episode_0001

I’m dead.

I am not imitating Nietzsche’s saying ‘God is dead’, but I am truly dead. It means complete biological death.

The reason wasn’t that great. It was simply a death caused by overwork.

Even that overwork wasn’t done for a great reason. There were no grand reasons, such as paying hospital bills for parents who were in a coma or having a younger sibling with an incurable disease. My parents were healthy, and my younger brother would often ask me to buy him chicken.

I was just thinking of earning money so I could live comfortably. If you have money, you can do most things, and if something happens, you can solve it.

But that all ended up being futile. I thought I had saved some money compared to my peers, but I ended up dying from overwork.

Dying was also very meaningless. The moment I stepped onto the subway stairs to go home, I felt dizzy from fatigue and fell over. Because I had quite a long flight of stairs ahead of me, I rolled down the long stairs.

My tired body couldn’t withstand such a shock, so I closed my eyes. Realizing that this is death.

‘Fuck. If I had known this would happen, I would have spent it instead of saving.’

Even though my vision was blurry, that was the only thought that filled my mind.

However, as I closed my eyes at the moment when death was clear, I suddenly felt something strange. Some time had passed since I became aware of death, and I felt a strange sensation.

Finally, I felt like my body was floating, and my dazed state gradually changed to the point where I wondered what it would be like to travel through space without any sensation.

I felt sensation in my arms and legs and the air slightly shaking.

‘Are you alive and not dead? I end up doing everything I wanted to do with the money I saved right away!’

I thought about all the things I would do if I came back alive. But it soon became an unachievable dream.

The difference is that I woke up in a completely different body. Even with the body of a newborn baby.

Thanks to this, I had to endure a time of great hardship. This is because living in the body of a newborn baby is very difficult. When humans are just born, they have many shortcomings. I couldn’t see anything clearly, nor could I hear anything clearly. My body was so weak that there was nothing I could do about it.

The good news is that my body is so weak that I can continue to sleep. I wake up briefly in between, cry when I’m hungry, and cry again when I feel uncomfortable for some reason. Then falling asleep became my daily routine.

Should I say it was thanks to you, the memories I had built up until now gradually faded away. Things like various memories and knowledge were fading away. As I continued to stare blankly at the ceiling every day, those memories were bound to fade.

At first, I tried hard not to forget those things, but it was all in vain. Most memories fade very quickly, and by the time I was crawling on the floor, not much memory of my past life remained.

People are all born with memories of their past lives, but it got to the point where I wondered if they would forget it all as they went through the fetal and infant stages.

Still, I didn’t completely forget, so some memories came back to me every now and then, like clams being dug out of the mud. For example, when a mosquito licks fresh blood from my arm, thoughts of mosquito nets and mosquito coils come to mind.

Of course, there are other things that remain other than those memories that come to mind occasionally. In all Korean educational curricula, things like the four basic arithmetic operations that had never been missed since infancy remained.

During times when I couldn’t speak properly, I would just cry or look around blankly at the scenery around me. There are a few nails on that wall, and a few nails on this wall. How many do you add up? After spending time like that, I couldn’t easily forget it.

Anyway, after spending such a boring childhood, I knew what kind of world I was born into from the time I started toddling around and talking.

The world I was born in was a place that could often be called a ‘fantasy’ compared to where I previously lived. There is magic, there are heroes, there are demon lords, and there are monsters. It was a typical fantasy world.

Since my parents were eating delicious food except for me, I cried and begged them to join me, and they told me that if I kept crying, a warlock would catch me. At first, I thought I had misunderstood what was being said, but I was even told that he was a warlock who used evil magic.

Thanks to this, I was able to recall one of my memories from my past life, ‘Fantasy’. Things like shooting out magic or flying around while using sword techniques or something like that.

When I found out that the place where I was reborn was a fantasy world, I briefly had a hope that bordered on delusion.

I had hopes of becoming a warrior with tremendous power, or an archmage who could drop meteors and such. It was my hope that a luxurious life awaiting me, with a beautiful princess from a certain kingdom as my companion, amassing a wealth of gold and silver treasures.

“What is a hero, an archmage is a piece of shit.”

But unfortunately that didn’t happen. I didn’t have the strength to become a warrior or the talent to become a wizard. There was no condition to even attempt such a thing.

What was ahead of me was not a luxurious luxury life. It was a working life that felt like the life I had enjoyed in my previous life was being cut away.

This world seemed to be set in medieval Europe, like a fantasy cliché. Even if I haven’t been to Europe, where medieval villages have been preserved just by working, I can be sure that those places would have been similar to where I am now.

