Romance Pays

How far can a single sheet of paper change a person's life?

I looked down at the crisp results form in my hand.

Unmeasurable. EX-grade. Just two letters of the alphabet sitting side by side, and yet the weight of them was something else entirely.

"Congratulations, Awakened Jin Hanul."

The Association employee seated beyond the glass partition addressed me.

"This is only the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠third EX-grade to appear in Korea. And a Production-class EX-grade? There's no precedent for that anywhere in the world. This is a truly historic moment."

"Is that so."

Outwardly, I answered with perfect calm.

Hell yes. I'm rich now. Life, completely flipped.

Inside, of course, I was setting off fireworks.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Twenty-one gun salute. Head-of-state treatment.

A historic moment, they said. I might end up in a textbook someday.

Jin Hanul (b. 2000–), Korean blacksmith and mega-conglomerate tycoon.

The lobby was already packed with people in suits.

"We're from Baekho Group's HR team! Industry-leading compensation, plus a top-tier officetel right in the heart of Gangnam as your residence!"

"Cheonma Company! Sign an exclusive contract and we'll put five billion won in cash on the table as a signing bonus! We'll even teach you secret martial arts techniques if you want!"

"Inari Corporation Strategic Planning Division! Our chairman has taken a profound interest! At least come talk it over in the car…"

Scouts from the major guilds shoved gold-foil business cards at me one after another. Every offer was outrageous — but.

"I'm sorry. I'm aiming to go freelance."

The cutthroat practices of Korean conglomerates flashed through my mind.

Invent a new technique and it gets absorbed into the guild; patent rights get stripped for pennies. Try to quit and a non-compete clause locks your ankles in place. Under the banner of a comprehensive wage system, overtime becomes a daily meal.

The chairman's interest? What was that even supposed to mean.

"Huh? No, wait a second! If the terms aren't to your liking, we can negotiate as much as you—"

"I have no intention of joining a guild. Excuse me."

I bowed politely, then strode out of the lobby at a brisk clip.

Desperate calls from the scouts rang out behind me, but I never looked back.

Why would I become a salaryman? I was a walking megacorp now. There was zero reason to let someone else skim a commission off the top.

I flagged a taxi with the arrogance of a man who owned the world and rode straight to the bank.

"You're really saying you want to close out your savings account?"

The teller looked back and forth between the monitor and my face.

"Yes. Full withdrawal, please."

"Sir. This is a preferential youth housing subscription savings plan. Maturity is only six months away. The subscription points stacked on this thing are incredible — it's a premium product."

"That's fine. I won't be buying an apartment through the subscription system anymore."

I was going to cash-buy a penthouse. What use were points?

The teller listened, then her pupils gave a tiny tremor — the look of someone watching a foolish young man fall into a pyramid scheme or a cult.

"Voice phishing methods these days are extremely sophisticated. If you've received any contact promising high returns…"

"No. I'm simply starting a business. Ah, and please max out my Awakened credit loan as well."

"What industry…?"

"Blacksmithing."

The teller's gaze darkened another shade. I understood.

Honestly, I'd only ever seen blacksmiths in YouTube Shorts and video games. I would have suspected voice phishing or a cult too.

But it was fine. Other people started businesses bare-handed; I had an EX-grade trait.

I was just here to cash in a winning lottery ticket.

The teller sighed and slid the paperwork across.

Scratch, scratch—

I scrawled my signature without hesitation.

After confirming the digits stamped into my account, I headed straight for a quiet outskirts district on the edge of the capital region.

The place the real estate agent showed me was a two-story warehouse-style building wedged into a corner of a sparsely populated industrial complex.

The first floor was a high-ceilinged workshop; the second, a cramped living space.

"Kid, you sure about this? The location is absolute garbage."

"Doesn't matter. Luxury goods don't care about location."

"Yeah, but customers still have to be able to find you."

"Apple and Amazon both started in shabby garages."

"That was America. This is Korea."

A fair point, which I ignored. Ignoring fair points is a foundational virtue of entrepreneurship.

A week after stamping the contract.

The used mana furnace, anvil, and assorted forging tools I'd ordered arrived.

