WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Occult World’s Coveted Blacksmith ◈

Chapter 24: What’s Your Budget?!

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"P-Please...! Please fix my sword, Master!"

‘...What’s this now?’

Do-hyeon looked down at the woman in bewilderment.

During the day, she had clung to her sword and insisted she would never lend it out, even over her dead body. Now, she had come to his room in pajamas, pleading with him.

"I'll pay you as much as you want! No, if there's something you want, I'll give you... I'll give you anything!"

‘...Anything.’

She had knocked on someone else's door in the middle of the night and immediately offered him anything he wanted.

Do-hyeon stared at her for a moment.

Anyone overhearing that would get the wrong idea.

In any case, they couldn't stay out in the hallway like this.

"...Come in."

"Y-Yes!"

Clutching her sword tightly to her chest, the woman hurried into the room.

She perched on the edge of the sofa, fidgeting with her fingers for a long while before finally speaking.

"So... this is what happened..."

* * *

In short, this was the story.

The woman's family had produced renowned sorcerers in Japan for generations.

Her maternal grandfather, in particular, was a legendary figure who had left his mark on the history of Japan's Occult World.

"My grandfather... Well, everyone in Japan knows the Ishihara Family."

Ishihara.

"...What did you say your name was earlier?"

"Kim Yu-ha."

"...?"

"Oh, that's my Korean name. My father is Korean. My Japanese name is Ishihara Yua."

Ah.

Come to think of it, the butler had introduced her by her Korean name earlier. So she was Japanese.

"And this sword..."

"Yes. It belonged to my grandfather and has been passed down through the family. It's a Ritual Implement."

She carefully stroked the Japanese sword in her arms.

Despite being born into such an impressive bloodline, her mother's Spirit Sight had never awakened.

Her mother kept saying that it would awaken someday. Surely, it would.

But when her mother eventually married Yu-ha's Korean father, she gave up the path of a sorcerer entirely.

Then Yu-ha's Spirit Sight had been awakened from an early age.

"Ever since I was little, I could see strange things. Things other people couldn't see..."

Her Spirit Sight must have awakened early.

When her mother heard the news, she had apparently been overjoyed.

[Our Yua is definitely going to become an amazing sorcerer. Someone wonderful who protects people from ghosts!]

If she could just learn to wield her grandfather's sword.

Then she would surely become the greatest sorcerer, just like him.

The sword was proof of that.

"...So I received it."

The problem began after she got the sword.

"It... wouldn't work."

Perhaps it had been left unused for too long, or perhaps there was another reason.

No matter how much Spiritual Power she poured into it, the Japanese sword remained motionless, as though dead.

"Apparently, there used to be a blacksmith family friendly to ours that had maintained this sword for generations."

Unfortunately, that family had gone under around her mother's generation.

‘...Once that family was gone, there was no one left to maintain it.’

He could roughly guess what had happened.

Now that he had heard this much, he didn't need to hear the rest to picture it.

Still, Yu-ha must have thought she would manage somehow.

She had the bloodline, after all.

So she boldly stepped into Japan's Occult World.

Everywhere she went, she introduced herself as the granddaughter of that Ishihara Family.

At first, everyone welcomed her.

They made a fuss over trying to recruit her to one office or another.

...But only at first.

When the sword didn't work, being the granddaughter was all she had.

A young nobody with an impressive lineage but no skill to speak of, unable to live up to her famous name.

The initial welcome had eventually turned into cold disregard.

"...That's when I realized it. I can't do anything without my grandfather's sword."

She had gone everywhere.

Famous workshops, reclusive artisans, anywhere in Japan that claimed to repair swords.

"But none of them... could fix it."

Some places had even charged her exorbitant inspection fees.

Then they would ramble vaguely about this problem or that problem.

Not one of them gave her a clear answer.

Even when she begged them to fix it and said she would pay whatever they asked.

"That's..."

They all trailed off, telling her to try someone else.

Those repair shops had fleeced her for an enormous amount of money.

"...I was so humiliated I wanted to die."

Yu-ha bit down hard on her lip.

She had slowly fallen down the Japanese sorcerer rankings after her brief moment in the spotlight.

In the end, she hit rock bottom without ever experiencing a real heyday.

Unable to endure Japan's Occult World any longer, she fled to Korea, her father's homeland.

But Korea wasn't any easier.

"Everything here revolves around workshops from famous families... It's like they have rules among themselves."

They all refused to repair items they hadn't made themselves.

Even when they agreed to do it, they demanded enormous repair fees.

She had even shown the sword to a Byeong-tier artisan from a workshop said to be well-known in the industry.

"...But they just told me they didn't know and to go home."

The woman lowered her head dejectedly.

Her mother had said that she could become like her grandfather if she just had this sword!

She had said it had always been that way in their family!

Yet there was no one who could repair the sword.

