WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

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◈ The Occult World’s Coveted Blacksmith ◈

Chapter 9: Aftertaste

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Fuck.

‘...What is this?’

Fwoooosh!

Flames shot up in every direction, raging wildly at the center of the clearing.

I'd expected a few ordinary flames to flare up, then go out.

This was practically an explosion you'd only see in a movie.

The blistering heat reached even my face from far away.

‘Are Talismans normally like this?’

Dazed, I turned to look beside me.

“H-How... how did this...?”

Seo Ji-an stood there with her mouth hanging open, muttering blankly.

Judging by her deathly pale expression, apparently not.

“Y-You aren't supposed to make Talismans like that...”

Ji-an turned toward me.

Then she murmured something so quietly I could barely hear it.

“Without a brush or Mirror Cinnabar... with your finger... How did you do this?”

‘...Huh.’

Only then did something occur to me.

Now that I thought about it, all the Talismans spread across the market stalls earlier had just been faded yellow paper with a few Chinese characters scrawled on them in red paint.

The ones that looked more expensive only had neater writing. In the end, they were still just a few similar characters or symbols drawn on paper.

What I had done, on the other hand...

I'd copied the circuit structure I saw on the Karmafire Sword onto paper, carving out each line for Spiritual Power to flow through.

The same way I'd engraved circuits into weapons.

That was when I realized it.

What I'd done was far outside the bounds of common sense in this world.

‘Don't tell me Talismans here are just red writing slapped onto paper and that's it?’

Seeing Seo Ji-an standing there like she'd lost her soul, that seemed to be the case.

She kept muttering in a daze, then suddenly snapped back to her senses and jumped in place.

“That isn't important right now... Run!”

“What?”

“Quickly!”

Ji-an urgently grabbed my arm and started running.

* * *

I had no idea how long we ran.

Seo Ji-an finally stopped after dragging me into an abandoned shopping arcade that happened to catch her eye.

It was a dim hallway layered with dust.

Between old stores with their shutters half-lowered, she bent over with her hands on her knees, gasping for breath.

“Haa... Haa...”

Come to think of it, she'd run all that way in heeled shoes.

“...Are you all right?”

“J-Just a moment. Just... a moment...”

Ji-an raised a hand as she tried to steady her ragged breathing.

Once she'd calmed down a little, she lifted her head and stared up at me.

“Do-hyeon, could you... do something about your Spiritual Power? Someone might track us.”

“...?”

“When that much Spiritual Power bursts out at once... it leaves an incredibly strong residue. If someone really wants to follow it, they could catch up with us quickly.”

‘...Ah.’

Now I understood what she meant.

It seemed Spiritual Power left traces when it was used intensely.

My Spiritual Power must have leaked out pretty badly along with that explosion.

‘But...’

How was I supposed to hide the flow of Spiritual Power?

When I only stared blankly without answering, Ji-an seemed to realize something and hurriedly held out her hand.

“...F-First, that Suppression Talisman from earlier. Where is it?”

“Ah, here.”

I took out the black silk pouch I'd tucked into my clothes and handed it to her.

Ji-an examined the pouch for a moment, then suddenly stepped close to me.

“Excuse me for a moment.”

With that brief warning, she rose onto her toes.

She looped the pouch's two strings around the back of my neck, then reached behind me and carefully tied them into a knot.

A faint scent, somewhere between perfume and soap, mixed with the faint scent of her body from all that running and brushed past my nose.

Beyond that, the gap between her rumpled blouse collar, rising and falling with her rapid breaths...

‘Ahem.’

I awkwardly turned my eyes toward the ceiling and swallowed a cough.

“Done.”

After tying the knot, Ji-an placed her index and middle fingers together against the pouch resting on my chest.

Then she quietly closed her eyes.

Ssshh...

The next moment, a strange change stirred inside me.

It felt as if someone had suddenly shut off a faucet that had been pouring endlessly. The energy spreading outward from me quietly settled down.

“...It's done. You should be fine now.”

Ji-an took her hand off my chest and let out a long sigh.

I looked down at the pouch hanging around my neck again and asked,

“...What exactly is this?”

“It's a Suppression Talisman. Just like the name says, it's a Talisman that suppresses Spiritual Power emissions.”

Looking a little more relaxed now, Ji-an continued explaining.

Sorcerers instinctively sensed one another's Spiritual Power. To hide it, they had to consciously suppress their energy all day long, like holding their breath.

