Chapter 55
These days, whenever I turn on my smartphone, there's one place I always check first with a satisfied smile.
A place whose popularity has been steadily rising on the Dokkaebul community, even starting to creep up the rankings in the Popularity tab.
It was the [Familiar Sorcerer Tab]!
[Daily] Kya, doesn't it feel like there are a hell of a lot more newbies in the tab these days?
└ Yeah, tons of new people have been pouring in.
└ Spring has come for familiar sorcerers too?
└ I told you I'd make it?!?! I told you I'd make it?! Kya, finally~
└ It's all thanks to Do-hwang's keychains.
└ Do-hwang is the best! Do-hwang is the best!
That's right!
My sealing keychains had sparked a boom, and interest in familiar sorcerers, who had been treated as a fringe group until now, had exploded along with it!
Since commanding a familiar was no longer inconvenient to carry around or ruinously expensive, it was only natural, in a way.
Thanks to that, the Familiar Sorcerer Tab, which had been gathering nothing but dust lately, was now bustling with questions from newbies.
[Question] I brought home a goat. How long will it take to raise it until it becomes a spirit beast?
└ Who's got time to raise that lol
└ Brought it as a baby?
└ Nope, obviously brought it as an adult.
└ You'll be waiting until the goat grows old and dies before it awakens.
└ For real, who's got time to raise that?;;
└ Just go to the spirit beast market and buy one that's already finished awakening ㄷㄷ.
└ Where'd you even get a goat lol
└ Bought it at the local market?
└ Uh-uh, don't do that.
A field that had been treated as fringe becoming a promising one because of a single ritual implement I'd made?
This was surprisingly delicious.
So I kept reaching for it.
[Daily] But hey, has anyone who bought the limited editions posted a review yet??
└ There are so many things I'm curious about, but everyone is being quiet.
└ Other than that old man Woong-i the General, they're all throwaway accounts, and not one of them has posted anything.
└ Give it a little time. With that old man's personality, a post will definitely go up today or tomorrow.
'Oh.'
I had been waiting for one myself.
And before long, just as everyone had expected, a review was posted.
[HOT] Has the limited-edition review dropped yet!!
Author: Woong-i the General
Hey, I'm here, hyung~
Today I'm going to unbox Do-hwang's limited-edition Incandescent Tiger, the one you've all been waiting and waiting for~
(GIF of a paulownia box slowly opening)
Kya…! Look at that beautiful finish. Just look how luxurious it is.
Now I'm going to put our Jang-gun inside. For the record, everyone knows our Jang-gun is a 600-kilogram brown bear, right?
(GIF of a gigantic brown bear being sucked into the keychain)
Kiyaaaaa… It really works lololol
The hand feel when it slips inside is absolutely insane.
There's this tingling vibration in your palm.
Should I say it's like vacuuming up an elephant with a vacuum cleaner?
Or like thinking you've hooked a big fish, only for a whale to come smoothly reeling up?
Anyway, it's so good. It's thrilling ㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜ
The catharsis is absolutely fucking insane ㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜ
└ LOL, the old man is having the time of his life
└ The gap between the old man's office profile picture and the way he talks is insane ㄷㄷ
└ The hand feel of the keychain really is incredible lol I'm also putting our wild boar in and taking it out over and over.
└ If the budget model feels this good, I can't even imagine what that one feels like.
[HOT] LOL, looks like Jang-gun likes the keychain too
Author: Woong-i the General
(GIF of a small keychain being tapped with a giant front paw)
I just took him out for a moment, and now he's confused, tapping the keychain.
He's whining and demanding that I put him back in quickly lol
└ LOL, look at him whimpering. He's so fucking cute.
└ I want to torment Jang-gun like crazy by squishing those paw pads.
└ Newbies, if you want to see Jang-gun when he was a tiny cub, search for Familiar Diary ㄱㄱ There are tons of Jang-gun pics.
└ But if a spirit beast wants to go inside by itself that badly, how comfortable is it in there?
[HOT] Third review of the Incandescent Tiger~
Author: Woong-i the General
This thing is fucking amazing. Our Jang-gun used to get tired quickly because of his size.