Of course, being a child in this world is very different from a child in the 21st century. This may not be true for children from aristocratic families who live in vain, but for children born into ordinary families like me, this is true.

In this world, there was no concept of protecting children. It was just protection at the level of maternal and paternal love. And, it did not provide protection from work.

“Son! Go get some oil! I can’t use this anymore!”

“Father! Oppose child abuse!”

“Stop talking nonsense like child abuse and go get some oil! Need to cool down! If you make this and sell it, I’ll buy you meat!”

As it is now, a person called my father is making me work.

“Wow, new, labor, life… … .”

With a deep sigh, I scooped up the oil from the corner of the blacksmith shop. It was an oil used in blacksmith shops and was used to cool down heated iron.

After pouring the oil into the container, my father dipped the red-hot blade into the oil. There was a ‘push’ sound and there was a lot of smoke that looked like it could be bad for your health.

“Ugh!”

He frowned at that and took a step back. That’s not good for the delicate body of a child who hasn’t grown up yet! Labor is not good either!

But as soon as I stepped down, a new mission came my way.

“Son. Go and get some wood for the handle.”

“It’s next to him.”

“This one is small. Go get something the size of your forearm.”

“It’s heavy.”

“You shouldn’t say that a guy is heavy for something like that. You should be able to swing a hammer with one hand like this dad.”

Well, isn’t it a bit odd for a nine-year-old to wield something like that? Even a hero can’t do that?

“Why don’t you go quickly?”

As I was looking at my father with an expression as if he had heard something he couldn’t hear, my father snapped his fingers as if he were going to hit me. No, a man who shakes a hammer like a brush will break his bones if he does that!

I rushed to protect my head. If you get hit by that, it’s not a joke, it really hurts.

“Ugh, my friend.”

Past life, present life, there is nothing but working life. A sigh came out of my arms.

Still, I was not born a slave, so I consoled myself and headed to the warehouse. Moreover, I was very fortunate that my family had been blacksmiths for generations and was still a middle-class family among commoners. At least you don’t have to worry about starvation.

“Let’s see, which one should I take.”

There was quite a bit of well-dried wood piled up in the warehouse. Among those woods, I was worried when I saw some that were as big as my forearm, just as my father had wanted.

Which one is the lightest?

After roughly holding it with my hands, I took the tree that felt the lightest and returned to my uncle.

Before I knew it, my uncle had finished all the hardening work and was waiting for me, ready to make the handle.

“Andrew. My son.”

My father waved his hand lightly, telling me to come here. As I approached with a piece of wood the size of my forearm, I saw a freshly made blade shining brightly on the table.

“Try making a handle that matches this knife.”

“Eh? Me?”

“Yes. Since you are also the son of our Steel family, you should now become a blacksmith.”

I couldn’t help but think about my father’s words for a moment.

I don’t remember much anymore, but there was a lot of difference between the world I lived in in my previous life and this place. The same thing applies to things like jobs right now. There wasn’t much work to do in this world.

In particular, it was a world where it was very difficult to find work to do something new. Most people inherited the jobs their parents did, and those who did not mostly farmed or worked as store employees. The work itself could be said to be limited.

Of course, there were also jobs that could be done freely. If it didn’t appear in fantasy, strange mercenaries were the typical job. In fact, the word is a mercenary, and a mercenary is a person who does everything from all kinds of odd jobs to soldiers in war.

I wondered for a while whether it would be good for me to take over the family business and become a blacksmith.

Then, a thought suddenly occurred to me. It was a vain delusion that I harbored for a moment after realizing that I had been born into a fantasy world. This is a delusion of becoming a warrior or a great wizard, accumulating enormous wealth, and marrying a beautiful princess.

However, I did not harbor that vain delusion again. I had long since given up on the dream of becoming a warrior or an archmage.

‘A legendary blacksmith who makes weapons used by warriors and archmages… … !’

The thought that came to mind this time was to become a great craftsman who makes weapons for warriors and archmages, something that someone else would do even if I couldn’t become one.

Isn’t there a reason why he was born as the son of a blacksmith in a fantasy world? I didn’t know that I was destined to become a legendary blacksmith, not a warrior or an archmage.

“Hehehe, father. Don’t be surprised by my dexterity.”

A confidence that I didn’t know about and whose source was unclear just welled up in me.

With a grin, I started trimming the tree I brought. I already knew how to use tools, thanks to having often seen my uncle do it.

I followed my father’s steps and cut, carved, and ground the wood. After moving around like that for a while, a decent object was created.

“Father, how are you?”