Give Me Your Granddaughter
"Please wait over here for a moment."
Following the receptionist's guidance, I took a seat in one of the chairs set aside nearby.
After a short wait, the test administrator came out.
"The test consists of three parts in total."
As he led me toward the testing area, the administrator went on earnestly about what to expect. Having already taken it all once before my regression, I let it go in one ear and out the other.
Before long, I arrived at the testing grounds.
"We'll start with the awakening test."
A test to confirm whether the body holds mana. Mana never showed up on your stat sheet, but of course my body carried a tiny amount of it all the same.
"The second is the trait test."
On cue, I showed off my trait: a corrective bonus applied to everything I did with my feet. At first glance it was a vague, ambiguous effect — and in practice, it was exactly as ambiguous as it looked.
"Hmm..."
The administrator mulled it over for a moment, then jotted something down on a sheet of paper — notes on the trait, most likely.
"The third test is hunting."
With that, the administrator rolled out a cage with a goblin locked inside. The Association procured its test goblins by deliberately triggering breaks in F-rank gates.
"You may use any of the weapons over there."
The administrator gestured at the wall where weapons hung in neat rows. I picked out a dagger from among them and took my position, wrapping my hand around the grip as I waited for the goblin to come in.
A moment later, it came charging straight at me.
Here, just a slight dodge to the right—
The third test was where an awakener's rank was usually decided. Which meant what I had to do here was put up a decent, unremarkable fight.
A C-rank would move like this, right about now...
I wove this way and that, slipping past its swipes, and swung the dagger. Shick.
The moment the goblin dropped, the watching administrator spoke up.
"You can head back to the lobby and wait for now."
Hearing that, I returned straight to the lobby.
What rank will I get?
D-rank? C-rank? Whichever it turned out to be, my parents would no longer have any grounds to object.
The day I'd come back from the Bukhansan Gate, I had revealed my awakening just to calm the two of them down while they were still fuming.
At least D-rank or above. Having heard me out, the two of them had agonized for a long while before grudgingly setting a floor on the acceptable rank.
D-rank as the baseline was probably thanks to the one thing every expert said in common:
The minimum rank needed to clear an F-rank gate safely.
I had agreed, naturally, and test day had arrived. Since it was a test I'd already been through once before my regression, I breezed through all three stages.
"Mr. Han Jin!"
Just then, the receptionist at the counter called my name. I rose from my seat and headed over with a spring in my step.
"First, here is your awakener license."
The small card she held out had a single letter stamped into it: C. I pocketed the license and listened as she went on. Before my regression, my rank had been D.
Which meant I had no idea what benefits a C-rank awakener was entitled to.
So I quietly listened to her explanation.
"First up is the matter of taxes on monster carcasses. You'll be charged a levy of roughly ten percent."
I nodded along before I realized it. For D-rank awakeners, that figure climbed to fifteen percent.
Talk about squeezing blood from a stone.
The tax structure for ability users was a strange one: the higher the rank, the less you paid, and the lower the rank, the more. They claimed it was a policy to keep high-rank awakeners anchored to the country, but I couldn't make heads or tails of it.
"Have you set up an awakener bank account yet?"
"No."
"Then I'll issue one for you right away."
An awakener account was a different animal from an ordinary one. It came bundled with all manner of perks, fee waivers chief among them. That wouldn't matter much further down the line, but right now, it was exactly what I needed.
I have to visit that place too, after all. Getting into that spot in Hongdae required an awakener bank account — no exceptions.
After sitting through the rest of the employee's rundown of every last minor benefit, I walked out of the Association building.
C-rank, huh... It was only one rank up, and yet something about it felt oddly off — a strange, faint anticlimax.
"Let's go."
I murmured it under my breath, hailed a taxi, and headed for Myeongdong. If Myeongdong had once been famous for its pricey shops, these days the district was known for something else entirely.
The Street of Artisans. Blacksmiths, jewelers, appraisers — nearly everyone worth calling a master had set down roots in Myeongdong. The jeweler's workshop I was headed to, however, sat on its outskirts.
The deeper in, the greater the master; the further out, the lesser the hand. It was something like an unwritten law of Myeongdong — the truly skilled gathered at its heart, and everyone else was crowded out to the edges.
And if that law held, that person should be right in the middle of the district.
The one I was going to see overflowed with talent. The reason she'd never gotten famous was simple.
No money. She couldn't even afford proper equipment. And even in that state, she had made a name for herself.
Because she succeeded in crafting a Legendary stone.
A commission had come to her by pure chance, and on the strength of that single job her name had spread across the world.
