NOVEL WEB Chapter 13
Chapter 13: Coincidence and Fate (2)
The sound of hammering and Lee Gwangbae’s singing filled his workshop.
“This is just fine~ That is just fine~ The fire rises, and what a splendid sight it is~”
As he sang a strange tune and pounded away at the iron, Suhyeon sat quietly beside him, watching both Gwangbae and the forge in turns.
‘What is this guy’s deal?’
Gwangbae was crafting a blade, but he found himself distracted by the man who had suddenly appeared beside him.
He hadn’t come to request a weapon; he just wanted to watch Gwangbae work?
Lee Gwangbae.
A 5-star hunter with skills in handling fire, and the vice-guild master of the famous European blacksmith guild, Hephaestus.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that most of the weapons used by today’s renowned hunters came from his guild.
Gwangbae had told his guild master he’d be working back in his homeland for a while and had managed to avoid the media’s gaze by using his unique skills to secure a remote workshop in Korea’s Hunter Valley to complete some overdue work.
There likely wasn’t a hunter who didn’t know both his name and face.
…But this guy’s attitude—what was it?
He didn’t react even when hearing Gwangbae’s name.
No, he didn’t seem interested at all.
If he had figured out who Gwangbae was and begged him to make a weapon, Gwangbae had been prepared to toss him some cash, hush him up, and relocate his workshop.
But what was that? He just wanted to watch him make weapons?
“Of course, Hephaestus’s vice-guild master is something else. There’s a reason you were accepted despite being Korean.”
Gwangbae paused his hammering and shot him a glance.
“So, you did know?”
Suhyeon shrugged.
“It would be stranger if I didn’t recognize a blacksmith as famous as you.”
“What a strange guy. How’d you find me here in Hunter Valley? Especially in such an out-of-the-way place?”
“It was… just by chance.”
“By chance?”
“Yes, by chance.”
Gwangbae scoffed as he looked at Suhyeon, who spoke casually.
“If you found me by chance, then why don’t you ask me to make you a weapon?”
For a guy with basic equipment, finding a blacksmith like him should have been the opportunity of a lifetime.
“Skilled blacksmiths don’t make weapons just because someone asks. They make them when they feel like it, and for someone they want to make a weapon for.”
“…Huh?”
“If I’d asked you to make one, wouldn’t you have just thrown me out?”
Hearing Suhyeon’s reply, Gwangbae’s eyes widened.
Did he read my mind?
No, this wasn’t like that.
While companies had tried to monopolize weapon production just as they did with potions, blacksmiths who were also awakened individuals or hunters had not disappeared.
The awakened possessed physical capabilities beyond the ordinary.
Unlike mass-production businesses, they could pour their meticulous effort into creating true masterpieces.
No matter how much corporations poured technology into making better weapons, they couldn’t surpass the awakened blacksmiths who utilized their own enhanced abilities.
Blacksmiths took great pride in this.
And this kid—he understood that?
This kid who looked barely twenty?
Suhyeon looked at Gwangbae.
Though he was smiling, his face, partly lit by the flames, looked intense, his eyes gleaming in the firelight.
He really did look like a dwarf.
Humming a tune and happily hammering away, he looked just like the dwarven chieftain.
Just watching him made the chieftain’s face appear vividly in Suhyeon’s mind.
As he stared into the vibrant red flames, Suhyeon felt as if he were back in the moment when the dwarven chieftain had been hammering away.
‘…Huh?’
The demon king observed the surroundings.
More precisely, he observed the mana in the surroundings.
The mana was beginning to gather around Suhyeon, as it did when he cast high-level magic.
‘And I’m not even using Memorize right now?’
“The flowing years are bothersome~ Yet eternal life dulls the thrill~ What, then, should I choose?”
Unaware that the mana was seeping into him, Suhyeon instinctively picked up the hammer and tongs lying beside him.
He could remember it vividly.
I had sat in the exact same spot, watching the dwarven chieftain as he crafted my armor.
I could hear the chieftain’s strange, mumbled singing.
Gradually, the entire workshop around him melded with his memories, subtly transforming.
This was no longer the workshop with Gwangbae and myself.
‘Strike here to bend it well, and hit there to refine the edge sharply.’
‘I’m no blacksmith, Chief Dwarf.’
‘Oh, come on! Do you think getting a lesson from the greatest blacksmith around is easy?’
This was the workshop with the dwarven chieftain and me.
The memories expanded in Suhyeon’s mind.
Before he was aware of it, his hands and voice began to move fluidly, as if on their own.
“What if I refuse? What if I refuse?”
Suhyeon joined in the song, lightly hammering twice on the mineral that Gwangbae was holding with the tongs.
“…?”
Gwangbae’s eyes widened at Suhyeon’s sudden action.
An unexpected third party had just interfered in the hammering technique he’d honed over the past decade.
“What do you think you’re—”
Gwangbae’s face, already heated from the flames, began to flush deeper red.
‘…Wait.’
But Gwangbae noticed the spot Suhyeon had struck.
‘Those two spots… those were exactly where I was struggling to shape it!’
Even the force he used was just right.
It was an eerie level of precision for mere coincidence.
“Look at this blazing fire~ Does fire bear the marks of time?”
Bang! Bang!
Suhyeon hummed again, hammering away, all the while looking straight at Gwangbae.
What the… is this guy insane?
He’s different now from just a moment ago.
Not only was his hammer placement perfect, but the force was exactly right.
This kid was hitting the optimal spots where I’d wanted to strike myself.
There’s no way this could all be coincidence.
Could something like this even be possible?
Was Hephaestus reincarnated?
Suhyeon’s eyes were fixed on Gwangbae, yet it felt as if he were seeing past him, looking at something—or someone—else.
And now, the kid was speaking to him in song.
