Chapter 19

Jaeha woke from sleep and went out to the living room, calling out to Seungho, who was lying on the sofa watching TV.

“Hey.”

“Huh? What.”

“I’m going to be working for a few hours, so take it easy and post a notice on the site.”

“What should it say?”

“Say there’s no update today, but I’ll be posting consecutively starting tomorrow.”

“Got it.”

With that, Jaeha headed to the blacksmith shop. Upon arriving, he almost woke Penny, who was sleeping on the bed in the corner, but stopped himself. She’d wake up on her own once he started working anyway.

Jaeha went to the furnace and lit the fire. As he stoked it, he suddenly realized he could handle the flames with ease.

‘Must be thanks to the Five Elements Art.’

With that, Jaeha thrust his hand into the fire. Feeling the warmth, he infused it with mana, and the flames, receiving his energy, roared with tremendous heat.

“This is convenient.”

Relighting the furnace was practically the whole battle when it came to weapon crafting. That was how important handling fire was. Now, it wasn’t much of a risk anymore.

“Good, good.”

Nodding, Jaeha was about to put an iron ingot into the furnace to heat it, but stopped—instead, he absorbed the fire into his hand, gripped the ingot, and began melting it directly.

‘This is insanely convenient.’

Then, he cut the fire-heated iron to the sizes on the blueprint and began making the parts.

CLANG—

CLANG—

‘I’ll worry about the other work later. For now, let’s just make one and see.’

With that thought, Jaeha kept hammering away at the iron.

* * *

CLANG—

CLANG—

“Whew. That’s done.”

Nodding, Jaeha gathered the finished parts and assembled them. Once the gun was complete, he turned it over in his hands, examining it. It was made of iron, so it was fairly heavy, but that didn’t matter much to Jaeha anyway.

Nodding, Jaeha suddenly realized he had no bullets, so he picked up the intercom.

<Yes! Is there something you need?>

“Do you have any bullets?”

<Bullets?>

“Yes. I made a gun and want to test-fire it.”

<Ah, yes. I’ll bring some right away. It’ll take about 10 minutes.>

“Yes. Thank you.”

With that, Jaeha hung up the intercom.

‘Hmm, should I make that guy a little gift? I’m going to keep having him run errands for me, after all.’

It was true that he was working hard for his sake. Of course, he was being paid for it, but if he made him a decent weapon, he wouldn’t feel bad about bossing him around, and the guy would handle everything well on his own.

‘I can make one in about 10 minutes.’

So Jaeha prepared the molten iron and quickly forged a single sword.

‘I made it similar to the sword he’s got at his waist, so it should be easy for him to use.’

RIIING—

Just then, the intercom rang.

“Yes.”

<I’ve brought them.>

“Yes, you may come in.”

<Yes sir!>

And right away, the man walked in.

“Here you are.”

“Thank you. And here.”

“Huh?”

“A gift.”

“Oh?”

“I’ll have plenty of errands for you going forward. Think of it as paying you in advance.”

“S-sir…… are you really giving this to me?”

“Use it well. I modeled it after the one you’re wearing at your waist. It’s a bit different, so it might feel awkward at first, but you’ll get used to it.”

Gulp.

He swallowed hard and accepted the sword Jaeha handed him.

“I don’t have much talent for making scabbards, so I couldn’t make one. Be careful with it.”

“Hahaha! Not at all. I’m just grateful you made it for me at all.”

“Use it well.”

“Thank you!”

Once he walked out, Jaeha checked the bullets the man had left behind.
Chapter 17

After confirming the bullets loaded properly, Jaeha woke Penny, who was still sleeping soundly.

“It’s amazing how she can sleep so deeply with all that noise.”

“Mmm.”

She got up with a groggy noise, and he led her out to the backyard of the building. He marked a tree off to the side, then stood a fair distance away and aimed the gun.

Nodding, Jaeha took careful aim and fired. With a loud bang, the bullet shot out.

BOOM!

“Eek!”

There was an explosion from the gun, along with thick black Acting, and the blast engulfed Jaeha.

“W-what…… what do we do!”

As the smoke engulfed Jaeha, Penny, who had been panicking, pushed through the smoke—and froze the moment he came into view.

“A-are you okay?”

“Of course.”

Truth be told, without Indestructible Vajra Body, his hand would have been half shattered.

‘So now that my Metallurgy level is up, even a roughly made item has a damage-amplifying effect, huh. Come to think of it, the item-created window didn’t even pop up.’

With that, Jaeha aimed at the tree again and fired.

BOOM!

Of course, the gun exploded once more. Even so, the gun itself remained intact.

“Looks like something’s off.”

With that, Jaeha called Penny over.

“You know why this is happening, right?”

“Well, the firepower is at an absurd level, that’s for sure. I’d say you probably made a part wrong, or something like that.”

“Hmm. I made it exactly as the blueprint showed. Not even 1mm off.”

“Mind if I take it apart?”

At Penny’s question, Jaeha nodded. Taking the gun from him, Penny was taken aback.

“Why is this so heavy?”

“Because it’s iron.”

“You made the whole thing out of iron?”

“Yeah.”

“H-how……?”

“……I just made it. What’s with the reaction.”

“Haha…….”

At that, Penny let out a small laugh, as if dumbfounded.

“Well, I suppose if you made the whole thing out of solid iron, it would be a bit unstable.”

“Guns are made of iron, aren’t they?”

“These days, you use reinforced plastic for the exterior to keep it light, and only use iron for the internal parts that need to be hard.”

“Ohh, I see.”

“But this……. Ugh! Why won’t this come off?”

“Give it here. I’ll take it apart.”

