WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

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◈ The Occult World’s Coveted Blacksmith ◈

Chapter 8: Burn.

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The man was forced face-down onto the floor in an instant, unable to put up any real resistance.

“Ugh... Let go, you bastards...!”

He came to his senses too late and struggled, but it was already far too late.

The Cheonhwa Hall employees quickly fastened black, prayer-bead-like objects around his wrists and ankles.

The bundle of talismans that had been fluttering wildly just moments ago fell still as if by magic.

‘...So they have things like that.’

I didn't know what they were, but they seemed to be tools that blocked the flow of energy.

I withdrew the energy flowing through the sword in my hand.

Hummm.

The vibration from the blade gradually subsided in my grip, and the blue flames rippling along its surface scattered into the air and went out.

I quietly placed the cooled sword back on the display case.

‘What a piece of work.’

He'd made the mistake himself, then come here wearing a bomb vest to carry out a terrorist attack.

The more I thought about it, the more ridiculous it became.

Seriously.

He poured water-aspected mana...

‘...No, they call it Spiritual Power around here.’

Anyway, he dumped water-aspected Spiritual Power into a fire-aspected weapon designed to spew flames, then threw a fit because it wouldn't ignite. How did that make any sense?

“Ugh...”

The man groaned in pain on the floor, his joints bent at awkward angles.

‘Tsk.’

Clicking my tongue, I looked down at the sword on the display case again.

‘...Though Cheonhwa Hall isn't entirely without blame for designing the circuit like this.’

I would've done it differently.

I would've designed the circuit to account for users stupid enough to feed it Spiritual Power of the wrong attribute in the first place.

The blueprint of the circuit I'd examined earlier naturally formed in my mind again.

The entrance to the circuit running from the hilt to the blade.

I'd add a bypass there.

If the energy being fed in wasn't pure Spiritual Power, the engraving would prevent it from entering the main circuit at all.

Then the energy blocked from the main circuit would naturally travel through the bypass and flow out of the sword.

Since it would never enter in the first place, the circuit couldn't become contaminated by conflicting energy of another attribute.

‘...Or I could engrave a circuit inside the entrance to purify the Spiritual Power that comes in.’

That would require more complex engraving, so the hilt would have to be a little longer.

The sword's balance would shift backward, so I'd need to adjust the blade's thickness or length to balance it again.

Inside the forge in my head, a new blueprint for this sword was already being rapidly refined and completed.

‘...Well, that's beside the point.’

Either way, the user was largely at fault.

And holding people's lives hostage while making threats was an act that was difficult to excuse no matter how I looked at it.

“Do-hyeon... Are you all right?”

Seo Ji-an, who had backed far away at some point, cautiously approached me.

Her face was still pale.

“Yeah. As you can see.”

As I answered casually, the manager, who had been looking down coldly at the subdued man, gave the employees a brief signal.

It seemed to be an order to finish handling the situation.

Then he turned and came straight toward me.

The hostile air from earlier was nowhere to be found. He wore a flawless smile.

“My name is Cheonghyeon, and I serve as the General Manager of Cheonhwa Hall's Goblin branch. Thank you. Thanks to your swift response, we were able to resolve this unfortunate incident safely.”

He bowed politely.

“What will happen to that man now?”

“Enforcement Officers from the Occult Management Bureau will arrive shortly to take him into custody.”

What was an Enforcement Officer?

From his tone, they seemed to be something like police officers or constables.

“More importantly... Forgive my impertinence, but may I ask which organization you belong to?”

“Well...”

“Ah! Just a moment!”

Before I could answer, Seo Ji-an quickly stepped in and handed him a business card.

“I'm Seo Ji-an, his representative.”

General Manager Cheonghyeon accepted the card and looked between Seo Ji-an and me.

“Hahaha... Our client currently has some, um, personal circumstances. It's difficult for him to reveal his identity openly.”

Seo Ji-an smiled with her eyes and smoothly improvised an excuse.

Cheonghyeon watched me for a moment after hearing her, then nodded without pressing further.

“I see. Please forgive my rudeness.”

