WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

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◈ The Occult World’s Coveted Blacksmith ◈

Chapter 67: A Child Chosen by the Dragon King?

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Damn. This looks amazing.

Shanghai pasta and lobster, you're both dead today.

I sat down across from my new client, Chae Su-a, with a heaping plate in hand.

'Hmm. To be precise, is Noh Jin-hyeok the client?'

Well, whatever.

Scrape.

"...?"

"Eat up, sunbae. It's on me today."

"What are you talking about...? Ugh, whatever. This is annoying. Don't talk to me."

Our Su-a was pretty prickly, huh?

Su-a had briefly collapsed from exhaustion, but after a visit to the infirmary at Noh Jin-hyeok Corporation, No Corp for short, she was full of energy again.

This place really had everything. If a zombie apocalypse broke out, they could probably hold out for a month.

'Still, her constantly talking down to me is getting a little annoying.'

This was the land of Eastern courtesy, after all.

Should I straighten her out a little?

"Tsk... Keep it up, and I won't make you a present."

"...!"

She flinched.

Her hand froze around the fork.

Oh, that worked.

She must've really been looking forward to the present.

"I-I'll tell the CEO everything!"

"Mm. I'm friends with the CEO."

"Hmph, you're lying. The CEO wouldn't be friends with a kid like you."

"Says you."

Chomp, chomp.

Even while huffing, Su-a's mouth never stopped moving.

Her cheeks were stuffed full.

I'd learned something from this.

Teasing this kid was fun.

Ahem. Anyway.

My job right now was to build rapport with the client.

It happened in games sometimes too, when young players or NPCs with a low mental age gave me requests.

Usually, an adult NPC would bring them in and make the request on their behalf.

Those were exactly the times when building rapport was crucial!

That was how you understood the customer's exact circumstances and needs, then arrived at the best possible result.

If a few lines on a document told you everything, why would custom-made products even exist?

"So, Su-a. What's the most inconvenient thing about your Ultimate Art?"

"...What?"

Her fork stopped dead.

"Anything inconvenient. Anything you want fixed. Whatever it is."

"..."

Su-a closed her mouth.

She looked thoughtful for a moment, then a slightly complicated expression crossed her face.

It seemed no one had ever asked her that before.

"...Nothing? My Ultimate Art is perfect, okay?"

"Sure it is. I guess sunbae doesn't need a present."

"Why do you keep saying you won't make me one? Are you Santa or something? And don't talk down to your sunbae."

Hmm.

Yep, the reactions were satisfying.

It reminded me of when I used to pick on Ji-yeon as a kid.

Ah, those were good times. I missed them.

Wait. Su-a and I aren't that far apart in age, right?

Rapport was important and all, but...

I sprang to my feet.

Time to get more steak.

"Huh? Can you eat all that?"

"Why couldn't I? We work to eat. Sunbae should get some more too. Damn, this place really knows how to make steak."

"...S-should I?"

Su-a slowly got to her feet.

'Good. The rapport-building is going very smoothly.'

* * *

"Ah... I'm full. I overate because of you."

"Wow, blaming someone else. What are you doing now, sunbae?"

"I... need to sleep. I'm tired."

Now? It was only two in the afternoon.

Hmm... Her eyes were already half-closed.

She was staggering around like she was half asleep, too.

'I thought she was completely fine after visiting the infirmary.'

...Apparently not.

She'd been passed out from exhaustion until just a little while ago. Of course she'd be tired.

"If you lie down right after eating, you'll turn into a cow."

"I'll sleep even if I become a cow..."

Ahem. Her eyes drooping like that was ridiculously cute, though.

Was age really that powerful?

"..."

'Anyway, my client went off to sleep. What now?'

Well, couldn't be helped. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

I'd sleep too.

When I asked one of the staff earlier, they said the Seeds had fixed training schedules.

Su-a's schedule in particular was something else.

[Training - Sleep - Training - Sleep - Training - Sleep]

'...This looks like a kindergarten nap schedule.'

Anyway, evening training started at six, so I could wake up then.

Yawn. This wasn't a food coma.

I needed to sleep now so I could work while she was awake later.

Back in the suite.

Meow.

At the sound of the door, a little ball of fur came running over.

It was Meow, whom I'd taken out of the keychain before leaving the room that morning.

But then...

Meow rubbed their head against my leg once, then immediately turned around.

Meow ran straight back to the aquarium along one wall.

Look at that. Big brother's home, and Meow is jumping around trying to catch fish.

