A Hundred-Year Promise

"Oh, this is truly magnificent! Perfect!"

The voice rolled like thunder. Zeus turned the sword I had handed him over in his hands, examining it from every angle, and the look on his face was one of pure satisfaction. That blade was no ordinary piece of work — of everything I had ever forged, it was the masterpiece.

"You're satisfied, then?"

"Satisfied? I'm more than satisfied! Even Hephaestus couldn't make a sword like this. Only you, Cheolwoo — only you could have made this! At this level, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say you've surpassed him."

I set the hammer I was holding down on the workbench and made my request.

"Then I ask that you keep your promise now, Lord Zeus."

"Hmm... so you still remember that promise."

I nodded quietly.

"Yes. Today marks exactly one hundred years since you made it."

Everything had begun a hundred years ago. An accident I never saw coming had carried me to a place called the Gods' Workshop. By a twist of fate, it was the very moment its master, Hephaestus, had vanished for reasons of his own. In the instant my body was about to scatter like dust, Zeus made me an offer I could not refuse.

"Work in this Gods' Workshop for a hundred years, and I will return you to the world you came from."

Death, or a century of labor. The choice had already been made.

"Ha — I'll do it! I accept!"

For the first few years, I could not produce a single thing that pleased the gods. Most of them ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠were generous enough not to punish a man simply for failing to make something properly. But gods, like people, were not all the same. One of them, unhappy with a spear I had forged, put me through days of water torture.

Even ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠now, just thinking about it sets my teeth on edge.

In the end, all I could do was study the books Hephaestus had left behind and learn without rest. Whether I had a talent I myself had never known, my skill grew steadily, and by the time thirty years had passed I stood on even ground with Hephaestus, the blacksmith of the gods. Perhaps the things I had picked up over my father's shoulder in the old workshop he ran when I was a boy had helped more than I realized.

I actually lasted the full hundred years...

"Lasted" made it sound worse than it was. It had not been a physically grueling stretch of time. There was no modern civilization, true, but I had not worked from dawn to dusk, I had been given ample hours of my own, and there were pleasures there that the modern world simply did not offer. Even so, my heart had never wanted anything except to go home.

Zeus pulled me out of my thoughts and tried once more to change my mind.

"Are you truly going back there? Things have been rough over there lately. Not sure if you remember, but what with the economic crisis and the environmental crisis, it's a complete mess. How about this ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠instead? I'll give you a seat as an apprentice god. And if you keep running this workshop as brilliantly as you have for another hundred years, I'll give you Hephaestus's vacant place on Mount Olympus."

It was an extraordinary offer. Hephaestus was no ordinary deity — he was one of the chief gods of Olympus. In other words, Zeus was telling me that if I ground myself down here for one more century, the seat of an Olympian would be mine.

A chief god of Olympus. Tempting, I'll give him that.

But—

"I'm sorry. I have never once forgotten my home, or my family."

A hundred years was a long time. And yet, perhaps because of Olympus's strange relationship with time, I had not forgotten my family's faces even once.

"Well, I'll be..."

"Please, Lord Zeus."

As if a man who trades in the people he loves every other day could ever understand this kind of family affection.

Zeus let out a long sigh.

"Haa... nothing I can do about it. A promise is a promise."

He waved a hand through the empty air, and a blue gate unfurled open.

"Step through that, and you'll arrive at the scene of the accident. I'll see to it you're healed, of course. You won't die."

"Thank you, Lord Zeus."

I offered him my last words of gratitude, then gave a final tidy to the Gods' Workshop where I had spent a hundred years. It had been a long time, but I held no grudge. Without those years, I would have been dead. If anything, that century had taken the reckless twenty-three-year-old Kang Cheolwoo and forged him into a man of quiet ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠composure.

I was finishing the last of the cleanup when familiar voices drifted in.

"Cheolwoo! You can't leave without looking at my bow! If it isn't one you made, there's just no joy in shooting it!"

"Hey, Kang Cheolwoo! Don't you see how worn out my soles are? If you don't fix these, I'll chase you all the way back to that world of yours!"

"Cheolwoo! Where do you think you're going? Just come to the Underworld already! I'm not petty like that Zeus fellow! I'll give you the second seat of the Underworld right now! Hey — if you're gone, who's going to make my furniture?!"

The gods, trying to hold me back. It felt a little like being discharged from the army. I bowed my head to them one last time, and they seemed to sense the farewell at last, because they began to see me off in turn.

"Take care of yourself, Kang Cheolwoo!"

"Thanks for everything."

"Go live well!"

And last of all, Hades — the one who had commissioned more work from me than anyone — offered his goodbye.

"What's so wonderful about a mortal life that you'd go back there? Anyway — if you're going back, you'd better enjoy it properly. It'll only be a fleeting moment, but live it happily. Once you're dead, I'll put you through hell for real."

I bowed to them once more and stepped into the gate.

"Thank you for these hundred years. I'll be going now."

I passed through the gate and opened my eyes. The place I found was no longer the Gods' Workshop on Olympus where I had spent a hundred years. It was South Korea — the country I had thought I might already have forgotten.

A white ceiling. A thicket of IV lines in my arm.

