The three-day funeral had been shorter than expected, and the aftermath it left behind lasted longer than expected.
On the outskirts of Seoul, on the first floor of an old commercial building, pale dust had settled over a wooden sign that read "Lee Family Workshop." The workshop felt chilly after he returned for the first time in three days. It had the stagnant odor unique to a space no one had entered or left. The familiar blend of varnish, sawdust, and old paper smelled especially raw today, stinging his nose.
Han-gyeol stared blankly at the hemp mourning band wrapped around his left arm. It was time to take it off and burn it, but he could not bring himself to lift his arm. He felt as though removing it would mean admitting that his grandfather was truly gone from this world.
"Haa......."
Han-gyeol let out a deep sigh and collapsed into the chair in front of the workbench. Creak. The old chair shrieked.
Three days ago, Han-gyeol's only family, his grandfather Lee Tae-jun, had passed away at the workbench as if he had merely dozed off. It was far too quiet and lonely a death for a craftsman who had spent his life working with wood, metal, and clay. He had left no final words. He had simply bent over an old mother-of-pearl cabinet he was repairing, saying he would rest for a moment, and that brief rest had become eternal.
Han-gyeol's gaze shifted to one corner of the workbench. His grandfather's carving knives and sandpaper were still lying there. It seemed as though he might rise at any moment and bark, "Han-gyeol, boil some animal glue."
But reality was cruelly clear.
In the middle of the workbench, among tools that had lost their owner, lay a single white envelope. A red stamp was printed on its face.
[Final Notice].
Han-gyeol picked up the envelope with a trembling hand. He knew what it said without reading it.
[Demand for Debt Repayment and Notice of Compulsory Auction]
The single sheet of paper weighed as much as a lump of lead. His grandfather had been an excellent restorer, but he had not been an excellent provider. If anything, his financial sense had been close to a failing grade.
Lee Tae-jun had valued commissions with stories behind them more than commissions that paid well. He was the sort of man who stayed up for several nights repairing a poor elderly person's broken cane, or fixed an old desk for a penniless high school student free of charge.
"Skill is meant to save people. Once money blinds you, you're a merchant, not a craftsman."
That had been his grandfather's favorite saying. As a child, Han-gyeol had thought it sounded admirable. To the adult Han-gyeol, however, those words were both shackles and a curse.
The craftsman whose skill saved people had been unable to stop his own shop from dying. The final blow had been guaranteeing a friend's debt. The goodwill of an old man who had lived honestly all his life made perfect prey for a vicious swindler.
The workshop building had been put up as collateral, and the interest had snowballed. His grandfather had hidden the fact from Han-gyeol completely. Han-gyeol had only found out after graduating from university and beginning to help at the workshop in earnest. Only then had he realized they had been pouring water into a bottomless jar.
"Grandpa...... How am I supposed to protect this?"
Han-gyeol muttered as he scrubbed both hands over his face. He resented him. Yet he also missed him with an ache that cut to the bone. This cramped, shabby workshop was Han-gyeol's childhood itself. Having lost his parents young and been raised by his grandfather, this place had been his home, his playground, and his entire world.
Chime—.
At that moment, the wind chime on the workshop door rang. No customer should have been coming at this hour. Had he not hung a Closed Today sign outside because of the funeral in the first place?
Han-gyeol turned his head reflexively. The person who opened the door and entered was a man in a black suit.
Manager Kim.
He did not have the menacing look of a gangster. In his neat suit and gold-rimmed glasses, he looked more like a typical employee in the finance industry. But Han-gyeol knew how frightening the persistence concealed beneath that tidy appearance could be. He handled debt collection for a non-bank lender, what most people simply called a loan company.
"My condolences for your loss, Mr. Lee."
Manager Kim bowed politely. His manners were impeccable, but his voice had been stripped of emotion. It was as dry as a prerecorded message, and that made Han-gyeol feel even more suffocated.
"Did the funeral go well?"
"......Yes. Thanks to you."
Han-gyeol answered curtly without even rising. Manager Kim slowly looked around the workshop as though he did not mind.
"Master Lee Tae-jun was a remarkable man. Everyone in this trade knew him. I respected him personally as well."
Manager Kim gestured with his eyes toward the final notice on the workbench.
"But I trust you understand that money is a separate matter, Mr. Lee."
"This month isn't over yet."
"The interest is due tomorrow. The principal also comes due very soon."
Manager Kim pulled over the chair opposite Han-gyeol and sat down. The old chair shrieked once more.
"Let me be frank. Paying a little interest won't solve your current situation. Can you repay the principal?"
Han-gyeol bit his lip. His bank balance was at rock bottom. After paying the funeral expenses, he had only a few hundred thousand won left. Forget the principal. Even the interest due tomorrow was beyond him.
"If you could give me...... just a little more time......."
"Time?"
