Just One Blow

Just one blow.

Becker went down from a single strike of Jinwoo's.

"……Whoa."

"……Didn't he say he was a crafter……?"

The guild members watching from behind were thoroughly stunned by Jinwoo's blow. Becker had been loaded with high-end gear, and he had every skill he owned already active. Yet one attack had dropped him cold.

"Maybe that was a bit much."

Jinwoo had swung only once. He had even held back. Even so, Becker hadn't been able to take it.

"Tsk."

It wasn't simply because Jinwoo's Orichalcum light blade was excellent.

What a pathetic way to use a greatsword.

If First had ever swung a sword like that, Jinwoo would have chewed him out without mercy. Becker's stance, his form—everything about the way he handled the weapon had been a mess.

"That's not how you use that."

Jinwoo clicked his tongue.

"Whoever made that thing for you would be in tears."

As the words left his mouth, Becker vanished on the spot. Death sent a player straight back to the last city they had visited.

Once Becker was gone, Han-seom let out a long, heavy sigh and bowed his head.

"I'm sorry. Truly, I'm ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sorry."

After apologizing as thoroughly as he could, the guild officer Han-seom led the remaining members away. The ones left behind still hadn't fully processed what they had just seen.

They knew Jinwoo was an exceptional player. The fight they had just witnessed had made that impossible to deny. But Becker himself had never been that strong. He had simply been armed to the teeth thanks to the guild master's full support. His actual skill was nothing special.

Han-seom, on the other hand, was the real deal. Watching someone that strong take such a low posture left them thoroughly unsettled.

"We'll see each other again."

Jinwoo said it with a smile.

Rumble—!

Jinwoo swung his Orichalcum light blade and smashed the cave entrance open. Darkness swallowed the interior.

"Lizard Flame."

He lit the cave with fire magic.

"Uugh……."

A groan rose from deeper inside. Jinwoo sprinted in and found Hairun collapsed on the ground.

He's hurt pretty badly.

"Please—please just leave me alone!"

Whatever he had endured had clearly left a mark. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Looking at Hairun's state, Jinwoo felt his temper flare.

Oh, so that's how it is?

He had assumed they had only been chasing him. The scene in front of him said otherwise.

This looks like sustained attacks.

Hairun must have fled after he couldn't take any more of them.

No reason to leave those people alone.

If Hairun had been seriously injured, the quest itself might have become impossible. A single misstep could have meant failure.

"Are you all right?"

Jinwoo approached and fed him a vitality potion he had prepared in advance.

Gulp, gulp—.

Good thing he was wearing solid gear.

Without it, the wounds would have been fatal. He might well have been captured.

"Th-thank you……. Who are you……?"

"I'm a traveler, but not one of those travelers. I drove every last one of them off. Don't worry. You're safe now, Master Hairun."

"I see…… I see……."

Hairun exhaled deeply, as if the tension had finally drained out of him.

Vice Guild Leader of the Agent Guild. Becker, was it?

The man had bellowed it loud enough that the name was hard to forget.

"Noted."

If you can't keep your guild members in line……

Then the guild itself would take the blame. That was only natural.

Once his strength returned, Hairun thanked Jinwoo again.

"Thank you. Truly, thank you. If it hadn't been for you, something terrible would have happened to me. But……"

"To be honest, I was looking for you as well, Master Hairun."

"Looking for me?"

Suspicion flickered across Hairun's face for a moment.

"I am a disciple who learned techniques from Master Hoz, Master Rodin, and Master Mire, respectively."

As he spoke, Jinwoo produced the map fragment.

"Oh!"

"Names I haven't heard in a long time! If you have that map fragment…… then yes—you're searching for our master, aren't you?"

"Yes. That's right."

Hairun looked him over.

"You've got the classic blacksmith's build. Those major muscle groups are something else."

Scale Jinwoo down a little and you would have Hairun. The comparison wasn't perfect, but the man carried the unmistakable musculature of a lifelong smith.

Hairun grinned.

"Thank you. But I'm not searching for Master Allmaster alone. Master Mire told me about you. She said your refining skill is extraordinary—that you're the All-Thing Craftsman who can create anything."

"……Mire said that? That picky elf actually called me extraordinary?"

Hairun's face lit up with genuine delight.

She isn't the kind of elf who hands out praise easily.

Mire was cold and exacting. Jinwoo had only survived her training because his hands were gifted enough to learn Flawless Tailoring; if he had lacked the skill, she would have thrown him out long ago. She was the sort who made people give up the moment she decided they weren't good enough. Even the Ghost King had been turned down flat when he asked for her help.

But she did praise him, so……

"Yes. That's why I came—to learn refining from you."

"……Then the ones outside—you handled all of them yourself?"

"Yes."

"If it hadn't been for you, things would have gone very badly. Thank you for finding me."

Hairun bowed his head.

"If I may ask—why did you come to this place?"

Jinwoo was curious why Hairun had fled into this cave. It was a dead end, and Hairun was hardly a dwarf suited for stealth.

"Because there's an entrance here."

Hairun answered.

Shaaaa—.

At the same moment, a magic circle bloomed beneath his feet and began to glow.

"The entrance to Iron Helm, the city of us dwarves. Because of those bastards, I couldn't open it for fear of bringing trouble down on Iron Helm. Thanks to you, I can go home. I'm truly grateful."

