Chapter 01 …

I Became the Genius Blacksmith That Hunters Are Obsessed With 

A Gate opened.

Awakened Hunters entered the Gate and dealt with the monsters.

Ordinary people were helpless.

“Dad… Dad… sob…”

“Honey… You said the four of us would live happily together for a long, long time. How could you…?”

The same was true for those who were caught up when a newly formed Gate appeared.

Ordinary people could do nothing.

Nothing except grieve… or sympathize.

“Look how heartbroken they’re crying.”

“I heard the person who got caught was the owner of Gangcheol Forge.”

“Ah… goodness…”

When people mentioned the owner of Gangcheol Forge, he was famous for two things.

First, among countless blacksmiths, he was universally acknowledged as the greatest craftsman.

People even said he had single-handedly raised the standard of Korean sword and knife making by three or four levels.

The second thing…

Despite all that, he cherished his family more than anything.

“What a tragedy. Leaving behind his wife and those young children.”

“I wonder what’ll happen to the workshop now. It’ll be rough no matter what.”

“It’d be nice if his son took over, but he’s still too young. Maybe selling it to a big corporation would be the best option.”

Cruel words always seemed to reach the ears the clearest.

Standing before his mother, who had lost her husband, and his younger sister, who had lost her father…

The boy couldn’t bring himself to cry with them.

Instead…

“I’ll do it. I will.”

“Gangcheol…”

“It was Father’s forge, built under his name. From now on, I’ll build it under mine. I’ll protect Mom and Ayeon too. I can do it.”

At twenty years old, Gangcheol became the owner of Gangcheol Forge.

The moment the funeral ended, Gangcheol went straight back to the forge.

Before the scent of incense had even faded from his mourning clothes, he changed into his work clothes and tackled the backlog of orders.

A few days later, he completed his first commissioned order as the new owner.

And then…

“I paid money for this piece of garbage? Refund me right now! Are you or aren’t you?!”

At the shout of a customer with particularly sinister-looking eyes, Gangcheol squeezed his eyes shut.

On his way home, he stopped by a convenience store, grabbed whatever alcohol he could find, and drank endlessly.

He had never learned how to drink.

He spent the entire night vomiting until he retched dry.

He comforted himself by saying he had expected there would be trial and error.

A few more weeks passed.

Then three employees came to see him together.

They were the same workers who had once said they would do any kind of work as long as they could learn blacksmithing from his father.

“Boss, we’ll only be working until the end of this month.”

“What? If you all leave now, who’s going to finish the orders?”

“That’s your problem to figure out, Boss.”

Only a few weeks before the accident, his father had finally taught them the surface-finishing technique he had developed.

The staff of ten became seven.

Time passed again.

“I’m quitting because there’s no work.”

“Ever since the son took over, the quality’s been disappointing. At least give me a discount on the remaining payment.”

Sales dropped.

Employees left.

Losses piled up.

“Due to personal circumstances…”

“I’d like to cancel my reservation…”

With no sign that things would improve…

Three years passed.

* * *

“No, I’m telling you, this is seriously unfair!”

Despite Gangcheol’s protest, the customer pushed the knife even closer toward him.

On the unfinished knife blank—still without a handle attached—a long vertical crack was clearly visible.

“Explain how this happened. Now!”

“It cracked.”

“And you’re still saying it’s unfair?”

“Because it is unfair!”

“You made it yourself!”

Yes, he could see it clearly.

He was still young, after all.

It was true that Gangcheol had made it himself.

There was no one left working at Gangcheol Forge except him.

“Please hear me out. You brought the steel yourself. You brought the design yourself. You even specified the heat-treatment recipe yourself.”

“So because your skills suck and your equipment’s outdated, now you’re blaming the steel?”

Gangcheol couldn’t think of a single mistake he’d made.

Nor had he rushed the work.

Even if he had, a mistake this serious simply couldn’t happen during the blank-making stage.

That was why such an obvious crack was incredibly strange.

“How could I possibly know there was a defect inside the steel before I worked on it? And you keep blaming my equipment, but in the past three years this is the first time I’ve ever had steel crack.”

“I don’t need to know all that. You said at first there was no reason it couldn’t be done, didn’t you?”

The endless deadlock ended with the customer’s final blow.

“No wonder you went bankrupt.”

The corner of Gangcheol’s eye twitched.

“You remember these two knives were an emergency order, right? If you can’t finish them, there’s a penalty fee. Want to take another look at the contract?”

It wasn’t unusual for the weapons Hunters used in dungeons to break.

