episode_0003

After comforting and sending the exhausted Kim Woo-sik home, Si-hyuk quietly mourned the loss of his beloved father at the funeral home.

The ash piled up in the censer, and I watched it indifferently for several minutes.

Through the hazy, swaying smoke of exile, his indifferent eyes, refracted by his thick glasses, began to gradually distort into grotesque shapes.

It was a very fleeting moment, and if someone else had seen it, they would have thought it was just an optical illusion.

What was clearly revealed was an eerie madness that had been accumulated layer by layer like the ashes of a lost soul piled up in an incense burner.

—

The funeral went off without a hitch.

Although it was the funeral day, due to the influence of the executives, the funeral was not even held, and there was an incident where an old man got angry because the teacher’s portrait was not carried to the funeral, but somehow it ended well.

I could clearly feel that they were trying to narrow his position within the [Daon Hammer] guild and even erase his very existence as Baekhyun’s disciple, but I didn’t care.

[Daon Hammer] The high-ranking executives did not stop there. They also drooled and glared at the legacy of Hyun Man, who was a great craftsman.

-It was nothing but the legacy of Greatest Baekhyun!

Even if you simply calculate it, just how much is the value of the works and equipment sold by Baekhyun alone? It was only natural that greedy people would be greedy.

But this was something that Woo-sik vehemently opposed, throwing his whole body into it.

◦ I endured enough, this is a guild and a guild!

Even though he was old, Kim Woo-sik was a veteran who was called the Steel Tiger. He was a veteran who ran around the gates with his close friend Hyun-man, repairing and building equipment in operational situations.

Although Woo-sik was now old and unable to use his body, he was effectively retired and was only a nominal executive, but his influence was still quite strong in Korea and the guild.

Up until now, I have tried to ignore his opinion and proceed with the process, but

Even the new factions that controlled the guild could not ignore the steel tiger’s resolute opposition, which was close to a threat that they would no longer sit idly by.

of course,

They struggled and failed to get their appetite back.

Instead of letting go of the legacy, the guild executives made a condition: a confidentiality agreement that required Shihyuk to keep the fact that he was Baekhyun’s disciple a secret from the public, and that he be expelled from the guild.

There was also a clause stating that some of Hyunman’s belongings that were difficult to dispose of in a short period of time would be donated to the guild, but even so, almost all of his legacy went to Sihyuk.

With this, the guild was able to erase Baekhyun’s stain of having taken in a half-a-point Awakened person as a disciple, and the twenty years of effort of Lee Si-hyeok, who was considered the guild’s vice, was rendered useless.

The connection between Shihyuk and Baekhyunman was summarized in a couple of lines on the document that stated he was his heir, not his teacher and his disciple.

Woo-sik seemed quite angry at the action, but Lee Si-hyuk felt relieved that something that could have gotten messy was sorted out neatly.

If he was not careful, his master’s close friend could have been caught up in factional strife within the guild and put in danger. Sihyuk did not want that to happen.

Woo-sik frowned, but he seemed to understand Shi-hyeok’s feelings, so he suppressed his fiery temper and did not come out any further.

However, she said her final goodbyes to Sihyuk with a hoarse voice and reddened eyes.

“I’ve been scolded for being a loser and looking after the two old people. Live well. Contact me when you think of me.”

“Hello, sir.”

Sihyuk, who gave Wooshik a brief hug, left the guild without hesitation.

How long did it take?

The abandoned blacksmith looked back at his past, at the guild building that had now become a dot. He took one last look at the twenty years he would never see again, and slung his master’s hammer on his waist.

‘I have already decided how I will die. At least I will die as a blacksmith.’

—

The place where Lee Si-hyuk stopped walking was a simple chimney house on the slope of Surak Mountain in Nowon-gu, at the edge of Seoul.

The chimney house, too small to be called a mountain lodge, was, according to the teacher, a piece of land that had been passed down through generations and used as a family gathering place and vacation spot, but it was scheduled to be relocated and demolished as part of Seoul’s complete urbanization plan.

However, with the outbreak of the Dimensional Rift and the country in chaos, the city plan itself fell into disarray.

Hyun-man had to run around busily trying to stop the situation and deal with the accident, and the house became an abandoned haunted house.

Later, when things had settled down to some extent, Baekhyun began restoring the house himself.

The old man, who rarely spent money on unnecessary things, spent a lot of money and devoted himself to restoration, and before long, a rather nice house was completed.

However, the life of a master who has even been given the title of [Greatest] is busy. In fact, Shihyeok’s teacher was so busy with work that he did not have time to spend time at the resort he had specially created.

‘I’m so busy that I can’t move much, so could you come and take care of it when you have time?’

Unlike his teacher’s request that he would always ask for whenever he forgot, Mi-wook Shi-hyeok was too focused on doing his best to pay attention. He just let his teacher’s request slide, like water mixed with alcohol or water mixed with alcohol.

