Chapter 370 (1/2)
The marble with the distinctive yellow tinge gradually changed its hue to red. Kim Dae-ho shot up from his seat after noticing the item emitting light and magical energy all on its own and stumbled several steps away from it.
“What’s happening right now?”
“We’ll find out soon enough,” Su-hyeun said as he took a step closer to the marble.
And right at that very moment, the reddish light coming off from the marble began taking on a blurry and indistinct silhouette.
Not too long after that, a man smiling awkwardly while scratching his head appeared from the red light. The man laughed, “It’s been a while!”
“It hasn’t even been a day for me yet, though?”
“Really? It’s been 10 days on my side, you see. I guess the flow of time is really different here.”
It was Luslec, and he literally popped out of the marble itself. The item was supposed to allow one to communicate by shortening the distance between dimensions, but to think that one could even move through dimensions like this.
“What brings you here?”
“I was curious about the world you live in, Mister Su-hyeun. Ah, but I ask of you not to think of it as a troublesome matter. I can only stay here for a few days, after all.”
“Is that some kind of a restriction?”
“Yes, correct. Anyways, wow, this is really that place? The workshop of uncle Kim Dae-ho? And that gent over there is Mister Kim Dae-ho?”
Luslec’s sparkling eyes landed on Kim Dae-Ho.
He didn’t seem to have any special business for being here nor did he emit hostility. Instead, his current reaction was similar to a child filled with curiosity.
Su-hyeun could only hold his head. With how things have developed, it seemed that he now had no choice but to stick very closely to Luslec for a day at least.
Although the chances of this happening were low, if he really got into a fight somewhere and decided to go on a rampage, there would be no one strong enough to stop him other than Su-hyeun.
“When you say you were curious, are you thinking of doing something similar to a sightseeing tour?”
“Yes, correct again. I’m a tourist.”
“Please behave yourself and wait for a little while. The crafting should be over soon.”
“Yes, got it. But, uh, is it alright for me to take a quick look around here?”
“Please don’t go too far.”
Suddenly feeling rather exhausted, Su-hyeun groaned deeply and waved his hand dismissively.
With an overly excited face, Luslec replied with an energetic, “Yes!” and quickly stepped outside the workshop. Su-hyeun glanced to his side and noticed Kim Dae-ho making an uncharacteristically confused face.
“Who was that guy?”
“Mm…” Su-hyeun wasn’t sure how to answer that, so he mulled over his answer for a bit before saying something, “He’s apparently my fan.”
* * *
Kim Dae-ho returned to his work.
Su-hyeun quietly waited so that he wouldn’t be a bother. Kim Dae-ho hardened the liquefied steel and then weaved some hard and sturdy threads to create a necklace.
While watching the master blacksmith do his thing from behind, Su-hyeun couldn’t help but notice Kim Dae-ho’s hunched back.
“His back has gotten more crooked these days,” he thought.
Kim Dae-ho’s back was gradually bending lower, and his shoulders were shrinking slowly as he got older; only his voice remained loud and sharp, while his age was already creeping into the border between “uncle” and “grandpa.”
It was only obvious that his lifespan would decrease by spending the whole day inside the boiling workshop to hammer away while sweating profusely like this.
“And I can’t even dissuade him.”
Su-hyeun knew very well why Kim Dae-ho was acting this way: he was feeling the weight of responsibility.
It was the responsibility of knowing that even a single piece of equipment he crafted could save the life of an awakener, who would go on to save countless many others in the process.
And that was why Kim Dae-ho couldn’t stop. He was fighting alone inside this narrow workshop.
“Uncle,” Su-hyeun quietly called out to Kim Dae-ho. “Thank you.”
“About what?”
Kim Dae-ho turned around to look at Su-hyeun after getting thanked out of the blue. However, the latter wasn’t planning to say anything else, so he simply kept his mouth shut and expertly hid his smile.
The blacksmith stared at Su-hyeun for a bit before turning around to focus on his crafting instead.
“Silly kid,” Kim Dae-ho muttered softly and got back to work, but Su-hyeun still discovered Kim Dae-ho’s lips quivering into a smirk as he stood behind him. The blacksmith usually had almost no discernible changes to his expressions, so something like this was a noticeable change, indeed.
Not too long afterward, the necklace was completed. In total, the job took about two hours.
“I’ve added additional functions of increased strength to prevent it from getting ripped off, as well as weight reduction. I thought that adding too many functions on it might disrupt the flow of the marble’s magical energy, so I didn’t make it too complicated.”
“I’ll use it well.”
“Okay, so, are you heading out along with that punk from earlier?”
“Yes. He’s very hard to figure out, so I need to keep an eye out on him before he causes an incident somewhere.”
“Are you two talking about me?”
It was at that moment that Luslec abruptly descended into the workshop. He didn’t seem to have used the steps but floated in the air and rapidly dropped down.
“Yes. I wanted you to hear it, actually. As such, please try not to start a fight somewhere.”
“Of course I won’t. Saying something so obvious.”
“Especially murder. That’s completely off-limits.”
Su-hyeun still vividly remembered Luslec’s smiling face as the latter killed Kang Mu-hyeok.
Although Luslec seemed genuinely nice to Su-hyeun, the fact that he was a dangerous individual still hadn’t changed at all.
“I know. I’ll be in trouble if they find out, you know.”
“You’ll be…in trouble?”
“Yes. They’ll scold me real good if I go around blabbing my mouth everywhere. The things about me and the tales I told you, they are all top secret, you see. That’s why you don’t have to worry so much,” Luslec replied confidently while grinning mischievously. It was hard to imagine that this face also made that chill-inducing expression when murdering Kang Mu-hyeok back then.
“Well, he did help me out a lot, so…” Su-hyeun inwardly considered.
Since he couldn’t exactly chase this guy away, he figured it would be better to simply show this guy around the world for a day or so.
“Is there a particular place you wish to see?”
* * *
The place Su-hyeun took Luslec to was the middle of Jongno.
Despite the late hour, quite a few people were still out and about in the vicinity of the Jongno Tower even now. This was the very first place Luslec wanted to see.
“Oh, ooooh…”
Luslec’s wide-open eyes were looking around their surroundings.
Those eyes were sparkling away like an excited kid’s as he took in the sights of the brightly lit streets of Jongno.
“So that’s the Jongno Tower? Wow, it’s seriously tall.”