Soft Iron, Sharp Sword
“So, what you’re saying is you want to skip class legally?”
She had boiled down the four-day plan I’d spent a full thirty minutes explaining into a single line. Without a shred of hesitation, I nodded firmly.
Sluuurp...
Even someone as easygoing as her seemed to find that hard to swallow. She kept sucking on the straw of her empty iced americano, letting out a low hum of displeasure.
“...Shinwoo dongsaeng, you’re a lot more shameless than I thought. Ah, is it okay if I call you Shinwoo dongsaeng?”
I nodded my acceptance. She chewed on the straw a few more times, lips working, then let out a sigh with the first truly troubled expression I’d seen from her.
“Look, Shinwoo dongsaeng? Even if I don’t look it, I’m still the head of the Discipline Committee. I’m the leader of the group that keeps students on the straight and narrow.”
“And?”
What did that have to do with my plan? If we each handled what the other needed, wasn’t that enough?
“Besides, senior, you’re not exactly pinning high hopes on some ‘reward,’ are you? After graduation you’re planning to take over the family guild right away. We’re both short on time.”
“Oho, so you knew that much already.”
The wry smile faded from her face, replaced by something more serious.
The Sirogane Union.
A fairly famous enterprise in Japan. Even with the S-rank guild Blazing Hammer under its umbrella, it focused less on dungeon raids and more on crafting equipment, artifacts, and magic-infused scrolls—a so-called “production guild” company.
Did that mean they left their S-rank manpower idle? Not at all. They were warriors and craftsmen at the same time. They cleared dungeons for self-sufficient materials, hammered away at the forge, researched, built gear, and then took that finished foundation straight back into the next dungeon. Hunting, gathering, crafting—they pushed self-sufficiency to the extreme. In a way, they had seized both romance and reality at once.
...Or so the Japanese consensus on the Sirogane Union went.
But that was only true inside Japan. Ironically, the very reason they were popular domestically was the same reason they could never become a global powerhouse. Balancing every side of the work was nearly impossible. Plenty of people had tried to catch both rabbits and ended up face-down in the dirt. In that sense, the Sirogane Union’s structure was more than a little deformed.
If modern corporations ever got a look at how the Sirogane Union operated, they’d probably marvel that a system still chasing old-fashioned romance had managed to survive this long. Some would call it pure luck. I knew better. Luck alone couldn’t keep something like that afloat. Only the meticulous calculations of an outstanding leader let them light the forge and swing the hammer without worry.
That momentum was ebbing now. The current head of the Sirogane Union—its president, Shirogane Ichiro—had returned from an expedition and immediately collapsed into a hospital bed. In other words, the person who was supposed to steer the company was absent.
Lee Se-rin had told me that for the moment they might scrape by, but the longer it dragged on the more precarious things would become. And once the company crumbled, she intended to swallow it whole. When the president of the Dragonia Group herself declared she would take it, there had to be something valuable inside the Sirogane Union. Something almost certainly tied to the Magic Armor I was planning this time.
Which meant the time left to this woman—Shirogane Rui—was short. She would be running herself ragged trying to plug the gaps her father had left. Lee Se-rin would be watching those gaps, preparing to snatch the group for herself. Rui’s sudden busyness wasn’t coincidence; it was inevitable. And the eldest daughter of the house could hardly be unaware of that fact.
“Shinwoo dongsaeng, do you know our family’s creed?”
The sudden question made me shake my head. How would I know? My blank expression must have said as much, because Shirogane Rui’s lips curved in quiet amusement.
“No matter what happens, never stray from ‘humanity.’ And always be able to stand tall before your own choices.”
She spoke without a trace of shame, the look of someone who lived those words every day.
“The ‘humanity’ I chose means walking the path of a person—straight and true—no matter what comes.”
“A mindset that suits the Discipline Committee perfectly.”
It would snap the moment it hit the real world’s storms, though. I had enough sense not to say that part out loud. I’d seen her type more times than I cared to count, and I knew exactly how their stories usually ended.
“Yeah. But life doesn’t always go the way I want. I’d been feeling it little by little, and coming here made it hit hard. Like, ‘Ah, if I keep this up I’m going to break first~’”
The conversation was drifting. I listened without interest, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, simply closing my eyes. I was tired.
“So I thought it over carefully. Iron that’s only hard snaps easily. Better to start as soft iron—something that doesn’t tire no matter how much you temper it, yet still hardens little by little.”
Clink!
The last of the ice in her empty cup melted and rattled. The cool air vanished, replaced in an instant by a stifling heat. I slowly opened my eyes and studied the person across from me.
The light, easygoing woman from a moment ago was gone. What sat before me now was steel just pulled from the mouth of a furnace—heavy, scorching, and utterly serious. The heat of ambition flickering in those pitch-black eyes swallowed the space around us.
“I wanted to be forged into a single sharp blade that no one could ignore.”
Wanted. Past tense.
