Mad Forge Artisan, U Gwang-mu.
One of the Three Great Smiths of the Realm, and the very man who would forge the Blood Calamity Heavenly Demon's infamous blade, the Heavenly Demon World-Slaying Sword.
In truth, Un-hyeok had been waiting for him to come.
'The Black Spirit Stone Iron fell into my hands, so I knew he'd come. I just didn't expect it this soon. He must've been burning with impatience.'
The reason U Gwang-mu obsessed over materials.
Everyone assumed it was to forge the greatest sword under the heavens, but..
'That's not the real reason.'
What he truly desired--
was to engrave 'someone's' name upon a weapon.
"U Dan-hyeok."
At the sudden mention of a name he never expected, the Mad Forge Artisan's brow furrowed slightly.
He looked at So-ye.
"Don't tell me...."
"Elder, I know what you're thinking. But I swear, I haven't said a single word to Young Lord Dok."
"Is that the truth?"
"Yes. No matter how I've joined hands with Young Lord Dok, my roots are as an information broker. I'd sooner die than carelessly leak a client's secrets."
Fair enough.
If the Chamber Master's lips were that loose, Gwang-mu would never have entrusted her with the commission and confided his secrets in the first place.
'Then how does this brat know my secret?'
Gwang-mu had never once spoken that name to anyone besides So-ye.
"And the thing is."
So-ye glanced sideways at Un-hyeok and shrugged.
"Young Lord Dok sometimes knows things that even I don't."
"Wh-what?!"
The Mad Forge Artisan's eyes went round.
"Something the great Chamber Master of the Golden Dragon Chamber doesn't know-- how could this brat....?"
"That's something I don't know either. He's so secretive he never tells me a thing. But he's not stupid enough to bring up your secret without good reason."
If the great Chamber Master was vouching for him to that extent-- Gwang-mu glared at Un-hyeok for a moment, then let out a short sigh.
"Fair enough. That impudent brat did make a fool out of that bastard Go Gu. He's no ordinary kid."
Then he adjusted his posture and asked.
"Let me hear it, then. You ask me to take the position of Chief Smith and bring up that name-- what's your reason?"
"First, why don't we move somewhere else?"
Un-hyeok let his gaze drift across the surroundings.
The fact that the Mad Forge Artisan had come here drew the other smiths' attention in their direction.
"There are too many eyes watching."
The conversation that would follow was deeply personal.
It was a gesture of consideration.
Recognizing that, the Mad Forge Artisan let out a sheepish cough and accepted.
"Lead the way."
"Then let us go to the guest hall."
***
When the three of them arrived at the guest hall, a maid brought out tea.
Un-hyeok gestured toward the teacups.
"Please, drink. As you can see, our circumstances are modest, so it's nothing fine. But it should be enough to wet your throat."
Gwang-mu drank the tea without any suspicion, but So-ye hesitated.
Seeing that, Un-hyeok smirked.
"Ah, relax. I didn't put poison in it like last time."
PFFT--!
Tea sprayed from the Mad Forge Artisan's mouth.
"Cough, cough...! What's that supposed to mean? Poison, out of nowhere?!"
"Ah...."
So-ye smiled awkwardly.
"I suppose I never explained that to you, Elder."
"...?"
"What happened was...."
So-ye recounted the incident with Hong Ryu-yeon, glossing over certain details.
As he listened, the Mad Forge Artisan eyed Un-hyeok warily.
'Hm, this young one has quite the talent for scheming. He should've been caught off guard, yet he turned the tables with poison instead?'
Come to think of it, this place was the heart of the Poison Demon Sect.
In other words, it was no different from walking into a tiger's maw.
'I'd better keep my wits about me. Otherwise, that brat's going to have me led around by the nose.'
Meanwhile.
"...That's why it happened. Of course, Young Lord Dok wouldn't do such a thing to me now."
"Well, in any case-- getting to the point."
Un-hyeok's voice grew more serious.
"Elder. When it comes to making a name remembered, carving it into the greatest sword under the heavens isn't the only way."
Gwang-mu's lips pressed tight.
Then, after a heavy sigh, he slowly spoke.
"...You seem to know everything. In that case, there's no point hiding it. Yes, Dan-hyeok is my son."
