Chapter 486: The Virgin Master and the Perverted Disciple (4)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 486: The Virgin Master and the Perverted Disciple (4)
Shin Yu-jeong’s daily routine had changed drastically.
She would wake before sunrise, take a bus to Angela’s workshop, and swing a hammer.
Clang!
Clang!
There are two methods of teaching.
One is to learn by following instructions from one to ten, letting the body absorb the movements.
The other is to achieve enlightenment on your own through the riddles and prompts tossed your way.
Each method has its pros and cons.
The former makes the learning process easier but takes time to internalize. The latter makes the learning process itself incredibly difficult, but once you get the hang of it, internalization is swift.
Angela’s teaching was clearly the latter.
It was what Shin Yu-jeong had wanted. It was the only way she could learn anything from a woman who couldn't be expected to teach the former way.
“Hoo… hoo…!”
A week had passed since she became Angela’s disciple.
She had finally grasped her first lesson.
It was none other than how to swing a hammer.
‘I get it now. How I’m supposed to strike…!’
She struck the steel.
From her legs, her waist, her sides, her chest, to her arms.
Gathering the strength of her entire body, she brought the hammer down and realized something.
The process of striking the steel was also the process of striking her own body.
10,000 times a day.
She forgot about the number she had been so desperate to reach.
Instead, she focused her entire mind on each and every strike, hammering again and again.
And so, on the one-month anniversary of her training at Angela’s workshop…
“I finally finished it, Master!”
“You did!”
“It’s the first weapon I’ve ever made myself!”
She had managed to craft a weapon, albeit a clumsy one.
‘…Is this right?’
Regardless, she had grown.
* * *
After entrusting Shin Yu-jeong’s training to Angela, I visited her workshop for the first time in nearly a month.
As I stepped inside the workshop, which was swirling with intense heat, I saw two figures with flushed faces, hugging each other tightly.
A sense of anticipation bloomed within me.
Had they achieved some incredible training results?
“Did something good happen?”
My voice announced my presence, and only then did the two of them separate and look my way.
“Oh, you’re here?!”
“You came at the perfect time!”
It was a fervent welcome.
They exchanged a silent conversation with their eyes before Shin Yu-jeong confidently held out her hand.
“Look at this! It’s the result of my training!”
“…This is?”
Resting on her palm was a sword that looked shoddy at a glance.
“So, uh…”
After a month of training, she learned how to make a sword?
As I struggled to find the right words, Angela shouted with an excited face.
“This is amazing! She made a weapon in just one month without any help from me!”
“Ah, is that so…”
How very impressive.
Our Yu-jeong learned how to make a weapon without her master’s help in just one month.
“I see…”
I had no idea.
I didn’t even know where to begin to pick this apart.
And you know what was even more absurd?
“Your body… it’s gotten a lot better.”
“You can see it too, right?! My stats have gone up a lot.”
Perhaps because she’d been hammering constantly, her body had definitely improved. It was so distinct I could tell just by looking.
Being a woman, her muscles weren’t overtly visible, but her movements themselves were different. It was as if a power I hadn’t felt before was stirring within her.
Her core strength, in particular, seemed to have gotten incredibly strong…
“…I should never let her be on top again.”
One wrong move and she might just rip my dick off.
I pressed my temples firmly to dispel the throbbing headache and spoke in a calm tone.
“Yu-jeong.”
“Yeah, what?”
“Did your future aspiration change in the last month? Did you decide to become an S-rank blacksmith instead of an S-rank Hunter? If so, tell me now. I’ll need to recruit a new tanker.”
At that, she frowned.
“Hey, don’t say scary things like that, not even as a joke! My dream hasn’t changed.”
“Then why are you so happy about making a weapon?”
“That’s because…!”
A brief silence fell.
Then, with a bewildered expression, she continued.
“Huh… why is that?”
It seemed she had only just realized it.
The fact that the direction of her joy had shifted so drastically.
Angela, who had been watching, approached with a wry smile and placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Now, now, this is only the beginning.”
