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5

Crash-

The sound of hammering that shattered the world behind the eyelids, which had just sunk like a dream, echoed from nearby.

Daydreams. As someone who remembers all the past, such occurrences often found their way to me. The eyes that had just closed for the 53rd time opened with a momentary lapse, now seeing through the eyes of the 100th time.

“Whew…”

A sigh escaped.

It was Noh Doha. His breath was partly locked in the dazzling midsummer sunlight and partly buried in the cyan shadows of the abandoned mines in Jeongseon.

“Well, it seems like I’ve managed to complete a kitchen knife or something. Hm. I think I’ve made it better than this dwarf or whatever…”

“….”

The mirage danced slowly.

In the exhalation of a person’s breath, waves of sunlight and shadow, and dust, were undulating.

When the world dances, it seems to require a balance of light and shadow. Then, the flicker of the eyes, lightly and endlessly swimming between attention and blindness, must be the primal dance of existence.

“Now, it’s time to challenge the next level. Hmm, a pair of tongs should be just right. The blacksmith awakening. If there’s a dwarf wandering around the village making something halfway decent… Blacksmith awakened? Hey. Hey, you. Are you even listening to me…?”

“Ah, yes. I’m listening.”

By the way, it took less than three seconds for “hey” to become “you” on Noh Doha’s tongue. It couldn’t be anything but a magical tongue.

Noh Doha pretended to dig his ears with a hoe, muttering.

“Did you put a nail in your ear? Since you’re holding on just right, find something a bit more challenging than the hoe I made now… Oh?”

Noh Doha couldn’t finish his sentence.

Swoosh-

The strange dwarf, who until just now seemed soulless, suddenly reached out towards Noh Doha.

A clear anomaly.

Instinctively, I hugged Noh Doha and stepped back. Due to the sudden action, he accidentally let go of the hoe, dropping it.

“Be careful, Workshop Owner.”

“Oh. Well, thank you… but I don’t feel any hostility…”

“Even creatures without emotions like hostility are abundant in the world. Just as radiation doesn’t attack humans out of malice.”

-……

For some reason, the dwarf seemed uninterested in us. Instead, it slowly bent at the waist.

There, the hoe Noh Doha dropped was rolling around.

“Hmm…?”

The dwarf picked up the hoe, examining it carefully. It was as if it were moving in slow motion, as if it were a video played at half speed.

-……, ……

Whoosh-

Wind blew through the pitch-black eye sockets and mouth holes. From inside to outside.

And something strange happened.

The dwarf, as if it were made of wind from the beginning, began to lose its shape more and more as it poured out wind through its holes.

“Oh…?”

-……, …….

The breath expelled by the dwarf poured all over Noh Doha’s simple hoe like a watercolorist adding the final touches with his breath.

Clang.

The hoe fell again. The dwarf, having exhaled all its breath, shriveled up like a balloon and disappeared completely.

“Fascinating. What kind of phenomenon is this, Doctor Jang…?”

“…I don’t know either. I’ve known about this mining village for a while, but I’ve never really delved into it.”

“Ah. You’ve been through over a hundred regressions and still haven’t figured out the identity of a single village? Isn’t that negligence…?”

“I’m sorry. I could have figured it out if someone hadn’t slit my throat and killed me in a past regression.”

Noh Doha raised an eyebrow, blinking.

“They don’t disappear…”

“Yes?”

“In this village, when a blacksmith makes something, it usually disappears soon after. The kitchen knife I made this morning disappeared just like that. But look. Despite the time that has passed, my hoe is still intact, isn’t it…?”

“Ah.”

I stroked my chin.

“Indeed. Perhaps the essence of this ‘Taebaek Mountain Dwarf Mining Village’ is… a training ground for blacksmiths.”

“A training ground…?”

“Yes. It could be considered a place for inheriting traditions. Noh Doha Workshop Owner has just received ‘recognition’ from that dwarf by making the hoe.”

“Oh…”

“I can roughly guess how to clear this void. There are a total of seven blacksmiths in the village. Now that Noh Doha Workshop Owner has eliminated one, there are six left.”

“And they’ll be recognized by the other six craftsmen…?”

“Yes.”

I picked up the hoe. Engraved on it was a strange glyph, perhaps a character that had never been seen before in the entire history of creations.

A first sight. An incomprehensible language. To describe it somewhat similarly, it looked like this.

[Dicentra Spectabilis]

Noh Doha tilted his head curiously.

“Hmm. What’s this again? I’ve never carved these characters before…”

“Most likely, the dwarf made these characters with his own breath. Well, how many characters could a blacksmith carve into his creations? Probably just one. His own name.”

“Ah, I see…”

Noh Doha took out his notebook. With a furrowed brow, he carefully transcribed [Dicentra Spectabilis] into a memo.

“Workshop Owner, why is that?”

“Hmm…”

Noh Doha didn’t respond to my question.

