The Hero Returns

* * *

Twenty minutes.

That was the length of time Su-hyeun spent inside the dungeon. Rather unsurprisingly, the two soldiers waiting for him in front of the dungeon thought he had given up halfway through the raid.

"As expected. Is it too difficult to attempt alone?"

"Should we contact Mister Thomas and—?"

"Ah, no. That's not it. Please tell the relevant people that they can go in and start mining for the Ether stones," Su-hyeun quickly replied.

The soldiers froze up and blinked their eyes for a little while, then stared at each other. They were wondering if they properly understood what had been said just now.

"It's over?"

"But it should take at least half an hour to get to where the Titan Turtles are…"

Was that all? Taking into account the Titan Turtles' defensive capabilities and the tenacious vitality that matched their humongous size, spending several hours inside the dungeon just to kill one wouldn't be strange.

Yet Su-hyeun had returned after only 20 minutes. Not to mention, everything had been taken care of.

"I have a way of traveling quickly, you see. And I only needed a few minutes to deal with the Titan Turtles," he replied.

"I-in that case, you really…"

"There are a lot of materials to be extracted from the Titan Turtles' shells, and I think they'll greatly help in manufacturing defensive equipment. Not enough time remains until the dungeon closes, so please hurry."

"Y-yes, understood!"

And so, the indigo-colored dungeon in Gwangju was dealt with in this manner.

The Association should be busy for a while. A single Titan Turtle was basically a mountain-sized treasure trove, after all.

"Two of them appearing at once was actually a blessing in disguise," he thought.

The giant shell of a Titan Turtle alone was an invaluable resource.

Defensive equipment crafted out of the shell should greatly enhance the survival rate of the awakeners. Most regular monsters would have a hard time overcoming their defenses, so such a result was to be expected.

"Although I feel bad for Thomas…"

Su-hyeun climbed on Miru's back and said, "Let's head that way."

"Gya-ong—!" Miru replied energetically.

He was planning to go to the Jongno Tower, where Thomas and Lee Ju-ho were, later in the evening because he wanted to stop by a certain place first.

**

Claaang, CLANG—!

Those clanging noises remained familiar no matter when he heard them.

The sounds of Kim Dae-ho's hammer always resounded at a fixed time. Su-hyeun waited for a little bit in front of the blacksmith's workshop before knocking on the door.

Knock, knock—

"Uncle, it's me."

Clang—

The hammering noise came to a brief stop, and Kim Dae-ho's voice came from beyond the door. "It's open!"

Claaang—

As soon as he made his roaring reply, the hammering noise resumed.

For a while, Kim Dae-ho had stopped greeting Su-hyeun by the door. He instead told the younger man to just step inside if the door was unlocked.

It meant that he trusted Su-hyeun implicitly; it also indicated that every single workday had been hectic.

Creaaak—

Su-hyeun pushed open the thick gate and stepped inside.

He headed to the backyard to find the staircase. He took only a few steps down, yet the stifling heat still rushed out to slap him squarely in the face.

Clang, clang—

"You're here?"

"Are you still busy nowadays?"

"Got a lot of orders incoming lately, but not much stuff goes out the door."

"I told you, didn't I? That even the products you consider to be failures will be seen as well-crafted products on the market."

"Don't worry, I'm selling those products off as a bundle in one go instead of passing them off to the auction houses. I no longer melt them down like I used to in the past."

Kim Dae-ho continued to hammer away before placing a lengthy spear-like item inside the furnace.

He then picked up a towel nearby to wipe away the sweat on his forehead and asked Su-hyeun, "So, what have you been doing for the past half a year? You haven't even shown up once during that time."

"I was a bit occupied."

"A bit occupied, you say? Hmm…"

Kim Dae-ho wordlessly scanned Su-hyeun's expression. The latter blinked his eyes in silence, somewhat puzzled by that stare, and waited for the older man to say something.

While wiping away his sweat, Kim Dae-ho studied Su-hyeun for a bit and then suddenly grinned and said, "Hey, you look better for some reason?"

"Excuse me?"

"Didn't you say you were occupied? Did you go on a trip or something?"

"What do you mean?"

"It's fine if you don't get it," Kim Dae-ho guffawed at Su-hyeun's puzzled face.