Even after being driven all the way to Korea, it seemed Yu-ha hadn't managed to accomplish much.

‘...What a hard-luck story.’

Yet even in her dejection, there was a strange light in her eyes.

‘If this sword is fixed, someday I can be recognized like Grandfather was.’

That single thought seemed to be what had kept her desperately clinging to the Occult World.

Well, it made sense.

"You don't need to worry about the repair fee."

The woman hurriedly added.

Her grandfather had left behind a sizable inheritance, and once the sword worked again, she would earn far more money herself anyway.

A repair fee like this would be nothing.

"I-I'll really give you anything you want!! So please...!"

‘She'll do anything, huh.’

The world didn't work that easily.

Well, that could wait.

"...Let's take a look at the sword first."

He had been curious about the structure of that Japanese sword since earlier.

* * *

I took the Japanese sword from her.

First, I examined the exterior.

It was obvious at a glance that many people had handled it.

There were also spots where it had been clumsily reinforced with strange materials.

‘...Looks like she hadn't cared whether they were skilled or not.’

She must have taken the sword everywhere and left it in everyone's hands.

Whether in Japan or Korea, it looked like people with no real ability had done all sorts of pointless things to squeeze money out of her.

‘...Well, I can just remove all that.’

What mattered was the inside.

All right, let's see.

I closed my eyes and placed my hand on the hilt.

Then I sent [Mana Wave] into it.

Wheeeeng.

...Well, would you look at that.

The surface had been coated with a certain material to prevent anyone from reading the Mana Circuit.

Any Spiritual Power sent into it would bounce right back.

‘Oh... So they have things like this in reality too.’

I used this method often in the game as well, to keep others from copying circuits I had designed.

Not that they could've copied them even if they saw them.

It had probably been made by combining several materials that repelled Spiritual Power, allowing only Spiritual Power at a specific wavelength to pass through.

‘Ahem. I can crack something like this in three seconds.’

I fed a minute amount of Spiritual Power into the surface material.

I read the wavelength of the Spiritual Power that bounced back.

I worked backward through the changes and traced the flow.

Then, adjusting the amount each time, I found the wavelengths where the rebound gradually weakened and sent Spiritual Power matched to them.

It was like a lockpicking minigame.

Send out a pulse.

Read the altered flow.

Adjust it, then send the next pulse.

Ahem. After changing the wave three times...

Whoosh.

‘Got it.’

This was the one.

Heh. Getting it in three tries was pretty smooth.

I hadn't gotten rusty yet.

Haha.

As the Spiritual Power flowing from my fingertips seeped into the sword, every circuit carved into the Japanese sword entered my mind without exception.

At that moment,

‘Ha...’

‘Hahaha!’

Something like this had been engraved into it?

A grin spread across my face.

Interesting.

Very interesting.

* * *

The young, handsome artisan had his hand on her sword, his eyes closed.

Yu-ha watched him anxiously.

...Honestly, she didn't have high hopes.

She had taken the sword to more places than she could count, in both Japan and Korea.

Yet the answer was always the same.

They didn't know, so she should try somewhere else.

After being turned away again and again, any hope she had slowly crumbled away.

‘...Is it not going to work here either?’

Still, there was a reason she had shamelessly knocked on his door in the middle of the night.

During the day, she had seen him carve something into a dagger within the painting.

If she had seen it correctly, it had definitely been a Spell Formula being engraved.

With his bare hands, no less.

She had visited countless smithies in her life.

But she had never heard of, let alone seen, someone engraving a Spell Formula with their bare hands.

That was why.

Maybe... this person could do it.

That faint hope alone had brought her here.

As she waited with her heart in her throat,

...Did he just smile?

The corner of his mouth had lifted slightly.

Then he opened his eyes.

‘...What? That quickly?’

Yu-ha's heart dropped.

Ugh... She knew it.

Most people were like this.

They would look troubled, say they couldn't even read the Spell Formula, then give up right away.

He was surely about to do the same.

"I've finished checking it."

"...Ah, so it is hard to fi-"

"I can do it."

"...What?"

* * *

"R-Really?!"

Yu-ha's eyes widened.

No one had been able to repair the sword, no matter how many years she had clung to that hope.

And he said he could do it.

Yu-ha sprang up from the sofa.

Before she realized it, she had leaned toward Do-hyeon.

"Before that, hold on."

Do-hyeon raised a hand to stop her.

Then he started making a phone call.

‘...Why is he calling someone all of a sudden?’

Yu-ha only blinked in confusion.

"Go ahead and answer it."

Do-hyeon held out his phone.

Yu-ha took it without thinking and cautiously spoke.

"H-Hello...?"

「Hello! This is Seo Ji-an, Master Do's broker!」

A booming voice burst from the other end of the call.

「I hear you want to commission a repair from Master Do? I already checked the details by text earlier. All right, then...」

「What's your budget?!」

Footnotes:

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