I'd given Meow a whole bunch of kisses before leaving since this was an unfamiliar place, but Meow had already settled in.

'...That greeting lasted all of three seconds.'

Yeah, you like it here better too, right?

"Meow. Big brother's sleeping for two hours, so don't wake me up."

As soon as I crawled under the covers, patter, patter, patter. Hop.

Meow climbed on top of me before I knew it.

Hmm. Soft and warm.

Whenever I slept, Meow always climbed on top of me like this.

Meow.

"Yeah, that means good night, right?"

* * *

That evening, I trailed after Su-a as she headed for the training room.

"...Why do you keep following me? Go away."

"I want to watch."

"Aren't you training? Then you won't get to debut."

'...?'

From the look of it, she thought I was some kid in the Seed Kindergarten craftsman class.

"This is my job."

"Hmm. Must be nice."

Su-a answered indifferently.

Something suddenly made me curious.

"What about you, sunbae? Why are you working so hard to debut?"

"Money."

Her answer came without a second of hesitation.

"My salary goes way up if I debut."

"What are you going to do with the money?"

"I have to give my mom a comfortable life."

'Oh. She doesn't look like it, but she's the filial-daughter type?'

That was pretty admirable.

"Anyway, you're getting in my way, so go-"

"I'm going too. I told you, it's work. I need to see your training to make the present."

"Umm..."

Su-a considered it for a moment, then set a condition.

"...Then teach me that thing from earlier."

"That thing?"

"That... water pillar."

"Sure."

.

.

.

Huff... Huff...

"Are you... really teaching me properly...?"

"I am. You should try a little harder, sunbae."

"L-Like this?"

"Yeah. Use your waist a little more."

I'd followed her in to teach her, but then I thought about it!

All I knew how to do was inscribe Spell Formulas.

Maybe things would've been different in the game.

There, you just drew circuits in the air with a staff and poured mana into them.

I could teach her as many circuits as she wanted.

But sorcerers in this world didn't seem to activate Spell Formulas that way.

Talismans, hand seals, incantations.

Why was everything so complicated?

I still had no idea how any of it corresponded to the Spell Formulas in this world. So...

A water pillar.

How was I supposed to teach her that?

It wasn't as if she could inscribe a Spell Formula onto a Talisman.

She didn't seem to know any other Spell Formulas in the first place.

It looked like she controlled everything on pure instinct.

So, partly to gather data, I'd been making her try all sorts of random things.

'Hmm.'

I'd loosened the Suppression Talisman a little earlier and had been watching her ever since.

But I couldn't figure out the principle at all.

When she was away from it, it was clearly ordinary water.

The moment she came close, currents of blue Spiritual Power churned wildly through the water.

Spiritual Power was also spinning rapidly and continuously within her upper dantian.

That was why I was making her do qi exercises!

The thing was, I didn't know anything about qi exercises either.

So Su-a had been standing in the middle of the pool, rotating her waist in circles and pushing both hands high into the air over and over, exactly as I told her to.

The funny part was...

Maybe because she was imagining something while doing those improvised exercises, something vaguely resembling a water pillar rose up along with them.

'...This actually works?'

Well, it didn't look all that different from what she'd been doing alone earlier.

"I... I'm tired."

"Then let's rest for a bit."

"Yes! Whew..."

Su-a came over to the edge where I sat and perched there.

"I heard your emotions make it difficult to control?"

"...!"

She flinched.

Her feet, which had been kicking at the water, stopped at once.

"W-Who said that? Did the CEO say it?"

"It was written in the documents."

"...Tch. Why did they write something like that down?"

Su-a pouted, then lowered her gaze.

"...It's true. They say it's something only I can do, so even the teachers here can't teach me. That's why they keep telling me to meditate and train my mind..."

Well, since she moved it with her mind, that wasn't exactly wrong.

"But it doesn't work as easily as it sounds."

Yeah, I figured.

"Argh."

Splash.

Su-a dove back into the water.

Her shadow rippled through the pool as though it were gliding.

'Oh...'

She was a great underwater swimmer.

Had she learned that after Awakening her Ultimate Art too?

Gasp!

"Did you learn how to swim?"

"My mom taught me."

"Oh, was your mother a competitive swimmer?"

"No, she's a haenyeo. She doesn't do it anymore, though..."

"Oh, a haenyeo. That's cool. But why did she quit?"

"..."

Instead of answering, Su-a floated on her back.

Her eyes stared up at the ceiling.

"I used to live by the sea."

That was how her story began.

