Ebony slid smoothly over the dark-red blade radiating its chilling spirit.
Click.
Steel forged hundreds of years ago and newly carved, solid ebony meshed without the slightest gap, producing a crisp sound of friction.
Han-gyeol secured the handle firmly and neatly finished the area around the guard with custom-made matte-silver fittings.
There had been no way to save the original handle, which had rotted away and fused to the lump of iron. Han-gyeol had therefore carved the finest dense, moisture-resistant ebony himself to create a new handle and scabbard.
After completing every task and polishing the sword once more with soft felt, he carefully placed it inside a display case fitted with specialized lighting. Then he covered it with a dark velvet cloth.
Just then, raised voices began sounding outside the workshop.
"Have you lost your mind completely? You couldn't bear to throw out one lousy piece of scrap, so you paid good money to have it repaired?"
"Uncle, please don't say things like that after we go inside. He really is an incredible man."
"Incredible, my ass! He's just some young punk cleverly exploiting people's emotions to scam them! You're so naive that you fell for it completely, didn't you?"
"Your uncle is absolutely right, Min-seok. We're busy enough as it is, and you poured money into the garbage that senile old man clutched? Consider yourself lucky we didn't hunt down that con man and demand a refund immediately."
Jingle—
The workshop door flew open roughly with a loud chime.
Park Min-seok entered first, looking thoroughly intimidated. Behind him came a man in his mid-fifties wearing expensive hiking clothes and a middle-aged woman with sharp eyes, both striding irritably inside.
The instant Park Min-seok saw Han-gyeol, he repeatedly bowed, at a complete loss for what to do.
"Master, I'm sorry. I meant to come alone when you called to say the restoration was finished, but my uncle and aunt insisted on following me......."
Han-gyeol gave a light smile and shook his head.
"It's all right. This was your grandfather's keepsake, so it will be more meaningful for the whole family to see it together."
At Han-gyeol's calm response, Park Min-seok's uncle snorted and stepped forward.
"Listen here, young man. You certainly know how to dress up your words. My nephew may be naive enough to fall for that silver tongue, but you can't fool me. Even the neighborhood dogs knew that lump of iron our father clutched until he died of dementia was construction rebar! You dressed it up like some national-treasure-class object and fleeced him for repair fees? Give back the money right now!"
Park Min-seok's aunt also folded her arms and glared sharply. In their eyes, Han-gyeol appeared to be a typical swindler preying upon their innocent nephew.
They held not a trace of respect or courtesy for the object their late father had cherished. All they cared about was the size of the inheritance they would divide after selling the house.
Han-gyeol did not so much as twitch an eyebrow at their harsh accusations. He silently crossed the reception room and walked to the display case covered by velvet.
"Returning the money would not be difficult."
Gripping the velvet cloth's edge, Han-gyeol looked straight from Park Min-seok's uncle to his aunt.
"But it will not be too late to do that after you personally confirm whether the object your father left truly was nothing more than a piece of construction rebar."
Park Min-seok's uncle flinched at Han-gyeol's chilling presence, but he did not stop sneering.
"Good grief! I bet you just slapped some varnish on that bright-red heap of rust! Open it! Let's see it clearly with my own eyes!"
Han-gyeol smoothly drew away the velvet cloth.
Swish.
As the cloth slid down, the soft LED lighting inside the display case came on.
In an instant, the air in the workshop froze beneath a taut silence.
"......!"
Park Min-seok's uncle sucked in a breath, while his aunt stood with her arms crossed and her mouth hanging open as though her jaw had fallen loose.
The hideous red lump of rust they remembered was nowhere inside the display case.
Beneath a heavy handle intricately carved from deep-black ebony, a chilling, imposing blade stretched more than a meter in length.
Across the cold steel's dark-red surface, the dazzling silver Big Dipper and the constellations of the 28 lunar mansions gleamed brilliantly whenever they caught the light.
"Th-this......."
Park Min-seok's uncle stammered and stepped forward. His eyes shook uncontrollably.
"This...... is really that iron club Father owned? That's impossible. Didn't you switch it for something else?"
"Switch it?"
Han-gyeol lightly tapped the display case glass and answered calmly.
"The iron club your father held had kept these stars silently hidden for 300 years."
Park Min-seok's aunt ran a trembling hand over the display glass. A gleam of deep greed passed through her eyes alongside her awe.
"This...... What kind of sword is this, to be so ornate? If it has this much silver set into it, that must mean it's worth quite a lot of money. Isn't that right?"
"Aunt! How can you be thinking about money right now?!"
Park Min-seok shouted, his emotions surging. Only then did his uncle seem to recover from his shock, and he urgently asked Han-gyeol.
"Yes! What in the world is this? Why did our father keep clutching this...... no, this precious thing and calling for a general even while suffering from dementia?!"
Han-gyeol turned his gaze to the sword inside the display case.
Fragments of the magnificent, tragic history that had passed through his mind when the Big Dipper first emerged within the tank, and again when he uncovered the strokes of Ward Off Evil Spirits, rose once more.
"This sword is called the Four-Tiger Sword."
Han-gyeol's solemn voice echoed through the workshop.
"The Year of the Tiger, Month of the Tiger, Day of the Tiger, and Hour of the Tiger. It is a treasured sword of the Joseon royal court, forged only during the two hours when yang energy reached its absolute peak. Imbued with the ritual meaning of repelling ghosts and cutting down evil forces, it was a symbol of absolute authority personally bestowed by the king upon the greatest military commanders of the age."
"The king...... bestowed it?"
His uncle's voice trembled violently.
"He did. But that alone is likely not the reason this sword remained within your family."
