The sound of the lock disengaging seemed unusually loud when Taehu pressed the button on the door lock.
He pushed open the darkened door to Appraisal Room 3 and felt along the wall for the light switch. The fluorescent lights flickered on, illuminating a silent office.
He had arrived a full hour earlier than his usual starting time.
Taehu took off his padded jacket, draped it carelessly over his chair, and sat down. As he ran his fingers over the cold surface of the canned coffee in his hand, he recalled the message the warehouse employee had sent him the previous night.
An Unidentified Item that ordinary Appraisal had failed to identify.
"What kind of thing gets someone excited from the night before?"
Muttering to himself, Taehu took a long drink of coffee. The bitter liquid slid down his throat and drove away the last traces of sleepiness.
Just then, footsteps came from the hallway.
The glass door swung open, revealing the warehouse management employee and an unfamiliar man.
"Huh? Appraiser Hwang. You're already here?"
The warehouse employee's eyes widened in surprise. Taehu rose from his seat and gave him a slight nod.
"I woke up early. Is this about the item you mentioned yesterday?"
"Yes. This gentleman happened to arrive early as well, so I was wondering what to do."
The employee gestured toward the man beside him.
Dressed in hiking clothes with a worn backpack slung over his shoulders, the man looked around the office with a visibly tense expression. He resembled a professional scavenger who wandered around dungeons and dangerous zones collecting miscellaneous items to sell.
"Wait a minute. If that's the item from yesterday, I believe I said I'd take another look at it when I came in."
An irritated voice cut in from behind them.
Senior Appraiser Min Jeongho approached with a paper cup in his hand. Taehu had not even noticed him arriving.
Jeongho shot Taehu a sidelong glare before turning toward the client.
"Let's see that B-rank dungeon relic you showed us on your way out yesterday. You're making people work from the crack of dawn."
Min Jeongho jerked his chin toward the desk.
The client hurriedly opened his backpack and carefully took out something wrapped in several layers of newspaper.
RUSTLE. RUSTLE.
The rough newspaper was peeled away, revealing what lay inside.
Taehu narrowed his eyes without realizing it.
It was neither a magnificent weapon radiating powerful mana nor an artifact embedded with dazzling gemstones.
Sitting on the desk was a crude, palm-sized piece of black metal.
Its edges were irregular and jagged, as though it had been torn away from something larger. It was not rusty, but its surface was covered in countless scratches and abrasions.
Min Jeongho let out an incredulous laugh.
"Sir, are you joking? What part of this looks like a B-rank dungeon relic? It's just a piece of scrap metal."
"N-no! I saw it with my own eyes. I found it deep inside the B-rank Night Sky Ruins dungeon. It was being kept deep inside a monster nest like something precious!"
The client desperately tried to explain himself, but Min Jeongho did not even pretend to listen.
He opened a drawer, took out a Portable Mana Scanner, and held it close to the surface of the metal fragment.
BEEP. BEEP.
The machine emitted nothing but dry, evenly spaced signals. The needle on the gauge indicating the mana reading did not move in the slightest.
"You see? The mana reaction is zero. Even a common E-rank dungeon fragment gives off more than this. You could put a random steel plate from the outside world in front of this thing and probably get a stronger reaction."
"That can't be... I'm certain there was something unusual about it. Couldn't you examine it a little more thoroughly?"
"Are you suggesting the equipment at our appraisal center is lying? If you submit this for a formal Appraisal, you'll only waste your money on the fee. Sell it to a scrapyard or throw it away. There's no reason for both of us to waste our time this early in the morning."
Min Jeongho dismissed him coldly and walked back to his desk without another glance.
The client's shoulders slumped.
He had probably spent several days risking his life near a B-rank dungeon to bring the object back, only to have it dismissed as scrap metal in an instant. His disappointment was understandable.
With a blank expression, he reached out with trembling hands and began wrapping the fragment in newspaper again.
Then a strange sensation ran down Taehu's spine.
It was pure instinct.
The intuition he had honed by recovering countless discarded objects screamed at him that the black fragment was no ordinary piece of metal.
