The Blacksmith of the Back Alley
I had held on for one more week. I kept the card on the kitchen counter, staring at it every time I ate. No, I stared at it even on the days I didn't eat. [Address: XX City, XX District, XX Market, XX Street, No. XX]. I had looked it up. It was in a back alley of a traditional market. The Street View photos showed nothing but old signs and narrow, cramped paths. I couldn't tell what was actually at that address.
Every morning when I opened my eyes, I thought about it. Should I really go? But I’d spend every day just thinking, and the day would end. There was no reason to go. Heading all the way to a market with a card sent by an unknown person? It felt like a crazy thing to do.
“……”
And yet, my eyes kept drifting to the business card. There was one word that wouldn't leave my head: Special Perk. When I called the game company, they had insisted it didn't exist. That there was never such a thing from the start. Later, they even treated me like a weirdo, threatening to report me for obstruction of business if I called again. But then, just a few days after the game ended, a business card with a hammer drawn on it was wedged into my door frame? That was a bit too much to be a coincidence.
“Just… should I go and see?”
Yeah, I could just go and take a quick look. If it seemed like a weird place, I’d just turn around and come back. Come to think of it, wasn't there no reason not to go? I had nothing else to do anyway. Damn it, let's just go. It’s no big deal.
In the end, I’d reached my limit of being holed up at home.
As I got off the bus, the noisy, bustling air unique to a traditional market washed over me. The sound of a tteokbokki shop’s music blaring from a loudspeaker. The calls of elderly women sitting on their makeshift stalls. The honking of passing motorcycles. As I moved away from the main thoroughfare of the market, the crowd thinned out rapidly. Signs became sparse. Dust had settled in layers on the shutters of empty storefronts.
‘Is this the right place?’
The alley turned once more, leading to what looked like a dead end. And there it was. The first floor of a dilapidated building. Smoke was rising from beyond the open shutter. There was a sign, but the letters were half-peeled away, leaving only the word ‘Blacksmith’ barely legible.
A blacksmith shop.
“...It’s actually here.”
I muttered to myself. Even though I had seen this place every single day for ten years, this was my first time standing in front of a real-world blacksmith shop. Through the open shutter, I could see the interior. A furnace, an anvil, various tools hanging densely on the walls. Lumps of iron and charcoal kilns placed in the corner. There was a smell. The distinct, burnt scent that arises when heating metal. Charcoal smoke. The smell of oil-soaked leather. It was the smell of a blacksmith shop.
It was exactly the same smell I had inhaled every day in the game.
‘The historical accuracy was insane, after all.’
“Are you here to drop something off?”
A voice came from inside. A middle-aged man sitting next to the furnace looked up. He looked to be in his fifties, a man of sturdy build. He was wearing a blackened leather apron and holding a small file in his hand. It looked like he had been in the middle of filing something down.
“Ah, no. I…”
I pulled the card out of my pocket and showed it to him. “I thought this address was here. Do you happen to know about this?”
The man took the card. He scanned the front and back, then tilted his head.
“This? I don’t know.”
“………Ah, is that so?”
Wait, he really didn't know?
“Who sent it?”
“I don’t know either. It was stuck in my door.”
“Huh. That’s strange.”
The man returned the card with an ambiguous expression. I was ruined. …I guess it wasn't it. The small hope that had been inflating in a corner of my heart deflated with a hiss. Damn it. Cold sweat trickled down my back.
“……”
An awkward silence hung in the air. I should have turned back, but my feet wouldn't move. My eyes kept scanning the inside of the shop. The hammers hanging on the wall. They were all different in size and shape. From heavy sledgehammers to small hammers for precision work. There were some similar to what I’d seen in the game, and others I was seeing for the first time. On the anvil, a half-finished blade lay. The curve of the blade was smooth. Even before polishing, the form was cleanly defined.
‘That, if you left a bit more thickness on the spine before quenching, the durability would—’
My thoughts stopped there. I was doing it again. Just like with the fruit knife.
“What are you looking at so intently?”
I turned my head at the man’s voice. He was looking at me with a strange expression.
“Ah, it’s nothing. I’m sorry, excuse me—”
“Is this your first time in a blacksmith shop?”
“…Pardon? Ah, yes. It’s my first time.”
