I'll Put My Hand on Your Chest, Extra Ending

Anything, huh.... That's not how the world works.

Dohyun thought as he glanced at Yuha, who was flustered not far away.

If something goes out, something should come back in return.

Well, Dohyun had already looked through the bulletin board and the shops in the Goblin Market.

He had a rough grasp of how the market prices in this line of work went.

If he wanted to, he could name the price himself.

But.

This kind of thing wasn't something you said yourself.

Exactly!

Have you ever seen a doctor bring up money directly in front of a patient?

Branding is all about image.

Just as trust drops if a doctor who saves lives starts talking money first.

Likewise, from the perspective of saving a sword.

Wasn't he the same?

No matter how impressive the job, the moment he put a price on it himself.

To others, it could seem like nothing more than a means to squeeze that amount out of them.

That would make him a money-grubbing craftsman.

But if he separated that role out?

Haha…… even celebrities have their agencies negotiate appearance fees for them.

This was only natural!

Of course, he had already texted Seo Ji-an all the details about the sword's condition and the work needed for the repair.

All that was left was for her to squeeze out as much as possible!

That way, he could keep up his own dignity too.

‘In short, talk negotiations with my manager.’

Dohyun deliberately stepped back to let the two of them talk comfortably.

From a distance, Yuha's voice could be heard faintly, repeatedly answering in shock.

"Y-yes…… yes……."

"……L-like that?!"

"……N-no. That is right, but……."

"……Y-yes, yes……."

“Ah, n-no… I'll do it that way, yes….”

It was absolute chaos.

After talking for quite a while, Yuha seemed to have finished the conversation.

She trudged back, looking somewhat deflated.

"……They want to talk to you again."

Dohyun took the phone back again.

「Hehe! The negotiations are done! Mr. Dohyun—! You can go ahead now! It was a very, v—ery satisfying result. You definitely won't regret it. Hehe! So here's what we agreed on—」

After hearing the terms she laid out.

"Yes……?!"

Dohyun paused for a moment.

"……."

He was at a loss for words.

“….I-is that… is that really possible?!”

……She really got this much?

「Why, of course! If you're entrusting it to a craftsman as talented as Mr. Dohyun, this much is only natural.」

More than he expected.

A lot.

No.

'……This person really was an excellent broker.'

***

Dohyun led the way out into the mansion's courtyard.

Yuha followed him out in a daze.

'……A profit-share contract, huh.'

Just the repair upfront fee alone was 100 million won.

On top of that, as payment for handling future repairs, for the next ten years.

she had agreed to give up a share of the income she earned as a sorcerer.

……And that share was a whopping 30 percent.

When she first heard the terms, she couldn't believe her ears.

Ten years and 30 percent.

For a moment, she almost recalled the nightmare of the time she had been worked to the bone under a vile agency in Japan.

But as she listened to the broker's explanation, it didn't seem entirely outrageous.

According to the broker, when commissioning a B-rank or higher cursed tool from a workshop, it was common to use a percentage-based contract.

That is, unless you were some big shot who could casually drop tens of billions at once.

It was something Yuha was learning for the first time.

She had never once made a proper request or contract like that before.

In the first place….

'B-rank…?'

In truth, she didn't even know exactly what rank this sword fell into.

She knew it was an impressive sword, but she couldn't judge how highly the sorcery world valued it or how its price was set.

Because her mother wasn't a sorcerer, her grandfather had apparently never bothered telling her about this side of the world.

'You don't need to know.'

When it came to the sorcery world, he had tried to keep her as far away from it as possible.

It was probably his way of protecting his daughter from this world.

So even Yuha had only truly come to realize her grandfather's fame as 'Sword Demon Ishihara' after she stepped into the sorcery world herself.

……Honestly, even so, it wasn't a small sum.

But when she thought about it carefully, it was a contract with nothing to lose.

If this sword couldn't be repaired anyway, then it was clear she wouldn't even be able to complete a proper request here.

Besides.

A contract that only paid out if the sword came back to life.

In other words, this man.

if he couldn't fix the sword, would not get a single won beyond the 100 million-won upfront fee.

'……So that means he's confident, right.'

That made him strangely reassuring.

What was 30 percent, anyway.