"Excuse me, sir."
Taehu walked over to the client.
"Would you mind if I took a look?"
The client stared at Taehu in confusion.
"But that man just said there wasn't any mana reaction..."
"Machines occasionally miss subtle details. I'm Hwang Taehu, a C-rank Appraiser."
Taehu offered a calm smile and reached toward the newspaper.
The client hesitated, then eventually nodded. He seemed to think there was nothing left to lose.
Watching from a distance, Min Jeongho snorted.
"Appraiser Hwang, don't waste your energy on something pointless. I told you, the mana reaction is zero. I already checked it with the scanner. What exactly do you think you're going to accomplish by poking at it with your bare hands?"
Taehu did not answer.
His gaze remained fixed solely on the black metal fragment resting on the desk.
Slowly, he removed his glove and placed his bare fingers against the cold metal surface.
The sensation beneath his fingertips was distinctly different from ordinary iron.
It was cold, yet somewhere beneath its surface he could feel a faint vibration, almost like a pulse.
In that instant, Taehu's vision was engulfed in geometric patterns of light.
FLASH!
Golden text erupted into the air in a brilliant torrent.
The radiance was far more intense and dazzling than anything he had seen when touching damaged items before.
[Damaged Breastplate Fragment of the Starlight Armor]
[Original Rank: Legendary]
[Current Restoration Rate: 4.7%]
[Status: Severely damaged. Cannot be used independently.]
[Special Effect: Can be combined with fragments of the same series. Residual function active (Mana Resistance +3%)]
"......!"
Taehu nearly sucked in a sharp breath on the spot.
He almost jerked his hand away and stumbled backward in shock, but he forced himself to remain still by tensing his legs.
His heart began hammering so violently that it felt as though it might burst through his rib cage.
'Legendary.'
He had appraised countless items by now, including excellent equipment capable of evolving beyond A-rank.
But the weight carried by the word "Legendary" existed on an entirely different level.
This was not merely some useful weapon or piece of armor he had been lucky enough to stumble across.
'Why the hell was something this insane lying around in a B-rank dungeon?'
Even more astonishing were the details in the Status Window.
It was merely a fragment of the breastplate, only 4.7% of the whole.
Yet even in its shattered condition, it already possessed [Mana Resistance +3%].
Mana Resistance was considered one of the most valuable properties an armor item could possess.
The reality for most Hunters was that even covering themselves head to toe in A-rank defensive equipment would scarcely grant them a single percent of Mana Resistance.
And yet this unimpressive fragment alone contained three percent.
Taehu could not even begin to imagine how powerful the fully restored item would be.
'I have to get this.'
His mind raced.
He needed to secure this item somehow.
Before the client walked out with it and tossed it to a nearby scrapyard for a few ten-thousand-won bills, Taehu had to make it his through a legitimate transaction.
He ruthlessly suppressed every hint of agitation on his face.
After steadying his breathing and wiping his expression clean, he slowly removed his hand from the metal fragment.
"Did you finish looking? I suppose it's just a piece of metal, like that other gentleman said?"
The client asked with a bitter smile.
Taehu calmly drew the newspaper slightly over the fragment before answering.
"It's true that there isn't any detectable mana reaction. It would be difficult to register it as an ordinary dungeon relic and sell it for a high price."
Min Jeongho crossed his legs and scoffed.
"See? I told you. All that work for nothing first thing in the morning."
The client let out a deep sigh and opened his backpack.
"I understand. I'm sorry for wasting your time when you're busy. I suppose I'll just sell it to some back-alley scrapyard or throw it in the trash."
"Wait."
Taehu lightly stopped the client's hand.
The man paused and looked up at him.
"Although it doesn't have much commercial value as a dungeon relic, I personally find the composition of this metal rather interesting. I have a hobby of collecting unusual components from time to time."
"What do you mean...?"
"If you're going to throw it away anyway, I'd like to purchase it from you properly."
The client's eyes widened.
Until moments ago, the object had been treated as troublesome waste that no one wanted.
"Y-you want to buy this? I was about to dispose of it anyway, so I'd certainly appreciate being paid for it, but... how much?"
