Chapter 2: I still can’t give up

Tiring-Tiring-Tiring.

The bell beyond the door rings ceaselessly.

Why on earth did you come here?

“_”

In the letters exchanged with the warrior Seyeon after the defeat of the Demon King, it was written that Karen Redleaf had been recognized for her contribution to the defeat of the Demon King and would be appointed as the next representative magician of the palace.

Unlike Yoo-sung, who was treated as an attendant at the warrior’s party and left the castle without receiving any compensation, he was different.

“For now.’

Crunch-Yoosung opened the wooden drawer next to him and took out the pistol inside and quickly loaded it.

The person outside right now was not a cute half-elf magician, but a terrorist robber trying to break in with dynamite.

At least that’s what Yoo-sung thought.

Tiring-Tiring-Tiring-Tiring-

When the maddening ringing of the bell stopped.

Clang Yoosung stood up and aimed his gun in case the door exploded with magic.

When the heavy tension flowed. Yoo-sung! Open the door.. I have something to say!

Karen Redleaf’s voice echoed outside the door.

sob..I really went through a lot to find this. I finally found it..!

She repeated the name “Yoo-seong” and “I have something to say’ in a voice that was almost like sobbing.

“Ha.” This was astonishing to Yooseong.

He had clearly asked to talk to the three people who had been abusing and violent him for no reason during his journey to defeat the Demon King.

At that time, Karen and the two of them had looked at him with contempt as if they were looking at bugs and had not even talked to him.

It was the same even after he had captured the Demon King.

Yooseong was dumbfounded to see them suddenly come to him after so many years and cling to him like this, asking to talk to him.

“Get out!”

There must be some kind of intention behind this.

Thinking that, Yoo- seong shouted at the door in a voice that was almost like a scream….

I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Yoo-seong. Please at least show me your face…

Yooseong.. Yooseong.. Yooseong.!

Kik..kkik..

A creepy noise like scraping metal that continued over and over again with the same word.

Yooseong aimed his gun without wavering at all and thought about an escape route just in case.

Meteor. Meteor. Meteor. Meteor. Kikik kkikik…

When Karen Redleaf’s voice and the scraping metal noise that had continued for almost several hours disappeared.

She’s gone?”

Yooseong quietly put his gun down and approached the door while trying to avoid making any noises.

Click.

He looked outside through the makeshift partition attached to the top of the door.

‘At least she’s not in front of the door! Karen Redleaf was nowhere to be seen outside through the partition. Judging from the fact that he didn’t hear any loud footsteps, she could have either teleported away or hidden herself using stealth magic. For now… I’d better not go out.”

The opponent was an Archmage, the highest level of magic.

If he had the right equipment, he could win, but in his current state with only one pistol, the Archmage was very dangerous.

That door made with transmutation can block missiles, so it should block one or two 10th circle magic attacks.

There’s a teleport gate inside the workshop that leads to the secret base, so if he runs away right away…

Yooseong ruled out the possibility that Karen Redleaf had other intentions.

He made a plan for the current situation, assuming that Karen Redleaf was the ‘enemy.

Of course, in Yooseong’s memory, Karen Redleaf was no different from a witch who only thought about how to burn and freeze her by hitting her in the back of the head with magic.

‘It would be right to change the hideout right away, but… Yooseong liked his current hideout.

It would be more accurate to say that he liked the ‘nation’ and ‘people’ that were there rather than the structure inside the workshop.

“…One day.”

Yooseong decided to watch the situation for one day and decide whether to kill the opponent or change the hideout.

I spent a day with my eyes wide open, not knowing what would happen in my comfortable secluded life.

Creak.

As soon as the next morning came, Yooseong came out of the door wearing his emergency suit and carrying the best heavy weapon he could use at the moment.

“…There isn’t any?”

Although he had checked the partition on the door in advance, the alley was empty as usual.

Even when he examined it with the infrared lens of the prosthetic eye that observes the temperature of living things, he could not find anything hidden or with the intention of attacking.

“You came all of a sudden and just left?” The sound of “Yoo-seong’ was so maddening that it was hard to think that he had simply visited and left. Squeak-Yoo-seong turned around to close the door and froze when he discovered a mark engraved on the door.

“_”

On the surface of the clean iron door, there was a fine scratch that looked like an animal had scratched it with its claws, and bloodstains were hardened along the scratch.