Apparently, it was exhausting and incredibly inconvenient.

That was why they used Suppression Talismans.

“What happens if you don't hide it?”

“Strange minor spirits might gather around you, or you could become a target for crazy sorcerers who love picking fights. It can also unknowingly have a bad effect on ordinary people nearby.”

According to her, ordinary Suppression Talismans were consumables that wore out quickly, so people usually bought cheap ones.

The stronger someone's Spiritual Power was, though, the more essential a high-quality Suppression Talisman became. They were so rare and expensive that sellers could name any price they wanted.

“But... this one seems like it'd be worth quite a lot. I've never seen a Suppression Talisman that can regulate how much Spiritual Power it lets out.”

Hmm. The envelope of cash I'd received earlier had looked pretty thick, too.

This was expensive as well?

‘Do they normally take care of people this thoroughly?’

Well, the branch that had supposedly just been built had nearly burned down entirely, so I guessed this much compensation made sense.

They were the top company in the industry, after all.

“Anyway, should we move a little farther this way? There'll probably still be residue around here.”

* * *

Following Seo Ji-an, I headed deeper into deserted back alleys.

A grim alley lined with buildings that didn't even have signs stretched on endlessly.

“...Um, Ms. Seo?”

“Hehe, call me Ji-an.”

“Ah, okay. Anyway, what you said in the car. About what family I belong to. Why did you ask that?”

I suddenly got curious.

A family?

Now that I was realizing all this was real, curiosity began to bubble up.

This wasn't some Japanese ninja manga.

Belonging to a family?

Did bloodlines matter here too?

Ji-an, who had been walking ahead, slowed down and looked back at me.

Every trace of playfulness had left her face.

“That... takes a bit of explaining. I'll explain it slowly once we get there.”

Was there still somewhere else to go?

With that thought in mind, I silently followed behind her.

Then, at the very end of the alley...

A huge iron gate came into view, covered with numerous Talismans and heavy locks.

Ji-an pressed her palm against the gate for a moment and murmured an incantation I couldn't understand.

A faint light flowed from the Talismans attached to the iron gate.

It looked like the Barrier had been released.

She then took a large, crude key from her clothes and unlocked the gate.

Creeeak.

With a heavy scraping sound, the tightly shut iron gate opened.

“Get excited. Drumroll...”

She turned around and flashed me a playful smile.

“Are you ready? Ta-da!”

When I saw the space beyond the wide-open gate, I couldn't help being surprised.

It was a massive underground workshop packed with top-of-the-line equipment.

“Feel free to look around.”

A state-of-the-art fully automatic furnace with perfect temperature control, an anvil made from a special alloy, and premium tools filling the walls.

Every blacksmith's dream had been crammed into that place.

“As soon as you sign a contract with me, you can use this workshop right away! I set everything up just in case a good property became available! Hehe...”

I was looking over the special-alloy anvil and tools on the workbench as if I were possessed when...

“Ahem.”

Seo Ji-an's small cough brought me back to my senses.

When I turned, Ji-an was already standing beside a reception table set against one wall. Her hand rested lightly on the back of a chair as if inviting me to sit.

‘Ah.’

I'd gotten too absorbed.

I sat down, feeling awkward. Ji-an, who had been smiling brightly, soon gave another small cough and adopted a serious expression.

“Um... Do-hyeon.”

“Yes.”

“You need to listen carefully. I'll be honest. It won't be easy to find a broker willing to help someone like you, apart from me.”

As if someone might be listening, she brought both hands together on the table and leaned forward slightly.

“I mentioned it briefly at the cafe earlier, but the Four Great Houses have a tight grip on everything in the Occult World right now. They especially monopolize artisans like you, ones who can engrave Spell Formulas.”

“...Monopolize?”

“Yes. If someone who doesn't belong to a family makes something incredible like you did earlier and puts it on the market, they'll immediately become a target of the Four Great Houses.”

“...What happens if I become a target?”

Seo Ji-an's expression hardened.

“They won't care what methods they use. At first, they'll come carrying bags of money and try to sweet-talk you. If that doesn't work... they'll try to break you somehow, even if they have to disguise it as an accident.”

“...”

“Especially with skills as overwhelming as yours, they'll be desperate to cut off your wrists before another family can take you.”

She wasn't joking.

“...If it's that dangerous, wouldn't it be better to join a family? One of the Four Great Houses or somewhere else.”

