Chapter 19
Screeeech, clack.
The heavy iron door closed, and I finally stepped into the familiar workshop.
“Wow... that was exhausting.”
Seo Ji-an let out a sigh and set the handbag she'd been carrying on her shoulder down on the table.
She stretched her arms and smiled.
“Whew. A five-star hotel suite is nice and all, but home really is best! Right, Mr. Do-hyun?”
“…….”
“Mr. Do-hyun? Shall we eat first?”
But I didn't answer Ji-an and instead trudged over and flopped down onto the chair in front of the workbench.
My head was full of the gallery posts I had read in the car on the way here.
I quietly went over those posts again in my mind.
[HOT] Hey, is the bomber at Goblin Market still not caught?
I've been too scared to go to Goblin Market lately.
Ugh, I need to go buy gwihwangji, please.
The authorities, do your job.
That was the first post I clicked.
ㄴGwihwangji is sold online too, so don't be so dramatic.
ㄴWord is it's all those Baehwa Cult bastards.
ㄴWhy would they even come all the way out here?
ㄴI don't know.
Wow, a bomb attack.
The sorcerer world really is a scary place.
But why Goblin Market, of all places?
I'd better be careful from now on.
‘No, wait....’
Goblin Market? A bombing??
Something suddenly came to mind.
When Seo Ji-an first brought me here.
That day we stopped by Cheonhwadang.
Could it be…….
.
.
.
‘So they were talking about that Cheonhwadang jerk.’
I remembered the rude bastard who had come in wearing a bunch of fire talismans and demanding a refund for his stuff.
But what's the Baehwa Cult?
‘Hmm.... That guy was caught on the spot by some people called Geumri or something.’
As expected, rumors only got more embellished the more they were passed around.
Looks like the Cheonhwadang incident had spread to the community and gotten chopped up and exaggerated.
Hmph. Idiots.
I hit the back button.
[Daily] Urgent) Is it okay to print talismans with a printer?
Can't I put gyeongmyeon-jusa in an inkjet, cut gwihwangji into A4 size, and run a print job?
Drawing them by hand every time is a pain in the ass.
If anyone's tried it, let me know.
ㄴ Wow, you're a genius? I'm buying a printer first thing tomorrow.
ㄴ As someone who's tried it, don't do it. The printer got possessed by a spirit, and every night it prints out a virgin ghost.
ㄴGasp....
ㄴEven better.
“Pfft.”
I let out a laugh before I knew it.
Sorcerer communities and game communities really are the same when it comes to nonsense posts.
Even better, huh.
Back again.
And so I kept scrolling down.
A title caught my eye.
.
.
.
[HOT] The TK Group hotel incident—so who ended up fixing it??
[News] [Exclusive / Gimu Daily] The Cheonsan Sect artisan who saved TK Group—who is he?
└ 311 comments
“……Huh?”
Right. Among those best posts, there were definitely posts about me.
A sorcerer from the Cheonsan Sect who suddenly appeared and solved the request no one had dared touch because they were watching the Four Great Houses.
It was obviously about me.
All I'd done was write one talisman and make them a single kitchen knife.
'Looks like I got famous a little too quickly....'
Is this right?
It felt way too fast.
In the first place, the only people who knew I'd gotten involved were Director Yoon, the personal secretary, the chef, and that punk sorcerer Jin Mu-young, right?
Then how had it spread this quickly, and in such detail, too?
Hmm. If it's already this much...
‘...This is going to be a headache from here on out.’
Come to think of it, there was no way veteran broker Seo Ji-an wouldn't know about this.
“Hmm.... Since we wrapped up the first commission this perfectly, it'd be a shame to just let it slide!”
Then Seo Ji-an walked over to the refrigerator and started chattering excitedly.
“Shall we grill some meat today? Or chicken? On a commemorative day like today, after nailing our first commission, we should celebrate properly with chimaek, right?”
Clink, hiss—.
She took two cans of beer out of the fridge and came over to me.
“Here, Mr. Do-hyun! To celebrate our successful debut—”
“Uh, Ji-an. Wait. Wait.”
Seo Ji-an, who had been about to hand me the beer, froze at my serious voice.
“Ah, ahaha....”
She gave an awkward laugh and carefully set the beer she'd been offering down on the table.
“Oh, Mr. Do-hyun, do you not drink... or... was I being thoughtless and getting too excited? I'm sorry. I was just too happy....”
“That's not it.”
I took the tablet she'd given me earlier out of my pocket and placed it on the table.
The tablet screen still showed the real-time best posts on the [Will-o'-the-Wisp] community.
[HOT] The TK Group hotel incident—Cheonsan Sect solved it in the end, right?
Kyaa! I was sick to death of watching those Four Great Houses bastards collude among themselves
What a damn sight, lol
You were all swagger and no action, and now an outside artisan's had your rice bowl stolen for real, huh?
But you can't do a thing about it, can you? lol
I'm so relieved~
Kyaaa! Serves you right, seriously, lololol
└ For real, I'm getting a good night's sleep tonight, lol
└ Ah, this is so satisfying, lololol
└ The Four Great Houses bastards are probably in a meeting with red faces right now
Seo Ji-an's reaction to that was completely different from what I expected.