He was asking why Gwangbae had stopped, urging him to hammer along with him.
This is driving me crazy…
His pride as a blacksmith was triggered.
“The fire-like years pass in a flash~ But those moments shine gloriously~”
Alright, I’ll play along. But make one wrong move, and you’re out.
Gwangbae focused all his attention on the mineral he was refining.
With his unexpected assistant right beside him.
The demon king opened his mouth.
Memories could surface in different ways.
What Suhyeon was experiencing now was déjà vu.
Déjà vu made you feel like you’d experienced a present event sometime in the past.
However, his déjà vu didn’t end as mere imagination.
The resemblance between the dwarven chieftain’s workshop and Gwangbae’s was uncanny, and Gwangbae’s personality was similarly reminiscent of the chieftain.
Merely recognizing the similarities between the memory and the present had become a powerful enough trigger to make the mana flow on its own.
As a result, the mana began to respond to Suhyeon as intensely as when he used Memorize, conjuring memories of the dwarven chieftain at the forge.
Mana’s influence brought forth these memories, and they started to course through Suhyeon’s body with a will of their own.
Ordinarily, Memorize only recalled magic, but now the mana was resurrecting even the memories of delicate actions and techniques.
[…Should I be pleased about this or not?]
‘Maybe lean toward being pleased?’
[What? You… are you aware right now?]
He had assumed Suhyeon was completely overtaken by the mana-driven memories.
‘I’m perfectly conscious. I could stop if I wanted to.’
[Then why don’t you?]
‘Well…’
Suhyeon hummed a tune like a dwarf as he swung the hammer.
‘I just wanted to think back to my days in Altera.’
“Though time is gold~ who’d cling to mere gold~?”
Bang, bang, bang, clang!
“Even minerals that shine brightly~ or dazzling jewels~”
Clang! Ting! Bang! Bang!
“When exposed to such heat~”
Bang, bang!
“Will simply melt away~”
Clang!
Their two hammers struck in harmony, creating a rhythm that resonated like music.
Gwangbae skillfully controlled the forge’s temperature with his fire-handling skill, adjusting the flames as though they had a life of their own, growing and shrinking in sync with the work.
‘What… is this?’
Gwangbae wondered if his eyes were deceiving him.
He struck the metal to shape it while Suhyeon refined the details.
It was almost unbelievable.
This kind of seamless coordination couldn’t possibly exist between two people who had just met.
After three hours of hammering, cooling, and repeating the process, a gleaming blade now lay before them.
“…”
“…”
Gwangbae gently ran his hand along the polished blade’s spine, speechless.
“At least it came out well,” Suhyeon said, exhaling in satisfaction as he looked over at Gwangbae.
“…Who are you?”
“Um… an aspiring hunter.”
“Have you ever trained as a blacksmith?”
“I just watched someone do it once.”
Half-joking yet half-serious, Suhyeon’s reply left Gwangbae dumbfounded.
“You could easily make a living as a blacksmith.”
And he wasn’t exaggerating.
“Not really interested, but thanks for the compliment.”
“Well, I’ll be…”
Gwangbae scratched his head in disbelief, but soon his face broke into a satisfied grin.
“What’s your name?”
“Kim Suhyeon.”
“Kim Suhyeon…”
Gwangbae repeated the name, as if committing it to memory.
After Gwangbae made him promise not to tell anyone about his presence here, Suhyeon nodded and left the workshop, glancing up at the sky.
It was well past evening.
He had spent the entire time in Gwangbae’s workshop, fully engrossed in crafting the weapon.
Hurrying back to the street where the potion shops were located, he found that most of them were already closed for the night, save for a few with late hours.
“Damn it…”
[You’re out of luck.]
He should’ve looked into it more thoroughly beforehand.
He had come to Hunter Valley to find a mana potion…
But the sound of hammering had drawn him into a whirlpool of nostalgia, leading him entirely off track.
And tomorrow, he had a mission…
He let out a sigh.
There was no choice. He’d have to complete the mission tomorrow and come back afterward.
[Still, it wasn’t a bad experience.]
‘Huh? How so?’
[It doesn’t matter if you don’t know.]
‘…?’
Suhyeon let the Demon King’s evasive answer slide and headed home.
The next day.
“This is it?”
Suhyeon arrived at the designated spot where a dungeon entrance was scheduled to appear.
[It’s coming.]
Crunch! Grind!
As soon as he arrived, the surrounding mana began to tremble, and the landscape distorted slightly. A portal formed, with a circular magic circle at its center.
The magical sigil at the entrance glowed as if ready to swallow him whole.
[Hmm…]
The Demon King glanced around, speaking with a hint of curiosity.
[Why is it deserted here?]
The last time, soldiers and even hunter trainees were present…
‘Last time, the gate opened in the middle of a busy street, so extra caution was necessary. Assigning soldiers and hunter trainees to every dungeon isn’t feasible with the threat levels posed by other dungeons.’
Suhyeon checked his mission details on his phone.
[Mandatory Mission]
Title: 1-Star Completion
Objective: Clear 20 F-rank dungeons (0/20)
Time Limit: 7 days
Reward: Hunter License Issuance
The Union assessed dungeons by measuring spatial distortions to determine the type and rank of monsters appearing within.
The dungeon’s rank represented the maximum rank of the monsters found inside.
[They seem to have an organized approach to dealing with gate magic in this world.]
“That’s why it hasn’t fallen to ruin yet.”
He felt a surge of admiration for the Union, which had built such a structured system in the forty years since monsters first appeared.
“Well, then, I’ll have to put in my best effort.”
To grow strong enough to find and eliminate the one creating these dungeons, he would need to become a hunter.
Clearing 20 F-rank dungeons, right?
He could handle it.
Strengthening his resolve, Suhyeon stepped into the magic circle.
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