Golden Artificer c21

Around midday, Marcus saw a vision of a red-haired Goddess entering his barrier. The Smith Goddess came to see him again.

He went over and opened the doors before she could knock them.

“Marcus, you look better. Can I speak with you?” She spoke after getting over the surprise that he opened the doors before she could knock. It was as if he was waiting for her, not realising that he had the means to foresee who was coming to his place.

“Sure, come in.” He motioned for her to enter his house.

As they went to the kitchen, the silver-haired maid started preparing some tea for them.

“I came here to persuade you to join my Familia.” She went straight to the point.

“And you will hear the same reply as before.”

“I understand that you don’t want a God to interfere with your work, and as Goddess of Smithing, I give my members freedom to work their craft to their desires.” Hephaestus tried to persuade him as she took the cup with tea.

“I don’t doubt you are a great Goddess to work with.” His compliment earned him a small flustered look… something Alfia noticed…

“But, I don’t want some people to look down on my craft and find excuses to look down by saying something like ‘you are good because of Falna's blessing’. It feels like an excuse…” He frowned while saying that.

“Because of that?” She looked shocked.

“There should never be a misunderstanding.” He said with a slightly serious tone. 

“My craft, my talent, my potential. One should not interfere in one of these. So I won’t accept your proposal, end of story.” He explained with finality in his voice before taking a sip of offered tea.

“I see. Well, I will tell you that I am not the last one to come to see you; there will be a pile of Gods and Goddesses who will come to see you for the same purpose,” Hephaestus said with a small smile. 

She is certain that he will cave in at one point. Gods and Goddesses are just that good at nagging. 

However, Alfia was nervous when she heard that. She remembered what Marcus had told her before… what he had done in his birth world.

“Let them come.” He ‘smiled’ at her before taking another sip of his tea.

“Well, at least I warned you.” She sighed in disappointment. Well, she will be coming back; she had lived long enough not to give up that easily. 

“Your warning is accepted.” 

After that, the pair continued to make small talk and drink their tea before the Goddess had to leave. She will be back, and she will continue to offer him the chance to join her Familia.

~~~

As expected, the Hephaestus incident spread through the city like a wildfire.

Gods and Goddesses learned that someone had healed her deformed eye, which surprised a few people. Now, they want to know who it was.

Not that it was a large mystery, but people swiftly put things together after a small amount of investigation.

Hephaestus, with wagons of chests, went to see Marcus. After that visit, she was healed, so their attention returned to the alchemist living behind a barrier.

“More and more people are watching our house,” Alfia said to Marcus as she could feel their gazes on their house.

“Let them watch; it's not like it will change anything, " the alchemist commented as he was drawing the weapons Astraea Familia ordered.

He finished the initial designs early on; now, he is just adding things or thinking of interesting combinations the girls could sketch for him once the weapons are completed.

The issue is that he was never a proper weaponsmith before, and armour comes more naturally to him after he has worked on them for so many years.

What adds an extra layer of difficulty is that he needs to lay down runes in a roundabout way with additional steps, which makes creating more complex things far more difficult.

“It is annoying," she said with a huff as the girl crossed her arms. She was thinking of going out and beating them up either way.

“Well, you can do something if they are that annoying to you.” He stopped drawing and looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

“With pleasure~” The girl showed a sadistic smirk before turning around and walking towards the doors.

‘She is quite a strong-willed one.’ 

Marcus realised that she had quite the attitude. Thankfully, he is much stronger than her. If he were any weaker, he would have ended up suffering like those guys outside.

~~~

D-Don’t come any closer!” A guy was pointing his sword at Alfia, who was walking towards him while dragging a knocked-out adventurer.

“Then stop spying on my house. Or do you want me to show what happens to people who don’t listen to me?” She clenched her hand, and a black aura surged from her body.

“Hiiiii!!!”

The guy squeaked before dropping his sword and running away.

Snort

“So much for a friendship between fellow familia members.” She snorted before turning the guy around, shredding his top off, and checking the back.

Sadly, the Falna is looked at, and no one could see it without divine blood.

Tsk!

“Well, I should not have had high hopes in the first place.” She clicked her tongue with an annoyed look before recalling that Marcus could have a way to see what it was.

