The Only Swordsman of the Magic Academy

6 – Vulcan

*

Jjallang-

Entering the store and ringing the small bell at the entrance, but no one comes out to greet the customer.

‘Looks like they’re working.’

I don’t use any of the employees. The standard for selling equipment is only those who are in his eyes, and he is a noble man who is famous for not even soliciting customers separately.

Nevertheless, the reason why this person’s items are highly preferred by some regulars is that the quality of the items is amazing compared to other artisans.

The things he made with all his heart didn’t make much of a difference compared to artifacts from dungeons, or even surpassed them if the materials were good.

To earn enough money to maintain such a large blacksmith’s shop while shunning customers requires the skills to back it up.

Several guilds who knew his value tried to recruit him, but he said that he would not have enemies in an organization owned by a mage, and periodically provided equipment only to government agencies that took advantage of him.

Kang! Kang!

Going deep inside, I see a short old man with a white beard who looks good with a hammer.

I thought it was really cool to see him hammering with all his strength for one production.

I watched him work like that, and after a while he finished the work and put down the hammer and started talking to me.

“Are you a guest?”

He’s been speaking casually since the beginning, but since he knew someone, I didn’t feel particularly uncomfortable.

“Yes. I came to see the sword.”

He sighs.

“Lightweight magic swords that wizards can use are not sold here. If you go a little further in that direction, there is a large workshop, so go there and buy them.”

It’s not like there’s no reason to engage in close combat as a wizard.

Of course, there is a case of wielding a cold weapon in a narrow space to use Blink or when the enemy is close enough to take damage when using magic.

A mage who casts strengthening magic on his body and enchants his weapon with elemental magic can easily slice through monsters of a certain level.

Still, since you can’t always walk around with strengthening magic, most of them prefer magic swords enchanted with lightweight magic.

Though the artisan in front of me, who believes that a weapon needs a sense of weight appropriate to it, would never make that kind of magic sword.

Nevertheless, there are many swords in his workshop. Why?

‘He’s looking for someone to use the sword he made.’

“I didn’t come to see that either. I came to see the ‘real’ sword.”

A small agitation formed in his eyes. And only now I’m starting to see myself properly.

“Certainly, the body is the best among the ones I’ve visited so far… But you mean you know what a real sword is?”

“Yes.”

He got up and pulled out two swords that looked almost identical from inside.

[Iron Sword (Advanced)], [Iron Sword (Advanced)]

Both swords were simply made of iron, but nonetheless, they were crafted by skilled artisans to the extent that they received the advanced grade, the next level to the general.

“Of these two, which do you think is the better sword?”

Two swords with no difference in appearance. Even if they had the same grade and the same description, even if a wizard who knew how to use observation magic saw them, he would have thought they were playing with the same sword.

But I saw it.

Which of these two swords is better? My blood was leading my body, as if I couldn’t be called the descendant of the King of Knights only if I didn’t recognize this much.

“This is it, right?”

I raised the sword on my right and swung it. In fact, I had no intention of wielding it. However, the moment I first grabbed a proper sword, the thought of wanting to wield it dominated my body.

There are still only swordsmanship skills, but there is no proper swordsmanship, so it is close to random swinging, but the movement of the sword improves little by little with each swing.

Then, when I felt that this sword and I had become one body, a message appeared in front of my eyes.

[The iron sword (advanced) has been completely mastered.]

[The level of swordsmanship increases.]

The first proper sword I’ve ever held in my life. I just swung as the sword guided me, but the level of my swordsmanship went up. After carefully putting down the sword again, he opened his mouth.

“This is a more perfect combination of the center of gravity and the handle…”

I looked back while explaining at what point this sword was superior to the sword next to me, and he was crying as he watched me.

“You… You’re a knight. There was a… Knight here too…!”

Gets up from his seat, approaches me, stretches out his arms and grabs my arms. I knew that he felt a strong longing for the existence of a knight. However, I didn’t know it would work like this.

“Are you from Pangenia? Finally, besides the dwarf, someone from the same country came?”

The place called Pangenia was the information he could hear from the moment his affinity level exceeded 80. But he was excited enough to bring up the story to me when we first met.

Thirty years after coming to another world, he meets the knight he longed for again, and his judgment is considerably clouded.

I also heard the story of Pangenia from the demon he mentioned, so if I combine the story I heard from him and the story from the demon, I might be able to trick him.

Then he would give a lot to me, a knight and a man of the town. He should be able to get something of high value with just one lie without spending any resources.

To deceive the old man who shed tears for his hometown in front of his eyes.

‘But I don’t want to.’

He lost his parents both in his previous life and in this life. And I know better than anyone how much the lost longs for and longs for what they will never see again.

I didn’t have the slightest desire to benefit from that feeling.

“I’m a knight, but I’m not from Pangenia. I know a little about what Pangenia is like.”

Still, I added a word without lying so that the old man who misses his hometown can tell the story outward instead of keeping it in his heart.

It was only a relationship that I saw through the monitor, but he seemed very excited just looking at the text as he told the story of his hometown.

“…Would you like to hear what stories you know?”

“Of course.”

A mat was laid so he could tell the story of his hometown. In the middle, he recalled memories and led a conversation so that he could say that this actually happened.

From the middle, we exchanged shouts and continued the conversation by opening a can of beer. Magic Academy students are treated as adults, so it would be okay to drink beforehand. Maybe.

“Ha ha! Do you know anything? Back then. King. As the man brought hundreds of barrels of beer…”

She made a sword for a procrastinating kid after losing her parents, and later became a warrior and came back to find it.

“Wow. You beat up 10 armed robbers by yourself? Surely Vulcan’s size…”

Aside from that, countless stories about his time in Pangenia flowed out of his mouth.

He was more excited than anyone I’ve ever seen as he sang stories that had been piled up without telling anyone for decades. His story, which could not be fully expressed in the text of the game.

And I felt pity when I thought that a nobleman who proudly spoke of himself had spent so many years holding back his words.

It must be boring after listening to the story for several hours, but actually listening to his story was terribly vivid, and there was something that stimulated the human heart.

The first thing he said after exhaling, having confided in all the stories he had contained inside, was gratitude.

“Thank you. Hajun Choi. Thanks to you, I was able to talk about what I wanted to say for the first time in a really long time. It feels like my stomach has been relieved to some extent.”

Vulcan puts on an expression of sincere gratitude. All I did was listen to the story, but sometimes people are saved just by someone listening to them.

“I was listening because I enjoyed it too. Well, how many opportunities will I have to hear such great stories?”

Actually, I was satisfied with his story.

Thanks to the awakening of the descendant of the King of Knights, I already had the ability to stably break through dungeons, and his story was worth the time I spent listening to.

“Thank you for saying that. But after hearing the story, I really knew a lot about Pangenia… Wouldn’t it be okay if you pretended to be a Pangenian and fooled me? If I said that I forgot some memories due to the shock of the metastasis, I was fooled. If.”

I quickly figured out that I could have been like that, probably because I’m a nobleman who has lived three digits. Except for the things I didn’t have to say, I told them exactly what I thought.

“I don’t want to take advantage of someone who misses something to the point of tears. That’s all.”

I didn’t bother to say that I felt the same pain because I lost my parents. It’s not very nice to receive something by inducing sympathy from others.

Hearing my answer, he put on a thoughtful expression and took a case from the shelf and handed it to me.

“Didn’t you say you came to see the sword?”

“Yes.”

“Try to take it out.”

When I opened the case, I found a very simple sword inside, but its shape, center of gravity, and all other elements that make up the sword were perfect.

[???(0%)]

A sword with a % value that stands for Growth Artifact.