The moment the workshop was set up, I dove into making my first piece.

The product was already decided.

A Japanese sword. A katana.

Why? Simple. Because the katana is the strongest weapon in the world (laughs).

Of course, if you get serious about it, spears win on reach, axes win on destructive power, and blunt weapons win on cost-efficiency.

But on pure romance? Unbeatable.

The rankers who risk their lives going in and out of Gates are, by and large, afflicted with terminal middle-school syndrome.

To a generation raised on manga and anime, the romance of iaido is an irresistible temptation. And sure enough, katanas fetch the highest prices at auction.

The market is happy to pay for that romance. Supply where there's demand. Long live capitalism.

Fwoosh—!

I lit the mana furnace. A wave of searing heat slammed into my face.

What I'd set on the workbench was a black, crude chunk of metal — an expensive ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠otherworld alloy said to be a cousin of tamahagane, with exceptional mana affinity.

The moment I laid my hand on the fragment—

In the empty air before my eyes, a sword that did not yet exist was drawn into being.

Process sequence, fold count, forging temperature…

Knowledge I'd never learned poured in as if I'd always known it.

"What kind of trait comes with a liability waiver?"

I grumbled, but my hands were already moving.

I stacked the fragments by carbon content, wrapped them in washi paper and bound them, then coated the bundle in rice-straw ash and clay slurry before shoving it into the furnace.

The forge-welding process.

Inside the furnace, the iron heated. Cherry red. Not yet.

Past orange, into a brilliant lemon yellow.

I dragged the glowing mass onto the anvil with tongs.

Raised the hammer and brought it down.

CLANG!!

A clear ringing impact shook the empty workshop to its bones.

A sharp rebound shot up through my right hand.

It hurt. It hurt, and yet somehow I was grinning.

Draw it out, cut a groove, fold it, hammer it again.

Folding. The beginning of labor.

Clang, clang, clang!

With every spray of sparks, impurities were driven from the iron. The more I struck, the purer it became.

Clang, clang… thud.

The pitch of the impact dropped a half-step.

Sound doesn't lie. My ears knew first.

I hammered the cloudy section with focused force, crushing the voids shut.

Clang. Clang. Clang.

Gasping for breath, I still never stopped swinging. Sweat fell from my brow, touched the glowing iron, and vanished without a sound.

Thick at the spine, thin at the edge. The blade was still a straight chokuto, uncurved.

Now the most critical process: clay coating and quenching.

I mixed whetstone powder, charcoal dust, and clay into a slurry and applied it thin on the edge, thick on the spine. That microscopic difference in thickness decided whether a sword lived or died.

While the clay dried, I dipped my fingertips into the water trough.

Lukewarm. Perfect.

The old swordsmiths had treated quench-water temperature like a matter of life and death. There were surviving anecdotes of masters who severed an apprentice's wrist on the spot for dipping a hand in the trough.

I'd received that secret art through a single trait. What a wonderful world.

I returned the clay-dried blade to the furnace and watched the color of the flame with held breath.

Still too hot. Plunge it in now and the blade would crack clean through. I had to wait. Back down to cherry red.

Huff. Huff.

I killed the workshop lights.

In the dark, the furnace's color sharpened into clarity.

Past orange, into a deep cherry red.

The color of moonlight on a summer evening.

Now.

I drew the blade and plunged it into the cooling water without a second of hesitation.

HISSSSSSS—!

Steam erupted in a white explosion that swallowed the workshop whole. The vibration of boiling water traveled all the way up through the tongs into my wrist.

A katana's curve is not made by the hammer. It is made by the quench.

The thinly coated edge cooled rapidly, hardening into steel and expanding; the thickly coated spine cooled slowly and stayed soft. The edge's expansion shoved the blade toward the spine.

Creeeak—

Underwater, the sword arched its own back.

When the steam cleared, I carefully lifted it free.

A flawless, smooth blade surface. A clean, elegant curve.

At last, the polishing work that stretched into dawn was finished.

Dawn light slipping through the window slid across the katana.

A sinuous wave pattern revealed itself along the blade.

An undisputed masterpiece.