Scorching heat. It was already spreading out from within the circle.

"You said you wanted to learn refining from me, didn't you? My refining technique itself is ordinary enough. But I have another ability."

Hairun spoke on.

"Thousands of things—maybe more than ten thousand. I can work with all of them. Through the power of a mighty flame."

Right there, he wrapped both hands in fire.

Oh-ho.

It was similar to the way Jinwoo clad his hammer in flame—except the sheer heat of this fire was on another level.

"Fire Build. That's the name of this technique. From the look of things, you've already picked up some excellent skills from those three fellow disciples of mine…… but this one won't come easy. And it isn't everything, either. Even harder techniques are waiting beyond it."

Every last one of them is absurdly proud of their own craft.

All three had opened with the same speech.

It's difficult.

You can't learn it overnight.

This one looks hard to pick up quickly, too.

For anyone who wasn't Jinwoo, that is.

"Still want to learn?"

"Yes. I want to learn."

"Then…… let's head there first. To Iron Helm. Whether you can learn it or not—we'll find that out once we're there."

Whoooosh—!

Clang—! Clang—!

The ring of hammers. Blistering heat. The reek of sulfur.

Iron Helm was an extremely hot city.

"Mm!"

Jinwoo's first impression of the place was thoroughly favorable. Ore veins ran everywhere, and plenty of dwarves were already hard at work mining them.

"This is a fine place."

When Jinwoo said it with a smile, Hairun looked surprised.

"Hmph! Not many humans take a liking to Iron Helm. Even Hoz had a hard time of it when he first came here."

Hairun was already growing fond of him.

"Come on. Straight to my forge."

Hairun's forge was impressive. It was a classic smithy, yet it was alive with a distinctly dwarven sensibility.

Even rougher than Hepales's workshop.

"First things first. You said you met Hoz, Rodin, and Mire. Does that mean you learned all of their techniques?"

"Yes. All of them."

"Then we can skip the long explanations. Our techniques were all received from the master they call Allmaster—and then each of us mixed in our own sensibility until they became ours alone."

Hairun opened his warehouse and showed Jinwoo inside.

"I, in particular, mixed in my own tastes."

The warehouse held an enormous quantity of equipment. Swords, spears, bows, blades, glaives. Armor of every shape and kind. So many pieces that counting them would have been a chore.

"That's how I earned the nickname All-Thing Craftsman. Making the same piece of equipment over and over never suited me."

Craftsmen, as a rule, were the opposite sort of people. They poured themselves into a single field. They gathered the ordinary until it became extraordinary. That was what it meant to be a master.

Hairun thought differently. As long as the work stayed inside the broad frame of crafting, that was enough for him.

"What you learned before must have been difficult enough."

Hairun's expression turned awkward.

"But this isn't something you can pick up overnight. Are you in a hurry? If you are, I can teach you a few of my core techniques fairly quickly."

"No."

Jinwoo answered.

"I'm not in a hurry. And—"

Looking at the finished equipment stacked in the materials warehouse, he smiled with quiet satisfaction.

This is it.

Hairun's way of thinking was remarkably close to the conviction Jinwoo had always carried. A craftsman was someone who devoted himself to a single field.

But that single field doesn't have to be squeezed down to one type of equipment.

"Master Hairun—I feel the same way you do."

"Ohh."

"Then let's get to it! Difficult or not, don't you worry. I'll make sure you learn it."

Hairun said it firmly.

"You're my benefactor, after all."

He went into the back and returned with materials.

"We'll start right away. This is called Droizen Steel."

Every last one of these materials is new to me.

Even the equipment he had seen earlier in the warehouse had been made of things he couldn't identify at a glance.

"The materials that come out of Iron Helm are special."

Everything produced in Iron Helm carried the Droizen name.

"Droizen materials are hard to get outside. They circulate internally, and export is strictly controlled."

Of course, this wasn't the only dwarven city, so some materials did make it into the outside world. Inside Iron Helm, however, the ban was absolute.

"Now then—the core of my technique is the power of this flame. It isn't ordinary fire. This is delicate, exacting work."

Shaaaa—.

"To put my technique precisely—with this flame—"

Something white leapt free of the ore.

"I use the fire to extract the soul."

That soul was the essence of the mineral. Drawing out a material's true nature and maximizing its options—that was Hairun's unique power.

"After extracting the soul, you refine and purify it. You burn away the impurities—the impurities bound within the soul of the material itself."

Hairun explained.

"When you do that, the quality of the material no longer matters."

"You extract the soul itself and purify it?"

"Exactly. As you know, quality varies even within the same grade. But after this, all you need to care about is the grade."

That was why he could be called the All-Thing Craftsman.

"By understanding the soul, extracting it, and purifying it, you come to understand the material—and from there, you can craft any number of different pieces of equipment."

Hairun grinned.

"It'll be difficult. But if anyone can do it, it's you. Start by learning Fire Build."

Fire Build—wrapping the hands in flame. It was the foundation of Hairun's refining technique.

Jinwoo activated Fire Build ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at once and clad his hands in fire.

"Good, good. From there, you feel it. Through mana, you understand the material and extract the soul……"

Shhk—.

"……?"

The moment Jinwoo brought his hand near, the soul slipped free of the material. Effortlessly.

"H-how……"