The Occult World’s Coveted Blacksmith - Chapter 26

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

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◈ The Occult World’s Coveted Blacksmith ◈

Chapter 26: If He Hadn’t Been There

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Yu-ha flinched and stepped back, wrapping both arms around herself.

“W-What are you suddenly saying...?!”

Her pupils quaked.

Is he insane?!

No, I did say I’d give him anything if he fixed the sword!

But did he take that “anything” to mean this?

In the middle of the night, with a man I’d just met, and outside, of all places?!

A thousand thoughts boiled up at once, enough to make her head feel like it was steaming.

“Ah... I think you misunderstood. I need to check the flow of your Spiritual Power.”

“Th-That’s something you can do...?”

The tension slowly drained from Yu-ha’s shoulders as she studied Do-hyeon’s expression uncertainly.

Only then did she properly take in the young artisan standing before her.

Neatly tousled short black hair.

Pale skin that gave him an oddly wistful air.

And beneath those cool, lowered eyes, a single charming beauty mark.

‘...Why is a blacksmith that handsome?’

She had thought there was something unusual about him from the start.

Yet seeing him this close, the man before her looked so unreal it was almost cruel.

Thump.

Her heart gave a hard beat.

It was embarrassing that she had suspected him of being a pervert just moments ago. There wasn’t even the slightest trace of ulterior motives on his face.

His expression was perfectly blank, so transparent and cool that it showed he was focused on nothing but his work.

His face looked far younger than hers.

Still, there was a strange aura about him.

A steadiness that didn’t waver before anything, as if he had devoted ages to this one path alone.

It was an alien presence that didn’t suit his age at all.

“Yes. That’s how the Spell Formula is designed. Didn’t you hear about it? That no one but your grandfather could handle this sword?”

“...!”

Was that right?

...It did sound familiar.

No, maybe she had heard that only their bloodline could use it.

She had a vague memory of something like that...

“...”

No matter what, it was the middle of the night, and a young man and woman were alone together.

Yu-ha cautiously looked up at Do-hyeon.

His face remained utterly indifferent, as if he were examining a stone by the roadside. That detached expression, showing not the slightest concern for the situation, somehow stung her pride a little.

Ugh.

‘What am I thinking about all by myself?’

Right. Hadn’t she promised that she would do anything if he could fix this sword?

Her face burning red, Yu-ha stepped in front of Do-hyeon.

She didn’t dare meet his eyes, so she lowered her gaze. Her shoulders trembled faintly.

“...G-Go ahead.”

Do-hyeon recalled what Baek A-yeong at the herbal pharmacy had done to him.

‘...I think it was like this.’

A little below the collarbone, slightly above the heart.

The spot where a Suppression Talisman would have been.

Do-hyeon’s long, pale hand came to rest there.

“Hngh...”

The unfamiliar warmth seeping through her clothes made Yu-ha’s breath catch in her throat.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump!

Her heart pounded like crazy.

The faint scent of the man standing close to her, and the thought of that attractive face being right before her if she lifted her head even a little, made it impossible to breathe properly.

Anyone who saw them would surely misunderstand and think they were doing something strange in the middle of the night.

‘Heart, please...! He’ll notice at this rate, seriously!’

* * *

At that same moment, Do-hyeon was focusing all his attention on her as well.

Of course, what he was examining wasn’t her wildly racing heartbeat, but the Spiritual Power flowing beneath it.

When he closed his eyes, only the sensation at his fingertips came alive with clarity.

Fundamentally, it wasn’t any different from Mana Wave.

He simply had to read the flow of Spiritual Power.

‘...The pulse is fairly strong and fast. That’ll make it easier to trace its pattern.’

Her Spiritual Power rose from her dantian, spreading throughout her body with every beat of her heart.

Do-hyeon fed a thread-thin strand of his own Spiritual Power into that flow.

Then, following its pattern, he traced it back as if feeling his way along it.

His Spiritual Power and hers.

The instant the two gently overlapped,

the wavelength came into sharp focus.

That was how Do-hyeon took Yu-ha’s pulse.

‘...As expected. It’s similar to what was set into the sword.’

It seemed that the Spiritual Power flowing through each family or bloodline shared certain characteristics.

The moment that thought occurred to him,

Do-hyeon recalled the circuit he had read from the sword earlier.

‘...Wait. This.’

His eyes narrowed slightly.

It had been locked to keep just anyone from using it.

He delved deeper into the Spiritual Power touching his fingertips.

“Hngh...!”

A particular pattern, a particular wavelength.

...!

‘The sword itself was made for this bloodline from the start.’

Only then did the structure of that strange Spell Formula make complete sense.

If he adjusted the input circuit just a little,

the sword would recognize its owner and respond properly again.

“I’m done.”

