Chapter 296

Tōtōsai stroked his beard and looked Haruto up and down once more before suddenly asking a question that seemed to come out of nowhere.

"You’re pretty strong, aren’t you?"

Haruto blinked, unsure why Tōtōsai was asking, but he saw no reason to hide it.

"A little stronger than Inuyasha, I suppose."

Inuyasha, who had been standing nearby with his arms folded and enjoying the show, immediately turned toward Haruto with an annoyed glare.

"What’d you say?!"

"Wanna step outside and prove it right now? I’d like to see exactly how you think you can beat me!"

Haruto certainly gave him a strong sense of danger, but Inuyasha was not about to assume that meant he was weaker.

There was only one way to find out who was stronger.

"Inuyasha, stop it."

Kagome grabbed his arm and sighed helplessly.

Personally, she suspected Haruto probably was stronger than Inuyasha.

After all, Haruto had traveled through so many different worlds. If he lacked strength, there was no way he could have survived all of those journeys without incident.

"Exactly, Inuyasha. Could you act a little more mature?"

Shippō sat on Kagome’s shoulder, covering his mouth as he snickered.

"Shippō, what the hell did you just say?!"

Inuyasha reached out to smack him on the head, but Shippō nimbly ducked away.

Haruto ignored the bristling half-demon and kept his attention on Tōtōsai.

Tōtōsai, meanwhile, nodded in satisfaction at Haruto’s answer.

"That should be enough, then."

He turned toward the rack beside the forge and picked up a large pair of long-handled tongs.

Holding them in both hands, Tōtōsai gave Haruto a serious look.

"Haruto, was it? Open your mouth. Let me take a look."

The moment Inuyasha saw the tongs, he stopped arguing.

A delightedly malicious grin appeared on his face.

When Tessaiga had broken in the past, those were the very same tongs Tōtōsai had used to pull one of Inuyasha’s fangs so the blade could be reforged.

Haruto looked at the tongs, then at Tōtōsai’s solemn expression.

The corner of his eye twitched.

He already understood exactly what the old swordsmith intended.

’He wants to pull one of my teeth.’

"Uh... Tōtōsai, is that really necessary?"

Haruto waved a hand.

It was not that he was afraid of the pain.

Pulling out a perfectly healthy tooth simply felt wrong on principle.

"Of course it’s necessary."

Tōtōsai planted the tongs upright in front of himself and explained seriously.

"You want a blade that recognizes you as its master and grows alongside you. For that, part of your own flesh, blood, and vital essence needs to be forged into it."

"A tooth is an extension of the bones. It’s far more suitable than hair or blood."

"If your tooth is fused into the blade blank, then from the moment the knife is born, it will naturally recognize you as its owner."

"And when you use it, the blade will respond to you as naturally as your own hand."

Tessaiga itself was the clearest proof.

The sword had originally been forged from one of Tōga’s fangs, and in Tōga’s hands, it could display its true power.

Inuyasha could wield it because he carried Tōga’s blood, but he was still not Tōga himself, which meant he had never been able to draw out every bit of Tessaiga’s strength.

After Tōtōsai reforged the broken blade using one of Inuyasha’s own fangs, however, Tessaiga had gradually begun recovering its former edge in Inuyasha’s hands.

Adding Haruto’s tooth would therefore do more than improve his compatibility with the knife.

More importantly, as Haruto himself grew stronger, the blade would also have a much easier time evolving with him.

Haruto looked at Tōtōsai’s serious expression and knew the old swordsmith was not exaggerating.

And although Haruto still could not regenerate an entire severed limb, regrowing a tooth was well within his current capabilities.

After a moment of thought, he raised his head.

"All right. How many teeth do you need?"

This time, Tōtōsai was the one who froze.

He had not expected Haruto to agree so readily.

Once he recovered, his opinion of Haruto rose another notch.

"One. Just one is enough."

"Got it."

Haruto answered without hesitation.

He glanced toward Inuyasha, who was still grinning at his misfortune, then took a deep breath.

Rather than letting Tōtōsai handle it, Haruto raised his right hand, gripped one of his canine teeth, and pulled it straight out.

Then he casually handed the bloodstained fang to Tōtōsai.

Tōtōsai accepted it and examined it carefully.

A moment later, he nodded in satisfaction.

The material quality of Haruto’s tooth was genuinely exceptional.

It was no worse than the two fangs he had once taken from Tōga.

While Tōtōsai continued inspecting it, Haruto brought out several cartons of Moomoo Milk.