But we ran three commissions in a single day today, and the kid didn't get tired at all lol
(GIF of a charging bear wreathed in blazing red flames)
Look at this. He's having the time of his life.
└ ㄷㄷ That's terrifying. What the hell is that?
└ A flaming battering ram lol
└ A fire bear (literally fire)
└ LOL, these days the Woongbi Office's posts are all over the review tab.
└ If he does three jobs a day, he'll pay off the keychain he bought on credit in no time ㄷㄷ
*
‘Ahem. It seems our VIP customer is very satisfied.’
The corners of my mouth kept twitching as I read the review.
Watching someone enjoy using something I'd made made me feel good too.
'……I guess this really is my calling.'
Or, to be honest, maybe it was because of the enormous balance in the bank app I'd checked a moment ago?
"Hehehe……"
[Myaaaaaaow―]
Just then, a cute cry came from beneath my feet.
It was Yaong-i, the gray cat Ms. Yu-ha had rescued and brought back from Japan.
Still seated in my chair, I slipped both hands beneath its armpits and lifted it up.
Then I sat it on my lap and bounced it up and down.
"That's right, that's right. You like it too, don't you, Yaong-i? Huh?"
[Myaow! Meow!]
It excitedly flapped its front paws over and over.
Yeah~ Big bro is rich, rich.
Churu? I can buy you a million of them if I want.
“No, should I build you an entire Churu factory?"
[Myaaaaaow―]
Apparently feeling good, it serenely let its body go limp and began purring.
The way it stretched out its toes to show off its pink paw pads was unbearably saucy.
Ssswish― Ssswish―
I pulled it into my arms and gently scratched beneath its soft chin.
‘You little thing, you're so cute.’
It had been unusually affectionate toward me ever since the day we first met.
Playing with it whenever I had a spare moment had become one of my healing routines.
Patat.
After rubbing against me to its heart's content, it hopped down to the floor.
Then it scampered off somewhere.
Rattle.
It came back with something in its mouth and set it down at my feet.
It was a cat-shaped sealing keychain.
"……Again?"
[Myaow!]
It was asking me to put it in and take it out.
……That's right!
These days, this little guy was thoroughly hooked.
It liked going in and coming back out of the keychain so much that, because I kept indulging it out of sheer cuteness, I'd accidentally established the wrong routine.
Now I had to put it in and take it out at least five times before it would finally eat.
"Sigh. This is really the last time, okay?"
[Myaow!]
At least it always gave a clear answer.
I pulled the chain and fed it spiritual power.
Pop. Swoooosh―
[Myaow~]
With a happy cry, it was sucked into the keychain.
Only after I'd done it five full times did it finally settle down in front of its food bowl with a satisfied expression.
Crunch. Crunch.
"Tsk……"
Then a sulky voice came from behind me.
I turned around and saw Ms. Yu-ha standing halfway down the stairs, looking down at us.
More precisely, she was looking at Yaong-i, who was peacefully chewing its food.
"Yaong-i…… It never comes to me even once. Whenever I try to touch it, it only tries to scratch me……. And I'm the one who rescued it."
Her lips were pushed out in a deep pout.
"Ms. Yu-ha, don't you have a commission today?"
"No. Today is my day off……"
"Ah, then this worked out perfectly."
I stood up.
"It's finished. Would you like to try it on?"
"……! Already?"
*
Ms. Yu-ha had a small total reserve of innate spiritual power.
A defensive ritual implement had to remain active throughout a battle, so maintaining one at all was an enormous burden for her limited spiritual reservoir.
That's why she had always carried disposable protective talismans with her.
An ordinary master craftsman would have stopped at engraving armor with circuits that maximized spiritual-power efficiency.
‘That would be boring.’
Taking inspiration from the protective talismans she used, I had made this armor.
Goehwangji. This paper used to make talismans was, after all, a material specially made to absorb and contain spiritual power.
So I tried applying the principle behind goehwangji to fiber.
Goehwangji was made by repeatedly soaking mulberry paper in juice extracted by pounding the fruit of a goehwang tree, then drying it.
