Chapter 10
The customer had already paid, but he still couldn’t leave, too fascinated by what he’d just seen.
All Gangcheol had done was sharpen an old knife, yet the man looked like a child who’d just gotten a Christmas present.
He split the already-halved tissue once more, then again, before speaking to Gangcheol.
“…This isn’t some tissue you pre-cut beforehand, right?”
“If I’m charging money for sharpening, it should at least do this much. You can pull out your own tissues and try it yourself if you want.”
Gangcheol placed the tissue box beside the basin, and the customer, still unable to believe it, pulled out more tissues.
He floated one on the water and drew the blade across it.
Sliiide.
The tissue split apart like a lie.
“It works? Why does this even work?”
“H-hey, lemme try too.”
At that point even the dialect-speaking blacksmith, who’d been preparing his own stall, snatched the knife from the customer and tested it himself.
Once again, the tissue split cleanly.
“Good lord, what kinda sorcery is this?”
Compared to cutting paper, cutting tissue is far harder.
And cutting tissue while it floats on water is even harder than holding it in your hand.
In other words, the performance Gangcheol had just shown skipped at least two difficulty levels.
This wasn’t remotely comparable to someone proudly slicing a sheet of A4 paper and getting a clean edge.
No matter how lacking their skill, any craftsman would recognize that much.
“Is it really that impressive?”
“I can’t do that.”
The customer looked at Gangcheol with renewed eyes.
Back when Gangcheol’s father still ran the workshop, Gangcheol himself had been skilled enough to handle sharpening jobs in his father’s place.
Meaning: even if someone came in determined to insult him, they still wouldn’t be able to criticize his sharpening skills or the quality of his work.
Naturally, more and more people began gathering around.
“What’s with the noise? Is this some newbie using blades for the first time?”
“They say he sharpened a knife insanely well.”
“How well could sharpening possibly— huh? Whoa…”
Everyone thought the same thing at first.
How different could it really be, no matter how good someone was at something everybody knew how to do?
But changing that impression didn’t require anything dramatic.
All they had to do was stand in front of the basin with the floating tissue.
Doubt turned into admiration with startling ease.
The unexpected attention flustered Gangcheol, but he tried to remain calm.
“I was honestly nervous since I had to completely remake the edge, but it turned out well.”
“But… is it okay for a working knife to be this sharp?”
That voice didn’t belong to the customer who’d commissioned the knife.
Still, the owner of the knife nodded too, clearly curious.
“I get asked that a lot. It’s a common misunderstanding.”
Gangcheol answered naturally, as though he’d explained it countless times before.
“A working blade is better the sharper it is. A sharper edge cuts more easily, right? That means less impact on the blade itself, and less strain on your body too, so it’s better for work. Same goes for longswords, same goes for knives.”
“Sounds like a scam to make people come back for sharpening more often.”
The voice sounded like another blacksmith somewhere in the crowd, but Gangcheol answered calmly.
“Isn’t maintaining the blade better than wrecking your body? Even I get pain in my hands when my belts or whetstones wear down and I have to use too much force while working.”
People reacted differently to his explanation, but they all shared the same thought.
This guy was different.
Other smiths only ever said blades shouldn’t be too sharp.
Whenever customers asked for a finer edge, they’d refuse while claiming it was “for the customer’s own good.”
But what they were hearing now made sense even to complete amateurs.
A blade was a tool for cutting and piercing.
How could improving a tool’s performance possibly harm its user?
Besides, anyone who used blades had experienced sore hands from forcing a dull knife through something.
Wasn’t spending money to keep a blade sharp basically the same as spending money on pain relief patches afterward?
Gangcheol handed the customer a business card.
“I’m repairing the workshop right now, but give me a call when you need maintenance later. I’ll make sure to provide service that surprises you in a good way then too.”
The customer accepted the card and mulled over the words.
“‘Service that pleasantly surprises you’…”
An incredibly refined mindset.
