“No Way, Idiot.”
Smack—
Kim Tae-hyun coldly slapped away the hand Count Marcel had offered him.
Count Marcel stared, looking utterly blindsided.
“W-why?”
“What do you mean, why? Because you’ve got rotten luck written all over you.”
“Y-you insolent wretch! Do you have any idea who stands before you?!”
“Yeah? So what are you gonna do about it?”
There was a reason Tae-hyun was acting like this.
First of all, Count Marcel didn’t seem to have a very pleasant personality.
When clearing a quest, the reward and content mattered, sure—but the NPC giving it mattered too.
A smug, obnoxious bastard like Count Marcel was dangerous.
He’d probably be a nuisance the whole way through, and even if the quest got cleared, there was a good chance the reward would be lousy.
And above all—
I’ve already got more than enough filthy-tempered weirdos in my life!
From McCraney to the Archisus zealots trailing after him, Tae-hyun was already drowning in quests from lunatics.
The class quest for the Avatar of Archisus truly lived up to the name of a Legendary Class.
Tae-hyun wasn’t dense.
He’d already gotten a feel for it during the first Authority quest.
Even the first Authority was this hard. There’s no way the rest are going to be any easier.
The thorny road ahead was obvious. He had no desire to throw a guy like Count Marcel onto it too.
“Y-you, you, you little— I’ll call the soldiers this instant and—”
“You seem confused about where you are right now.”
“Ah!”
Only then did Marcel seem to realize the situation he was in.
He wasn’t in his castle.
There were no bodyguards around him.
He was in a pirate prison, and the only people nearby were pirates.
When Tae-hyun raised a fist, Count Marcel let out a strangled squeak and curled up.
“D-don’t hit me!”
You receive a bonus due to being the Avatar of Archisus. The success rate of Threaten increases.
You suffer a penalty due to the noble’s high status.
You successfully threaten Count Marcel.
You have acquired the skill Threaten.
“...”
Tae-hyun seriously considered changing the entire direction of his class.
He kept getting skills like this.
“I said I’m not gonna hit you, so shut up. Drink your booze or something.”
“I-I already drank it all...”
“Then just sit there quietly.”
“A-all right. Fine. I’ll stay quiet.”
Thoroughly cowed, Count Marcel clamped his mouth shut and shrank into a corner.
It’s not like I got nothing out of it...
Tae-hyun returned to where he’d been earlier.
The two blacksmiths who had helped him get inside were still fussing over the pirates’ equipment.
“You’re still at it?”
“Huh?”
Kim Ji-sahn and Park Seong-chan had been hammering away without a break. When Tae-hyun spoke from behind them, they turned around.
“When did you get back...?”
“That’s not important. Why are you still doing this?”
“What do you mean, why are we still doing this?!”
The two shouted, full of grievance.
The only reason they were still slaving away here without rest was because of Tae-hyun.
He was the one who’d told them to distract everyone, and because they’d listened, they were stuck in this mess.
“This is your fault!”
“No, I know it is. I’m asking why you’re still stuck here. I thought you’d have finished and left by now.”
“Finished? Finished what? Maybe you don’t know because you’re not a blacksmith, but look at how much gear these pirates have.”
Kim Ji-sahn pointed at the equipment scattered across the floor.
There was a lot of it, even at a glance.
And most of the pirates in the Caterand Pirates were high-level.
Naturally, their gear was high-level too.
For blacksmiths like the ones here, working through all this would take time.
“We’ve gotta finish all this. How are we supposed to be done already? If we screw up even once, the pirates will try to kill us!”
“All right, all right. I’ll help, then.”
“...?”
“...?”
At first, the two blacksmiths thought he was joking.
How exactly was a thief supposed to help?
By stealing the gear?
But Tae-hyun ignored them and reached for a weapon.
“Aaaah! Don’t touch that!”
“We’ll do it ourselves!”
The two desperately tried to stop him.
If he messed it up, they’d be the ones ruined.
“Tsk. Your faith is seriously lacking.”
“No, what is someone who isn’t even a blacksmith going to do?!”
“I do have Blacksmithing.”
“Even if you do, you probably barely leveled it!”
“Man, you two talk too much. Move.”
Tae-hyun shoved them aside with brute force and grabbed the sword.
A plain one-handed sword commonly used by the notorious Caterand Pirates. There is nothing particularly special about the weapon itself, but someone may recognize it because of the pirates who carry it.
You repair the Caterand Pirate One-Handed Sword.
You receive a bonus from Divine Foresight.
You receive a bonus from Intermediate Blacksmithing.
You receive a bonus from Intermediate Repair.
You receive a bonus from your high Luck stat.
For other blacksmiths, getting even one or two bonus windows was hard. Tae-hyun’s came pouring in all at once.
Tae-hyun nonchalantly went to pull out the Ancient Hammer—then stopped.
Wait. If I take this out now, will they figure it out?
The Ancient Hammer was way too flashy.
The moment it was equipped, aura spilled off it in waves.
No matter how oblivious these two were, they might catch on if they saw that.
Instead, Tae-hyun picked up an old basic hammer lying nearby.
It was the kind of hammer blacksmiths stopped using after gaining just a few levels.
Clang, clang, clang—
A crisp, lively rhythm rang out.
Tae-hyun’s movements were familiar, precise, and utterly without hesitation.
The two blacksmiths were stunned.
Beginners who had just picked up smithing all tended to look the same.
