“It’s been a long time, everyone.”

“Arad… Arad Jin! How on earth did you get here? And what is that absurd golden carriage?”

The elderly knight Balzac, whose white beard now reached his collarbone, looked at me with a trembling voice.

His eyes quivered even more fiercely than his voice, filled with a desperate hope that this was neither a dream, nor an illusion, nor a hallucination.

“I started a new business in the Abyss and ended up drifting here.”

“A new business…?”

“Yes, selling food in the Abyss.”

“Is that… even possible?”

“Hahaha! It must be, since I’m here, isn’t it?”

“…”

When I mentioned food, a unified message began to appear in the gazes directed at me.

Even with thick fur hoods pulled tightly over their heads to combat the cold, their stares were unmistakable.

The Grand Duchess Arina was no exception.

“Arad Jin, honorary baron, I, Dominic, knight of Renslet…”

Eventually, Balzac opened his mouth.

“Ah! Aren’t you all hungry? Just a moment, please. I’ll prepare some stew. As you know, the first bowl each day is free, isn’t it?”

I cut him off mid-sentence to preserve the knights’ honor and dignity.

The aroma wafted up.

For them, this was likely the first real meal they’d smelled in months.

In front of bowls filled with Arad’s Stew, Arina and the knights seemed to be on the verge of losing all self-control.

Slurp, gulp, chew

Clatter, scrape

Around the campfire, the only sounds were of spoons scraping against bowls and mouths devouring the stew.

“Please eat slowly. Eating too quickly after prolonged starvation isn’t good for you.”

I tried to calm the knights, but of course, my words fell on deaf ears.

“That’s only for ordinary people, slurp… gulp! We’re superhuman, so it’s fine! By the way, is another bowl possible?”

“Yes… of course.”

As I ladled out more stew, I scanned the surroundings.

Likewise, the knights, even while eating, instinctively kept watch on their surroundings.

After all, this was the Abyss. A monster or hostile adventurer could attack at any moment.

Roar!

Sure enough, just as Arina and the knights were finishing their second bowls of stew, a monster’s roar echoed.

“Now that we’ve eaten, it’s time for some exercise.”

“Those monsters are as good as dead.”

The knights, hearing this, eagerly grabbed the swords they’d been waiting to draw.

Clang, clatter

But the condition of their weapons was far from ideal.

“Would you like me to repair your weapons?”

Unable to hold back, I pulled out a custom-made whetstone and sharpener from my carriage and made the offer.

“The monsters are practically here. Let’s save that for after the fight. Besides, these aren’t undead this time, which means they’re much faster.”

Balzac declined, wiping the stew from his white beard with the back of his hand as he glared in the direction of the monster’s roar.

Once again, a horde of monsters approached. This was undoubtedly an artificially induced monster wave.

“…”

And as I watched, my anxiety grew.

The knights hadn’t yet fully recovered, and their weapons were practically at the brink of breaking.

If their weapons snapped, they’d have to fight barehanded. If they were injured or killed, it would be a problem for me as well.

“What choice do we have?”

Balzac shrugged his shoulders at my worried expression.

“These corroded swords will take too long to repair. We’ll have to fight while protecting them with aura as much as possible.”

“Judging by their condition, they’ll likely break after five swings or so.”

“These swords are made of Northern cold iron. They won’t break that easily.”

The elderly knight smiled kindly, as if trying to reassure me.

“Still, why not trust me and let me handle it?”

“Arad Jin, honorary baron, it’s not that we don’t trust you. But we also know how to use whetstones and sharpeners as well as any blacksmith. I understand these swords and armor better than anyone.”

Balzac and the knights reaffirmed their resolve, stroking their weapons and armor.

“Besides, these swords and armor are made of Northern cold iron. The method for repairing them is different from normal equipment.”

“That’s true. Ordinary whetstones and sharpeners wouldn’t be able to repair them. But do I look ordinary to you?”

“…?”

Letting out a small sigh, I began setting up materials I’d pulled from my carriage.

Shortly after.

Scrape, scrape Clang, clang

Centered around the campfire, now transformed into a furnace using mana stones, the sound of sharpening weapons and polishing armor echoed.

Hiss, hiss Bang, bang

Sacred heat, conjured through magic, turned the blades a glowing red.

I mixed powdered bones and mana stones from various monsters and sprinkled it over the heated metal.

Whoosh! Boom!

Flames and sparks erupted like gunpowder.

Then, I resumed sharpening.

Using a bundle of chain pieces fashioned into a steel scrubbing pad, I scrubbed the surfaces vigorously.

The corroded, rusted swords and armor, on the verge of breaking, quickly became solid and clean.

Weapons and axes that had once smelled like they’d cause tetanus just by proximity began to gleam with a cold sharpness.

Armor polished with cloth soaked in oil and ore powder shone as if brand new.

“…”

“…”

The knights stared at my work in a daze.

As knights, they knew how to maintain their gear.

But they had never seen someone repair equipment with such possessed hands and ingenious methods.

“As expected, Northern cold iron is excellent! Thanks to that, I was able to repair everything more easily and quickly. Next!”

Having finished Balzac’s armor, sword, and axe, I took the next knight’s weapon in hand.

Roar!

Meanwhile, the monster horde drew within 300 meters.

Neigh!

As expected of Abyss monsters, the horses tied to my golden carriage began to panic at this distance.

“I’ll hold them off first. Join me once the repairs are done.”

“Understood!”

Balzac, whose equipment had been repaired first, strode confidently toward the horde.

“Here you go. I only managed an emergency repair. Come back after the battle for a proper fix.”

“Thank you!”