To sum it up, she'd been the only daughter of a seaside family. Her mother was a haenyeo, and her father was a sailor.

She liked water and had supposedly learned to swim before she could even walk properly.

Then, when Su-a was around seven, her father went out to sea for work and never returned after being caught in a storm.

"..."

That was when things started getting strange, she said.

Every night, Su-a began walking into the sea.

While asleep.

"My grandmother thought a Water Ghost had possessed me. She thought my dad was... calling me."

So her grandmother took her to a shaman.

But the shaman shook their head.

It wasn't a Water Ghost.

"They said I was a child chosen by the Dragon King."

"...Chosen?"

"They said the Dragon King favored me and wanted to keep me close, or something like that. They said I kept walking into the sea at night because the Dragon King kept calling me."

"..."

"They said if I kept living near the water, the Dragon King would eventually take me away for good."

Su-a's mother gave up working at sea that very day.

She quit diving, something she'd done all her life, and fled to Seoul with Su-a, where they had no connections.

After that, she wouldn't let Su-a go anywhere near water.

Not a swimming pool, a valley stream, not even a bathhouse.

"My mom raised me by herself while working at a restaurant. From dawn until night."

She had avoided water for over ten years like that.

Then, one day a few years ago, she fully awakened to this power.

Every drop of water in the house rose into the air, and the whole place turned into chaos.

"But you know, I sometimes think this."

Su-a flicked the surface of the water with her fingertip.

"Maybe the water obeying me is really the Dragon King doing it. Maybe the Dragon King is taming me in advance so the Dragon King can take me to the sea someday."

Rippling light from the water played across her face.

"...Anyway! Not long after that, the CEO came to find me."

Su-a sat up.

"And ta-da! I became an ultra-gorgeous sorcerer trainee! So I have to debut and give my mom a comfortable life. My mom, who struggled her whole life."

"..."

Her voice was so spirited.

So why didn't her profile look bright at all?

Come to think of it, the pool had been the same way since earlier.

As her story changed, the currents in the pool had grown stronger, then calmed again.

It probably meant her heart was churning just as much.

'...'

I knew that look.

The look of someone who had learned far too early that they had to take responsibility for something.

It overlapped a little with how I used to look.

I had been around her age when I started earning money from games to help with living expenses.

'...Seriously.'

A kid acting like she wasn't a kid.

Putting on such a brave face all by herself.

Then there was only one thing I, the adult, had to do.

Argh.

Splash.

"W-What are you doing? I'm talking!"

"Break's over. You said you wanted to learn, right? Come on, like this. Try it."

"L-Like this?"

Whoosh!

Su-a swung her arm, and suddenly enough water to fill a truck came crashing toward me.

Soaked.

"...Pfft! Sorry. I told you I can't control it."

"Be honest. You did that on purpose, didn't you?"

"N-No, I didn't! Aah! Don't take out a Talisman. Sorry. I'm sorry. I was wrong."

And so, we had a water fight... no, training for a while.

Huff... Huff...

"W-Wait... I'll rest for a bit..."

Maybe she was exhausted, because she flopped down at the edge of the pool.

Then...

Soft, even breaths.

She said she would rest for a moment, but she fell asleep just like that.

'...Ahem.'

I checked the clock hanging in the training room.

'That nap schedule was right on the dot.'

I wrapped her up snugly in a nearby towel and picked her up.

She was breathing softly in my arms, like a fully grown baby.

I didn't think I'd carried Ji-yeon like this even once since she entered middle school.

The Dragon King's favor, huh.

I didn't know whether something like that was real or not.

'Well, ghosts exist in this world, so why wouldn't the Dragon King?'

Still, the world as I understood it didn't work that way.

It was a more visible, tangible, intuitive kind of world.

She said water obeyed her?

More precisely, it read her feelings and intentions, then moved.

In the end, the complex waves of Spiritual Power moving through her upper dantian and body...

For some reason, the Spiritual Power in water resonated with them and moved along with them.

'Wait. I feel like I've seen this before.'

Right. Playing games with brainwaves. Wasn't it like that?

I thought I'd seen it in the news.

People with disabilities playing games just by thinking, without moving a single finger.

But it wasn't easy, because stray thoughts and stress affected it.

That was probably why everyone kept telling her to train her mind.

But able-bodied people didn't play games that way, did they? They used their hands.

'Yeah. That's it.'

What Su-a needed wasn't mental training.

She needed a controller.

Grin.

'Good. That's what I'll make.'

Footnotes:

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