It was a lie. It was my first time in reality, but my conscience pricked a bit to say it was my first time when I had practically lived in a blacksmith shop for ten years.
“If you’re that curious, take a look around before you go.”
I must have been staring too hard. The man muttered that and went into the inner workshop with his file. I could hear the sound of metal being filed from behind the partition. I thought about just looking around, but should I just leave? I didn't know the owner of the card, and the man said he didn't know either. There was no reason to stay longer. But my feet wouldn't move. The smell of the blacksmith shop was holding onto my ankles. The scent of charcoal smoke and heated iron. The warmth of the oil stains catching on the tip of my nose. How long had it been since I smelled this blacksmith’s fragrance?
‘…Just a little.’
Let’s look just a little longer. Then I’ll go.
“Then, excuse me……”
I took a step inside. I scanned the tools on the wall, examined the structure of the furnace, and checked the shape of the semi-finished product on the anvil. Wow. Look at the size of this. They have all sorts of things here. I found myself getting excited. Then, I caught sight of someone huddled in the workspace next to the shutter.
‘That is…’
Maybe twenty-two or twenty-three? He was a young guy with dyed blonde hair, wearing his work clothes loosely. He had AirPods in both ears, bobbing his head while polishing something. It was a knife. He was grinding something like a small paring knife against a whetstone. I took one look and stopped in my tracks. The angle was all wrong. Completely wrong.
He was grinding the blade against the stone, but the angle was way too steep. If you do that, you don't get a sharp edge; you end up blunting it. On top of that, he was pushing hard in only one direction. You have to cross back and forth with consistent pressure to get an even edge, but doing it like that meant only one side was being shaved, resulting in a completely asymmetrical mess.
‘Ah…’
I should just leave. It was someone else’s shop, someone else’s apprentice—none of my business. But…
I really can’t stand this!
The urge to offer some advice surged to my throat. In the end, I couldn't hold back and approached behind him.
“Excuse me.”
When I tapped his shoulder, his hand stopped. He whipped his head around and irritably pulled out one AirPod.
“Ah, you scared me! Yeah? What is it?”
The way he scanned me up and down was incredibly insolent. Well, I suppose I didn't look great, having been holed up in my room for a week and throwing on whatever I found. Messy hair, hollow eyes, a stretched-out t-shirt. I could see his lips curling into a look of blatant contempt.
“What?”
“That knife, the angle is a bit… haha.”
“Yeah? What about it?”
“I think you should lay it down to about 15 degrees and grind it in both directions. You’re putting too much pressure on one side, too.”
“Ha.”
He snorted as if he couldn't believe it. “What are you doing right now? Who are you, mister? Are you a homeless guy?”
Mister? Homeless? I was still only twenty-eight.
“No, it’s just that you were grinding it at such a steep angle. If you do that, the edge will be completely ruined.”
“Ah, this is ridiculous. If you’re a customer, wait outside. If you’re here to beg, go somewhere else. Are you here to meddle in my work?”
He turned his body completely to glare at me. His voice was full of annoyance. “I’ve been in this business for five years! You probably picked up some nonsense from watching YouTube, but I’m not at the level where I need advice from some random unemployed guy, so go on your way.”
Five years? He’d been learning for five years and was grinding like that? Did that make any sense?
“If you’ve been doing it for five years, you should know better. Just listening to the sound of your grinding, I can hear the metal shavings being torn off.”
At my words, his face flushed red. It seemed I’d scratched his pride. “Ah, this beggar is really crazy! Hey, what do you know about knives! Go to a neighborhood scrap yard or something, why are you causing a scene in someone else’s shop!”
He jumped up from his seat. He slammed the knife onto the whetstone with a sharp clack and pointed his finger at me. “Are you not leaving right now? Get lost before I call the police!” His voice was so loud it echoed through the blacksmith shop.
“What’s going on? What’s the matter?”
Just then, a deep voice came from inside, and the man walked out. He must have heard the commotion. He put down his file and frowned at the tense atmosphere.
“Master! This beggar-like person suddenly barged in and started picking a fight with my work! Should I kick him out?”
The apprentice, Junho, ran over as if he’d been waiting and started snitching. He looked ready to make up all sorts of lies.
The man’s gaze shifted to the paring knife on the workbench. He picked it up without a word and ran his thumb along the edge. Then, he held it up to the fluorescent light, tilting it back and forth.
