ACT 4: The Bellows Pumping in Vain
It’s often said that children take after their parents. In the Wolf Clan, much like the patriarch who led it, there were many whose outward appearance did not seem to match their rank and status.
One could say that Ingrid was a prime example of this.
Ingrid was a young girl, with tan skin that suggested the blood of the southern peoples ran strong in her family, and unruly red hair that tended to stick out to the sides. Her slightly upturned and strong-willed eyes were somewhat reminiscent of a cat.
The clothes she wore were simple, and often visibly dirty in places.
At first glance, she looked for all the world like a girl from town who had lost her way and accidentally wandered into the palace, but Ingrid was seventh-ranked in the Wolf Clan and one of its top officers, a person of undeniable rank and standing.
Indeed, she had played a central role in bringing about the Wolf Clan’s many victories and immense rise to prosperity, and so her reputation preceded her even among the many other exalted and heroic figures in the clan. Even those technically above her in rank, such as the second-in-command and the assistant to the second, treated her with a certain deference.
“Hey... what are you doing here huddled up under the kotatsu?” Ingrid demanded.
Although all of those factors didn’t exactly justify it, this girl Ingrid took a strong tone with everyone, even her patriarch, that would be considered quite insolent. But everyone passed it off with a wry smile and tacit acceptance.
Still, it would be one thing if her sworn father were a hopeless and feebleminded fool, but this patriarch was the hero held in esteem as the greatest ruler in Wolf Clan history.
“You certainly look like you’re sitting pretty, you jerk,” she snapped.
In fact, it seemed she was perhaps more arrogant and bossy with the patriarch than with anyone else.
“Oh, hey, Ingrid. This thing really came out well. You want to sit down and join us?” As for Yuuto, the patriarch in question, he didn’t seem to pay it any particular notice. He responded to Ingrid with a casual greeting and an easygoing tone.
Hearing this, Ingrid’s disgruntled scowl grew more intense. “Judging by that, it looks like you really did forget.”
“Huh? Forget what?”
“Ohhh... okay, then...”
“Gah! Ow-ow—hey! You can’t just grind your fists on a person’s temples like that!”
“Not another word out of you!”
“Gwaahhh! Y-you little... I am your patriarch, you know!”
“Hmph, like I give a damn.”
“Wai— no, seriously, that hurts! That hurts! Stop!”
“Truly, the two of you are so wonderfully close.” Just next to them, Yuuto’s adjutant Felicia continued calmly sipping her tea, as if completely detached from the situation.
“Wait, now hold on, Felicia!” Yuuto protested. “How can you look at what’s going on here and get that sort of impression?!”
“Th-that’s right!” Ingrid exclaimed. “Felicia, are your eyes messed up or something?!”
“Messed up, you say...?”
Felicia paused and took a moment to once again look the two over — Ingrid with both of her fists pressed into both sides of Yuuto’s temples, Yuuto grabbing at Ingrid’s wrists with a desperate and pained expression — and giggled.
“Tee hee, but whatever you might say, that is just what it looks like.”
“Are you sure your eyes are okay, Felicia?!”
“Oh, yes, and I have full confidence in my perception, if I do say so myself.” Felicia delivered her assertion with a sweet smile.
She had her proof in the fact that though Yuuto might look unhappy at first glance, she could tell he was also somewhat enjoying himself. The two of them might not see it themselves, but an observer like Felicia could tell that they were giving each other grief in an intimate way that only close friends could. Thus, she had determined it would be uncouth to interfere.
It was a decision that showed her ability to grasp the true state of her master’s heart, a shining example of what a competent adjutant should be.
Until about half a year prior, she had often admonished Ingrid for the way she spoke and acted towards Yuuto, but recently that had stopped completely.
That was in large part because originally, those warnings had been intended to make sure Ingrid’s manner towards him did not damage his dignity and ability to command respect as a new ruler. Now that he had obtained massive support from the people as their lord and hero, Felicia had that much less reason to be concerned.
“Ngh...! Ahh, whatever,” Ingrid muttered. “I don’t really care anymore. I’ll let you off easy this time.”
Unable to withstand Felicia’s warm, admiring gaze any longer, Ingrid made a rushed excuse and let Yuuto go.
Finally released from Ingrid’s fists, Yuuto rubbed his temples and looked up at her quizzically. “Let me off...? Come on, what did I even do?”
“Who was it that came begging me to spend today teaching him how to make glass ornaments?”
“Huh?! ...Oh, crap, that was today?!”
“Yeah, it was! And I’ve been waiting for you to show up since this morning, while you sat here all warm lounging in your damn kotatsu!”
“Urk... I-I’m sorry, Ingrid...” Yuuto hung his head with shame and apologized.
He hadn’t exactly been lounging around when she’d arrived just now, but the fact remained that he had broken his promise to her.
And Ingrid had a busy schedule of her own as the head of the Wolf Clan’s Mótsognir Workshop. He’d asked her to part with some of that valuable time for his sake, and then forgotten all about it. It was disgraceful, and he had no excuse.
“Oh? I was not aware you had such an appointment scheduled for today, though...” Puzzled, Felicia began to flip through the bundle of papers on the table.
At this, Yuuto hurriedly stood up from the kotatsu. Today was even colder than average, enough to have made him hunker over shivering when making his last trip to the toilet, but now he seemed unbothered by the cold at all.
“A-anyway, I really did promise her. S-so, I’ve got to go for a little bit. I’ll leave everything in your hands while I’m gone! And it’s the workshop, so I won’t need protection!”
“Huh?! Um, yes, all right.” Still puzzled and still sitting in the kotatsu, Felicia gave a somewhat absentminded response.
That was enough for Yuuto. “Okay, then. You heard her, Ingrid. Let’s go.”
“H-hey, what gives?!” Thrown off balance and unsure what was going on, Ingrid stood there blinking, but Yuuto pushed her from behind, and quickly made his way out of the office with her.
Ingrid’s current workshop had been constructed as an extension from the outer wall of the palace.
It was surrounded by a tall brick wall, outside of which members of the Múspell Special Forces Unit took turns guarding it ceaselessly.
The security was very strict. One could only enter from inside the palace grounds, by passing through two checkpoints manned by the elite Múspell guards. Even the famed “little fox” Kristina had given up on infiltrating the place.
