Reincarnated as an SSS-Ranked Blacksmith Who Refuses to Forge Weapons-Chapter 232. What You Build Matters

The kids were all paying attention in different ways. For the Greyson family, this meant that Aldric was completely still and focused, while eight-year-old Lyssa was vibrating slightly with pent-up energy and had been told three times to stop trying to levitate the decorative torches.

Kael, Greg's oldest son, was standing up straight and trying to look older than he was. At fifteen, he mostly succeeded.

He had Marina's straightforwardness and Greg's habit of showing he cared by doing things, which meant that he spent the morning making sure that all the ceremony's details were in order and then checking them again and again.

He didn't trust chance because he had gotten enough of both parents to be cautious.

Denna stood next to her brother with the easy comfort of someone who had never doubted her place in any room she walked into. This was because of Marina's influence and Denna's own natural personality coming together to make something that Greg found both comforting and a little scary.

She had prepared food for the party in Thomas's kitchen, exuding a focused joy akin to someone fulfilling their destiny.

Mira Greyson, Lylia's daughter, was holding her namesake's hand with the ease of a thirteen-year-old who had grown up knowing that the New Mira was family in a way that didn't need to be explained.

They both liked to group things that were hard to understand at first but made sense once explained. Lylia looked at them with an expression that she probably didn't know she had. It was a mix of happiness, sadness, and deep satisfaction.

Rose stood still like someone who had been practicing being still and was excellent at it. Marina said that she had Lylia's groundedness, Greg's stubbornness, and the special ability to make a room feel calmer just by walking in.

Marina said this was a divine gift, and Seraphine was currently writing about it in a scientific way.

Roland was told not to touch the Hearthstone before it was put down when he was nine years old. He was standing with his hands clasped behind his back in a way that showed he was really trying hard. This made a few adults nearby smile without letting him see them do it.

Aldric, who was thirteen and Seraphine's son, brought his own notebook to the ceremony. He stood next to his mother and took careful notes that would have been impressive for someone twice his age.

Greg had learned to accept that Helena Greyson wore all black to the ceremony as her own style of formal dress, not as a statement.

She was watching the crowd with the sharp, critical eye that she brought to everything, and the night before, she had told Greg that she thought the Hearthstone was "the most genuinely interesting magical object I've ever seen."

This was the highest praise Helena could give.

Little Lyssa stood still next to her father on his left, her head tilted to the side and her eyes fixed on the Hearthstone in his hands. She looked like someone who had never seen anything like it before, even though her chaotic magic knew it was something to be quiet around.

Valen, who was five years old and becoming more and more sure that there were many interesting things in the world, was sitting on Seraphine's shoulders because the crowd was too tall, and he thought this was the best place to see everything. About forty-five seconds after he climbed, Seraphine had come to terms with this choice.

Amara Greyson, Elwen's oldest daughter at ten, was drawing next to her mother. You could tell that she was using a style that was both her own and her mother's.

Aster Greyson was next to her, holding a stone that had somehow gotten into his pocket. This wasn't unusual because things tended to end up near Aster when they were needed.

The stone originated from the original workshop floor in Ferndale, but none of them would learn this fact for three more years when Greg mentioned it in passing. Aster had been carrying it around since he was three, but he didn't know why.

Greg held the Hearthstone and looked at his family, then at the people behind and around them, and finally at the golden evening light spreading across the plaza where the island of Home was doing what it had always done: simply existing, peacefully, with the quiet certainty of a place that had been built with conviction and maintained with love.

He put the Hearthstone in the ground in the middle of the plaza and pressed it into the stone with both hands. He could feel it connect with the island.

The roots spread out through the ground like warm light moving through water. They got to the workshop, the kitchen, the school, the harbor, the seven villages on the outside, every sleeping area, and everyone who had built something, planted something, or made a promise there.

He felt each one of them clearly for a short time, like a familiar hand in the dark.

Then he got up, faced his people, and said what needed to be said.

"Three gods brought me into this world fifteen years ago for a specific reason."

"They needed weapons for their wars, and they worked hard to make sure that I would do what they wanted." He stopped. "I made a ladle instead."

People laughed, and it felt like warmth.

"I'm not going to stand here and tell you I had a plan... I didn't..."

"I had a principle, which is a different thing, and the principle was that I was done making tools that helped people kill each other and was going to make tools that helped people live instead." He looked at the Hearthstone, which was glowing steadily in the last of the evening light.

"I had no idea that everyday things could do what they did..."

"I didn't know that a frying pan could kill a wyvern, a ladle could block divine attacks, or a pair of headphones could save a man's life just by making the world quiet enough for him to live in it."

He saw Dorin's face in the crowd. The old dwarf was sitting in a chair that someone had brought out just for him. His pipe was lit, and his eyes were very bright.

"I had no idea that making something simple for someone because you really wanted to help them could mean so much..."

"That care about whether someone was safe, fed, or comfortable could be more important than anything a god thought was worth ranking."

The light from the Hearthstone, a magical stone that provides warmth and illumination, had spread to the bases of the closest buildings by now, following the roots underground. The plaza's edges were lit up as if the island were lit from below.

"This Hearthstone isn't my best work. It's made of things we built together, and the best things in it came from people I love."

"But it's the last thing I'll make at my full capacity, and I want to be clear about what it is and what it isn't." He looked around the plaza. "It won't protect you from everything."

"It won't stop you from feeling sad, going through hard times, or having to disagree with others and figure out how to do it."

"It won't keep the gods away forever, but I've found that gods tend to become more interested than hostile when they have time to watch something they don't understand."

He heard a noise from New Mira, who was somewhere in the crowd and seemed to have profound feelings about this truth.

Greg said, "What the Hearthstone does is make this promise permanent: that Home will exist after I'm gone."

"That's what we built here will outlast any of us individually."

"That the people who aren't born yet will inherit something real." He looked at his kids. "That's what I wanted to give you."

"Not power or safety from everything, but the knowledge that what you build matters, that it will still be here, and that you did a good job."

He moved away from the Hearthstone.

"That's all I have..."

"Now... go eat. Thomas made something amazing, and I heard that the dessert alone took four days to make."

Thomas, who was somewhere near the kitchen, confirmed this loudly.