Pride Doesn't Put Food on the Table

The sword couldn't reach.

Of course it couldn't. A sword was something you gripped in your hand and swung, and the bird was floating in the sky. Even adding the length of the blade to my arm, I had two meters. That thing was fifty meters up at minimum.

Round and round it went.

The Monstrous Bird Albatross drifted in a lazy orbit above the plateau. Every so often it gave its wings a shake, and a few feathers came loose.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

"Hey. Come down."

Kyaek.

"Not coming down, then."

I picked a fist-sized rock up off the ground at my feet.

I settled into a pitcher's windup.

KAANG!

The rock screamed upward at supersonic speed.

Thwack!

A hit. Caught the left wing joint dead-on.

Kyaaaaek?

The Albatross lurched in midair. Its round eyes went bloodshot as they locked onto me.

A low rumble rolled across the sky.

"Ah."

Hundreds of feathers came down like a rainstorm. So those earlier drops had been the trailer.

Clang! Ring! Clang!

I swung the magic sword. One, two, ten, twenty. I knocked them aside along the paths drawn in my head.

A rock was still a rock, though. I hadn't even left a scratch. All I'd done was pull aggro.

The sword couldn't reach, I was running out of rocks to throw, and the boss was hovering in the air laying down a carpet bombing. Was there any reason to stand here sweating through a game of rock-throwing against that lunatic bird?

"Can't reach. Clocking out."

Kyaek??

There's a truth I figured out back in my unemployed days. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. You find a way that does. Repeating a way that doesn't is just being stubborn.

I turned and sprinted for the gate.

I tumbled out of the portal and dropped onto a bench in the waiting room. Brushing the dirt off my pants, I pulled out my phone.

"Party play, huh..."

Watching people bicker over how to split the mana stones. I did more DPS. You tanked less. Fighting over shares. A group chat pops up, someone sends What time are we meeting tomorrow?, and if you leave it on read you look like the villain. Worst of all, you have to split the rewards N ways.

"Horrifying."

Just thinking about it made me want to break out in hives. I'll pass on doing university group projects in the Tower too.

"This would all be over if I just got one ranged weapon."

I stood up from the bench. My feet carried me, naturally, toward a familiar back alley.

Ding-a-ling.

"Excuse ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me."

"Eek! Y-you're here...? I mean, you've arrived, husband... I-I mean, valued customer!"

A glass bottle came into view behind Han Serin as she burst out from behind the counter. The black rose I'd given her yesterday was sitting in it. Do cursed flowers grow if you water them?

"Do you have a bow?"

"...What?"

"A bow. A spear, even. Something I can throw."

"S-something you throw...? A man throwing something at a woman... marital discord!?"

"A ranged weapon."

Han Serin's face fell all at once. She fidgeted with both index fingers and dropped her gaze to the floor.

"I-I'm... a magic sword blacksmith, so... I can only make magic swords. That's just how my trait works! Sword-specialized, and even that's curse-specialized, I'm a total hack...!"

"What about daggers?"

"A d-dagger... I did forge one throwing magic blade, actually..."

Han Serin carefully drew a leather sheath from under the counter. What she pulled from it was a dagger, white and sharp as a shard of bone. Dark, vein-like patterns writhed across its surface.

"Oh, it's got a tracking function? So if I throw it at a boss, it flies over and sticks itself in?"

"Th-that's..."

Han Serin stammered and edged backward, little by little.

"It does fly toward the target, but... the magic sword's ego is so strong that... the moment it leaves its master's grip, it suffers extreme separation anxiety?"

"And?"

"W-would you like to try throwing it...?"

I took the hilt. An eerie sensation dug into my palm, the grip suctioning itself to my skin. I gave the dagger a light toss at a wooden board.

Shiiik—!

The dagger flew. At exactly three meters out it turned a somersault in midair—and U-turned.

"...Huh?"

BWOOOOM—!

It came screaming back along the same path it had taken out, at a ferocious speed.

Tak.

It settled into my palm. The blade trembled.

Vmmmmmm...!

"..."

Han Serin twisted her fingers together and gave a sheepish little laugh.

"A m-magic sword... will never let you go...! An eternal vow of love that returns to your arms no matter when or where...!"

"That's a murder boomerang."

"It's a soul bond! At least you'll never lose it!!"

"I'll pass. It'd put a hole in the back of my head first."

I scanned the display case again. Swords, swords, swords. Magic swords, cursed swords, greatswords, daggers, rapiers. All of them swords. You can't force out what isn't there.

I reached into my inner pocket and drew out the crisp gold-foil business card I'd stuffed in there yesterday.

"No helping it, then."

"NOOOOO! Don't fall for that shameless chaebol vixen's tricks! Please don't throw me away! I'll try bending a magic sword into the shape of a bow!"

I punched in the number on the card, digit by digit.

Click.