In order to enter, a special permit signed by Yuuto (in clay tablet form only) was required; no one was allowed in without one, no matter who they might be. And upon leaving, one’s pockets and belongings were searched thoroughly.
Even powerful figures in the clan like Jörgen and Felicia were not excepted from these rules and procedures.
Additionally, once a person set foot into the place, they were considered to be under the jurisdiction and control of the Wolf Clan from that point forward.
These were severe measures, but absolutely necessary.
This workshop was chock full of items whose value dwarfed that of gold or silver, and it continued to produce even more new treasures all the time.
“Hey, there. Keep up the good work,” Yuuto said to the guards as he passed them.
“Good work,” Ingrid nodded.
But even with such a rigid system and strict security, Yuuto and Ingrid were two people whom it was possible to let in on sight. Of course, one was the man who actually issued the entry permits, and the other was the chief of the workshop herself, so it was only natural.
“Huh, it’s kinda quiet in here today.” As they walked through the entry passage, Yuuto tilted his head slightly in curiosity.
The last time he’d visited, the din from the hammers on metal and workers shouting had been loud enough to carry all the way back through the passageway to where he was now.
Ingrid sighed and gave an exasperated shrug of her shoulders. “Well, yeah, obviously. Today’s the day off for everyone at my workshop.”
“Ohhh, yeah... I think I remember you mentioning that now.”
Back when Yuuto had first told Ingrid he wanted to make something out of glass, she’d told him that he’d get in the way of her workers, so she would teach him when the workshop had a day off.
She was going through all the trouble to teach him personally on what was supposed to be her day off, and here he was, only just having remembered that fact after forgetting the appointment entirely and standing her up... On reflection, he’d really done wrong by her.
“Hey, I really am sorry,” he said. “For taking up your day off, and everything.”
“Ahh, forget it already. You’ve got a busy life too, right?”
As Yuuto tried to apologize to her again, Ingrid brushed him off with a confident grin, her lips parting to reveal the canine that stuck out a bit on one side, like a little fang.
Yuuto had failed to meet his obligation to her, but it seemed like she had decided to put that completely behind her. It was such a laid-back attitude, and a great relief for Yuuto.
“As always, you’ve got a ma— a majorly big-sister type of attitude. It’s really cool.” He’d almost slipped and said “manly,” but caught himself at the last second and chose a better compliment.
It was truly a wise decision on his part. After all, if you’re trying to put out a fire, the last thing you want to do is throw in more fuel.
“Yeah, well, I should, considering nowadays I’ve got about a hundred apprentices to look after. So? You gonna tell me why it is you wanted me to teach you how to work glass all of a sudden?”
Yuuto nodded. “Right, well, you know how Felicia and Sigrún’s birthday is coming up soon. So I thought I’d like to give them something handmade.”
“Oh, I see. So you came to me, and asked me to spend my day off here, for something like that?”
It bears repeating, but when you’re trying to put out a fire, the last thing you want to do is throw in more fuel.
“Wha—?!” Yuuto began to panic as Ingrid’s face grew visibly more upset by the second.
The air around them was cold and dry, but Yuuto thought he could see rippling waves of heat that seemed to come off of Ingrid. Perhaps it was only his imagination.
That said, Yuuto had to speak up, for those words had crossed a line for him. “Wh-what do you mean, ‘something like that?’ That’s uncalled for. Those two always do so much for me. This is important! Yeah, I get that it’s not directly related to you, and I am sorry for making you spend your day off helping me, but still.”
“Ngh... No, I...” Frustrated, Ingrid ran her fingers roughly through her hair. “...Look, I shouldn’t have said that. I was wrong, okay?”
She still didn’t look satisfied with the situation as it was, but even so, she was the type of girl who could give a clear apology when she felt she’d done something wrong. That was one of her charms.
“Still, why does that mean I have to spend my only time off helping you make a present for another girl? What did I do to deserve that, huh?”
Ingrid kept on muttering to herself under her breath, too quiet for Yuuto to hear, but it was clear that this situation had crossed a line for her, as well.
“Ah, kinda feels like it’s been a long time since I got to do this kind of work,” Yuuto said, with a nostalgic look in his eyes, and jammed his shovel into the huge pile of black rocks. He then lifted up a shovelful and heaved it into the blazing brick furnace.
Though the procedure differed slightly, he’d spent countless hours on end doing this kind of work in order to refine iron, back in the days before becoming the patriarch.
Perhaps the winter season had something to do with it, but the hot air blowing against him felt comforting.
Incidentally, the building they were currently using, Ingrid’s third official workshop, was constructed similar to a square pavilion, with four big pillars supporting the roof and thin wooden walls made out of sliding wood panels. The wood panel walls could be slid open or even removed entirely, and right now, two of the sides were removed, so there was proper air ventilation for running the furnace.
Of course, the workshop grounds were surrounded by the aforementioned high defensive walls, so the site didn’t exactly have great airflow, either. It was just fine during the winter, but apparently a real nightmare in the summer.
Thump, thump, thump!
Next to Yuuto, Ingrid was keeping a close watch on the strength and color of the flame in a second furnace, steadily pumping the bellows with her foot.
In total silence.
With a strangely excessive amount of force.
As if she were stomping on the face of her worst enemy.
Yuuto was adding fuel to the furnace which would be used for processing and treating the glass, while Ingrid was monitoring the glass melting furnace — the crucible.
A young apprentice craftsman had been manning the melting furnace until a few moments ago, and Ingrid had taken over.
In order to create good quality glass, one needed to melt it thoroughly for a long period of time, at a steady 1,400 degrees Celsius. Because of that, this furnace was constantly manned by the workshop craftsmen in shifts, and apparently it had only been allowed to go cold once in the past half year.
“Ugh, I hate to say it, but I’ve gotten weaker,” Yuuto said, doing his best to strike up casual conversation. “Guess it really is bad for your strength if you don’t move your body every so often.”
In actuality, it was true; he could already feel his muscles starting to cry out. He was definitely going to be in for some muscle pain tomorrow.
If Ingrid were her usual self, she would probably respond with something like, “Yeah, obviously. What did you expect? You’re always stuck to your damn desk. Get some exercise once in a while. You’re gonna end up getting sick if you don’t.”
That was her style, with a harsh and pushy tone, but with considerate thoughts behind the words she gave him.
But right now Ingrid wasn’t responding. Still seemingly in a bad mood, she just kept stomping down on the bellows. She didn’t say a word.
