Hanjunggeom
Just as I was getting ready to head to the forge with Gyeokseon, a man came running over with word that someone had sent for us.
A message from Manyaja. A demand, really—asking why I still hadn’t shown up.
When I heard that, I couldn’t help snickering.
That old geezer really must be eager to show off. He’d told me to come around this time, and now he was hurrying me along too.
So Gyeokseon and I went straight to the forge.
And when we arrived, Manyaja glared at us the moment he saw us.
“Ah! Can’t you two at least move a little faster!? How long is this old man supposed to wait!”
“Did you set a death date for yourself or something? Why the rush?”
“Mea?”
Hmm. Right. Gyeokseon really was that kind of person.
So the sword was finished already, was it? He’d been a little soft around the edges before, but now that he’d achieved his goal, was he snapping back to his old self?
“Enough nagging and show me the sword already. You wanted to show it off, didn’t you?”
In the end, Manyaja couldn’t argue with Gyeokseon’s words and pulled out the sword.
“W—...”
And when I saw it, I gasped before I even realized it.
A white scabbard and hilt, with blue tassels hanging from it.
Honestly, it was beautiful. So beautiful I wanted to put it in a museum display case and leave it there.
“You had me make this just so you could admire it? Go on, take it out already!”
Manyaja was trying hard to hold back the grin tugging at his face as he urged me on.
He really did want to boast about it. He couldn’t even hide it.
I took the sword in hand. It felt far heavier than an ordinary blade.
Still, thanks to Iron Body Weight-Adding Force, I could lift it like a normal sword. Well, this much was nothing.
“I named that sword Hanjunggeom. And it weighs nearly six times more than a regular steel sword. About twenty geun.”
Twenty geun? That came out to almost twelve kilograms, didn’t it?
No way... was that even possible? By that logic, a normal sword would weigh around two kilos.
I didn’t know the exact numbers, but I did know a few things.
If I remembered right, tungsten—the heaviest metal I knew of—was only about 2.5 times heavier than iron.
Which meant that even if you made a sword of the same size, you could only get up to about 2.5 times the weight.
But six times? Was that even possible?
Then again, I thought about it a second later and snorted inwardly.
No, really. In a world where people use inner power and leap through the air and fling swords around...
Was I really standing here and worrying about this?
Especially when I’d ended up in a girl’s body myself.
Anyway, I pushed the useless thoughts aside and drew Hanjunggeom from the scabbard.
The sword slid free with a ringing hiss.
A chill seemed to seep from it, and the blade had a strange, almost enchanting quality to it; even from a glance, you could feel how sharp it was.
“Heh heh. Since it was tempered with ice-based qi, the blade itself has a coldness in it, doesn’t it? Ho ho ho. Girl, if you ever find yourself with nothing better to do, why not come help me every time I forge a sword? I’ll pay you handsomely!”
From the way he said it, he wasn’t joking at all.
At this rate, he might actually ask me to send him someone from the North Sea Ice Palace—just for tempering duties.
It wasn’t as if someone who’d learned Ice Soul Divine Art would really be doing blacksmith’s assistant work, though.
“Enough chatter! Swing it already! I can’t wait to see it!”
“Yes, sir.”
Gyeokseon seemed to be feeling much the same, so I took the sword and stepped outside.
Gyeokseon and Manyaja watched with obvious excitement. Under their eager gazes, I took my stance with the sword in both hands.
First, Yuyu Mugeuk Sword Art.
It was only a light swing, but the sound it made as it cut through the air was anything but ordinary.
Still, my posture was definitely more stable with this than when I used the greatsword.
Well, of course—it was a sword art meant to be performed with a blade like this. Swinging it with a greatsword had been the strange part.
Because the sword itself carried so much weight, it was clearly easier to unleash Yuyu Mugeuk Sword Art.
It felt like I could turn it into a heavy strike without much effort at all.
Honestly, I was curious what it would feel like to get hit by this thing.
Twenty geun. Twelve kilograms. That was basically like strapping together six two-liter bottles of water.
In other words, I was waving around a package of six water bottles, only scaled down into the shape of a sword.
Even without pouring inner energy into it, that alone would be more than enough to smash an enemy to pieces.
And now I moved on to the forms of Splitting Light Sword Art.
I clenched the sword hilt tightly, then took a single slow step.
Thud.
With that grounding stomp, I drew the tremendous force blooming from the earth into my entire body.
Then came the rotation my body and joints could produce, and with it, the centrifugal force it created.
Splitting Light Sword Art transformed every ounce of physical strength into speed, becoming a sword style based on nothing more than sheer velocity.
And I was unleashing that with a twenty-geun sword.
At my maximum possible speed.
“Huh!”
“Kyaa!”
Gyeokseon let out a short, dumbfounded exclamation, while Manyaja cried out in astonishment.
Honestly, I was shocked too.
If I hadn’t braced myself properly, my arm might have torn loose or snapped.
The sword sliced through the air with a monstrous boom.
Seriously—if someone got hit by this thing, it would feel like getting struck by a cannon. I’d stake my life on it.
After finishing every form of Splitting Light Sword Art, I let out a deep breath and sheathed the blade.
