I Got a Gallery in the Wild - Chapter 479

As combat power serving as our Shelter’s insurance policy, Bbareumbo was maintained daily.

Starting from bathing him, supplying Fasting Pills, and finally claw maintenance.

I took meticulous care of his claws in particular. That was natural, considering they were Bbareumbo’s primary weapon.

He used his claws like weapons—claws, to be precise—and their power was enough to slice through steel even without channeling mana.

On top of that, he channeled mana obtained from who-knows-where, so his destructive power needed no further explanation.

So I tended to maintain his claws steadily. Even if he hadn’t fought, it didn’t matter.

Because claws were body parts that kept growing and growing. Without maintenance, they get dull.

’Why the hell is he using Adamantium as a claw sharpener?’

Bbareumbo was sharpening his claws using a small amount of impurity-laden Adamantium.

Seeing this, how should I describe my feelings? It was slightly better than sharpening a knife with gold.

Considering the traits of Adamantium I just discovered, if anything, his claws would be enhanced rather than damaged.

But it was uncertain if they were properly enhanced. When enhancing the Mythricon sword, it was red-hot in the fire.

I couldn’t heat Bbareumbo’s claws in a fire, nor could I just leave things like this.

"I’ll file them down for you instead. Not sure if they’ll even file down, though."

"..."

At my words, Bbareumbo quietly extended his arm. The claws I found ferocious every time I saw them stood out prominently.

How many crises facing me and the Shelter had been overcome with these claws?

I stared at the small piece of Adamantium, then gently brought it against his claws.

Seueuk— seueuk—

"?"

Earlier there was definitely a crackling sound, wasn’t there? But now, no sound came out at all.

Just in case, I infused mana, but it was the same. No reaction occurred whatsoever.

"Bbareumbo-ya. How did you do this earlier? Why isn’t there any reaction for me?"

"..."

Bbareumbo slowly shrugged his shoulders as if he didn’t know himself.

Meaning a reaction occurred simply by touching it earlier.

I felt doubtful, but a thought suddenly occurred to me.

"Wait a minute."

Could it be because it was Adamantium that had just been extracted earlier? It might only take effect when heated in fire.

It was a clever guess, but there was another important point: namely, whether Bbareumbo’s claws had sensation in them.

Even though he always wore an indifferent expression whenever I filed his claws, you never know.

’If I mess up, it could bleed like clipping a cat’s nails too far.’

I didn’t know much about sloths as a species.

The way I maintained his claws up until now was filing them down rather than clipping them.

Just as sharpening a sword with a whetstone boosts its cutting power, Bbareumbo’s claws gained cutting power.

Even back then, he entrusted his claws to me as if it were no big deal, but Adamantium was different.

’Let’s test it first. See if simply heating the Adamantium is enough to enhance it.’

Leaving Bbareumbo behind, I headed to the forge to heat the Adamantium.

Heating it in the forge furnace without tossing it into the giant blast furnace should be enough.

Hwareureuk! Hwareuk!

As I vigorously pumped the bellows, the furnace laden with charcoal heated up intensely.

Using tongs, I placed the Adamantium inside. It glowed red, and that was it.

"...Do I seriously have to use an Inner Core again for this?"

Even pumping the bellows frantically only made it turn slightly reddish; hardly anything changed.

Evidently, its resistance to heat was extremely high. But using an Inner Core here felt like too much of a waste.

If I kept heating it continuously, even if I couldn’t melt it, turning it red hot should be possible.

And that prediction turned out correct. Sweating buckets while pumping the bellows, the Adamantium finally glowed bright red.

Chijijik! Chijijijik!

"Woah, hey. That’s not good."

But as soon as it turned red-hot, it tried to fuse with the tongs.

Good thing I let go hastily, or I almost lost all that hard-earned Adamantium to the tongs.

In the end, I had no choice but to wrap my hands in Body-Protecting Gangqi and pick it up bare-handed.

Just in case, I also wore the World Tree Gloves, so there was no worry of getting burned.

’Not sure if this will work, though.’

At any rate, I realized that heating it with fire activated the enhancement.

Carefully, I carried the red-hot Adamantium over.

Approaching Bbareumbo, I motioned for him to extend his claws.

Bbareumbo looked at me with a slightly dubious expression for a moment, then quietly presented his hand.

"Tell me if it hurts."

[In the old days, branding someone’s back with that was a form of torture.]

"#$%% #$%%"

[You say they still do it now? As expected, efficient methods remain the same.]

Let’s lightly ignore the two clergymen muttering behind me.The source of this chapter is novelping(.)com.