Gwang-mu placed a hand over his chest.
"A child I raised with my own heart."
One winter night when the wind cut like a blade.
Gwang-mu had been absorbed in hammering iron, as he did every day.
CLANG--!
CLANG--!
WAAAH--!
...Waaah?
A newborn's cry, suddenly heard from outside.
Wondering what was happening, he went out to look.
There, beneath the eaves, sat a bundle wrapped in cloth.
-WAAAH! WAAAH!
Save me.
A wailing lump of flesh, crying mightily through the biting wind.
The moment he held that child.
Gwang-mu never forgot it for the rest of his life.
"Someone abandoned him. I don't know who, but one thing was certain-- if I left him there, he'd die."
Even though the Mad Forge Artisan was famously eccentric, he wasn't cruel enough to simply watch a newborn perish.
"I brought him into the forge, and maybe because it was warm, he slept like the dead. But I'd never raised a baby before. Come the next day, he cried so loudly the whole village could hear."
"What did you do?"
"He was skin and bones, clearly starving. So I went around asking every woman in the village for help."
It must have been a grueling experience.
Yet the Mad Forge Artisan's face said otherwise.
He smiled faintly, as if he missed those days.
"Lucky for me, the village women were kind-hearted. They nursed Dan-hyeok and taught me all kinds of tricks for caring for a baby."
At first, the Mad Forge Artisan planned to send U Dan-hyeok on his way once the boy could earn his own keep.
But then winter passed.
Spring came.
And by the time several more years had gone by, he understood.
That there was something hotter than heating iron.
Before he knew it, U Dan-hyeok had become U Gwang-mu's true son.
"Time passed, and Dan-hyeok grew up. One day, he came to me and said he wanted to learn the smith's craft."
"The smith's craft?"
"Yes. He'd spent his whole life watching my back in the forge. In a way, it was only natural."
U Gwang-mu gave a feeble smile.
"Not knowing it would be his misfortune."
Because he loved Dan-hyeok, Gwang-mu taught him all the more strictly.
"A single splash of molten metal sears the flesh. One misplaced hammer stroke, and it's all too common to be left crippled. One moment's carelessness in the forge can cost you your life."
"......"
"Even so, I wanted to pass on everything I had. Because I wished for Dan-hyeok to surpass me and become the greatest smith in the realm."
But that wish became poison.
Dan-hyeok threw himself into the craft with obsessive fervor, desperate for Gwang-mu's recognition.
Then, one day.
Dan-hyeok was found unconscious in the forge.
"I rushed him to a physician, who said it was arsenic poisoning. It was... already too late."
That day, the Mad Forge Artisan's world crumbled.
Dan-hyeok's breathing grew weaker and weaker.
And yet-- was it a final flicker of lucidity?
In his last moments, Dan-hyeok regained consciousness, if only briefly.
"He said he wanted to leave his mark as a smith renowned throughout the realm and become his father's pride."
That was when it began.
The Mad Forge Artisan's deepening obsession with fine ores.
"So that's why. The reason you seek to forge the greatest weapon under the heavens."
"Yes. Whatever the method-- if I carve Dan-hyeok's name into the greatest sword in the world, everyone will remember him."
The Mad Forge Artisan smiled bitterly.
"Making Dan-hyeok the greatest smith in the realm."
And indeed, the name U Dan-hyeok would one day become known to all.
Though not in the way the Mad Forge Artisan hoped.
'The worst wicked artisan, U Dan-hyeok.'
Because he was credited with forging the Blood Calamity Heavenly Demon's Heavenly Demon World-Slaying Sword--
U Dan-hyeok's name was thoroughly dragged through the mud.
Of course, the truth-- that U Gwang-mu had actually forged the Heavenly Demon World-Slaying Sword-- would come to light later.
But that was beside the point.
What mattered now was convincing U Gwang-mu.
"Elder, that's not a good approach."
The Mad Forge Artisan's face creased.
"What could an outsider like you possibly know to stick your nose in?"
"Then let me ask just one thing. If U Dan-hyeok's name were remembered for all eternity-- would that alone satisfy you?"
Perhaps because the matter of his son had been brought up, the Mad Forge Artisan's emotions grew heated.