Her words instantly brought the color back to Yu-jeong’s face.
“R-Right?”
“Of course.”
Angela continued her story with a confident boast.
“To be honest, I never wanted to be a tanker.”
“Then how did you…?”
“I just got curious. I wondered how powerful the gear I made would be in a dungeon.”
“Ah, so you went to test your equipment?”
“Exactly. In the end, weapons are made to kill monsters, and armor is made to block their attacks, right? In short, I was curious just how practical the gear I was producing really was.”
It was a bold thought, befitting a true artisan.
She had started entering dungeons to test her own equipment, and that had led her to where she was today.
It was impressive, but… hearing that made me feel strangely anxious.
Was it really the right choice to entrust Shin Yu-jeong to someone with such a strong artisan temperament?
Meanwhile, having finished her reminiscence, Angela spoke energetically.
“Alright, so let’s go to a dungeon!”
“Right now?”
“Yes, right now!”
“……”
Angela grabbed the bewildered Shin Yu-jeong and dragged her out of the workshop.
Talk about impulsive, that woman.
* * *
Kim Do-jin, Angela, and Shin Yu-jeong quickly located a dungeon and entered.
Its name was the ‘Cave of Lingering Fighting Spirit.’
It was a B-rank dungeon from which orcs wielding giant crescent blades poured out.
Shweeeik-!
“Hyaah!”
Kaaang!
Shin Yu-jeong faced off against an orc nearly twice the size of a grown man.
As Kim Do-jin and Angela watched her flawlessly block the enemy’s attacks and counter, they chatted leisurely.
“Hey, Do-jin. You know what?”
“What is it?”
“There’s no class more dependent on gear than a tanker.”
“That’s not wrong.”
For a tanker, equipment was more important than for any other class.
A shield to block the enemy’s attacks. Sturdy armor to protect the entire body.
There’s a reason they say tankers will sell their own homes just to get the right gear.
“That’s why a tanker needs to know, more than anyone. What their gear is made of, where it’s stronger, and where it’s weaker.”
“…Is that why you made Yu-jeong wear such crappy equipment?”
“Yep, that’s right.”
The gear Shin Yu-jeong was wearing against the orc was truly pathetic.
A crude sword she had made herself.
And armor and a shield so shabby they could easily rival it.
That alone was a handicap, but Angela had added another restriction.
Pow!
Chwiik!
“How am I supposed to not break this gear…!”
The condition was that the moment her equipment was damaged by an orc’s attack, she would be considered defeated.
And one more thing.
“You just dodged an attack, so you have to block the next four no matter what!”
“Aaargh!”
She was only allowed to evade one out of every five attacks.
What did that mean?
Shwiiiiik-!
“Ugh…!”
Kaaang!
It meant she had to block the enemy’s attacks with that crude equipment.
At least four times in a row.
Watching Shin Yu-jeong block the attacks with extreme caution, Angela drifted into reminiscence.
“Hah… I used to be just like that.”
“You too, Angela?”
“Yeah. I wanted to test how much my gear could withstand, but at the same time, I didn’t want the equipment I’d poured my heart into to break.”
It was a time when she was still far from being a master artisan.
Because all her equipment was crude, she was always thinking.
How could she minimize the damage to her equipped gear?
“An answer that comes easy is meaningless.”
That was the beginning.
The starting point from which her tanking ability began to grow by leaps and bounds, far surpassing others.
“An answer you find after racking your brain and agonizing over it—isn’t that what holds true meaning?”
She had wished for it.
For Yu-jeong to walk the same path as her.
And so she made it happen.
She had her create a piece of equipment, however crude, and sent her into a dungeon with it.
Of course, due to the lack of time, the only thing Yu-jeong had made was a single sword while the rest was all off-the-shelf, but the restriction was the same, wasn’t it?
“Hoo-uk, hoo-uk…!”
She blocked, praying with a desperate heart.
Please don’t let the shield break.
Then she thrust her sword into the wide opening the enemy exposed.
Thwack!
