Chapter 2
I held out for another week.
I put the card on top of the sink and stared at it every time I ate.
No, I stared at it even on days when I didn't eat.
○○ City, ○○ District, ○○ Market, ○○-gil, ○○-beonji.
I looked it up. It was an alley inside an old-style market.
The Street View photos showed only old signs and narrow lanes.
I couldn't even tell what was at that address.
Every morning when I woke up, I thought about it.
Should I really go?
But every day ended with me only thinking about it.
I had no reason to go.
Go all the way to the market with a single card when I didn't even know who sent it?
That sounded a little insane.
“…….”
And yet my eyes kept drifting to the card.
There was one word that wouldn't leave my head.
Special perk.
When I called the game company, they clearly said there wasn't any. That there had never been anything like that from the start.
Eventually they started treating me like some weirdo.
They said if I kept calling, they'd report me for interfering with business.
And then, just a few days after the game ended, a business card with a hammer on it was stuck in my door crack?
That was a bit too much to call coincidence.
“For now… should I at least go take a look?”
Yeah, I could probably just go peek and come back.
If it seemed sketchy, I'd just turn around and leave.
Come to think of it, it wasn't like I had a real reason not to go.
It's not like I had anything else to do anyway.
Damn it, let's just go once. Screw it.
In the end, there was a limit to holing up at home.
***
The moment I got off the bus, the noisy atmosphere unique to an old market rushed at me.
The song from the tteokbokki shop blaring from a loudspeaker.
The calls of grandmothers seated behind their makeshift stalls.
The honking of motorcycles passing by.
Once I left the market's main aisle, the number of people dropped sharply.
The signs were sparse too. Dust had settled thickly over the shutters of empty shops.
'Is this the right place?'
The alley turned once more, and a dead-end-like spot appeared.
It was there.
On the first floor of an old building, smoke was rising beyond the open shutter.
There was a sign, but half the lettering had peeled off, so I could barely make out the word 'Smithy.'
Smithy.
"...So it really is here."
I murmured without meaning to.
I had seen this place every day for ten years in the game, but this was my first time actually standing in a real smithy.
I could see inside through the open shutter.
A furnace, an anvil, and all kinds of tools packed densely along the wall.
Ingots in the corner and a charcoal kiln.
The smell hit me.
That distinctive scorched smell from heating metal. Charcoal smoke. The smell of leather soaked with grease.
It was the smell of a smithy.
It was exactly the same smell I'd breathed in every day in the game.
'The attention to detail was insane.'
“Here to drop something off?”
A voice came from inside.
The middle-aged man sitting beside the furnace raised his head.
A burly man who looked to be in his fifties.
He wore a blackened leather apron and held a small file in his hand.
He seemed to have been filing something.
“Ah, no. I—”
I pulled the card from my pocket and showed it to him.
“I think this address is here. Do you know anything about it?”
The man took the card. He glanced over both sides once, then tilted his head.
“This? I don't know it.”
“...Ah, is that so.”
Wait, he really didn't know?
“Who sent it?”
“I don't know either. It was stuck in my door.”
“Huh. That's odd.”
The man returned the card with an uncertain expression.
I'm screwed.
...I guess not.
Something that had been swelling quietly in a corner of my chest deflated with a faint hiss.
Damn it.
Cold sweat ran down my back.
“…….”
An awkward silence passed.
I should have gone back, but my feet wouldn't move.
My eyes kept sweeping over the inside of the smithy.
The hammers hanging on the wall. They came in all sizes and shapes.
From heavy sledgehammers to tiny hammers for precision work.
Some looked similar to the ones I'd seen in the game, and some were forms I'd never seen before.
A half-finished knife lay on the anvil.
The curve of the blade was smooth.
Even before polishing, its shape was cleanly set.
'If he had left a bit more thickness on the spine before quenching, the durability would—'
My thought stopped there.
I'm doing it again. Just like with the fruit knife.
“What are you staring at like that for?”
I turned at the man's voice. He was looking at me with a strange expression.
“Ah, it was nothing. Sorry, I shouldn't have—”
“Is this your first time in a smithy?”
"...Huh? Ah, yes. It is."
