day like that, somehow things turned out even better than before. It felt like molten metal was flowing through my body instead of blood.”

The solid piece of metal stretched like flour dough in his grip. Flam’s bass voice harmonized even more pleasantly between the clanging sounds of metal.

“I’m not trying to boast, but…… my swords sell for the highest price in this area.”

He glanced at Helena briefly and chuckled.

“Even when life makes you wonder ‘how did it come to this,’ somehow you keep living. It just happens that way. So since we’re living anyway, let’s try to live well. Both you and I, miss.”

What had been merely a heavy lump was now being forged sharp. A curve harder and straighter than any other sword was being revealed. The clanging sounds continued without cease.

Helena, intoxicated by the heat from the flames, watched him a little longer before returning.

****

“How unusual that you, this impatient woman, waited so well before coming in.”

“Shut up, and fix this for me.”

Only after Helena left did Gelda enter, tossing something wrapped in tarpaulin in front of Flam.

Such a temper, as always. Grumbling quietly, Flam untied the rolled-up strings. What emerged was a dagger that showed considerable age.

Flam’s eyebrows rose.

“What’s so good about this broken blade that you stubbornly keep using it?”

“You, with your missing eyeball, I haven’t thrown out and am still using, so why can’t I use this one thing?”

“Tsk, I’ll just make you a new one, so throw this away. Don’t throw me away though.”

Flam tried to throw the dagger toward the pile of discarded metal scraps. However, his raised arm was firmly blocked by Gelda’s hand.

“No. I like this one.”

At the same time, the eyes she fixed on Flam were as stubborn as the strength with which she gripped his arm.

It was only a few seconds of standoff, but many intentions flowed through their gaze. Finally, Flam was the first to let out a sigh signaling defeat.

“Come back in the evening. I’ll fix it like new.”

Only then did Gelda release his arm and leave. Flam slumped down in front of the crackling flames.

When he rubbed the dagger with his thumb, he felt a concave engraving on the handle part. Looking closely, Gelda’s name was carved in crooked letters.

It was something he had made when he lost his arm and eye in an accident and had turned his back on the world.

[Get up. Even if you don’t want to make anything, make something for me. Whether you throw me a lump of metal or give me a stick, I’ll only use things that come from your hands, so make something.]

After years of terrible despair and wandering, it was the first time he had picked up a hammer and started pounding again. For someone stubborn, or perhaps for himself.

‘What did it feel like to grip that hammer handle back then.’

What was so special about it that it still makes me breathe.

Flam remained dazed until Gelda’s voice echoing in his head completely disappeared. He stayed like that for a long while, just fiddling with the name his past self had carved.

“Somehow…… you keep living.”

It was a murmur to no one in particular.

****

That night, Helena was already receiving Gelda’s visit for the second time.

She didn’t bother offering her a seat. She thought Gelda would just blurt out her business without the usual trivial greetings, as always.

However, Gelda first spent time on Helena’s injury.

“Is your ankle feeling better?”

“Thanks to everyone’s care.”

“That’s good.”

“Yes.”

“…….”

Of course, the conversation topic quickly ran dry. Gelda wasn’t used to squeezing out nutritionless dialogue. She had no choice but to ask directly.

“I heard you saw Flam’s arm today.”

Since Helena had somewhat expected this topic, she answered calmly:

“It wasn’t intentional.”

“What are you defending yourself for? You’re also a proper member of Partren, so you have the right to know that much.”

“Then why did you come?”

Helena couldn’t think of any other reason for Gelda to visit directly.

To the puzzled Helena, Gelda tossed a leather-bound blade hilt.

“It’s nothing much, just take it.”

Since Gelda casually giving things wasn’t new, Helena naturally accepted it.

It was a dagger that looked quite old. Nevertheless, the blade was clean without a single rusty spot. It seemed considerable effort had been put into its maintenance.

While she was looking at her own reflection mirrored in the blade, Gelda’s voice continued:

“It’s the first blade that screwball made after coming to his senses.”

“You mean…… Flam? But why are you giving me this…….”

“I thought you’d need it more than I do now.”

Helena’s fingertips stiffened for a moment.