The Sengoku Festival (An Oda Nobuna No Yabou fanfic)

Chapter 1

I awoke on the very uncomfortable peasant futon as I still wore my clothes and as I walked over to where the door was, I opened it and bowed. "Morning, sir."

The Blacksmith was an old but still well-built man maybe in his 50's and he smiled as he looked at me as he said, "Ah, Jonasan. We have much work today. The farmers need some new tools for the harvest and we will be late if we don't get to work right away."

I nodded as I followed him towards the forgery. It was the second day of the festival and now that I was use to what to say and act I knew it was more or less smooth sailing from here.

The village I resided in was at the base of a large hill that if one was to go over, they would have a days walk away from the Oda main castle. The village had some walls around it and had several pastures of farmland all around it full of fruit tree's, rice paddies, and more. This village had only a few dozen in it and as I walked into the forge, both me and the blacksmith took off out tops and tied it around our waists as I walked to the furnace and began to stoke the fire with a bellow. The blacksmith was an actual blacksmith in real life I had found out from day one and though I was not exactly the best helper to him, he appreciated me nonetheless.

"Keep that fire going. We will be making quite a few hoes and axes this day." said the smith as he put on an apron and then picked up from nearby some wooden buckets of ore.

The iron ore was imported from the nearby mines and as he put them in a cauldron, he then took the cauldron and put it in the furnace and I stoked the furnace more with the bellows as the heat in the blacksmith rose higher and as I looked over to the smith, he was smiling at something before the smiths entrance as he picked up the box and put it down nearby.

"Now, lets begin, shall we?" The smith took the pot off as the contents had melted down and as I was quick to place done some molds for us to use, I watched as he gingerly pour into each mold a portion of the molten iron before he put it back into the furnace and as I stoked the fire once again to keep the contents from cooling, the smith waited for the molds to cool before he took the molds apart carefully and as he lay each of the hoe and axe heads down, he took nearby some sticks and then began to insert them into the loops of the axe heads and hoe heads before he beat the metal to fasten the metal to the handles.

As he put them down nearby, he looked at me with a smile as he said, "Now, I know you wanted to try and make something of black steel. How about a small sword?"

"Are you serious, sir? Are you sure I should be doing it?" I asked him.

He laughed as he said, "I won't let you get hurt, I promise and besides it can't hurt considering how much iron we have at the moment."

He went to the furnace and as he worked the bellows for only a moment before he looked around and as he took up one nearby mold, he put it on the table as he then went to a nearby bucket and brought it over. Inside of it was what seemed to be tar and as he put it down with a ladle, he looked at me as he took off his apron and put it on me as he then said, "Okay... now follow my instructions very carefully."

First off, he instructed me to make it into steel. I never knew how to make it but he slowly coaxed me through the process of introducing carbon into the iron as we slowly shaped the iron into steel. As I did so, the soot from the furnace and from the heat began to coat my skin and as I finally did the last step, he said to me, "Well done. Now, take it up and lets go to this mold."

The mold was exposed and as I gingerly walked over to it, I kept my hands as steady as I could as the heat was very obvious on my skin and as slowly walked over with the cauldron of bubbling ore, I cam to the mold and began to pour it into the mold. As I did so, the smith poured the oil over the molten ore and as the melt spat and cooled down, I kept my flow steady until I used the last of it and as the smith watched the metal slowly cool, he took it up with some tongs as he went over and as he heated it up in the furnace as he walked over to the anvil nearby and he began to hammer it and fold it up as he began to shape it into something.