If so, why not soak thread in that juice?
I twisted together thread steeped for a long time in goehwang-tree juice and finely torn hanji fibers to weave the lining.
For the outer layer, I used leather, but this time I mixed goehwang-tree-infused water into the tannin used for tanning, treating the leather so that spiritual power would permeate it directly.
I traced a pattern onto the leather, then sliced it out with a cutting knife.
From here on, it was a process my hands had grown accustomed to after making hundreds of sets of light armor back in the game.
I drew my finger across the leather panels I'd cut out.
Crackle.
On the chest panel, I engraved [Impact-Dampening Formula].
The absolute basics of armor: dispersing impacts that drove into the torso.
On the back panel, I engraved [Iron Wall Formula].
On both arms, I divided up [Lightening Formula] and [Swiftness Formula], then added [Elasticity Formula] to every folding joint.
Armor's weight was a shackle, after all. It had to be light as a feather, with nothing obstructing movement.
And on the lining,
Cracklecrackle.
[Spiritual Power Efficiency Circulation Circuit]―
I created a large current that ran once around the entire garment, with tributaries branching out from it to touch the formulas engraved on each individual leather panel.
That way, the effects of each formula wouldn't remain only where they had been engraved, but would spread evenly throughout the garment along the circuit.
Next came the sewing.
Leather was different from cloth; a needle wouldn't pass through it on its own.
I had to place a fork-shaped chisel called a pricking iron along the seam and hammer it to make the needle holes first.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
At every hole, I cross-stitched the thread with two needles.
Of course, I worked carefully so as not to damage the circuit I'd engraved.
With each stitch, the goehwang-tree-soaked thread connected the formulas on the outer layer to the circuit in the lining, locking together more firmly.
The final step was finishing.
I heated a soldering iron in the brazier, rubbed beeswax into the edges of the leather, then pressed and singed them smooth.
Sizzle―
The cross-section soaked with beeswax gleamed smoothly.
And that was how the so-called Wearable Protective Talisman was completed.
'Protective Garment (護身衣).'
*
I took the jacket down from the hanger and handed it to Ms. Yu-ha.
"I've already filled it with spiritual power."
Now the wearer wouldn't need to squeeze out her own spiritual power throughout a battle.
As long as she charged the garment in advance whenever she had spiritual power to spare, its defensive formulas would activate automatically during battle using only what was stored in the clothes, without consuming even a single drop of her own power!
'Heh heh. I've made something the world has never seen yet again.'
That thrilling moment when something I'd only been turning over in my head came out perfectly completed in the real world.
That's why I make things.
"You can touch it, too. It'll be incredibly light."
Ms. Yu-ha cautiously put on the jacket.
"Wow…… It's a leather jacket, but it's not uncomfortable at all. I can barely feel the weight, either."
“I engraved Lightening Formula and Elasticity Formula at intervals around the joints so it would stretch easily.”
A work whose every seam had been carefully considered to increase mobility without ruining the way the clothes looked.
Even though it was a leather jacket, it wouldn't hinder her movements in the slightest.
"It also has an additional function."
"An additional function?"
I casually flipped up the front of the jacket to show her the lining.
On the inside, around the chest, was the pattern of a protective talisman I'd drawn myself.
I'd heard that protective talismans were meant to contain the thoughts of the person one wished to protect.
That part had been easy.
Because our precious customer absolutely couldn't get hurt.
"It has the same effect as a protective talisman. If a fatal impact beyond what this garment can withstand hits you, it will release all the spiritual power stored in the clothes at once. It will block the attack perfectly, exactly once."
"……!"
"All right, then. We need to test whether it works properly, but……"
'……Hmm.'
I hesitated for a moment.
To check the armor's performance, there was ultimately no choice but to hit it.
When handing over armor, you had to demonstrate its performance directly in front of the customer.
It was something I did all the time in the game. You put a freshly made suit of armor on someone, grab a passing swordsman, and have him smack them.
'……But now that I think about it.'
This was reality, and the other person was a customer.
Was I really going to casually ask a grown woman if she wanted to get hit with a bat?
