A Craftsman Never Compromises
Let's take another look.
I sat down first and pulled the Japanese-made medical instruments from my bag, examining them one by one. Even on a second pass, they weren't poorly made. By ordinary standards, you could even call them well-crafted.
Through a master's eyes, though, they were riddled with problems.
The hemostatic forceps scissors had a subtle but unmistakable weight bias. A millimeter? No — the center of gravity is sitting about 1.5 millimeters too far back. At that offset, any surgeon with a sensitive hand would feel it every time they closed the blades.
The rest of the set was no better. The dissecting scalpel had a mismatch in vibrational frequency between the blade and the handle. That discrepancy would throw off a hair-fine tremor in the middle of an operation, needling at the surgeon's nerves with every cut. And then there was the material itself. Most medical instruments were forged from medical-grade titanium, which was fine as far as it went — but if you wanted something truly exceptional, you needed a different alloy ratio entirely.
Maybe it was because these were tools that saved lives. For some reason, working on medical instruments always lit a fire under me that nothing else quite matched.
And then, as if on cue, a text arrived from the doctor — photographs, video, and a rough set of hand measurements.
Just as I thought. They don't match his hands at all. The originals were made too large. These need to come down a size.
I filed Professor Park Sang-jin's measurements away in my head and went straight to work. It's been a while. Time to really show what these hands can do.
A few hours slipped by, and the first instrument was nearly done. It was autumn, but I was soaked through with sweat. Even so, after so long away from a proper forge, the work didn't feel like labor. If anything, it was fun.
Guess I'm fated to live like this for the rest of my life.
I turned the first-draft hemostatic forceps scissors over in my hands. Not bad...
The material had been the first thing I'd changed. These were medical tools, which meant one rule sat above every other: the alloy had to be harmless to the human body. That was non-negotiable. Let's try the ratio I used on Olympus.
Unlike the Japanese set, I cut the titanium back a fraction and folded in more zirconium and niobium. I only had the luxury of experimenting like that because the company kept sample stock of every metal under the sun for testing.
I closed my hand around the finished pair and gave them a trial cut.
A whisper of steel through air.
Ohh...
The precision and the bite of the blades were in a different league from the old set — no comparison at all. And because Soul had settled into the metal, the durability was frankly absurd. With these alloys, that kind of toughness doesn't make sense unless Soul is holding it together. I couldn't say for certain, but these would serve for centuries without breaking a sweat.
"Hmm..."
There was still something off. The way they sat in the hand. Held like this, they would be just slightly wrong for Professor Park. They would still be several times more comfortable than anything that had come out of Japan — but I had a century on Olympus behind me, and this was not a standard I could accept.
No helping it.
It was a fine piece of work. It was also a failure. It could have sold for several million won without anyone batting an eye, and I dumped it in the scrap bin without a second thought.
What good is a craftsman who compromises?
It was one of the lines written in the Books of Hephaestus.
The hour was later than I'd meant it to be, but that was fine. I'd already told them I'd be home late. I bent back over the work.
This time, take the size down a little, and shift the center of gravity forward by about 0.7 millimeters.
Clang. Bang. All through that night, the factory rang with the endless friction of metal being worked.
"Cheolwoo! Kang Cheolwoo!"
"Nngh..."
A noisy voice dragged my eyes open, and standing over me was Taeseok, my senior at the company.
"Don't tell me you slept here."
"Huh...?"
I rubbed my eyes and looked around. This wasn't home. It was the little Rakuraku Bed tucked in a corner of the office. ...Must have dozed off in the middle of making them.
Today was the third day — the deadline I'd promised — and I'd been so locked in that I'd apparently fallen asleep over the work. I stretched, then dipped my head in apology.
"I'm sorry. I had something I needed to make, and I only meant to close my eyes for a second. I must have dropped off."
"Eh, nothing to be sorry for. But what were you making, anyway?"
Come to think of it...
I glanced behind me and, to my relief, the finished medical instruments were sitting right where I'd left them. I picked them up carefully and held them out.
"What's this — scissors?"
"Medical scissors."
"Medical scissors? Cheolwoo, you know how to make this kind of thing too?"
I started tidying the space around me as I answered.
"I picked up a bit of this and that as a hobby."
"Man... that's something else. I'm already maxed out just doing the welding."
The look he gave me was genuine respect, and it sat a little heavy on my shoulders. That's a bit much.
I packed the instruments into my bag and glanced over at him.
"If you've got time later, I could show you a few things."
His face lit up.
"You serious? You sure that's okay?"
"Of course. A little at a time, whenever it works."
A skill doesn't wear out just because you share it. And without patience and real hours in the hands, being taught wouldn't make it easy anyway. If he's got the talent and the grit, he'll pick it up. If he doesn't, there's nothing to be done about it.