From that day on, our routine was set.

First, we categorized the remaining six dwarf blacksmiths by the difficulty level of their creations.

A dwarf making small kitchen knives was Level 1. A dwarf making large swords was Level 6.

“So, where should we start…? Please focus and finish quickly so that I can lend you a hand, blacksmith…”

“Hey, only a workshop owner could handle an infinite regressor like this.”

“What nonsense is that? The man who’s been tying me up like a country magistrate, only letting me meddle with time…”

“I’ve got you. Workshop Owner.”

“Oh, good…”

Clang!

Noh Doha’s hammer struck the anvil. Noh Doha, who seemed all brawn and no brain, as if he were demonstrating what real muscle compression was, unceremoniously wielded his hammer.

Underneath the cave, long strands of hair fluttered. The blacksmith, whose form was one with the hammer, looked like he was dancing from a distance.

Flames and shadows.

The dance of red and black.

-……

whoosh…

The breath of the peculiar being, who seemed to have come from another world, allowed the knife to remain in this world. With his last breath, the being left his language, an unrecognizable name, engraved on the knife before disappearing.

“…”

How did these creatures come to be? Even after repeating regressions for so long, I could only speculate about their elusive secret, never reaching a definitive answer.

I cooked, prepared baths, secured beds, remained vigilant of anomalies around us, and assisted Noh Doha in his continued ‘suppression of the anomalies’. That was my role in this void.

It wasn’t a difficult role.

The ‘assistant’ from the 53rd regression had already matched skills with the master craftsmen for eight years. Those memories were still etched behind my eyelids.

“Hmm…”

Next level. And then the next.

In just six days, Noh Doha reached the final gate of the last blacksmith. The word ‘prodigy’ must have been coined for him.

But strangely, with each level surpassed, Noh Doha’s expression soured. He glared at me with his eyebrows furrowed.

“Why?”

“Thinking about it, I feel pretty terrible…”

“…?”

“No matter how you look at it, aren’t you unnaturally skilled at being an assistant? Just at the right moment, handing over the tongs, holding the hammer in a comfortable angle for me, like a drone delivery service. Every time, you act like you know everything, like a sly regressor…”

“What on earth are you babbling about?”

I was speechless. Was he really sane?

“…Acting like I know everything. I’ve never talked like that in my life, and sly? Sly? Me?”

“Hmm. That’s what I mean. Don’t get hung up on a single word. You, even if you’ve eaten a thousand more years of life than me, you’re still narrow-minded, the old of the old, truly ancient, why so narrow-minded…?”

“Why are you throwing insults like this one after another?”

“Okay, enough…”

Clang.

When Noh Doha lightly struck the handle of the knife, the subtle misalignment was perfectly corrected.

Level 6. The completion of the sword.

-…………

Swiftly, as if catching the scent of a bakery in a subway station, Noh Doha turned his head.

And then he reached out his hand to infuse eternity into the masterpiece of the craftsman—

“Ah. Wait…”

But his hand only waved through empty air.

Because Noh Doha suddenly pushed the sword behind him.

-…?

“Hmm.”

-…?

The dwarf’s pitch-black eye sockets gazed at Noh Doha like a cat who had just stolen cream.

Noh Doha chuckled mischievously.

-…? …?

Hop, hop. It wasn’t for nothing that I was registered as a dwarf in the lineage, so no matter how hard the dwarf tried to leap, there was no way he could reach the towering greatsword that Noh Doha held high.

I, too, had question marks swirling in my mind.

What’s going on with this person? Has he finally decided that humanity alone isn’t enough to satisfy him and now he’s casting his quirks onto the anomalies?

Noh Doha sighed.

“I’m not particularly interested in baptizing you. Not at all. I have no intention of being your mentor either. Now, you’re supposed to carry on our vision, but if you try to ascend on your own, you’ll only get into trouble…”

-…?

“To be honest, I don’t need these useless extensions…”

Noh Doha had thrown everything he had created so far—hoes, kitchen knives, daggers, sickles, scimitars, longswords, and greatswords—into the furnace and turned them back into adamantine.

In an instant, the adamantine ingots were reshaped by Noh Doha’s hammer into something new. Clang! Clang! Without pausing for breath, he worked tirelessly, pouring everything into it, regardless of the sweat dripping from him.

“Small hammer.”

“Ah, yes, Workshop Owner.”

“Tongs.”

“Here you go.”

“Sandwich.”

“Yes.”

Whenever he demanded, I handed him the tools and adjusted the molds accordingly.

-…

The dwarves watched our duo’s work with empty eye sockets.

How much time had passed? Noh Doha, who hadn’t wiped his forehead even once during the forging, quickly wiped the sweat with the back of his hand. Then he picked up his goggles and put them in his front pocket.

“Whew, it’s finally done…”

I was briefly at a loss for words at the unusual appearance of the finished product.

“This is…”

It was a staff-sword.