When they needed a replacement weapon immediately…

Yet still refused to compromise on the quality of something they’d entrust their lives to…

They paid a hefty premium and added special clauses guaranteeing quality and delivery time.

That was what an emergency order was.

If only money hadn’t been so tight…

At first glance, it looked like a deal that benefited both sides.

But its fatal flaw was that there was almost no room to deal with unexpected problems.

How much was the penalty again?

Ten times?

Twelve?

It was a huge amount.

Strangely enough, he couldn’t remember the exact number.

All he clearly remembered was that it equaled about three months of living expenses…

Or four, if he lived frugally.

Doing his best to stay calm, Gangcheol shook his head.

“No matter how I think about it, I didn’t do anything wrong. The same thing would’ve happened no matter who you hired. Still, out of good faith, if you bring me new steel, I’ll remake them without charging any additional fee.”

Gangcheol offered a compromise.

The customer refused to budge.

“You know how valuable the steel you ruined is, don’t you? It’s CPM steel. I managed to get two sheets of it, and now you’re telling me to go find more?”

“…”

Gangcheol’s expression darkened immediately.

The steel the customer had brought was so rare that not only Gangcheol, but even his father had only seen it a handful of times.

The CPM series.

Blade steel produced by the American company Crucible using powder metallurgy.

And these were the original products from the company before it went bankrupt.

Even before the Gates appeared, production had been limited.

Now…

The mere fact that any still existed was practically a miracle.

Of course, that didn’t mean Gangcheol was somehow at fault.

Rare or not, damn it… it’s not my fault, so what do you expect me to do?

“I don’t intend to go easy on you. Besides, this wasn’t even my order originally, so I can’t consider your situation. If that person fails a dungeon raid and blames you, this won’t end with just a penalty fee.”

“So… you’re saying it can’t be settled with money?”

“He might demand your life instead.”

Gangcheol’s expression became rather subtle.

If I don’t have to pay money… isn’t that actually not bad?

If money wasn’t an option anyway…

Maybe he could explain things properly and settle it some other way.

Surely they weren’t actually going to kill him.

After dealing with countless impossible customers over the years, he’d heard threats like that more times than he could count.

As his overly optimistic survival instincts worked overtime, the customer’s voice cut in.

“Today’s just the mid-progress inspection. You’ve still got three days left. If you can’t finish both, somehow finish at least one.”

What if it cracks again?

Thinking Gangcheol was simply frightened, the customer softened his tone slightly.

But contrary to what he believed…

Gangcheol was desperately holding himself back.

To be more precise…

He was enduring.

How many customers had there been who confidently lectured him using completely wrong information?

If he endured it, they usually calmed down eventually, and the conversation became much smoother.

That’s what he believed.

But then…

“You’ve got enough steel, don’t you? I brought two sheets. About three kilos? Shouldn’t that make six knives?”

No, it shouldn’t.

“You blacksmiths heat up steel and hammer it, right? Can’t you just hammer the crack shut?”

No.

Holding back was much harder than he’d expected.

Gangcheol clenched his fists, barely resisting the urge to refute every single word.

“It’s called forging, right? I heard steel gets stronger the more you hammer it.”

“…”

“If you’re inexperienced and lack skill, then at least hit it more. What else can you do?”

“Ha…”

Fine.

Believing ridiculous things because he didn’t know how blacksmithing worked—that much Gangcheol could tolerate.

People hired professionals precisely because they didn’t know.

But if you don’t know…

Could you at least keep your mouth shut?

Instead, this man was insulting the skills of someone who had worked tirelessly.

Gangcheol’s face flushed bright red.

Anyone could tell he was furious.

Yet the customer, intoxicated by his own “advice,” even mimed swinging a hammer as he continued preaching.

“Well, think of it as tempering both the knife and yourself. Hammer away day and night until you become pure steel… hmm?”

Finally…

“I’ve been sitting here quietly listening, and you’re really talking a whole load of bullshit.”

Gangcheol ripped off his safety helmet and work clothes, throwing them onto the floor.

The customer’s eyebrows twitched as he saw Gangcheol’s expression.

“Sir… have you ever made more knives than I have?”

“What?”

“You know why we don’t just forge everything? Have you ever even heard of decarburization? If you mess up while heating and hammering steel, it decarburizes, the hardness drops, and then customers complain like hell that the edge gets dull too quickly. You tell me to forge the crack shut, but if a forging lap forms in a gap too small to reach, it’ll crack even worse. Do you want your knife splitting apart inside a dungeon and ending your life?”

“Wait…”

Apparently years of pent-up frustration had built up inside him.

The words poured out like machine-gun fire.