“Haahh...” Wiping the sweat from his brow, Yuuto let out a long, despondent sigh.
It had been like this since the moment they’d entered the workshop.
The young apprentice who had been on shift until a few moments ago had also manned the glass furnace overnight, and so they’d sent him home, not wanting to wear him out any further. But thanks to that, the atmosphere had gotten pretty uncomfortable.
Almost certainly, the conversation they’d had in the passageway earlier was the cause. However, it wasn’t clear to Yuuto exactly what Ingrid was mad at him about.
He thought it was only right and natural to want to give something back to the people who had done so much for him, and Ingrid herself was the type of person who should have understood and respected that feeling of moral obligation.
For Yuuto, this situation just left him bewildered.
And, as it so happened, it was the very fact that he didn’t understand that was the most aggravating thing of all for Ingrid, and so he couldn’t do much about it.
That said, he knew this was also no kind of environment to be trying to create something in.
Making something by hand was an act in which the mental state of the craftsman was often borne out in the final product. Yuuto didn’t want to give the two girls presents that had been created in this uncomfortable, depressing mood.
“Hey, Ingrid.” Yuuto made up his mind, and called out to her seriously.
“What?” Ingrid gave a terse response. It seemed she wasn’t determined to go as far as ignoring him even if he called her by name.
She stepped off of the bellows for a moment, and picked up a shovel instead.
“Look, I know I did some things that upset you, and it was wrong of me. But please, stop acting like this.”
It’s not like you, was the next phrase that sprung to his mind, but he held his tongue.
Two years ago, he would have undoubtedly said it. In that sense, Yuuto had matured at least somewhat.
In particular, this was good because the shovel in Ingrid’s hands was a potentially dangerous weapon.
“Then tell me how I’m supposed to act, since you’ve got such an eloquent way with words,” Ingrid snapped, shoving the tip of the shovel into the pile of black rocks with a loud shiik! that seemed to perfectly represent her current feelings. It was violent, and a little frightening.
However, whether or not their glassmaking would turn out well or not hinged on Ingrid’s feelings. Yuuto couldn’t afford to back down here.
“Look, I really am sorry. Just, please.”
“Hmph!” Ingrid turned her head the other way.
Undiscouraged, Yuuto ran around to her other side and put both his hands together in a gesture of humility.
“Come on, I’m begging you. This sort of mood is horrible for both of us, right? Especially since it’s just the two of us right now.”
“Wha?!” Suddenly, Ingrid’s face turned completely red.
Yuuto flinched, thinking, Crap, did I say something dumb again and make her even angrier?!
“W-well, y-yeah, that’s true. With the two of us a-alone together, it’s rough if the mood is bad.” Ingrid let go of the shovel and placed her fingers together, awkwardly fidgeting while looking down.
Aha. So that’s it, Yuuto thought. She’s wanted to make up and move on this whole time, too. But she missed the right timing to do it and couldn’t bring herself to bring it up afterward. Heh heh, she’s always such a bashful girl.
Inwardly, Yuuto was grinning at Ingrid’s charming clumsiness, though in reality, he was completely off the mark.
With her head still facing down, Ingrid began muttering too quietly for Yuuto to hear, apparently talking to herself. “Yeah, that’s right, I went to the trouble of picking a holiday in the first place so my apprentices would be out and we could be alone together.”
It was a little bit frightening to watch.
Still, Yuuto knew that this sort of eccentricity was common enough among artists and creators.
In fact, Yuuto’s father had been like that. Suddenly, a new idea would fall upon him like a revelation, and he’d become completely absorbed in that and nothing else. At times like this, it was better for both parties to not try and prompt the person with conversation, but let them be.
Yuuto patiently watched Ingrid as she continued to mutter quietly to herself, nodding occasionally.
“He and I are both busy people,” she muttered, too quietly for him to hear. “We couldn’t often get a chance like this, even if we tried. I can’t let any more of this time go to waste. This idiot keeps treating me like a guy, so first things first, I’ve gotta get him to recognize and see me as a woman!”
Ingrid suddenly smacked her fist into the palm of her other hand. It would seem she had finished working through her thoughts, and returned to the real world.
“S-still, you know what?” she said out loud to Yuuto. “H-hearing you say ‘just the two of us’ like that, it’s kind of embarrassing!”
Ingrid fanned her face with her hands while saying this, but something about that and her tone seemed a bit unnatural and forced. Especially the way she put extra emphasis on the words “just the two of us.”
By contrast, Yuuto’s response was completely nonchalant. “Really? I’m actually pretty glad it’s just the two of us alone.”
“Whaaah?!” Ingrid’s already-red face flushed an even brighter shade. “Wh-what d-did you just say...?” She inquired in a stammering voice.
She was acting very strange, one hand clutched to her chest as if she were having trouble breathing. But her eyes were locked onto Yuuto with a passionate stare that seemed to be trying to drill the answer out of him.
Something about this abnormal state of hers made Yuuto pull back a bit, but he still answered her. “I mean, I can’t afford to show off how bad I am at this stuff in front of your apprentices, right? I’m the patriarch.”
“...Right, right. Of course that’s what it is. I figured as much.”
“Oh, that and there’s also, you know. I really can’t afford to let them see you chewing me out like a lame novice, either.”
“Hmph, must be tough for the great Lord Patriarch, always having to think about keeping up his image.” With that bit of sarcasm, Ingrid once again turned away from Yuuto.
She reached for the shovel again, and began to lift a full scoop of black rocks towards the glass furnace.
Visibly upset, she once again began muttering inaudibly to herself, with her back turned to Yuuto. “Argh, I got all nervous and excited for nothing. That’s how he always is, I know that. He really doesn’t think anything of me.”
Yuuto spoke to her again, though, in his typical unassuming and casual manner. “But thinking about it, now that I’m the patriarch, you’re the only one left still willing to be strict and yell at me. Just you. Thank you, Ingrid.”
“Whewat?! What do you—?!” Shouting with surprise, Ingrid whirled around to face him. Because she’d given up hope once, she was completely taken off guard.
Their eyes met.
In that instant, Ingrid’s face was a mix of both surprise and a beautifully sweet look of expectation, yearning. It would be appropriate to say it was like a flower in the midst of blooming.
For the first time since he stepped foot in the workshop, Yuuto looked at her and his expression grew flustered—
“Gaaaghhh!”
