Chapter 231: Chapter 231

Arwin carefully reached into his mouth and pulled the still-hot lava from it with a [Soul Flame] encased hand. He looked down at it, then back up to Wallace before clearing his throat, sending a small tongue of flame flicking out in the process. “Eating would imply that I was swallowing. I didn’t swallow any. I was chewing lava.”

“I am not about to argue semantics with a man that sticks lava into his mouth. Were you pelted against a wall as a child? Or perhaps yesterday? What could have possibly possessed you to — wait.” Wallace stared down lava. His eye twitched. “You connected with it?”

“It did seem like a fairly logical next step,” Arwin said sheepishly. “I couldn’t put my intent into it like a normal piece of metal, so I went to drastic measures.”

“Your idea of drastic measures is sticking things into your mouth? What are you, a toddler? At least you didn’t shove it up your arse,” Wallace grumbled. [Soul Flame] gauntlets erupted over his hands and he plucked the lava from Arwin, examining it closely for around a minute. A disbelieving huff slipped from the dwarf’s eyes and he handed it back to him.

“It worked, then?” Arwin asked.

“Somehow. I’m not even sure what to tell you. I’ve taught a few dwarven smiths in my time. Enough to say that never once have I had a dwarf stupid enough to try to eat lava. A few gave munching rocks a shot, but they wised up after they cracked a few teeth. Well, most of them.” Wallace hesitated for a moment, then shook his head. “We don’t talk about Rockchomper.”

“Hold on. Now you have to,” Lillia said, leaning forward slightly as a small grin pulled at her lips. “Was his name Rockchomper before he started eating rocks? Or did he earn it?”

“The former. It was an unfortunate coincidence,” Wallace said. He thrust a finger in Arwin’s direction. “Though I’m thinking this one may be deserving of a unique name of his own. If I catch him trying to eat my Mithril, I’m ending him then and there. I won’t need to see the results to know he’s a madman.”

“Noted,” Arwin said. “Just out of curiosity, what was the proper method? You mentioned kneading?”

“How’d you know?” Arwin asked.

“You didn’t listen to the damn song,” Wallace replied. “Sounded like a screeching old bat, you did. That was horrendous. Do you have any talent at all when it comes to anything other than sticking things in your mouth?”

“I was trying to listen,” Arwin said defensively. “It was speaking to me. Just… not singing.”

“Speaking? Don’t be daft,” Wallace said. “You were daydreaming. Materials do not speak. They sing. Do it again.”

Arwin picked up the new bar of metal. He studied it for a second, then pressed his lips thin in determination and pushed it into his ball of lava.

Three hours. Twenty-five bars of metal. Countless new balls of chewed lava. Arwin’s jaw ached and his backside was sore. He hadn’t budged from his spot once. The only thing that had spared his back and shoulders from pain was Lillia, for which he was eternally grateful.

He was not, however, anywhere near as pleased with the damnable bars of metal that Wallace had been wordlessly handing him over the past few hours. Arwin had dealt with enormous monsters. He’d battled hordes of enemies and emerged victorious as the Hero.

Now he was losing a fight to an assortment of inanimate objects. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t hear a single note of the song that Wallace was talking about. The metals told them their desires, he melted them, and then there was nothing.

Arwin tried controlling the temperature of the lava to prevent the metal from breaking down as quickly. He tried heating it faster. He tried chewing the metal when he didn’t think Wallace was looking.

Nothing worked. The very instant he stuck the ingots into his ball of lava, they were as good as dead. Either not a single one of them knew how to sing or he was completely tone deaf. Hours of frustration made his stomach clench and teeth grind.

What the hell do I have to do? This is infuriating.

A clang split the air as Wallace slammed an ingot down on the anvil and strode back to whatever it was he was doing. Arwin grabbed the ingot and glared at it, as if hoping to cow it into submission.

Sing, you little piece of shit. Rap. Opera. I don’t care. Do something. I’m starting to wonder if Wallace is just screwing with me.

“What did the ingot do to you?” Lillia asked, resting her chin on the top of Arwin’s head. “That’s a lot of annoyance for a brick of metal.”

Arwin blew out a sigh. “Yeah. I can’t hear the stupid thing sing. It just speaks. No matter what I try, I just can’t hear it.”

“Do you think talking it out would help?”

“I think that’s what we’re doing.”

“Oh, it is. I just wanted to make sure,” Lillia said, and Arwin could hear the hint of amusement in her voice. “So, what are you doing wrong?”

“If I knew that, I’d fix it. Your food doesn’t sing to you, does it?”

“No and thank the gods for that. Food that spoke to me would be bad enough. Having it sing to me while I chopped it up would make me comically evil. It’s just food. Sorry.”

“Figured.” Arwin studied the ingot in his hand. There was no point just sticking it into the lava. He hadn’t heard so much as a peep from anything yet, and he didn’t want to just go around wasting metal. “I wonder if my class is somehow keeping me from hearing the song because I can hear metal speak.”

“Have you tried tuning it out?”

Lillia let out a thoughtful hum. She leaned more of her weight onto Arwin’s back and wrapped her arms around his neck, drumming her fingers gently on his shoulders in thought. Arwin moved the ball of lava a little farther away to make sure it didn’t get too close or burn her. The heat was almost entirely gathered in its core, but he didn’t want to take any risks.

“Wallace was talking about harmonizing things,” Lillia mused. “Maybe you need to use the lava to listen? It’s a part of you or something, right?”

“That was one of my more recent attempts. It didn’t work, unfortunately. It’s an extension of me, but more like a hand than an ear,” Arwin said. Some of the frustration built up in him drained away. It was hard to remain annoyed with Lillia’s presence against him. The gentle drumbeat of her fingers against him was oddly comforting.