Because I'm Exempt
A kind-faced middle-aged man took his place before the lectern.
"Good to meet you all. I'm Kim Cheolhyeon, and I'll be teaching Introduction to Hunter Equipment Studies."
A patter of applause closed out the introduction. Once the trainees' eyes had gathered on him, Instructor Kim Cheolhyeon went on.
"Before we begin the class itself, allow me to briefly walk you through the curriculum as a whole. Originally the chief instructor ought to have covered this during orientation, but..."
He just said his piece and stepped right down, didn't he.
Dohyeon had made it to the lecture hall on time today. Recalling the chief instructor as he had appeared at orientation, he gave a small shake of his head.
"...Once you've completed the full course, the final week will have no lectures. Preparing your graduation piece will stand in for attendance."
"Would it be all right if I asked a question?"
The instructor had barely finished before a hulking trainee shot his hand into the air.
"Of course. Ask whatever you like."
"Isn't a week cutting it awfully close?"
"A piece of ordinary equipment usually takes about two or three days. Follow the training in earnest, and something like a basic dagger or a simple longsword should be well within your reach inside a week."
"We also intend to open the practice rooms during any class period that ends early."
"Hmm..."
No one had walked in believing the course would let them forge S-Rank equipment. Even so, the moment they heard from the instructor's own mouth just how modest the gear they could actually expect to make really was, the trainees' faces soured.
Of all things... I had to go and kill the mood on day one.
Abashed by the sagging air, Instructor Kim Cheolhyeon tried to catch their eyes again, plainly hoping to turn the room around.
"There's still something important! On the final day, guests from our partner firms will be coming to evaluate your graduation pieces."
"Partner firms?"
"Yes! If luck is with you, they may look at the equipment you've made and offer a supply contract—or even a contract of employment."
He seemed to feel the change come over their eyes, and added a little more.
"The bar shouldn't be all that high. I understand the Association has already finished its discussions with the partner side."
The moment he stopped, opinions began trading back and forth through the room.
"Partner firms of the Association... those are famous places, every last one of them, aren't they?"
"And shops like that order equipment in bulk! Make a real impression and the next equipment contract might actually be ours to chase!"
They were talking as if the supply contracts were already won, excitement bright in every voice.
Counting their chickens. Open my mouth and I'm the one who gets frozen out, aren't I.
"You don't look very interested, mister."
"Sorry?"
Dohyeon had been picking up the other trainees' chatter with a thoroughly lukewarm ear. At the voice beside him, he turned his head.
"Everyone else is fired up, but you don't seem to care much."
"Ah..."
Baek Jincheol of Geumha Workshop—born with a silver spoon, and a promising B-Rank craftsman in his own right—had been the one to speak.
"It's not that I don't care."
"Ahh, so you've just always been the unflappable sort."
"The money probably won't be as large as people are picturing."
"You think so?"
"These are people who've studied for all of six months. Any hire would be an internship at best. On the supply side, I imagine they'll place a few trial orders and then settle the account at something reasonable."
Dohyeon had been turning it over and setting it out one piece at a time. He flicked a glance at Jincheol.
"It would make a decent lump sum. And that would be the end of it."
"Hmm— the end of it..."
The answer seemed to please him. Jincheol nodded, looking satisfied.
"You really are a little different."
"Different how?"
"You're looking farther ahead than the rest."
There was something of the fortune-teller in the way he said it, and Dohyeon was left speechless.
"Does Geumha Workshop teach divination, too?"
"Oh! So you did know who I was. You sat down next to me looking like you were sizing up the room, and then you never said a word, so I thought I'd read it wrong."
"...I simply liked the seat."
He had come in early for the express purpose of sitting beside Jincheol, and yet, to his surprise, not a single other trainee had been angling for the spot next to the man.
And here I thought I was being natural...
The remark left him pointlessly sheepish. By then the other trainees seemed to have settled as well, and a quiet fell over the lecture hall.
"Haha. Seeing all of you so motivated puts some strength back in me as an instructor. Let's begin the lecture, then."
"Yes!"
A few of the eager ones answered the instructor's pleased smile at the top of their lungs.
"And so, while equipment can be obtained inside the gates as well, if I explain once more why gear you've made yourself tends to be preferred..."
Studying in his high-school days had been nothing but boredom and drowsiness, but studying as a grown man turned out to be more interesting than he had expected.
Hmm— at the same rank, gate-sourced equipment outperforms crafted gear, but you can't choose the options, so the uncertainty is enormous...
Dohyeon had never completed a separate training institute while he worked as an enchanter. All he had finished was the in-house education Cheongeun Workshop ran for its own employees.