—and cried out in anguish as a shower of hard black rocks slammed into him.
Of course, if one spins around quickly with a shovel full of rocks in hand, such an outcome is natural.
“Uugh... That’s bruised, all right.” Loosening the protective cloth wrapped around his midriff, Yuuto grimaced as he inspected the damage.
By Yggdrasil standards, Yuuto was still on the weaker side of the scale, but he did plenty of walking every day, and got in a share of training with the sword when he could. His abdominal muscles were tight and well defined.
“S-sorry about that.” Ingrid seemed pretty guilty about the incident, but Yuuto dismissed it with a wave.
“It’s fine, it’s fine. Even monkeys fall from trees.”
“Are you calling me a monkey?! Ahh, whatever, I guess I get your meaning.”
“Ah, sorry,” said Yuuto. “The only other saying that came to mind was ‘Even Kōbō Daishi’s handwriting contains mistakes,’ and I’m pretty sure that one definitely would have gotten lost in translation.”
“Huh. Well, in either case, it’s a small mercy none of it hit you in the face. Sigrún and Felicia would have seriously killed me.”
“Nah, even those two wouldn’t get that angry over something like this.”
“Yeah, let’s hope. Those two are so fiercely devoted when it comes to you, sometimes it’s downright scary.”
“Ha ha ha.” Yuuto laughed dryly, but soon grew serious again. “But you know, for someone like me, that’s something to be incredibly grateful for. That’s why I at least wanted to give something back to them for their birthday.”
“Hey, don’t talk like you’re worthless. That’s disrespectful to their feelings. And you know their devotion to you can make them downright scary sometimes.” Ingrid rephrased her earlier line, smirking.
There was no longer any ill feeling between Yuuto and Ingrid regarding making the presents for the other two girls, at least.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Yuuto said.
In the end, Yuuto still wondered why Ingrid had been upset with him, but he decided it was better to let sleeping dogs lie at this point.
“All right, then,” Ingrid said. “Hm, looks like it just needs a little bit more.”
Closely watching the fire in the glass processing furnace, Ingrid pumped the foot bellows and sent in more air.
Seeing the utterly serious, focused look in Ingrid’s eyes made Yuuto’s pulse quicken. The sight of a person genuinely applying themselves to a work with all of their mind and spirit can, at times, be more beautiful and alluring than if they were covered in the most gorgeous garments.
Of course, that sort of thing was way too embarrassing to say out loud.
So instead, Yuuto went with the next question that had popped into his head. “Oh, yeah. How is the coke working out as fuel?”
This was the name for the black rocks the two of them had been shoveling into the furnaces, a fuel made by baking coal in the absence of air to refine it.
Humans had a long history with coal, with records of it being used in forges in ancient Greece as far back as 315 B.C. There was archaeological evidence of it being used in ancient China during around the same era, as well.
However, coal’s use had remained rather limited for a long time, with wood-based fuels remaining most common until closer to the modern day. Coal’s utilization and popularity had finally exploded during the British Industrial Revolution in the 18th century.
“It’s working pretty well,” Ingrid said. “It’s got so much more heat potential that I was hesitant at first, though.”
“All right. In that case, let’s do our best to switch to using that for our glass manufacturing where we can. We’re also refining iron, so we shouldn’t rely too heavily on wood fuels if we can help it.”
Yuuto sat and stared at the furnace, his chin propped up on one hand.
The production of glass required very large amounts of fuel.
From ancient times until the Middle Ages, workshops for producing glass had been built in the middle of forests, which were then completely exhausted of their trees for fuel. Production would then move to a different section of forest and continue this pattern, even moving across all the forested areas of a region.
Even the Japanese tatara-style furnaces the Wolf Clan used needed to a great amount of wood for fuel. The Wolf Clan was blessed with plentiful woodlands in their territory, but even with that, it was easy to imagine that they could end up depleting all those resources quickly.
Fortunately, back when Yuuto had made his hot springs trip to Mount Surtsey, he had discovered a layer of coal (called a coal bed) within one of the rifts in the earth caused by the active fault in the area. He had immediately decided that it should be mined and put to use.
At the time, Ingrid had gotten exasperated and yelled at him, “We came all this way here so you can relax! Don’t you damn start trying to work again now!”
Well, back in the present, that part hadn’t changed.
“Oh, good grief, stop trying to find ways to think about your patriarch work every damn second!” she snapped. “We’re here right now to make birthday presents, aren’t we?”
Then she lightly poked him on the head with her fist.
For some reason, it was a comforting feeling.
“Right. Okay then, guide me if you need to, scold me if you need to. I’m in your hands. Let’s do this together, chief!” Yuuto grinned, energetically addressing his teacher in the same way her apprentices would.
“Chief! If we’re making glass, why did you give me this paper and reed pen?” Yuuto found himself raising his hand and voicing his discontent.
Even though he’d come here to make and work glass, he had been sat down at a desk with pen and paper as if he was back in his office. And he was far away from the furnace, so with the removed walls of the workshop, it was terribly freezing! That combination was enough to make him want to start asking questions about this setup.
“Stuuupid,” Ingrid sneered. “First thing you’ve gotta do is decide exactly what you want to make, or we’ve got nothing to start with.”
“Ohhh...”
Yuuto had a vague idea in his head of what he wanted to make. However, glasswork wasn’t easy enough that you could simply make what you wanted after a day or two.
Practically speaking, even for a genius like Ingrid, it took at least a month of hard work before she could produce something good enough to sell. For her apprentices, it took over half a year.
In other words, without Ingrid’s help every step of the way, there was no way Yuuto would be able to create what he wanted. So, she certainly needed detailed information on exactly what it was he wanted to make.
“I’ve got some sample pieces laid out over there,” Ingrid said. “Use them as a guide, imagine what you want to make, and draw it on the paper.”
“Hmm... okay, got it!”
There was something similar to the image in his mind among the samples, so he was able to smoothly draw up an illustration of his ideas on the paper.
Yuuto wasn’t blessed with the amount of natural genius that his biological father and Ingrid had, but he was still fairly skilled with his hands. His illustration was pretty finely detailed.
“This one’s for Felicia, and this is the one for Rún,” he said, pointing at the paper.
“Hmm, so it’ll be a single-flower vase for Felicia. And for Sigrún... what is this? That thing won’t hold water, you know?” Ingrid furrowed her brow as she studied the drawing.
