Chapter 758

Chapter 758

Let's Try That Too. (2)

At Ghislain's words, the whole party was startled.

Julien asked, his eyes wide open.

"That looks really difficult. Are you really going to do it?"

Ghislain snorted as he spoke.

"What's so difficult about that? From what I see, it's not that hard of a problem."

Everyone looked at Ghislain with doubtful eyes. At that moment, Kyle asked with a knowing expression.

"You're relying on Astion, right?"

At his words, Julien and Deneb nodded. Although Astion was usually a bit dim-witted, he was still a mage.

Before Ghislain appeared, it had been Astion who had led the party with his knowledge.

The other mercenaries also nodded.

Occasionally, Ghislain would quietly study at night. That was when Astion took control of the body to learn magic.

The mercenaries all thought of it as just another personality of Ghislain.

Hearing their conversation, Ereneth’s eyes trembled slightly as she muttered to herself.

"R-really? Is it really multiple personalities?"

Of course, she was still doubtful. So Ereneth decided to observe a bit more without adding any comment.

Inside Ghislain's consciousness, Astion also shouted boldly.

"A smart mage can't just ignore something like that. Such an arrogant dwarf."

Astion spoke confidently, but Ghislain had a nonchalant expression.

Suddenly, Osval raised his hand high.

"Big brother! I, Osval the man, will try it first!"

"You?"

"Why that face?"

"No, it's nothing."

Osval politely held out both hands.

"Please give me one gold."

As usual, Ghislain was managing the money. He gladly took out one gold and handed it to Osval.

The dwarf looked over the rough-looking Osval and asked.

"You're really going to challenge it?"

"Why are you talking like that? The Great Chieftain of the Elves said not to judge people by appearances."

"Pff! You’ve met the Great Chieftain of the Elves?"

"I have met her."

"Yeah, yeah. Humans sure love to boast."

The dwarf sneered as he handed the device to Osval. Osval received the device while breathing heavily.

Of course, he didn’t really think he could solve the problem. At a glance, it looked too difficult.

But there was a reason he confidently accepted the challenge.

"This kind of thing, I can just use strength. The Great Chieftain of the Elves said the inside matters."

For him, 'inside' simply meant strength.

Though the dwarf had given a warning, he didn’t believe such words. How could such a small device withstand the power of a strong man?

In a way, Osval might have been the man who most quickly adopted Ghislain’s problem-solving method. Even if it was slightly distorted.

Osval grabbed the metal rod and forcefully inserted it into the hole of the device.

Thunk!

Of course, the rod didn’t go in any further. But Osval, drawing up his mana, kept trying to force the rod in.

Screeech!

It was obvious to anyone that he was recklessly forcing it while using mana. Sparks flew from the device where the metal rod touched.

Everyone watched nervously. But the dwarf sneered leisurely.

'Foolish guy. You think that’ll work with brute strength? Feel the greatness of dwarf craftsmanship with your whole body.'

As Osval kept applying force, his expression gradually became flustered.

'W-what? Why isn’t it going in? What kind of metal is this?'

No matter how much strength he applied, sparks just flew without much progress. It seemed it would take quite a while to insert it as much as he wanted.

It didn’t make sense. If such metal truly existed, it would have already been widely used across the continent for weapons and armor.

Watching him, Ghislain narrowed his eyes in amusement.

'That’s...'

It seemed the metal had been forged by mixing in Runestones during smelting.

Runestones had the property of absorbing mana. That device was using that property to withstand Osval’s force.

The principle was simple once understood. Even the armor worn by the knights of Fenris applied the same property of Runestones.

The Runestones embedded in armor not only absorbed the wearer’s mana to activate magic but also absorbed and dispersed external impacts.

Of course, applying it so delicately in such a small device wasn’t possible with ordinary techniques. It showed how highly skilled the dwarf who made it was.

The dwarf, watching Osval's struggle for a while, suddenly shouted.

"Stop! What are you doing? It’s not going to work! If you keep going, you’ll break it!"

"Tsk! But you said I have three tries!"

In his hurry, Osval jammed the rod in randomly. But he failed in the remaining two attempts as well.

Looking sullen, Osval returned to his seat. He had only lost one gold for nothing.

The other mercenaries clicked their tongues as if they had expected it.

Ghislain then asked Julien.

"Do you want to try?"

"No, I don’t know anything about that stuff."

He asked Kyle, Deneb, and Ereneth as well, but they all shook their heads. The other mercenaries were the same.

Such a difficult task wasn’t something anyone could just attempt.

