Chapter 23
After receiving an almost alarmingly enthusiastic send-off from the dismantlers, I headed back to the blacksmith shop.
[Work in progress, please take the kitchenware yourselves]
A note like that was taped to the door, so I slipped inside carefully so I wouldn’t get in the way.
When I opened the door and went in, I heard the steady rhythm of hammering from the back of the blacksmith shop.
Curious, I padded quietly through the door behind the counter, figuring I’d watch for a moment.
Yu Jae-i was hammering away at a branch from the previous World Tree, sweat pouring off her.
The white T-shirt and jeans she had on were soaked through and had gone darker from the sweat.
“You came back sooner than I expected.”
“...You knew?”
I’d assumed she hadn’t noticed I’d arrived, so I was startled when she called out to me out of nowhere.
My answer came a beat late because of it.
Yu Jae-i set down the hammer as if tossing it away and stood up.
Where she’d put it down, three or four other hammers were piled up.
They were worn-out hammers, completely useless now, and every one of them was a different color and shape.
Only the one in her hand still kept its original form.
Like a turtle shell.
“Your right hand. It told me you were here.”
“Ah. Damn.”
I’d been walking with my footsteps muffled so I wouldn’t disturb her, but my thumb had been moving without me even noticing.
Even now, it was busily tapping away at the screen.
Tap, tap, tap, tap....
“At that point, isn’t it less a habit and more your free will being eaten alive? You okay?”
“Hmm. I’m getting a little scared of myself too.”
Even as I said that, I still didn’t put the smartphone down.
Seeing me like that, Yu Jae-i shook her head and let out a puff of laughter.
Then she came toward me, wiping the sweat from her face with the towel slung carelessly over her shoulder.
“Yep. That’s the World Tree all right.”
“Huh?”
“It kept being hammered after you left, and only now did it start changing shape.”
Just as she said, the log had deformed a little.
From a thick cylinder to a slightly less thick cylinder.
That said, it was still very much a log.
“But when you make a weapon out of a log, do you usually pound it like that?”
“No. That’s only because you brought me a World Tree.”
“......?”
“This hammer was made from the shell of a Guisusan....”
She looked down at the hammer in her hand as she spoke.
The Guisusan was a giant turtle monster, so huge it seemed to be carrying a hill on its back.
Its defining feature was its shell, which could block just about any attack.
Its shell’s defense was said to be on par with dragon scales.
Because of that, it was the dream material for hunters who valued defense above all else.
And she’d made a hammer out of Guisusan shell....
“I have to hit it with this before the shape even starts to change. I wasn’t kidding when I said it was a perfect weapon in its own right.”
“Sounds like a lot of trouble.”
“Still, it’s fun. It’s so stubborn that I have to coax it, but it listens.”
Coax it?
Craftsmen talk to their materials, apparently, but was that what she meant?
It was an unknown realm I knew nothing about, so I decided to let it go.
“Where do you want the Watcher’s Eyes?”
“Over here. You got back fast, huh? I thought you wouldn’t make it until tomorrow. Well, now it’s today. I figured you’d show up at dawn at the earliest.”
“It’s not that hard.”
I took white Styrofoam boxes out of my magic pouch and stacked them neatly.
Each insulated box, preserved with maintenance magic, contained a Watcher’s Eye carefully stored inside.
Yu Jae-i opened one box and picked up a Watcher’s Eye to check its quality.
“Wow, you really cleaned these up well. Looks like those old men there took to you, huh?”
She didn’t seem to expect an answer, since she didn’t look my way.
Took to me?
As I kept taking out the boxes, I thought back to the dismantlers at Hongyureung Gate.
They had grabbed my hand tightly as I was leaving and said, “Come back again! We want to work with a hunter like you for a long time!”
The young dismantler even handed me his business card and introduced himself, saying, “I’m Park Il-seok. If you ever need professional dismantlers, please contact me.”
I appreciated how well they treated me, but it was a little too much, so I got out of there quickly.
“Yeah. More than I expected, actually.... Wait, how many did you bring?”
“It just turned out like this while I was at it. Too many?”
By the time I had neatly stacked about fifteen of them, Yu Jae-i asked in surprise.
I froze in the middle of reaching for the sixteenth and looked at her.
She shook her head.
“No. The more you have, the more you can do. Take them all out.”
“Got it.”
At her words, I pulled out all the remaining Watcher’s Eyes from my magic pouch.
She inspected the ones I laid out one by one, with great care.
Then, frowning slightly, she asked me a question.
“Why? Got something to say?”
Watching her in silence must have been irritating, because my gaze seemed to bother her.
I didn’t have anything to say, so I shrugged.
“No. Nothing.”
“Then go find something else to do. Standing there like that keeps distracting me.”
“Can’t I just watch? I’ve got nowhere else to go.”
“You can go home and rest.”
“Tae-cheon’s there, so I can’t.”
“Tae-cheon... ah, Lee Tae-cheon. Aren’t you two friends? I heard you’ve been inseparable since you were kids.”
“I quit the guild without saying anything, so he’s mad at me right now.”
“Huh? You left Baekwooncheon? Damn, I called you for no reason then....”
“Called me? Wait, don’t tell me you told him I was here?”
“What are you talking about? Why would I do that?”
Right, of course. Yu Jae-i had no reason to tell anyone where I was.
Then what had she meant by saying she’d called someone?
The look on her face told me that even if I asked, she probably wouldn’t answer.
After she finished checking every Watcher’s Eye, she gave a satisfied nod.
Then she went back to where the log she’d been working on was laid out.
From her back, I could feel the kind of firm, final refusal that said, All right, now get lost.
“......”