I left Taeseok grinning behind me, caught a bus, and headed for the emergency room where I'd been admitted last time. Let's see...
I'd been half-afraid the doctor wouldn't be there. For better or worse, he was at his post.
"Dr. Jae-hyuk."
The moment I said his name, he came hurrying over with a glad look on his face.
"Cheolwoo — what are you doing here? Did someone get hurt?"
I drew the medical instruments from my bag and held them out.
"The tools from last time. They're finished."
He took them, and his eyes went wide.
"W-wait — you actually finished these in three days?"
"Yes. Once I sat down and concentrated, it went faster than I expected."
He bowed his head, the thanks coming out in a rush.
"Thank you so much. I never imagined you'd have them done this quickly."
"I was the one who offered."
"May I take them out and look?"
I nodded.
"Be my guest."
Dr. Jae-hyuk drew the hemostatic forceps scissors first and turned them over in his hands. A moment later, a low sound of wonder escaped him.
"Wow... these are beyond anything I pictured. I don't have that much surgical experience myself, but even just looking at them, they don't even belong in the same conversation as the ones from Japan."
Well, yeah. Stacking what I make against those is a little unfair. It might have been a slightly arrogant thought, but I'd been making things for far longer than those craftsmen had. It was only natural.
"And maybe it's just how good they feel, but holding these, I get this sense that my surgeries would go better too."
That's the Soul, most likely. Soul raised an object's durability, among other things — but these were medical instruments, so the effect that would matter most was a sharpening of the user's focus in the middle of an operation. A kind of in-game buff, basically.
He took out the rest of the set one piece at a time, turning each in his hands, and marveled all over again.
"This needle holder is incredible too — and wow, the bite on this scalpel is no joke..."
The true worth of these instruments, though, was something Dr. Jae-hyuk would never be able to feel.
"Doctor — do they feel a little awkward in your hand?"
He looked briefly flustered, then gave a small nod.
"Ah — yes, actually, they do, a bit. B-but with quality like this..."
I smiled.
"Don't worry about it. These were made for Professor Park Sang-jin and no one else. Of course they wouldn't sit right in your hands."
"I'm sorry — you actually fitted them to Professor Park's hands?"
"Yes. Sized and shaped to his hands, and I accounted for the way he grips his instruments as well."
Which is why I had to remake them more than once.
I watched Dr. Jae-hyuk try to process that, and added, "Hand them over. I'm certain he'll be pleased."
That seemed to snap him back. He nodded hard.
"Ah — yes! I'll take them to him today. But really, this is... you're remarkable."
He hesitated, then asked carefully, "Cheolwoo. Would it be all right if I commissioned something for myself someday...?"
I smiled.
"Of course. Anytime."
"Hah..."
Professor Park Sang-jin let out a long breath. The sigh was for his instruments. To operate with the precision and completeness he demanded of himself, he needed a new set that fit him — truly fit him — and finding such a thing had proven nearly impossible. He had even asked his student to commission Japanese craftsmen, and what had come back was nowhere near what he had pictured.
He had wanted to take a new set with him on next week's overseas medical volunteer trip. At this rate, he would be packing the old ones.
Nothing to be done, I suppose...
Then the door to his office opened without warning, and someone stepped in.
"Professor!"
It was his student, Dr. Yang Jae-hyuk.
"What brings you here at this hour?"
Jae-hyuk, looking unreasonably pleased with himself, reached into the bag slung over his shoulder and held something out. A bundle?
"What is this?"
"Open it, Professor."
Park eyed it with suspicion, but it had come from his own student, so he obliged. Inside the cloth wrap, medical instruments lay packed in a dense, careful nest.
"These are... the ones I commissioned last time, aren't they. Did you go and place another order somewhere? You really didn't have to..."
Jae-hyuk had asked him, out of nowhere, for his hand measurements, photographs, video. So this was what that had been for. Even so... more of the same, I expect.
Park did not let himself hope. Jae-hyuk, however, wore a small, knowing smile.
"Try holding them, Professor. This time will be different."
The certainty in his voice was a complete reversal from the last delivery. What is he playing at?
Sang-jin decided he could stand to be disappointed one more time, and closed his hand around the scalpel.
And then—
What is this...!
He could not help the jolt that went through him. This was not the feeling of holding a scalpel. It was the feeling of the scalpel becoming his hand.
Still stunned, Park set the blade down and took up the other instruments one by one. Every last one of them settled into his grip with the same impossible ease, as if each tool had been waiting its whole life to become part of him.
N-no... even for a custom commission...
The quality was beyond belief. This was not the thing he had asked for. This was something that left what he had asked for far behind.
His eyes gone wide, Park turned on Jae-hyuk.
"W-who on earth made these?"
Jae-hyuk's smile deepened.