A Blessing from the Heavens
Well, well. Would you look at that?
With that little experience, the bead usually warped, or a hole punched through in some random spot. But this twenty-three-year-old kid named Cheol-woo was laying down welds with a skill far beyond anything Taeseok had expected.
A faint smile tugged at the corner of Cheol-woo's mouth. And before much time had passed at all, he set down the welding rod.
"I'm finished."
Already?
Taeseok checked the clock. Barely three minutes had gone by. This was a job that took him ten minutes at the very least, and the kid had wrapped it up in three.
"R-right… Let me take a look…"
Taeseok slowly inspected Cheol-woo's work.
What the hell? Why is this so good…?
No heat distortion. No burn-through from too much current. No incomplete fusion. The weld itself was immaculate. Better than expected. No — at this level, it was genuinely excellent.
Cheol-woo asked, his face expressionless.
"Is it acceptable?"
"Acceptable…? Wait, you really only have one year of experience? This is way too good…"
Taeseok turned the stainless plate this way and that, marveling at it all over again.
"Wow. This is really something. Are you sure you've only been doing this for a year?"
"So, would it be all right if I started tomorrow?"
At Cheol-woo's question, Taeseok shook his head.
"Tomorrow? Forget tomorrow. Can you start today? I'll talk to the boss."
"As long as I get paid for the day, I don't mind."
Taeseok wasn't the owner, but with skill like this, the boss would give the green light on the spot.
Damn. We just landed one hell of a guy!
A sigh escaped Han Seong-hoon, the president of Seil Tech.
"Haa…"
The reason was simple. There was no shortage of welding work — the shortage was of decent welders. Especially since one of the welding staff had quit the month before, Seil Tech had been running on Taeseok alone. Until now they had scraped by with overtime and with Boss Han pitching in himself, but they were hitting a wall.
He had raised wages more than once, and still finding a welder worth hiring was like plucking stars from the sky. Today, for the first time in a long while, a new applicant had shown up. He wasn't expecting much.
I'm not counting on the welding skill… I'd settle for someone who actually shows up and works…
A certificate was a certificate, but the kid was twenty-three. There was no way he had any real welding experience.
"I'd be lucky if he can even assist…"
That was when the office door flew open without so much as a knock, and Taeseok strode in. He planted himself in front of the desk, his face lit up, and all but shouted.
"Boss! This is huge!"
"Would it kill you to knock when you come in… Haa. Forget it."
"Ah, sorry. But I'm telling you, this is really huge!"
"You barge in here yelling 'huge' — huge how?"
"That new kid from a little while ago!"
At the word that the new hire was a jackpot, a flicker of hope rose in Boss Han.
"Yeah…? So he's decent, at least?"
"Decent doesn't cover it. This kid is not normal. A weld that takes me over ten minutes — he finished it in three, I'm telling you."
It was too much to believe. Boss Han asked again.
"What…? Is that true?"
"Yes! I'm serious. Honestly, he was better than the instructor at the welding academy I went to."
Taeseok talked a lot and came off a little light, but the kid had a real gift for welding. He was good enough to walk into any other shop and start working the next day. If even he was talking like this, the new hire was far better than anyone had imagined.
"So, Boss. I already told him to start today. That's all right, yeah?"
Boss Han nodded.
"Fine. If you're going that far, I'll take a look at him."
Taeseok headed out, still marveling under his breath, his voice bright with excitement.
"Man… How does a twenty-three-year-old weld like that? Did he win a medal at the WorldSkills Competition or something?"
Boss Han watched him go, frowning in disbelief.
That young kid welds that well?
This, he decided, he would have to see with his own two eyes.
The next day, thirty minutes before closing.
Boss Han slipped quietly into the factory and made his way toward the station where Taeseok usually welded. On a normal day, Taeseok would have been pouring sweat, buried in work. Instead he was sipping coffee, looking perfectly at ease.
Taeseok spotted him, set the cup down, and greeted him.
"Ah, Boss. You're here."
"Where's that kid from yesterday? Don't tell me he didn't show."
The young man Taeseok had raved about was nowhere in sight. A knot of unease tightened in Boss Han's chest. Skill was one thing. Showing up was another.
Kids these days quit after a single day all the time…
The worry was wasted.
"Ah, I sent him on a quick errand."
"An errand? What kind of errand?"
Right on cue, Cheol-woo came back carrying a box.
"Is this the one, sunbae?"
"That's it. Not bad for your first time finding the place. Good work."
Cheol-woo set the box down, noticed Boss Han, and bowed.
"Good afternoon, sir."
"Mm. Yeah. Work treating you all right?"
"Yes, sir. It's manageable."
Something was off, though.
Wait a second.
The box Cheol-woo had just brought in. The parts inside it were not what they were supposed to be welding right now. Boss Han turned to Taeseok, a thread of irritation in his voice.
"Taeseok. Not these — I told you the Daesung Tech order has to go out first."
He had said it more than once. Scatterbrained Taeseok had forgotten again, he figured. The answer he got was not the one he expected.
"Come on, Boss. The Daesung Tech job's already done. Look over there."
"What…?"
Where Taeseok was pointing, the pieces sat fully welded, waiting only to be shipped.
He already finished all of this?
Taeseok clapped Cheol-woo on the shoulder.
