Yeomhwa looked at me with a face that screamed he didn’t like this one bit.
“This isn’t some playground for bookish scholars to mess around in.”
“You brat. Are you saying you’re going to ignore an order right now?”
“No, sir...”
“Young Master Jeok says he wants to reforge. Adjust the flames to what he needs. Help him with anything he might need on the side.”
“...Yes.”
His answer was anything but spirited.
“He’s a benefactor of the Heavenly Forge. If anything happens that offends Young Master Jeok in the slightest, I’ll throw you out.”
“What? Y-yes! Ah, understood!”
The moment Yongmyeong said “throw you out,” Yeomhwa jolted and bowed his head over and over.
“Now then, let’s go. I’ll also show you where you’ll be staying.”
At Yongmyeong’s words, I nodded and followed after him.
“Wasn’t that a bit harsh?” I asked.
“Ah, did that make you uncomfortable to watch? I apologize. If I don’t lay it on thick like that, he’s the sort of kid you never know when he’ll cause trouble.”
“Does he cause a lot of trouble?”
“It’s because he has too much talent. Of all the kids I’ve seen, he’s the one who handles fire the best. It’s just a shame he keeps failing the tests, maybe because he has terrible luck with them.”
“I could tell just from looking at the furnace flame. The fire was clean and steady.”
At that, Yongmyeong’s expression turned surprised.
“Well now. You even read the flame properly. Are you sure this is really just a hobby?”
“Yes.”
“Between that monstrous strength of yours and this, you’re the kind of talent anyone would covet.”
“Please bear with it,” I said, half joking.
Even after my joke, Yongmyeong still looked regretful.
Talking like that, we arrived at the lodging before I knew it.
“This is where our smiths stay. You can use that room over there. For meals, when the bell rings three times at each mealtime, just head over to the dining hall there and eat as you please.”
“Understood.”
“I’m busy, so I’ll have to leave you here. You can start reforging whenever you like, even right away.”
“All right. Thank you for taking care of everything.”
“Hahaha, think nothing of it. If you need anything at all, just say the word.”
Leaving those words behind, Yongmyeong really did hurry off, as if something urgent was waiting for him.
“Young Master. Are you truly planning to stay here?” Taecheon asked.
“Why not? It’s fun. I’m really excited right now.”
When I spoke with a face that showed I was genuinely enjoying this, Taecheon shook his head.
“Then are you planning to go straight to the furnace?”
“Yeah.”
“Understood. Then I’ll tidy up the place you’ll be staying with Brother Sowon.”
Chu Sowon’s eyes went wide with shock, but Taecheon didn’t even spare him a glance.
“I don’t like cleaning, though...”
His small, weak protest was lightly ignored.
*****
I went through the discarded swords in the storage.
They were failed blades, but quite a few of them could become masterpieces with the right touch.
To throw these away as failures, huh.
It really was Heavenly Martial Castle’s smithy.
He’s one of the Five Great Artisans of the Central Plains; of course Master Smith Cheon wouldn’t tolerate even minor flaws.
In the end, I picked out a total of five swords.
Among them, I set aside the best one.
That one was for Grandfather.
When I brought the swords to the furnace, Yeomhwa was waiting, sulking hard.
Yongmyeong had told him repeatedly not to get on my bad side, and yet here he was, blatantly wearing that sulky expression.
It made me laugh.
I set the swords down and spoke.
“I’d like to be alone. Could you step out?”
At that, Yeomhwa glanced at the furnace and said,
“Haah... If any blue light comes up from those flames, you have to tell me right away. All right, Young. Mas. Ter?”
“Yes. Got it.”
If blue flame rises, that means the temperature inside the furnace has shifted.
Then the heat won’t spread evenly through the iron, and problems will crop up.
He still looked unconvinced, and I could see him forcing his feet to move away.
Once Yeomhwa left, I immediately slid a sword into the furnace.
The fire was so good that the blade flushed red in an instant.
I held my hand lightly over the reddened face of the sword and muttered:
Soul in the flame, tempered a thousandfold.
Crimson blaze unending, steel heart made to live.
White light rose from my palm and slowly began to seep into the sword.
I was unfolding a spell-art I’d created by fusing the magic I’d learned with the sorcery of the Central Plains.
This particular incantation was one that strengthened a sword.
My energy wrapped around the entire blade.
I took it out and began to tap the blade with my finger.
TANG—
Each time my finger struck, my energy surged and was absorbed into the sword.
As the cause of its defect was being stripped away, the sword’s hardness was also shooting up to a ridiculous level.
Each tap of my finger was exerting power on par with the very highest grade of refined steel, steel that had been tempered ten thousand times over.
TANG—
At the final flick of my finger, the remaining energy was all absorbed, and the blade flashed so brightly it almost hurt to look at it.
I ran my hand over the sword here and there, then, satisfied, set it aside.
Then I picked up the next sword and began the same process again.
*****
I wasn’t sure how much time had passed.
Stretching, I stepped away from the furnace.
The moment I did, Yeomhwa, who had been waiting outside, rushed in ahead of me to check the state of the furnace.
The crimson lotus flames were still blazing.
The fact that it had been maintained like that meant I’d been feeding black coal into the furnace precisely where and when it was needed.
From what I heard later, that was the moment Yeomhwa really looked at me again.
He’d thought I was just some bookish scholar, but apparently I knew how to handle fire pretty well.
