Chapter 86
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Accomplice IV
Shin Noah
5
Clang—
The sound of hammering nearby shattered the world behind my eyelids, which had sunk like a dream.
White daydream. For someone like me who remembers every past, such things visited often. The eyes of the 53rd round that I had just closed slipped away in an instant, and I opened them as the eyes of the 100th round.
"Huuu……."
A breath escaped.
Noh Do-ha. Her breath was half submerged in the blindingly white-hot early summer sunlight, and half buried in the ultramarine shadows of the Jeongseon cave abandoned mine.
"Well, somehow or other, it seems I've completed something like a kitchen knife. Heh. I think I made it better than this dwarf or whatever this runt is……."
"……."
A mirage danced slowly.
In the breath a person exhaled, in sunlight and shade, and again in sunlight and shade, dust particles rippled.
If the world wanted to dance, it seemed to need one part light and one part shadow. Then the blinking of eyes swimming lightly, infinitely lightly, between attention and blindness must be the first dance that existence performs.
"Now I should try challenging the next level. Hmm, tongs seem about right. Funeral Director Awakened. If there's some runt wandering around the village making whatever……. Funeral Director Awakened? Hey. You. Kid. Are you even listening to what I'm saying……?"
"Ah, yes. I'm listening."
For reference, it took less than 3 seconds for 'hey' on Noh Do-ha's tongue to become 'you' and 'you' to transform into 'kid.' It was nothing short of a magical tongue.
Noh Do-ha made a show of digging her ear with the hoe she'd made and sneered.
"Did you put iron stakes in your ears? I'm getting the hang of it now, so I was going to find a slightly more difficult level than this hoe I just made……. Oh?"
Noh Do-ha couldn't finish her sentence.
Srrrk—
The dwarf oddity, which until moments ago had been merely striking the anvil as if soulless, suddenly reached out toward Noh Do-ha.
A clear anomalous phenomenon.
Tap. I instantly embraced Noh Do-ha and stepped back. Due to the sudden movement, Noh Do-ha inadvertently dropped the hoe she was holding.
"Please be careful, Workshop Master."
"Oh. Well, thank you, but……. It doesn't seem to have any particular malice……?"
"There are plenty of oddities in the world that don't possess emotions like malice. Just as radiation doesn't destroy humans because it has an unusually strong evil intention."
—……
For some reason, the dwarf oddity didn't seem interested in us. Instead, it slowly bent its waist.
There, the hoe Noh Do-ha had dropped was rolling.
"Hmmm……?"
The dwarf picked up the hoe and examined it this way and that. Slowly, as if a video was playing at 0.5x speed.
—……, …….
Whooo—
Wind blew through its pitch-black eye sockets and mouth. From inside to outside.
And something strange happened.
The dwarf oddity, as if it had been a being made of wind from the very beginning, its body outline shrinking more and more as it poured wind through its holes.
"Oh my……?"
—……, ……. …….
The breath the dwarf exhaled poured entirely onto the simple hoe Noh Do-ha had made. Like a painter creating a watercolor applying and reapplying paint, the dwarf oddity was adding final brushstrokes to the hoe with its breath.
Clatter.
The hoe fell again. The dwarf, having exhaled all its breath, shrank like a balloon and disappeared entirely.
"How fascinating. What on earth is this strange phenomenon, Funeral Director Awakened……?"
"…I don't know either. I learned about this mining village quite a while ago, but I've never properly investigated it."
"Aha. Despite rolling through 100 regressions, you couldn't see through the true nature of a single village? Isn't that dereliction of duty……?"
"I apologize. If someone hadn't strangled and killed me in the previous round, I would have been able to find out."
Blink. Noh Do-ha furrowed her brows.
"It doesn't disappear……."
"Pardon?"
"Originally, in this village, even when the blacksmith made items, they would soon disappear. The kitchen knife I made this morning disappeared the same way. But look. Time has passed, yet my hoe is still intact, isn't it……?"
"Ah."
I stroked my chin.