"Director Yu Hayeon, I take it."

"I need a bow in a hurry. Can I come over right now?"

An incredulous voice.

"Does pride put food on the table?"

"I need to take the 10th Floor boss's head. I need a bow. Are you selling or not?"

A deep sigh came through the receiver.

The call ended.

"I'll be back."

"D-don't go...! You can't go! You'll be crushed to death under that woman's capitalist press! Sniff... Poverty really is a crime. So this is how the faithful wife gets discarded..."

I left the workshop with that gloomy wail trailing behind me.

The heart of Gangnam. Yooseong Tower, piercing the sky.

The moment I gave my name at the reception desk, I was shown to a private elevator.

Basement Level 3.

It looked like a cutting-edge factory out of a sci-fi movie. A space where the ceiling alone cleared ten meters.

"You've arrived."

She raised a hand.

A blue holographic blueprint unfolded in midair. Numbers on the schematic scrolled past. Dozens of ultra-precision automata and mana presses installed along the walls moved in perfect unison.

Zzing— thud. Zzing— thud.

Parts clicked together as they rode the conveyor belts. Equipment of identical finish poured out by the second and stacked neatly on the racks. One blade, ten, a hundred. Every one the same shape. The same sheen.

Every last one of them, 0.001% deviation. So this was why the hunter industry was wallpapered in Yooseong logos.

"That's the power of my trait, Giga Factory. Daily output of three thousand units. The secret behind Yooseong Artifacts holding seventy-four percent of the domestic hunter equipment market."

Yu Hayeon closed the hologram.

"Ranged line is over there. Take your pick."

Bows and guns hung side by side along the wall she'd indicated. I gave the weapons a once-over.

The model names kind of sound like washing machines.

"Since you're a beginner, the crossbow lineup would suit you. The Standard Hawk Series. Equipped with an auto-aim correction chipset, effective range of a hundred and fifty meters, fire rate of three rounds per second. Even someone picking up a bow for the first time can operate it with a single button."

I ran my eyes over the weapons on the rack. Excellent. Genuinely, nothing to criticize. No penalties, no quality deviation. And yet, strangely, my hand wouldn't go to them.

A disease I'd picked up after holding magic swords. If a thing has no personality, it's bland. It doesn't growl. It doesn't play favorites with its food.

"Not these."

"Pardon?"

"Not this meal-kit stuff stamped out of a factory."

Yu Hayeon's eyebrow twitched.

"Meal kits?"

"Mass-producing the same thing everyone else uses can't be the full extent of a director's skill, can it. Real equipment you carved yourself. Something Yu Hayeon made. You don't have anything like that?"

She bit down on her lip.

"...Follow me."

I followed her into a hangar further in.

Hisss—

Iris recognition and mana fingerprint recognition cleared in sequence, the lock released, and the door opened. Interior lights came on, and the weapon mounted inside a case of transparent reinforced glass at the center revealed itself.

A bow on a pedestal. Blue mana circuits were etched into a pure white limb.

"Yooseong Artifacts' next flagship model. A masterpiece I poured every technique I have into. Mass production is impossible, so the old men on the board threw a fit telling me to scrap it as an unprofitable defective product, but..."

She turned her head and looked straight at me.

"I'm an artisan too, you know. Sometimes I want ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to make a weapon with my name on it."

"Nice."

She released the lock on the case. The glass slid down with a whisper, and the bow came fully into view.

"Fair warning. This is not equipment a close-range hunter like you can handle easily."

"Hm."

"A twelve-stage mana sync rate adjustment to control the turbine torque, variable tension calculations based on firing angle, high-pressure mana backflowing from the string every time you draw. If the handling is even slightly off, the user's arm explodes before the bow does. It's a monster."

"Right."

"There's no aim assist. The user has to adjust circuit output in real time. Wind speed, distance, target movement speed. All of it calculated manually."

"Right."

"Don't be discouraged, though. You have talent, Mujin. I'll walk you through it carefully. Starting from a single circuit. Today's goal will just be forming the string, and then two hours a day from here, in a week..."

"Yeah, yeah."

"...Are you even listening?"

Tak.

Before Yu Hayeon had even finished talking, I reached out and took the bow's grip.

"Wait, I haven't finished explain—"

WHIIIR!

The mana turbines built into the limb spat blue current. A sharp spark crawled up my wrist.

PAAHT!

The sparks died almost immediately. The circuits lit in sequence, from one end of the limb to the other. And between the two tips, a strand of blue light stretched taut.

A complicated twelve-stage mana sync? Variable tension calculations? There was nothing to calculate. The moment my fingers settled on it, the bow optimized itself.

I hooked my index and middle fingers on the string.

Ting—

A clear note rang through the hangar.

"Oh. Expensive really is better."

"...Huh?"

Yu Hayeon's eyes couldn't find their footing, bouncing back and forth between the bow and my face.