“Oh my. I thought something had happened. Did this surprise you?”
Rather than being flustered by the tablet, she burst out laughing as if all the tension had left her.
“...Ji-an, you knew all about this? I honestly don't really understand why I got famous so quickly.”
Honestly, having all eyes on me right from the start felt a little burdensome.
At my remark, Ji-an picked up the tablet and nodded.
“From your point of view, it's perfectly understandable to be flustered. But, Mr. Do-hyun.”
Ji-an looked straight at me with a very serious expression, the face of a true professional broker.
“In this line of work, becoming famous is only natural if you're active as a sorcerer or artisan. You have to get famous and let the rumors spread so the big shots come flocking with cash to place requests, don't they?”
According to her explanation, it went like this.
In this cramped sorcerer world monopolized by the Four Great Houses, a freelancer with no affiliation had only one way to survive: make people hear about your 'overwhelming skill.'
“Even so, isn't it a little strange that details about exactly who did what are all getting spread around?”
“Ah, that? Well, of course everyone would know.”
Ji-an tapped the tablet screen and opened another tab in the community to show me.
“Here.”
On the screen was a window unlike the marketplace or community board I had seen earlier, something like a request-matching system.
And right in the middle of it.
[Request Ratings and Reviews]
[Author: seah_y]
[Assigned broker: Seo Ji-an / Assigned artisan: Master Do (Cheonsan Sect)]
NEW ★★★★★
└Fast work and perfect results. I'd definitely like to ask for your help again next time♡
“……?”
“It's a request review system. After the job's done, the client can leave star ratings and a review themselves.”
“...What, there was even something like this?”
This isn't some food delivery app review or anything.
It even had five stars and a thoughtful review.
Judging by the ID, it was definitely written by Director Yoon from TK Group.
Was this okay?
No, why.... I don't really know much about this line of work, but surely there are things you'd want to keep hidden, right?
Then Seo Ji-an opened her mouth as if she'd read my mind.
“It's not mandatory to leave one.”
Ji-an explained with a shrug.
“Still, it works as a kind of portfolio. For newcomers like us who start without family backing, it's a little hard to do things quietly. Hehe.”
According to Ji-an, the matter was such that the Hyeonmu side would inevitably notice soon enough anyway, so if it was going to spread, they might as well use it for noise marketing.
“Hehe...”
After finishing her explanation, Seo Ji-an suddenly squirmed awkwardly and made a strange sound.
“……?”
“Actually....”
She made a cutesy forced smile and confessed.
"Some of the posts that went best... I wrote those too...."
"……."
Apparently, she had written the best posts herself too!
Come to think of it, from a broker's perspective, a major result like this would be an enormous weapon.
From TK Group's point of view as the client, they would have wanted to publicize widely that 'we've connected with such a capable Cheonsan Sect artisan,' so the interests of both sides lined up and the story seems to have moved quickly.
So it was only natural the rumor spread.
'Hmm....'
“S-sorry! I thought Mr. Do-hyun wasn't the type to like fame, but this also felt like one of those unavoidable business things.... I should have consulted you beforehand!”
Ji-an bowed restlessly as if she'd committed some terrible sin.
Well, it wasn't exactly wrong.
After all, promotion is important in business.
And if you worked long enough, becoming famous would be inevitable anyway.
Still, there was one thing that bothered me.
‘...Would this really be okay?’
The black-masked figure was reflected in a corner of the tablet's dark screen.
Would just this one mask be enough?
If someone recognized me on the street and started following me around.
That would be a headache in its own way.
“...Mr. Do-hyun, is that bothering you, by any chance?”
Noticing my expression, Ji-an cautiously asked while making a gesture as if covering her mouth with her hand.
“Yes.... I guess it is a bit.”
I answered, fidgeting with the edge of the mask with my fingertips.
“It's kind of suffocating, too. I can't exactly go around like this for the rest of my life.”
“Mm-hmm~”
Ji-an propped her chin on her hand and thought for a moment.
Ta-da—
She snapped her fingers lightly.
“In that case, there is another way.”
“...Another way?”
Heh.
Ji-an's lips curled into a meaningful smile.
***
The next day.
The place I arrived at with Seo Ji-an's guidance was a very old, shabby alley on the outskirts of Goblin Market.
“Hello, sir!”
A herbal medicine shop at the far end of the alley.
As soon as we opened the door and went in, Ji-an greeted him warmly.
“Oh my, it's our Ji-an?”
From inside, a kind-looking middle-aged man wearing magnifying glasses greeted her back warmly.
I carefully looked around inside the herbal shop.
Dozens of old medicine drawers filled one wall.
Chinese characters were neatly written on each drawer.
In the center, several large medicine cauldrons were bubbling away, and the air was thick with a bitter yet sweet herbal smell.
It was unmistakably the scene of an ordinary herbal medicine shop.
Right. The reason I'd come here was—
“This young man? The one who wants to change his face.”
It was to change my face.
The man stared at me intently through his magnifying glasses.
“Hmm....”
This old man is a little intense.
He clicked his tongue.
