When I felt that the metal was truly no longer reacting to the pressure, I knew my time was up and removed the blade from the grinder to check the edge. Sharp enough, good. It should stay that way unless subjected to extreme duress on the level of what went into processing it. Mord should be smart enough to avoid such likely lethal situations.

  And if she didn't and brought back a chipped solarium edge, I was going to have words with her. Maybe with a hammer in hand.

  A dose of [Quench] finished off the lance head and I admired its final form. I couldn't want to see it in action. But to bring it into battle, it obviously did need to be mounted onto a shaft to complete the polearm. There was a perfect material for it too, one I think was quite appropriate even. I just hoped Mord would think so too.

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  The dragon exhaled, then spun her practice lance to point at the doll. Her eyes narrowed in focus while Frie readied, shifting slightly to get into a brawler's stance. "Let's do this," Mord whispered to herself. "[Serpent Step]."

  She became a blur that Frie instantly reacted to by shielding their lower body with their arms. That had been a correct read, with the lance tip bouncing off the heavy gauntlets. But instead of trying to brute force it like a dragon, Mord was adapting as a lancer would. She wedge the tip into into a ridge in the armor and used her lance as a vaulting pole instead, flipping over Frie's head and facing their exposed backside.

  Her lance flicked free and she growled. "[Vein Ripper]." A flurry of blows rained down upon the doll as they tried to turn to defend against the assault. They were being worn down, each swipe and stab with the practice lance actually now chipping the worn terracotta armor away.

  But they were not out. Frie abruptly lunged forward to go for a bear hug, something that almost would have caught Mord. But [Serpent Speed]'s passive benefit allowed her to dance out the way just in time, even managing a flourishing strike to the helmet.

  One last push.

  The young woman watched intensely when the doll readied their fists, then charged in another attempted grab. At the very last moment, she flipped into the air, closing her eyes briefly as she read the air. Something that a dragon could do just as almost as breathing. Her hands gripped her lance tightly and the tip was leveled straight at the helmet, aiming right for one of the eye holes.

  "[Dragon Dive]!"

  Energy surged around her weapon and Mord descended, a hunter from above to deliver the killing blow.

  The helmet went flying upon impact, the string snapping.

  Frie stood very still as Mord landed right behind it, breathing heavily. Using skills in rapid succession could take a drain on one's body, but if it had been the final killing strike in a real fight, then it would be absolutely worth. And few could reasonably survive a lance being driven into their head, even undead ones.

  Frie turned around and with their gauntlet, gave a thumb's up. Kuch clapped as well, smiling. "Congratulations. You've beaten Frie. You might have a shot against that crimson dragon now. When would do you plan to leave? Right away?"

  Mord exhaled, then used her lance to snap the removed helmet up into the air. She caught it and offered it over Frie, giving a grin at the defeated doll. "When I'm ready to be me, I guess."

  "Try to time it to be when the snow melts outside. My gifts for you should be ready then." Kuch chuckled at the confused look given their way. "I promised you, didn't I? You beat Frie, then I'll give you as much support as I can. Meaning both weapons and armor, free of charge."

  "I...thanks." There as a bit of a pause before she awkwardly coughed. "So, um, does that also include food? I'm kind of hungry now."

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  Teodor entered the duke's office, where both the man and his daughter intensely studied a map of the city. Both turned to the heir of the duchy, looking hungry for any news he could bring. He didn't delay, speaking on the most urgent matter now. "The emperor has awoken, and is recovering well."

  All the tension left Petula's shoulders in that moment and she let out a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness. The empire stands."

  "What do the healers say?" pressed Gregori, not so relaxed yet. "Any word from them?"

  "I've heard no illness, or none that they would disclose." Teodor pressed his lips into a thin line. "But the court gossip says-"

  "Nothing worth considering," the duke sharply interrupted, turning his attention already back to the maps. "If Her Radiance says she is fine, she is fine."

  "Father-" Both children interrupted only for him to harshly remind them both.

  "House Cordis cannot care for or give into rumor. Our duty has been, first and foremost, threats without."

  "But Her Radiance's collapse has thrown the duchies into chaos!" his son barked, not wanting to hold his tongue. "We depend on our neighbors for the necessary materials to rebuild our wall! If they cannot provide, ours own lands cannot! Please, my lord, give me permission to at least reach out to them."

