Going My Way
"Thank you."
Dohyeon took the coffee Officer Kim Hyeontae held out and offered the greeting with it.
"Are the classes treating you all right?"
They sat in what looked like a break room the Association staff used. Dohyeon nodded.
"Yes. The instructors teach with real enthusiasm, so I'm learning a great deal."
With only the two of them facing each other, the air felt faintly awkward.
"The truth is, I've been hoping to speak with you for some time, Trainee Lee Dohyeon."
"With me?"
He couldn't remember doing anything conspicuous enough to bring an Association official looking for him. If he had to name something, he had gained Black Iron Rule, and only yesterday he had made a B-rank piece of equipment, the Health Bracelet.
…There's more there than I thought.
Even so, if anything was likely to catch an education officer's eye, it was Black Iron Rule. Not even a full day had passed—hardly time enough for word of the Health Bracelet to spread.
Master Choi Gwangcheol has a looser tongue than I expected.
He hadn't asked the man to keep it secret, and there was no particular need to, but he felt unreasonably slighted all the same.
"I was told you've acquired the Refining skill. A skill with a crafting range broad enough to produce accessories."
"…You know about that, too?"
At this rate, the man seemed to have his entire trail mapped. Officer Kim Hyeontae laughed awkwardly at the barb in Dohyeon's tone.
"In fact, Master Choi Gwangcheol asked us to postpone this meeting. He said it might interfere with your crafting."
"The master did?"
Kindness from a quarter he had never expected swept away every bit of disappointment he had been nursing.
"Honestly, I never imagined you could make something of that caliber."
Officer Kim spoke with care, and Dohyeon waved a hand to show he understood.
"I was pretty stunned myself once I'd made it."
He didn't think he would ever forget the moment he drew that final mana circuit.
"It was the first time I'd handled everything alone, from the first design through the finish, and luck sided with me in more ways than one."
The idea of binding four runes together. The idea of engraving runes into plates and assembling them. There had been plenty of other ideas besides, but if even one of those two had failed to occur to him, nothing he could have been satisfied with would have come of it.
"And if this course hadn't existed, I doubt I would even have tried."
"Haha. It has been a very long time since this work felt worthwhile."
They laughed back and forth, and the awkwardness seemed to thin.
"The Association has a separate support program for outstanding trainees."
"Something like a scholarship?"
"Similar, but we do not provide cash."
"That's a shame."
Buying titanium alloy had cost Dohyeon more than he had expected. Officer Kim held out a single document.
"I understand you are considering starting a business after you complete the course. We would like to assist you when you do."
Dohyeon took the paper and read the lines in silence.
A support program under which, when a talent who has demonstrated outstanding ability and growth potential in the field of hunter equipment crafting wishes to start a business, the Association streamlines a portion of the existing startup-support procedures and provides an opportunity for priority review.
Recipients are selected through a comprehensive evaluation of lecture performance, the originality of the graduation piece, the feasibility of the business plan, and related criteria.
Provided, however, that if a trainee achieves a separately outstanding crafting record during the course, certain evaluation items may be substituted and early selection granted.
"Hmm… is this a pass to cut in line?"
"If you put it that way, we sound like a thoroughly corrupt organization."
"Aren't you?"
"Priority review. Priority review."
Officer Kim looked distinctly aggrieved.
"It is a benefit with no legal issues whatsoever, so there is no need for concern."
He asked for a signature with a kindly face, but Dohyeon tilted his head as if he didn't follow.
"But the line in the middle doesn't apply to me, does it?"
Recipients are selected through a comprehensive evaluation of lecture performance, the originality of the graduation piece, the feasibility of the business plan, and related criteria.
He hadn't sat through every lesson yet, but Dohyeon had already left the level of an ordinary trainee behind. He was not, however, the only one who had.
"There's Jincheol, a B-rank craftsman. Can I really receive this?"
For a moment he wondered whether some separate understanding had already been reached, but Officer Kim's expression suggested otherwise.
"This is not a program for selecting the top of the class."
"Ah."
Officer Kim set a finger on the opening line of the document.
A talent who has demonstrated outstanding ability and growth potential.
"Trainee Baek Jincheol being an excellent craftsman, and Trainee Lee Dohyeon qualifying for support, are separate matters."
"So more than one person can be selected?"
"Of course."
Officer Kim nodded.
"And to be frank, the instructors' assessments of the two of you differ somewhat as well."
"How so?"
