Chapter 31
A name's value is, in a sense, an illusion.
Just because a famous brand is attached doesn't mean the product is necessarily better.
But we still buy it willingly.
The reason is simple.
Because it has already been recognized by other people.
If someone else has already vetted it, there's no need to agonize over it anymore.
Since you've spared yourself the trouble of thinking, paying a little extra doesn't feel like a complete loss.
Because the process of finding something worthwhile among cheap goods is boring and exhausting.
In short.
Skill can create a name, too.
But conversely, a name can also prove skill.
In games, there was no need for that.
Because performance was laid out plainly in the status window.
When judging whether something was good, reputation was always secondary.
......But out here, that doesn't seem to be the case.
***
It was a few days ago.
That day, I was sitting in front of the forge, hammering away as usual.
Clang—.
Seo Ji-an pushed open the workshop door, her face flushed with excitement.
Then, without even taking a breath, she blurted this out.
"Dohyun-nim! How about we market you as a B-rank blacksmith?"
Bang—.
I paused the hammer I had been bringing down.
"......Huh? A B-rank blacksmith?"
"Yes!"
"......I haven't made a B-rank item yet."
Yuha's sword had only been repaired.
It wasn't something I had forged from scratch with my own hands.
"Oh, what's that matter?"
But Seo Ji-an waved it off as if it were nothing.
"Strictly speaking, you didn't make it yourself, but the public won't nitpick that kind of thing. Besides, the whole B-rank, C-rank grading system is just something places like the Bureau and the clan association decide however they want."
Her eyes sparkling, she leaned in toward the workbench.
"Besides, Yuha-ssi's ranking is shooting up right now, and she's super hot in the sorcery world! This is our chance. You glance at that B-rank artifact everyone gave up on saying they couldn't fix it, then you just patch it right up? Then people will go, 'Ah, he's a craftsman who can handle B-rank stuff too,' and the buzz will spread in broad strokes."
"......"
"Um, in short! I guess you'd call it noise marketing? Haha......"
"......That's a bit much."
I trailed off uncomfortably.
It's not even something I made.
All I did was tweak someone else's prearranged spell formula a little to fit its new owner.
Using that to ride the wave of fame as if it were my own achievement somehow didn't sit right with me.
"......"
When she saw my reaction wasn't great, Seo Ji-an's shoulders quietly drooped.
"B-but, Master......"
She quickly made a pitiful face and looked up at me with an air of helplessness.
"For people like us who aren't from a clan, we have to get famous first......"
According to Seo Ji-an.
The clans were all in cahoots, and they cracked down on people buying artifacts from non-clan craftsmen.
Of course, not openly.
They'd dress it up with plausible justifications and quietly pull strings behind the scenes.
Not placing direct orders with them was the bare minimum.
And if it ever came out later that they'd done business with a non-clan artisan, they'd be blacklisted on the spot.
From then on, they'd slowly edge you out by piling on all sorts of disadvantages in anything tied to the clans.
They'd shut off all channels for doing business with anyone, slowly starving non-clan craftsmen to death.
"Exactly! First you need to become famous through overwhelming skill!"
By then, the clans won't be able to stop you so easily.
When your reputation and skill are already sky-high, if they try to crush you by force, it'll only look like the clans are weaker and just throwing their weight around.
"......"
Well, she wasn't wrong.
To begin with, I wanted to make a lot of money too.
No, more than money, actually.
After all, for a blacksmith to reach a higher level, enormous capital was ultimately necessary.
It was something I had painfully learned even while playing the game.
Didn't I dump my entire fortune into it and live broke every day, just to get better materials and buy gifts for the picky craftsmen?
‘Become famous.’
Once I get famous, the money will roll in.
If the money piles up, I can get rarer and better materials.
More demanding and difficult commissions will come flooding in, too.
Then I'll be able to try making even harder things.
And before long, I might even get my hands on the secret techniques hidden away by craftsmen somewhere out there.
And I'd be able to test whatever ideas came to mind without having to regret failure.
That could eventually let me reach even greater heights.
"Y-yes, of course......"
When I fell silent, lost in thought, Seo Ji-an added in a shrinking voice, reading the room.
"If you don't allow it, then...... I guess we can't do it, but......"
"......'
I set the hammer down.
"Alright. Let's do it."
"......Huh?"
Seo Ji-an's eyes went round.
"R-really?! You mean it?! No take-backs!"
Color rushed back into the face that had been wilted just a moment ago.
She looked like she might start hopping around at any second.
"Yes. But."
I slowly rose from the chair.
"If we're doing it, let's make a big splash."
"......Huh?"
*
Now that I thought about it, it made sense.
Fixing someone else's B-rank item and then pretending to be a B-rank craftsman felt a bit off.
Then the answer was simple, wasn't it?
Just make the real thing.
"Ji-an."
"Yes, yes!"
"Let's sell B-rank artifacts."
"......What?!"
Seo Ji-an's jaw dropped.
"S-sell them? B-rank items? Y-you already had something like that made?!"
Her eyes gleaming, she looked around every corner of the workshop.