As long as the sword came back to life.

Then she would surely be able to become like her grandfather.

[If you can learn to handle this sword, you'll definitely become the greatest sorcerer, just like Grandpa.]

She had come this far clinging to that one line.

She didn't really know the sword's rank.

Even so, she had never once doubted it.

Sword Demon Ishihara.

Because there was no one in the Japanese sorcery world who didn't know that name.

And because she was the only bloodline descendant of that great sorcerer.

So if this sword could awaken again, she could give even more.

"I've already gotten permission, so I'll set things up."

"Ah, yes……."

But then.

'……Is he really going to fix it right here, right now?'

Yuha was puzzled.

This was only the villa's garden, and there wasn't even a smithy.

Naturally, she had thought she'd have to visit his smithy separately after this request was over.

Instead, he was suddenly saying he'd start right away and she should follow him out.

Come to think of it, the box Dohyun had been carrying on his back caught her eye again.

A large, jet-black wooden box bound with luxurious cloth.

Even from when he first entered the reception room, she'd been wondering what that thing was….

Thud.

Dohyun set the box down on the ground, opened the lid, and began taking things out and laying them out.

'……What's that?'

A small brazier, hammer and tongs, and various unfamiliar tools were neatly laid out one by one.

Yes, this was practically.

moving an entire smithy here intact.

*

'As I thought from experience, there'd probably be plenty of times I'd have to work on-site.'

Just like today.

Dohyun looked down at the items in the case with satisfaction.

It had always been that way in the game too.

And even if that weren't the case.

If he didn't hammer away every day, Dohyun felt like thorns would sprout in his mouth.

So there was one thing he had wanted to make first after receiving the TK Hotel payment last time.

And that was this!

A portable smithing kit.

Back in the game, without this.

running around such a vast continent completing quests, learning secret manuals, and gathering materials.

would have been impossible in the first place.

'……Whoever made this, really. Just looking at it makes me happy.'

Ah, for the record.

I made it, though.

Among them, the most important piece was this portable brazier.

“Oh? A brazier. So they even have something like this.”

Yuha opened her eyes wide in amazement.

It wasn't as if there were no portable braziers on the market that used kerosene or charcoal.

But to Dohyun, carrying fuel around in the first place was far too heavy and inefficient.

He had custom-built and carried one in the game too.

There was no problem recreating that structure in reality either.

'First, I need to heat up the brazier.'

Dohyun placed a hand on one side of the brazier.

Then, as he infused spiritual power.

Whoosh—!

Fwoooosh—!

Blue flames shimmered and surged up from the air.

This was another reason Dohyun didn't like ordinary braziers.

This brazier was packed with runes he had inscribed himself for convenience.

And the most important among them was this!

[Spiritual Power Combustion].

It was a circuit that burned the spiritual power he fed into it directly into flame.

Thanks to that, it needed no firewood, charcoal, or oil.

The only fuel for this brazier was one thing—

Dohyun's own spiritual power.

Controlling the fire was the heart of smithing.

He could use a bellows and firewood, or turn a dial to adjust the flame's intensity.

But with those physical methods, fine errors and time lags were inevitable.

That wouldn't satisfy Dohyun.

Control so perfect it left no room for even the slightest gap.

For that very reason, he had engraved a circuit into the brazier to ignite the fire with spiritual power.

And after countless hours standing before the brazier and honing that control—

Dohyun had now reached the point where he could freely command the flame's temperature and nature the instant he thought of it.

Once the flames burned steadily, Dohyun immediately brought the sword close to the brazier.

The first thing to do was remove the reinforcement materials those strange craftsmen had slapped all over it.

Melting points differed depending on the material.

He carefully adjusted the flame while checking the material's condition.

Sizzle─

He began slowly melting away only the clumsy patches added by later hands.

Meanwhile.

Yuha, watching from beside the brazier, had her eyes opened so wide they looked ready to split.

‘This… could it be running on spiritual power?’

At first, she'd thought it was just an ordinary portable brazier.

The kind that lit a fire with gas or oil or something.

But—

It wasn't.

The flames were moving as if alive, following his gestures.

Their intensity rose and fell, and even their color changed subtly.

As if they were reading his intent directly.

Only then did Yuha realize.