He opened one and drank the entire thing in several gulps, then immediately opened another.

After finishing the milk, Haruto ran his tongue over the gap in his gums.

A new tooth was already pushing through.

The white tip emerged rapidly, lengthening and taking shape until, within moments, a perfectly formed tooth identical to the old one had grown into place.

"Hey! What the hell?!"

Inuyasha stared at Haruto’s newly grown tooth in disbelief.

"Your tooth grew back?! That fast?!"

"Are you sure you’re human?! Even most yōkai don’t regenerate that ridiculously fast!"

Kagome, Miroku, Sango, and the others were equally stunned.

"My recovery is just a little better than normal."

Haruto smiled casually.

Then he looked toward Tōtōsai, who had stored the tooth away and was now repeatedly comparing Haruto’s various materials against one another.

"Tōtōsai, about how long will it take to forge the kitchen knife?"

Tōtōsai temporarily set down the Red Dragon scale in his hand.

He frowned and began counting on his fingers.

After a while, he looked up.

"I’ve checked everything carefully. The materials you brought are all incredibly tough."

"The meteorite ore from beyond the heavens has an extremely high melting point, and the Red Dragon’s scales and fangs have tremendous natural resistance to fire. Ordinary volcanic flames can barely affect them."

"Just melting and refining all these materials will take one or two weeks."

"Then there’s hammering, shaping, and everything afterward... All told, I’d say at least a month."

Haruto frowned.

"That long?"

A month was a little excessive.

It would interfere with his plans to gather ingredients.

Still, from what Tōtōsai had explained, the main reason the process would take so long was that the forge simply could not reach a high enough temperature.

The materials had to be softened and melted little by little.

And temperature was one problem Haruto might actually be able to solve.

Among the seven culinary spells Serie had given him in the world of Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End was a constant-temperature enchantment that allowed him to precisely control the heat of a flame.

One of the three fire spells he had received was also a Flame Compression Spell, capable of compressing fire to raise its temperature dramatically.

With that in mind, Haruto looked at Tōtōsai.

"If I can provide a much higher temperature, would that shorten the forging time significantly?"

"Of course!"

Tōtōsai nodded without hesitation.

"The most important thing in forging is the fire! The hotter and stronger the flame, the faster you can melt the materials, and the easier it becomes to hammer them together properly."

"The problem is, the volcanic fire here can’t be made any hotter."

Despite saying that, Tōtōsai did not think much of Haruto’s question.

He assumed the young chef was merely asking out of curiosity.

After all, the entire reason Tōtōsai lived inside this volcano was because its magma already provided the hottest flames he had been able to find.

Haruto did not bother explaining.

He simply raised one hand and cast an ordinary fireball spell.

A dark-red sphere of flame roughly half a meter across rose above his palm.

Then Haruto activated the Flame Compression Spell.

The fireball began shrinking.

At the same time, its color changed.

Dark red became deep crimson.

Crimson shifted into orange-red.

Then gold.

By the time the flame had been compressed to the size of a ping-pong ball, it had turned a brilliant gold-white.

The temperature inside the entire forge began rising at a frightening speed.

The air itself visibly warped from the heat.

Inuyasha and the others instinctively retreated several steps.

The tiny flame in Haruto’s palm felt far too dangerous.

Tōtōsai, however, practically jumped into the air.

He rushed right up to Haruto’s hand, not even noticing when the edge of his white beard began to singe.

"This temperature! It’s hotter than the volcanic flames!"

"If I forge with this... three days! No, two days would be enough to melt and refine all the materials! And the hammering time could be shortened too—!"

For Tōtōsai, exceptional materials combined with exceptional fire were the same as a chef being handed the finest ingredients in existence along with perfect cooking equipment.

The exhilaration was impossible to put into words.

Seeing how excited Tōtōsai had become, Haruto quickly extinguished the compressed fireball before the old man accidentally burned himself and delayed the forging.

Tōtōsai immediately grabbed Haruto’s hand with both of his own, trembling with excitement.

"Can you maintain that flame steadily?"

"Can you control it while I’m forging?!"

"If you can give me fire like that, then seven days—no, five days!"

"Within five days, I guarantee I’ll forge you the finest, most unique kitchen knife in the entire world!"

Haruto nodded.

"Of course."

"I’ll stay here throughout the forging process and work with you. If you need the flame hotter, cooler, larger, or smaller, just tell me."

"Good! Good! Excellent!"

Tōtōsai spun around several times in excitement before immediately turning toward the workshop and beginning to prepare.

He could barely wait to start forging.