Well, obviously. Why else would I have asked to borrow a furnace?
He suddenly got curious.
What state were the swords I’d worked on in?
Looking around, he saw the five swords laid out neatly.
The moment he saw them, he supposedly couldn’t help but gasp.
He told me later that he’d never seen swords shine like that in his life.
Just looking at them made his eyes ache from the brilliance.
And the edges—just looking at them made it feel like they’d slice flesh open.
He picked up a sword and examined it. It was perfect.
Even the weight distribution was flawless, and the sword felt light.
When he tapped the flat of the blade with his finger, a clear, pure note rang out.
That meant the hardness of the sword was top-class.
He distinctly remembered having been told those swords were taken from the failures in storage.
Had he been wrong?
Had he given me the wrong directions and pointed me to Heavenly Martial Castle’s armory instead?
Even in the armory, there wouldn’t be swords this good.
Anyone could see at a glance: they were masterpieces among masterpieces.
Could it really be that that “scholar” had reforged them to this level?
If that was true, then that scholar could be truly dangerous.
If he could turn failed swords into masterpieces with nothing but reforging, then how far could he push truly excellent swords?
People with bad intentions would fight to kidnap someone like me.
Or kill me.
If they couldn’t have me for themselves, martial world types would sooner kill me.
Either way, Yeomhwa revised his judgment of me once again.
He decided I was an eccentric among eccentrics.
He said he actually felt good.
Why else would I have left those wonderful swords there?
Wasn’t it because I trusted him?
Apparently, he felt sorry, thinking he’d treated me badly that day.
He decided that when I came back tomorrow, he was going to treat me right.
*****
That night, he stayed alone at the furnace, hammer ringing as he worked.
He wasn’t just talented; he was also the type who put in far more effort than anyone else.
Even on talent alone he outstripped the other trainee smiths, and on top of that he worked harder than they did, so there was no way they could keep up with him.
Because of that, the other trainees ostracized him.
They would deliberately give him low-grade black coal and charcoal, or secretly swap out his iron for stuff so bad you couldn’t even use it.
The problem was that even with those trash materials, he always managed to produce something better than what they made.
Despite that kind of talent, he still hadn’t become a ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) full smith.
The others, afraid of his talent, had done everything they could to bury it.
On top of that, he had no master teaching him and no patron to lean on.
So people took every opportunity to ignore and bully someone like Yeomhwa, who had no connections and no backing.
But he was stubborn.
Even after all that abuse, he clung to the Heavenly Forge and refused to leave.
Because of that, his personality had grown prickly.
Late at night.
While he was tidying the furnace and carefully gathering up the swords I’d left behind—
Masked men burst in and knocked him flat in an instant.
Then they snatched away the swords he’d been holding so carefully.
Even in his dazed state, Yeomhwa grabbed one of the masked men’s legs with all his strength to keep them from taking the swords.
“D-don’t... Those swords aren’t mine... Leave them...”
The masked man kicked him hard in the face, the one who’d spoken so desperately.
The impact sent him flying backward, and he blacked out on the spot.
Once they’d confirmed he was unconscious, the masked men hurried out of there.
*****
The masked men gathered in a deserted spot.
After checking their surroundings, they took off their masks.
“Haah! That bastard grabbed my leg all of a sudden, scared the hell out of me.”
“What the hell was in there that he was holding on that desperately? I almost killed him.”
“Pretty sure he said they were swords?”
“He also said they weren’t his.”
“Swords? Let’s open it.”
They opened the wooden box, and inside were five swords.
“Wh-what is this?”
“They’re insane.”
“Look at that beautiful sheen. How the hell did he polish them like that?”
“And those edges... Ow!”
The man who touched a blade yelped as red blood dripped from his fingertip.
“I just barely brushed it and it cut me this deep? The sword aura on these things is no joke.”
“You’re telling me that bastard’s gotten to the level where he can make swords like this?”
“No way. Even our master couldn’t produce pieces like this.”
“Not just our master—Master Smith Cheon himself would have to pour his heart and soul into it to make something like this.”
“Then what? You saying that bastard’s at Master Smith Cheon’s level?”
“No way. He clearly said it, didn’t he? They weren’t his. Someone must’ve brought them to him for repairs.”
“Doesn’t that make it even more dangerous? We don’t know who owns these swords, but they’re not going to be ordinary people.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s not like there’s any proof we did it. If he lost them, that’s his fault.”
“Yeah. He can take responsibility.”
“So what do we do with these?”
They all looked at each other.
“If we change out the hilts and make new scabbards, no one will know until they actually draw them.”
“You think we can make scabbards that can withstand this kind of sword aura?”
“We’ll have to try.”
“And once we make the scabbards?”
“You know. We offer them up to the gentlemen upstairs.”
“Ah! Right.”
“With swords like these, those gentlemen will be thrilled.”
“Exactly. All right, everyone bring a new hilt and scabbard by tomorrow.”
“Got it.”
*****
The next day, when Yeomhwa opened his eyes and saw that the box holding the swords was gone, he was devastated.
He’d poured his heart and soul into those swords.
They might have been the masterpieces of his life.
What was he supposed to say?
If he’d just left them by the furnace, they wouldn’t have been stolen.
All sorts of thoughts ran through his head.
One thing was certain: he had to go to me, tell me everything exactly as it had happened, and beg for forgiveness.
“Ugh!”
When he tried to get up, pain flared through his face like it was breaking apart.