They didn’t know where to swing the hammer. Their posture was awkward. And every time the hammer struck the blade, they flinched and squeezed their eyes shut.
After seeing someone swing a hammer a few thousand times, you developed a sense for whether they were an amateur or not.
And Tae-hyun’s stance and motions were, in a word—perfect.
He hammered without a second’s rest, like a craftsman who had done nothing but this his entire life.
How many times has he hammered metal in his life?
Wasn’t he a thief?
The two stared with their mouths hanging open.
They had no idea that from Fantasy Online 1 onward, Tae-hyun had been practically legendary as a blacksmith.
If they had known who he was, they would have grabbed his ankles on the spot and begged for an autograph.
Before they could gather their wits, Tae-hyun finished the job.
Maybe I should use a different hammer when people are around from now on...
It was a little annoying that after going through all the trouble of strengthening the Ancient Hammer, he now had to watch other people’s reactions before using it.
Still, it couldn’t be helped.
He only had himself to blame.
Eh... whatever. As long as I don’t get caught.
One of Tae-hyun’s greatest strengths was that he never regretted the things he’d done.
“Here.”
“Are you sure you fixed it properly? If it’s not right, we’ll have to redo it...”
“Hey. Let’s just do it again ourselves.”
The two blacksmiths, still dazed by his form, snapped back to their senses once they took the item.
Kim Ji-sahn jabbed his friend in the side and told him they should simply redo it.
Tae-hyun looked like a high-level player, after all. There was no way they could really stop him from doing whatever he wanted.
Better for them to suffer the extra trouble of doing it again than hand a messed-up weapon back to the pirates and get screamed at—or worse.
“Fine. Check it, then. I’m gonna grab some more items, so—what’s wrong?”
“N-no, no, no way...”
“...?”
Park Seong-chan blinked in confusion as his friend, who had been checking the item, suddenly started stammering.
What’s with him all of a sudden?
“It’s perfect...!”
“What is? That we just wasted our time perfectly?”
“No, not that! This weapon!”
“It’s perfectly ruined?”
“No, you idiot! It’s been repaired perfectly!”
“?!”
Whether they bickered or not, Tae-hyun ignored them and grabbed more weapons.
One thing Tae-hyun always said was this: there was no such thing as a wrong time or place for grinding.
Were you in the middle of an extremely important quest?
Even then, if you had one spare minute, don’t waste it—work.
His self-management was so ruthless he could’ve published a self-help book for gamers.
Right now he was in the middle of trying to obtain a secret skill tied to a Legendary Class quest against the pirates—but he still wasn’t the type to walk away from rewards sitting right in front of him.
Repair, repair, repair.
“Excuse me... are you, by any chance, a blacksmith?”
Their voices had automatically grown respectful.
The two players approached Tae-hyun cautiously.
At some point, both had even clasped their hands neatly in front of their stomachs.
Crafting and art classes were all like that, but blacksmiths in particular often received help from blacksmith players above them in level.
Crafting skills, recipes, all kinds of techniques.
No wonder they became polite.
“A blacksmith? Well... close enough.”
“...?”
At Tae-hyun’s answer, the two tilted their heads.
“Close enough? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Uh... maybe he’s a blacksmith, but with something else mixed in? Like one of those Magic Tower blacksmith rare classes...”
“Oh! That must be it! Then that’s even better!”
The two instantly interpreted things in the way most convenient to themselves.
No one could possibly guess that beneath the mask stood Kim Tae-hyun—the second person in the world to obtain a Legendary Class.
Perfect repair achieved through high Luck.
You receive a bonus for overcoming a difficulty above your current skill level.
Your Repair skill has increased.
Without so much as glancing at them, Tae-hyun kept tearing through the remaining weapons.
His concentration was downright terrifying.
The two, who had been hesitating over whether to speak, found their jaws dropping again as the weapons disappeared one after another.
“Done.”
Tae-hyun swiftly set down the final weapon and rose to his feet.
Then he turned around with perfect cool.
He had raised the skill as much as he could—time to leave.
Grab—
“...?”
“P-please become our master!”
“Get off me, you creeps! Why are you clinging to me like this?!”
“Please! We won’t bother you!”
“Just teach us a little!”
“You’re already bothering me plenty, you know that? Rufo! What are you doing? Peel these idiots off me!”
Rufo, who had been yawning in the distance, came hurrying over when Tae-hyun called him, then tilted his head.
“What exactly are you doing?”
It wasn’t every day you saw two blacksmiths hanging off Tae-hyun’s legs, one on each side.
“What does it look like I’m doing? Get them off me already.”
“Uh... I don’t know why, but they seem desperate...”
“Who do you work for again? Want me to go back and report every last detail to McCraney?”
The pettiest threat in the world was a threat to tell on someone.
One thing if Tae-hyun chewed him out himself—but what was this about running to McCraney with it?
Rufo grumbled under his breath.
“Fine. I’ll do it.”
Blacksmiths had high Strength as a class, but they were no match for Rufo.
He peeled both men off with ease.
“But what did these two eat to make them act like this?”
“No clue. I think there’s just something wrong with their heads.”
The two blacksmiths thumped their chests in disbelief at Tae-hyun’s words.
Seeing that, Rufo looked genuinely curious.
They really did seem a little strange.
“Seriously?”
“No! We just asked him to teach us some techniques!”
“What techniques? He has techniques?”
Rufo asked, not understanding.
To him, aside from being the Avatar of Archisus, Tae-hyun was just a man who had picked up a bunch of random miscellaneous tricks for no reason.