Strength Assist Gloves
Grandpa couldn’t put the glowing copper plate down for a long while.
He tilted it forward.
Turned it over.
Even rubbed the surface with his fingers.
The light never faded.
“Ihyeon.”
“Yeah.”
“Has art education changed a lot these days without me noticing?”
“Maybe?”
“So when you draw a picture, copper plates start glowing too?”
I didn’t answer.
Fortunately, Grandpa didn’t press further.
Instead he watched from the side as I began sketching the gloves.
On the back of the hand, a circuit to gather mana.
On the fingers, metal joints to transmit force.
I would also need a support structure running from the wrist up the forearm.
If I only strengthened the fingers, the wrist would snap first.
There was one more problem.
In my previous life, strength-amplifying gear used the wearer’s own mana as fuel.
I had never Awakened.
It wasn’t that my body held no mana at all—I simply couldn’t sense it or move it.
Drawing an ordinary amplification circuit would leave me with nothing but a heavy ornament.
So I pulled in the collection circuit I had engraved on the copper plate.
Gather ambient mana from the surroundings.
Store it briefly, then release it all at once the moment the hand moved.
The principle was similar to a modern rechargeable power tool.
If I couldn’t handle mana myself, the equipment would charge it for me.
It was a method the master craftsmen of my past life would never have thought of.
To them, mana was as natural as breathing.
More important than increasing strength was building a body that could withstand that strength.
My body was still eight years old.
A very fragile eight years old.
One wrong stroke on a mana circuit and my fingers might fly off before the hammer ever did.
That would be inconvenient.
Without fingers, I couldn’t smith.
“Why did you draw this part so long?”
Grandpa pointed at the piece that extended up the forearm.
“I have to distribute the impact.”
“To where?”
“Between the wrist and the elbow.”
“And this little glove is going to make you stronger too?”
“Yeah.”
“How?”
“That’s…”
I stopped the pen.
Gather mana, then pass it through the amplification circuit.
The amplified force splits five ways from the central axis on the back of the hand.
That force moves the fingers, and the leftover shock is bled off into the forearm supports.
The explanation itself wasn’t hard.
The problem was that it wasn’t an explanation an eight-year-old should be giving.
“It just works.”
“I see.”
Grandpa nodded obediently.
He didn’t look like he believed me.
I found the materials inside the ironworks.
Thin copper plate.
Leftover scraps of stainless steel.
Small springs and an old leather glove.
There were plenty of usable things.
Not a single one was the right size.
“Your hands are so small.”
“They’ll get bigger soon.”
“Grandpa knows that, but this glove isn’t going to wait for them.”
In the end Grandpa unpicked every stitch of the old glove.
He cut the leather to fit my hand and sewed it back together.
I called out the measurements from the side.
“Shorten the index finger side by two millimeters.”
“Two millimeters?”
“Yeah. If the joint axis is off, the force will leak.”
“Right.”
Grandpa’s answers grew a little shorter.
I found the part for storing mana in a discarded small motor.
Inside the motor, fine copper wire was wound hundreds of times.
In my previous life, storage units were made by stacking layers of copper plate.
But this was far smaller and lighter.
I pointed at the coil inside the motor with my finger.
“Take this out for me.”
“Didn’t you bring the motor because you wanted to use it?”
“Yeah. What I need is inside.”
Grandpa looked back and forth between the motor and me.
“Heh. So the coil was the goal from the start.”
“Yeah. That’s all I need.”
Grandpa let out a short laugh.
The extracted coil went under the copper plate on the back of the hand.
A modern motor part became a mana storage unit.
It suited the design better than I’d expected.
Making the metal joints was even more intense.
Before I could even state the thickness, Grandpa brought over a vernier caliper.
When I said the name of the tool as if it were the most natural thing in the world, his hands stopped.
“Ihyeon.”
“What?”
“Where did you learn this?”
“The internet.”
“The internet teaches you this too?”
Grandpa tapped the measurements I had written down with his finger.
Metal elasticity.
Allowable angles for each joint.
Even the direction force should escape when impact arrived—everything was noted.
The internet was great.
But no matter how great it was, it apparently didn’t teach things like this to eight-year-olds.
“…Yeah.”
“Our little puppy doesn’t look Grandpa in the eyes when she lies.”
I shut my mouth.
Grandpa didn’t push me.
He simply brought a small chair over to the workbench and sat down beside me.
“Grandpa is glad our Ihyeon is so smart.”
His large hand slowly stroked my head.
“But sometimes I worry because you’re too smart.”
“…Why?”
“I’m afraid you’ll get hurt doing something alone.”
It wasn’t a scolding voice.
That made it even harder to answer.
If I told him about my past life, he wouldn’t believe me.
