Genius Blacksmith's Game

Slowly cracking his eyes open, Hyunsoo stared at the hologram floating before him—and reeled.

[Current bid 1,008 Gold.]

[Final bid in 10 seconds.]

[10, 9, 8....]

“One thousand Gold?”

One thousand Gold—that was a hefty ₩1,000,000.

“Wow... unreal...!”

Was the value of artifacts in Ares far greater than he’d thought?

[Hyun’s First Sword has been sold for 1,008 Gold to Blam of Golden Hammer.]

[The buyer is leaving a blind review.]

A review?

Perplexed, Hyunsoo opened it.

[Hello. I’m Blam of the Golden Hammer guild. It’s an honor to purchase the first artifact crafted by the blacksmith named ‘Hyun.’]

Why the hard sell?

[I admittedly pushed my budget to buy this. But I considered the lack of a use restriction—and that this marks the first step in branding by the blacksmith Hyun.]

[I hope we can continue making good deals going forward. Also, if you’d like an exclusive contract, please contact our Golden Hammer guild anytime.]

“Ah...”

Hyunsoo grasped why the price had blown past his expectations.

Golden Hammer guild, huh...

He’d heard of the Golden Hammer guild.

A blacksmith guild with a real name in Korea.

Hyunsoo clicked “Golden Hammer” in the corner of the auction board to open their page.

“Whoa, 780,000 subscribers...?”

A staggering 780,000 people had set alerts to ping whenever Golden Hammer posted items.

“How many did I gain?”

He knew Lv.100 blacksmiths averaged fewer than ten subscribers.

Blacksmiths mostly used the auction board by default.

There were statistics claiming over 500,000 blacksmith users in Korea alone.

With everyone using the board, non–name value sellers didn’t gain many subscribers.

[Hyun’s Forge subscribers: 211.]

“...?”

Hyunsoo tilted his head.

He’d heard growing an auction-board subscriber count was harsher than leveling up.

When he entered his Court—Hyun’s Forge—the inbox icon was flashing.

He clicked: several messages had arrived.

[Hello. I’m Revill from the Blue Hammer guild. I’m messaging to propose a contract with “Hyun’s Forge”....]

[Greetings! I’m Taehun, master of the Taehun guild. Our Taehun guild....]

[Hello?]

[Message from Red Anvil Forge regarding....]

About five messages were recruitment or contract proposals.

“...”

For a moment, Hyunsoo stood there, awash in feeling.

At his father’s forge, almost no one showed interest in weapons.

Especially in Korea, where weapon ownership was illegal.

But here, everyone wanted one.

Instead of filing complaints at the district office—“Shut down that damn forge!”—they recognized its value.

“₩1,000,000...”

Precious money from his first artifact sale.

Smiling faintly, Hyunsoo closed the auction board.

Not yet.

So many messages meant his value was higher than he’d thought.

There was no need to rush.

And Hyunsoo was certain his value would only grow from here.

Before he knew it, he’d reached the front of the Lord’s Castle.

“Who goes there?”

One of the two guards, spears crossed, spoke up.

“I’ve come with a letter of recommendation concerning the restoration of the lord’s bow.”

The guard scanned the letter and nodded.

“Two outsiders seek the lord today, it seems. Come along.”

Hyunsoo looked puzzled.

Two?

That meant another user, besides himself, was already meeting the lord.

He followed the guard inside.

****

“Is it truly impossible—no method to restore it within these walls?”

Lord Vance of the Vardin Territory, seated, grimaced hard.

Because of the outsider who’d come—Bell.

Bell looked, at a glance, like a skilled blacksmith.

“As you know, this place is what they call the Beginner Zone. Skilled blacksmiths from outside cannot enter. Even if one slipped in, most of them would fail to restore it.”

At Bell’s explanation, Vance nodded.

“Indeed.”

Many outsiders had come seeking Lord Vance.

But none had claimed they could restore it convincingly.

First reason:

Entrance to the Beginner Zone is not freely granted in the first place.

There had been exceptions, but those were mostly blacksmiths in the Lv.50 range.

Restoration skills for blacksmiths are learned only at Lv.80 and above.

Bell was about to add one more thing to Vance’s sighing expression when—

“Another outsider has arrived.”

“Another outsider?”

“Yes, he bears a letter of recommendation from an instructor named Relson.”

Lord Vance’s heart was urgent.

His father’s keepsake, burned when the castle caught fire!

He would do anything if it could be restored.

He was a lord; he didn’t grant audiences lightly.

Especially not to outsiders.

Outsiders were full of greed. When they went out to the village, he would hear:

“Lord, just 100 Gold!”

“Lord, befriend me~!”

“Dude, it’s just an NPC, why bother?”

“You never know, he might hand out a Hidden Quest. He’s a lord.”

“Oooh? Loooord~!”

They were not pleasant sorts.

Normally, Vance distrusted and disliked outsiders, but right now he was grasping at straws.

And when he saw the outsider who soon entered, Vance’s face creased.

A guard addressed the outsider.