The sound was of her sword failing to pierce the enemy’s thick hide and bouncing off harmlessly.
It was only natural.
It was partly because the sword she made was dull, but also because she wasn’t putting her full strength into it.
She knew because she had made it herself.
‘If this pierces through, it’ll definitely break.’
The moment this sword pierced the hide, it would snap in two.
She was in a situation where she had to use her own strength to hold back an even greater force, all to prevent her equipment from breaking.
As a result, her stamina was draining rapidly, and she was starting to gasp for breath.
“Haa, haa…!”
Even if she collapsed from exhaustion here, she wouldn't die.
There was no way Kim Do-jin would watch her die.
But it would be incredibly embarrassing.
No matter the restrictions, Kim Do-jin would be nothing but disappointed in her for being unable to defeat a mere B-rank monster.
‘I’d rather die!’
She would rather die than see the man she loved turn away in disappointment.
Her mind, which had been simply blocking and thrusting into openings, grew more and more complex.
She raised her shield.
Reading the direction of the enemy’s attack until the very last second, she slightly twisted the face of the shield.
‘This side is a little sturdier!’
An uneven balance.
Thanks to that, there were less sturdy parts and sturdier parts, and she used the latter to block the attack.
Kaaaang!
Even the sound of the block was different.
But this was just one step.
‘This is still too risky. I have to reduce the impact even more!’
She moved forward again.
She raised her shield.
Just as the enemy’s attack made contact, she twisted the face of the shield.
The crescent blade slid off the angled surface of the shield and embedded itself uselessly in the ground.
She cheered internally.
“Yes, this is it…!”
Deflecting an attack was something any skilled tanker could do.
But this deflection was different from before.
Previously, she would have simply twisted the shield to forcibly change the attack’s direction. This time, she had utilized the curvature of her shield to its fullest.
Using the sloped surface of the round shield, she had minimized the friction and made the blade slide off.
And this movement resembled the way Angela had blocked Cerberus’s sharp claws.
Chwiik…!?
The orc was flustered.
She didn’t miss the opening.
Several gaps were exposed on the enemy.
Before, she would have been busy just stabbing at the closest one, but this time was different.
She searched.
‘The softest spot!’
A spot so tender that even her crude iron sword could be thrust into it without taking damage.
And yet, a spot that would prove fatal the moment it was pierced.
Wouldn’t the enemy’s eyes, now filled with panic, be suitable?
‘No, that’s not it.’
Kim Do-jin had told her.
The eyes were certainly a vital point, but they were surprisingly difficult to target.
The reason was that the enemy was also clearly aware that it was a critical weak spot.
He had used a man’s genitals as an example.
He’d said that men cherish their dicks, the symbol of procreation and pleasure, as much as their own lives. So even if an attack came suddenly, the body would instinctively react to block it or minimize the damage.
‘He said the eyes are the same.’
The eyes were no different.
When a ball flies toward your face, don’t you naturally flinch?
And she didn’t have the ability to thrust her sword fast enough to bypass the enemy’s instincts.
‘In that case…!’
She thought of it.
A spot where the enemy’s instincts were relatively dull, yet was still fatal.
“Hyaaaat!”
With a powerful kiai, she spun around and moved behind the enemy.
Then, she thrust her sword.
The target was its anus.
The tip of her sword, rising from below, accurately dug into the hole hidden by the orc’s tattered rags.
Squelch!
A gruesome sound of tearing flesh.
Chweeeek-!
The orc let out a pained scream, its body trembling violently before its eyes rolled back and it collapsed.
Thud!
“Hooo…”
After taking a deep breath to steady herself, she pulled the sword out of the orc’s rear.
Plop!
Although it was stained with bright red blood and some dark substance, the sword was intact.
Though for a different reason, she felt like she could never use it again.
Having finally seized victory, Shin Yu-jeong grinned at the two people watching from a distance.
Her expression clearly said, ‘How’d I do?’
The two of them shivered at her gaze and muttered quietly.
“She’s a little scary…”
Her growth was beginning to accelerate.