“I can’t believe it, but my talent as a sorcerer is not too shabby. I showed potential in three different elements. However, my combat sense is just terrible… Whenever I see blood, my legs turn to jelly…”
“……”
“Hmm-hmm— Anyway, maybe because of that little talent of mine, I sometimes get to see beings connected to sorcerers… The last thing I saw from my summoned creature was…”
“What did you see…?”
“…It was an unbelievably gigantic wing. It was so massive, it seemed like a part of the universe; only a tiny piece of the wing was visible, but I clearly saw the feathers—cough-cough!”
After saying that, the man suddenly gushed a bucket of blood from his nose.
“Hah—hah—Just thinking of that being… makes me like this. Whew… what on earth… are you…”
While mumbling that, the man looked at me, then eventually hung his head down.
Crash!
After calling a café employee to take care of the man who fainted by banging his head on the table, I used a potion to recover him.
Of course, I was hidden in stealth mode, and thankfully, the employee handled it calmly, so there was no commotion in the café.
“Here we go again, ha…”
The employee held their head in frustration.
“Does this happen often?”
“Yeah, he tends to sit down and say he feels dizzy sometimes. But this is the first time I’ve seen him collapse like this, frothing at the mouth. They say it’s a trauma from some dungeon…”
“Ah…”
About 30 minutes later, the man, who had been out cold, opened his eyes and, upon seeing us staring at him, said,
“Um? Who… are you?”
“…Huh?”
“Oh! Are you perhaps the summoner who made a reservation earlier? Now, just wait a moment. I sometimes do this. I need to lose weight, ha-ha-ha!”
“……”
Since the payment had already been made during the reservation, Yeon-hee said she had urgent business and left the café.
“Wow, what was that? Is it really just because of his usual health problems?”
“Tap…”
A being with enormous wings.
Was what that person saw a reality? I had no solid proof to completely trust that he had such abilities, but at the very least, it confirmed that my inability to manage Fireball wasn’t due to a lack of talent in the fire attribute.
“Well, it feels refreshing to have opened it, right?”
Nods—
Though the original questions vanished, new ones filled the space, it felt like I had made some progress.
“Anyway, our Il-wol is amazing~ That light attribute is actually undead… Anyway, since there’s no helping it, let’s assume we can use it all! Maybe one day Il-wol will become a great sorcerer! Hehehe—”
“Clap, clap, clap!”
“Then I have to become someone great too… Can I even do it, hmm…”
“Clap, clap, clap!!”
“Yes, instead of thinking about it, let’s hurry and drop off the great sword.”
With her revitalized spirit, we headed to the blacksmith’s place.
As we took a taxi, I reflected on what the sorcerer had said earlier.
If that man’s enormous winged being is indeed connected to me…
“How do I connect with it? Just help me once? Save me, please?”
I wondered whether that incredible being was aware of me. Clearly, I had used many skills… Was that not enough?
“Winged being… please allow me to use magic as I wish…”
……
I vaguely prayed, but as expected, there was no reply.
Do I need to face a desperate situation before getting a response, or is there another way?
“If there’s a chance, I should talk to Joo-ah again.”
The blacksmith’s shop was not far from the café, and we quickly arrived by taxi.
“Is there really a blacksmith in such a place?”
It looked like a rusty old junkyard from decades ago. Countless blades were haphazardly scattered around, forming a long pathway. At the end of the path stood a giant container building precariously.
“…Is anyone planning to sell anything here?”
No matter how you look at it, I never expected to find a blacksmith in this rundown container. How did Yeon-hee muster the courage to come all the way here last time?
Sometimes I feel like she has a bravery that I can’t even compare to.
As we followed the narrow path of scattered blades, we reached the container door, which was tightly shut with a massive iron door. What a hassle.
“Bang—!”
“Il-wol, stay strong! Last time, the man opened it from inside, but where is he?”
Crash—
Even with my strength reaching 200, as I pushed through the heavy iron door, we were greeted by a fairly decent shop displaying various weapons and armor.
However, I felt that the temperature inside the shop was even colder than outside, or was it just my imagination?
Hoo—
Yeon-hee exhaled a long breath and giggled while saying, “Just like last time—.”
If I had a human body, I would have been smirking by now.
Damn it, the shop hadn’t taken any measures, so after Yeon-hee stepped inside, she zipped up her long padding to her chin.
Even though it was a trading equipment shop, they completely disregarded the customer’s situation.
As we entered, we could soon feel someone coming up from the basement.
A man, who had been in a small corridor at the back of the store, came up wiping his body with a towel and said,
“Phew— it’s damn hot. Ha-ha—isn’t it?”
“Uh? Er… Is that so…?”
They say those who gain the blacksmith trait tend to have similar dispositions. Moreover, they’re traditionally not good at jokes.
It was clearly meant to be a humorous comment, but Yeon-hee showed no sign of laughter.