When Do-hyeon removed his hand, Yu-ha let out the breath she had been holding.

“...Okaaay.”

Ugh, I thought I was going to die of embarrassment.

As Yu-ha covered her burning cheeks with both hands and sighed to herself in relief, Do-hyeon said, “Please wait a moment,” already turning sharply toward the cooled sword before the furnace.

* * *

Yu-ha stared blankly at Do-hyeon’s fingertips as he stood before the furnace.

She had caught a glimpse of him engraving something onto the dagger in that vision earlier, but things had been too urgent then for her to take it in properly.

Now, though, watching him up close with nothing in the way...

It completely shattered her common sense.

Do-hyeon held no engraving tool.

He simply held two fingers straight.

A thin, sharp concentration of blue Spiritual Power soon gathered at his fingertips.

The instant his fingers touched the surface of the Japanese sword,

Fwoosh! Crackle!

Blue sparks burst wildly in every direction with a spine-chilling screech of friction.

“...!”

Yu-ha’s lips fell open on their own.

Thin smoke rose with the acrid smell of burning metal.

As his unhesitating fingers scattered blue afterimages, clear lines were engraved across the blade.

‘T-That’s even possible...?’

She had learned about Spell Formula engraving when she attended an occult academy.

She knew how much concentration it took to engrave a Spell Formula into a Ritual Implement.

Even the slightest error, the smallest flicker of Spiritual Power, could ruin the entire Spell Formula. It was an extremely precise, nerve-racking task.

Wasn’t anyone who could do even a little of it immediately treated as precious and called an artisan in this field?

Even the renowned artisans of great families and workshops needed special magnifying lenses and precise engraving tools to barely manage it.

Yet this man before her

was drawing line after line with complete calm, without a hint of hesitation.

Even amid the fiercely flying sparks, his fingers didn’t tremble in the slightest.

Only the blue Spiritual Power clinging to them burned with an unwavering light.

In this pitch-black place, surrounded by nothing but darkness, only his fingertips shone blue.

One stroke, then another.

The sight of him drawing star-like trails through the darkness was unrealistically beautiful.

Yu-ha could only stare at the scene in a daze.

* * *

Holding the wavelength he had read from Yu-ha’s pulse in his mind, Do-hyeon made the final adjustments to the tightly locked input circuit.

The last stroke.

‘...Done. This should do it.’

The circuit would now properly accept its owner’s energy.

‘...What kind of person made something like this?’

He wanted to meet them at least once if they were still alive.

Well, they had probably lived hundreds of years ago.

All right, he had cleanly erased the signs of the incompetent artisans who had ruined it.

He had also adjusted the input circuit to match her Spiritual Power.

That meant the request was more or less complete...

“...”

...But this didn’t quite satisfy him.

Do-hyeon glanced back at Yu-ha.

From what Seo Ji-an had told him earlier, the more this woman made a name for herself with this sword,

and the more money she earned,

the more of that would come back to him as income.

Besides, he had already been paid more than enough for the request.

And she was his first sorcerer customer...

“...”

Well, then.

“Yu-ha?”

“Yes?”

Yu-ha cautiously approached.

“...Would you happen to need an upgrade for your sword?”

“...Pardon?”

A faint smile spread across Do-hyeon’s lips.

It was the smile of a born salesman.

“I’ll engrave a few things for you as a free service, just this once.”

* * *

“...Pardon?”

Yu-ha was already half out of her mind.

He had only set up this makeshift forge a short while ago, yet he had fixed the broken Spell Formula and was now offering to add more Spell Formulas as well.

What? He could add other Spell Formulas too?

Was it even possible to engrave multiple Spell Formulas at once?

Adding new Spell Formulas to an already completed Ritual Implement couldn’t possibly be easy.

If they clashed with the existing Spell Formula, the entire sword could be ruined.

And he was doing it on the spot, without any prior design or preparation?

Yet her concerns were made to look foolish.

The young artisan before her simply engraved new Spell Formulas with casual ease.

Do-hyeon’s hand quickly moved across the blade again.

‘Let’s see...’

He recalled the flow of her Spiritual Power that he had examined earlier.

Her innate reserves of Spiritual Power weren’t especially abundant.

Then there was only one answer.

Make it keep circulating within the sword, without any Spiritual Power being wasted.

Do-hyeon drew a long line along the outer face of the blade.

A path subtly connected to the end of the existing circuit, pulling the Spiritual Power that tried to escape back inside.

The [Mana Recirculation Circuit].

Or, in this world’s terms, something like the [Spiritual Power Recirculation Circuit].

It was a structure that captured the Spiritual Power wasted when the sword was swung and circulated it back through the sword.

‘That takes care of the fuel-efficiency issue. The second one...’