Slowly, I brought the Adamantium against Bbareumbo’s sharply filed claws.

Chijijik! Chijijijik!

Pressing the especially red-hot section against it, astonishingly, it slowly seeped in.

Though a small amount, the Adamantium was gradually absorbed into his claws.

Wondering if it might be hot, I looked at Bbareumbo, but he maintained his usual expressionless face.

Chijijik! Chiiiik!

As I enhanced each claw one by one with Adamantium, before I knew it, half of it was used up.

Using any more was ambiguous, and since all his claws were enhanced, it was fine to move on.

"Master. My gauntlet, too."

"Wait. I used almost all of it, so I have to extract more."

Since the amount of Adamantium was small to begin with, I had to extract another batch. I’ll have to use one Inner Core.

However, considering how easily the enhancement took place, it was well worth the trouble.

Following that, I fired up the blast furnace with the intention of melting down all the remaining Adamantium daggers.

Adding an Inner Core to crank the fire’s temperature to the extreme, preparation for extraction was complete.

Hwareureuk!

The blast furnace overflowed not with white flames, but with blue flames.

Perhaps because I put in an Inner Core slightly larger than before, the heat of the fire grew even higher.

This should make extracting Adamantium much easier. Indeed, molten metal trickled out from the bottom channel.

’Thank goodness it wasn’t raw ore.’

Passing Dwarf had mentioned it. It was lucky that it came from the frilled lizard; if it were in raw mineral form, smelting it would have been far harder.

He added that if I had done it my way with raw ore, every single impurity imaginable would have mixed in.

Actually, a lot of impurities were mixed in even now. I only glossed over it because it was used for enhancement.

For now, I’ll proceed like this, and plan to work toward extracting pure Adamantium in the future.

’Let’s see... things worth enhancing right now...’

Sword of the Heavenly Demon, Mythricon gauntlet, Ludwig’s prosthetic leg, and so on.

Just off the top of my head there were plenty, and looking around would yield even more.

I had zero intention of enhancing basic tools, including craftsmanship gear.

Enhancing such things lacked meaningful impact, and if they broke, forging new ones was better anyway.

[If possible, I would like you to enhance me as well.]

"Your main body, or the Dullahan?"

[Is the main body possible too?]

Cain asked in a voice full of slight anticipation. He seemed more drawn to enhancing his original body than the Dullahan.

But being the very first Paladin, the gods must have crafted his body with thorough perfection.

Though its base material was closer to stone than metal, it was bound to surpass almost anything.

"Hmm... I could try, but I’m worried it might accidentally break. Please hold off for now."

[Even if it gets damaged, how bad could it be? It is a body created by Goddess Aris, so it will easily endure.]

"Well, I suppose so. If it breaks, at worst you’ll be promoted from a heel callus remover to Bbareumbo’s claw maintenance tool."

[I have felt this for a while, but you make trashy remarks in remarkably creative ways.]

At my warning-that-wasn’t-quite-a-warning, Cain backed off while grumbling. Since I didn’t want to engage in uncertain gambles either, it worked out well.

Still, enhancing the Dullahan instead of his main body seemed fine.

Jureureuk—

"Huh?"

It was right around when I was steadily extracting Adamantium. Something weird trickled out instead of molten metal.

At first, I thought I failed to filter out the daggers’ impurities. But looking closer, they were bits of stone.

Brick fragments, no less. Fearing the worst, I hastily halted the extraction.

"Everyone, step back for a moment. I need to look inside the blast furnace."

The blast furnace interior was packed tightly with heat-resistant bricks given by Passing Dwarf.

The outside was thoroughly slathered with mud to keep oxygen from leaking out. Thanks to that, it looked similar to pottery.

Scraping all that off piece by piece was a pain, but to inspect the inner condition, I had no choice.

"Oh dear. It all melted down."

And there, I witnessed a disastrous interior state.

The heat-resistant bricks I received with much effort had melted into what was practically half-lava.

You might ask why heat-resistant bricks melt so easily, but this was a structural durability issue.

They merely resisted high heat well; it’s not like they possessed absurdly mighty durability like Adamantium.

Moreover, since an Inner Core was tossed in, internal heat would only rise higher, never drop.

In the end, I had no choice but to build a new blast furnace from scratch. This alone ate up quite a lot of time.

’I need to find heat-resistant stones.’

Since this is the Forest of the Four Seasons, I might find bricks stronger than the ones received from Passing Dwarf.