“……”
The man’s brow furrowed even deeper. He put the knife down without a word and stared straight at me. “What did you say to him?”
“Ah, just… the angle was too steep, so I said if you lay it down to about 15 degrees and grind it in both directions, the edge will be even. The pressure was leaning too much to one side, making the edge uneven.”
At my answer, Junho snorted and cut in. “Master, did you hear that? We’ve got a YouTube expert here. He must have picked up some nonsense somewhere…”
“Junho.”
“Yes, Master! I’ll kick out this kind of jerk…”
“Shut your mouth.”
At the man’s low, cold command, Junho’s mouth snapped shut. “How many times have I told you that if you grind at a steep angle in only one direction, the edge will be crushed?”
“But, Master. That’s…”
“This person isn't wrong about a single thing. A guy who says he’s been learning for five years makes a mistake that’s obvious even to a passerby? Have you been listening to what I teach with your ears covered?”
Junho’s ears turned as red as a tomato. He bit his lip in frustration and glared at me. The man looked at me again. This time, his eyes were completely different from before. A predator’s gaze, as if sharply assessing something.
“You.”
“Yes?”
“Come here and try grinding it.”
“…Pardon?”
“That knife. You try grinding it. Anyone can talk with their mouth. Let’s see for ourselves if it works like you say.”
It was a sudden proposal. Junho looked at the man with an absurd expression and jumped up. “Master! Are you out of your mind? You’re going to give your workbench to a disheveled, unemployed guy like that? What if he steals a hammer!”
“That’s enough, step back! Be quiet and watch with your eyes wide open.”
At the man’s roar, Junho forcibly closed his mouth and stepped back. But he couldn't hide his expression. He was crossing his arms and twisting his lips. As if to say, let’s see you try if you can. He was openly mocking me.
Honestly, I was flustered too. I had ground knives before. For ten years, I had ground and hammered them tens of thousands, no, hundreds of thousands of times. But that was all inside a VR game. I had sworn I’d never handled a real whetstone and metal in reality.
‘Can I do it…?’
As I hesitated, the man gestured toward the workbench with his chin. Well, if it didn't work, I could just run. Above all… smelling the unique scent of the blacksmith shop and seeing the metal after such a long time, something inside me was boiling over.
I slowly approached the workbench and sat on the chair. I picked up the paring knife lying next to the whetstone. The moment the cold touch of the metal hit my palm—
Zzzzt!
An unidentified spark flew in my head. At the same time, the structure of the knife began to appear in front of my eyes, transparently projected like a 3D rendering.
‘Crazy. What is this?’
The vision I used to see when I used the [Mana Wave] skill to check item status in the game. It was unfolding right before my eyes. The surface of the blade, the minutely misaligned hardness, even the grain arrangement of the damaged carbon steel. I frowned and flipped the knife back and forth.
“This, grinding alone won't be enough.”
Pfft. At my words, Junho burst into laughter. “Look at that! A guy who’s all talk. Now that he’s actually been put on the spot, he’s trying to make excuses and run away, right? Look at him laying the groundwork already, saying it won't work!”
“No, that’s not it.”
I ignored Junho and looked straight at the man. “Because this person didn't lay the angle down and just forced it with strength, the core axis of the blade is completely twisted. Furthermore, he didn't cool the frictional heat generated during the grinding process, so the iron structure on the spine side has hardened. No matter how nicely you grind it here, the edge will break even while slicing a radish.”
“……”
Silence flowed through the blacksmith shop at my words. The man’s gaze trembled minutely. It was proof that the knowledge he possessed and my pointing out were exactly the same.
“Then what will you do?”
When the man asked, I pointed to the furnace burning in the back. “I’ll borrow the furnace and a hammer. I think I need to heat it up again and fix the axis first.”
“Are you crazy?!” Junho shouted in shock. “Hey! Do you even know what the temperature of the furnace is?! If you heat it wrong, the knife will melt away or turn into a lump of charcoal! You’ve never even hammered once in your life!”
But the man’s reaction was different. He stroked his chin and quietly stepped back. It meant he would clear the way.
“Use it.”
“Master!”
“It’s noisy. Let him do it.”