"Indeed. Perhaps the essence of this 'Taebaek Mountain Range Dwarf Mining Village' void is… a practice ground exclusively for blacksmiths."
"A practice ground……?"
"Yes. You could also call it a place for inheriting traditions. Just now, Workshop Master Noh Do-ha made a hoe and had your skill 'recognized' by that dwarf oddity."
"Oh my……."
"I can roughly guess how to clear this void too. There are a total of seven blacksmiths in the mining village. Since Workshop Master Noh Do-ha eliminated one, now there are six."
"Getting recognized by the remaining six craftsmen as well……?"
"Exactly."
I picked up the hoe. Strange letters were engraved on the blade of the Adamantium hoe, probably one that had never appeared in the entire history of created works.
Letters I'd never seen. Language I couldn't understand. To describe them with similar characters, it was like this:
[Dicentra Spectabilis]
Noh Do-ha poked her head forward.
"Hmm. What is this? I didn't engrave these letters……."
"Probably letters the dwarf oddity carved with its breath. Well, what else would a blacksmith engrave on their creation but one thing? It must be their name."
"Aha……?"
Noh Do-ha took out a notebook. And with deeply furrowed brows, she carefully transcribed the letters [Dicentra Spectabilis].
"Workshop Master, why is that?"
"Heuu……."
Noh Do-ha didn't return an answer.
From that day on, our daily routine was set.
First, we classified each of the remaining six dwarf blacksmiths by production difficulty into levels.
The dwarf making small kitchen knives as Level 1. The dwarf making large greatswords as Level 6.
"Then shall we begin……. I want to concentrate and finish this quickly, so Funeral Director Awakened, please be my assistant……."
"Wow. I don't think anyone but Workshop Master would make an infinite regressor do assistant work."
"What kind of bullshit is that? You're the one who pawned off your entire life to the National Road Management Corps and made me do nothing but assist……."
"Here, I've got it. Workshop Master."
"Oh, good……."
Clang!
Noh Do-ha's hammer sparked.
At first glance, Noh Do-ha looked slender with no visible muscles, but she struck the anvil without hesitation, as if to show what practical compressed muscle was.
Long hair fluttered beneath the cave. The blacksmith's form, one with the hammer, looked like a dance from afar.
Fire and shadow.
A waltz of red and black.
—……, whoooo…….
Watching the kitchen knife made thus, the Level 1 dwarf also exhaled a deep breath.
The breath of the oddity that must have crossed from some other world allowed the kitchen knife to continue existing in this world. The oddity left only its language, its name no one could recognize, on the kitchen knife before perishing.
"……."
How did such oddities come to exist? Even I, who has repeated regressions for however long, could only make various guesses about that intimate secret, never reaching the true answer.
I cooked, prepared bathwater, secured sleeping quarters, kept watch for anomalies in the surroundings, and helped Noh Do-ha continue focusing on 'subjugating oddities.' That was my role in this void.
It wasn't a difficult role.
The 'assistant' of the 53rd round had already worked with the skilled artisan before my eyes for 8 years. That memory was still engraved behind my eyelids.
"Hmm……."
Next level. And the next level again.
Noh Do-ha reached the final blacksmith's gate in just 6 days. The word 'talented freak' must have been coined for this person.
Yet for some reason, Noh Do-ha's expression worsened with each level. She glared at me with deeply furrowed brows.
"Why are you acting like that?"
"Thinking about it, I feel really fucking annoyed……."
"……?"
"No matter how I look at it, isn't the assistant work abnormally skilled……. I didn't even ask for tongs but you hand them over at just the right timing, when I need something held steady while hammering you hold it at exactly the comfortable angle, it's like a drone delivery service that comes when called. Every time this happens, I keenly perceive the fact that you're a shady regressor making 'I know what you don't know' moves……."
"No, what."
I was speechless. Is she seriously crazy?
"…'I know what you don't know'? I've never used that tone in my life, and shady? Shady? Me?"