The man came up with his top off, and even though his sweat was rapidly cooling down, he seemed to feel no chill. Did his muscles grow so thick they made him immune to the cold? That’s possible.
Once someone gains the blacksmith trait, their physique often changes to resemble what we typically picture of dwarves. They don’t become as short as dwarves, but their height decreases by over 10%, their nose becomes as thick as a fist, and their body grows incredibly muscular, akin to being a rock.
The man who just came out of the workshop was still over 180 cm tall and fairly slender.
That means he hadn’t awakened for long, originally nearing 190 cm tall and having been extremely thin.
“The armor quality was pretty good… I never expected the one who made it to have so little experience.”
“So, what are you here to get? If you came to order the lowest-grade armor like last time, you can just leave, miss. I’m no longer producing that line of equipment.”
“Not that, I came to request a great sword.”
“Oh? Is the one next to you going to use it?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
The man didn’t even blink at me and instead inspected me from various angles with his hands as if taking pictures, nodding in satisfaction.
“But this is quite different from what I heard last time, miss. Judging by how you opened the iron door, you’re a pretty strong one. Would you be satisfied with a typical great sword? I can make you a special one instead.”
“Sp-special one?”
“Typically, the blade length for a great sword is determined to be around 1.5 meters. But since we’re at it, how about making it 2 meters for a spectacular finish? Sound good?”
The man, shining with excitement at encountering an interesting subject after a long time, asked.
“No matter how much my strength has grown, I’m slightly over 180 cm tall, so won’t a 2-meter blade be too unwieldy? Maybe later.”
A 2-meter blade would probably reach nearly 2.4 meters once you add the hilt and pommel. My strength might be enough, but it would be inefficient in battle. Given the cramped space of the combat I had just faced at dawn, would I even be able to swing it properly?
After all, they say excess is worse than deficiency. I firmly shook my head, and in the end, we settled on ordering a standard-length great sword with a 1.5-meter blade.
The man’s eyebrows formed a disappointed ‘八’ shape upon receiving the request.
Knowing that his experience was limited, he probably often received requests that didn’t deviate much from the normal size. It was like a D-rank hunter constantly dealing with Fire Monkeys.
So, I understood his desire to add some variety to his equipment manufacturing.
Therefore, I hoped to bring him something that would rekindle his enthusiasm when I presented what I had with me, reasoning that if he was excited while working, it would positively affect my weapon as well.
“Wh-what’s this?!”
As I took out several chunks of the rare ore Kadinite from my inventory, the blacksmith hurriedly reached out to inspect the minerals.
“Kadinite!! Where did you find this? I heard they’re hard to mine these days!”
“…We were lucky enough to find a small mine and got it there…”
“WHAT! You struck gold! If you have more, sell it all to me! I’ll buy it all!”
Yeon-hee looked at me, and I shook my head.
“That’s a bit…”
“Ahh— I’m sure I’ll give you a good price!”
“For now, what I brought today is all there is. I’ll need to think about the rest.”
“Cough, cough… Since you say you’ll give me a good price, that sounds great! For now, let’s focus on this weapon!”
“But have you ever made a weapon using Kadinite?”
“About three times… I had experience learning from my master. But those were not alone; in fact, this will be my first time working with it myself.”
He wistfully stroked his chin, gazing into the distance as if recalling old memories, before continuing his story.
“I heard this ore used to come from dungeons created early on. So, while some unused ones are still out there, the quantities are too limited. The recent dungeons don’t produce this stuff anymore. So, even if I want to use it, it’s hard to get.”
However, that doesn’t mean Kadinite is extremely expensive. In high-level equipment crafting, there are better secondary materials than Kadinite.
Since its upper limit of usage is clear, it doesn’t have unlimited pricing, but supply doesn’t exist either, making it a mineral that even blacksmiths might not get to handle much.
The blacksmith was so invested in examining the minerals that he didn’t even notice the drool forming in the corner of his mouth.
“The quality is good too. Which dungeon did you find this in?”
“In the Wolf Den…”
“Whoa? Isn’t that so old that nothing should be there? You were lucky to discover it!”
“Heh, it was pure luck…”
“Wolf Den, Wolf Den… Hmm-hmm…”
The blacksmith kept muttering the name of the Wolf Den as if determined to remember it.
Yeon-hee cleared her throat a couple of times as the blacksmith became overly focused on something else, then handed him a Mana Stone.
“Oh, I apologize. When I get caught up in something, I tend to forget everything else. Let’s see… this is a Mana Stone from an Orc High-Rank Warrior? You were the one who defeated it, right?”
“Yeah… we caught it ourselves.”
“So you’re a D-rank now?”
“It was during the dungeon break in Lizard Swamp…”
Clap-!
Upon hearing Yeon-hee’s words, the blacksmith clapped loudly.
“You two defeated that? I heard the second son of the Ilseom Guild finished it.”
‘So that’s how the story spread…’
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