Yuuto was pleased with himself that he managed to put that confused expression on her face. The corner of his mouth twitched up as he explained.
“It’s a type of ornament called a wind chime. Well, in my homeland, we call glass ones like these a furin, meaning ‘wind bell.’ This stick-shaped part catches the wind and taps the bell... and it makes this really soft, pretty ringing tone.”
Yuuto just couldn’t picture giving Sigrún a glass flower vase or cup; they didn’t match her personality well. When the idea for the wind chime had struck him, he’d clenched his fists in triumph.
Normally it was a seasonal decoration for the summer months in Japan, but something about the clear and beautiful sound it made seemed to match Sigrún well.
Ingrid nodded, impressed. “Huh. I see. Pretty interesting. I bet the nobles from Glaðsheimr would line up in droves to buy this thing.”
“Hey, you got on my case for thinking about work, so don’t you go thinking about business plans right now!”
“Tch, shut up. It’s fine if I do it.” Ingrid tossed that remark over her shoulder, then continued to study the drawing, muttering to herself. “If I take that and... then do that with... hrm...”
“Uhh, I pretty much just drew what was in my mind without thinking too much about it, but do you think we can make it?”
“Yeah, no problem. All right, the furnace is about ready, too. Let’s get to work making them.”
“So for the glassblowing method, the main tool we’ll be using is this iron blowpipe.” Ingrid pulled the long iron rod from out of its place in a tall, water-filled bucket, and handed it to Yuuto. It was about as thick as his thumb and very long, about as long as Ephelia or the Claw Clan twins were tall.
“You blow in this end, where it’s narrower. The other end’s where we’ll stick the molten glass, and this end, we’ll be sticking into the furnace. You’ll notice it’s all black.” Ingrid pointed to the way the metal was charred.
“Uh huh, okay,” Yuuto nodded.
“It gets pretty hot, so hold it as close to the end as you can.”
“Got it.”
“And use your fingers to keep the blowpipe turning. Don’t stop.”
“Hm, like this?” Yuuto tried rotating the pipe with his thumbs and forefingers.
Ingrid gave a single nod in the affirmative. “Mm-hm, like that. All right, I’m gonna go check the crucible.”
Ingrid gestured with her thumb toward the melting furnace filled with burning coke and the fired clay container inside containing the raw glass — the crucible — and briskly walked over to it.
Using a large, charred-black set of long iron tweezers, she opened the lid of the crucible and peered in through the round hole at the molten glass inside, which gave off a brightly shining orange color.
“Good, it’s ready. All right, take the blowpipe and stick it into the hole, then turn it to gather a bit of glass around the tip. Keep it spinning just like I told you, okay?”
“Aye-aye!”
“Looking good, looking good... er, I mean, yeah, that’s about right. Okay, next, bring that over to the processing furnace.”
“G-got it.” Somewhat gingerly, Yuuto pulled the blowpipe from the first furnace and carried it over to the one next to it. This was the furnace he’d lit and shoveled coke into himself to set the flame.
“Come on now, you already forgot to keep it turning.” Closing the lid to the crucible, Ingrid scolded Yuuto. She was grinning a bit impishly too, like she was enjoying it.
“Oh...!” Panicking, Yuuto started rotating the blowpipe again, but the seed of glass on the end had already started to be pulled downward by gravity, and its once-clean round outline had grown oblong and warped.
“O-oh crap, did I screw it up?”
“Ha ha ha, well, don’t worry, it happens to everyone at first. Give it here.”
Ingrid snatched the blowpipe from Yuuto’s hands, and kept it spinning while inserting it into the processing furnace. Next she set it against the top of the sheet of iron covering a table next to the furnace, and deftly spun the rod, changing its angle against the iron sheet with slight movements. She then put it back in the processing furnace to reheat, then spun it against the iron sheet again, and repeated this process several times.
“See, there you go, nice and rounded,” she said.
“Oooh...” Yuuto was so impressed that he unwittingly found himself applauding.
To him, Ingrid’s skilled motions already looked like those of a total master of the craft. This despite the fact that she’d only been trying out glassworking for less than half a year.
Those hands of hers had the “gift,” and there was no other way to describe it. It was almost magical.
Even when it came to producing Japanese-style swords like the nihontou, Ingrid had quickly picked up all of the necessary knowledge and techniques from Yuuto while working with him, and now her skill at making them had already far surpassed his.
For Yuuto, who had spent so much time helping his father with that work since he was an elementary schooler, this really brought home how much impact a difference in natural talent could make.
“Okay, we’re going to blow air into the glass now,” Ingrid directed. “Go on, blow. As hard as you can.”
“Pfff—!”
“Not hard enough. Look, it’s not expanding at all.”
“Phfff!!”
“Not enough! Do it harder! Harder!” Ingrid yelled.
Seriously?! Yuuto couldn’t keep his inner thoughts from showing on his face.
He’d been blowing with all his strength, as far as he could tell. But the blob of glass hadn’t swelled up one bit.
“Ugh, you really are slow in the head, you know that?” Ingrid groaned. “You’re the first one I’ve seen who couldn’t do this part right.”
“Ngh...”
That’s because the only people who get to work with you are apprentices whose talent you’ve already personally judged and found worthy, Miss Natural Genius... Yuuto thought resentfully, but he stayed quiet and kept that bit of backtalk firmly in his head. He felt like if he said it aloud, it would only make him sound pathetic.
“Here, give it to me again for a sec.” Ingrid took the blowpipe away from him again, and blew into it as a demonstration.
She didn’t appear to be blowing all that hard. However, the glass blob was clearly swelling as a bubble of air formed inside it.
“That’s how you do it.”
Yuuto wasn’t finding this all that enjoyable. But there was nothing he had any right to complain about with what she was doing. So, instead...
“Hey, Ingrid?”
“Hm?”
“You shouldn’t do that kind of thing so easily, okay?”
“Huh?”
“I mean, you know I put my lips on that blowpipe, too.”
“Ghh!” Ingrid’s breath caught in her throat, and for the third time that day, her face turned a bright shade of red. However, since she was standing right next to the furnace, it only looked to Yuuto like she was catching the light and heat from the flames inside it.
“You’re technically a girl, you know,” Yuuto added.
“Technically?! What the hell do you mean, technically?!”