It was a lie.
It was my first time in reality, but it pricked my conscience a little to call myself a complete beginner when I'd practically lived in a smithy for ten years.
“If you're that curious, just look around before you go.”
I must have been staring too openly.
The man muttered that and went into the inner workshop with his file.
The sound of metal being filed came from beyond the partition.
I came to just look around, but should I just leave?
I didn't know who the card belonged to, and the man said he didn't know either.
There was no reason to stay any longer.
But my feet still wouldn't move.
The smell of the smithy was holding my ankles in place.
Charcoal smoke and heated iron. The greasy warmth lingering at the tip of my nose.
How long had it been since I'd smelled a smithy like this?
'...Just a little.'
Let's look a little longer. Then I'll go.
“Then excuse me…….”
I took one step inside.
I scanned the tools hanging on the wall, checked the furnace's structure, and examined the shape of the half-finished piece on the anvil.
Wow. Look at the size of this. They've got all sorts of things here.
Before I knew it, I was excited.
Then one guy crouched in the workspace beside the shutter caught my eye.
'That is…….'
Maybe twenty-two or twenty-three.
It was a young guy with dyed blond hair, wearing work clothes sloppily thrown on.
He had AirPods in both ears and was bobbing his head as he polished something.
It was a knife.
He was sharpening what looked like a small fruit knife against a whetstone.
I stopped after one look. The angle was all wrong.
Way wrong.
He was grinding the blade at too steep an angle. At that rate, it wouldn't sharpen; it would actually blunt the edge.
On top of that, he was pressing only in one direction and grinding it back and forth hard.
You had to alternate directions with even pressure to get a uniform edge, but that would shave only one side and leave it completely uneven and lopsided.
'Ah…….'
I should just leave. It wasn't my business what happened in someone else's shop, to someone else's apprentice.
But…….
I really can't stand this!
The urge to give unsolicited advice rose all the way to my throat. In the end, I couldn't hold back and walked up behind him.
“Hey.”
When I tapped his shoulder and spoke, his hand stopped. He whipped his head around and irritably pulled out only one AirPod.
"Ah, geez, you startled me! Huh? What is it?"
The look he gave me, scanning me from head to toe, was utterly arrogant.
Come to think of it, after being cooped up in a corner of my room for a whole week and throwing on whatever I grabbed, I probably didn't look very good.
Matted hair, hollow eyes, even a stretched-out T-shirt.
The corner of his mouth twisted into an expression that blatantly looked down on me.
"What."
"That knife, the angle is a bit... haha."
"Huh? What did you say?"
"You should lay it down to about fifteen degrees and push it back and forth in alternating directions. The pressure is leaning too much to one side too."
"Hah."
The guy snorted in disbelief.
"What are you doing right now? Who are you, mister? Are you a bum?"
A bum? At my age? I'm still twenty-eight.
"No, I just saw you sharpening at too steep an angle. If you do that, the edge dies completely."
"Ugh, this is ridiculous. If you're a customer, wait outside. If you came here to beg, go somewhere else. You come into a workshop and start bossing people around?"
The guy turned fully toward me and glared. His voice was thick with irritation.
"I've been grinding in this line of work for five years, you know? Sounds like you picked up some random crap from YouTube or whatever, but I don't have time to take advice from some unemployed guy passing by, so get lost."
Five years? He'd been learning for five years and still sharpened it like that?
How does that even make sense?
"If you've done it for five years, you should know better. Just from the sound of the sharpening, you can tell it's tearing metal dust right off."
At my words, his face turned red and purple. His pride must have been wounded.
"What the hell, is this bum actually crazy? Hey, what do you know about knives? Go hang around the neighborhood scrap shop or something—don't make a scene in someone else's business!"
The guy shot to his feet. He slammed the knife onto the whetstone with an irritated snap and jabbed a finger at me.
"Get out now! Scram before I call the police!"
His voice was so loud the inside of the smithy rang.
"What's going on? What's the matter?"
Then a deep voice came from inside, and the man walked out. He must have heard the commotion. He set down his file, came over, and frowned at the ugly atmosphere.