“Bwahahaha! Now that’s a thing of beauty! Unbelievable! Hahaha!”
Manyaja laughed like a madman. Gyeokseon, meanwhile, wore a look of utter exhaustion.
“Girl.”
“Yes, senior.”
“From now on, whenever you swing that sword, you’d better be more careful. Unless you truly mean to kill someone, don’t go pouring all your strength into each strike.”
“I’ll do that.”
If Gyeokseon was saying it that seriously, then it must’ve left a pretty deep impression.
Basically, he was telling me that if I swung it carelessly, I’d hit someone and kill them.
“So, are we going to settle the bill now!? Since you got such a good show, I won’t charge you for the forging. But the cost of the Magnetic Heavy Iron still has to be paid, doesn’t it?”
At that, Gyeokseon looked at Manyaja in disbelief and said, “Ha! You already took enough from her as it is! And now you want that child to pay for a scrap of iron like that!? She’s going to be carrying that sword around and raising your name even higher from now on, and you still want payment for it!?”
“Ha! What are you talking about!? When did I ask for gold!? Or silver!? Hey, you little brat! This old man’s got more gold and silver than he knows what to do with! Don’t make me out to be some shameless wretch chasing after money!”
“Then you should have said so properly!”
“And before I could even say a word, you barged in, didn’t you!?”
“And there you go calling me a little brat again!? Do you want me to really do something worthy of being called that?”
Ah. I wanted to leave.
Could I just leave the sword and all of this behind?
If I were given the chance to go back a few decades and fix Gyeokseon’s personality, I honestly think I’d take it.
“Forget that! Girl! You! If you get the chance later, come by whenever I’m forging a sword! Help me with the tempering, just like you did today!”
What? That much? That wasn’t a big deal at all.
“Yes. I will.”
“Good! I like that straightforward spirit!”
Gyeokseon seemed to think it was fine too, and after hearing Manyaja out, he didn’t object.
“Then I suppose everything’s settled, and we can go?”
“Do you not need Hanjunggeom adjusted, Yeong-ok?”
As if the bickering from earlier had never happened, Manyaja said that in a perfectly normal tone.
“How often do I need to use a sword, anyway? It doesn’t need adjusting already.”
“Well, I suppose that’s true. Fine! Then off you go! I need some rest myself!”
I folded my hands around the sword and bowed to Manyaja.
“Sir, this sword you made for me—I’ll treasure it.”
But Manyaja only chuckled and looked at me.
“Ho ho! Child! A sword is not something to be treasured! Do you know the phrase Unity of Sword and Self?”
“Is there anyone who studies the sword and doesn’t know that?”
Gyeokseon muttered from the side, but Manyaja ignored him completely and kept his eyes on me.
“I’m not at that level yet, so I don’t know it very well.”
“Ho ho. Good! Better than those fools who don’t know a thing and still pretend otherwise! So then, what does Unity of Sword and Self mean? It means that you and your sword become one, doesn’t it? If that’s the case, then why would you even need the sword? If your body and the sword are one, wouldn’t it be better to do everything with your own body anyway?”
His words held a hidden barb.
Manyaja was making a point with that, and Gyeokseon seemed to catch it too, because he said nothing and simply watched me calmly.
“Isn’t the point to make all the advantages of holding a sword your own through Unity of Sword and Self?”
At my answer, Gyeokseon’s brow twitched slightly, and Manyaja burst out laughing.
“Hahaha! That’s a pretty convincing answer! Yes, that’s right! What is a sword? A sword is something sharper and stronger than the body, even without doing anything at all! It can reach an enemy farther away, and it can block that enemy’s attacks too. That’s why you wield a sword. So that’s what I mean, old man that I am: a sword doesn’t need to be treated like some precious treasure.”
He kept talking with a snort of amusement.
“Arms, legs, your body—if they’re cut or broken, you can’t simply remold them. But a sword is different. If it breaks or shatters, you just make another one, don’t you!? So what you should treasure is your own body! Not the sword!”
Only then did I understand what he meant.
“Don’t treat a mere sword as something precious! A sword is only a tool to protect your body! Not the sword—you come first! He’s saying don’t stake your life on a sword, child!”
“Thank you. That’s good advice.”
“Ho ho. If you understand, that’s enough! Now get going! And if I call you next time, don’t go making excuses and disappearing on me!”
“Yes. I’ll remember that.”
I sincerely thanked Manyaja and left the forge with Gyeokseon.
On the road back to the alliance, people stared at us—at Gyeokseon in front and at me beside him—with dazed, spellbound expressions.
I was getting used to those looks by now. Still, that didn’t make it any easier. It was like my skin was tingling all over.
“Do you like it?”
“Hanjunggeom? Yes. I do.”
“Manyaja is a difficult man, but a good one. So even if he says things in a rough way, do try to understand him.”
Gyeokseon said it as if it were nothing at all.
But somehow, it sounded less like he was talking about Manyaja and more like he was talking about himself.
“Don’t worry, senior. I don’t take things like that to heart.”
“Then that’s a relief.”
And so I returned to the alliance with Gyeokseon.
And there, in the alliance, I ran into some unexpected people.