"So, what exactly do you want me to do? Keep in mind that I'm just an ordinary person without any power right now."
"Nothing difficult. Just keep the fire going continuously, like you did up above. And when I'm working, I need you to help regulate the heat."
"...For how long?"
"Well, for about a week while I gather the materials, I need you to keep the fire lit every single day and get accustomed to my forge. Then, once the work begins, I need you to keep pouring in Arcanum at a level just short of being sent back to Heaven for the entire duration. Lady Hephaestus said she would look the other way, so it should be fine. Even if your body itself has fallen to the level of an ordinary person, your skill at handling fire hasn't gone anywhere, has it?"
"Hmm... Everything except that part about using Arcanum during the work sounds good..."
"I'm sorry, but I can't back down on this matter either. The weapon I intend to make belonged to the incarnations of the gods—the [Lords of Cinder]—who burned themselves to protect the world. It was there from the moment the first bonfire was kindled, and even when the final bonfire flickered chaotically, it was held in the hand of the bonfire's champion, facing the ash that sought to touch the flames."
"..."
"It absolutely cannot be made carelessly. With awe and reverence, I must use everything at my disposal to capture its form in the most perfect shape possible."
"...The bonfire's champion, the first bonfire... Even as someone who has watched over a forge longer than anyone, those are stories I've never heard in my life."
"That's..."
Lady Hestia's sharply pointed remark left me speechless.
Of course, the Dark Souls I remembered was a [fantasy] understood and remembered by me alone. Since I was the only one who knew it, I could focus more deeply and create it—but things were different for Lady Hestia, whose help I needed.
It was only natural that a mythology and divinities unknown even to her, who had lived for so long, would seem strange.
What was I supposed to do about this?
"Then tell me."
"Yes...?"
"Tell me everything. How that world began, what its bonfires meant, how its end came about, and who the hero was who faced that end... I would like to hear it all."
"..."
"I do not know how you came to know such stories, or why you wish to make a weapon from that mythology. But..."
Lady Hestia thrust out her ribbon-bound chest and continued proudly.
"As someone who will be working alongside you, shouldn't I at least know its origins?"
"...Yes, you're right. Please sit down. This will be a long story, so I'll bring us something to drink."
"Mm, do so!"
That night, the fire in my workshop never went out, and the conversation between us continued on.
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I spent the entire night telling Lady Hestia about Dark Souls 1 and 3. (2? Scholar? Wasn't that basically a side story?)
Perhaps because she was the goddess of bonfires, she focused particularly hard on the Fire Keepers' stories. Her eyes welled up when she heard about the silent Fire Keeper from the first game. (She must be really sensitive. If she's this affected by just the first one...)
And when she heard of the Fire Keeper candidate, the Fire Keeper, and the stories and fates of the Fire Keepers who came before them in the third, tears streamed down her face.
When I told her of the First Flame, she listened gravely, fitting for the goddess of bonfires. When I explained how it was divided among the Souls of the Four Kings to begin the Age of Fire, she wore a proud smile. But as I told her how the Undead Curse came about as the fire began to fade, her expression gradually grew serious. By the time the story turned to the rise of the Hollows, her face had gone completely stiff.
Her reactions were so good that I found myself enjoying the telling, and I kept on talking.
When I finally finished after staying up all night—having brought up every hero, every story, even the DLC, until the sun had already begun to rise—Lady Hestia heard about the Soul of Cinder and the three endings: [One Who Links the First Flame], [The End of Firelinking], and [Usurper of Fire]. Then she fell asleep with a dazed expression.
...After spending the entire night passionately reacting to the story in an ordinary body, it would have been stranger if she weren't exhausted.
Leaving Lady Hestia in the workshop, I began visiting other smithies in search of materials. It was nothing special. After all, this was a sword that might have been the oldest in the world of Dark Souls. I went from smithy to smithy, gathering weapons that had been used for a long time. I passed over anything of excessively poor quality and began buying up Grade Two weapons that had been left sitting in smithies for years.
Weapons that had lost their owners and returned to the smithy.
Weapons forged with ambition, yet never chosen.
Weapons left behind as though pawned before their owners entered the Dungeon, never to return, until they sat forgotten in a corner of the shop.
I examined them one by one, slowly buying swords that had existed for at least ten years. Since I would be melting them all down and remaking them anyway, I tried to gather materials from as close to a single category as possible.
Naturally, I ended up visiting only shops that had been around for more than ten years. At the end, I even went to the Chick Anvil, which had appeared in the original story... But it did not have any particularly high-grade weapons, and while it certainly possessed a long history, those truly old items were all the personal collection of its owner, Darude. In the end, I had no choice but to leave disappointed.
By the time I had gathered weapons made at least fifteen years ago, or old weapons that had been used for even longer, five days had passed—and I had collected five weapons.
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"So, have you found all the materials?"
"It's a little disappointing, but I think this should be enough to make an attempt. Have you gotten used to the forge over the past five days?"
"Mm! At this point, I can regulate the heat perfectly well!"
"Can you handle it as well as the forge you used up above?"
"Hmm... If I pour Arcanum into it as well, I should be able to manage that much."
"...I'm counting on you."
"All right, leave the handling of fire to me!"
"Yes, I will."
The goddess of the forge stood before the furnace to create the [Greatsword of the Firelinking Rite].
And the blacksmith grasped his hammer to forge the first and final [fantasy].
「The fire rises.」