Even if he did, I wouldn’t know where to start explaining.
That I used to be older than Grandpa?
That I used to be a man?
That I had been the greatest blacksmith on the continent?
Any of those would be more than enough to make a grandfather worry about his granddaughter’s future.
“I’ll tell you someday.”
After a long moment of thought, that was what I said.
Grandpa’s hand paused briefly.
“All right.”
Soon he was stroking my head again.
“When our Ihyeon feels like talking, you tell me. Grandpa will wait.”
“Okay.”
“But let’s make one promise.”
Grandpa held out his pinky.
“Don’t do dangerous things alone.”
“…Got it.”
I hooked my pinky around his.
It was a form of contract I had never tried even across my previous life.
It felt like it would have pretty strong binding power.
Completing the gloves took three weekends.
Grandpa cut the metal and drilled the holes.
I checked positions and angles from the side.
He engraved the circuits.
Every time he drew a single straight line, he asked if it matched what I wanted.
The first time, the lines were a little too deep.
The second time, a corner encroached on the circuit.
Only on the third copper plate did I get the shape I wanted.
If he had been a disciple from my previous life, I would have driven him out the moment he ruined the first plate.
But Grandpa wasn’t my disciple.
More importantly, he bought me snacks.
I decided to be a generous master.
Assembly didn’t finish in one go either.
The first joint only let the finger bend halfway.
The metal axis sat about two millimeters ahead of my actual joint.
The second one moved properly.
Instead, the leather tore the moment I made a fist.
Clack.
Rip.
My palm was completely exposed.
“….”
“….”
Grandpa and I stared at the ruined glove in silence.
“Ihyeon.”
“Yeah.”
“Grandpa didn’t like that sound just now.”
Neither did I.
It was lucky the circuit hadn’t gone in yet.
We attached small latches so the fingers couldn’t fold past a certain angle.
We also put return springs in every joint so they would open on their own when the force cut off.
From the outside it looked like a simple glove.
Inside, two layers of devices protected my fingers.
Finally I fitted the small copper plate onto the back of the glove.
The mana collection circuit and the amplification circuit connected.
A faint blue light flowed along the metal joints of the fingers.
It was finished.
Honestly, the exterior wasn’t impressive.
Silver metal pieces were stuck all over the brown leather in patches.
The copper plate sat fully exposed on the back of the hand.
If I tried to deliver this to the royal palace, I’d be chased off at the gate.
But appearance wasn’t what mattered right now.
I pushed my right hand into the glove.
Tightened the leather straps and fixed the forearm supports.
I slowly bent my fingers.
Clack.
The metal joints moved.
A beat late.
I opened my hand again.
Clack.
A little faster this time.
The circuit was starting to follow my movements.
Grandpa stood beside the workbench looking more tense than I was.
“If it hurts, take it off right away.”
“Got it.”
“If anything feels even a little off, say so immediately.”
“Okay.”
“If your fingers tingle or get hot—”
“Grandpa.”
“What?”
“I need to concentrate.”
“…Right.”
I looked at the hammer lying on the workbench.
Last time I hadn’t even been able to lift it properly with one hand.
I gripped the handle.
The moment I closed my fingers, the metal joints added their strength.
The hammer left the workbench.
It was light.
It couldn’t compare to the hammers I had used in my previous life.
Still, my wrist didn’t fold the way it had before.
I raised the hammer to shoulder height.
“Ihyeon?”
Grandpa’s voice trembled.
Instead of answering, I brought the hammer down.
Clang!
A clear metallic ring filled the ironworks.
A sharp mark was left on the iron test piece clamped in the vise.
The wrist supports bled the impact through my entire forearm.
It didn’t hurt.
My fingers were fine too.
I set the hammer down and clenched my fist.
Clack.
An eight-year-old’s hand had lifted an adult-sized hammer.
Success.
“I did it.”
Joy made me smile without thinking.
Grandpa smiled too.
Then he quietly slid the hammer over to his side of the bench.
“We agreed you’d only do it once today.”
He was quick on the uptake.
That was when an unfamiliar voice came from the entrance of the ironworks.
“Boss, are you in?”
Grandpa hurriedly pulled the glove off my hand.
He even remembered to cover the copper plate on the back with a work cloth.
A moment later a man in a dust-stained jacket stepped inside.
A Hunter Association registration badge hung at his waist.
“I’m sorry, but we’re not open for business anymore.”
“I know. Still, could you take a look at a repair just this once?”
The man set a long bag on the workbench.
When the zipper opened, a sword broken cleanly in two came into view.
The blade looked like iron, but it wasn’t iron.
Faint mana was leaking from the fractured cross-section.
Without realizing it, I stepped closer to the workbench.
It was equipment that had come out of the Tower.