Swish—Noh Doha pulled out the gleaming blade herself to demonstrate. Zhanjian (Staff Sword). In English, it was called a swordstick.

Normally used as a staff, it could be transformed into a weapon for self-defense when necessary.

“You asked for a weapon to be made, right…?”

“…Yes.”

“Hmm. Okay. This is the weapon I’m dedicating to you…”

Staff. The simplest assistive device that can be made for people with mobility difficulties. That’s why Noh Doha’s fingerprints were all over it.

Sword. The most common weapon people use to kill. That’s why my fingerprints would be left on it.

Very much in line with Noh Doha and me.

“…”

“Just wait a moment…”

Noh Doha leaned the sword against his shoulder. Sliiiice, the sound of a carving knife slicing through echoed.

[Dicentra Spectabilis]

It was assumed to be the name of the dwarf blacksmith who had once breathed life into the hoe.

Noh Doha unfolded his notebook, glanced at it, and meticulously carved each letter onto the blade of the sword. Seven names in total. The characters from another world writhed like beautiful tattoos.

And at the end.

Doha.

The characters with the same pronunciation as Noh Doha’s name, and the same meaning as the workshop he had run, flowed down the white blade like raindrops.

“Here you go…”

-…

-…

-…, ….

Looking around, the figure of the dwarf anomaly had disappeared. There was no task of infusing eternity even into the breath.

Only the deep sound of the wind, as if sighing, blew through the canyon of the mine. The breath of the mountains, settling from the cliffs, swept past us, past the surroundings and the sword.

In the place where the long sigh of the wind passed by, the village concealed itself. The adamantine ore, the furnaces, the buildings made of stone, the anvils used by the dwarves—all vanished, swept away by the wind.

Only Noh Doha, I, and a single sword remained at the entrance of the giant cave.

“…”

It was a strange phenomenon.

But then again, emptiness is inherently strange.

Without even a glance at the disappearance of the dwarf mining village, Noh Doha simply handed me the sword.

As the evening sun blazed behind him, the scene before me was imprinted on my retina.

The moment I reached out, the moment I tried to grasp the sword, Noh Doha’s lips, which seemed destined to remain silent forever, parted.

“Do you really intend to take it…?”

“…”

“It’s a good sword. A sword that cannot be made again. This sword will surely fulfill its role in the hunts and killings you will undertake in the future. Do you understand what I’m saying…? Doctor Jang. From now on, a portion of your achievements will owe to this sword. Your accomplishments, exploits, successes and failures, killings—half of everything will belong to it. In other words, when you hold this, you are accepting this sword as your accomplice…”

“…”

I nodded.

I grasped the sword.

“I will name the sword Doha.”

“Hmm.”

Noh Doha chuckled softly.

The sunset cast its crimson light, matching him smile.

“The share is fifty-fifty…”

Truly. Who could say I wasn’t a villainous employer, with such an insidious profit-sharing ratio?

6

There’s an afterword.

Every time the turn changes, everything should be reset and returned to its original state, but for some reason, the sword ‘Doha’ was an exception.

From the 100th turn onwards, Doha was always stuck at the entrance of the cave in the middle of the Taebaek Mountains. Even in subsequent cycles, Noh Doha never made a sword for me.

“…”

It was truly a phenomenon that could be described as anomalous. However, perhaps emptiness is inherently anomalous.

Without a doubt, the disappearance of the dwarf mining village was strange. But now, there was no chance to find out the true nature of that emptiness.

In addition to the silver droplets I had always farmed at Busan Station’s main hall, I now had another ‘exclusive item’ to add to my collection.

“Hmm? Wait, Doctor Jang…”

“Why?”

“Could you show me that staff for a moment…”

Almost snatching it away, Noh Doha handed me Doha.

“Hmm…”

With his goggles on, he examined the sword from all angles, sliding it through the holes, inspecting it inside and out.

A sigh escaped from Noh Doha’s lips.

“…Doctor Jang. This. This sword. Where did you get it…?”

“Oh. I received it as a gift from the greatest blacksmith in Korea.”

“The greatest in Korea? Hm, well, it looks like it… Alright. If you’ve crafted something of this caliber, you can call yourself whatever you want. But a Korean, huh. Who could it be…?”

Shadows flickered ominously in Noh Doha’s eyes, heavy with dark circles.

“Why? Interested?”

“Well… If someone with this kind of talent, I’d want to either recruit them as an official smith for the country or hire them somewhere, anyway, they’d have to serve as a lifelong unpaid slave…”

How could I not burst into laughter at that?

With a furrowed brow, Noh Doha oozed a thick aura of suspicion. His pair of black islands, so they weren’t lonely, glared at me.

“Huh? Laughing? What’s so funny? Do you want to get beaten…?”

“No, absolutely not. I’ll tell you obediently. Workshop Owner. The person who made this sword is my—”

-Collaborator.

-End