“Mind your manners and sit.”

The outsider wore armor rusted to ruin.

“So, you’ve come for restoration as well. What is your name?”

“Hyunsoo.”

“Hyunsoo... and to what height have you climbed?”

“Do you mean mystic power?”

Vance slowly nodded.

“Regrettably, I have not yet learned any mystic power.”

“...”

Vance’s face crumpled.

Mystic power—that was what NPCs called the outsiders’ skills.

And he hadn’t learned any.

Recalling the name Relson, Vance asked:

“Did you come straight from the Hunting Training Yard?”

“I did.”

Vance saw no point in continuing.

He exhaled a small sigh and turned his head away without mercy.

As soon as this talk ends, I’ll have him thrown out.

Yes—this Hyunsoo was, in outsider terms, just a Level 1.

One of the same greedy types he’d seen in town.

He didn’t know how he’d gotten a letter of recommendation.

But he had no intention of entrusting restoration to someone so paltry and insignificant.

He jerked his chin at the blacksmith named Bell again.

After a brief silence, Bell met Vance’s gaze and flicked a glance at the user called Hyunsoo.

What gutter rat crawled in?

Whatever he was, what was that guy?

What did a Level 1 think he was relying on, coming to restore the lord’s bow?

If he was going to show up, he could at least fix that rusty armor.

Not that it mattered to Bell.

I just need to do my job. Heh.

In truth, Bell was not a blacksmith.

Though he looked like one, he actually held a thief-class variant: the Boundary-Crosser Thief.

The Boundary-Crosser Thief was a Hidden class and could learn some special skills.

First, he could alter his appearance.

Artifacts were included.

Second, he suffered no restrictions even if he broke a bet or promise.

Third, he could cross any Beginner Zone boundary.

The reason Bell, at Level 70, had come here was to exploit Lord Vance’s desperation.

Even burned to cinders, it should fetch money if I sell it—or I can hire a blacksmith to restore it outside and flip it.

And even thieves need to do their homework. He picked up where he’d left off:

“As I said, it’s absolutely impossible to restore it inside. You’ll have to take it outside and commission a skilled blacksmith.”

“Hm... As you know, I bear the will of the great god Ares and cannot leave this land.”

NPCs fixed to a place—they were called guardian NPCs.

Vance was one of those guardians.

So this is a quest no one can clear anyway, hee-hee~

Bell was thrilled.

Vance had just said with his own mouth he couldn’t leave.

Which meant he was mad to restore it but had no way.

In that case—

“If you permit, I can personally take it and entrust it to a blacksmith I know outside for restoration.”

“You yourself?”

“Yes. Since it absolutely cannot be done here, it must be taken out.”

“Mm. Even so, it is my father’s precious keepsake...”

Vance’s dilemma deepened.

Even to him, restoration looked difficult.

Then a question struck Vance.

“Can you tell what kind of bow it is, and what it’s made of?”

Charred black, the bow was to the point you could barely tell what kind of bow it had been.

At the sharp question, Bell said:

“Yes. In my world it’s a common target bow—an Olympic-style recurve. Quite restorable. So allow me to take it out and restore it. If you can’t trust me, you can invoke Ares’s Oath.”

Bell made a bold proposal.

He intended to break that promise using one of his skills, False Oath.

And Ares’s Oath carried real weight in this # Nоvеlight # game.

Fail to honor it and you incur penalties.

Leveraging that, Bell offered trust.

When Bell himself invoked Ares’s Oath, Vance wavered.

Indeed, that was so.

The territory Lord Vance ruled was a Beginner Zone fief; no matter how skilled they were here, there was no restoring this precious heirloom.

“...Is that the only way.”

In the end, Lord Vance bit the bait.

He wanted restoration however possible.

The man before him said:

It can never be done here.

Vance finally nodded.

“How much will you need for restoration?”

“Three hundred Gold should do.”

Vance closed his eyes, thinking, and began to nod slowly.

At that moment—

“...It can be restored.”

A voice cut in.

Eyes opening slowly, Vance turned toward the source.

The voice belonged to the mere Level 1 outsider named Hyunsoo.

Vance’s face showed puzzlement. So did Bell’s.

What fool talk was this, dumped into a nearly-set deal?

Restore it here?

According to Bell’s research, that bow could never be restored inside.

No—in the first place, it wasn’t even a quest meant to be completed.

Lord Vance’s face hardened as he rose from his chair.

Shing—

“Can you stake your neck on that?”

At the question, the outsider called Hyunsoo fell silent for a beat.

****

Hyunsoo had kept quiet and listened.

If someone had received the quest first, it was right that he speak and proceed first.

But the situation was skewing strange. Especially, the more he heard this user Bell talk, the stranger it sounded.

Bell had said:

The bow was an Olympic recurve.

Nonsense.

Hyunsoo had made that bow hundreds—thousands—of times at the forge.

“Can you stake your neck on that?”

At Vance’s question, Hyunsoo nodded.

“Yes.”

The bow’s type was a composite horn bow.

It was Korea’s traditional bow.