“He's handsome enough.... It'd be a waste to change it, a waste. Right, Ji-an?”
At that, Ji-an blushed and waved her hands dismissively.
“Oh, sir, come on. He has to change it because he can't risk having his identity exposed.”
“I know, I know. Right, I already boiled up the medicine after hearing from Ji-an!”
The old man went over to the cauldron and poured a stream of pitch-black liquid into a bowl.
He set the steaming black liquid down in front of me with a thud.
“...Do I have to drink this?”
Carefully, I lifted the bowl and sniffed it.
“Ugh.”
I nearly threw up on the spot.
It smelled like herbal medicine rotted in a sewer and then boiled for hours.
My stomach churned unpleasantly.
'What on earth did you put in this?'
"Changing your appearance takes bones-and-flesh-shedding effort! Drink it down! Now!"
Well, what could I do?
I couldn't exactly go around wearing a mask for the rest of my life.
I held my breath tight and, squeezing my eyes shut, gulped down the black medicine in one go.
“Guhhh...!”
A bitter, astringent taste clung from the root of my tongue all the way down my esophagus.
I barely managed to swallow what I desperately wanted to spit out.
When I set the bowl down, the herbalist was grinning with a satisfied look on his face.
“All right. Then.”
The old man shouted loudly toward the back.
"A-young! We've got a customer!"
***
“A-young! We've got a customer!”
Her father's voice came from outside.
“Yeees, yes—I'm coming.”
Baek A-young let down the hair she'd been haphazardly tying up and stood.
Looks like another customer has come to change their face today, too.
She let out a light sigh inwardly.
In this herbal medicine shop, it was her job to handle the 'appearance design.'
Once the medicine her father brewed made the skeleton and muscles supple, she used spiritual power to sculpt the customer's face however they wanted.
Honestly, it was an awfully annoying job.
Most sorcerers who came to change their faces didn't care about their original features at all and just demanded to be made idol-level handsome or pretty.
Changing a face with sorcery isn't plastic surgery.
You need the customer's own bones and skin as a base, and more than anything, the customer's own spiritual power has to act as glue to keep the changed face in place.
No matter how hard she worked to sculpt someone into a chiseled beauty, if the customer's spiritual power was weak, the face would sag or revert to their original ugly face in just a few days.
And then they'd storm back into the shop and throw a fit!
“Give me my face back!” they'd scream.
'I wonder how hopeless today's customer is going to be.'
A-young walked toward the hall with unenthusiastic steps.
At the table sat a familiar broker named Seo Ji-an and a man whose face was wrapped halfway in black cloth.
A-young plopped down across from the man.
“Could you take off the mask first? I need to see what I'm working with.”
The man nodded and slowly pulled away the black cloth covering his face.
At that moment.
‘……?’
A-young's eyes widened slightly.
Sharp eyes showed beneath his black hair.
A sleek nose bridge and lips set in an indifferent line.
A small mole beneath one eye gave him an oddly alluring air.
‘What the heck. He's handsome, isn't he?’
Why would he come here to change a face like that? Was there a warrant out for him or something?
'Damn it, I should've fixed my bangs before coming out.'
A thousand thoughts flashed through her mind, but A-young pretended to be calm and rested her chin on her hand.
“Ahem. Well, the base isn't bad. I wonder if there's really any need to spend money changing your face.”
A tsundere-like remark slipped out before she knew it.
But the man seemed uninterested in her evaluation, wearing a calm expression.
'...Damn. I can't even meet his eyes.'
Right, let's work. Work.
A-young steadied herself and rose slightly from her seat.
“Excuse me for a moment. I need to check your spiritual power flow.”
To gauge a client's total spiritual power and its flow, she had to place her hand briefly on their chest and check it directly.
Normally, that would have been something she'd do without a second thought.
'...Why am I trembling so much?'
The man's calm gaze watched her indifferently.
Feeling awkward for no reason, A-young reached out a beat late and awkwardly placed her palm lightly against his chest.
But then.
'……?'
She couldn't feel a thing.
…….
Hm.
Then A-young's eyes caught the small black pouch hanging from the man's neck.
'Aha. So that's it.'
“Sir.”
“Yes?”
A-young said, subtly pointing at her own neck.
“Could you take off the suppressor charm?”
“...The suppressor charm?”
When the man looked puzzled, A-young added an explanation.
“Even if I design it for you, the thing that firmly holds that face shape in place is your own spiritual power in the end. I need to check how much spiritual power you have at maximum and how it flows before I can figure out how much I can change your face, and in what way.”
The man nodded as if he understood after hearing that.
He glanced once at Ji-an sitting beside him, then slowly began loosening the knot on the black pouch around his neck.
Meanwhile, A-young quietly turned it over in her head.
'Well, his looks are already pretty good, so a light touch should do.'
Since she wouldn't have to change much, even if he didn't have a lot of spiritual power, it should still be easy enough to maintain.
As A-young thought that and reached out again, at that very moment.
Swish—
The black knot came undone from the man's neck.
Her palm touched his chest squarely.
And then.
“……!!”
Something enormous surged in through her palm.
'T-this guy... what the hell?!'