Gate-sourced gear won't even take an enchantment, so I never paid it much mind. This is more interesting than I thought.
Cheongeun never taught any of this background, did they. A company, I suppose. That would explain it.
A company held money as its highest good, and so it seemed to have cut away, without hesitation, everything the shop floor didn't strictly need.
If the supply isn't stable and the repairs are a misery, I won't even have to worry about the competition.
As an enchanter the subject had barely registered with him. As a blacksmith in the making, it was genuinely fascinating.
"With that, we'll end the class."
"Thank you for the lesson."
He had been listening so closely that the time slipped past before he noticed.
"For the next class, please go to the practice room on the right side of the lecture hall. Fundamentals of Equipment Crafting will be taught by Chief Instructor Choi Gwangcheol, so do learn well from him."
"Ha— I never dreamed I'd learn how to make equipment from an A-Rank craftsman."
"Think he'd take us on as apprentices if we do well?"
Somewhere along the way they had grown familiar enough to trade chatter on the walk to the practice hall. Watching them go, Dohyeon got to his feet as well.
"Mister."
"I've been wondering since earlier. Why do you keep calling me mister?"
As far as Dohyeon knew, Jincheol was two years younger than he was.
"In the army, doesn't everyone call them mister?"
"...Not after you've been discharged."
"I'm exempt."
"..."
"Anyway, there's something I wanted to run by you."
At those words, a comment from Hunternet flickered back through Dohyeon's mind.
"I heard you were opening a workshop. Already out scouting blacksmiths?"
"Wow. You ought to hang out a fortune-teller's sign, mister. You did get one thing wrong, though. I'm not looking for a blacksmith."
If he wasn't looking for a blacksmith in a blacksmith's training hall, then what was he after?
"Then what?"
"I came looking for an enchanter."
"...So Geumha Workshop is the sort of place that digs into people's backgrounds?"
Having worked at Cheongeun Workshop, Dohyeon knew well enough how far a major company could reach once it decided to move. What he could not get a sense of was what, exactly, Geumha Workshop wanted from him.
"Don't tell me you're planning to use me as an industrial spy...?"
"Puhahaha—"
Dohyeon had gone grave entirely on his own, and at the sight of him Jincheol burst out laughing hard enough to bring tears to his eyes.
"Haha— you're stranger than I expected. It's nothing like that. A while back, Cheongeun Workshop visited ours for a technical exchange, remember? There was someone awfully young in that group, and he stayed with me."
"Ah— I really was the only one in my twenties back then."
Two years earlier, Cheongeun Workshop had dispatched several enchanters to Geumha Workshop for a technical exchange. Thinking on it now, he wondered whether going out of their way to send people all the way to a house famous for high-end equipment hadn't been the first step toward the assistant manager of A-Rank origins that Cheongeun kept on its rolls today.
"Hello? Are you listening?"
"Ah, sorry. I was just back there for a moment."
Even so, it struck him that Cheongeun Workshop had not set its eye on high-end equipment out of nowhere after all.
"So, hyung, you're opening the shop the moment the course is over?"
"I've got a hyung I'm partnering with. We'll probably lock in a real plan once he quits."
Once the misunderstanding had cleared, Dohyeon and Jincheol agreed to drop the formalities with each other.
"I came looking for an enchanter who can actually do the work, and—jackpot. Absolute jackpot."
"It was two years ago, though. I didn't think you'd still remember a face."
"I had a fairly elite education, see. Memorizing clients—show me a face once, and I don't forget it."
Jincheol was twenty-five, two years Dohyeon's junior, and he explained that he had joined the program on the orders of his father, the owner of Geumha Workshop.
"Is it because Master Choi Gwangcheol is here?"
An A-Rank craftsman was all but unheard of outside the masters of the famous workshops. If a chance to learn from one came along, six months would hardly feel like too much to spend.
"Haha, the truth is, we landed the contract for the practice materials on the condition that I lend them my name."
"What?"
It was nothing he had expected to hear, and Dohyeon found himself glancing around for no good reason.
"Is it all right to go telling just anyone that?"
"We did go through every proper channel, actually. The practice materials were put out to bid, same as the other firms."
"Then how did you get in?"
"When they were settling the terms of the partnership, my father slipped me onto the list."
Jincheol explained, but the doubt didn't clear.
"...That still sounds suspicious."
"I interviewed like everyone else, inside the trainee quota."
"Then say it that way from the start."
"Aw, where's the fun in that?"
Creeeak—
With a light shrug, Jincheol opened the door of the practice room and stepped inside.