  "Father," Petula began, a bit less heated. "Teodor has the right of it. The worst they can say is no too, if they choose to hoard their own resources for whatever impending conflict they perceive. But is it not better to know now, rather than in a time of more dire need?"

  His children were getting rebellious, Gregori tiredly reflected. Where had he gone so wrong? Or when had they become so right? He closed his eyes, then gave a tiny nod. A small surrender. "Teodor. Write letters on my behalf."

  His son gaped, perhaps expecting yet another rejection. Then he clasped his hand across his chest in a salute. "It will be done, my lord!"

  He glanced at a smiling Petula and shook his head. "Make no mistake. I do this only because it also will strengthen our own defense to take stock of what we have."

  "But it is the right thing...my lord."

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  The weapon was complete, so everything for Mord was complete. If she decided to suddenly leave tomorrow, then I could send her off in good conscience. But ideally, I absolutely wanted to make sure she didn't leave alone, which meant needing to make another set of arms and armor.

  I don't think I've left my workshop ever since I began, huh. I should probably take a break when this was all finished, if only to avoid burnout. But at least this one should be much easier without so many nightmare materials to process this time.

  Kuch definitely liked and wanted some heavy plate armor, though I was fresh out of armor. I did however had plenty of other materials, including something that I felt was appropriate for a dragon slayer's companion: dragon bone. That arm of the crimson dragon could not directly protect Mord, but I didn't have any such qualms!

  Crimson Dragon Bone (Item Quality: 515) (Infuse Level: 590)

  Bleh, substandard roll. But good to know that the crimson dragon was likely quite a formidable midgame opponent. I think I might be able to solo it myself with Kuch, assuming that my skill testing went well and I went at like a try hard, but I wasn't going to kill-steal. Mord deserved the first shot and if she couldn't do it, then I could hopefully scoop her up and run to try again another day. But even the next encounter was probably going to be for a long while.

  So time to make gear that should last until then.

  The bones of a dragon were definitely heavier than the scales, but also just as durable as steel. I was surprised to find that my tools as they were could actually shape them, albeit with quite a lot of wear and tear on them. I ended up reforging my hammers and knives a few times when they got worn out by the effort. I have little doubt that I'd have to do far less if I had quality steel to work with instead. Coal, where art thou?

  Anyhow, I ended up mostly just recreating my old oathbreaker armor set from back in FLOW. It was suitably intimidating and draconic enough to pair well with Mord's own style. We probably would make quite a sight to others. But of course, I did have to resize and adapt it to my more cuter body now.

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  No, no, no! Don't put it on! You'll get lost in the abyss of adoration and not get any work done!

  Okay, right. I also did make another pretty big change by including a helmet in the entire set, one Kuch would be wearing most of the time. I remembered the hostility shown by Bedra when she first saw my doll, something about puppets that immediately put her on edge. I wished I knew why, or just even maybe more general information about the world.

  I did try, for the record!

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  "That city to the east? Dunno, I was just told me to attack the monsters outside."

  "Where do dragons come from? Eggs, I guess?"

  "Lighthouse? Huh, I could taste power from that word. Makes me hungry, seconds please!"

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  But, speaking quite plainly, Mord had shown she uses her brain like it was just another big muscle inside her skull. Speaking frankly- she was a massive musclehead for anything outside battle.

  She might know even less about actual worldly affairs than me. Anything her mother might've told that was half-informative was filed somewhere under 'think about later.' That was was also where her confusion at my multiple selves had gone and practically perished. I'm sure that her mother had probably performed some sort of minor miracle so that this daughter of hers could actually read and write! So yeah, if she didn't want to think about it?

  Then it might as well just not be something she gave more than a passing thought about. She absolutely needed somebody to make sure she didn't fall an armor trimming scam at some point. It made me more sure of ensuring she wasn't alone in her travels.

  At least, to be quite honest, her fully recovered strength was undeniably off the charts. I even felt it firsthand.

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  The dragon raised an eyebrow, along with her fist at the same time. "Are you sure about this?" she asked, a suspicious lack of actual concern in her voice.

  "Not with enough force that you'd break my head off, but enough to at least make me feel something. Maybe." I paused. "Actually, I don't think I'll even feel pain anymore- OW!"

  Okay, I could actually feel it when my skin actually cracked and crumbled a bit!

  Now Mord looked actually apologetic and hurried over to take a look. "Damn, sorry. That was really way too much, you going to be alright?"

