A Craftsman's Street and a Fairy's Tail
The bustling day on Craftsman's Street with the fairy had passed, and normal life had returned. Originally, I'd handled my meals and lodging in the quarters provided to guild staff, but now that I was an adventurer, I stayed at an adventurer-specialized inn. After sorting out my room and board there, I headed to the guild.
Unlike yesterday, the guild was moderately noisy. I settled into a chair with a relaxed expression. There were more people in the guild than usual today, but I paid them no mind and simply enjoyed the calm.
"Yeah, noisy places just aren't for me."
When I'd worked as a guild employee, I'd never been the center of attention in a crowd, so I hadn't realized it. Apparently, I wasn't cut out for the spotlight. I recalled the adventurers who'd been waiting for a chance to buy me celebratory drinks and shuddered. Come to think of it, I hadn't been all that outgoing in my previous life either. Maybe that influence had carried over to this one?
As I sat there lost in various thoughts, a guild employee approached me. He pulled a thin book from his pocket and set it on the desk.
"Here's the Craftsman's Street pamphlet you asked for."
"Thanks for bringing it when you're so busy."
"It's nothing. Supporting adventurers is the top priority for guild staff, after all."
The employee shrugged and waved casually as he walked away. I smiled faintly at the attitude that had become so familiar it felt like everyday life. On the surface he looked relaxed, but he belonged to one of the busiest departments in the guild. His department's job was to investigate every workshop in Edenberg and select the ones suitable for entrusting adventurers' equipment.
I opened the pamphlet, which was as thick as a proper book, and clicked my tongue.
"Is this a pamphlet or a book?"
His department required a wide range of talents. They needed the discerning eye to evaluate the results of craftsmen striving to get featured in the pamphlet, the stamina and concentration to inspect countless workshops, and even the integrity to refuse bribes. Among the already elite guild employees, he was counted among the very best. It went without saying that even the Edenberg count's family showed interest and provided support.
And the result of their hard work was this hundred-page pamphlet (?). It had sections for weapons, armor, tools, potions, and so on, organized by role. For each category, the location, characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses of every workshop were meticulously evaluated with text, illustrations, and graphs.
Seeing the finished product with my own eyes, I gazed at the employee disappearing into the distance with a look of awe.
"How can they handle this workload every single month?"
Even I, who prided myself on having a good work ethic, couldn't do this. The difference in workload between the department I'd once handled and his was like night and day. That was because the city I belonged to was the capital of the Edenberg countship—one of the five most prominent in the North, where the boundaries between nations and races were blurred. There were that many people and that many workshops.
Imagining the workload of evaluating hundreds of workshops every month, I realized anew why adventurers treated guild employees with such respect as I opened the pamphlet.
"I've earned some money and have plenty of materials, so I should start by getting proper equipment."
I'd made money from the corpse of a baby Nepentula and obtained the material known as fiber thread. Although the amount had decreased during the loot distribution process, there was still enough to make at least one set of clothes. Using that as a base, I planned to get clothing to wear under armor, along with decent armor and weapons.
"The basic equipment the guild provides is usable, but custom gear is always better than mass-produced stuff."
I'd only completed one request, yet the equipment the guild had given me for free was already in tatters. Considering the opponent had been a baby Nepentula, it wasn't a bad result, but when I thought about how important equipment was to an adventurer, it was best to replace it as quickly as possible.
With that in mind, I examined the pamphlet and, after long deliberation, narrowed my choices down to three workshops.
The light armor specialist workshop run by a half-elf, half-fairy, 'Fairy's Tail.' The weapon workshop run by a dwarf, 'Vulcan's Ember.' And the alchemy workshop run by an alchemist from the Magic Tower, 'Charlotte's Tea House.'
"Those names are pretty strange."
They weren't exactly intuitive, but that was just how craftsmen were. They had tremendous pride in the items they created and possessed the skills to back it up. Since the adventurer guild would take care of them anyway as long as their ability was proven, they had even less reason to worry about such things.
"Shall we get going, then?"
I stood up, slipped the pamphlet into my inventory, and headed toward Craftsman's Street. Since it wasn't far from the adventurer guild, I arrived quickly. I let out a small sigh of admiration at the highly individual workshops spread out along the stone-paved road and made my way to the first location I'd marked in the pamphlet.
"Ahem!"
"Hrrmph, hrrrmph!"
But the farther I walked, the more strange people I saw on the street.
"My hands are moving exceptionally well today!"
"My condition is strangely good. At this rate, I should be able to make something better than usual!"
"Uahaha! The soul of a craftsman burns within me!"
Craftsmen who would normally be shut away in their workshops focusing on their work were instead out on the street showing off their skills. If it had been just one or two, I might not have thought much of it, but seeing dozens of them behaving this way in the ten minutes I'd been walking made it easy to guess the reason.
