Greg was teaching Seraphine the blacksmith's song when the yelling began. The afternoon had been calm. Seraphine came to his workshop with a notebook and said she was only "purely academically interested" in how he worked.
They had been sitting outside, and Greg was showing Seraphine how to play the song's rhythm while she tried to keep up. Every time she hit a wrong note, her usually perfect composure broke. Then a farmer ran into the village square, where his face looked pale with fear.
"Monsters coming from the Darkwood!" The man fell down next to the fountain and couldn't breathe.
"Many of them! Corrupted wolves and shadow beasts! They're going straight to the village!"
The calm mood was broken right away. Some villagers ran out of their homes with whatever tools they could find, while others gathered their children and led them to safety. The chief of the village came out looking serious but determined.
He asked the farmer, "How long do we have?"
"Maybe an hour, maybe less." The farmer coughed. "They were going fast, and something was wrong with them."
"Their eyes shone purple, as if something unnatural was driving them."
Seraphine was already up, and ice crystals were swirling around her as she got ready for battle. "Magic of corruption."
"Something in that forest is giving birth to corrupted creatures." She looked at Greg.
"You need to leave. If this is a dungeon break, the whole village might be in danger.
"We can't leave," the chief said.
"Not everyone, and not fast enough. We can only hope to keep them at bay until help comes from the nearest garrison."
Lylia came out of her restaurant with her magical ladle in hand and said, "That could take days." Marina showed up a few minutes later with her frying pan strapped to her back like a shield.
Greg looked at the defenders who were coming together. Lylia, a retired knight, wielded a soup ladle. Marina is an adventurer who has cooking tools. Seraphine is a powerful mage who could probably fight off the monsters by herself, but it would wear her out. And a few farmers with pitchforks.
"Please give me a weapon," one of the younger men said, looking at Greg with fear.
"Please, Master Greg. I know you don't make them, but my family is here. I need something to keep them safe."
Others joined in, begging for swords, spears, or anything else that could help them fight off the horde that was coming. Greg's old instincts kicked in, the part of him that knew exactly what weapons they needed and how to make them.
He could make a sword that would cut through shadow beasts like paper. Armor that would stop claws that were tainted. He had the tools, the skills, and the plan. But then he'd be back to making deadly weapons.
Greg said firmly, "No weapons," and a few faces fell. "But I have a different idea."
"Chief, you said the monsters are evil, right? Driven by something not normal?"
The farmer said, "That's what it looked like."
Greg said, "Then we don't need to fight them. We clean 'em all."
Seraphine frowned. "Purification magic needs holy priests or special items. We don't have either."
Greg said, "Fuck all of that, you guys have me, the blacksmith Greg Greyson!"
After saying that with full confidence, he walked his way back to his workshop. "And now I'm going to make the dumbest thing ever."
He took out his best iron and the oak wood from a tree that the spirits of the area had blessed. He shaped a farming hoe with purpose, but this time he put a lot of thought into it.
The runes were lit up in a golden light that was much brighter than usual. They spiraled up the handle and across the blade in shapes that looked like flowers and vines growing.
[Crafting Done!]
[Item Created: Holy Hoe of Purification]
[Rank: SSS]
[Special Properties: Can't be broken, cleanses corrupted land and creatures, makes holy ground, speeds up natural growth]
[Special Effect: This hoe will remove dark magic from any corrupted being it hits]
[Achievement: Making Peace a Weapon]
[The gods are impressed even though they don't want to be]
Greg looked at the notice. "We are using peace as a weapon." Sure, why not?"
He took the hoe outside to where the defenders had gathered. The tool glowed with a soft golden light, and everyone could feel the warmth coming from it.
One of the farmers said, "You made a farming tool," but he wasn't sure.
Greg said, "I made a tool for cleaning that looks like a hoe."
"This should clean them up if those monsters are evil. If the creatures are purely corrupted, either transform them back into normal animals or eliminate them entirely.
"That's crazy," Seraphine said, but she was genuinely interested in the hoe.
"This tool has as much holy energy in it as a high priest's blessing."
"How did you use a farming tool to channel divine power?"
Greg said, "I asked it nicely to clean things up. The system took care of everything else."
"You asked the metal nicely," Seraphine said again in a flat voice.
"Better than you'd think it would." Greg held the hoe out. "Who wants to be the one to swing it?"
Lylia stepped forward and said, "I'll do it." She nodded in approval after testing the hoe's weight.
"Good balance." It has the same weight as my old training blade. I never thought I'd have to fight with a garden hoe.
Marina said, "There's a first time for everything. With my frying pan, I've got your back."