At that moment, an unexpected person stepped forward.

"Not to brag, but… I graduated top of my class at the Imperial Academy."

Lionel swept back his hair. It was obviously a bragging gesture.

Still, he was a talented man skilled in both academics and martial arts. He had a background that justified his confidence.

Lionel boldly stepped forward and picked up the device. Then the dwarf shouted urgently.

"Hey! Pay first!"

Lionel paused for a moment, then reached out to Ghislain and said,

"Give me one gold."

"Alright."

Lionel didn’t have any money either. Ever since he became the youngest member, he had turned over all his remaining funds to the mercenary corps.

Besides, it had been Ghislain, not him, who received a hefty travel fund from the Pope in the first place.

Anyway, after paying, Lionel carefully examined the device. His gaze was sharp.

"Hmm, I see."

He discovered a certain pattern. The structure of the device began to unfold like a puzzle in his mind.

His eyes sparkled for a moment as he confidently inserted the rod into the device.

Click.

The rod fit perfectly, making a crisp sound from the device.

Lionel closed his eyes and ran his hand through his hair once more.

"Heh. First attempt, success."

At that moment, exclamations burst out around him.

"Wow, it went in!"

"Did he really get it right?"

"If you know the solution, can’t you just get them all right?"

The onlookers became excited. Even passersby gathered, and the crowd grew larger.

With a confident expression, Lionel began to explain.

"This was solved by arranging the symmetry of the shapes. By using rotational symmetry and calculating the insertion sequence of the metal rods based on the golden ratio..."

"He sure talks a lot for someone who looks so serious."

"..."

At the dwarf's criticism, Lionel’s lips twitched. He was a bit offended but decided to ignore it.

Certainly, since joining the Julien Mercenary Corps, his tendency to insist on saving face had weakened a lot.

Suppressing his anger, Lionel focused again. He inserted the rod according to his calculations.

Thunk.

"One failure!"

'...What? My calculations should have been perfect.'

Lionel panicked. But he soon collected himself and tried again.

More carefully this time, sharpening the senses in his fingertips…

Thunk.

"Two failures!"

The dwarf's shout was loud and irritating. Even the dwarves watching nearby couldn't hold back their laughter.

Cold sweat dripped down Lionel’s back. His hands began to tremble.

Seeing this, the dwarf gave a deep sneer.

'Stupid humans. You’ll never solve this.'

In truth, it wasn’t enough to simply find the pattern of numbers and symbols. You also had to know the exact weight of the metal rods.

Only then could you find the proper rule.

But there was no way to precisely measure the weight of the rods here. No matter how sensitive one’s touch was, at best they could only sense that there was a slight difference.

'How can you find the rule and calculate it without knowing the exact weight?'

In the end, this was practically a scam set up by the dwarf.

The only one who knew the exact weight of the metal rods was the dwarf.

Thunk.

In the end, Lionel failed on his third attempt.

"Three failures! You're done!"

Lionel turned away gloomily, his shoulders drooping.

After all his boasting, he had ended up embarrassing himself again.

His self-esteem was dropping more and more.

With an arrogant expression, the dwarf shouted proudly.

"Anyone else wants to try? Huh? Is it too difficult for human brains? Is this hard?"

At the dwarf's provocation, people frowned in displeasure. But no one dared to step forward. It was simply too difficult to solve.

Elves, in particular, had traditionally bad relations with the dwarven race.

Because of that, Ereneth, wearing a frustrated expression, flinched several times as if she wanted to step forward.

Seeing her, Ghislain asked,

"Do you want to try?"

"...No."

Spirits moved with the heart, not calculations.

Ereneth forced herself to rationalize like that and turned her head away.

The dwarf sneered again as he looked at them.

"If there’s no one else, that’s it for today’s business. Who knew everyone would be this dumb."

"But there’s still one left."

Ghislain stepped forward. The dwarf handed him the device with a confident smile.

Then he deliberately raised his voice to the surrounding crowd.

"Today, this fellow will be the last one! Got it? If you want to try again, come back at the same time tomorrow! Spread the word!"

Another dwarf beside him was busy gathering the pile of money, thinking Ghislain would fail anyway.

While they busily tidied up, Ghislain silently stared at the device.

Inside his consciousness, Astion spoke.

"Ghislain, let’s analyze the structure first and find the pattern. Since the dwarf succeeded, there must be some hidden condition. So, let’s take it slow..."

'I don’t know about any of that.'

"What are you talking about! Then what are you going to do!"

"Like this."

Suddenly, Ghislain grabbed a metal rod and forcefully shoved it into the device.