“...”

I looked around.

All the customers had already fled the store, while the employees busily cleaned up the broken display case and scattered talismans.

Well, they'd caught the bad guy.

It didn't seem like there was anything else worth looking at.

“...Then we'll be going.”

I turned to leave.

“Please wait a moment.”

Cheonghyeon stopped us.

He gave a brief instruction to an employee beside him, then disappeared into the back of the store.

‘...What is he up to now?’

While he was gone, I looked over the disorderly store and quietly asked Seo Ji-an.

“Ji-an, how highly regarded is that Karmafire Sword in this field?”

“Huh? That sword?”

“I think I heard that man say something about a Byeong-tier artisan earlier.”

“Ah...!”

Seo Ji-an clapped her hands as if she finally understood.

“You said you weren't familiar with this side's system, right?”

Her explanation boiled down to this.

Ritual Implements were given ranks based on Chinese characters.

Gap, Eul, Byeong, Jeong, Mu, Gi, Gyeong, Sin, Im, Gye.

It was the familiar order of Gap, Eul, Byeong, and Jeong taken from the sexagenary cycle.

For convenience, though, people these days only considered Gap through Jeong as actual ranks. Everything below that was grouped together as low-grade Ritual Implements.

“So a Byeong-tier item is considered quite a luxury. Most freelance sorcerers might never get to handle one even once in their lives.”

A grin tugged at the corner of my mouth.

‘Right, is that so?’

A world where something like that was treated as a luxury.

“Sorry to keep you waiting.”

Cheonghyeon emerged from the back just then, smiling as he held out a thick envelope.

“This is a small token of appreciation from Cheonhwa Hall.”

“...Huh?”

I accepted the envelope without thinking, and it felt heavy in my hand.

He took something else from his clothes.

It was a small black silk pouch with a drawstring.

“What is this?”

“This is a Suppression Talisman newly developed by us. It's still a prototype, but we thought it might be useful to you...”

Cheonghyeon politely placed the pouch in my hand.

‘...A Suppression Talisman.’

Its name alone didn't tell me what it suppressed, but I decided to accept it for now.

As I put away the envelope and pouch, I glanced toward the back of the store.

The employees had already cleared away most of the broken display case.

The store, which had been thrown into complete chaos by one customer, was already looking fairly orderly again.

‘They work fast, at least.’

That was when it happened.

Clink.

A small wind chime at the store entrance rang.

Several men in black suits entered in a line.

They looked like secretaries from some large corporation, but the man at the front pulled out something unexpected from his clothes: a thick wooden plaque like an identification tag.

“I am Kang Mujin, a Fifth-Rank Daoist of the Occult Management Bureau's First Investigation Division. ...Where is the suspect?”

“This way. Ah, sir, I have matters to clean up, so I'll be going now. Please visit Cheonhwa Hall anytime.”

After bowing politely once more, Cheonghyeon headed toward the Bureau employees.

* * *

We left Cheonhwa Hall and entered the crowded market alley again.

The moment we turned a corner, Seo Ji-an, who had been walking beside me, rubbed her chest in relief and crouched down as if her legs might give out.

“Whew... I seriously thought I was going to die. Weren't you scared at all, Do-hyeon?”

“...?”

When I stared down at her, Seo Ji-an shook her head with a groan, as though all the strength had left her legs.

“Ugh, never mind.”

According to her, the terrorist wearing all those Karmafire Talismans like bombs had been frightening, but what had really suffocated her was the aura radiating from the Cheonhwa Hall employees who'd gathered afterward.

Especially General Manager Cheonghyeon, who looked like some narrow-eyed character. His energy was so overwhelming that it was hard for her to endure, and it made goosebumps rise all over her body.

Energy? Aura?

What energy was she talking about?

‘Ah...’

When that General Manager first spoke, I had felt the air against my skin grow heavy for a moment.

I'd assumed it was just my imagination.

‘Huh...’

Then again, if I thought about it, there had been a terrorist in front of me wearing a bomb vest that could go off at any moment.

Yet I'd acted as if it were nothing.