"I'll give you 800,000 won."
The office fell strangely quiet.
Min Jeongho, who had been flipping through paperwork, abruptly raised his head and stared at Taehu.
"Appraiser Hwang. What exactly are you doing? Eight hundred thousand won? For that piece of scrap?"
"I'm buying it with my own money. There shouldn't be any problem with that."
"You must have money to burn. Fine, do whatever you want. Just don't come whining later when you realize you wasted it."
Clicking his tongue as though Taehu were hopeless, Min Jeongho turned back to his monitor.
The client stared back and forth between Taehu and the fragment in bewilderment.
He had expected to receive less than ten thousand won for the lump of scrap metal, only for Taehu to suddenly offer him 800,000 won.
It was an unexpected windfall.
"You're really going to give me 800,000 won?"
"Yes. I'll transfer it to your account right now. In exchange, we need to document the transaction properly with a transfer-of-ownership agreement. It would be troublesome for both of us if there were any ownership disputes later."
"Of course! I'll sign it right now!"
The client readily signed the private transfer document Taehu handed him and stamped it with his fingerprint.
Taehu immediately transferred 800,000 won through his smartphone.
The client's face brightened as soon as he confirmed the deposit notification.
"Thank you, Appraiser! Thanks to you, this trip wasn't a waste after all."
The client left the office with a spring in his step, and the warehouse management employee gathered the paperwork before returning to his own station.
Soon, the office was once again filled only with the ordinary sounds of people preparing for work.
Taehu took a sturdy leather case from his drawer and carefully placed the black metal fragment inside.
CLICK.
The sound of the case locking seemed unusually satisfying.
At exactly 6:00 p.m., Taehu packed his things the moment his workday ended and left the appraisal center.
Throughout the subway ride home, he kept his bag on his lap and held it tightly against himself.
Normally, exhaustion would have had him nodding off, but today his eyes remained intensely alert.
When he reached his studio apartment and opened the front door, familiar silence greeted him.
The instant Taehu removed his shoes, he headed straight for his desk with the bag still in his hand.
He did not even think about preparing dinner.
After hanging his jumper over the chair, he checked the door lock once more and firmly closed the curtains over the window.
Taehu sat in the middle of the room, removed the leather case from his bag, and placed it on the desk.
When he opened the lid, the rough black fragment covered in scratches revealed itself once again.
He picked it up with his bare hand.
As though it had been waiting for him, golden letters appeared in the air.
[Damaged Breastplate Fragment of the Starlight Armor]
[Original Rank: Legendary]
"Haa..."
A suppressed breath escaped between Taehu's lips.
This feeling was on an entirely different level from when he had first seen the Guardian's Ring or the Sword of the Fallen Knight Commander, both of which he had personally restored.
A thrill beginning at his fingertips raced up his spine and spread throughout his body.
For now, it was merely a fragment amounting to 4.7% of the whole.
But if he could raise that to ten percent, twenty percent, and eventually combine it with the other fragments, he could not even imagine what kind of item it would become.
'The others treated this as garbage just because there was no mana reaction.'
Even Min Jeongho, who carried himself as though his seniority made him the foremost authority in the appraisal center, had looked only at the scanner's reaction and dismissed it as scrap metal.
Only Taehu's eyes had pierced through to the profound value that even machines could not detect.
What he truly yearned to find was Mythic-rank equipment.
True relics said to number only a handful across the entire world.
He still had no idea where such an item might be found, but now that he had flawlessly identified a Legendary-rank fragment like this, the path toward that goal no longer felt like a mere fantasy.
The heavy chill of the metal against his palm felt unusually pleasant.
Taehu slowly ran his fingers along the fragment's rough edge.
"Just wait. I'll find the rest of you somehow."
Muttering softly, he carefully returned the fragment to the leather case.
Taehu glanced at the calendar on his desk, a deep smile spreading across his face.
His hands were already itching to find out what sort of trash might be piled in some corner of the warehouse when he went to work tomorrow.
The heart of an Appraiser who had grasped a piece of a legend beat with a pleasant rhythm.