Seraphine said under her breath, "This is the strangest battle preparation I've ever seen," but she was already putting up protective walls around the village.
"And I saw a dwarf fight a dragon with a beer barrel."
Twenty minutes later, the monsters showed up at the edge of the village. They looked exactly like the farmer said they would. Wolves and shadow beasts with glowing purple eyes that moved in ways that weren't normal. A dark mist hung around them like fog, and the plants they walked by died.
"Here they come!" someone yelled.
Lylia stepped forward with the holy hoe ready. "Stay behind me. Let's see if this works."
The first corrupted wolf lunged at her, its jaws dripping with purple-tinged saliva and snarling. Lylia swung the hoe in a perfect arc, and the blade hit the creature's side.
The golden light burst out. The wolf yelped, not because it hurt, but because it was surprised that the dark corruption was burning away from its body.
In a matter of seconds, it turned back into a regular wolf, scared and confused. It turned around and ran back toward the forest, free from the corruption's control.
"It works!" Marina yelled. "Keep going!"
The next battle was probably the strangest Greg had ever seen. Lylia moved through the corrupted creatures like a master swordsman, but instead of killing them, she was cleaning them up with a garden hoe. Each blow sent out a burst of holy light that got rid of the evil and brought the animals back to their natural state.
Marina helped her out with the frying pan, blocking attacks and sometimes stunning creatures with well-placed bonks to the head. Seraphine used ice magic to freeze corrupted creatures in place so Lylia could safely cleanse them.
The villagers were amazed as their defenders literally gardened their way through a horde of monsters. "We're safe!"
The chief of the village said, "This is the strangest thing I've ever seen."
Greg said, "Welcome to my life."
But then the forest brought out the real problem. The forest revealed a massive, corrupted treant that stood at least twenty feet tall, its bark twisted by dark magic and its branches terminating in claws. The cause of the corruption.
Seraphine said, "That's what was making the creatures evil."
"An old treant that has been corrupted by dark magic. Lylia, that hoe might not be big enough for something that big.
"Then we need a bigger hoe," Marina said.
"Or," Greg said slowly, "we use it for what it's for."
Everyone looked at him. "What do you mean, Master Greg?"
Greg went on, "It's a hoe for digging up the ground."
"What if we clean up the ground around the treant instead of hitting it? Stop it from getting corrupted energy."
Lylia's eyes got bigger. "That's really smart. If we clean up the earth where it lives, the corruption won't be able to get any power."
Seraphine said, "I'll freeze it in place. Give you time to work."
She lifted her hands, and giant chunks of ice formed around the treant, keeping it in place. The creature roared and thrashed against the ice prison, but it stayed put.
Lylia ran up to the treant's roots with the holy hoe and started to break up the ground around them. Every time the blade hit the ground, it sent golden light through the earth, making the bad soil clean again.
The effect happened right away. The dark fog started to clear, the bent plants straightened out, and the grass that was dying got its color back.
When the treant's source of power was cut off, its roar turned into a groan of pain. The purple light in its eyes went away, and the twisted bark started to straighten out.
In a matter of minutes, it had changed back into a normal, beautiful, and calm ancient tree. Seraphine let go of her ice magic, and the treant that had just been cleaned up stood there, swaying in the wind.
"Did we just save a forest that was going evil by farming it?" Marina asked.
"Apparently yes," Lylia said, looking at the holy hoe in a new way.
"This is amazing, Greg. We didn't have to kill anything. We just cleaned them up."
[Quest Complete: Cleanse through Peaceful Means]
[Reward: SSS-Rank Achievement]
[Title Unlocked: Guardian of Peace]
[Special Reward: How to Make Purification Tools]
[The gods agree that this was pretty cool]
[Even the gods of war are paying attention]
The people in the village cheered. They had protected their home without losing a single person, and they didn't even have to kill the creatures that were attacking. It had never happened before.
Greg saw Lylia give him back the hoe, and she looked like she was thinking. "I thought I'd never be part of something important again when I left the knights."
"But this? Keeping people safe without hurting them? This means more to me than any fight I've ever had."
"That's the plan," Greg said.
"Peace isn't just not having a war. It's choosing to solve problems without using violence."
Seraphine came over with her notebook out, but her face was softer than usual. "I have to completely rewrite my report."
"Your philosophy isn't just a bunch of idealistic nonsense. It's almost revolutionary. You're making a new kind of defensive magic out of things you use around the house and on the farm."
Greg said, "I'm just making things that help people."
"You're changing the way we think about protection and power," Seraphine said in response.
"That means more than any weapon."
Greg couldn't help but smile as the village celebrated their win. It looked like his peaceful revolution was working after all. One silly farming tool at a time.