“...Ah, seriously! If you really have nowhere to go, then go clear an Association Quest or something!”
“Oh?”
An Association Quest referred to a commission officially issued by the Hunter Association or the government.
Most of them involved clearing out monsters from gates that guilds or solo hunters tended to avoid.
If they weren’t handled consistently, the monster population would keep rising until a break would occur.
Hongyureung Gate, where I’d gathered the Udamhwa, was also the kind of gate where monsters were culled just enough to keep that from happening.
Though judging by the fact that the boss monster, the Skeleton Lord, had evolved, it didn’t look like that work had been handled all that well.
In other words, Association Quests were usually annoying, difficult, and poorly paid. Not exactly good value.
Even so, the number of hunters who took them wasn’t small.
It was an easy way to get close to people from the government or the Association.
You could also build connections with high-ranking people you’d normally never get the chance to meet.
“That’s actually a good idea.”
For a solo hunter like me, it was perfect.
I could build connections.
Just look at this team deputy.
One lowly team deputy at a guild, and yet he had built up connections until he was sitting face-to-face with the chairman of a conglomerate for a meeting.
Of course, I had to admit that getting to that point was anything but easy.
“So now you’re satisfied?”
“Huh?”
Yu Jae-i said this while picking up the hammer she’d made from Guisusan shell.
What do you mean, satisfied all of a sudden?
I tilted my head at the sudden question, and she raised her arm.
The arm she lifted pointed toward the blacksmith shop’s sliding door.
“Go clear your quest. I need to swing this hammer already.”
“...You could just leave if you want to leave. Seriously, you’re so cold.”
And that was how I got kicked out of Jae-i’s Blacksmith.
As I was leaving, Yu Jae-i grinned brightly and waved the hand holding the hammer.
That smile looked almost like it was saying, If you come back before Thursday, I’ll smash your skull with this hammer.
Hah. We’ll see about Thursday.
If the gear isn’t to my liking, I’ll keep coming back every day and filing complaints!
＊＊＊
After sleeping through the night, I arrived at the Hunter Association in Cheongdam-dong around 10 a.m.
I’d thought I wouldn’t be able to sleep since I had infinite SP, but hilariously enough, I’d collapsed the moment I lay down in bed.
After sleeping deeply and waking up, my mind felt fresh and my body light.
It seemed I had only become a body that didn’t need sleep, not one that could go without it entirely.
Even with infinite SP, I’d better keep sleeping.
I gave mana to the sprout in my smartphone while checking the building’s floor directory.
The floors related to quests were the second through fifth.
I headed for the broad staircase in the center of the building to go straight up, but a speed gate blocked me.
To pass through it, I needed an identification slip.
A note was stuck to the speed gate.
Identification slip required for entry! Get one on the first floor!
It looked like there were a lot of people like me who had tried to head up without thinking.
The fact that they’d put up a note like that made it obvious.
I turned around and headed to the first-floor issuance desk.
Since it was morning, there weren’t many people waiting.
The number I pulled from the ticket machine was 0034.
At the counter, a man took his identification slip and stood up.
The display board, which had been showing 33, changed to 34.
It was my turn.
“Good morning, Hunter. Your Hunter license, please.”
I briefly set down my smartphone, took my Hunter license out of my wallet, and handed it over.
I had no idea how long it had been since I last took that thing out of my wallet.
I wasn’t used to it anymore, and I nearly handed over my dismantler license instead.
“Yes, Hunter Baek Do-woon, D-rank. Your identity has been confirmed.”
The clerk returned my Hunter license and seemed to have no idea who I was.
Well, that made sense. I was a connection of famous people, not a celebrity myself.
Honestly, it was better that he didn’t know me than if he half-knew me and started acting familiar in some awkward way.
At least he wouldn’t go posting online, Baek Do-hee’s brother came to the Association to pick up a quest!
“Your last recorded entry into a gate is listed as two years ago. Is that correct?”
“Ah, yes. That’s right. I’ve finished rehab, so I’m returning this time.”
The lie came out smoothly.
It wasn’t entirely a lie.
After eating the World Tree’s fruit, I’d gone through some pretty brutal rehabilitation.
If those things could be called rehab, anyway.
“I see. As a D-rank hunter, Baek Do-woon, you may currently take quests up to E-rank.”
“Pardon? Don’t hunters normally get quests up to their own rank?”
A D-rank hunter should be able to take F- through D-rank quests, shouldn’t they?
When I tilted my head, the clerk nodded.
“Normally, yes. But since this is your first quest after returning, the restriction applies.”
“Ah....”
It seemed there was a limit because this was my first quest back.
Probably a rule made because so many hunters overdid it, got injured, and retired.
The clerk handed over my identification slip and spoke with a rather serious expression.
“Please take care of yourself this time, Baek Do-woon. Good luck.”
“Thank you.”
I took my smartphone and the identification slip and left the counter.
Printed on the slip were the words “D-rank Hunter Baek Do-woon” and “Eligible to receive F- to E-rank quests.”
What kinds of things fell under F- to E-rank quests?
Well, as long as it was a quest that could help me pass the time until Thursday, I’d be satisfied with anything.
Thinking that, I passed through the speed gate with the slip and climbed the stairs.
When I reached the second floor, the hunters who had already arrived and were searching for quests looked at me.
Their eyes were dark and miserable.
Eyes that did not warmly welcome a fellow worker.
Eyes that said, Damn it, another one’s shown up! and pushed me away.
Looking at those frowning companions, I felt, once again, that I had become a hunter.
The World Tree sprout sensed a dirty look.
The sprout sends soil around itself to protect Manager Baek Do-woon.
What? N-no, don’t!