A hospital, then...

"Nngh..."

I clutched my head and pushed myself up from the bed, and a nurse cried out.

"Patient Kang Cheolwoo? Are you with us?!"

She snatched up her phone at once and called someone.

A moment later a thoroughly exhausted-looking doctor came running in. He examined me from head to toe, then spoke with a look of genuine astonishment.

"This is really something. You collided with a truck that size and walked away like this? You were incredibly lucky."

"Does that mean I can be discharged?"

The doctor kept shoving his slipping glasses back up his nose as he scanned the chart.

Hm? What's this?

"Outwardly there doesn't seem to be anything wrong, but just to be safe, stay one more day and we'll run a full workup."

"Ah. Yes, I understand."

I glanced at his glasses. The frames were bent every which way.

A doctor, and his glasses look like that?

He turned and headed for the nurses' desk, where he promptly caught an earful.

"Dr. Tae-yoon. Please get those glasses fixed. They've been like that for two weeks already. Aren't they uncomfortable?"

The doctor accepted the coffee she handed him and let out a sigh.

"Huu... I'd love to get them fixed. You have no idea how uncomfortable they are. But when am I supposed to find the time? I've already lost count of how many night shifts I've pulled this week alone... I'm dying, I really am."

That's going to bother me...

A hundred years in the Gods' Workshop had apparently left me with a habit of sticking my nose where it didn't belong. I caught the doctor before he could leave.

"Excuse me, Doctor."

"Yes? Was there something else?"

"Could I take a look at your glasses for a moment?"

"Pardon?"

After a century at the workbench, I simply could not walk past something that broken. I put on the most harmless smile I could manage.

"The bend's been bothering me. I'll have them fixed in no time. I may not look it, but I'm quite good at this sort of thing."

"What? No, you really don't have to..."

I smiled again and pressed a little further.

"Ten minutes is all I need. Why don't you step out to the restroom?"

He looked doubtful for a beat, then slipped the glasses off and held them out.

"Well then..."

The moment I had them, I swept the area with a hawk's eye for anything I could use as a tool. There — a small pair of tweezers on the desk beside me.

"I'll just borrow these."

I took the tweezers and set to work with practiced hands. Simply bending the frames back into shape was something anyone could do. But...

I've got a Gods' Workshop resume. Just putting them back the way they were feels a little cheap...

I decided to put my real specialty to work.

If I only restore them, they'll just bend again before long.

The biggest reason the glasses had warped was that they did not fit this man's face. Of course they had bent. They had never matched the shape of his head to begin with.

He grabbed whatever was handy and called it good, using how busy he was as an excuse.

I began adjusting the frames so they would settle onto the doctor's face as comfortably as if they had been made for him. I had wondered, coming back to Korea, whether the memories or the skills might vanish. Fortunately — a parting courtesy from Zeus, perhaps — everything from the Gods' Workshop remained intact: the memories, and the craft along with them.

The nose bridge... then the temples... and last of all...

It was not a long job. The tools were different, so it could never be quite the same as working in the Gods' Workshop, but tinkering with a pair of glasses was nothing. I set the tweezers down and checked the clock. Not even five minutes had passed.

"Go ahead and try them."

I handed the finished glasses back to the doctor.

"Ah... thank you."

Still looking unconvinced, he put them on. The instant the frames settled into place, his expression did a complete one-eighty.

"Huh...?"

"Well? How do they feel?"

"Wow!? How did you do this? I mean — they're incredibly comfortable!"

"Comfortable is good. I'm glad."

He kept taking them off and putting them back on, as if he could not quite believe it.

"You barely touched them. How did you make them like this?"

"I looked at your face, your nose, the shape of your ears, and adjusted them to match. It isn't that difficult."

"You did that from a glance?!"

That was the first rule I had learned in the Gods' Workshop.

I've made things for gods more times than I can count. A pair of glasses is nothing.

The doctor kept trying the glasses this way and that, marveling at how they felt.

"Wow. Thank you so much. How are they this comfortable? Of every pair I've worn in my life, these are the best!"

"From now on, no matter how busy you are, buy glasses that actually fit your face. These were never the right pair for you to begin with."

"Ah, no wonder... they'd felt off since the day I bought them... Anyway, thank you. Truly!"

Still pouring out his thanks, the doctor left.

That aside...

A hundred years had passed, and yet the world was familiar to a startling degree.

So this is what Zeus meant when he said time flowed differently.

"What was I even doing when I had that accident..."

I remembered colliding with the truck. What I had been doing in the moment before I hit it was a blur.

"Hrm..."

I turned it over and over and still came up empty.

"Forget it. The truck driver or the insurance company will be in touch soon enough."

It was a person-versus-truck accident. The odds that it had been my fault were close to nothing. I set the tweezers back on the desk and lay down on the bed.

Compared to a hundred years, it hardly even matters...

Perhaps it was the century I had lived through, but I no longer got worked up over much of anything.

And then, from somewhere nearby, came a voice I had missed more than I could say.

"Cheolwoo!!! Doctor! Where's my Cheolwoo? Where is my Cheolwoo?!"

A voice I had never once forgotten, not in a hundred years.

My mother's voice.