Week 5 Mentoring, PvP (12)
I kept walking with Hong Yeon-hwa trailing behind me like a tail, all the way to the Blacksmith Workshop.
“!”
For a split second, I could have sworn an exclamation mark popped up over Hong Yeon-hwa's head. She was starting to catch on to what the special material I'd mentioned might be. We'd come to a smithy, after all — the odds were overwhelmingly good that it was metal. Though judging by her face, she was still hazy on exactly which metal gave off a chill.
We went straight to the blacksmith club president. He was hard at work as ever — my commission might have been on hold, but his other orders hadn't stopped coming.
When I gave him the word, he set his work aside for a moment and came over, then asked me without preamble:
“Did you bring it?”
A question with both its front and back ends lopped off — but since we shared exactly one common interest, the missing words were obvious. He was asking whether I'd found a way to melt the Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron ingot.
Instead of answering, I turned my gaze toward Hong Yeon-hwa, and the president's eyes followed mine.
“Hong Yeon-hwa.”
“Hello, sir......”
From their reactions, the two of them clearly knew each other. Fire and smithing were inseparable, and the Ruby Magic Tower traded with the workshop often enough that they must have crossed paths now and then. Even so, Hong Yeon-hwa didn't look entirely at ease — her manner was a touch stiff.
The president turned his eyes back to me and tipped his chin at her.
“So this is the solution you had in mind?”
“It is.”
At my confirmation, his disappointment showed without pretense.
“Wasted effort, then. I've already had help from flame mages.”
He'd presumably rounded up a few flame mages he knew and had them pour their firepower into it. But short of a club-president-caliber mage or a trait on the level of Aqua Flame, melting the thing was next to impossible.
“And they failed, I take it.”
“You knew that, and you still brought her?”
“Yes. I'd like you to give her one chance.”
“......”
The president's eyes narrowed, and he studied Hong Yeon-hwa again. What made her so different? The doubt was written on his face: promising first-year or not, was she really head and shoulders above the second- and third-year flame mages he'd already asked? But just as I'd hoped, he seemed to settle on the conclusion that there was nothing to lose by letting her try once — if she failed, she failed, and if by some chance she succeeded, so much the better.
Before long, he produced the black-gleaming ingot and set it down at chin height.
“Fine. Give it a go.”
Hong Yeon-hwa, listening in from the side, seemed to have pieced together the gist of the situation. She might not have known the ingot before her was Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron alloy, but she'd grasped at once that it was the special material I'd spoken of — it was plainly high-grade metal even at a glance, and it radiated a chill sharp enough to feel inside the sweltering workshop. She'd also inferred from our exchange that the president and I wanted this ingot melted. In a sense she might feel used — but so long as it raised her Aqua Flame's rank, that didn't seem to trouble her.
Hong Yeon-hwa sent me a look asking for permission, and I nodded.
“Burn it.”
She began her incantation on the spot. A round magic circle rose beneath the alloy, geometric runes etching themselves across its face — Fire Pillar, the spell she'd used a few times before. She couldn't exactly turn the workshop into a sea of fire, so she'd deliberately kept the circle small — but confining the spell to so narrow a space only made it that much more potent.
The moment Hong Yeon-hwa completed the spell—
- Fwoooosh!
A small but vivid pillar of flame rose from the circle, and every eye locked onto the fiercely blazing column.
“......”
Even in fire this fierce, the Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron alloy held its shape. The flames split and parted around it, as if deliberately steering clear of the spot.
Then Hong Yeon-hwa, her expression grave, layered her magic in rapid succession. One more ring drew itself around the Fire Pillar's circle—
- Fwoooosh!
—and the blaze surged up fiercer still. Hong Yeon-hwa flicked her wand, reined the fire in, and forced it down onto the ingot. At last, change began — bit by bit, the heat started to eat into the surface of the Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron alloy.
“......!”