"Heuu. That's just how I say it. Don't get hung up on individual words. You're an old fogey among old fogies who's probably eaten at least 1,000 more years than me, how can someone so ancient be so petty……."
"How many consecutive cheap shots are you throwing right now?"
"Now, enough……."
Clang.
When Noh Do-ha lightly struck the sword handle with her hammer—click, the subtly twisted projection snapped perfectly into place.
Level 6. The completion of the greatsword.
—……, …….
Just as Noh Do-ha finished the greatsword, she turned her head swiftly, like an office worker catching the scent of bread from a subway station bakery.
And reached out to breathe eternity into the masterpiece——.
"Ah. Please wait……."
But that hand merely swiped through empty air.
Because Noh Do-ha had immediately pulled the greatsword behind her.
—……?
"Hmm."
—……?
The dwarf's pitch-black eye sockets looked up at Noh Do-ha like a cat that had its treats stolen, right before her eyes.
Noh Do-ha was grinning.
—……? ……?
Hop. Hop. It wasn't for nothing that its species was set as 'dwarf' from the start—no matter how much the dwarf stood on tiptoes, it was nowhere near reaching the greatsword Noh Do-ha had lifted high.
I also had question marks floating in my head.
What is this person? Has she finally become unsatisfied with humanity alone and decided to start tormenting even the oddities?
Noh Do-ha sneered.
"I have no particular interest in helping you pass on. None at all. I have no intention of being your disciple either. If you just ascend on your own saying 'now inherit our traditions,' that's just troublesome……."
—……?
"Honestly, I don't need this kind of trashy junk tools……."
Noh Do-ha threw the hoe, kitchen knife, dagger, sickle, pitchfork, longsword, greatsword, and everything else she'd made so far into the furnace.
The mining village's furnace instantly turned the tools back into Adamantium. And onto that softened mass, Noh Do-ha's hammer struck down at once.
Claaaaang—!
A mineral that hadn't existed in this world began to form beautifully, rippling. Clang! Claaaang! Without rest. Disregarding the sweat she shed, as if pouring everything into this.
"Small hammer."
"Ah, yes. Workshop Master."
"Chisel."
"Here it is."
"Sandwich."
"Yes ma'am."
Each time she requested, I handed her tools and moved the casting this way and that.
—…….
The dwarf watched our duo's work with hollow eye sockets.
How much time passed? Noh Do-ha, who hadn't wiped her brow once during the entire forging, swept sweat away with the back of her hand. And put her monocle in her front pocket.
"Huuu, finally complete……."
At the finished product's uncommon form, I momentarily faltered in speech.
"This is……."
It was a sword-cane.
Srrrk— Noh Do-ha personally drew out the pale blade to demonstrate. A swordstick. A weapon usually used as a cane but could serve for self-defense when needed revealed itself clearly.
"Funeral Director Awakened. When coming here, you asked me to make you a weapon, didn't you……?"
"…Yes."
"Heuu. Right. This is the weapon I offer to you……."
A cane. The simplest assistive device that can be made for people with walking difficulties. Because of that, Noh Do-ha's mark was on it.
A sword. The most universal weapon a person can wield to kill something. Because of that, my mark would be on it.
So very Noh Do-ha-like, and so very me-like.
"……."
"Just wait a moment……."
Noh Do-ha rested a chisel against the blade. Screech, metal sound slid.
[Dicentra Spectabilis]
That was the name presumed to be of the blacksmith dwarf who had breathed life into the hoe long ago.
Noh Do-ha opened her notebook and, checking with sidelong glances, engraved the letters one by one onto the sword blade. A total of seven names. Characters from foreign lands, no, from other worlds, wriggled like beautiful tattoos.
And at the very end.
Doha.
A character with the same pronunciation as Noh Do-ha's name, and letters with the same meaning as the workshop she ran, flowed down the white blade like raindrops.
"There, here it is……."
—…….
—…….
—……, …….
Looking around, the dwarf oddities had disappeared at some point. There wasn't even the work of breathing eternity into it.