That the one who had raised those flames.

and the one controlling them so freely now.

wasn't the brazier at all—

it was this man's spiritual power.

And what those flames were melting was.

the ugly scars covering the blade.

Left behind by the workshops that had handled the sword until now.

They were traces left by people who had at least tried to do something about it.

One had poured in the wrong molten metal, claiming to fill the split.

Another had slapped on an unknown alloy, saying it would let spiritual power flow through.

None of them revived the sword; they only added more scars.

Those were traces of failure layered on top of one another.

Dohyun's flames were melting only those, as if picking them out one by one.

Meanwhile, the original blade beneath remained untouched, not even a hair's breadth damaged.

If the fire were any stronger, the original blade below would melt along with it.

'……Impossible.'

Yuha was, after all, a sorcerer.

Which was why she could tell so clearly.

Turning spiritual power into fire and unleashing it was already no ordinary feat.

And he was changing the fire's intensity and nature like that every single moment?

In the first place, even releasing spiritual power at a steady intensity required endless training.

But the man in front of her—

was handling that insane control of spiritual power as casually as breathing.

'……Is this really the kind of spiritual control a human can do?'

Watching the dancing blue flames in silence, Yuha thought.

This time for sure.

Truly, really.

this sword might come back to life.

***

Once all the foreign matter was removed, the sword's original form hidden beneath was revealed.

Only, ugly gouges and damaged marks remained wherever the material had been stripped away.

These gaps had to be filled again with metal close to the sword's original material.

'Good thing I brought it along.'

Dohyun rummaged inside the kit and opened a case packed with small leather pouches.

‘It should be around here…… Ah, there it is.’

Always prepared for the unexpected, he carried several kinds of basic alloys and powder steel with him.

After carefully examining the damaged cross-section of the sword, Dohyun selected three leather pouches and began pouring their contents into the crucible.

He was doing it to blend and create metal that matched this sword's original material exactly.

Steel powder for the frame, wrought iron powder to add flexibility, and a special alloy powder that would absorb spiritual power well.

Dohyun mixed them in precise proportions by eye and touch alone.

'This amount should be enough.'

Dohyun applied the flames of spiritual power to the small crucible he had set on one side of the brazier.

The mixed powder steel melted in an instant, bubbling up into bright red molten metal.

Dohyun lifted the crucible with tongs and carefully poured the molten metal over the scarred areas.

Swish.

The melted metal seeped into every gap, smoothly filling the gouged areas like the sword's own flesh.

Then he picked up a familiar hammer.

'Hehe. Long time no see, old iron.'

Clang……! Clang……! Clang……!

Bright metallic clangs echoed through the courtyard.

By repeating the process of hammering and cooling, he perfectly restored the sword's shape.

This much should be enough for reinforcement.

'Now then…… shall I carve it in while it's still warm?'

While reading the circuit earlier, there had been one thing he checked first.

The input circuit in the hilt that drew in spiritual power.

Every other part repelled spiritual power.

Only by channeling spiritual power through the pattern on this hilt could it be fed in.

Even that circuit was designed to let only a specific kind of spiritual power pass through.

This was probably the biggest reason the sword had stopped working.

'Hmm…… roughly this kind of wavelength?'

The family that had presumably maintained this sword for generations had probably adjusted the circuit each time a new owner inherited it.

'Now that family is gone, there was probably no one left to adjust it.'

Besides, since her mother hadn't been a sorcerer and had left the sword to gather dust, she likely wouldn't have known any of this either.

'Well, anyway.'

If he wanted this sword usable again, he'd have to adjust the circuit to match her spiritual power.

To do that, he needed to check her spiritual power first.

Dohyun raised his head.

'Now then……'

He lightly beckoned to Yuha, who had been watching in silence from a distance.

"Could you come over here for a moment?"

"……Huh?"

Yuha approached hesitantly, her face full of confusion.

Dohyun looked at her in silence for a moment.

'Hmm…… where should I place my hand to best sense the texture of her spiritual power?'

After gauging the position, Dohyun finally spoke.

"Hold on."

"……?"

"I'll need to place my hand on your chest."

"……."

Yuha's face went bright red and froze.

"……Y-yes, wh-what?!?"