"Trainee Baek Jincheol is someone who already makes things well."
Officer Kim looked at Dohyeon with a peculiar gaze.
Dohyeon looked down at his coffee without a word.
Someone who makes you wonder what he'll make…
Strangely, those words struck deeper than any praise for having made B-rank equipment.
"Even so, if the graduation piece falls short of expectations, the story changes, doesn't it?"
"You have already produced B-rank equipment by your own ability, Trainee Lee Dohyeon."
Officer Kim tapped the last line of the document.
"This benefit is support in recognition of that fact."
"Then there'd be a benefit for the graduation piece as well?"
At Dohyeon's brazen question, Officer Kim grinned as if to say he was welcome to expect as much.
"In a sense, it may prove worth more than cash."
Once they had gone over the particulars of the Youth Startup Tax-Relief Fast Track for equipment crafting, Dohyeon returned to the classroom.
"You're a bit late, hyung."
Jincheol greeted him, some of the wits the bracelet had stolen apparently given back.
"Got held up talking. The Refining skill, and making the Health Bracelet."
"They looking after you, hyung?"
Seonggu's question was sly, and Dohyeon could only manage an awkward smile. He hadn't shown up until the morning's first break; of course they were curious.
"They said I meet the requirements for startup support."
"A B-rank piece of gear would do that."
Jincheol handed the Health Bracelet back and stretched.
"Hah—been a while since I saw equipment this good. My hands are itching."
"You going to make something too, Jincheol?"
It would be a B-rank smith's process. Even just watching from the side, there would be plenty to pick up.
"Hmm. Turning out two pieces the way you did, graduation work included, looks rough. I was thinking I'd start on the concept for the graduation piece from here."
"Fair enough. Someone like you doesn't need to worry about the course schedule."
Completing the curriculum with excellent marks came with an additional subsidy. Most trainees were careful not to neglect the lessons for that reason alone, but Jincheol was a different case.
"Ugh. Both of you already making equipment. Honestly…"
Listening from the side, Seonggu scratched his head, nagged by the sense that he was falling behind.
"Hey, I keep telling you—you can move on from the first stage. Why are you still pigheadedly stuck on the proper-strike drills?"
"…I promised myself. Five perfect ones in a row, and I move on. A building doesn't fall if the foundation's solid, right?"
The advice had come from a B-rank craftsman, but Seonggu showed no intention of giving ground.
"Day before yesterday you were saying ten in a row."
"Knowing your limits is a man's virtue, too."
Seonggu was compromising with himself, in his own fashion. Dohyeon shrugged.
"Crafting does come down to your own feel, but even I think you've practiced enough."
"You think so too, hyung?"
With Dohyeon adding his voice after Jincheol's, Seonggu looked thick with doubt.
"What you need right now is confidence. Jincheol's a lifer in this trade, and I've been working as an enchanter, so neither of us makes a fair comparison."
"Even so, is the gap really this big?"
He and the other trainees were still lost somewhere between swinging a hammer and, at best, failing to make a nail. Jincheol could be written off as an outlier. Dohyeon was simply too strange.
"…You heard, didn't you. I got Refining. Different weight class."
"Hey, Seonggu. You used to be a hunter, right? A C-rank ought to know all this."
The difference between those with talent and those without. The difference between lifers and newcomers. In the hunter trade, that difference was the line between living and dying.
"…Doing the work you could do was the only way through."
Jincheol had never much concerned himself with other people. This side of him seemed to move Seonggu quite a bit.
"I had you pegged for a rude little bookworm, but you're not what you look like."
"I go and say something nice…"
The remark didn't seem to sour him all that much; his reaction was milder than usual.
"Hyung, I'll head to the practice room first. Three in a row, and I ought to move on."
"…All right. I'll be along soon."
Some attachment still lingered. All he had managed was to lower the count.
"That pigheaded fool."
"You've gotten pretty close with Seonggu."
In a month of watching them, this was the first time Dohyeon had seen Jincheol offer advice like that.
"Today of all days I make up my mind to try something of my own, and he dumps cold water on it."
Jincheol shrugged and stepped past him.
"Going on ahead. I need to limber up properly today."
"Go on."
One by one they set off toward goals only they had chosen, and Dohyeon gathered his things as he watched them go.
Too unsettled to start anything right this second…
He had run without a pause for a month. He had no mind to rest, but he needed to clear his head.
"For now, I'll just pick up a hammer."
A light twelve hours of hammering, and his head would work out what to do.