Future Dreams (1)
I woke up the next day right around lunchtime.
“Ah, fuck. I completely forgot.”
Last night, I’d stopped by the bathhouse before returning to the inn, where I wrote up my thesis and then passed out. Having pushed through without any caffeine, the moment my head hit the pillow I was out cold. The thought of eating breakfast never even crossed my mind.
‘This is exactly why you shouldn’t eat out.’
Other people could survive a whole month on twenty copper, yet I’d already blown through what felt like a cursed thirty. I finally understood the daily struggles of those poor bastards who worked three-copper day jobs without a single day off. No wonder they were willing to risk getting stabbed in their sleep just to stay in one- or two-copper inns.
‘Or maybe I’m just shit at managing money?’
That was probably part of it too. This was the sorrow of being an outsider. No steady income, no home of my own—money just kept flowing out. Starting tomorrow, I’d have to buy some bread or something and keep it in my room. Watching my funds shrink instead of grow was absolutely horrifying.
Cursing under my breath, I trudged down the stairs. For some reason, my lower back felt heavier than usual from the moment I woke up. It seemed like the early signs of low blood pressure. I was so exhausted that I hadn’t even gotten morning wood.
“Hey, adventurer. You need to pay up.”
Dorka stopped me just as I was about to head out the door, his deep voice rumbling. What a money-grubbing bastard.
“Hold on a sec. I’m gonna eat breakfast after I work out.”
“Not that. The lodging fee.”
“Goddamn it.”
So it was already time? Today was the third renewal day. It had already been six days—nearly a full week—since I first arrived at this inn.
Whish—!
Clink!
I flicked a ten-copper coin toward him. Dorka caught it cleanly and grinned.
“For our valued customer, today’s breakfast is on the house. But you’ll have to take the leftover bread from your room yourself.”
“Wow, I’m absolutely thrilled. You’re not gonna heat it up for me though, are you?”
Inns in this world rarely used small cooking tools. Mass production was essential for the business. They used enormous pots like the ones in military kitchens. And naturally, the hearths were ridiculously oversized too. It would be a complete waste of firewood to light that massive thing just to warm up a single portion for me.
“Sorry about that. I can’t fire up that huge pot and wash it again just for one person.”
“Free food is free food, I guess. Next time I’ll make sure to wake up early even after taking a quest, so look forward to it.”
Even in 21st-century Earth hotels, if you showed up late for the breakfast buffet you were out of luck. And here, food was far more expensive and troublesome than back on Earth. I should actually be grateful that Dorka was willing to set aside a portion for me at all.
—Creak.
I headed to the well beside the inn. One thing this world had over Earth’s Middle Ages was the quality of drinking water and sanitation. Since it was a city with proper sewers, the water supply system was surprisingly advanced.
But I wasn’t here to drink the well water. Even back on Earth, I barely drank water. Coffee, cola, and alcohol had made up my entire liquid intake. No, I came here for morning exercise.
‘I can’t exactly do weights on the second floor and risk smashing through the floorboards.’
There happened to be a rock of just the right weight lying near the well, so I’d gotten Dorka’s permission to use it for my workouts. Though honestly, I’d only used it once a few days ago.
I didn’t do upper-body exercises every single day.
“Urrrrgh.”
After finishing my stretches for upper body, lower body, wrists, and ankles, I picked up the rock I always used. It was about the size of a washbasin, with a tapered end that made it easy to grip.
“Huh?”
But today, the weight felt strangely light. It wasn’t that it was light exactly, but the load on my arms felt noticeably lacking. This wouldn’t work for proper weight training.
‘What the hell?’
It had been the perfect weight just the other day. Had my level gone up from killing goblins and increased my strength? No, this wasn’t a game. That couldn’t be it.
I set the rock down and tilted my head in confusion.
‘…It must be because of Beast Regression.’
That was the only variable. Ever since I started using Beast Regression, the mana that circulated vigorously through my body—maybe it was constantly reinforcing me even in normal times?
In this world, people who began handling mana gained power that transcended human limits. That was why, even before I obtained Beast Regression, I could bisect kobolds or hurl Francesca across a room. I had already been slightly attuned to mana from the very beginning.
All hail Professor Brammaton.
Anyway, it was possible that the mana catheter effect I felt the moment I used Beast Regression was feeding back into my physical body.
I stripped off my top to check my condition. I didn’t work out purely for aesthetics, but they did say that food that looked good tasted better. So I occasionally checked myself out too. Real gym rats checked their bodies in the mirror every day and even took photos to track their progress.
—Bulging.
My overall physique and appearance hadn’t changed much. Same solid six-pack and thick pectorals as always.
—Press, press.
I poked my chest muscles with my fingers to test their firmness. The sensation hadn’t changed either. Still the same ten-percent body-fat macho body I was used to.
Wait, didn’t mana training make your skin tougher? I’d heard it only increased resistance to damage. So I threw a light punch at my own body.
—Thud!
“Oh?”
Even though I’d pulled my power, it didn’t hurt nearly as much as when I was actively flexing. I didn’t understand the exact mechanism, but it was clear that mana was affecting my body.
