A Stroke of Impossible Luck
Dreams and hope. For some reason, today this shithole of a neighborhood looked beautiful. The green smog that always blocked the sunlight and kept everything gloomy, the shanties clinging to the cliffs like barnacles as if they were flipping off any notion of urban planning, and even those bizarre structures dangling precariously in the crevices like swallow's nests. Hell, even the trash mountains that looked like giant turds the city had taken a massive dump on from above somehow felt like a uniquely romantic backdrop.
The load on my back was heavy, but my steps were light. I grinned from ear to ear as I threw open the door to the junk shop. Even though stepping inside still left you technically outdoors, the atmosphere was different, as if the distinction actually meant something.
“Gramps, I’m back.”
Piles of scrap metal and various discarded junk stacked in chaotic heaps. Amidst the trash that—unlike the mountains outside—clearly had some monetary value, an old man with a nearly bald head was absorbed in sorting work.
“You’re here again? You’re one persistent bastard.”
Matthias Neumann. The old man, who possessed a robust build that belied his age, shot me a quick glare before shaking his head. Even considering his seniority, his attitude was pretty damn grumpy, but thanks to those thick forearms bulging with veins like steel cables, there weren’t many idiots who dared mess with him. Besides, I was already used to the old fart’s eccentric ways.
Today my mood was good, so none of it mattered.
“If you’ve brought another pile of random junk that’s hard to get rid of, just dump it over there and get lost. I’m busy right now.”
“Hey, not today.”
I dropped the basket I’d been carrying on my back right in front of Matthias with a heavy thud. The old man had been frowning in annoyance at the solid sound, but his furrowed brow slowly smoothed out. Sure enough, today’s haul was impressive enough to catch the interest of a junk shop owner who lived with his shoulders squared in the Hood.
“What the hell is this? You actually brought something useful for once.”
“Save the compliments and take a look yourself.”
When I swept away the layer of trash I’d used as camouflage, a statue of a goddess about the size of a child revealed its elegant form. The old man’s eyes widened as he examined it closely.
“Silver-iron…!”
“What? Isn’t this just some random chunk of metal?”
His reaction was far more dramatic than I’d expected, enough to actually startle me. Before I could even finish wondering what the hell silver-iron was, Matthias hurriedly locked the junk shop door and suddenly grabbed me by the collar.
“You little shit, where the hell did you steal something like this from?!”
“What kind of bullshit is that, Gramps? You going senile?”
“Don’t joke around! If the people from up top find out something like this has flowed down here, we’re both dead!”
The old man probably wasn’t actually losing it. His deadly serious tone made my own expression grow grave. Not meteor iron, but silver-iron. I dug through my memories as far as I could, recalling information about this unfamiliar metal.
‘Ah, is it that one?’
It suddenly hit me that this was a rare material even in the original story that came with a certified performance stamp. It was an absurd metal that guaranteed above-average quality and performance no matter where you used it. In terms of versatility from my old world, it was comparable to titanium. Of course, this world had plenty of metals that reached far higher peaks, but that didn’t diminish the value of silver-iron. Its versatility was an overwhelming advantage as a material.
Moreover, unlike titanium, silver-iron was easy to process. It was a metal that practically begged to be handled well.
“Oh.”
The moment I realized that, my heart thumped hard and dopamine surged through me for the first time in ages. I’d thought it was just a lucky day. Turns out it was an insanely lucky day. There was no way I could be this fortunate.
I tried my best to suppress the grin stretching all the way to my ears and deliberately acted like I was denying reality.
“Come on, how could this be silver-iron? It’s even got rust on it.”
“Anything will rust if you don’t maintain it. Look.”
But Matthias clicked his tongue and kindly stepped forward to prove his expertise. The old man pulled a small rod with a tiny magic stone attached to its end from his inner pocket and carefully tapped the goddess statue on the shoulder. Instead of sparks, the entire statue began to sparkle with a mysterious light. It was exactly the same kind of ethereal glow I’d caught a glimpse of from afar earlier. The magic catalyst reaction unique to high-value metals. I had some related knowledge tucked away in a corner of my mind, but I’d completely forgotten about the phenomenon since I’d never seen it in person.
Seeing that, old man Matthias muttered with a trembling hand.
“If you stole it, put it back where it belongs as fast as you can. You might lose a wrist, but that’s still the best way to stay alive.”
“I keep telling you I didn’t steal it. I picked it up from the trash mountain.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“If I’d stolen it, I would’ve swaggered in bragging about it from the start. Why the hell would I lie to you, Gramps?”
The old man, whose courage must have shriveled with age, was looking at the treasure right in front of him and thinking about running away instead of profiting from it. Guess it was about time for this geezer to kick the bucket. He’d been in the Hood long enough that this kind of pathetic behavior made no sense. I draped an arm around Matthias’s shoulder and carefully broached the subject.
“Gramps, you know what my dream is, right?”
“…Yeah. Getting out of here.”
“That’s why I’ve been bothering you and throwing all those ridiculous tantrums. Just think of it as indulging a annoying kid’s last bit of stubbornness. Help me out one more time.”