A few days later, at the headquarters of the Korea Supernatural Ability Management Association.

Sitting in the waiting area with the sword wrapped in cloth against my chest, my happiness circuit was running at maximum output.

The projected scenario went like this.

The appraiser draws the blade. "Th-this is…!" — and can't finish the sentence.

Grade: minimum Epic. Appraised value: minimum eight figures.

List it at auction and rankers instantly go to war with their bids. Final hammer price: triple the estimate.

The next day I walk into the bank and the teller who fretted over me ushers me into the VIP lounge.

I don't even need a Gangnam penthouse.

I'll build a spacious country house with a big yard and a forge out in the sticks, and live sprawled out in leisure.

Heh heh heh…

"Jin Hanul-nim. Please come in."

The appraiser was the same employee who'd delivered my EX-grade verdict.

"Ah, we meet again. You've already finished your first piece?"

"Yes. Here it is."

"Good heavens. The finishing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠is art. This was all handwork?"

The employee fussed over the sword, turning it this way and that.

"I've seen plenty of upper-floor goods, but even the dwarf craftsmen up there couldn't make something like this. This is genuine cultural-heritage grade."

Right. Of course it was.

"What sort of appraised value would you estimate?"

Please say a number with 'hundred million' in it.

"One moment. As a hunter weapon, we need precise specs. I'll run it through the high-precision mana meter."

The employee placed the sword inside a transparent cylindrical machine and pressed a button.

The machine hummed to life, and complex graphs began plotting across the monitor.

I propped my chin on my hand and waited at my leisure for the numbers to settle.

Beep-beep—

A cheerful chime announced that the measurement was complete.

The employee checked the monitor — and suddenly froze.

What. Did the numbers run so high the machine overflowed?

The employee slowly turned to look at me.

"Um… Hanul-nim?"

"Yes. Go ahead."

"The mana conductivity is… zero percent."

Huh?

"That can't be. I used top-grade Mystic Iron…"

"I thought the same thing, so I ran it twice. Normally any object shows at least some conductivity, right? Complete mana insulation. That's unprecedented too, but… it feels like there's no space left for mana to enter."

The employee set the sword down with an apologetic face.

"For a hunter weapon, mana conductivity is life, you know. Whether you're loading aura or using a skill, the blade has to accept mana. This is… how do I put it. As a craft object, it's truly the best."

Mana conductivity: zero percent.

"So then, the grade rating…?"

"A weapon that can't hold mana is less useful than a steel pipe. As a craft piece, it's outstanding, but as hunter equipment… it's unmeasurable."

The same word — unmeasurable — and yet the atmosphere was nothing like a few days ago.

I rode the bus back to the workshop with humble resignation.

Sitting in my seat, I pulled out the corporate business cards I'd collected.

With trembling hands, I sent out messages.

Politely. That I'd given positive consideration to the offers from a few days prior.

The replies came fast.

When exactly had the contact's child been conceived in the span of a few days? Parental leave with no return date — wasn't that just quitting?

And Inari Corporation.

No reply. Just a lonely read receipt.

The chairman had taken a personal interest, they'd said. Did interest have this short a shelf life?

As if by a lie, every contact went dead silent.

A week later.

The hunter-exclusive community Hunter Gallery was wallpapered with my story.

The news headlines refreshed in real time too.

I'd thought I was an irregular. Turns out I was just an extra.

The credit loan was maxed out, and the monthly interest alone ran into millions of won. I'd kicked the corporate job offers away with my own two feet.

A twenty-something self-employed youth driven to the brink of bankruptcy by reckless entrepreneurship.

The news used to drone on about it as a serious social problem.

I never thought it would be my story.

The empty first-floor workshop.

Slurp—

Squatting in front of the cold mana furnace, I buried my face in a cup-ramen container.

On the wall, the katana hung from a makeshift rack.

Vmmm— vmmmm—

Maybe it was my imagination. The sword vibrated, faintly. Something about it felt terribly forlorn.

"Don't cry. You're ruining my appetite."

Vmm?

No special ability, can't even hold mana — what does a hollow tin can have to cry about.

The one who wants to cry right now is me.