"Master! This filthy guy barged in out of nowhere and started picking fights with my work! Should I throw him out?"
The apprentice dashed over as if he'd been waiting for this and started tattling. He looked ready to make up anything and everything.
The man's gaze went to the paring knife on the workbench. Without a word, he picked it up and ran his thumb lightly along the blade's edge. Then he held it up and examined it under the fluorescent light.
"······."
The man's brow furrowed even deeper. Without saying anything, he set the paring knife down again and stared straight at me.
"What did you say?"
"Ah, I just... thought the angle was too steep, so I said you should lay it down to about fifteen degrees and push it in alternating directions to get an even edge. The pressure was leaning too much to one side, so the blade was coming out uneven."
At my answer, the guy snorted and jumped in.
"Master, you heard that, right? We have a YouTube expert here. Picked up some random scraps somewhere and now..."
"Jun-ho."
"Yes, Master! I'll throw out this obnoxious bastard—"
"Shut up."
"……!"
At the man's cold voice, Jun-ho shut his mouth.
"How many times have I told you that if you keep the angle steep and push only one way, the edge gets ruined?"
"No, Master. That's..."
"Not a single thing this man said was wrong. You studied for five years and still made a mistake obvious to a passing stranger? Have you been listening to a damn word I've taught you?"
Jun-ho's ears turned red like tomatoes. He bit his lip in frustration and shot me a glare.
The man looked at me again. This time, his eyes were completely different from before.
He was slowly sizing me up, as if measuring something.
"You."
"Yes?"
"Come over here and sharpen it once."
"...Pardon?"
"That knife. I want you to sharpen it once. Anyone can talk with their mouth. Let's see for ourselves whether it turns out the way you say."
It was an unexpected offer.
Jun-ho looked at the man in disbelief and jumped.
"Master! Are you in your right mind? You're going to give my workbench to some filthy unemployed bum? What if he steals something!"
"Enough. You step back! Be quiet and watch with your own two eyes."
At the man's barked order, Jun-ho reluctantly shut his mouth and took a step back.
But he didn't hide his expression.
He folded his arms and curled up the corner of his mouth.
As if saying, go ahead if you think you can. He was openly mocking me.
Honestly, I was startled too.
I'd sharpened knives before. Over ten years, I had sharpened and hammered them tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of times.
But all of that had happened inside a VR game. In reality, I swear I'd never once held a real whetstone or worked real metal.
'Will this work...?'
Seeing me hesitate, the man pointed his chin toward the workbench.
Well, if it doesn't work, I'll just bolt.
More than anything... smelling the smithy again after so long and seeing the metal made something inside me start boiling like crazy.
I slowly walked up to the workbench and sat down.
I picked up the paring knife beside the whetstone.
The moment the cold metal touched my palm.
Zzzt-!
Something sparked inside my head. At the same time, the inside of the knife became completely visible, as if it had been rendered in 3D.
'Damn. What is this?'
The skill [Mana Wave] I used in the game to inspect item status.
It was almost exactly like the view I'd seen when using that skill.
The blade's surface, the subtly skewed hardness, even the particle arrangement of the damaged carbon steel.
I frowned and turned the knife this way and that.
"This won't be fixed by sharpening alone."
Pff.
Jun-ho burst out laughing.
"See? All talk. Now that we've given you the stage, you're making excuses and trying to run? Look at him already laying the groundwork by saying it won't work!"
"No, that's not it."
I ignored Jun-ho and looked at the man.
"He forced it down with power without lowering the angle, so the blade's axis has twisted completely. And because he didn't cool the friction heat generated during sharpening, the structure near the spine has hardened. No matter how nicely you sharpen it here, the edge will snap even while slicing radish."
“…….”
The smithy went quiet in an instant.
The man's eyes wavered ever so slightly. It was proof that my assessment matched exactly the knowledge he already had.
"…Then what will you do?"
I pointed at the furnace blazing behind us.
"I'll use the furnace and the hammer. I need to reheat it and straighten the axis first."
"Are you crazy?!"
Jun-ho was horrified.
"Hey! Do you even know how hot that furnace is?! Heat it wrong and it'll either melt or turn into a lump of charcoal! You've never even held a hammer once—what are you doing!"
