A Possessed Face (2)

Dohyeon had left the office. Master Choi Gwangcheol sat with his eyes on the bracelet about his wrist, lost in thought.

Is a thing like this ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠even possible?

Master Choi Gwangcheol was a man past seventy. An A-Rank craftsman, he was still hale enough, but age was age, and matters of health had come to claim his attention in more ways than one. Even he had never encountered a bracelet with an effect like this.

"Four runes, linked — not two, not three — and he sits there as calm as you please."

Cheongeun Workshop might lag the other great workshops for influence, but the thought that they had driven out a talent like this drew a click of the tongue from him.

"Tsk. So they meant to stand up a line of high-grade equipment, did they. Go on like this, and the ending writes itself."

It was no different from driving out a tiger and ceremoniously seating a fox in the chief's chair.

The door gave a heavy rattle and swung open.

"Good morning."

"Come in."

A good deal of time must have slipped past without his noticing. Instructors Kim Cheolhyeon and Oh Cheollyong stepped into the office.

"Oh, sir. Have you bought yourself a new bracelet?"

"You never cared for ornaments. What's the occasion?"

"...Well. I've retired, haven't I."

All the years he'd spent swinging a hammer, he hadn't worn a single piece of jewelry. Retired, he supposed it hardly mattered anymore.

"Never mind that. You two — won't you try appraising this bracelet?"

"Appraise it?"

At the sudden request, both instructors blinked.

"You'll find it interesting."

"Well... if you say so."

There was a playful smile on Master Choi's face that sat oddly on him, and at the sight of it the two instructors called up their appraisal skills.

"Blood Purification? There's an enchantment like that?"

"Clearing waste out of the blood vessels? That can't be serious! And before any of that — four runes?"

"Heh heh heh."

Instructor Kim Cheolhyeon was plainly baffled, and Instructor Oh Cheollyong was making a proper fuss of it. Master Choi Gwangcheol laughed exactly as though he had seen it coming.

"Sir! Where did this bracelet come from? I haven't heard a word of anything like it being developed in Korea!"

"Equipment still in development overseas, then? As expected of an A-Rank craftsman — even pieces like this find their way into your hands!"

Master Choi had the distinct sense that if he didn't explain, and soon, this was going to become exceedingly tiresome.

"Settle down, the both of you. I'll tell you all of it, one thing at a time."

The latch clicked.

"Instructors, is something the matter?"

The Association's officer in charge had arrived at some point, and he cast a doubtful look over the noisy office.

"Ah, Officer Kim. Come in. Mind if we put the meeting off a little? I've some interesting news."

"Yes..."

Looking at Master Choi Gwangcheol, Officer Kim Hyeontae was put in mind of his five-year-old son showing off a new pair of shoes.

"Trust an enchanter for that. His thinking runs a different way. He built the equipment to fit the enchantment."

"Nothing but metal, you think?"

"So it appears."

"If he'd mixed in monster material that dampens mana interference, he'd have had still more room to work."

"Well, monster material isn't the easiest thing to come by. There's the cost to consider, isn't there?"

"This plate is the real article. Even equipment that's structurally miserable to enchant might be possible now."

"Hmm. So the plate isn't equipment at all. It's a consumable."

Once the bracelet's maker had been named, the two instructors fell to admiring it and arguing over it in earnest.

"Um... Master? Then would it be all right now?"

Officer Kim Hyeontae, having heard the whole of it, glanced about for the lay of the room and put the question to Master Choi.

"You've no need to ask my leave. I only held you back for fear of getting in the way of a novice craftsman at work on his first piece."

The moment he had confirmed that Dohyeon had gained a skill tied to Crafting, Officer Kim had meant to sit down with him at once. Master Choi's objection had left him no choice but to wait.

"Even so, it's thanks to you that we've come to see what Trainee Lee Dohyeon might be capable of."

"Hmph. I can't see him suiting a hidebound outfit like the Association."

There wasn't a shadow of self-interest on Master Choi's face as he said it.

"It isn't a recruitment. Trainee Lee Dohyeon has said himself that starting his own business is the goal."

"Hoh. His own business..."

Somehow, a perfectly natural way of introducing his granddaughter seemed to have just presented itself.

"In all likelihood it ends with putting him forward as a candidate for a model case, and linking him to a startup support program. That should be the extent of it."

"A milder answer than I'd expected."

At that, Officer Kim Hyeontae shook his head.

"The people upstairs are a suspicious lot. Geniuses who ride high and then come crashing down — there are more than a few of those, aren't there."

"So the notion is to leave him carrying just the right weight of a debt of gratitude."

"Well... if he makes use of Association programs down the line, that's all to the good for us."

Officer Kim asked it with the look of a man who still couldn't quite grow used to the shape of the thing.

"Does it seem a little shady?"

"Better the shelter of the Association's skirts than being ground under by corporations that haven't a drop of blood or a tear between them."

"Hyung, you made this?"