She had danced around it, but a blade was still a tool meant to be used. Until now she had been content to be used. That was no longer enough.
What had changed her heart? Simple. Every circumstance, every environment that made her who she was had reshaped her.
...What a pain.
She was telling me, right now, that the old her would have accepted my proposal. The current her was different. She was baring her teeth and declaring that a flimsy little plan like mine could never satisfy her. She had decided to stand on her own as a person. That meant I had to adjust how I treated her as well.
“Your goal?”
“Entry into the Grand Library.”
“Looking for clues about your father’s illness.”
My reply was cold enough that even the honorifics had vanished. Shirogane Rui flinched for a second, then nodded in acknowledgment.
“A simple registration might not get you the answers you want.”
“I never thought I could clear it in a day or two anyway.”
“...So it’s not an ordinary illness.”
No information circulated about the nature of Shirogane Ichiro’s condition. After that final expedition he had completely vanished from public view. Everyone around him had sealed their lips as if it were the most natural thing in the world, making any ordinary investigation nearly impossible. But Lee Se-rin would know. That woman was that kind of existence.
“That’s a secret. If you want to know... will you help noona with her work?”
Sensing an opening in my thoughtful silence, she flipped the mood at once, slipping back into her earlier easy smile. I snorted and closed my eyes again. A quick cost-benefit calculation showed almost nothing in it for me. Even if this went well, there was no guarantee she would uncover the truth of Shirogane Ichiro’s illness. Leave things as they were and her company would still fall into Lee Se-rin’s hands. Everything was about results. Process meant nothing if the outcome was bad. So I always moved for the best possible result. A pleasant process was a bonus; if it wasn’t, I could endure as long as the final result was good.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
I drummed my fingers on the desk. Once it had been a deliberate way to ratchet up the other person’s anxiety. Now it was pure habit—my fingers moved on their own whenever I stood at a crossroads.
Thud!
I stopped the tapping and opened my eyes to look at her.
“Education or real combat—which do you prefer?”
I had changed my speech. The moment she heard I intended to fulfill my duties as an academy student, Shirogane Rui’s face brightened.
“Real combat, obviously!”
Her signature easy, radiant laugh filled the air. I stood at once.
Vmmm!
My device buzzed in response. I checked the contents and, sure enough, a reply had arrived from the person who had been watching this entire conversation. My brow furrowed hard—naturally.
“What’s wrong?”
Sensing something off about the way I had frozen mid-rise, Shirogane Rui leaned in.
“Nothing important.”
I pushed her face away with firm fingers and sighed.
“...Just got chewed out for taking the long way around something that could have been simple.”
Delete this message?
Yes / No
I immediately hit Yes, erased the nonsense, and shoved the device away roughly. Shirogane Rui tilted her head at my irritable display, then seemed to sense on instinct that this was something she shouldn’t poke. She shut her mouth and simply followed behind me.
A wise woman in many ways. Which only made her more of a hassle.
That was exactly why, if I could turn her back into a tool, she would be a tremendous help. A blade that moved on its own with a will of its own was nothing but a liability. Killing that temperament would be a waste, though. So I would keep it. A will that still obeyed its master—not so different from my summons. The only real difference was that this woman could betray me. All I had to do was drive that possibility as close to zero as possible. Reminding myself of that, I operated the device and applied for a dungeon.
Because I had registered as a party, a confirmation alert must have reached her as well. She checked her own device the same way I had and spoke.
“Shinwoo dongsaeng, first-years have third and fourth period as regular classes, right? Applying like this might cause trouble.”
“Is there a problem?”
“No? Noona’s a graduating senior and already has most of her credits. I can focus on this class just fine... but you’re not in the same boat.”
Regular classes. The ones I had chosen were Summoning Arts, Monster Studies, and Exploration. This week’s class was Summoning Arts, but it held no appeal. Once I realized my summoning was fundamentally different from the ordinary kind, that feeling only grew stronger. I still needed to attend Monster Studies and Exploration regularly for information on monsters I hadn’t discovered yet, but for Summoning Arts I would learn far more wrestling with the Book of Summoning and the Book of Combination than listening to that cat professor.
“...It doesn’t matter.”
“Which means it does matter, you know~”
She wore a troubled smile yet still diligently pressed confirm on the application. I snorted. The head of the organization that was supposed to correct wrongdoing more than anyone else was turning a blind eye. For all her talk, she had effectively become an accomplice. Corruption—serious corruption. The Discipline Committee had fallen too. If this ever got out at school, things would get entertaining.
“Shinwoo dongsaeng~ Has anyone ever told you your insides are pitch-black?”
“Hurry up. We’re short on time.”
“Oho, changing the subject here, are we~”
She kept muttering “How troublesome, how troublesome~” and laughing that knowing “nishishi” laugh as if she saw right through me. I didn’t like it. Ignoring Shirogane Rui’s empty, repeated attempts to soothe my sour mood, I headed for the dungeon entrance.
Our destination was the B-rank dungeon Cold Land of Lamentation.