……The picture that painted wasn't exactly ideal, was it?
"I, um…… Having me hit you directly would probably be a little awkward, right? Haha. Then perhaps I could use a mannequin―"
"No."
Ms. Yu-ha shook her head.
"It's better to take the hit here in advance than to find out for the first time in the field. I'm a sorcerer, too."
'Oh.'
A professional.
"And……"
Ms. Yu-ha gripped my sleeve tightly and smiled faintly.
"You made it, Master Craftsman."
Heh, nice. Then all that was left was finding someone to hit her.
Even so, I couldn't exactly take a +99 enhanced wooden club and beat her myself.
I turned my head and called over the guy lounging on the sofa.
"Hey. Mu-yeong. Can you come over for a moment?"
"Yes, hyung!"
Mu-yeong, who had been tearing into a pizza, sprang to his feet.
"You said you've been using an iron club these days, right? Give it a try on her."
"What???"
Mu-yeong flinched and looked back and forth between Ms. Yu-ha and me.
"M-Me? Hit Ms. Yu-ha?!"
"You're supposed to hit the clothes. The clothes."
"Ah, no, that's not what I meant…. Are you sure it's okay?"
Ms. Yu-ha nodded as if to say she was fine with it.
"No, hyung. If the formula doesn't work for some reason, it'll be a disaster. If you hit her wrong, her bones could……"
"There's no way it won't work."
"……"
"I made it."
"……I suppose you're right."
He accepted that awfully quickly.
"Well, hyung did make it, after all. Then I won't hold back……!"
Mu-yeong grinned and picked up the iron club he'd left propped against the sofa.
Ms. Yu-ha took a breath and stood with both arms slightly spread.
"I-I'm going? Really going? ……Hup―!"
Whoosh―
The club, infused with sorcerous power, flew toward Ms. Yu-ha's side.
Swwwwwoosh―
It was the blow of a Grade-3 sorcerer in name and deed. Even a veteran sorcerer would have had their rib cage crushed outright if they took it carelessly.
Boom―!
With a dull explosion, a faint light spread across the jacket's surface, then faded.
And then.
Crack. Fweeeeng―!
"……Huh?"
A strange sound rang out.
Not from Ms. Yu-ha's side, but from Mu-yeong's.
His iron club had snapped cleanly, leaving only the handle, and was rolling across the floor.
"A-Are you all right?!"
"……Huh? Ah, yes. It doesn't hurt at all?"
Ms. Yu-ha looked down at her side with a bewildered expression.
The one who actually looked like she was about to cry was Mu-yeong.
"H-Hyung…… My club…… I saved up for ages to buy this……"
"……Sorry. I'll make you a new one."
"Really?! You mean it? You really mean it?!"
Mu-yeong's eyes lit up instantly, as if he had never been sad at all.
'What a brat. He could at least pretend to mourn it.'
Ms. Yu-ha didn't take the jacket off for the rest of the day.
Not even indoors. Not even while eating.
"……Ms. Yu-ha. Aren't you hot?"
"Not at all."
Heh heh. She must really like it.
**
All right, then. Having wrapped up one commission cleanly, it was time to choose the next one.
Actually, there was already one I'd had my eye on.
I turned on the tablet and opened the top post in the commission folder Ji-an had organized.
― [Geumgang Spirit Beast Training Center] Commission for a spirit-beast-exclusive ritual implement.
The reason this commission had caught my eye was the sender's payment account. I thought the name looked familiar, and then I realized.
'……The Thunderous Hawk.'
It was the winning bidder who had slipped in quietly just before the auction ended and sniped the hawk keychain at the last moment.
'Oh-ho.'
I'd been curious about its review anyway.
The commission was for a spirit-beast-exclusive ritual implement.
The item was a suit of armor.
And―
'……Nunchucks?'
In the attached photo, a monkey was sitting with its arms crossed.
……Though it was far too large to be called a monkey.
A gray gibbon about the size of an average adult man.
'Nunchucks…… for a monkey?'
Grin.
This should be fun. Very fun.
"I should hurry and make the next one, too."