“I’m just worried about you as your friend.”
“As my friend, huh...”
“I really do think of you as an important friend, and partner. We make the best team! So I don’t really care about it, but...”
Ingrid looked down, and muttered under her breath, “I want you to care about it.”
Yuuto continued, unable to hear her. “But there might be people who see it and get the wrong idea in their heads.”
“Get that idea yourself,” Ingrid muttered.
“Stuff like that, it’s... you know, you should only do that with the person you like, okay?”
Ingrid muttered more fiercely than ever, “Yeah, and I’ve only done it with you...!”
“Hey, what the hell, Ingrid? Why are you just muttering under your breath?” Yuuto asked. “Whatever it is, say it to my face. And if you can’t, that doesn’t give you an excuse to act that way.”
The two of them were the same age, but Yuuto was admonishing her in the way an older brother might.
Ingrid took a deep breath, then motioned with her finger for him to come closer.
There was plenty of background noise from the roaring flames in the furnaces. Perhaps it was only that he hadn’t heard her well because of that noise, and she had just been speaking more softly. If so, then he’d been the rude one for having misunderstood her attitude. With that thought in mind, Yuuto moved closer to her.
Carelessly.
As soon as he was within her reach, Ingrid grabbed him by the ear and pulled him close, and screamed right into his ear.
“I said, DON’T WORRY, BECAUSE THERE’S NO ONE IN MY WORKSHOP AS TACTLESS AND STUPID AS YOU!!”
Spinning the iron blowpipe end in the furnace, Ingrid growled to herself furiously. “That bastard. I already knew it, but he really doesn’t think of me as a woman at all!”
Yuuto was sitting in a stool at a workbench some distance away. That was where they’d be using handheld iron tools like scraping spatulas and long, chopstick-like tongs to shape the glass in finer detail. That wasn’t something a beginner could be trusted with, however, so for now she was just letting Yuuto get experience handling the tools.
Of course, none of that really mattered to Ingrid right now.
“It looks like at least in his head he gets that I’m a girl, but... ‘technically,’ urggh. He seriously doesn’t see me as a potential romantic interest at all.”
She’d gotten so absorbed in the act of making glass together that she’d forgotten, but now that she thought about it carefully again, the whole point of her arranging for the two of them to be alone together had been so that she could get him to see her as a woman.
“I can see now, that bastard’s never gonna change his thinking if I only use half-measures. Th-this calls for more drastic measures.” Ingrid hardened her resolve. She would just have to put up with the embarrassment for a bit.
If she couldn’t do that much, their relationship would never progress one step further. She couldn’t afford to worry about details anymore.
Turning around, Ingrid called out to Yuuto and gestured with her chin to the work station. “All right, Yuuto. You see that special dark black paper over there?”
“Yeah, there’s a whole bunch of it stacked up.”
“Grab some of it, and hold it spread out in one hand.”
He obeyed. “Whoa, it’s soaking wet.”
“Yeah, ’cause if it weren’t, you’d get burned.”
Ingrid carefully lowered the end of the blowpipe, setting the red-hot glass on top of the thick wet paper. Continuing to rotate the blowpipe with her right hand, she placed her left hand under the paper, overtop Yuuto’s.
She squeezed Yuuto’s hand with her own, guiding it to shape the glass with the paper.
H-how’s that?!
“Ohh! Cool, I think sparks flew off the glass just now!”
Dammit! He’s not paying attention at all!
However, even this result was within Ingrid’s expectations. That had just been a warm-up. Next it was time for the real deal.
“Okay, now I gather another layer of glass on the seed, and... All right, Yuuto, this time you’re going to hold the blowpipe and shape the glass at the same time.”
“Wh-whaat?! You think I can do that?! It seems super hard.”
“Some things you’ve just gotta learn by doing them. You know that much.”
“Y-yeah, you’re right!” At first Yuuto sounded a bit lacking in confidence, but at last he nodded firmly, the corners of his mouth pulling up in a grin.
There were the iron refining process, the rotary quern, the watermill, and of course the nihontou. In each case, in the beginning, the results had been horrible failures.
But Yuuto and Ingrid always worked together, through failure after failure, and through trial and error they always finally figured out how to make the project right.
Nothing ever went perfectly on the first attempt. But Yuuto understood that nothing worthwhile could be accomplished without taking that first, uncertain step.
“Do your best, Yuuto,” Ingrid said. “I know you can do it.”
“Aaall right, then! I’ll give it a shot!” With gusto, Yuuto took the blowpipe from Ingrid.
Nowadays, Yuuto’s tendency to be deliberate and farsighted was what stood out to people, but that was thanks to a certain traumatic incident and his experience ruling as patriarch afterward. At his core, Yuuto was actually a very passionate and excitable man, one who loved the act of making things.
With just a bit of a push, she’d ignited that passion in him.
Yuuto took a deep breath...
“Khh, come on!”
That said, passion alone couldn’t do much to help him on a task like this.
Even the apprentices trained in the workshop by Ingrid had so much passion for the work that they often ignored sleep and meals when they got absorbed in their tasks, and they still needed over half a year before they could make something good enough to sell.
For a beginner like Yuuto, however focused and careful he might be, the result was practically a foregone conclusion. The shape of the glass in his hands began to warp and break down before his eyes.
“Th-this is how you do it.” Ingrid reached over and grasped the blowpipe, demonstrating how to turn it. She did this over his shoulder, from right up against his back.
Ingrid’s chest was by no means small. Certainly, it wasn’t anywhere near the level of Felicia’s, but Ingrid was confident that it was at least average-sized or better. She pressed up to his back hard enough for her breasts to fully change shape against it.
Breasts were the part of the body that was the very symbol of womanhood, so Ingrid was certain that if she did this, Yuuto would have to start thinking of her as a woman. She peered at Yuuto’s face, looking for his reaction.
“L-like this?! Uuurgh! This is so hard. Ngh!” Yuuto’s face was the very picture of earnest focus on a singular task. He grunted and muttered to himself, completely absorbed in trying to properly shape the glass.
It seemed like he wasn’t even aware of the sensation against his back.
If he were Ingrid’s apprentice, she’d want to praise him to the stars for such magnificent concentration, but instead Ingrid lightly knocked him upside the head.
“Ow! What the hell was that for?!” Coming back to his senses, Yuuto started complaining.
Ingrid ignored him.