They've caught the scent of good materials.
What other reason could there be for these prideful craftsmen to put on such an uncharacteristic performance and brag about their skills? They must have heard that I possessed baby Nepentula fiber thread and gotten all worked up.
No wonder I saw so many apprentices at the guild earlier.
They'd probably sent people to find out when I'd be coming to Craftsman's Street. They'd prepared so diligently, but because of their pride they couldn't ask me directly, so they were appealing to me in this roundabout way. In a sense, they really were quite pure-hearted people.
I felt a little sorry for them, but I'd already decided which craftsman to entrust my materials to, so I ignored their desperate gazes and kept walking. After a few minutes, I arrived at a mysterious workshop that shimmered with faint, ethereal particles.
A small girl standing at the entrance spotted me approaching and put on a triumphant expression. The girl, who didn't even reach my chest, shook her flowing golden hair proudly and greeted me.
"Welcome to Fairy's Tail! I am the workshop master here, Elin!"
However, despite her elegant demeanor, she seemed worried that another craftsman might snatch me away. She hurriedly pushed me inside the workshop with both hands. Click. The moment I entered, a fairy waiting inside promptly closed the door. I shook my head inwardly at the thoroughness of it all.
"Were you waiting for me?"
"Of course! I'm the only one who can turn baby Nepentula thread into the finest masterpiece!"
Truly the confidence of a master craftsman. Still, I didn't mention how she'd clearly been waiting anxiously at the entrance, legs trembling. The pamphlet had a warning note that embarrassing her would cause her to hole up in the workshop for several days.
Instead, I took the baby Nepentula fiber thread out of my inventory.
"This is...!"
"Yes. It's Nepentula thread."
Elin carefully accepted the thread, then along with the other fairies, picked up strangely shaped tools and began inspecting the fiber thread.
"Amazing! Not only the strength, but the elasticity and durability are far beyond ordinary thread!"
"I can't even feel its weight in my hands!"
"It's this thin, yet it won't break unless struck with an aura-infused attack?"
"Idiot. That's the property of thread made by an adult. This is from a baby, so it's weaker."
"Still, it's incredible!"
While the fairies chattered excitedly, I watched Elin with a strange look as she touched the thread with an enraptured expression, then asked something that had been bothering me.
"By the way, Elin."
"Just call me Elin. No, let's drop the formalities altogether. You've brought such precious material—you deserve to be treated as an equal."
"Ah, got it."
I was slightly taken aback by the sudden closeness but quickly regained my composure and asked. Thanks to my previous experience, speaking casually came easily.
"Now that I think about it, why do they call Nepentula thread 'fiber thread'?"
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"Well, it's one of the most famous and powerful plant-type monsters, right? I'm just curious why something so extraordinary is given such an ordinary name."
I'd been wondering about it for a while. I'd heard a rumor that the person who named it had been a craftsman, so I figured Elin might know. She answered with an expression that said, You're asking about something so obvious?
"Because Nepentula thread isn't ordinary, that's why."
"Because it's not ordinary?"
When I tilted my head at the confusing explanation, she looked at me with pity in her eyes—as if I were someone who didn't understand the true wonder of this thread—and began to explain.
"Look at this. Nepentula fiber thread surpasses commercially available thread in every single function. What other thread in the world could display such majesty by blocking aura?"
"W-well, that's true, I suppose?"
"And that's not all it blocks! Magic, holy power, black magic—there is nothing it cannot withstand! It resists every kind of supernatural power! How could we possibly give something this perfect the plain name of 'thread'? Of course a special thread deserves a special name!"
I set aside the sight of Elin growing more excited as she spoke and calmly organized what she'd said. So, to summarize, because the performance of Nepentula thread was so special, they had paradoxically given it an un-special name?
"What comes to mind when you hear 'fiber thread'? Just ordinary thread, right? That's exactly why they named it that! It's the king of all threads! Therefore, they gave it the ordinary name that encompasses all threads!"
This wasn't a Korean literature comprehension question asking for the speaker's intent. I was taken aback by her far more passionate reaction than I'd expected.
"Aah, I regret not being born in the past. If I had been the craftsman who first encountered Nepentula thread, I would have given it a much better name!"
Elin rolled her eyes halfway back in some kind of ecstatic daydream and giggled foolishly. I quietly took a step back. Now I finally understood. This was why, starting seven hundred years ago, the rule had been established that whenever craftsmen developed new materials, they had to report them to the adventurer guild along with an appropriate name. If they didn't, names with all sorts of ridiculous reasons attached would spread everywhere, so the guild had created the system to cut them off at the source. It was a relief that the system had eventually evolved into the North's patent law.