—Glance.
That was when I noticed a rock one size larger than the one I usually used. It looked significantly heavier too.
“Heh heh.”
I drew the rock-calibur embedded in the ground and lifted it. The cool sensation and the satisfying weight on my arm. Now this was a weight I could be happy with. Heavy weights were the instinct of every true gym rat.
‘I need to maintain my sword.’
That thought occurred to me after I finished eating and my stomach was full. Lately I’d been using my weapon far more often than usual. As a result, the blade had gotten pretty beat up. Other than wiping and drying it, I hadn’t done any proper maintenance yet.
The sword I received from Carmine University was a mid-to-low-tier model. If I didn’t take care of it properly, I’d regret it later. A warrior’s combat strength was roughly half equipment-based. You couldn’t skimp on the effort you put into your gear.
The maintenance method was detailed in my bible—Professor Brammaton’s book, Adventurer’s Alchemy—so it wasn’t difficult.
‘The problem is the whetstone.’
The whetstone I’d been using had received quite a bit of harsh criticism from the Red-and-Skinny adventurer duo I met on the carriage to Sargadis.
—Hey, yellow. You sharpen your weapons with that? You might as well brush your teeth with puppy grass.
—Even if your equipment is cheap, you should use expensive maintenance tools.
According to them, “Whetstones need maintenance too.” Since I’d just left the one I got in college lying around in my dorm room, it had naturally turned into a complete mess.
But seriously, even the maintenance tools needed maintenance? It was such a blasphemous and unrealistic truth. It was on the same level of culture shock as when I was a kid and saw a toothbrush sterilizer at a friend’s house.
Maintenance for the sake of maintenance! It was as contradictory as war for the sake of peace or sterilization for the sake of sterilization.
Still, as an adult, I now understood why you had to disinfect your toothbrush. A toothbrush left wet was a breeding ground for bacteria. The same logic probably applied to a whetstone in poor condition making sword maintenance pointless.
A whetstone was a tool to sharpen a sword’s blade. In other words, to a sword, it was basically an onahole. Once I thought of it that way, it suddenly made perfect sense.
What man wouldn’t be careful when choosing an onahole? Even if some people didn’t use them, no one just grabbed any random one. I couldn’t gift my partner a cheap real-stone doll.
Even if I changed weapons later, for the time being this sword was the one I’d be trusting with my life.
“So that’s why I’m here. The smithy.”
—Ting-a-ling.
The bell on the door rang as I stepped into the modest forge. The interior was lit by candles hanging from the ceiling like in an old tavern, casting everything in a reddish glow. Amid the gleaming iron weapons, a middle-aged man stood with a pipe in his mouth, radiating pure swagger.
“Huu—.”
The man blowing out smoke didn’t even glance in my direction. His attitude was exactly like a veteran convenience store part-timer. Those guys could get away with it since it wasn’t their store, but this was his own shop and he still looked like he had zero interest in selling anything. In this world full of machismo, tier-chasing, and swagger, it wasn’t that surprising.
—They say that in old Japan, ramen masters would snatch away their own ramen from customers who ate the noodles before the broth, then refund their money and tell them they weren’t qualified to eat his cooking and to get lost.
I have no idea what they expected me to do with the time I wasted waiting for their food during a ridiculously busy lunch rush. Anyway, those kinds of bastards had all been swept away by the flow of the 21st century on Earth, but in this goddamn isekai world, these so-called “artisans” were still everywhere.
But I too had long since been steeped in machismo in order to survive in this world. Norde, walking the path of a real man, no longer used polite phrases like “Excuse me” or “Is anyone here?”
“I’d like to look at some goods.”
With bold strides, I deliberately announced my presence as I entered the shop. I didn’t forget to use that ridiculously arrogant haoche speech pattern either. Without sparing a single glance at the weapons displayed like some kind of macho parade, I walked straight up to the middle-aged man sitting at the counter.
He had a white cloth wrapped around his forehead. If it had been a circlet, I might have suspected he was a ninja, but it was just plain white cloth. Anyone could tell he was a blacksmith through and through.
“Did your mom send you on an errand, kid?”
Only after I approached did he finally speak to me. His tone was exactly like a cowboy who had just stepped out of a Western movie.
‘Fuck. I can’t hold it in. You little songbird.’
I couldn’t endure it and squeezed my eyes shut. It seemed my machismo still couldn’t match up to a real, true-to-the-bone, insane, old-school macho bastard. This proved it.
—Clang! Clang clang!
From deeper inside the building came the nonstop sound of hammering. Someone was clearly working. I kept my eyes closed and focused.
‘I am a cowboy. I am a cowboy and a sheriff…’
Like casting a hypnotic suggestion on myself, I chanted the words, merging my own identity with that of a polite-but-gruff macho man. Then I spoke as if delivering a line.
“I came to buy a whetstone. Give me one.”
“Get lost. I don’t have anything to sell to a brat.”
In this neighborhood, that was as common a response as “Did you get drafted?” So I calmly unfastened my sword—scabbard and all—and showed it to him. I didn’t forget to slightly pull the hilt to reveal a glimpse of the blade.