It was about 160cm high for a thieving cat to scratch it.

In other words, he could only think of one person who would do something like this.

“What on earth is your purpose?”

Was this a new trick to torment him?

Or had he really gone crazy for some reason?

“Tsk.. I’m tired.”

Now, Yoosung felt intense stress from the presence of Karen Redleaf, who was trying to destroy his peaceful daily life.

When he opened the door, the sight of Karen Redleaf did not seem pitiful, but rather, the ill feelings from the past were revived and he even felt like wanting revenge.

“…I guess I should just do what I had to do.”

However, Yoosung was not so carefree when dealing with his past ill feelings.

Clank Yoosung packed the suit and firearm he was wearing into compressed cubes and put them in his pockets, slowly walking out of the alley where sunlight was starting to shine.

Amurmur…. As soon as he exited the alley, he was in the middle of a crowded shopping district.

“This device is creaking. I need to oil it or something-!”

“Theard Hans’ workshop is good at fixing equipment?”

“If I can’t get the parts this time, I’ll have to buy them much more expensively next time I mine-!”

These people chattered with each other as they walked down the road.

Each of their bodies was equipped with a single lump of metal. I’m not talking about accessories or armor.

The limbs, upper body, and lower body are all made of mechanical devices, giving off a cyberpunk vibe from a sci-fi movie.

In this world where most medieval fantasy backgrounds are standard, this is the only country where you can see mechanical devices.

“Iron Road”

Iron Road is a country founded by the union of Automatic, an artificial intelligence metal doll that thinks and acts like a human, and magical engineers, which is a legacy left behind by the collapse of the ancient magical nation that once flourished.

Iron Road has discovered and inherited the magical engineering technology of the ancient magical nation, and even the general citizens are mostly magical engineers or blacksmiths.

Iron Road boasts the best magical engineering technology on the continent.

The reason why Yoo Seong chose to hide out in the alleys of the Iron Road capital instead of another country is because the Iron Road capital has all the conditions necessary for research.

[Blacksmith] Yoo Seong stops in front of the Blacksmith workshop, famous for being the largest workshop in Metallica, the capital of Iron Road where famous workshops are densely located.

“Three silver coins? Crazy! Why is it so expensive to maintain a weapon?”

“If you don’t have money, go back. Many people say they’ll do it. Keuhem.”

“No, I’m not saying they’ll go back.”

Inside a huge workshop with steam gushing out and gears turning, you can see people bargaining, blacksmiths, and machine repairmen.

The customers were of various races, including humans, elves, beastmen, and orcs.

But… Bang! Bang! Clang-Kkirik. Kkirrik. The craftsmen who banged their hammers and tightened the screws of the machines were, without a single exception, ‘dwarves.

Some said that while dwarves might be the best at making regular equipment through blacksmithing, traditional mechanical engineers would be better at handling modified equipment with mechanical devices combined.

Oh! Mechanical devices… Interesting!

It was time to try something different. Should we give it a try?

Who would have thought that they were not a race of craftsmen?

With their natural dexterity and attention to detail, the dwarves quickly acquired mechanical device technology, and now dwarven craftsmen are ranked first as the best technicians in the fields of magic engineering repair and modification.

In this context, the reason why the Blacksmith Workshop is considered the best workshop in Metallica, the capital of the Iron Road, is also due to the tradition of the workshop hiring only dwarven craftsmen.

“4 nyang of silver. Hand it over.”

“No! You said it was 3 nyang just now?”

“You took my precious time, so here’s an extra nyang”

Under the title of the best craftsman race, the dwarven craftsmen’s pride and pride were sky-high.

“What kind of ridiculous excuse is that..!”

“If you don’t like it, look elsewhere.”

“Ugh.”

No matter how ridiculous the price was, they had no choice but to give in.

The more complex the mechanism, the more likely it was for a weapon to break down, so they had to entrust it to a skilled craftsman.

If you entrust it to just any craftsman to save money, and a gear doesn’t turn during battle or a wire doesn’t come out, you could lose your life to the enemy.

No matter how important money is, isn’t it worth your life?

The dwarven craftsmen at the Blacksmith Workshop were all unfriendly, but their skills were the best, so there was always a line of customers waiting to commission weapons at the Blacksmith Workshop.

“There are a lot of people even in the moming.”