Interest kindled in the blacksmith president's eyes. He tore his gaze from Hong Yeon-hwa, who was sustaining the spell, and spoke to me.
“Seems you were right. But it's far too slow. No telling how long it'd take to get it workable.”
“Please watch a little longer. This is only the beginning.”
The pace was sluggish for one simple reason: Hong Yeon-hwa's Aqua Flame was still only E-rank. As the rank climbed, the speed at which she melted the ingot would climb with it. Working Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron was roughly A-rank difficulty, but given Aqua Flame's potency, the moment it touched C-rank she'd be able to melt the thing down without much trouble.
Since the first result he'd wanted was already on the table, the president didn't press my claim too hard.
“I suppose.”
With that curt reply, he went off to resume his interrupted work. I had no reason to linger here and kill time either.
“I'm heading out too,” I told Hong Yeon-hwa.
“Huh? You're leaving?”
She asked back, looking a little flustered. Fill in what her words left out, and it came to something like, You're leaving me here all alone while you go off somewhere?
I answered as if it were nothing.
“Stay as long as you like.”
Hong Yeon-hwa waved her hands in a frantic flurry.
“N-no, it's fine! I can do this on my own. It's my trait I'm training, after all. Go get some rest! Yeah!”
She'd evidently decided that being left to her own devices beat having me hover at her shoulder by a hundred to one. I didn't ask twice, and left the workshop with a considerably lighter step.
Hong Yeon-hwa got the chance to grow her trait with a rare material — good for her. The blacksmith president could resume the crafting that had been shelved — good for him. And I'd get my weapon made, with a tidy little bonus on top — good for me. A win-win-win, with everyone walking away happy.
The mentoring carried on through Friday, and into Saturday. Since I'd already taught Dang Gyu-young the knack of training offense and defense in tandem, I no longer needed to join the drills myself. Instead, with the week nearly spent, I took a run at the sticker PvP with Hong Yeon-hwa once at the end of each training session.
Our chances were still slim, but with three attempts remaining, throwing them away without a fight would have been a waste. Short-handed or not, better to try.
Drawing up tactics at our current level seemed pointless, so I gave Hong Yeon-hwa exactly one instruction.
“Get in there.”
The plan: give Hong Yeon-hwa as much free rein as possible, and shape my support around whatever she did.
Wind Force
- Whooom!
A violent gust erupted in an instant, cleaving the space between Hong Yeon-hwa and Dang Gyu-young. The shadow club Dang Gyu-young had swung — thick as a person's torso — finished its arc through empty air.
Hong Yeon-hwa fell back at speed to regroup, the short wand in her hand glowing red.
- Boom-boom-BOOM!
A chain of fiery explosions swallowed Dang Gyu-young's position — and into the towering blaze she'd raised, Hong Yeon-hwa dove without a flicker of hesitation. Inside the fire, the two silhouettes wavered like dancers.
On Friday, the first day we'd synced up, she'd faltered every time Wind Force yanked her out of trouble, and more than one good opening had slipped away because of it. Now, though, she'd adapted to my rhythm well enough to react the instant I stepped in, wringing every chance for what it was worth.
- Whooom—!
Under the gusts hammering her from every direction, Dang Gyu-young's movements kept cutting out, jerky as a broken wind-up doll. She shot me a look that said she'd love to strangle me, but right now the Hong Yeon-hwa charging straight at her took priority. With a light sweep of her hand, a cluster of shadow hands and feet erupted upward and lunged.
Hong Yeon-hwa didn't give an inch, meeting them with cool composure — spitting fire magic at point-blank range, or hammering down with mana-clad fists. Having swept the shadow limbs aside, she pressed in hard, reaching for the stickers. And Dang Gyu-young countered with practiced ease.
I held my distance and watched the melee unfold, then cast Wind Force the moment it turned dangerous again.
- BAM!