"Boss. This kid is really not ordinary. I thought he was just good at welding, but his hands are fast, too. And more than anything, he's actually diligent, you know? I tell him to take a break and he won't listen."
Boss Han stared at him, struggling to believe it.
"Hold on. You're telling me this was done properly? This is five days of work, easy. And you finished all of it in two days?"
"Sheesh. If you're that suspicious, go look at it yourself."
Boss Han did as he was told. He walked over to the finished pieces and checked the work.
And then—
What is this? Why is it this good…?
He was no welding expert, but even an amateur could see it. This was welding at a genuinely perfect level.
If anything, work this clean should take longer…
Boss Han looked back at Taeseok, still unable to quite accept it, and asked again.
"You… you're telling me you and the new kid did all of this? The two of you? In that little time?"
Taeseok scratched his head.
"It's a little embarrassing to admit, but Cheol-woo's way better than I am. I was basically just assisting from the side."
The surprises kept coming. A twenty-three-year-old turning out welds this perfect, at a speed that made no sense — this was a blessing that had dropped straight out of the sky.
The one who had actually done the work, meanwhile, sat there looking as if it were nothing at all, sipping the coffee Taeseok had poured him.
This coffee's good.
Olympus had just about every kind of food you could name, but coffee was one of the few things it didn't have.
Maybe Zeus just hated the stuff?
Either way, the first cup I'd had in a hundred years was nothing more than a cheap packet of instant mix, and it was still impossibly sweet and fragrant.
Is that really something to get this excited about, though…?
The boss kept marveling over the welds I'd done across yesterday and this morning. Honestly, I hadn't even been trying that hard. Compared to my days in the Gods' Workshop, I had taken it pretty easy — and still both the boss and Taeseok were singing my praises.
If I actually put my mind to it, I could go a lot faster than this…
In the Gods' Workshop I had been the only one making and repairing things for every god on Olympus, so speed hadn't been optional. About seventy years back, Poseidon had ordered me to fix his broken chariot in thirty minutes flat, and I had genuinely started wondering whether there was a way to kill a god.
Ugh… I should've punched a hole in that bastard's chariot before I left.
And so I kept working, right up until the end of break. It was tedious, sure — but it was the same work I had done for a hundred years. For me, it was just another stretch of ordinary days.
And still, the daily wage was 210,000 won. Compared to any other part-time job, the number was almost indecently attractive. There was a backlog of work besides, so I could come in on weekends too. Weekends paid an extra 100,000 won a day on top. Thanks to all that, the pay slip I received after a month of work was more than I had imagined.
Oh…
I had barely taken a day off, but I had never expected to take home this much.
This should cover tuition and still leave a decent amount left over.
That was when Taeseok came in from a morning run of outside errands.
"I'm back. Man, the traffic was brutal. Barely made it. We should start the afternoon work— huh?"
He took one look at the afternoon load, already finished, and stared.
"Wait. Wasn't this the morning batch? You already finished it?"
"Yes. It just wrapped up early once I got going."
"Wow… I've never seen anyone like you. How do you weld that clean and that perfect and still go that fast?"
"Is that so."
"Man, I wish I were even half as good as you."
Taeseok sat down and looked over at me.
"Cheol-woo. Why don't you just drop school and stay on? The pay here's decent, you know that. The work's hard, sure, but there aren't many shops in the industrial complex that pay like this."
"Ahaha… I'll think about it."
I said I would think about it. I could not actually quit school. For me, right now, family came first, no matter what anyone said. If I told my mother I was dropping out, she would break down in tears on the spot.
"Nngh… Then maybe I'll knock out tomorrow's work fast too and take a break."
Taeseok was just getting up to grab the afternoon materials when the boss walked into the factory.
"Cheol-woo. Got a minute. Come to the office."
"You wanted to see me, sir."
"Cheol-woo. You said you were only working until the semester started, right? When's that?"
"The third of next month."
Boss Han thought for a moment, then asked,
"You're not on campus every day of the week, are you?"
"No, sir. Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Three days."
So he can come in two weekdays, then.
That was enough. He had to lock this kid down.
"Cheol-woo. Then how about coming in three days a week — Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday?"
"……Hmm…"
It's not like I couldn't…
Cheol-woo hesitated. Tuition was already taken care of, but given how things were at home, the offer was hardly a bad one. The moment Boss Han caught that flicker of indecision, he put a better number on the table.
"Of course, I know how well you work now. I'm not talking about the same pay as before."
He held up one hand and spread three fingers.
Three hundred thousand won a day for a twenty-three-year-old welder was an outrageous figure. Even so, paying it didn't sting in the slightest.
To match the volume Cheol-woo puts out, I'd have to hire five people anyway.
A man doing the work of five, and a fifty percent raise was supposed to be a problem? On top of that, the welds were so clean and so perfect it almost didn't seem real.
At the number thirty, Cheol-woo ran the math in his head at speed.
Three hundred thousand a day? Three days a week… that's nine hundred thousand. Over three million a month.
For a part-time job, that was more than enough — overflowing, even. And the hours weren't that long. Finish early, and he could leave early.
Not bad at all.
From Cheol-woo's side, there was no reason to refuse.
"All right. I'll do it."
The words were barely out of his mouth before Boss Han's face filled with a smile.