As far as she was concerned, he should be grateful she hadn’t used the hot glass on him like a branding iron.
“All riiight! We’re finished!” Yuuto hollered, thrusting both arms triumphantly toward the ceiling.
The design of Felicia’s flower vase was accented by bits of jade melted into the glass to create an ascending, pale green spiral, surrounded by tiny flakes of gold dust.
Sigrún’s wind chime had a bit of cobalt melted into its glass to create a flowing, deep blue pattern across its surface, surrounded by tiny flakes of silver dust.
The tiny glass clapper for the bell had been made separately, and was hollow through its center. This was accomplished by using an old glassmaking trick, whereby pushing together two pieces of still-forming glass creates a hole between them.
Gold and silver were quite rare and valuable in Yggdrasil, but Yuuto had decided to splurge and use them because it truly seemed to match the image of the two girls. Looking at the finished products, he was glad he’d done so.
“Both of them came out pretty well, huh?” he said.
“Heh, well, I did most of the work making them, so that should be no surprise.” Ingrid turned away and tossed out that remark with a scornful tone.
After her first few failures, she had continued to try various different ways to get Yuuto to notice her as a girl, but all of them had ended in vain, so the fact that she was irritated and sulking right now was only natural.
“Ugh... that’s true,” Yuuto admitted. “In that case, I guess it’d be more fair to call these your creation than mine.”
Yuuto’s shoulders slumped and his face fell, a complete 180 from his excitement a moment ago. He, of course, still didn’t have the slightest clue of the reason for Ingrid’s current attitude.
And as irritated as Ingrid was, she couldn’t ignore seeing someone actually feeling down about themselves like that. Despite herself, she was kind at heart.
“You idiot,” she said. “I was just messing with you. You were the one who came up with the design for both of those, including the shape and the surface patterns. You did your best to help make them, be it blowing air into the glass or trying to fine-tune the shape. You put your heart into this. That’s what’s most important, right?”
“...Yeah. I hope so, at least.” Yuuto nodded slowly, and glanced over at the kiln containing the two finished pieces.
Finished glassworks couldn’t be left exposed to the outside air right away, or they might crack from cooling too quickly. Instead, they were put into a special furnace set at a lower heat, and slowly and gradually cooled over time. Finishing the process would take several more days.
“Phew...! Well, good job to the both of us, then.” Ingrid gave a long stretch, and grabbed the front of her top, flapping it to try and let in the air and cool down.
She wouldn’t normally do this sort of thing, but the embarrassment and shame from her attempts at seduction had left her body unbearably flushed with heat. There was also the fact that she’d gotten much more relaxed around Yuuto.
However...
“Ingrid! What the hell are you doing?!” Yuuto exclaimed.
“Huh?”
Wondering what it was she’d done, Ingrid turned to face Yuuto, and found him looking strangely flustered and covering his eyes with his hands.
Incidentally, there was clearly an open gap between his fingers.
Ingrid got what was happening right away. “Hmm, what’s wrong? I thought you ‘didn’t really care,’ wasn’t that right?”
A mischievous grin spread wide across her face, and she slowly inched her way up to Yuuto. Naturally, she did so while leaning forward in a way that emphasized her cleavage.
“Y-yeah, I did, but that doesn’t mean...!” Red-faced, Yuuto attempted to argue back, but he was too flustered to find the words.
Yuuto had been completely focused on the task at hand while he was working, but it seemed that now that work was done, his attention was once again up for grabs.
“Hmm-hm-hmm! ?” Humming to herself, Ingrid grabbed Yuuto’s arm, and in a smooth motion wrapped her arms around it and leaned her body against his.
Naturally, doing so meant he could feel the sensation of her full, round chest pressing against his arm.
Under normal circumstances, Ingrid would never do something like this; her sense of shame would have gotten in the way. But everything she’d gone through today had worn out such senses, and right now she had nothing left to hold her back.
“Wh-what are you—”
“What gives?” she asked. “You and I are partners, right? So this sort of thing should be fine.”
As Yuuto devolved into more of a panic, Ingrid grew more satisfied, and thought to herself, It serves you right.
After failing to get a reaction from him despite everything she’d tried so far, her confidence in her appeal as a woman was on the verge of being shot to pieces. At the very least, making him lose his head like this would restore some of her self-confidence.
Now then, what should I do next—
“Ingrid!!” Yuuto burst out, grasping her by both shoulders. His grip was considerably strong.
C-crap! Fearing she’d gone too far, Ingrid braced herself.
He said, “There’s something I’ve always thought I should tell you, and I need to make it clear...”
“Ah...”
Those words sent a sweet sensation like pins and needles through her, and she felt the tension drain from her muscles.
Instead, her heart began to beat so fast that it hurt.
Does this mean... he also feels the same way toward me? We did spend almost half a year in each other’s constant company, after all.
But didn’t this guy already have a girl he liked back in his homeland?
Well, for a guy as great as him, I suppose there’s no need to restrict him to just one girl.
Various thoughts raced in circles through Ingrid’s mind in those few seconds. Even so, she already knew what response she wanted to give him.
And so, she made up her mind to ask him to tell her. “Wh-what is it?”
Yuuto’s lips slowly parted, and then he said, “You’re just way too careless about yourself.”
“...Huh?”
“Like, earlier you had no problem putting your mouth on the same thing I did.”
“Uh, er, that’s...”
“And now that I really think back on it, didn’t you end up pressing your chest and stuff up against me when we were working, too?”
“Y-yeah, and that’s because...”
“No, listen! You need to try to be more aware of the fact that you’re a girl!”
......
............
A furious heat burst out of Ingrid, like an intense explosion of steam.
“You, of all people...!”
Ingrid’s left foot slammed hard into the stone flooring. That power traveled up through her waist as it twisted forward, and into her clenched fist. She unleashed that power along with a scream that came from the depths of her soul.
“You’ve got no right to say that to meeeeee!!”
Ker-pow!
Ingrid poured everything into her fist — all of her body’s tension and recoil, all of the strength in her left arm, and all of the divine power granted to her by the rune Ívaldi, Birther of Blades — and that fist slammed square into Yuuto’s jaw.
Yuuto’s feet left the floor as her uppercut sent him two and a half meters into the air. It was a truly beautiful hit, the sort that would be a critical hit in an RPG.