He did turn high-class Freya’s Familia member into rubber and paper…

So, without waiting any longer, she went back to her house.

~~~

“It hasn’t been a month since we've lived together, and you're already bringing people into my house?” Marcus joked when he saw her bringing an unconscious guy into his house.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” She threw the guy away like it was rubbish.

“To get my minimal attention, one needs to beat me first.” Alfia casually mentioned that before explaining why she brought this guy.

“If you check his Falna, we can figure out which Familia he is from.”

“And then slaughter them?” Marcus suggested.

“Not that simple. Not all Familias are like Freya. Some of them are way more underhanded. Freya is considered quite proud of the power of her Familia. Her tactics are quite direct.” She explained to him.

“Oh? Is that so…” 

The alchemist walked over and placed his foot on the knocked-out guy’s back.

He sends a pulse of mana. A few moments later, the Falna manifested on the back.

“...I think this is Apollo’s Falna,” Alfia said with a pondering look. She was not one hundred per cent certain, so she proceeded to read what was written after Marcus removed his feet.

“Yes, that is him. God is known for collecting people like a collection set, " the silver-haired maid said with a small disgust.

“Hmm, interesting. Unfortunately, I am not into guys, so I will have to pass.” Marcus shrugged, and the next second, the knocked-out guy turned into rubber. 

“...”

Alfia sighed after seeing this. Such a casual kill of a regular Familia member is slightly offputting. It does appear that Marcus has no understanding of how Familia politics and laws work…

“What?”

“Do you think Apollo will declare to everyone that I killed his scout?” the alchemist asked, looking confused.

“No, but he will say that you attacked his Familia’s member on the street or in some alley. He will try to make other Gods join him in denouncing you.”

“Ha, what retarded motion. Then, he has no idea what he is doing. If he thinks he can do that, then he is even stupider because, unlike him, I can pull on their greed, making such efforts pointless.” Marcus scoffed. He has too many trump cards to play for being affected by such simple action.

“I suppose, but you will need to play politics. I don’t think you are such a person.”

Alfia is right; he is not someone who would play politics, but he doesn’t need to.

“I will simply get more Familias who will support me either way. One of them is Astraea.” Marcus said that while looking at his work table where the designs are.

“That could work as well.” Alfia nodded as she agreed with that.

~~~

After Alfia’s rampage outside his house, the Familias pulled back on their surveillance. They didn’t expect Marcus to unleash his ‘pet’ maid. 

Apollo tried to make a fuss about it, but the Gods ignored him, as they were wary of what the Alchemist could do, considering he was the only Lv7 owner in the entire city.

Furthermore, Loki, the strongest family in the city, didn’t comment on it. Because of that, the fuss died down quickly.

In the meantime, Marcus continued to work on the Astraea order, making a Katana, a Sword, a sharp boomerang, and a staff. 

The swords were swift work, but the staff and the Pallum’s request for boomerangs got him by surprise.

The staff is something he can create quite easily after a couple of tries, but boomerang for a weapon? 

Now, that is a weird and amusing challenge.

At first, he started with a runic sequence that could pull to one another. Such a thing is possible if it's based on magnetism. One pulls to another. From there, he went over and decided to expand upon it and make it so that even a three-way was a possibility.

Another idea which popped up to improve the ability to return thanks to the shape of the boomerang.

‘Maybe even controlling it? Once it turns, could it accelerate and sharpen the blades with the wind?’

Marcus went through several runic designs before coming to an impasse. 

“Alfia! Which one looks better to you?” He went to see his maid, who was in the kitchen.

The alchemist showed her two sheets of paper with different designs of runic sequences.

“What are these supposed to be?” She asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Runes, which will go on a boomerang. One takes in the wind for assistance in cutting while the other boosts spinning power to create sharp winds.” He explained to her, but he didn’t point out which one does that.

“...You want my opinion?” To her question, he nodded.

“I can’t decide, so you will do it for me,” Marcus clarified to her.

“And you can’t decide?” Alfia asked him with a raised eyebrow.

“Can’t you just add both?” She questioned.

“Nope, not enough surface on the weapon, and I need to develop my art further to improve on that.” He shook his head. The alchemist sounded disappointed in himself.

“In that case, I will take the right one; it looks more interesting, " the maid said with a shrug.

“Good enough.” 

Marcus smiled at her choice.

“What does it do?” Alfia asked him curiously. Now that she had done her part, she wanted to know what she had taken.

“It's the wind assistant one. Quite powerful, in a windy place, the boomerang would turn into something akin to a saw. Shredding through people like a hot knife through butter.”  

“Dangerous,” Alfia commented, wondering how much Marcus's weapons would change the current world order.

He is encroaching on the domain dominated by gods. Their Falna controlled how the world worked. But now, this individual exists who can challenge the order that has been in control for the past thousand years.

“It is.” The Alchemist agreed before returning to his workshop.

~~~~~~Couple Days Later~~~~~~

Astraea’s Familia got the news: Marcus had finished their weapons. The group of girls and a smiling Goddess walked towards the house of the Alchemist.

All of them except the Goddess looked worried. They all worried about how much they were going to be in debt to the newest and most ‘notorious’ weaponsmith of the Dungeon City.

It might not have been long since he appeared, but everyone knew him and his dangerous maid.

“Do you think it will be more than a billion?” the red-haired captain of the Familia asked in a worried tone. They had already consulted a specialist, who told them it would be more than hundred million per piece, and they ordered four weapons and accessories.

“I say around 1 and 1.5 billion.” Kaguya guessed. 

“We can ask him directly soon.” Ryuu sighed as she looked at his house in front of them. They realised that the barrier was gone; instead, they looked at a unique-looking estate with a three-metre-tall marble-like wall.

“Let’s go girls.” Astraea stepped forward and knocked on the doors.