“I know my skill is lacking. But if I leave it like this, I won’t be able to face the blacksmith who gave me this sword.”
“So?”
“I’m not asking you to sell me something. I’m asking you, as one artisan to another, to show consideration for the craftsman who made my sword.”
Goddamn it. Did I really have to say all this crap just to buy one item? As I spoke, I suddenly felt a wave of cringe and shut my mouth. I’d even used the exact tone that gently stroked their “artisan sensibility” according to their standards. If he still told me to fuck off after that, I’d just fuck off and go to another smithy.
“Hmph. Let’s see it then.”
The blacksmith snatched my sword away as if reclaiming his own property. The cocky bastard acted like I’d been holding his own item hostage.
“Tsk. It’s in terrible shape.”
He examined my sword from various angles and clicked his tongue.
“It needs a lot of work. I’ll take care of it for you.”
“No need. Just sell me the whetstone.”
It was a common scam—take the weapon, “fix” it, then demand several coppers. The same kind of sales trick as asking the price of ice cream at a Japanese tourist spot only to have them immediately scoop it into a cone and pressure you into buying it for 500 yen.
“Weren’t you saying you didn’t want to feel sorry toward the artisan who sold you the sword?”
“If I can’t maintain it myself, it won’t mean anything in the future.”
“Ah, so full of yourself. Fine. Wait here, I’ll bring it.”
When I firmly refused, the blacksmith took my sword with him into the back of the forge without returning it. Every single word out of that son of a bitch’s mouth was pure bullshit.
A few minutes later, he returned with a cloth, a whetstone, and an iron bottle containing oil.
“The whetstone is ten copper. Pay one more copper and I’ll throw in the cloth and oil as well.”
—What the fuck did he just say?
I nearly fainted like I’d seen fish-shaped bread selling for three thousand won apiece right outside the station. What? Ten thousand won for a whetstone?
“…Eleven copper total. Are you insane?”
A mere whetstone costing eleven thousand won? Did this thing happen to be named Emilre or something? Unless it was made through human sacrifice, there was no way I could accept that price. As far as I knew, the average price for an onahole was around that range. But a whetstone was basically the fantasy-world equivalent of a smartphone charger. What crazy bastard would pay a hundred thousand won for a charger?
And the fact that he was trying to charge an extra copper for a random leftover cloth and a bit of oil was ridiculous.
‘This bastard’s a scammer, isn’t he?’
There was no way I was going to pay a hundred thousand won for some shitty square rock. When I frowned at the thought, the scammer—no, the whetstone-selling, rock-selling blacksmith—came at me with full “take it or leave it” energy.
“If you don’t like it, go to another smithy. You won’t find it cheaper anywhere else, though.”
Fuck, they were price-fixing too? My vision went dark. Was this Sargadis or Yongsan? Wow, I had no idea that a random neighborhood smithy held the secret to returning to Earth.
—Bubble bubble.
It had been a while since I’d encountered a pure, 100% spicy-flavored isekai native. The free soup I’d emptied so cleanly earlier was now doing backflips in my stomach. Using the unique mental resistance of a graduate student, I chewed the word “endure” three times and forced a smile.
“Understood. I’ll do that, so could you return my sword?”
“What? You’re just gonna ask the price and leave? Are you messing with me right now?”
If you’re pissed, then fuck off yourself, asshole.
—Grind.
Watching the rock-selling bastard use my sword like a massage device to pound his own shoulder, I finally reached my limit. From the moment I saw his face, I knew I wouldn’t like him.
—That’s it. I’ve endured plenty.
I felt the thread of my patience snap clean in two.
“Ten copper. Yeah, ten copper, right?”
I picked up the whetstone the rock-selling bastard had brought out. Then, in a voice trembling with pure rage, I muttered.
Partial activation. Mana surges through my right arm in response to overwhelming fury.
“Pray to the Heavenly God (yáǵeswō deiwōm dyēus).”
Kwaaaaaah—!!
As if responding to my rage, my right arm became wrapped in mana. It was a partial activation of Beast Regression. The hand gripping the whetstone was now infused with the heroic strength of Earth’s warrior!
Crack…!
When I squeezed with my grip strength, the whetstone began to scream. A whetstone meant for sharpening blades was normally made from extremely durable special rock. No matter how much bear-like strength I possessed, it shouldn’t crack this easily.
‘Ten copper for a whetstone made from this cheap-ass rock?’
My fury increased the power flowing into my hand. I became a merciless real-doll destroyer and completely smashed the whetstone to bits.
—Crunch!!!
Clatter clatter!
The whetstone shattered into pieces in my hand and rained down onto the floor. I stared straight at the rock-selling bastard and asked.
“So. How much now?”
“Uh… uh…?”
Having just witnessed a rock get pulverized by raw grip strength, the rock-selling bastard was at a loss for words. It was natural for him to be stunned after I’d crushed a stone to powder instead of apologizing, but that wasn’t the answer I wanted to hear.
With eyes practically rolling back from rage, I roared.