Chapter 1: God’s Metal

When the winter had been at its coldest, and the frosty wind had nipped at our skin, we at Forge Eizo had been notified that counterfeit versions of our knives were circulating around the kingdom’s capital. These blades even had our fat cat insignia engraved on their pommels. I wasn’t planning on getting into a confrontation over the issue, but merchants liked to make money, so they would probably keep selling the fakes. Our forge could potentially suffer a bit of an economic blow.

I had quite a bit of money saved up, and we were practically self-sufficient, so there weren’t any immediate concerns. But if I were no longer able to make a living as a blacksmith, I’d have no choice but to close up shop, which would cut off all my income. Marius, who was a part of the ruling political faction of the kingdom, was in hot pursuit of the mastermind behind the fakes. So far, we’d learned that they were being produced and distributed by people within the duke’s nonruling faction, but we could only catch those low on the social ladder. And since those people could easily be cut off from the mastermind, catching them would do us no good.

Thus, a plan was hatched to publicly pursue the counterfeiters. I would forge a blade that would be handed over to an emissary of the empire as a kingdom souvenir. This emissary (who would be in on the ruse) would claim to have bought the knife in the capital. And when the emissary showed the knife to Marius, the count would point out that it wasn’t a genuine Forge Eizo product, but a fake.

This would create a larger fuss and would force an even more serious investigation. House Eizo—that is, beastfolk Samya, Rike the dwarf, Marius’s sister Diana, Lidy the elf, the famous mercenar