With that, Jaeha disassembled the gun.

“Whoa, that’s insane.”

Looking at each of the gun’s parts one by one, she muttered with a smile, as if at a loss for words.

“Do you know what the problem is?”

“Just a moment.”

She pulled a small screwdriver-like tool from her pocket and tapped and rubbed the parts to check them. After about thirty minutes, she nodded as if she understood.

“I got it.”

“What is it?”

“The parts aren’t properly oiled, and on top of that, they’re too strong.”

“Too strong?”

“Yes. Simply put, they’re too well made.”

“……So what am I supposed to do about that?”

“You know how a gun fires, right?”

“Sure. You strike the back of the bullet to ignite the gunpowder, which causes an explosion that propels it out.”

“That’s the problem. The force striking the back of that bullet is too strong. All the gun’s parts are iron, and for some reason, none of them are ordinary parts. So the force hitting the bullet is excessively strong. That’s why the bullet can’t withstand it and blows up. I’m not a Hunter so I can’t say for sure, but gunpowder produces several times more power when it meets mana. I think the parts are imbued with mana. The mana transmitted from the parts is making the gunpowder explode violently.”

“Huh.”

Faced with a problem he hadn’t anticipated at all, Jaeha was a little flustered. A parts issue could be solved by remaking or swapping them out. But he had no idea how to approach a technical problem like this.

“So what do we do?”

“First, I think you should give up on the automatic pistol.”

“If we give up the automatic pistol…… what, a revolver?”

“Yes. I think we’ll need to make it a revolver. You know that part you pull back?”

“The thing that strikes the bullet?”

“Yes.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Since you can control that, you can adjust the force enough. I think we can make it work that way.”

“True, if you pull it back a little, the striking force would definitely be less.”

“Yes. Exactly like that.”

“Hoh, well, an expert is an expert.”

“Hehe.”

As Penny smiled with her eyes, Jaeha spoke.

“So can you draw up a blueprint or something?”

“Yes. I can do that.”

“Good. Let’s head inside then.”

With that, Jaeha went into the workshop with Penny.

* * *

“Ugh! Finally done.”

As the work finished, Penny stretched out limply. When she held up the completed revolver with its plain color, a window appeared along with a flash of light.

[Congratulations. You have crafted an item.]

“Oh ho, it’s recognized as an item.”

Then Jaeha checked the effects.

[Revolver]

[Rank: High Grade]

[Attack Power: 30]

“Ugh, that’s trash.”

Having crafted so many high-quality items, Jaeha wasn’t particularly impressed by this one.

“Well, since it’s made, I should give it a shot.”

While Jaeha was making the gun, Penny had disassembled the bullets to collect the gunpowder separately, and she’d also drawn up blueprints for the bullets. Using those, Jaeha crafted the ammunition.

“Alright. Let’s try it.”

The bullets were fairly large. No matter how you looked at it, they had to withstand the force, so the bullets had to be made sturdy as well. After loading the gun, Jaeha marked a tree and fired from a distance.

BANG!

As the gunshot rang out, a bullet-sized hole was punched through the tree. The bullet then embedded itself in the wall behind it.

“Nice.”

Satisfied with the results, Jaeha smiled. Then he tossed the gun he was holding to Penny.

“Whoa!”

Since the gun was made of solid iron, it was quite heavy.

“You use it.”

“What?”

“I’m not using that piece of junk.”

With that, Jaeha headed back into the blacksmith shop.

“This is why geniuses are…… ugh, the self-loathing.”

Penny muttered with a sigh. Then she followed Jaeha into the blacksmith shop.

After that, Jaeha began crafting a gun he could actually use. He had the blueprints anyway, and since he knew how to make it, crafting it again was incredibly easy. He could even modify it to a certain extent.

‘An automatic pistol would be cleaner and easier to decorate.’

With his Metallurgy proficiency now at 100%, Jaeha could engrave patterns to a certain degree, and he wanted to make his personal weapon look stylish.

However, decorating a revolver was difficult. There simply wasn’t any room to add patterns. An automatic pistol, on the other hand, allowed patterns on most visible surfaces, so Jaeha found that a bit disappointing.

‘Well, it’s almost done.’

Because he was quenching each component individually, it was taking more than twice as long as before. But not long after that, Jaeha was able to craft the gun exactly as he wanted.

[Congratulations. You have crafted an item.]

“Nice.”

Jaeha immediately checked the effects.

[無 (Mu — “Nothingness”)]

[Rank: Legendary]

[Attack Power: 300]

[Piercing +500%]

[Physical Pierce]

[Magic Pierce]

[Magic Affinity +500%]

“Oh ho.”

It held the same Legendary rank. However, compared to Sarlinga, the effects seemed somewhat inferior. Still, it pierced both physical and magical defenses, and it had a 500% affinity for magic attached.

If he ever used magic in the future, his efficiency would be far greater.

‘But does it not have a name?’

[You have birthed a new weapon.]

[Please name the weapon.]

“Hmm. I should give it something that sounds cool.”

But since nothing particular came to mind, Jaeha decided to just slap a name on it.

“‘Fire Dragon’ should do.”

[The name will be changed to Fire Dragon (火龍 (Hwaryong — “Fire Dragon”)).]

‘Good. Now, shall I go broadcast?’

It had already been over 24 hours since he started crafting the gun. Having passed the 24-hour mark, the sun was already high in the sky. Penny had slept here and there while Jaeha worked, but Jaeha hadn’t slept at all. Even so, he felt no strain whatsoever.

‘Must be because of the martial arts.’

Jaeha considered bringing the gun along but decided to hold off for now. He stored it in his Inventory and began moving.