“Let’s say every one of those problems gets solved. What if improper hammering creates residual stress? If you don’t spend time stress-relieving it afterward, you’ll just mass-produce weak points. And this is an emergency order, right? There’s no time for stress relief. Besides, after forging I’d still have to grind everything flat again one by one anyway. So tell me—what reason is there to forge it in the first place?”

“…”

“Do you know how precisely modern steel plates are manufactured? Why do you think famous steel companies build gigantic blast furnaces? Because they’re idiots? It’s all to reduce human error and maintain quality control. You think companies spend all that money for nothing? It’s because of people who make ridiculous complaints like you… Ah.”

Gangcheol finally stopped.

This wasn’t the time.

He had promised himself he would endure.

Correcting a client who was wrong almost never improved the position of the contractor.

“Must be nice knowing so much, huh, Boss?”

“S-Sir, that’s not—”

“I’m Park Youngjun of the Yeonhwa Guild, got it? Since when does some nobody blacksmith lecture me? Lecture me? At least prove you’ve got the skills before acting superior. You ruined the knives like this and then ask me, ‘Have you ever made more knives than I have?’”

“I’m telling you, it wasn’t my fault—”

“Shut up!”

The sharp shout struck like a blade.

Gangcheol scratched the back of his head awkwardly.

The customer stormed to the front gate.

“Let’s leave it here for now. Take responsibility for all that arrogance. Deliver one knife first and make the second later, or pay the penalty for one of them. If you really can’t figure something out…”

The customer pointed toward the sign hanging beside the entrance.

Gangcheol Forge.

“Sell the forge, pay the penalty, and bow your damn head.”

Bang!

After delivering his ultimatum, the customer slammed the door behind him.

Gangcheol stared silently at the empty doorway.

Then slowly raised both hands…

And proudly extended both middle fingers.

“You could at least listen when someone explains something, you damn bastard.”

He never would have imagined doing something like that in the past.

Back then, almost every customer believed that if Gangcheol Forge said something, it had to be true.

Even the rare troublemaker usually bowed his head the moment they were told they would never be accepted as a customer again.

“So… what changed?”

Three years had passed since Gangcheol became the owner.

Three years spent believing things would eventually get better.

Yet the gap between him and his father still felt just as wide.

And now…

Whether the forge could survive at all had become uncertain.

“Thinking alone won’t solve anything.”

* * *

When Gangcheol opened the office door, the scent of old books greeted him.

For the past three years…

Whenever the future seemed hopeless, this was where he always came.

His father’s work journals.

From the most basic knowledge anyone could find…

To subtle details like how temperature and humidity affected the work.

Thirty years of accumulated knowledge from a legendary craftsman completely filled one wall of the office.

“Hmmm…”

He had read them dozens of times.

By now, he could almost guess the contents just by looking at the covers.

“This one’s longswords… this one’s knives… and this one…”

Then…

On a shelf he had looked through hundreds of times if not more…

There was a booklet he had never seen before.

“Huh?”

The first thing he felt was a sense of unfamiliarity.

Unlike all the others, it had no label attached.

And strangely…

Only this booklet looked completely new, untouched by time.

When he opened it, every page was packed chaotically with sketches and handwritten notes.

It looked nothing like his father’s neat work journals.

If the journals he’d read until now organized information clearly…

This one felt like the frantic notes of someone desperately searching for an answer.

Grinding.

Drilling.

Laminating materials together.

Bending.

Carving.

He couldn’t understand what it was meant to build…

Nor why these steps were necessary.

But before long…

He realized what the notebook was about.

“This is… what Father was making.”

Among everything his father had created with ease…

This was the one thing he always said was incredibly difficult.

For a brief moment, memories of his father surfaced.

But that was all.

Nothing inside could help with his current predicament.

“It doesn’t look like it’ll help me right now.”

Gangcheol returned the notebook to its place and scratched his head.

He looked around the office several more times, hoping to discover something else new.

There was nothing.

“Oh, honorable ancestors… if any of you are sitting on the back of my head, could you please drop a brilliant idea into it? Have some pity on your overworked descendant. Would it kill you?”

Perhaps because he’d discovered the mysterious booklet…

He half-heartedly muttered a prayer to his ancestors.

But nothing happened.

Realistically, his only option was to finish at least one knife perfectly and reduce the penalty as much as possible.

Like his fading hope…

The office lights went out.

But Gangcheol never noticed.

Behind his back…

The work journal he had been reading shone brilliantly—

Like the flames inside a heat-treatment furnace—

Before disappearing.

It wasn’t long afterward…

That a notification window announcing his Awakening appeared before Gangcheol’s eyes.