It was rather uncharacteristic of him to suddenly laugh like that. Su-hyeun was initially confused by this behavior but eventually recalled what Lee Ju-ho had told him earlier.

"Well, you don't seem to be in a hurry anymore… You look happier this way, actually."

Now that he thought about it, hadn't Lee Ju-ho said something similar earlier?

Kim Dae-ho tossed aside the towel and led the way. As Su-hyeun followed behind, he took out his smartphone and checked his complexion.

"Did I look that anxious to other people?"

Kim Dae-ho led Su-hyeun to his private room. Unlike the workshop that was filled with stifling heat and smell of molten iron, the room was awash with the enticing aroma of fresh grass that wafted off of all sorts of expensive tea leaves decorating the interior.

Driiip—

Not too long afterward, Kim Dae-ho brought out a steaming teapot.

Perhaps because Kim Dae-ho had already earned quite a bit of money, his private room was rather smartly furnished now.

Su-hyeun took a look around the room as he took his cup. "The decor's changed a lot."

"After I began supplying the Association with my stuff, this guy called Lee Ju-ho started showing up here often. And every time he comes, he says something is missing here and brings me a few things. As you can see, this is the result."

"Do you personally clean the house?"

"An auntie comes around once a week to do that for me. I think that Lee Ju-ho guy hired her."

"Is that so?"

Sluuurp—

Su-hyeun noticed that the taste of the tea had also changed and thought to himself, "I guess Lee Ju-ho has been looking after him."

Kim Dae-ho had never been to Seoul.

He had no family. He had no friends either. His sole family and friends were iron and a hammer.

Yet such a man decided to come to Seoul. The only person he could call his acquaintance was Su-hyeun, yet the latter simply didn't have enough time to worry about or look after the blacksmith.

Therefore, Su-hyeun had asked Lee Ju-ho to take care of Kim Dae-ho, requesting that the latter do whatever he could if he had some time to spare.

"Okay, so what brings you here today? I don't think you came to visit me for a cup of tea, now did you?"

"But I don't always come here because I have business with you, do I?"

"Well, that's true. But your whole vibe is different if you do have some business with me. Whenever you want to ask me for a favor, you have this habit of sneaking glances at me, and that makes me a wee bit uncomfortable, you see."

"Do I really do that?" Su-hyeun, wondering if he was too easy to read, smiled awkwardly. Then, he extended his hand to the side and extracted the Palm Leaf Fan from the subspace pouch. "I'm here because of this item."

"That's one big fan, alright." Kim Dae-ho narrowed his eyes as he studied the large fan. "And I can see that it's no ordinary fan either."

It was as he said—the Palm Leaf Fan was definitely not an ordinary fan by any stretch of the imagination, and not simply because of the jewel embedded in the center of the fan, either. He was merely speaking what his observation had told him after taking a look at the fan's handle and blades.

Su-hyeun handed the fan over to Kim Dae-ho. Although the weapon was rather weighty, the latter was used to handling iron all his life, so he had no problem lifting it up.

He wordlessly fidgeted with the fan and examined it. About ten minutes passed by like this before a look of puzzlement surfaced on his face. "It's supple enough to create wind, yet the feathered blades are made of something so unbelievably tough. The spine that supports the handle and the fan itself is several times tougher, too."

As expected of Kim Dae-ho. He managed to pretty accurately analyze the Palm Leaf Fan's structure after fiddling around with it a little.

That made sense, though; a layman wouldn't even be able to imagine the number of different minerals Kim Dae-ho had handled in his life so far.

The story wouldn't have changed even if he was staring at a mineral he had never seen before.

Undoubtedly, Kim Dae-ho was an undisputed genius when it came to matters of blacksmithing.

"By the way, this thing here…"

Yet, such a man was making a puzzled expression, perhaps for the first time in his life.

"I can't figure out what this is," Kim Dae-ho said while pointing at the green jewel embedded in the middle of the Palm Leaf Fan. "For some reason, I get this breezy sensation from it, but it feels vaguely different from the energies contained in Ether stones. I've dealt with a few jewels containing powers of specific attributes before, but this one is a bit different from those."