The man was different. He stroked his chin and quietly stepped back. It meant I should give it a try.
"Go ahead and use it."
"Master!"
"Quiet. I said let him try."
I stepped up to the furnace. The heat washed over my face. It was the same heat I'd faced tens of thousands of times in the game.
I pushed the paring knife into the furnace with tongs. I watched the color of the flames.
That instant when it shifted from orange to cherry red.
It was a color I was seeing for the first time in reality, but my body remembered it instinctively.
'Now.'
Swish—!
I took the knife out and placed it on the anvil.
Then I grabbed the 1.5-kilogram forging hammer hanging on the wall.
"Ha! Like you could even hit it properly!"
Jun-ho jeered from behind, but I didn't hear him.
I raised the hammer. And took a deep breath.
Clang-!
First strike.
The sound of the anvil, steel, and hammer colliding rang through the smithy.
'Huh?'
I was startled inside.
My avatar in the game was a monster with a strength stat of 999.
There was no way my pathetic real-world body could produce that kind of impact.
But the moment the hammer struck the anvil, the trajectory drew itself. My weight was carried exactly to the hammer's head.
It wasn't brute force. The correct stance sent my body weight straight to the end of the hammer.
It was my body, not my head, that remembered.
Clang—! Clang—! Claaaang—!
I found the rhythm.
The [Consecutive Strike] technique, where you use the rebound of each hammer blow to flow straight into the next.
The techniques I'd used in the game were being reproduced through my body exactly as they were.
The twisted axis straightened out as if by magic after a few hammer blows. Through my x-ray-like vision, I could see the hardened structure loosening and regaining its optimal elasticity.
"W-What is this..."
Jun-ho's voice trembled behind me.
I ignored him and pushed the knife into the quenching tub.
Sssssss—!
White smoke rose. The heat treatment was done.
I took out the knife and sat down in front of the whetstone again.
"Now I just need to sharpen the edge."
I sprinkled a little water on the whetstone.
Exactly fifteen degrees.
I locked my wrist firmly. Then I started pushing in alternating directions.
Ssshhh. Ssshhh.
The grating screech Jun-ho had made earlier was now a smooth, even sound.
Push left, pull right.
The force was split fifty-fifty.
After dozens of strokes, I lifted the knife from the whetstone.
"It's done."
I wiped the blade clean with a cloth and held it out to the man.
No one spoke.
Neither Jun-ho nor the man said a word.
The man approached as if enchanted and took the knife.
His rough, calloused hand trembled slightly.
He held the knife up beneath the fluorescent light.
The damaged axis was a perfect straight line.
The dull, dead edge caught the light at a flawless, even angle.
"Th-That's impossible."
The man plucked out a single strand of his own hair and let it fall lightly onto the blade.
Srrrk.
The hair split cleanly in two without any resistance and fell to the floor.
"The edge is sharper than a razor, the balance of the axis is perfect... and the heat treatment... it looks even better than mine?"
The man looked at me with dazed eyes.
"What on earth are you? That's the hand of someone who's held a hammer for ten years, no, twenty. Who did you learn under...?"
"Th-That's impossible... Isn't that cheating?!"
Jun-ho stammered, his face drained of color.
Where had that arrogant act gone, the one where he'd just been calling me an unemployed bum and a homeless guy?
His legs must have gone weak, because he was barely clinging to the edge of the workbench.
"Huh... I... did this for five years...?"
Jun-ho grabbed his head.
I quietly looked down at my own two hands. My heart was pounding like mad.
'It works.'
The ten years I had poured into [Kingdom of Fire].
The stats the system had adjusted, my item-crafting knowledge, my understanding of minerals, even the sensation of swinging a hammer.
All of it had remained intact in this real body.
In fact, delicate work that the game's system limitations had kept me from doing was now following my thoughts exactly here.
I couldn't stop the smile creeping onto my lips.
When the game ended, I thought everything was over. That all those years had been wasted with nothing left behind.
The ten years I spent as the only blacksmith in the world to hit max level hadn't been for nothing.
Yeah. There had been a perk after all.