Only a deep wind sound—whoooooo—blew through the mining gorge. The mountain range's breath descending from the cliffs swept past us and the longsword.
Where the wind, like a long sigh, had swept past once, the village vanished without a trace. The Adamantium ore, the furnace, the stone buildings, the anvils the dwarfs had used. All swept away by the wind and gone.
Only at the entrance of the huge cave remained Noh Do-ha, myself, and a single sword.
"……."
It was a strange phenomenon.
But voids are inherently strange, I suppose.
Noh Do-ha, without so much as a sideways glance at the dwarf mining village's disappearance, was simply holding out the longsword toward me.
Evening. Behind her, brilliant red sunset blazed, printing the scene before my eyes onto my cornea.
The moment I finally reached out, the moment I was about to grip the longsword, Noh Do-ha's lips, which had seemed they would remain silent forever, opened.
"Do you really intend to take it……?"
"……."
"It's a good sword. A sword I'll never be able to make again. This sword will serve its role well in the hunting and slaughter you'll carry out ahead. Do you understand what I'm saying……? Funeral Director Awakened. From now on, in the achievements you'll accomplish, you'll have to credit some portion to this sword. Your achievements, great deeds, successes and failures, slaughter—all of it, you could say you're sharing half the credit……. In short, if you grab this, you're accepting this sword as your accomplice……."
"……."
Nod.
I took the sword.
"I'll name the sword Doha."
"…Heuu."
Noh Do-ha laughed softly.
The sunset aligned with that smile and cast a red glow.
"The share is fifty-fifty……."
Good grief. As if worried someone would say she wasn't an evil employer—this was a distribution contract of truly terrible generosity.
6
There is an afterword.
When rounds change, everything should reset and return to how it was, yet for some reason, the longsword 'Doha' was an exception.
From the 100th round on, Doha was always stuck at the cave entrance halfway up the Taebaek Mountain Range. Even though in subsequent rounds Noh Do-ha never made a sword for me.
"……."
A matter that should truly be described as an oddity. However, in exchange, the 'Dwarf Mining Village' void that should have spread inside the cave had disappeared without a trace.
Perhaps the 'Mining Village' really did cross over from another world. And since time flowing in that other world differs from ours, 'Doha' might have escaped this place's time flow and fixed itself like a coordinate point.
Or perhaps, replacing the mining village, this sword-cane Doha itself might have solidified as one void, one oddity.
Either way, the mining village had evaporated. Forever, along with the scant Adamantium vein. There would likely be no more chances to learn the true nature of that void.
It was the moment when, besides the Silver Bells I always farmed from the Busan Station waiting room, one more 'exclusive item' was added to my collection.
"Hmm? Wait, Funeral Director Awakened……."
"What is it?"
"Let me see that cane for a moment……."
Noh Do-ha took Doha from me—almost snatching it roughly.
"Hmm……."
Then, even putting on her monocle, she examined the sword this way and that, clicking it in and out of the scabbard to check it.
A long groan flowed from Noh Do-ha's mouth.
"…Funeral Director Awakened. This. This sword. Where did you get it……?"
"Ah. I received it as a gift from the finest blacksmith on the Korean Peninsula."
"Finest on the Korean Peninsula? Hmm, well, it looks like it……. Good. If they crafted such a masterpiece, they could call themselves that. But a Korean. Who is it……?"
Dark circles clinging stickily, shadows flickered in Noh Do-ha's eyes.
"Why? Interested?"
"Well……. If there's someone with this kind of skill, whether I call them to the National Road Management Corps or recruit them somewhere, I'd have to work them as a lifelong unpaid slave to be satisfied……."
At these words, how could I not burst out laughing?
At my guffaw, Noh Do-ha deeply furrowed her brows. A pair of pitch-black islands, twin islands therefore not lonely, glared at me.
"Ha? Laughing? What's so funny? Do you want to die……?"
"No. Absolutely not. If I'm going to tell you, you should listen quietly. Workshop Master. The person who made that sword is my——"
— Accomplice. End.
An infinite regressor telling a story.