“Can you really swing that hammer defensively.” I asked as Garnet.

“Are you kidding me?” She lifted the hammer half as tall as her and slung it back on her shoulder. “Do you know who I am?”

“I mean, you’re a blacksmith, I didn’t mean you can’t swing a hammer, but can you fight people with it?”

“If I swing the hammer and someone doesn’t get out of my way, they get hurt. There isn’t more to it.” Garnet sniffed.

She had her red hair up in twin-tails, and she wore some armor given to her by the blacksmith. She wasn’t wearing all of it though, as there were only a few pieces crafted small enough to fit her small form. I didn’t have any armor left in my inventory other than what I was wearing and the star pieces. I hoped I didn’t get into a situation where my armor got destroyed again. I needed to get a set crafted that fit me that wouldn’t be obliterated the first time I ended up in a dangerous fight. Of course, I could avoid getting into dangerous fights, but that was another matter entirely.

Before we left, the blacksmith grabbed my shoulder. “You take care of her, you hear? If she doesn’t come back safe…”

He squeezed my shoulder a bit harder than I would have liked. If it was the me from when I first came to this world, I definitely would have had a bruise later. I nodded, until he finally let me go, and then rubbing my shoulder I walked away. Rather than angry, I felt a bit of guilt. After this, I would return to trying to destroy the dungeon. I had no clue what would happen to these people after that happened.

The blacksmith truly really cared about Garnet. He wasn’t some NPC that I could pretend didn’t exist because he came from a dungeon. All the demons had started in dungeons, but Shao came from the same world I did. If she descended from demons, I didn’t know what that meant about the nature of creatures created by demons.

With a sigh, realizing I was thinking about the same things over and over in a circle since I had come to this dungeon world, I decided to try to put it behind me and just focus on the next step. As we started heading out of town, I was worried that Garnet wouldn’t keep up with me. It turned out, I was looking down on her small form, or perhaps dwarves in general. She seemed to be able to keep up fine, even while holding her large war hammer and her armor.

It was about three hours before we had finally discovered the burned ruins of what must have been the carriage. The people who were delivering the Silvthril were gone. There were signs of a battle, such as leftover arrows and some blood.

“They missed one!” Garnet cried out excitedly.

I looked to see her pick up a pure white stone that almost seemed to glow. Otherwise, it didn’t look particularly remarkable.

“That is silvthril? I wonder why I hadn’t heard about it in the other world?

“That’s simply because it doesn’t exist,” Garnet explained.

“Huh?”

“The metal used to exist, but all of it was used up during a great war against some kind of malevolent darkness. Some Silvthril weapons still existed, but they were lost over time. Why do you think the world is covered in dungeons now? Silvthril, the greatest antidungeon weapon, no longer exists.”

“Except in this dungeon…” I added, looking at the white glimmering stone in her hand. “I think I’m beginning to understand why Demon Lord Aberis kept this dungeon.”