Compressed air detonated between Dang Gyu-young and Hong Yeon-hwa — a cushion to soften the impact, and at the same time a shove that hurled them in opposite directions. Then it reeled the airborne Hong Yeon-hwa in toward me.
She touched down light as a feather without a scratch, but unlike every exchange before, she didn't immediately charge back in. Her breathing was ragged and her movements noticeably sluggish — she'd run the tank dry.
That's about all we've got, then.
Forcing the PvP any further past this point would yield nothing. Still, I'd caught her fingertips grazing a sticker in that final instant, so tomorrow was worth a little anticipation.
Dang Gyu-young, for her part, quickly read Hong Yeon-hwa's condition and brought the day's mentoring to a close.
“That's it. Good work out there.”
Unfortunately for Hong Yeon-hwa, anything resembling real rest was still a long way off — Aqua Flame training was a separate matter. Her next destination: the Blacksmith Workshop.
“Same as always today. I'm counting on you.”
“......”
Hong Yeon-hwa answered with a listless nod, then vanished beyond the Circular Colosseum on a teleportation circle.
The moment the two of us were alone, Dang Gyu-young switched off 'stern senior mentor mode,' snapped back to her usual self, and grumbled:
“Hey, I hate that skill of yours.”
“Nobody likes it, sunbae.”
Wind Force was, by its very nature, a skill built to make people hate you. Call it the fate of every forced-movement ability — getting shoved and yanked around by someone else's will, no human being can help but boil over. And if it happens at a pivotal moment mid-fight, the fury doubles.
“So can't you please use something else?”
“I'd love to, but this is the only proper one I've got.”
For now, Wind Force really was the only serviceable skill in my arsenal. I could copy others, sure, but Thief's Step and Overheat were earning their keep far too well to hand over.
“Oh, come on. You've obviously got other skills. Seriously.”
“I honestly don't. Seriously.”
Of course, the look on Dang Gyu-young's face said she didn't believe a word of it. She apparently thought I was deliberately sitting on a whole stash of other skills. She pursed her lips and stared at me for a moment, then seemed to decide it was a lost cause, shook her head, and changed the subject.
“Oh, right — been wondering since yesterday but never got the chance to ask. Why are you helping Hong Yeon-hwa all of a sudden?”
“We have dealings going back and forth.”
“Dealings with the Ruby Magic Tower? Hong Ye-hwa?”
“Yes.”
“Ahh.”
Dang Gyu-young laughed as though that explained plenty.
“So that's why she's the one peeling the stickers? I figured she'd be backing you up while you did the peeling — had me wondering why it was backwards.”
“That's just how it worked out.”
“But from what I've seen, if you're not the one doing it, three stickers looks impossible — you'd be lucky to get one. You sure you're okay eating the point loss?”
“Yes. It doesn't worry me much.”
“Really? Then what's Hong Ye-hwa giving you for it?”
“That part I can't tell you.”
“Tch.”
Dang Gyu-young clicked her tongue. She'd apparently been trying to reel the answer in as smoothly as flowing water, but some information simply wasn't given away for free. Then again, with the Thief Club president's intelligence network, she'd probably dig it up soon enough.
“How are Song Cheon-hye and Gwak Ji-cheol doing?”
“Nothing about them looks any better than Hong Yeon-hwa. Except for you, they're all pretty much the same.”
So those two were struggling as well. Handing the sticker-peeling role to Hong Yeon-hwa had introduced a small chance of losing my Wish Ticket bet with Song Cheon-hye — but going by what Dang Gyu-young said, the odds still leaned my way.
“They're their own problem. Let's get to ours — I want to finish up quick and rest.”
Dang Gyu-young stretched herself out long and hard, as if her whole body had gone stiff. And the moment she flung off her C-rank restriction bracelet, the shadows at her feet began to churn violently.
Separate from the sticker PvP, the one-on-one sparring between Dang Gyu-young and me carried on as well.
Until I mastered Distortion.
[90] The Support Ate It All