Tempering (1)
Tempering (1)
"From today on, I'm Pion, the one who'll be living in the mansion! Please take good care of me!"
Pion beams brightly as she bows deeply like that. Watching her, Seoyun crooks a finger, and Dojin comes flying over to her side from way off in the distance.
"What's up?"
"Huh, yeah?"
Dojin didn't even have a moment to worry about his creaking waist as he hurriedly sorted out the current situation in a quick, logical manner to avoid upsetting Seoyun.
"You know how I said it was annoying going to the guild every time."
"So?"
"They said they'd send a staff member out on a house call to our mansion......"
It wasn't a lie. That said, those words definitely played a part in ruffling Seoyun's feathers.
"Hoo, is that so?"
"Yeah, it's true. Right, Pion?"
"Yes, yep! It's the honest-to-goodness truth without a single shred of falsehood."
Seoyun crossed her arms upon hearing that, pondered deeply for a bit, decided on the punishment, and then opened her mouth.
"Three times."
"No, that's a bit......"
"Why? Did you dump it all into somebody last night and have nothing left to squeeze out right now?"
"It's not that...... I'll explain while we head there."
Dojin headed to the room together with Seoyun. Once inside the room, he explained to her the reason why he currently couldn't ejaculate.
The child conceived by the World Tree, the percentage that goes up every time he has relations with a woman.
However, Seoyun was resolute.
"So?"
"Huh?"
"So, that means you can at least do it five times, right?"
In the end, Dojin got milked twice by Seoyun.
As she slurped and sucked on his dejected dick, Seoyun told him to hurry up, make a baby, and come back.
She didn't know how long she could hold out for.
Magic Sword Crow.
A magic sword that can cut through anything.
However, just because it can cut through anything doesn't mean it never needs repairs.
Kkaang!
"Eut─!"
The Minotaur realized that the sword Dojin had swung had sliced right through his axe, so in an instant, it shifted the axe's angle, pinned the sword in place, and swung its fist at the blade with full force.
Sure, it was a magic sword worthy of the name, so not just the edge but the flat of the blade was excessively sturdy—but it wasn't tough enough to come out unscathed after taking a full-power punch from a monster.
Dojin, startled out of his wits, quickly took down the Minotaur in a flash and checked the sword's condition.
The blade was bent off to one side.
"This is bad."
By now they'd reached layer 40, and just like always, the monsters that stepped up in strength every five layers had climbed to a level that could genuinely startle even Dojin.
'If I'm careless...... I could be in real danger.'
Seoyun came walking up belatedly toward Dojin, who was staring at the bent sword. She looked at the bent blade and fretted over Dojin.
"You okay? Should we head down?"
"I'm good. I've got another sword anyway, and this one's not unusable just because it's bent."
The Magic Sword Crow even had its own built-in restoration function, and since its trait was to slice through anything that touched the blade anyway, the bend in the blade actually turned into an even bigger advantage.
That was why Dojin, deciding to hunt a bit more, kept on with the monster-slaying despite Seoyun's attempts to dissuade him.
Fortunately, no problems cropped up during the hunt itself.
The problem hit afterward.
"......What the hell is this?"
"It's a sword."
"─You messing with me right now?"
Dojin had shown up at Lastina's Workshop and naturally handed over the bent sword for repairs. But Lastina's reaction upon seeing the sword was way more intense than he'd expected.
"You, aren't you a swordsman? A swordsman has to treat his blade like his own body—like his lover!"
Kwang!
Lastina slammed down hard on the display rack. The massive noise and vibrations flooding the shop interior in that instant felt like an earthquake had hit, and the sturdy rack was half-smashed to bits.
Lastina, who had caused all that without batting an eye, pointed accusingly at Dojin and bellowed.
"And yet! You treat your sword like this! You don't come by even once until it ends up like this! Looks like you haven't maintained it at all!? Huh!"
"......I did wash it, though."
"Whetstone sharpening and oiling?"
"I don't know how to do that......"
"See! There you go!"
Dojin might've been an outstanding swordsman, but at the same time, he was a modern guy.
Someone who showed exceptional knowledge and skill in his specialty, but was woefully lacking in everything else—a total modern man.
He'd left stuff like sharpening his sword entirely to the pros, so of course he wouldn't know how.
"This won't do—I'm confiscating your sword! Hand it over!"
"No, this is......"
"Shut it!"
Cheolkeok. Lastina instantly snatched the sword from Dojin and, in a fit of rage, chucked a longsword at him.
It was your standard longsword you could find in any shop.
"You go practice from the very beginning with that thing!"
And with that, he got kicked out of the shop.
Dojin scratched his head and headed for the training ground.
Aiming his sword at the practice dummies or bamboo set up at the training ground, Dojin let out a light breath and swung.
Peok!
The sharp blade dug in a decent ways before abruptly catching midway and stopping.
It wasn't a problem with the sword's edge. Even though it'd been gathering dust in the corner, this sword too was a masterpiece packed with Lastina's skill.
The problem was with Dojin.
'......My skills have rusted.'
Ever since getting his hands on a magic sword that cut through everything, he'd grown rusty from relying too much on the weapon's overwhelming power.
Lastina must've spotted that fact just from the sword's condition and chewed him out good for it.
'They say dwarves are brutally honest.'
Thinking of Lastina, who was probably polishing his sword right about now, Dojin swung his blade. Once, ten times, over a hundred times—it didn't stop.