Manager Kim gave a faint laugh. It was not mockery. It was the mournful smile of someone soothing a child who did not understand reality.
"Mr. Lee, the creditors held an internal meeting after Master Lee Tae-jun passed away. They reached one conclusion. There will be no further extensions. With the master, who was both the principal technician and guarantor, no longer here, what can guarantee this workshop's profitability?"
"I'm here. I learned restoration too, and I've studied under my grandfather since I was little......."
"Let's be realistic. Can someone with your experience handle this debt? How much do you make each month repairing a few broken pieces of neighborhood furniture?"
Han-gyeol could say nothing. Not one part of Manager Kim's argument was wrong. Han-gyeol was merely "Lee Tae-jun's grandson." He had no reputation whatsoever as a craftsman in his own right. The occasional minor repair commission barely covered the workshop's electricity and water bills.
"Sell the building before it goes to auction. That would benefit you too. At auction, it won't fetch its proper value, and after the creditors divide the proceeds, you'll be thrown out with nothing. Sell it now, while there's still a buyer."
Manager Kim took a business card from inside his jacket and placed it on the workbench. It belonged to a real-estate development company.
"The president of this company is very interested in this location. He says he wants to demolish the workshop and build a low-rise apartment building. He'll offer you reasonable terms."
"Demolish...... the workshop?"
"It's an old building anyway, isn't it? Redevelopment is moving into the area too."
Han-gyeol clenched his fist. This was not merely a building. It held his grandfather's entire life, and it was where all Han-gyeol's memories had begun. There was not a single corner untouched by his grandfather's hands. Every saw hanging on the wall and every scratch on the floor held a memory.
And they wanted to demolish it and build a low-rise apartment building?
"I can't."
"Excuse me?"
"I said I won't sell it. I'm going to protect this workshop."
Han-gyeol spoke quietly but firmly. Manager Kim pushed up his glasses and stared at him. It was the gaze of a man looking at a stubborn and reckless young fool.
"Pride won't pay your debt, Mr. Lee."
"This isn't pride. This place is my life."
"......Hoo. Very well. It's your choice."
Manager Kim rose from his seat. He straightened his clothes and delivered the warning coldly.
"If the interest isn't deposited by tomorrow, we'll begin legal proceedings immediately. At that point, even I won't be able to hold them back. Think carefully about the wise choice."
Click, click.
The sound of Manager Kim's dress shoes receded. When he disappeared with another chime from the door, only a heavy silence remained in the workshop.
Han-gyeol wanted to crumple the business card on the table, but he could not bring himself to do it. Manager Kim's words were reality. He needed to find money by tomorrow—no, even tonight. But where? His relatives had cut ties with his grandfather long ago over the loan guarantee, and the sum was far too large to ask his friends for help.
"Damn it......."
Han-gyeol clutched his head. He was at a loss. It felt as though he had been left alone in pitch-black darkness.
Why had Grandpa left me with this burden? He tried not to resent him, but he could not suppress the resentment that kept surfacing. Should he just give everything up? Should he follow Manager Kim's advice, sell the building, settle the debt, and move somewhere quiet in the countryside? Or should he use his skills to find work as an employee at another workshop?
But the moment he raised his head and looked around the workshop, those thoughts melted like snow.
Thousands of tools covered the walls. Wood hung from the ceiling to dry. An unfinished lacquer box with mother-of-pearl inlay that his grandfather had never completed occupied one wall.
Leaving this place would be like carving out his own soul.
"Get a grip, Lee Han-gyeol. It isn't over yet."
Han-gyeol rose, encouraging himself. He needed to do something. If he remained sitting there, it felt as though anxiety would close around his throat.
His body moved from habit. He put on a work apron. It was the worn and frayed leather apron his grandfather had used. Its musty leather smell calmed him in a strange way.
He opened a wooden box on one side of the workbench. It held the tools his grandfather had treasured most in life. One item among them stood out in particular.
A black natural whetstone.
It was not an ordinary synthetic whetstone stamped out in a factory. Decades ago, his grandfather had supposedly quarried the natural stone himself in a remote mountain and shaped it. The passage of time had worn a hollow into its center, but its surface still retained a weighty black sheen.
Whenever Han-gyeol misbehaved as a child or felt troubled, his grandfather would always sit him in front of this whetstone.
'Han-gyeol, sharpening a blade isn't simply scraping away metal.'
'Then what is it?'
'It is honing the mind. Just as rough metal becomes sharp against the stone, you grind away the rough corners of your heart. Empty your mind of every thought. Focus only on the sensation in your fingertips.'
Scrape, rasp. Scrape, rasp.
His grandfather's back as he sharpened a blade in a steady rhythm. Listening to that regular sound had always made Han-gyeol's anger subside and his thoughts grow calm.
Han-gyeol picked up a dull chisel. After the workshop had stood empty for three days, even its tools seemed to have lost their vitality along with their owner.