He muttered to himself. Stepping, Stepping, Yooseong, who was trying to pass the line of people on one side and entering the workshop. Chuck.

“There’s a line over there.”

An orc guard wearing black leather and sunglasses blocks the way.

“Chwilk”

Although YooSung was tall, the guard was a head taller than him and had a muscular build.

YooSung searched his front pocket and pulled out a coin to hand it to the guard who was snorting with an air of never giving up.

“I don’t take bribes…”

The guard who was talking looked at the silver coin in Yoo Sung’s palm, took off his sunglasses, rubbed his eyes, and checked the coin again. The mithril coin had a gear design engraved on it.

While the coins of the continent had the symbols of each country engraved on them, the gear design on this coin was a design that was only used in one place.

“The best craftsman Chuck! The orc guard stepped right in front of YooSung and bowed at a 90-degree angle.

“I didn’t recognize you, sorry!”

He spoke in a quiet and heavy voice to be considerate of YooSung, YooSung nodded slightly and went inside the workshop.

“What… why are we lining up and that guy just goes in?”

“He doesn’t even look like a dwarf craftsman?”

The guard tried to lower his voice as much as possible, but the comparison between the two, where people waited in line and entered one by one, and YooSung simply entering, was inevitable.

Some people were complaining among the people waiting in line.

“Is there any problem?”

“We’ll solve the inconvenience.”

However, the complaints and inconveniences of the people waiting in line completely disappeared at the words of the orc guard who quickly approached and flexed his muscles.

***

The inside of the workshop was filled with the sound of hammers hitting the anvil and the sound of iron being cooled using a steam kiln.

“Huh- huh-!”

“Wow!”

The craftsmen were working on the staircases made according to the ranks of each craftsman in the workshop, such as bronze, silver, and gold. YooSung continued to climb the stairs, passing between the craftsmen and the people requesting equipment.

And when he reached the gold- level stage.

“Hey! You punk!”

Adwarf working on one side called out to Yoo Sung.

“This is not a place to just come up here! Starting with gold-rank requests, please wait on the lower floor so as not to disturb our work.. Huh?”

The gold-rank artisan who had been yelling loudly looked at YooSung’s face who had taken off his robe hood.

“Master?!”

He shouted with a strange title.

“What? Master?”

“Master?!”

“The Master is here?”

At that, the dwarf artisans tumed their heads in the order of Gold, Silver, and Bronze and shouted at Yoo Sung on the gold floor.

“The Master is here!”

“Master whoooo!!”

The dwarves who even refused their favorite alcohol in the middle of their work threw down the tools they were holding and started running towards YooSung who was standing on the gold floor like a pack of dogs.

“Should I have pretended not to know and gone up..?”

Dwarves less than half his height rushed in front of YooSung, who had a regretful expression on his face.

“Master! Please teach me!”

“There’s an operating principle that I couldn’t figure out this time..!”

“Could you please assemble the 01-5 mechanism that you showed me last time just one more time!?”

The dwarven craftsmen begged and clung to Yoo Sung, almost as if they were going to take off his pants, without showing any sign of abandoning their pride as master craftsmen.

What they all had in common was, “Teach me.”

“Show me what you showed me last time again.’

These dwarves, who had lived longer than YooSung and had mastered the magical engineering that had been passed down through the generations, were asking Yoo Sung, who was almost a child, to learn from him!

Unless he was an engineering genius given by a god, it was logically impossible for YooSung to catch up with the engineering skills of the dwarven craftsmen.

However, Yoo Sung had the special privilege of knowledge from another world! While other magical engineers were developing things like slingshots without strings and wire spears with flying spearheads.

YooSeong showed off his ability to create robots, guns, mechanical organs, and flying objects using knowledge he had seen in Earth’s movies, comics, and various media, so even proud dwarven craftsmen couldn’t help but call YooSeong

“Master. In fact, there was even talk that the Iron Road’s technology had advanced by 100 years due to the research results he had obtained by disassembling and assembling the scraps YooSeong had created using his fusion technique. So in the eyes of the dwarven craftsmen, YooSeong looked like an apostle of the blacksmith god…. no, a golden goblin carrying a treasure on his back!

“Quiet! Only gold-rank craftsmen can talk to the Master!”

“Everyone go and do your work!”

Whack-! Whack!

Three gold-rank craftsmen swung their hammers in their hands to sort out the situation.