What finally stopped him was the sound of insects chirping at dawn.
Having realized his skills had rusted, Dojin figured he needed some tempering of his own. Time-honored wisdom said nothing beat life-or-death real combat for tempering, but there weren't many opponents in the dungeon anymore that could truly threaten his life.
'The monsters on layer 40 might could...... but going one-on-one with those guys for real, I could actually end up dead.'
Dojin briefly pictured himself fighting the layer 40 monsters.
Without his magic sword and with his rusty skills, he'd get slowly pushed back bit by bit, and the monsters swarming him from all sides without end would squeeze the life out of him nice and slow.
He could've gotten help from Seoyun or Eunha, but Dojin wasn't confident he could protect those two if things got dicey.
'In that case, next best thing......'
The absolute best tempering was real combat, but the runner-up was training that mimicked real combat—that is, sparring with an opponent of similar skill.
'Sparring, huh.'
Seoyun's ability made for crappy training fodder. It'd turn into a fight that wouldn't end easily until either he killed her or she killed him first.
Same went for Eunha. She had a tendency to put blind faith in her own ability. Thanks to that, she was less a martial arts master and more a slaughter weapon that wielded her power exceptionally well.
What Dojin wanted to hone wasn't killing intent, but technique.
He needed a master on his level.
Fortunately, this city had one person who fit the bill perfectly: someone with similar skill to Dojin and on pretty intimate terms with him to boot.
"So that's why you came to me?"
"Yes. I've come to receive your guidance."
"I'm no expert in swordsmanship."
"I've come to refine my martial arts."
One of the rare dojos in Dungeon City. Among them, the most prestigious: Ho-beop-gwan.
Dojin had sought out Hoyeon—who taught martial arts to humans despite being beastkin—and knelt before her as they chatted.
Having heard Dojin's request, Hoyeon let out a light hum.
"Martial arts, huh."
She was a barehanded combat master. A true expert among experts, one who brought out the full advantages of being a tiger beastkin to rip her foes apart.
Yet no one ever looked down on her as some mere beast.
Because she was a master who'd tamed the ferocity of beastkin through martial arts.
"Dojin. What do you think martial arts is?"
"......A mental discipline for mastering oneself?"
"Wrong."
She let out a chuckle, then raised her hand.
She stared at the raised hand for a moment and began clenching and unclenching it.
"Martial arts is the technique for smashing your opponent effectively."
"......Not exactly dojo master talk."
"What, you think people come to a dojo to learn what? They come to learn how to beat down their opponents more effectively."
As she said that, Hoyeon picked up a wooden sword from the ones displayed on the dojo wall and turned back.
Ho-yeon-ryu was fundamentally barehanded martial arts, but she was a tiger beastkin whose very body was a weapon.
The hand blade she swung was more threatening than your average sword edge.
"Come on, have at me. Let me check first off how rusted you are."
Dojin caught the wooden sword she'd casually tossed his way, took a moment to breathe deeply, and checked his physical condition.
Ever since the torrent of emotions had faded away, his body had always been in peak condition.
It meant he could unleash full power at any time—but at the same time, it meant he could no longer get swept up in emotions and explode with power.
"......Here I go."
Even outputting power beyond his limits was impossible now, and the weak monsters that couldn't withstand even a single blow from him, combined with that ridiculously overpowered sword, had slowly rusted him away.
Tempering was the process of scraping off that rust.
Peok!
Dojin stepped forward and swung the wooden sword with full force.
It was a swing threatening enough to topple a thick tree trunk in one go, but Hoyeon blocked it without a care and slipped right into his striking range.
"I see."
Tok.
She placed a fist against his chest and nodded as if she'd grasped his issues to some extent.
Then, she planted her rear foot, gathered her entire body's energy into one point, and unleashed it. Tung─! With a sound that spread wide, Dojin went flying off into the distance.
Watching Dojin weather the blow purely through his bodily toughness, Hoyeon spoke up.
"You've been the one getting swung around by your weapon."
"......I figured I'd passed that stage ages ago."
"Nah, no master alive is completely unaffected by their gear. Take a look at me."
As she said it, Hoyeon wiggled her limbs around. The motion looked graceful, almost like she was dancing.
"Even me—the one they call a barehand martial arts master—without my limbs, I'm just your average weakling civilian."
"......Isn't that true for anybody?"
Without limbs you're a civilian? Folks usually call that disabled, Dojin grumbled inwardly as he advanced.
But upon hearing his retort, Hoyeon shook her outstretched finger at him side to side, as if to say he still had a long way to go.
"Tsk tsk. Only once you can pull off barehand martial arts without limbs can you say you've truly broken free from tools. Can you do that?"
"......No."
You can't do martial arts without limbs.
You can't do swordsmanship without a sword.
Unless you've completed the Way of Nothingness, unless you've attained Emptiness.
There are no warriors truly free from their gear.
"You give off the vibe of a murder machine, not a martial artist."
"......Murder machine? What's that supposed to mean."
"It's like someone just programmed you with 'how to swing a sword at people.' You've got depth, but no philosophy."
Having dug straight to the bottom of Dojin's soul, Hoyeon extended her hand forward and crooked a finger at him.
"I've got a rough idea now of how to teach you. Come on over."
Dojin gripped the wooden sword and charged at her.