While the two instructors carried on their heated debate in the office, Dohyeon was showing Baek Jincheol and Bae Seonggu the Mana-Reactive Blood Purification Circulation-Assist Bracelet.

"It's all sparkly."

Seonggu stared at the runes set inside the bracelet and blinked, slow and wondering.

"...Idiot."

"What'd you say, punk?!"

At Jincheol's utterly unfiltered remark, Seonggu shoved his ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠face in close.

"Wasn't talking to you."

"Who else is here besides me? You saying that to Dohyeon-hyung, then?"

Jincheol, who had been regarding Seonggu as if the man were some unevolved creature, turned his eyes back to the bracelet.

"There is someone. The guy who walks around with buttons where his eyes ought to be."

"Why, you—!"

"All right, all right. Seonggu, don't get so worked up. Jincheol, you're taking it too far."

"..."

Even at Dohyeon's words, Jincheol was wholly absorbed in studying the bracelet.

"Hyung. Besides the sparkling, what's it actually do?"

"It's got a function that cleans out your blood vessels."

"Is that amazing?"

"Well... depends on the person."

For Seonggu, who stood more than six and a half feet tall and was muscle from crown to heel, it hardly seemed like a function he would ever need.

"Hyung. Isn't Mana-Reactive Blood Purification Circulation-Assist Bracelet way too long?"

"That's why I just call it the Health Bracelet."

"That one's also kind of..."

While Seonggu pulled a face at the name, Jincheol was going over the structure of the Health Bracelet with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠close attention.

Four plates. The mana circuits running between them. One single flow, born of the joining.

"Hyung."

"Yeah?"

Dohyeon was on his third explanation of Blood Purification to Seonggu. At Jincheol's call, he turned his head.

"Why'd you make it like this?"

"The runes interfere with each other. Leave them as they are, and it won't do."

Jincheol asked it while tracing the inside of the bracelet with a finger, and Dohyeon explained, agreeable and plain.

"So I tried changing the circuits, tried changing the rune combinations..."

"Hyung."

"...Yeah."

Dohyeon had been talking with real enthusiasm. At the serious set of Jincheol's face, he answered meekly.

"How did you even think to make it this way?"

"Let's see..."

Dohyeon thought on it a moment in silence, then opened his mouth.

"Because they wouldn't go in?"

"..."

"Change the runes, they still won't go in. Change the circuits, they still won't go in. So I just gave each of them a room."

"Mm. As expected of you, hyung. You think big."

They wouldn't go in, so he had made a place where they would. At that answer, delivered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, Jincheol looked at the bracelet again.

Fitting the rune to the equipment was common sense. If it didn't fit, you looked for different equipment. That was what he had been taught, and other blacksmiths and enchanters would be no different. Dohyeon had turned that common sense upside down. He had built a new structure for the equipment, one made to fit the runes.

It wasn't a difficult structure. Look at it a few times and you could understand it. He himself could already think of several ways to make the thing more precise.

And yet.

Have I ever once thought about it like this?

Jincheol's expression set, strangely hard.

"Jincheol?"

"Hyung, mind if I look at this a while longer?"

"Just don't break it."

"Do you take me for Seonggu?"

Jincheol did not take his eyes off the bracelet.

His first piece of equipment had been a longsword — fine materials worked with fine technique, a blade a high-rank hunter had paid a premium to own. He had been satisfied with it then. Looking now at the bracelet Dohyeon had made, another thought came over him.

I want to make something that is mine alone. Something that exists nowhere else.

While Jincheol was lost in the Health Bracelet, Seonggu watched him and rubbed at his chin.

"Hyung, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠what's with this guy all of a sudden? Acting all crooked."

"That's a possessed look on him."

"Possessed?"

Seonggu's face demanded what kind of broad-daylight ghost nonsense this was, and Dohyeon hurried to tack something on.

"No, no. It's like blacksmith slang. Means he's sick with wanting to make something... that sort of meaning, I think."

He was fairly sure Master Choi Gwangcheol had put it that way. Truth be told, Dohyeon had been so caught up at the time in the thought of making the Health Bracelet that the words had gone in one ear and straight out the other.

"I was the same, so he'll come around before long."

"You're telling me he stays vacant like that for a whole month?"

"...I was vacant?"

He had rather thought of himself as a thorough sort of man. The longer this went, the less reassuring the people around him seemed.

"Jincheol's about ten times worse off than you were..."

Knock, knock.

"Is Trainee Lee Dohyeon here?"

"...Yes. I'm Lee Dohyeon."

Ignoring Seonggu's exaggerated account, Dohyeon rose and started toward the classroom.

"You're the Association staff in charge of the course, aren't you?"

The sight of the man sweating through his duties as host at orientation had stuck with him.

"Good day. I am Kim Hyeontae, the officer responsible for this training course."

"Ah, yes. Lee Dohyeon. I'm one of the trainees."

Officer Kim Hyeontae's greeting was stiff, and Dohyeon matched it with one of his own.

"There's a small matter I'd like to discuss. Might you have a moment?"