That was a little strange.

‘Was I always this bold?’

Thinking back, I'd calmly hammered away even in a dragon's lair, where it unleashed breath attacks every day, and among the Demon King's armies trying to destroy the continent.

...But that had been a game. This was real life.

“...Well, I guess that situation might not have felt like much of a threat to you, Do-hyeon.”

Seo Ji-an got back to her feet and looked me over from head to toe with a strange expression.

“I couldn't tell at the cafe, but now that I see you, you've been hiding yourself quite well, haven't you?”

What misunderstanding was this now?

What had I been hiding?

I blinked, wondering what she meant, and Seo Ji-an continued.

“Ever since you touched the jade flute earlier, it looked like some Spiritual Power had been leaking out. But when you held the Karmafire Sword... it became visibly stronger.”

‘...I-Is that right?’

Before, energy had only leaked out temporarily when I held a hammer or repaired something. Now, though, it seemed to flow naturally through my body little by little even without me forcing it out.

Was this my Spiritual Power?

‘...Is there a way to check?’

I wanted to find out how far my abilities, my Spiritual Power, held up by the standards of real-world sorcery.

Just then, the talismans spread across a street stall caught my eye.

“Ji-an, where can I buy blank paper like the kind used to make talismans?”

“Gwaehwangji? That stall sells it too, but... why?”

So that was what it was called.

“I want to test something.”

“...What?”

Instead of answering, I walked over to the elderly vendor sitting at the stall.

When I picked out several sheets of Gwaehwangji, Seo Ji-an followed me and naturally took out her wallet to pay.

“Then we should buy some Mirror Cinnabar and a brush too. Let's see...”

“I don't sell those.”

The vendor answered curtly.

Seo Ji-an looked around at the other stalls with an awkward expression, intending to find them elsewhere, but I shook my head.

“It's fine.”

I knew instinctively.

I didn't need a brush or ink.

I placed one sheet of the Gwaehwangji I'd just bought on my palm and slowly closed my eyes.

Then I extended my right index finger and lightly ran it over the paper's surface.

Rustle.

The rough texture of the paper.

Through my Spiritual Power, the tiny gaps between the tangled fibers flowed into my mind as though I could see through them.

‘The texture is soft... and it absorbs mana easily.’

It seemed capable of storing a certain amount of mana, too.

‘So this is how it works.’

“D-Do-hyeon...?”

Instead of answering, I focused my energy at the tip of the index finger resting on the paper.

I let Spiritual Power flow from my fingertip and drew a circuit.

The structure I'd seen in the Karmafire Sword earlier.

I formed a main line, then branched off paths for the energy to travel through.

A structure that made the passages narrower and narrower, pushing the pressure to its limit.

At the end, I engraved a spiral circuit where the energy would whirl and build explosive force.

It was just a disposable scrap of paper anyway.

I would sacrifice any concern for delicate durability.

I would pour everything into a single discharge.

I quickly improved the blueprint in my mind and carved it out with my fingertip.

Sizzle!

“W-What?!”

Seo Ji-an's mouth fell open.

Geometric patterns began to form on the yellow Gwaehwangji, blackening as if they had been burned in along the path my finger traveled.

“H-How is this happening...?”

I lifted the completed talisman.

The black pattern gave off a faint wisp of smoke, glowed red, then settled.

“Then... shall we try it?”

“Try what?!”

Seo Ji-an hurried after me, her face clearly full of alarm.

I looked around.

An empty lot surrounded by a fence, with little foot traffic, caught my eye.

“What about over there?”

“Ah, they started building commercial units there but stopped. No one uses it now...”

It was a messy vacant lot, like construction had been abandoned halfway through, with only dirt dug up everywhere.

‘Let's see what this can do.’

I flicked the talisman into the middle of the empty lot.

Flutter, flutter.

Then I sent mana into the thread of Spiritual Power connecting me to the talisman, like flicking a small spark.

‘Burn.’

At that moment.

Fwoooooosh, boom!!

An enormous blaze erupted in every direction.

Footnotes:

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