Six minutes later, another knight, equipped with newly repaired weapons and armor, sprinted toward Balzac’s position.

“Here’s your gear.”

“I won’t forget this favor!”

Seven minutes later, a third knight, now fully armed, rushed to the battlefield.

“I made quick repairs. Don’t push the gear too hard.”

“Of course.”

Another five minutes passed, and the fourth knight nodded wordlessly before running off to slaughter monsters.

“The star steel alloy in this blade made repairs smoother.”

“I’ll fight in a way that does justice to your skills and this weapon.”

Four minutes later, the fifth knight, Doyle, jogged briskly toward the battlefront.

“Kill them all!”

“Don’t let a single one near the golden carriage!”

“Renslet! Rune Renslet!”

“Hahahaha! Yes, this is it! This is what I live for! Hahahaha!”

With their bellies full and gear repaired, the knights began to massacre the monsters.

‘This is the might of the Northern knights!’

As I worked on the sixth knight’s gear, I couldn’t help but marvel at the Northern knights’ prowess.

The monsters closing in were top-tier creatures from the Abyss.

Snow Basilisks, Frost Ogres, White Drakes, Ice Worms…

Each one was the kind of beast even upper-mid-tier adventurer parties would struggle to face.

Thud!

Screech!

And yet, the Northern knights were hunting them with ease.

‘This… this surpasses the legends I heard in Silver Age 1!’

Now I understood why the Empire was so wary of the North’s military power.

Glance
Scrape, scrape
Flash!

While my eyes darted across the battlefield, my hands continued the final emergency repairs without pause.

“Here you go, Sir Iria. It seems the battle is almost over.”

As I handed the last piece of emergency-repaired gear to its owner, the knight currently using the alias "Iria," who was in fact none other than the Northern Grand Duchess, Arina Rune Renslet, spoke up.

“And you… just who are you, really?”

At some point, she had pulled back the hood she always wore.

“...!”

The sight of the Northern Grand Duchess without her hood was nothing short of stunning.

Her beauty rendered my mind blank, incomparable to any celebrity I had ever seen back on Earth.

Silver-blue hair and sapphire eyes perfectly complemented her flawless, snow-white skin.

Her appearance was so divine, so ethereal, that I questioned whether she was even human—or perhaps a goddess or fairy.

“My identity…?” I stammered.

“Yes,” she pressed.

I snapped out of my daze, realizing that despite her breathtaking beauty, her eyes were filled with suspicion as they fixed on me.

If I wasn’t careful, the sword I had just repaired might soon be used to slit my throat.

“Surely you already know my identity, Sir Iria,” I replied.

“A former D-rank adventurer with noble roots in the Eastern Continent?”

“That’s correct.”

“And you expect me to believe that?”

Arina’s gaze shifted to the golden carriage behind me.

No longer starving and desperate, she now had the clarity to question things that had gone unnoticed before.

“...”

I couldn’t fault her. If I were in her position, I’d be suspicious too. My explanation probably came off as even less convincing.

What kind of D-rank adventurer builds a carriage capable of traversing the Abyss’s depths and drives it themselves?

Flash!
Screech!

Just then, the monster wave came to an end.

Despite the wave's considerable size, to the rejuvenated Northern elite knights, it had merely been post-meal exercise.

“I imagine the other knights feel the same as I do. They’re letting it go for now because of the urgency of the situation,” Arina said, watching the knights finish off the stragglers.

“Speak, Arad Jin! Tell me your true identity and purpose!”

“...”

I had a feeling she suspected I might have orchestrated this entire situation just to stage a dramatic rescue.

If this world were driven by data and AI NPCs, things would have been so much simpler.

If it were like other virtual reality fantasy games, I might have been hailed as some overpowered player character with a legendary class.

“Wow, what’s your job? Legendary class? Amazing!” People might have treated me like some mythical gaming figure.

But this wasn’t some convenient world with status windows.

This was a cold, harsh reality.

And I, an endgame-level crafting character suddenly dropped into this world, was nothing but an enigmatic irregular—both extraordinary and profoundly suspicious.

‘I can’t blame Arina for feeling this way.’

To her, I was an enigma.

One day, I had simply appeared in the North, creating Arad’s Salt out of nowhere.

Then I persistently sought to join parties of elite Northern knights.

And now, here I was in the middle of the Abyss, boldly driving a golden carriage.

A former D-rank adventurer, no less.

‘What am I supposed to say? That I’m a player who got isekai’d into a game set a hundred years before its timeline?’

Just thinking about it made my head hurt.

Even though it was the truth, explaining it would only make it harder to believe.

‘Should I just say I’m a magi-tech engineer from a future a hundred years ahead?’

The idea crossed my mind, but I doubted she’d believe it. She might even accuse me of deception.

“I’m just an adventurer with a complicated past who wandered across the continent and decided to settle in the North,” I said at last, repeating the background story I’d already introduced. Like a parrot.

Clink.

Arina’s sword slid halfway out of its sheath. Damn it!

“...”

“...”

The air between us turned icy.

Hmm…

When I glanced around, I noticed that the knights, having finished their monster hunt, had quietly surrounded me.

About ten seconds passed.

Click.

“...Fine. I’ll let this go for now,” Arina said, sliding her sword back into its scabbard.

“In any case, we owe you our lives.”

The situation was resolved, though it left an uncomfortable tension in the air.

“Northerners always repay their debts. When we return, you will be properly rewarded.”

“D-Debt? It was nothing. I was just doing what anyone would. Haha…”

“Of course, Northerners also repay grudges tenfold. I sincerely hope you’re not behind this incident.”

“...”

Correction. The situation wasn’t just uncomfortable—it was downright chilling.