"That should be the case. It's not an ordinary elemental stone, after all."

Su-hyeun, too, had come across several element stones before.

"Elemental stones" were stones that possessed specific natural attributes, such as fire, water, wind, earth, or electricity.

Such stones possessed magical powers like average Ether stones, but the difference between the two was that elemental stones possessed abilities to process magical energy into elemental attributes from the get-go.

Kim Dae-ho had used such elemental stones to create various pieces of equipment in the past. Therefore, he could easily tell that the jewel found on the Palm Leaf Fan had an unmistakably different air from the other regular elemental stones.

"First things first. I must confirm its hardness. If it shatters after I tap on it a few times with a hammer, then well, too bad, because something so brittle that it shatters that easily shouldn't be on a piece of equipment."

"Isn't that a bit too irresponsible to say?"

"You fool, it's much better to destroy a cheap subpar material before making fragile and useless equipment with it. Think about it. What will you do if your sword snaps in half while you're using it?"

"Well, that… In any case, is it possible?"

"Sword or spear? Which one?"

"Sword, please."

Clack—

Su-hyeun pushed forward his Balmung along with its scabbard.

Kim Dae-ho instantly understood what he wanted and replied with a smirk. "It won't be easy. And I've never handled that material before."

"Seriously?"

"The highest-grade Ether stone, adamantium, and now, the minerals that make up this fan's structure and the jewel containing unknown energy. Blending all these things together will be difficult even for me."

"I see."

"And that's why it's going to be even more interesting."

In major contrast to his words, which implied the sheer difficulty of the task at hand, Kim Dae-ho's face expressed nothing but glee. For the first time in a long while, he looked genuinely pleased about something.

He was indeed a true blacksmith right down to his core.

"I was kind of getting fed up lately with hammering away at the exact same things all the time, but as expected of you, your requests are indeed different from the rest. Not sure how long it'll take, so when I'm finished, I'll give you a call."

"Uncle."

"What is it?"

"I'll be arriving on the 100th floor soon."

Kim Dae-ho was about to examine the Palm Leaf Fan closely but stopped after hearing that and shifted his gaze over to Su-hyeun. The older man felt his heart nearly tumble to the pit of his stomach.

"The 100th floor, you say?"

"Yes."

"Just when did you get that far? I thought you were on the 60th?"

Kim Dae-ho obviously had eyes and ears.

Even if he didn't want to care much about the outside world, he now lived in Seoul. He met a lot more people nowadays, and that naturally meant he came to hear a lot more news as well.

News regarding Su-hyeun was included.

He was South Korea's, as well as the whole world's, most famous awakener, after all. Moreover, Kim Dae-ho was vaguely familiar with the pressure and danger posed by the 100th floor to the awakeners climbing the tower.

Finally, he also knew the level of difficulty that Su-hyeun chose to climb the tower.

"Somehow it happened that way. It was quite sudden for me, too."

"…Is that so?"

"I'm currently on the 99th, so if I pass it, then it'll be the 100th floor, and… It's possible that I might die there."

The 100th floor. Su-hyeun had already climbed past this floor before. Back then, he attempted it on eighth-level difficulty, but this time, the difficulty would be on the tenth.

However, he was not thinking of lowering the difficulty at all.

He would be happier if it was dangerous, actually, because he would earn something big in the end.

However, since he knew the degree of the dangers involved, he was planning to prepare for all possibilities before challenging the floor.

Using the Palm Leaf Fan to modify Balmung was one of those preparations.

"I'll leave it in your hands, uncle. Please make me the best weapon you can create."

"You think the weapon will be finished sooner because you're pestering me like this? Fine, I got it, so drink your tea and be on your way. Don't forget to pick up a useful replacement sword from storage before you leave. I've seen enough of you for today."

While saying that, Kim Dae-ho gathered up both the Palm Leaf Fan and Balmung and then hurriedly got up to leave the room.

Su-hyeun stared at Kim Dae-ho's teacup, which he had not taken even a sip from yet, before nodding quietly.

Clack—

"Hey, it's me." Kim Dae-ho called someone on the phone after he stepped out of the room, carrying the fan and the sword in one arm. "Yeah, about all the commissions you received? Cancel them all."