"Yes! That was Dan-hyeok's dying wish!"
"Even if it means being condemned by every person under the heavens?"
The Mad Forge Artisan's mouth clamped shut, as if he'd swallowed his own tongue.
His face said he had never once considered such a thing.
"What do you...?"
"I mean exactly what I said. Even if I don't hand over the Black Spirit Stone Iron, you would have forged the greatest sword under the heavens. But what if the one who wields that sword walks an inhuman and deviant path?"
The Blood Calamity Heavenly Demon was far from the only example.
Those who pursued extremes had always existed.
Lecherous fiends who ravaged every woman in a village to increase their yang energy.
Crazed old hags who bathed in the blood of young boys and girls to preserve their youth.
The world was vast, and madmen were plentiful.
"A sword can save a life or take one. Grace and grudge coexist within it, and depending on who wields it, glory-- or infamy-- follows in its wake."
Truly, a double-edged blade.
To the Mad Forge Artisan, who had lived his entire life as a smith-- what did a 'sword' mean?
Just a sharp piece of metal?
In that moment, the Mad Forge Artisan understood.
What the young man before him was trying to say.
"You're saying that what makes a famed sword lies in the 'meaning' it carries."
"Yes. And that meaning depends on the one who holds it."
The person.
The person, huh....
The Mad Forge Artisan asked.
"If you brought this up, am I right to take it as an offer to turn any sword I forge into the greatest under the heavens?"
"If I say yes, would you be willing to take the position of Chief Smith?"
"No. Even if you promised that, I don't think I could believe you."
"I agree. In truth, I had no intention of asking you to take it on faith."
...What?
Then why bring it up?
"However, I'd like to show you."
"Show me what, exactly....?"
"If what you wish to achieve is for U Dan-hyeok to be remembered as the greatest smith in the realm-- I'm saying that forging the greatest sword isn't the only way."
"What do you mean?! Another way?!"
Seeing the Mad Forge Artisan's interest piqued,
Un-hyeok took a leisurely sip of tea and smiled.
"Unfortunately, from here on, that's a trade secret."
"...What?!"
Hah, this brat?!
Do you know one of the two surest ways to infuriate a person?
One of them is--
Stopping mid-sentence, just like this.
"Stop teasing me and spit it out. What kind of method is it?"
"Is it that interesting to you?"
The hook was set!
All that remained was reeling him in.
Un-hyeok spoke magnanimously, as if doing the old man a favor.
"I really shouldn't be telling you this... but since it's you, Elder, I'll make an exception."
Gwang-mu listened closely.
"The method is actually simpler than you'd think. Mass-producing quality weapons and farming tools and selling them far and wide."
Gwang-mu's expression went sour.
"Ha. You put on all that bluster for that?"
"What's the matter?"
"Because what you're suggesting is impossible. Do you have any idea how long it takes for a single smith to produce something of real quality? You think that's easy?"
"I have a feasible plan."
Another of the Three Great Smiths of the Realm.
A method devised by Tang Sa-gang of the Sichuan Tang Clan.
It was entirely achievable with the manpower already present in the Poison Demon Sect.
"Elder, take the position of Chief Smith for just one month. Then see the results for yourself."
When the Mad Forge Artisan hummed in thought, Un-hyeok added one more condition.
"If, after one month, you still wish to leave-- I'll let you go without a word. And I'll hand over the Black Spirit Stone Iron as well."
"Young Lord Dok! That's...!"
An extraordinary set of terms.
So-ye tried to stop him, but Un-hyeok seemed to have already made up his mind.
"Hmm...."
One month.
Not too long, and not too short, to verify whether Un-hyeok's claim held any truth.
And--
'I'll be able to see what kind of man this brat really is.'
No one had ever shown the Mad Forge Artisan a new path before.
Most who sought him out had their eyes fixed on the weapons he forged.
He was, in some way, grateful for Un-hyeok-- who pondered his troubles as if they were his own.
Even so, he could not recklessly entrust a weapon bearing Dan-hyeok's name to just anyone.
'His martial talent, his character.... One month should be enough to gauge those.'
Besides, Gwang-mu had nothing to lose.
"Fine. I'll accept your offer."
"Very good."
And so, the Poison Demon Sect's forge had its Chief Smith.