Or finding an entire blast furnace wouldn’t be bad either. Right now, in the Ash Zone, an Artificial Sun sits right there...

"...Wait a minute."

Come to think of it, there’s metal over there that withstands even Artificial Sun heat!

I wouldn’t have to touch the Artificial Sun directly, just slice off the surrounding iron plates.

I used those iron plates when enduring the flame tsunami last time, so it was entirely feasible.

’Though more than that, I should understand the principles of a blast furnace better.’

Truth be told, the Adamantium extracted from the blast furnace wasn’t pure either.Find the original chapter at nоvelping.com.

Considering blacksmiths are the epitome of master artisans, this was understandable.

This was something the Gallery—or rather, Passing Dwarf’s help and time—could resolve.

Right now, I plan to gather materials as much as possible and use Adamantium purely for enhancement.

’Before that...’

There’s something I want to try crafting: mixing the three legendary minerals—Orichalcum, Mithril, and Adamantium.

The world’s three great minerals are hard even to discover, and most people can only blend minuscule amounts.

Just a single lump of Mythricon unmixed with steel could plunge the global economy into ruin.

What if Adamantium were added to that? I grew intensely curious about what effect it would produce.

’Adamantium was absorbed into the Mythricon sword, but... that was closer to being coated.’

What I wanted was to mix them in a molten liquid state from the very beginning.

For that, I reconstructed the blast furnace once more. The Adamantium just extracted was rapidly starting to cool down.

"Lackey. Melt down one Mythricon ingot for me."

"Understood."

At times like this, I relied on the help of my faithful worker, Lackey.

How much time had passed? Consuming one more Inner Core, I extracted Adamantium.

Just in the nick of time, Lackey had turned the Mythricon ingot into molten liquid using a makeshift furnace.

"Lackey, step back. I’ll take over from here."

I backed Lackey away to prevent any accidents with splattering molten metal.

Following that, using tongs, I slowly transferred the molten Adamantium.

Chiiiik—

The world’s three great minerals began blending into one. Surprisingly, without forming layers like oil and water, they fused together into a single whole.

In my heart, I wanted to stir it to mix well, but terrified it might explode, I cowered back.

"...Fortunately, nothing happened."

"Master. What were you planning to do if something did happen?"

"We’d clean up together, of course."

"..."

"Why are you looking at me like that? Ever heard of communal living?"

"Where I come from, we call that irresponsibility."

Smartass. Muttering under my breath, I quietly stepped forward.

The color of the alloy ingot, which cooled rapidly, was... an unexpected shade.

The alloy of Orichalcum and Mithril was a dull gray, but adding Adamantium turned it into something looking like stone.

It wasn’t due to my poor vocabulary; it literally looked like the color of an ordinary rock tumbling on the roadside.

’I feel like I’ve seen this somewhere...’

Puzzled, I turned my head. Cain was standing in the direction I looked.

Picking up the ingot with tongs, I placed it beside Cain. Astonishingly, the color of the ingot and Cain were identical.

Cain, seemingly having a similar thought, spoke in a slightly surprised tone.

[It looks just like my body. No, is it truly the exact same material as my body?]

"Wanna be friends with it?"

[...]

At my question, Cain stared at me. Being a stone statue, his facial expression didn’t change.

But I could definitely sense an aura of utter speechlessness from both his previous remark and this one.

Feeling awkwardly flushed, I cleared my throat. More importantly, what to do with this was the key.

’The sword is fine since it’s Mythricon coated with Adamantium... and Bbareumbo’s claw maintenance is handled, so is that it?’

I wondered if I had made it for nothing, but it would be useful someday. I started cleaning up.

Having torn down the blast furnace and rebuilt it, there was a lot to clean up.

As night was setting in, today’s schedule would wrap up here.

’I’ll rest tomorrow, and head out on exploration again the day after.’

Not just resting at the Shelter, but heading to the Ash Zone—where the Artificial Sun was located.

There, I’ll get heat-resistant iron plates and also visit the Flame Horse family.

[By the way, what will you name that alloy?]

"Hmm... since it mixed all three great minerals..."

I thought for a moment, then spoke while gauging his reaction.

"...Miao?"

[Sounds like a cat meowing. Can you please not exercise your trashy creativity on naming things?]

"Quiet, you."

A quiet, ordinary day passed. And the next day.

Sagak— sagak—

"...What are you doing?"

"..."

Bbareumbo could be seen diligently filing his claws with the alloy ingot.

"See that? That could have been Cain-nim’s future."

[Be silent.]

Teasing him was something I couldn’t resist.