Do-hyeon’s gaze slowly ran over the sharp blade.

He had caught a glimpse of her swinging the sword in that vision earlier.

He could instinctively tell.

...That woman probably hadn’t learned swordsmanship properly.

It was likely because of the nature of her innate Spiritual Power.

Of course, a sword of this caliber would still have decent power even if she swung it clumsily, but it wouldn’t hurt to give a beginner a little help.

So Do-hyeon added a circuit that would keep the balance of the sword steady when it wobbled wildly in unskilled hands.

‘Set an axis to hold the center of gravity, and fix the tip so it always points in the same direction...’

So the tip wouldn’t stray somewhere useless, but point toward where it needed to cut.

‘These two should be enough.’

One for her insufficient Spiritual Power, and the other for her unskilled movements.

Two auxiliary circuits serving entirely different purposes blended seamlessly into the existing main circuit.

He could have gotten greedy and crammed in all sorts of things, but...

Simple was still best.

If he engraved too much at once, her limited Spiritual Power would only end up spreading in every direction.

This was the most perfect balance.

“Whew.”

Do-hyeon removed his hand and let out a light breath.

The crackling blue sparks died down, and the sword settled quietly into its perfect form.

All that remained was sharpening the newly reborn blade to a smooth edge.

Tap, tap, tap.

Do-hyeon took three portable whetstones from his case.

A rough stone for the first pass, a medium stone, then a fine white finishing stone.

Scrape, scrape, scrape.

The satisfying feel of the rough grain shaving away made the corners of his lips lift slightly.

‘Ah, that’s the stuff.’

The rough whetstone corrected the angle of the misaligned edge, the medium one refined the surface, and the final stone polished the blade along its grain until it shone like a mirror.

There wasn’t a trace of hesitation in his hands.

Yu-ha, who had watched the entire process holding her breath, was now close to laughing in disbelief.

How many places had she taken this sword to?

She had gone back and forth between Japan and Korea, visiting every workshop that claimed to be skilled.

There had been white-haired masters whose lineages had worked on famous swords for generations.

There were even renowned families that made their living entirely by crafting Ritual Implements.

Every one of them had taken the sword, stared at it for a long time, and shaken their heads.

“...This isn’t something we can repair.”

That was what the ones with any conscience said.

Countless others had charged her tens of millions of won for an inspection, then touched the sword even though they couldn’t fix it, damaging parts that had been fine before returning it to her.

It was the sword she had clung to her entire life.

Yet the man before her

had set up a single portable furnace in someone else’s garden in the middle of the night, not even a proper workshop or smithy.

In less than twenty minutes,

he revived a sword no one else could repair and engraved two new circuits into it.

‘...Does that even make sense?’

He still had the face of a young boy, but his skill with metal was far beyond his years.

Like someone who had spent an entire lifetime before the flames.

‘...Who is he, really?’

Scrape, scrape.

Before she knew it, the sound of the whetstone had faded.

The newly sharpened edge caught the moonlight and flashed.

Only then did Do-hyeon stop moving.

“There. It’s finished.”

Do-hyeon wiped the blade with a cloth and held out the hilt toward Yu-ha.

“Hello? Kim Yu-ha?”

“Ah...!”

Yu-ha flinched and accepted the sword with dazed eyes.

The grip felt solid. The ugly scars layered onto it were completely gone, and it looked no different from a freshly forged new sword.

Then she gently poured Spiritual Power into the hand holding the sword.

At that moment,

Sluuurp.

The Spiritual Power that had refused to enter no matter how hard she tried

was swallowed greedily,

as if the sword had been thirsty for a very long time.

The sword accepted every last bit of her Spiritual Power.

Bzzzzing.

From the blade’s tip to the hilt, it began to vibrate with a low, pleasant resonance.

Proof that the long-sleeping Ritual Implement had finally awakened.

“Ah...”

Could this be a dream?

Yu-ha stared blankly down at the sword, alive and breathing in her hand.

She couldn’t believe it.

Her eyes trembled helplessly.

Heat slowly gathered in them, and her vision blurred.

The scorn and ridicule poured on her, saying she only acted big because of her bloodline.

The countless nights she had swallowed it all down after coming to Korea as if fleeing, being turned away at workshop after workshop and swindled out of money.

[If you can learn to wield this sword, you’ll surely become the greatest sorcerer, just like your grandfather.]

The years she had endured by clinging to those words flashed before her eyes.

The sword she had longed for all her life

was alive and breathing in her hands.

Drip. Drip.

Tears she could no longer hold back rolled down her cheeks and wet the back of her hand.

“Sniff...”

If she hadn’t met this man,

she would still be wandering through that endless night.

When she slowly raised her head with trembling eyes,

the young artisan

was still smiling faintly with that unreadable, indifferent face.