  I felt the slight hole with a finger, then nodded. "I'll drink a health potion later, then rest. It'll fix itself overnight." That should do the trick, puppet porcelain could draw upon my energies to create the material and replace the broken parts. "Thanks for holding back. Now, I want to check something." I closed my eyes and gently felt my dark crystal core. Yes, there it was.

  Confirmation that I did actually have a passive skill that I probably would've never found out by myself, because I probably wouldn't take damage so easily with that heavy armor equipment. But well, if they actually decided to indeed come at me, then they would certainly find out when I just got stronger instead. That's right, I have [Pain is Power], an oathbreaker passive skill. The more damage I took, the more powerful I was.

  To test it out, I targeted and activate [Shadow Rend] on the training dummy and the thing was instantly cut in half. Before, it would just heavily cut into it. Ah, so that explained probably how I had cut off that crimson dragon's arm then! Since [Doll Maestro] activated to grant me access to [Shadow Rend], it might've also activated [Pain is Power] to supercharge my skill.

  Given that I at the time was literally burning to ash, I imagine that was likely a very sharp spike in power.

  Ah, I remember now. I had made oathbreaker with advice from Sveg, Lighthouse's orc warlord who had thought the best armor was just killing your enemy fast enough. That explained why my oathbreaker build included that skill. While I'm sure the optimal way then would be dropping all defense and going full critical hit based off that, my oathbreaker wasn't meant to be optimal- it had been for fun. The paladin had been my main.

  Hm. I should look into seeing if I could find a light-aspect crystal for that. But if memory served, those had been the rarest type to find in Shin. So well, guess I wouldn't be the second herald of Mikel just yet.

  Or if I even wanted to bring that back. I'll cross that bridge when it came to it.

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  Ornate Heavy Oathbreaker Dragonbone Armor (Final Grade: 521)

  Right, armor finished and looking amazing, especially with that red loincloth tied around it. Absolutely worth the grade drop.

  Or so I kept telling to myself.

  Yeah, I made a big mistake. I used subpar ingredients around the dragonbone, namely the protection runes and bloody wolf fur. The result was...well, I mean. It wasn't terrible! It actually should be able to withstand the fire from that crimson dragon now. Admittedly not a prolonged exposure, but still enough to not just perish. And that was enough.

  Because then [Pain is Power] would trigger and that would be very bad. For my opponent, that was.

  Anyway, moving on, no frontline warrior was complete without their weapon. Plural in this case.

  So then, two greatswords for Kuch to wield out on the field. But I didn't want them to just be identical copies of one another- that'd be a bit boring, I think. Let's have them different in subtly different ways. And quite coincidentally, I also had two near-identical materials that would work quite perfectly. Claws taken from two separate dragons, almost exactly the same in size. Perfect.

  Just had to wear these down again. Ugh, I feel like my tools are going to start forming a union to protest against being reforged so many times to work with these dragon parts. Definitely going to not forge anything with them for a little while after this.

  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------?

  "I've been thinking," Mord quietly mentioned during a dinner. "About going under a different name when I go out there."

  I considered the idea before nodding. "Not a bad idea, in case the crimson dragon knows your name personally. And you wouldn't be the first adventurer to take up a different name when you set out." Looking back, it was a minor miracle that none of the Ten Lights had obscene names that probably would've made our virality awkward. "Any ideas?"

  "I was hoping maybe that you could suggest something that would fit going around hidden with the others. You're the lesser race after all," she joked before taking a chomp of the roast rabbit.

  Hm, I suppose I'm honored that I was given the chance. But I also wanted to make sure I respected the original name, in case the dragon woman ever wanted to return to it. It had also been a gift from her mother, so I really wanted to include it in her new name.

  Mord. Dragon. Memories from my old world stirred, and I think I knew the perfect pseudonym for her to adopt.

  "How does Mordred sound?" I suggested and she chewed thoughtfully, rolling the name around in her head a few times. Then the woman shrugged.

  "Works for me. Also, I'm leaving tomorrow- the snow's gone. No reason for me to stick around any longer."

  "I see. Ah, my preparations should be ready for you too, so excellent timing. I only ask you don't just leave through the window without seeing me first."

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  Ornate Dragon Fang Greatsword (Final Grade: 516)

  Finished just in time, excellent. But there was one last surprise I also wanted to prepare for the newly named adventurer. "Thanks for everything," I told my worn-out body. The spar hadn't been kind and pieces of it were falling off them now. "And now, like I promised myself, it's time to be cute."

  I worked all through that night without pause, like usual.

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