I stood up and approached the furnace. The hot heat rushing over my face. It was the familiar heat I had faced tens of thousands of times in the blacksmith shop inside the game. I picked up the tongs and pushed the paring knife into the furnace. I observed the color of the flames. That fleeting moment when it transitions from orange to cherry red. It was a color I was seeing for the first time in reality, but my body instinctively remembered that temperature.
‘Now.’
Whoosh! I took the paring knife out with the tongs and placed it on the anvil. Then, I picked up the 1.5kg forging hammer hanging on the wall.
“Ha! He can’t even find the center of gravity, he’ll probably hit his own foot…”
I heard Junho’s mocking voice from behind, but it didn't reach my ears. I raised the hammer. I took a deep breath.
Clang!
The first strike. The explosive sound of the anvil, iron, and hammer colliding rang through the blacksmith shop.
‘Huh?’
I was secretly surprised. My avatar in the game was a monster with a Strength stat of 999. There was no way my pathetic body in reality could produce that kind of impact. But the moment the hammer hit the anvil, my muscles drew a perfect trajectory, pouring my body weight into the tip of the hammer. It wasn't physical strength, but the amount of impact created by perfect technique. The form of a max-level blacksmith that my cells, not my head, remembered.
Clang! Clang! Claaang!
The rhythm was caught. The [Continuous Strike] technique, which uses the recoil of the hammer to immediately follow up with the next strike. The techniques I used in the game were being implemented exactly through my body right now. The twisted axis of the paring knife straightened out in a line as if by magic after a few hammer blows. I could see through my projected vision that the hardened iron structure was loosening evenly, regaining its optimal elasticity.
“Th-this is…”
Junho’s voice trembled from behind me. I didn't care and pushed the knife into the quenching tank. Sssssssss! White smoke rose, and the perfect heat treatment was finished. I took the knife out and immediately returned to the whetstone from before.
“Now, I just need to sharpen the edge.”
I sprinkled a little water on the whetstone. Exactly a 15-degree angle. My wrist was fixed without even a tremor, and I began to push the blade, crossing in both directions. Swoosh. Swoosh. The noise that sounded like screeching when Junho did it earlier had changed into a cheerful and consistent friction sound, as if cutting through silk. Push to the left, pull to the right. The distribution of force was 50-50. After dozens of strokes—
I lifted the knife from the whetstone.
“It’s done.”
After wiping the blade with a cloth, I held it out toward the man. The inside of the blacksmith shop was as quiet as the grave. The man approached as if possessed and took the knife. His rough, calloused hands were trembling minutely. The man held the knife up under the fluorescent light. The axis that had been broken formed a perfect straight line, and the blade, which had been ground down bluntly, was emitting a silver radiance at a terrifyingly uniform angle.
“Th-this can’t be.”
An exclamation burst from the man’s lips for the first time. He plucked one of his own hairs and dropped it lightly onto the blade. Swoosh. The hair that touched the blade was split in two without any resistance and fell to the floor.
“The edge is sharper than a razor, the balance of the axis is perfect… and the heat treatment skill seems even better than mine…?”
The man stared at me with dazed eyes. “You… what on earth is your identity? This is the skill of someone who has held a hammer for ten, no, twenty years. Under what master did you train to achieve such perfect forging…”
“This makes no sense… Is, is that a scam?! Where did you use a trick…”
Junho stammered with a pale face. Where had that insolent appearance gone, the one who had been full of himself just a moment ago, calling me unemployed or homeless? The sight of him barely holding onto the edge of the workbench because his legs had lost their strength was pitiful. All the techniques he had learned for five years had been perfectly denied by a single demonstration from the person he had ignored as a homeless man.
“How on earth… something I can’t do even after rolling around for years, in just one go…!”
Junho clutched his head as if denying reality. I quietly looked down at my two hands. My heart was pounding like crazy.
‘It works.’
The time I had poured into [Kingdom of Fire] for ten years. The stats the system compensated for, the item crafting knowledge, the understanding of minerals, even the physical sensation of wielding a hammer. Everything was transplanted into this reality’s body. Rather, the minute control and intuition that I couldn't do in the game due to system constraints were expanding infinitely according to my will.
I couldn't stop the laughter spilling from my lips. I thought everything was over when the game ended. That it had all been a waste of time with nothing left. My ten years of being the only person in the world to reach max level as a blacksmith had not been in vain.
Yes. The special perk did exist.