The dwarves, who had a firm hierarchy among the craftsmen, were shocked by such violent sanctions.

“No… they were sticking close to the Master…”

“I was going to listen to the explanation when the Master came.”

The lower-ranking artisans had no choice but to go down to the gold floor with extremely aggrieved looks on their faces.

“Kuhaha-! If you feel so aggrieved, then go gold!”

Magdin, a gold floor veteran, burst into hearty laughter and teased the artisans on the lower floors!

“Hehe… Why did you come here, Ambassador Yooseong?”

He was extremely polite to Yooseong.

“I came to see the workshop owner.”

“Ah! He’s working right now… Well, I think Ambassador Yooseong won’t mind.”

Yooseong followed Magdin, who said he would guide them, and entered the top floor of the workshop, the platinum floor.

Bang-! Bang!

A dwarf, holding a hammer in one hand and a drill in the other, was working hard.

“Whew..”

Bolder Berg, the workshop owner of the Blacksmith Workshop, was wiping the sweat off his shiny bald head and looking at his work with satisfaction.

“I don’t know if I can finish this before I die of old age! Haha!”

The dwarves on the lower floors were still making things that looked like weapons or armor.

What the Bolder Berg workshop owner was making looked like wide metal plates, like the plywood used on airplanes or battleships on Earth.

“Master-!”

“Huh?”

The workshop owner made a cross with his forehead at Magdin’s voice calling out as he climbed the stairs.

“What the heck! What the hell is this guy calling me out in the middle of work?!” “Master-!”

“Magdin Inoohm! Did you go senile before me!?!”

Bolder Old Man ran towards Magdin, who was in sight, holding the hammer and drill he was holding.

“You’re full of energy today, Bolder Old Man.”

“Yoo Yooseong!”

As soon as he spotted Yoo seong, who was smiling business-like, a bright smile spread across his face as if nothing had happened, and he threw down his favorite tools he was holding in both hands and ran on his short legs.

Slap-!

And the Boulder Workshop owner stops in front of Yoo Sung and holds out his hand.

“Here! Give it to me!” He is as bright as a child asking for candy.

“I haven’t even finished talking yet. How did you know?”

“Hey! Have I seen you once or twice? Didn’t you come here because you needed this old man’s thumb (meaning you wanted to borrow even a cat’s paw)?!”

His face is clearly smiling, but his voice is resonating like he’s eaten boiled rice.

“Here’s what you want.”

Yooseong, whose ears were sore that he could no longer hear the old man Boulder’s voice, obediently took out the blueprint from his bosom. Gulp..!

When Magdin, the goldsmith standing next to him, swallowed dry saliva while looking at the rolled-up blueprint.

Whoosh-!

Fearing that Old Man Boulder’s hand might be snatched away, Yooseong snatched the blueprint from his hand and unfolded it.

“Ah.no, this is! What scale of a blueprint is this?”

Yooseong slowly opened his mouth in response to Old Man Boulder’s astonished question, looking back and forth between the blueprint and Yooseong’s face.

“Dimensional transfer gate… This is the blueprint for making that.”

Thrash.

Thrash..

An alley deep in the night.

A human who was vomiting

Whew! Are you okay? Master?

The person vomiting had half a machine body while the automatic patted her had metal headset-like devices on both ears, and it was hard to tell if she was a normal woman or a robot.

I can’t tell which one is a person. With that sentiment in his mind, Yooseong passed them by and walked deep into the alley towards his workshop.

Jeokbuk.

Towards the door of the workshop.

To be exact, I stopped walking next to the door.

Chit-chik…

Below the flashing light hanging above the iron door.

“.”

There was a red- haired girl sitting blankly with her arms hugging her knees.

The girl was sitting miserably, shivering as if she was cold, with a face as pale as snow.

The tips of her hands crossed on her knees were dyed dark red from broken nails and hardened blood.

“.”

The long-eared girl looked back blankly, as if she sensed someone’s presence.

Slowly opening her mouth, the girl’s lifeless eyes reflected the image of Yooseong, and she froze and got up on unsteady legs. “Yooseong!”

She called Yooseong’s name with a desperate face filled with tears.

At the sight of that girl… Karen Redleaf “Haa..” Yoo-seong let out a deep sigh as he felt the sudden fatigue rushing back.

From being drunk was patted on the back by the automatic next to him.