Han-gyeol met the eyes of Park Min-seok and his relatives in turn as he continued.
"You must have believed your grandfather had gone senile and was seeing things. But he was not mad. Even amid the terrible fear of every thread of memory snapping apart, he desperately held on to the single noblest source of pride flowing through his blood."
Han-gyeol slowly began drawing forth the blood-soaked memories of war tied to the sword, memories he had seen through his ability.
"The Second Manchu invasion of Joseon. That bitter winter, when hundreds of thousands of Qing soldiers trampled down across Joseon's mountains and rivers. To save the king who had taken refuge at Namhansanseong Fortress, nameless commoners and scholars across the country took up arms. Your ancestor must have been a righteous-army commander who led those volunteers on the front line."
Heavy tears fell from Park Min-seok's eyes. His uncle and aunt also froze in place as though struck on the head with a hammer.
"Your ancestor likely wielded this Four-Tiger Sword, bestowed by the royal court, and cut down countless enemies before dying heroically, covered in blood. In the chaos of war, the family home was devastated and even the genealogy burned away. Your noble status and the general's honor were forgotten and tangled within the turmoil of the age."
Han-gyeol's gaze returned to the silver Big Dipper on the Four-Tiger Sword.
"But the surviving descendants must have hidden and guarded this sword with their lives. Even after the genealogy vanished and others mocked and scorned them as fallen nobles, they would have looked upon this sword and remembered their bloodline. Your grandfather tried to protect until the end this heavy pride secretly passed down only to each generation's eldest son."
Han-gyeol took a step toward the uncle.
"Your grandfather did not desperately call out from the darkness of dementia because of money. He was protecting the family's pride and an honorable history to pass on to his descendants."
Dead silence descended upon the workshop.
No one could speak. The aunt covered her face with both hands and began sobbing, her shoulders shaking. Park Min-seok silently wiped away his tears and clenched his fist.
The uncle, who had most stubbornly condemned and ridiculed his father, staggered as his trembling legs failed him. Then he dropped to his knees before the display case.
"Ahh...... Father......."
An agonized wail like a wounded beast burst from his mouth.
His own cruel words, insisting they throw their father into a nursing home before he started smearing shit on the walls, returned as a sharp dagger.
Even while losing everything, their father had desperately embraced this rusted iron club along with the great name he wished to leave his children: descendants of a general.
Yet he had treated his father like a senile old man who collected garbage. He bitterly cursed his own petty, vulgar greed, which had driven him to consider selling the sword to a scrapyard for even a few thousand won.
"Father! I...... I'm worse than a beast! I never knew what you had suffered to protect......."
The uncle clutched the display case glass and wailed.
His aunt also collapsed to the floor, wrapped her arms around her brother's back, and wept aloud.
"Brother, we must have lost our minds. What are we supposed to do for our poor father...... We drove a spike into his heart......."
Park Min-seok approached them and embraced both. His uncle and aunt had been blinded by greed and had nearly done something unforgivable, but they were family in the end. Their repentance, poured out before the truth, was no lie.
The three of them cried their hearts out for a long time before the display case holding the Four-Tiger Sword.
Han-gyeol quietly stepped back and watched.
As the family's sobbing gradually subsided, the uncle staggered to his feet. His eyes were swollen, and every trace of the vicious arrogance he had worn upon entering the workshop had vanished.
He bent precisely 90 degrees at the waist and bowed respectfully to Han-gyeol.
"Master......."
His uncle's voice was badly hoarse.
"I truly was worse than a beast. Without your remarkable eye and skill, Master, I would have spent the rest of my life as the most unfilial wretch under heaven, a man who sold his family's roots to a scrapyard with his own hands."
He wiped his eyes with a handkerchief and continued.
"This Four-Tiger Sword is our family's pride and Father's very soul. You breathed new life into it, Master. From now on, our family will stake our lives upon honoring and guarding it for every generation to come. Truly, from the bottom of my heart, thank you."
His aunt also wiped away her tears and bowed deeply to Han-gyeol. Park Min-seok silently clasped Han-gyeol's hand between both of his. The warmth flowing from Min-seok's palms conveyed all his gratitude and relief.
"Your father will be able to rest in peace."
Han-gyeol returned Park Min-seok's grip and smiled gently.
Park Min-seok and his family left the workshop with the dedicated case containing the Four-Tiger Sword held to their chests. The irritation and resentment they had hurled at one another on the way in were gone. Their retreating figures seemed marked by solemnity and a firm new bond.
Jingle—
The door closed, and peaceful silence descended upon the workshop once more.
Han-gyeol silently looked at the empty display case. The sword had left, but the lingering trace of its cold and magnificent spirit still seemed to hang in the workshop air.
He sat in his workbench chair and opened his grandfather's old restoration journal.
The fountain pen in his hand glided steadily across the paper.
[Commission No. 044. Four-Tiger Sword.
Separated 300 years of rust from an object treated as a mere iron club.
The Big Dipper and Ward Off Evil Spirits engraved upon the blade.
What the old man with dementia sought to protect was not a mad delusion, but the blood of a nameless righteous-army commander lost to history and the pride of his family.
Never forget that the sharpest weapon does not cut flesh, but cuts through misunderstanding and protects the truth.]
Han-gyeol closed the journal and leaned deeply into the chair's backrest.
His body was exhausted, but a clear and crystalline sense of fulfillment rising from the depths of his heart wrapped him in warmth. He was now walking perfectly along the path his grandfather had taken.
Han-gyeol's gaze turned toward the night sky outside the window.
Across the cloudless sky, the very stars engraved upon the Four-Tiger Sword 300 years earlier were shining.