“You’d think that professional mercenaries would mostly be responsible adults, but in reality, more often than not they act more like children who never really grew up, and did as they pleased. Their way of life was partly chosen because they enjoyed it, though some were naturally forced to the line of work by other circumstances. Many career mercenaries stayed mercenaries until the day they died because they liked being one, though.

Sometimes you’d see all these grown, burly, scarred adults letting out a very childlike glee, often over things like a new suit of armor, or a newly crafted weapon, sometimes over horses or other mounts too. In some ways, they were far more honest to themselves than most people in civilized society are, because they usually couldn’t care less about what was considered acceptable or not for an adult in respectable society.” - From a lecture by Garth Wainwrought, Dean and former Professor of Socioeconomy at the Levain Institute of Higher Learning, circa 686 FP.

“It’s finally done, eh, pops?” Reinhardt asked shortly before afternoon the next day in a smithy their company had rented in Dvergarder. While Hogarth and the other blacksmiths of the company were used to working on the go with minimal amenities, some projects had needed more extensive facilities, and were only really doable in towns they stopped for a while in.

Over the past five years, Hogarth had worked a good portion of the bounties they won in Theodinaz into new armors and weapons for the company. Reinhardt himself wore a new breastplate and bracers these days, made from a thin, solid layer of adamant steel his adoptive father had alloyed using his own formula, which made it slightly lighter than the normal sort being sold by the dwarves.

The ingots of Mithril they took as part of their bounty years ago had languished in their storage for most of those years, as Hogarth had sought a way to effectively combine his knowledge of metalworking with the precious metal to further stretch it out. He claimed that he had found a possible direction just a few months ago, and Elfriede was the first to test out the results of his theories.

“See for yourself, lad,” replied the old dwarf as he wiped some sweat off his wrinkled brows with the back of one hand. Reinhardt had not failed to notice the proud smile on his adoptive father’s face, and the way he looked as if a great weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

Near a corner of the smithy, Elfriede gave a few test swings to a pair of strangely-shaped swords - she had been intrigued by the collection of foreign antiques Reinhardt had brought as part of the bounty and had asked Hogarth to design her weapon based on some of them - while others kept a safe distance even while they watched her closely.

A pair of identical, silvery sword-like weapons were in her hands, each with a double-sided blade roughly three quarters of a meter long, with a short, scythe-like hook protruding around three quarters of the way up the blades. The weapons also had a shorter dagger-like blade on its pommel, and the handguard extended into a crescent-shaped blade pointing outward, all polished to a shine and if he guessed right, likely razor sharp.

“Aren’t those blades a bit too thin even if you used mithril for them?” he asked his adoptive father with a questioning eye. The sword’s blades were noticeably thinner than a typical weapon mercenaries like then used, and also far more slender to boot.

“The mithril’s mostly like a coat around the core, concentrated on the cutting edges,” explained the old dwarf proudly. “Wrapped around a core of my own mix of high-purity adamant steel. That thing will take nearly as much punishment as your bloody mace would before it needs repairs!”

That was a statement Reinhardt had not expected. He had traded in his old, scarred polemace for a new one made of adamant steel as well years ago, and that weapon had barely needed more than a polish even after four and a half years of usage.

“The weight feels just about right,” commented Elfriede. She was used to using a weapon with blades on both sides so she had little difficulty adapting to her new weapon despite its different form. “Mind if I test the cutting edge now, pops?”

“Go ahead, lass. Oy! Set up the dummy!” yelled the old dwarf to some of his assistants. One of them, a large half-therian woman whose features resembled a bull or an auroch, lifted a training dummy made of solid wood the size of a human with ease, and set it up in front of Elfriede with a nod before she backed away.

Elfriede took a deep breath to focus herself, then her arm blurred as she struck one of the thinner protrusions from the dummy, around the size of a child’s arm. The wood parted with barely a whisper and simply slid off the dummy with a thunk as it landed on the floor.

“Try it on the thicker parts, lass,” said Hogarth with a wide grin on his face as he watched with eagerness. The cut on the wooden limb was mirror-smooth, far smoother than what a cut had any right to be, Reinhardt had thought. “We worked some enchantments on that edge to make it as keen as it could be. It should work against even bigger stuff.”

With a nod, Elfriede turned and gave another slice towards another protrusion, one as thick as an adult’s limb. It sheared off just as smoothly as the previous one, with practically no resistance as her blade glided through the hard ironwood like it was water.

Emboldened, she struck at the “neck” of the practice dummy, made to be around the thickness of an orc’s neck. The head of the training dummy slid off almost immediately, and Elfriede struck again, with both blades this time. When it landed on the floor, the circular wooden head of the dummy was in seventeen pieces, each cut as smooth as a mirror’s surface.

“Damn… These are good stuff, pops,” she said in praise after an appreciative whistle while Reinhardt picked up one of the slices that happened to bounce and land near his feet. He felt nothing but a smooth surface as he ran his finger over the cut. “Lemme try something I’ve tried but could never get right before…”

Reinhardt felt as if the atmosphere became heavier when his wife concentrated then her hand moved. Compared to her previous movements, where her hands were practically a blur, this was a graceful, gentle glide, and the blade of her sword passed through the thick log-like “torso” of the practice dummy as if it wasn’t there.

Nothing seemed to happen to the dummy, and those who were watching looked on with questioning looks for a moment. Then Elfriede stomped the floor hard with one leg, hard enough to cause a tiny shake to the dummy before her, and the upper half of the dummy slid right off and fell to the floor with a clonk.

Everyone was silent and looked in awe at what she just pulled off.

“Oh yeah~ These are definitely the good stuff, pops.”