As if a B-rank artifact were hiding behind some shelf.
I could almost hear her heart pounding from here.
"No, I don't."
"......What?"
"I'm going to make it now."
"............What?"
Seo Ji-an's expression slowly twisted from expectation into confusion.
Understandably so.
Could a B-rank artifact really be something you could just whip up in a snap?
Even those called B-rank craftsmen had to spend years researching and researching, and only then could they gather all their techniques and barely forge one.
But.
I had already made it before.
And not just once or twice, but so many times I was sick of it.
Designs I had made countless times from the secret methods I'd scraped together after combing that damned continent for ten years.
All of those blueprints were still clearly stored in my head.
I only needed to transfer that design into reality as it was.
"The materials we stocked up on last time should be enough."
I rolled up my sleeves and sat back down in front of the forge.
"J-just a moment, Dohyun-nim? Are you serious? A B-rank item isn't something you can just make overnight......"
Whoosh—.
The forge fire roiled and surged upward.
Seo Ji-an's words were cut off there.
*
Clang. Clang. Clang—.
Seo Ji-an stood in one corner, staring blankly at the sight.
It was strange.
He didn't draw a single blueprint.
He didn't even measure it with a ruler.
There wasn't a hint of hesitation in any of the motions of heating, folding, and hammering.
Even the fingertips engraving the most finicky spell formulas.
Not once did he falter.
As if he had already made it dozens of times.
'......What the hell is that.'
Seo Ji-an swallowed dryly without realizing it.
She had been surprised when he made the kitchen knife last time, too.
That had been an item far beyond the bounds of anything ordinary, after all.
But this was, in name at least, a B-rank artifact.
And yet he was that unhesitating even while forging something that incredible?
And then.
Before even a few hours had passed.
Ssssssh—!
After finishing the final quench, Dohyun lifted the tongs.
Through the rising mist, a blade came into view.
Across the still-hot blade.
A dark red spell pattern rippled over it like waves.
Dohyun fitted in the hilt he had carved beforehand.
Then the light flowing from the small spirit stone embedded in the hilt spread gently along the blade all the way to the tip.
And just like that, a dagger was complete.
As for reading the spell formulas engraved in an artifact in such fine detail, Ji-an didn't have that kind of eye.
But even to her eyes, it was obvious at a glance.
That item was on a completely different level from anything she'd seen so far.
"......My God."
A stunned sound slipped from Seo Ji-an's mouth.
"Is this...... really B-rank? In the blink of an eye like this......?"
"Yes."
Dohyun gently set the dagger down on the workbench.
With that calm expression, as if it were nothing.
"And I'm going to make two more artifacts in a similar series. Right now."
"......What?'"
Seo Ji-an looked back and forth between the dagger on the workbench and Dohyun's face over and over.
Had she heard something wrong just now?
He had clearly said he was going to make two more B-rank artifacts.
And not copies of this dagger, but entirely different kinds of artifacts in the same lineage.
If there was only one B-rank artifact, people would find some excuse no matter what.
They'd say he'd somehow obtained a work left behind by some obscure master and was passing it off as something he himself had made.
There was no shortage of excuses to look down on it.
But one could be brushed off as some work he'd picked up somewhere.
If there were two, they could claim he was lucky enough to have gotten two works left behind by the same master.
But if the same spell formula was engraved on three items with completely different appearances, there'd be no more excuses.
Then everyone would know.
That a genius blacksmith capable of changing the sorcery world had appeared.
"Let's put this on the market."
"......'
Seo Ji-an mouthed soundlessly for a long moment.
Then she slowly lifted the corners of her trembling mouth.
'Viral marketing, noise marketing...'
It all became laughable.
Come to think of it, wasn't that the sort of thing only people with mediocre skill did?
It was unnecessary in the face of something this overwhelmingly real.
Seo Ji-an stared dumbly at the craftsman before her.
Then she jolted herself back to her senses.
'No, this isn't the time to just stand here admiring him.'
Her broker's instincts began to stir.
'To get this at its proper price...... no, more than its proper price.'
They needed a stage that would make the biggest, loudest, most expensive splash.
There was only one answer.
"An auction house! Let's put them in an auction house, all three at once!"
And that was how it happened.
***
And then.
It happened.
At the very moment the preview article was released across the sorcery world.
The three B-rank artifacts forged by Dohyun were listed side by side at the largest auction house in the sorcery world.
[Dagger of Infernal Flame — B-rank]
[Bow of Thunderbolt — B-rank]
[Necklace of the Vast Sea — B-rank]
A dagger, a bow, and a necklace.
The three artifacts differed in type, appearance, and the abilities they held.
But in the photos released alongside them, those three items had one thing in common.
Each had a single spirit stone embedded somewhere on its body, each one a different color.
In the dagger's hilt, there was a red spirit stone like a glowing ember.
In the bow's grip, there was a bright yellow spirit stone like a flash of lightning.
And in the center of the necklace, there was a blue spirit stone, larger than the others, like the moon.
Now it was the world's turn to make noise.
However.
People still didn't know.
What those three spirit stones meant.