“Hmph! I’m going to go fetch the next man for furnace duty!” Ingrid snarled. “In the meantime, you can just stay here and clean the place up!”
Sparing not a glance towards Yuuto incapacitated and sprawled out on the floor, Ingrid stamped her way out of the workshop with long, angry strides.
Even the elite Múspell guards shuddered and silently stepped out of her path when they saw her approaching, so intense and visible was the anger pouring off of her.
“Gah...! If you act like that, don’t expect anyone to wanna marry you!” Back in the empty workshop, Yuuto held a hand to his aching jaw and slowly staggered to his feet.
As he did, something nearby caught his eye.
It was a large bucket haphazardly filled with glass items. Each of them was cracked or broken in some way. They looked to be failures from different stages of the production process. The glass itself could be broken down and melted again into new pieces, so it was stored like this until it could be recycled.
Unexpectedly, a thought flashed across Yuuto’s mind.
“Hm, looks like I’m gonna need to get serious and lend her a hand myself.”
The next morning, Yuuto caught up with Ingrid heading down the passage leading to the workshop, and greeted her with a wide grin.
“Morning, Ingrid. Sure is nice weather this morning!”
Ingrid, however, only responded with an intense scowl, as if she were disgusted. She was clearly still in the foulest of moods, and hadn’t gotten over what had happened the day before.
She jerked her head to the side and refused to return his greeting, and tried to walk past him.
“Hey, hey, wait up.” Yuuto hurriedly tried to stop her by putting a hand on her shoulder.
“...Hmph!” Ingrid forcefully threw off his arm and kept moving.
It looked like her attitude was dire indeed.
Yuuto saw that things were heading in a poor direction, both from his position as a friend and from his position as patriarch of the clan.
Ingrid was an indispensable person to the future development of the Wolf Clan. If she grew so fed up with her patriarch that she were to leave, the loss to the clan would be incalculable.
So Yuuto didn’t give up, and ran around in front of Ingrid. “Look! Just hold up a second!”
He spread his arms and legs wide in the narrow hallway, completely intent on preventing her from going further.
Ingrid’s glower grew worse, but at last she gave a long sigh. “What is it? What do you want with me?”
“It seems like I made you mad yesterday. So I wanted to apologize for that, and—”
“Well, I already accepted that yesterday.” Ingrid waved a hand dismissively at Yuuto, with every indication that they were done talking here.
Indeed, yesterday Yuuto had gone to personally apologize to her before the day was out. However, Yuuto could tell by her attitude right now that she clearly still hadn’t forgiven him.
“No, I figured an apology with words alone would just be, you know...”
“Hmph, so you’re gonna try to buy my feelings, eh?” she snapped. “Ohh, this oughta be good. Of course, you’ve got something good enough to impress the world-famous Ingrid, I’m sure? Like a masterwork from the great Völundr of Glaðsheimr, or from the genius brothers Brokkr and Eitri of Miðgarðr.”
“You think there’s any way I could get something like that in a day?” Yuuto sighed and shook his head, his shoulders drooping.
Those were all names of master smiths and artisans said to be the greatest in all of Yggdrasil. That said, Yuuto didn’t doubt that the girl standing here in front of him was likely one or two levels of talent above every one of them.
And that was exactly why simply giving her something made by them was no guarantee she’d change her mood for the better. In fact, it might only serve to make her mad again.
“The most important thing is the heart put into it... right?” Yuuto held out his closed hand to Ingrid, and opened it in front of her eyes.
Resting in his palm was a round glass item, like a bead.
However, rather than a normal spherical shape, it was slightly flatter on the sides and had a sort of curved “tail” that was somewhat reminiscent of the shape of a firefly.
It was transparent in color, but perhaps because Yuuto had mixed various different impurities into the glass, when it caught the light, it sparkled with many different colors, one after the other.
“It’s called a magatama back where I come from, and... I made it myself.”
There was an ancient glasswork method that was still in use in the 21st century, known as lampworking. The concept of glass-making dated back to possibly as early as around 4,000 B.C., and during its early history, the lampworking method was used to make beads and other small, simple ornaments.
Yuuto had used a thin stick of glass from out of the pile of failed products, thin enough that he could melt it over the same type of iron brazier that was used to heat the air in the kotatsu. As the glass melted, he had poured it into a hollow clay mold, and then slowly cooled it overnight.
Because it was such a primitive method, even an amateur like Yuuto could make something reasonably decent with it.
“I also put a cord through it, so you can wear it around your neck.” Yuuto proudly pointed to the larger part of the magatama, where there was a small hole all the way through it. He’d used a very thin iron rod wrapped with a slip made from grass, pushed in and out of the glass while it was still very hot in order to pull open a hole in the center. “I know I shouldn’t be saying this right after I made you mad yesterday. But, you’ve just gotta think a little more about how you look. After all, uh, you know. You’re good-looking to begin with.”
Yuuto turned his head to look away as he spoke. He was too bashful to look her in the face while saying something like that.
“W-well, of course I can’t guarantee any results if you wear some cheap-quality thing I made, but you know!” he added.
He couldn’t help but throw in a self-deprecating joke, as well. If he didn’t, he was sure his face would catch fire from how hot it had become.
“...Hmph!” Ingrid sniffed, and quickly moved to snatch the item from Yuuto’s hand. But as her hand reached his, it stopped. She slowly and carefully took the magatama into her hands, clutching it gingerly. And, tying the cord behind her neck, she presented herself to him with a blushing, bashful look. “H-how do I look?”
“G-good. It looks good on you. Now you’re sure to be more popular!” Yuuto was still struck with a strange sense of embarrassment himself, and awkwardly gave Ingrid a thumbs-up.
For some reason, something felt weird and different between them. It was like the bashful girl in front of him was a different person from the one he thought he’d known, and it was throwing him off.
“You know, it’s not like I’m really interested in becoming popular, though.”
And yet, the words out of her mouth were still unromantic.
That attitude was such a total waste. As her sworn parent, Yuuto felt he needed to give her a bit more of a push.
“Oh, come on, now, don’t say that. You’re already at that age. You can’t afford to keep living your life just focused on making things, you—”
“It’s fine. That’s the kind of girl I am. I’m devoted to what I love.”
Grasping the magatama in her hand, Ingrid smiled. It was a bright, truly lively smile that showed off the little protruding canine that was one of her charm points.
“All right then, I guess it’s time for me to get on with the day’s work!”
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