Ji-an firmly shook her head.

“If you join a family, someone like you will never get out for the rest of your life. Since you aren't from the main family, everything you make will be taken under the family name, and they'll set your prices however low they want. In short, you'll become their slave artisan.”

‘A slave artisan...’

For a moment, I remembered the bastards in the game who controlled crafters by guild and practically kept them imprisoned.

Reality wasn't any different.

“But it'd be such a waste for someone with your skill to rot in a place like that, right? So here's what I'm proposing.”

Seo Ji-an confidently raised one finger.

“I'll make you a foreign identity.”

“...A foreign identity?”

* * *

At a clearing on the outskirts of Goblin Market, where Do-hyeon had caused the explosion...

Kang Mujin, a Daoist from the Occult Management Bureau's First Investigation Division, was crouched on the ground.

“...”

Mujin ran a finger across the soil, which had melted smooth like glass from the heat.

He had originally been escorting a suspect who had attempted to carry out a terrorist attack at Cheonhwa Hall to the Bureau.

Then an enormous, unauthorized burst of Spiritual Power had been detected, so he had come to investigate.

He'd hurriedly followed the residue of Spiritual Power, but it had cut off midway, so he had returned to the scene.

Cheonghyeon, Cheonhwa Hall's General Manager, stood quietly behind Kang Mujin. He had also been caught up in the explosion earlier.

Cheonghyeon had originally been accompanying Mujin to the Bureau to write a statement.

But Mujin had only recently been assigned here and wasn't familiar with the inner areas of Goblin Market. Since they were near Cheonhwa Hall, Cheonghyeon, who knew the way well, had volunteered to guide him here.

Mujin cleared his thoughts and focused on the scene before him again.

He touched the black soil on his finger with the tip of his tongue.

His tongue tingled from the intense Fire Energy.

‘With this much destructive power... was the sorcerer responsible at least a Grade-2 fire-aspected sorcerer?’

A Grade-2 sorcerer was among the strongest in the Korean Occult World.

Someone that powerful would almost certainly be a core asset of a major family, or at the very least, under the Bureau's strict surveillance.

‘And they unleashed this kind of firepower in a cramped market without prior authorization? What kind of lunatic is this?’

At that moment, a subordinate who had been searching the scene hurried over.

“Daoist!”

“Yeah. Did you find anything?”

“There have been no reports of Spiritual Power use from the major families at the Bureau, nor from any other families or sects. The Spiritual Power extracted from the residue is also unidentified Spiritual Power that isn't registered in the Bureau database, so no records came up.”

“Then what the hell is this? You're telling me an unregistered Grade-2 sorcerer is walking around free?”

“And... I don't think this is Korean-style sorcery.”

The subordinate held out a clear zippered bag gripped with tweezers.

Inside was a burned fragment of Yellow Talisman Paper.

There was no red writing on it.

Instead, it bore unknown black markings, tiny and densely packed.

A method not used in Korea.

And this overwhelming firepower... Could it be?

“...There's a high chance it was those Fire-Worship Sect bastards.”

“T-The Fire-Worship Sect? You mean those people from Persia?”

“Yes. Pull the full list of arrivals from flights out of Iran and Dubai within the past month. Separate out the religious visa applicants and cross-check them.”

“Yes, sir!”

The subordinate hurriedly radioed the order and left.

Kang Mujin stood there for a long time, silently staring at the center of the blackened clearing.

‘...But.’

Setting aside the fact that the Fire-Worship Sect had used Eastern Yellow Talisman Paper...

Judging by the remaining traces of Spiritual Power, there were no signs of a battle here at all.

No traces of someone fighting, and no signs of another sorcerer defending against an attack.

“...What on earth did they do here?”

While Mujin wrestled with the question, Cheonghyeon, standing behind him, was also looking down at the ground.

‘The Fire-Worship Sect...’

Just then, the tip of Cheonghyeon's shoe nudged a lightly charred scrap of paper.

It was the remains of another Talisman, hidden beneath the sand and missed by Mujin's subordinate.

‘...What's this?’

The moment Cheonghyeon saw the tiny black circuits engraved into the fragment, his eyes wavered slightly.

While Mujin's attention was elsewhere, Cheonghyeon casually stepped on the scrap with his shoe, then naturally bent down and slipped it into his sleeve.

‘...I need to report this to the Hall Master immediately.’

Footnotes:

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