Crash!

For a moment, the surroundings fell into complete silence, as if frozen.

The area around where the rod was inserted had caved in under the strong impact.

The dwarf stared at it with a dumbfounded expression.

"Uh, uh... W-wait. You, you…"

Ignoring him, Ghislain inserted the second rod.

Crackle!

This time, sparks flew as the area around the hole melted. Even the Runestone couldn’t withstand such force.

Everyone watched the scene in stunned silence, mouths agape.

Ghislain silently inserted another rod.

Crash!

Crack!

Smash!

The rods were driven in violently, without any sequence or rule, as if hammering nails.

The device grew more and more dented, broken, and deformed into something hideous.

Unlike how the dwarf had done it so neatly, this was clearly a mess to anyone watching.

But the dwarf had said brute force wouldn’t work. Everyone had seen Osval fail.

And even if someone tried brute force, the device was supposed to explode. Yet it hadn’t exploded.

It was merely becoming a wreck.

Crash! Crack!

Eventually, all seven rods were inserted into the device.

Now the device looked tattered, like a pile of scrap metal.

Grinning, Ghislain held out the wrecked device to the dwarf.

"All done, right? Success."

"H-how? W-who are you?"

The dwarf stammered, unable to speak properly, drooling slightly.

Honestly, when these beggarly humans had shown up, he thought it was laughable.

He was certain that such fools would never be able to solve this intricate device.

In fact, there was a bit of trickery involved.

Of course, he had made sure to prepare against fools who might try brute force.

'Even a Transcendent would have failed.'

The dwarf wasn’t stupid.

He knew that if a Transcendent or someone of comparable strength tried to force it, they might be able to insert the rods.

So, he had designed it to explode if they were inserted incorrectly. Without knowing the delicate internal structure, even a Transcendent couldn’t prevent the explosion.

But now...

'Why?! Why isn’t it exploding?!'

The device had merely turned into scrap. Something unthinkable was happening right before his eyes.

"How on earth did you do that! This requires solving the correct pattern to insert them!"

"When your body’s strong, your brain has an easier time."

The bizarre statement brought silence once again.

Only Osval shouted out with an emotional expression.

"Of course! It wasn’t my brain that was bad, it was my body! You wretched body!"

The dwarf frantically tried to snatch the device from Ghislain’s hand, but Ghislain dodged slightly and said,

"What? Trying to destroy the evidence? Why don’t you just admit it?"

"I-I can’t admit it! You didn’t solve it properly!"

"You just had to insert the rods, right? I did exactly that."

"That’s absurd!"

"What’s absurd? That was the condition. You said brute force wouldn’t work, and that it would explode if I tried. But it didn’t, did it?"

"W-well, that’s true, but..."

The dwarf was about to go crazy.

If he admitted this twisted logic, it meant his defeat. If he didn’t admit it, it meant his craftsmanship was flawed.

It wouldn’t be too difficult to flatly say it wasn’t a success. Even dwarves weren’t always perfect. As a craftsman, sometimes pride had to be set aside.

But doing so here and now was difficult.

"Ugh! Keep your promise!"

"If you won’t, give us back all our money!"

"You’re just a scammer! We’ll report you!"

"He did exactly what you said, so why won’t you admit it!"

Voices of criticism erupted around him.

Honestly, the onlookers didn’t care what method Ghislain had used. They simply enjoyed seeing the annoying dwarf flustered.

Even the mercenaries joined in, jeering, and more people gathered around.

The dwarf backed away with a pale face.

'W-where did this lunatic come from...'

The atmosphere had grown dangerous. If this continued, he might really be labeled a scammer.

Even though, in truth, there was a bit of scamming involved.

There were too many witnesses. And that strange man with his bizarre strength didn’t look like he would back down easily.

You don’t deal with madmen. Avoiding them is best. The wise dwarf knew this well.

Determined to end this quickly, he stammered,

"A-alright. Anyway, you didn’t fail, so I’ll accept it. Here, take your 100 gold."

Trying to appear calm, the dwarf handed over 100 gold coins.

'There aren’t many like him anyway. I can easily earn the money back from dumb humans.'

He tried to reassure himself, but Ghislain shook his head.

"I don’t need the money."

"What? Why? Then what do you want? Did you just come to show off your strength?"

Grinning, Ghislain pointed to the sword hanging in the back.

"I’ll take that sword."

No one present knew anything about that sword. They all thought it was just ordinary scrap metal.

Only Ghislain saw through the sword’s true value.

He recognized the true worth of 'Gramdyr'.

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