Looking straight into the old man’s wavering eyes, I reached into the inner pocket of my worn trench coat. After rummaging around, I pulled out a single sheet of yellowed paper folded neatly. It was the blueprint of my dream.
When I slowly unfolded it in front of Matthias, the old man’s trembling gaze gradually calmed.
“You… that’s…”
“You’ve already roughly figured it out. You really think some clueless idiot would’ve been running his mouth about making a gun all this time?”
I’d bought books with what little money I had and studied by carving out every spare moment. The basic knowledge I’d gained from attending school back in my old world had been a huge help. This was the fruit of combining knowledge from my homeland with effort in this world.
—Clack.
I pulled out a metal rod from my waist that hadn’t fully evolved into a gun yet and placed it on top of the blueprint. It was the result of trial and error, somehow pieced together from soft metals like brass and tin that were utterly useless for firearm parts. It looked vaguely like a Greek pistol but was a pathetic thing that could barely fire a single bullet, let alone rapid fire. Still, a gun was a gun. I’d even used it to dunk the bastard who tried to kill me. That should be proof enough that my mechanical engineering knowledge wasn’t completely hopeless.
I calmly continued persuading the old man.
“I made this myself. I shoved scrap metal into a stove and went through all kinds of hell to do it.”
Though his ears were listening to me, Matthias’s eyes were already darting back and forth between the metal rod and the blueprint. As a former blacksmith, the old man had probably already realized what I was suggesting.
“Let’s open the forge for a bit. I won’t ask you to make the whole thing for me. Just provide the facilities and I’ll handle the rest. If you do that, I’ll make one gun and the leftover silver-iron is all yours.”
It was quite the outrageous offer. Helping make just one gun in exchange for swallowing dozens of kilos of silver-iron. Even if I didn’t know the exact value, it was probably enough money to let him quit the junk shop immediately, leave the Hood, and enjoy a comfortable retirement.
I wasn’t making this suggestion out of recklessness. Most people born naturally in this neighborhood had already lost all motivation, but those who fell here from outside were always ready to climb back up the moment an opportunity appeared. Old man Matthias was one of the latter. He’d apparently been a renowned blacksmith even outside before getting caught up in some dirty business and ending up here. It was a rumor everyone who mattered already knew. And people like him wouldn’t easily betray you first, if only for the sake of their pride. Everything was calculated.
“Mmm…”
Matthias stood there silently for a long time with his eyes tightly shut before finally muttering as if spitting it out.
“Cain, you crazy son of a bitch.”
“Is that a compliment?”
Yeah, there was no way he’d refuse. I flashed Matthias a wide grin.
The old man strode over to the stove he usually used for baking potatoes, ripped open a sack of coke instead of a potato sack, and shoveled the contents into the furnace. Then he grabbed the goddess statue by the neck with one hand and tossed it into the blazing flames. The goddess’s entire body, her face flushed bright red, began to melt and drip away. The blasphemous sight made me whistle involuntarily.
“Whistle, Gramps. You’re really going for it, huh?”
Matthias, who had been carefully examining the blueprint covered in various gun designs, muttered in a low voice.
“Three days. Come back in three days.”
“Oh, what’s this?”
Understanding what that meant, I broke into a huge smile.
“I thought you weren’t going to make it. So you’re really going to do it?”
“That’s right, you bastard. How the hell is a kid who’s only ever messed around with soft scrap metal supposed to make a proper gun? If we go by your offer, the labor fee is more than covered anyway.”
“Thanks, Gramps!”
“Since we have the blueprint, I’ll try making the bullets too, but that’s a specialist’s field so I can’t guarantee the quality. Look into the bullets separately later.”
Things were going incredibly smoothly. I left the junk shop in a happy mood. It looked like my life was finally starting to turn around.
After properly shopping for the first time in a while, I returned home. It was a pathetic shanty, but a home was a home—it at least kept out the rain and wind. When I unlocked the door and stepped inside, a frail silhouette rose from behind a thin partition.
“Mmm… Big brother, you’re back?”
“Yeah.”
It was my little sister, Sarah.
“Ehehe.”
I gently stroked Sarah’s dry, frizzy hair as she hugged me and checked on her condition. Fortunately, she didn’t look any worse than usual. Her noticeably gaunt body for her age and the oversized mask that covered more than half of her small face. It had an excessive design that looked like something a ruler of the wasteland would wear, but Sarah had been born with weak lungs. Without something like this, she couldn’t survive. The maintenance costs were ridiculously expensive too, eating up half my income, but I never minded. She was family. You couldn’t skimp on money when family was sick, could you?
Honestly, if it were just me, I probably could’ve left the Hood long ago. But what would be the point if I abandoned my family? Even Cain’s mother had looked after us until the very end. If even that half-crazy woman had fulfilled her responsibility, there was no way a sane person like me could abandon his little sister.
The sound of her heartbeat, clearly felt through her ribs because of her thin body, and the faint warmth of life filled me with determination. I was definitely going to get out of here. Together with my little sister.