Belatedly, Hyun-man arrived at the house he had requested so badly, and as he looked around, Si-hyuk felt a sense of guilt creeping up on him.

Because the appearance of the small, unmaintained house was quite miserable.

Weeds were growing wildly, dust was piled thickly, and the once neatly painted walls and roofs were discolored and unsightly due to weathering.

‘The Master thought it was so special that he took care of it himself, but I was so absorbed in my work that I never looked for it.’

Sihyuk, who had been briefly reproaching himself, let out a small sigh and began to remove the spider webs hanging from the corner of the front door with his bare hands.

I opened the sturdy locked front door and went inside. Unlike what I saw outside, the inside of the house was in perfect condition.

The interior was well-equipped with a sofa, kitchen, and furniture. The bedroom was the same.

Although most of it was covered in thick dust, it felt cozy enough for people to live in right away, despite the lack of maintenance, perhaps because Hyunman had spent a lot of money without sparing any effort.

The cupboards and drawers were stocked with basic household items such as pots and spoons, and among them were cleaning supplies that were still in their packaging.

Sihyuk took a new broom and duster in both hands and started cleaning first. Among the things Sihyuk learned from Hyunman was this saying.

‘There is a clear difference between clutter and busyness. And a craftsman should not be messy. Clutter is enough for a craftsman’s forge to make things.’

The teachings of the respected teacher Baek Hyun-man were engraved in my bones.

Although Shihyuk was not very good at keeping things clean, he only did simple cleaning like dusting the furniture, removing cobwebs, and sweeping the floor without mopping, but he did not do anything haphazardly and was thorough.

Just by repeating that simple movement, the surroundings were cleaned up quite nicely, as if the dirt had been removed. Sihyuk tilted his head to the side as he was shaking out the accumulated residue into an envelope.

‘Wait a minute, there was a chimney.’

There was no visible stove connected to the chimney anywhere in the house. Shihyuk looked around the inside of the house and made a guess based on the location of the chimney as seen from outside.

Where the stove connected to the chimney would have been, there was only a wall covered with sheet metal. When I knocked on it, I heard a hollow sound, clearly indicating that the inside was empty.

If so, then the story was that the chimney was connected to the bottom of the house, not inside the house.

‘Wait a minute, this is not possible…’

Given his teacher’s eccentric personality, there was definitely something going on. Shihyuk looked around carefully.

As expected, there was an iron gate covering the stairs leading down to the basement, painted a similar color to the sheet metal.

Because it was underground, the inside was dark. Shihyuk started to carefully go down the wall, relying on the sunlight streaming in through the living room window and the light from his cell phone.

He went down the stairs, which were about the size of an apartment building, and came across a large square space almost the size of a house. He felt around for the light switch and turned it on.

Then, what came into view was a huge underground blacksmith shop.

The walls were covered with heat-resistant soundproofing up to the ceiling, and it was fully equipped with ventilation holes for internal air circulation, anvils, and display shelves for the cupboards, and what was connected to the chimney was a sturdy arch-shaped model of a mana furnace and mana melting furnace instead of a furnace.

Made of a slightly dark, matte material, they looked like something out of the ordinary at first glance, and when I knocked on them and touched them, I could tell that they didn’t need any maintenance and were ready to be used right away if I just activated them.

In addition, a large ventilation fan was required for the underground blacksmith shop, and even an air purifier was fully prepared.

In the corner, there is even a quality assurance certificate that states that it has passed all performance and safety tests. It is clear that a huge amount of money was spent to acquire these.

Shihyuk twisted his lips. His subtle expression was a bitter smile.

His master, Hyun-man, was a craftsman who made his living as a blacksmith, but even so, it was too absurd. Who would think of setting up a blacksmith shop in a resort?

Of course, it was a happy miscalculation for Shihyuk. He had already planned to call laborers and installers to build a blacksmith shop in this house after talking to the extension contractor. Now there was no need for that.

‘… The installation cost would be considerable, and above all, it would have taken a long time from building an extension on a perfectly good house and hiring a construction company to build a blacksmith shop, to getting tests and permits, and even the construction period.’

What Sihyuk was most happy about was that he no longer had to commit the sacrilegious act of building extensions to his late teacher’s retreat and remodeling the blacksmith shop.

When I think about how Hyun-man had nurtured this place, I feel guilty and uncomfortable that he was expanding, destroying, and rebuilding it as he pleased.

But now that this annoying problem has been solved in an instant, I feel a sense of relief in my heart, as if a toothache has fallen out.

Fortunately, things worked out well and he was relieved. Sihyuk could start his blacksmithing work right away if he could just get the magic stone ready.

And purchasing a magic stone was no problem compared to the previous problem. All you had to do was purchase a low-grade magic stone from the mobile auction and request delivery.

He immediately turned on his cell phone, saying that he could pull out a bull’s horn in one go.