"All right, let's sharpen this first. I'll think after that."
Han-gyeol scooped a dipper of water from the bucket. Then he carefully poured it over the whetstone.
Trickle.
Clear water ran over the black stone. As the whetstone absorbed it, the surface deepened to jet black and began to gleam.
That was when it happened.
Riiing—.
A piercing tinnitus suddenly rang inside his head.
"Ugh!"
Han-gyeol staggered and braced himself against the workbench. A violent dizziness swept over him. It felt as though the world were spinning. Was it because he had hardly slept for days, or because his stomach was empty?
He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them. The dizziness did not abate. Instead, an even more intense sensation struck his mind.
It was a strange feeling, as if sight, hearing, and smell had become entangled.
The sound of water soaking into the whetstone thundered like a waterfall. The stone's raw, metallic scent filled the air.
And when he opened his eyes, Han-gyeol doubted what he saw.
"What...... is this?"
The scene before him had changed. No, more precisely, another image had been laid over the workshop. It was as though an old projector were casting worn film into the air.
Crackle, crackle.
A pair of hands appeared in the noisy black-and-white footage. Coarse, rough hands, their calluses worn like medals. They were not unfamiliar.
They were his grandfather's hands.
'Is this...... thirty years ago?'
His grandfather was far younger in the vision. With a full head of black hair, he was sharpening a sickle on this whetstone. Beads of sweat fell onto the stone.
'This damned world. I'm going to succeed with the one skill I have. I won't let my children starve.'
He heard his grandfather's voice. It did not enter through his ears. It was a powerful intent that flowed directly into his mind.
The fierce resolve of a young head of household who had needed to work day and night to support his family in those impoverished years. Each harsh stroke against the whetstone sent his desperation and exhaustion piercing into Han-gyeol's chest.
"Ah......."
Han-gyeol groaned without realizing it.
The decades this whetstone had endured. The thousands, tens of thousands of blades that had passed over it. The countless emotions of his grandfather, who had held those blades. Hope, despair, joy, endurance.......
All of it became words, images, and sensations that churned through Han-gyeol's brain.
'Objects hold memories.'
He recalled something his grandfather used to say after a drink. At the time, Han-gyeol had taken it for a romantic metaphor. But what he was experiencing now was no metaphor. It was a tangible sensation.
As the dizziness gradually subsided, the overlapping image faded. In its place, an even more unbelievable sight unfolded.
A faint golden aura was rising from the whetstone beneath Han-gyeol's hand. Within that light, characters surfaced like dust and began assembling into words.
[True Name: Natural Whetstone Imbued with Lee Tae-jun's Wish]
[Grade: Spiritual Object]
[Memory Preservation Rate: 98%]
[Special Ability: Dramatically improves the user's concentration and restores the durability of metal tools.]
[History: A tool that gained spirituality after absorbing the blood, sweat, and tears of a craftsman who lived honestly all his life. It longs for its master's touch.]
Han-gyeol stared blankly at the letters floating in the air. They did not feel alien like a video-game status window. The characters had the archaic grace of brush calligraphy.
He raised a trembling hand and swept it through the air. His hand passed through the letters, but they did not disappear. They continued floating over the whetstone.
"I'm not...... seeing things."
He knew it instinctively. This was no hallucination.
Han-gyeol slowly turned his head and looked at the other objects in the workshop.
The saw hanging on the wall, the hand plane on the floor, and the old hammer abandoned in the corner.
Wherever his gaze fell, each object began emitting its own light. Some glowed gray, some white, and rare ones shimmered red or blue.
Information invariably appeared above them.
[True Name: Saw with Missing Teeth]
[Condition: Requires repair. The dull teeth make sawing wood difficult.]
[Value: 5,000 won]
[True Name: 100-Year-Old Reclaimed Zelkova Timber]
[Condition: Excellent. Perfectly seasoned.]
[Value: 500,000 won]
The objects' names, conditions, and values.
When he looked at the broken radio in the corner, even a complex circuit diagram appeared in his head like a blueprint, showing the severed connection with a red dot and laying out ways to restore it.
"What...... in the world?"
Han-gyeol looked down at both hands. They were still rough and coarse. Yet the air against his fingertips felt different. It was as if the resolution of the world had increased by a level.
Was this what his grandfather had meant by "the realm of hearing an object's voice"? Or was it a miracle born from desperation?
He did not know the reason. But one thing was certain.
At this moment, Han-gyeol's world had been completely overturned.
And this ability might be the only lifeline given to a man driven to the edge of a cliff.
Han-gyeol gripped the whetstone once more. A faint warmth traveled from the cold stone. It felt as comforting as his grandfather taking his hand.
"......I'll do it, Grandpa."
A strange light unlike any before shone in Han-gyeol's eyes. In the empty workshop, time that had stood still began moving again.