Not that I'm convinced it was chance. The stone she crafted that day would later turn up embedded in Pride's weapon. There were far too many things that didn't add up to call it coincidence.
But that stroke of fate ends up in my hands either way, so what's the harm? Laughing inwardly, I settled in and decided to shut my eyes until the taxi arrived.
"Sir, we're here."
"Ah." My eyes fluttered open at the driver's call. I hurriedly paid the fare and climbed out of the taxi.
"Whew." I stretched, working the stiffness out of my limbs.
The place I'd arrived at stood a fair distance from the Street of Artisans.
Losers' Street. The street where the castoffs — the ones muscled out to the fringes by central Myeongdong's masters — had gathered. That place was right here.
I walked down the street until I stopped in front of one shop.
Sunny Smithy.
So this is the place. Sunny Smithy — home, not to a blacksmith, but to the finest jeweler there is.
"Whew." I drew a deep breath and knocked on the door. Knock, knock.
No answer came back. The sun still hung high overhead, which meant there was plenty of time left before any shop would close.
"Is anyone inside?"
Again, nothing.
Not home? If she was out right now, there was nothing to be done about it. I decided to come back later and was stepping away from the door—
"Hey, you! What do you want?!"
The sharp, blade-edged voice made me turn my head. There stood a girl with a young, unlined face.
"What business do you have at our shop?"
"I have business with Mr. Seo Jincheol."
"With Grandpa?"
The moment I heard the word grandpa, I knew — she was the one I'd been looking for.
The jeweler, Seo Inha.
As I went on staring at her, she dodged my gaze and edged toward the door.
"If you're here about the debt, I've told you a hundred times — I'll pay it back."
"Debt?"
"You came to hound us for money, didn't you?" Apparently she had me pegged as some two-bit loan shark.
"And if I'm not here to collect a debt?"
At that, her expression twisted. "Then it makes even less sense. Who in their right mind comes to a shabby smithy like this to place a commission?"
Her words were perfectly reasonable. No one sought out a run-down forge.
"It wouldn't be bad news for you, either."
At my words, she swept an appraising look over me from head to toe. I said nothing and let her look her fill.
"So. Is Elder Seo Jincheol in?"
"We're talking casual now, are we?"
"You're younger than me, and you've been talking down to me this whole time. I hardly see why I can't do the same."
"And how old are you, exactly?"
"Twenty."
At that, she gave no reply. She simply opened the door without a word.
"...Come in."
"Pardon the intrusion."
I followed her into the smithy. It was coated in a thick layer of dust — a testament to how long it had sat unused.
"Grandpa! A customer's here!"
"A customer?"
At her call, Seo Jincheol emerged slowly from the back room.
So this is Seo Jincheol. I swallowed. If Seo Inha was the jeweler who would one day be famous, Seo Jincheol was the blacksmith who had been famous once. Even the blade of Ryuto Heiji, Japan's S-Rank Awakener, had come from his hands.
"Whew." I took a deep breath and opened my mouth.
"It is an honor to meet the Blue Blacksmith."
"...!"
The moment I bowed my head in greeting, his face changed all at once. Blue Blacksmith — the title that had followed him through his working years.
"..."
Seo Jincheol said nothing, and neither did I. He tried to take my measure, and I let him.
"...I no longer take up the hammer."
"I know."
Thinking over why a man known as the Blue Blacksmith had ended up on Losers' Street, I could roughly piece it together.
Betrayal. And by someone very close to him. Short of that, there was no reason on earth for him to walk away from the Cheongmyeong Forge he had built with his own hands.
"Then what did you come to me for?"
In that instant, mana erupted from his body. Before he was ever a blacksmith, he was first and foremost a formidable A-Rank Awakener. My skin prickled under the pressure of it — and I smiled.
"Would you take a look at this?" With that, I drew the Earth Stone out of my inventory.
"...Th-that stone!"
His expression changed the moment he laid eyes on it. He had likely realized it was no ordinary rock.
"Where did this stone come from?"
"I can't tell you exactly. It's enough that you know I obtained it from a Hidden Piece."
At my answer, his expression eased. He studied me for a long moment, then spoke.
"That stone is beyond me, lad."
Just as expected. The stone was meant to be cut and crafted — it was never a material to be thrown into a furnace.
"I know."
"Then why seek me out?"
"I'll be direct."
I steadied my breath and opened my mouth.
"Give me your granddaughter."
Crash!
At the sound of shattering glass, I turned my head — Seo Inha was standing there. Judging by the look on her face, she had heard every word.
Time dripped by in silence. Finally, she opened her mouth.
"I-I'm what you came here for?!"
Her face had turned scarlet.