In contrast, the card itself had an old-fashioned, rugged design.
A bold-font business card with no flair or fancy tricks.
But as the customer’s gaze moved beyond the card to the hand offering it—
he noticed the thick fingers covered in calluses and scars, hands that sharply contrasted with Gangcheol’s still youthful face.
‘…I actually thought spending money on him would be a waste.’
Meanwhile, Gangcheol had only tried to persuade him to repair his equipment properly.
The customer felt ashamed.
Forcing down the tightness in his throat, he finally spoke.
“Thank you for your hard work.”
“It’s nothing. You’re the one working hard going into gates.”
Gangcheol bowed back to the customer as he lowered his head.
The surrounding hunters smiled warmly at the sight.
At first glance, it looked like the scene was ending on a wholesome note.
But then—
“Um, excuse me.”
“Yes? Is there something else?”
Gangcheol asked, puzzled.
The man had paid, received the knife, and gotten answers to his questions, yet he still wasn’t leaving.
—No way…
Suddenly, an earlier conversation felt like foreshadowing.
And sure enough, the customer said:
“Why didn’t you remove the scratches?”
“…What?”
Gangcheol blinked.
After obsessively slicing tissues to death, now he was complaining about scratches?
“That falls under polishing. You requested sharpening.”
“Polishing, sharpening, whatever. Other places just do it automatically without me having to ask. Why’s the service here so bad?”
—Wow… people like this actually exist.
The shameless customer looked down at Gangcheol arrogantly, seemingly enjoying his troubled expression.
Then—
SMACK!!
With a crisp impact sound, the man toppled over.
“Gah! W-who was that?!”
When the troublemaker turned around, a much larger man was glaring at him viciously.
“It was me, asshole.”
“H-hhk.”
“If your business is done, stop causing trouble and get lost. I need my blade done too.”
Despite his fierce appearance, the man’s finger was pointing toward the tissue floating in the basin.
The troublemaker hiccuped in terror and bolted immediately.
“Ah… thank you.”
“It’s nothing. Just sharpen mine sharper than that loser’s knife.”
“Of course.”
There had been a small incident, but after that first customer, Gangcheol’s flea market business became surprisingly successful.
Not as successful as the large booths run by mid-sized companies and above, but enough that customers came steadily without interruption.
“If I leave my knife with you, can mine do that too?”
“My knife chips way too easily. Can you fix that?”
“I use an axe instead of a knife. Do you sharpen axes too?”
Some wanted their blades sharpened enough to slice floating tissue.
Others came with specific concerns.
Some had unusual requests.
Of course, Gangcheol’s answer was always the same.
“Of course. You want yours sharpened enough to cut tissue, and you want the edge angle adjusted, right? As for the axe, how sharp do you want it?”
Everything was possible.
And more importantly, he inspired confidence that he’d deliver results even better than customers expected.
The dialect-speaking blacksmith awkwardly asked:
“Would… would ya take my order too?”
“Hm? What kind of order?”
“Uh… y’know… teach me sharpenin’…”
“Absolutely not.”
Except for requests that didn’t really count as requests.
The customer who wanted to slice floating tissue ended up cutting five tissues in a row before leaving while humming happily.
The customer worried about edge angles relaxed after hearing Gangcheol would provide free after-service if problems arose.
The customer with the axe praised how fast the work was, then shared food he’d bought from the market before leaving.
“You’re still at an age where you should be eatin’ lots! Don’t be shy!”
“I can’t eat food that gets my hands dirty…”
Gangcheol smiled awkwardly, troubled, but he didn’t actually feel bad.
—You really thought this through, kid.
From the start, there wasn’t much money to be made at a flea market.
So instead, Gangcheol dramatically lowered labor costs relative to quality to attract customers.
By securing lots of work that way, he could clear the profession quests from the system notifications and earn coins.
In that sense, his plan was working perfectly.
Even excluding the coins that accumulated every hour, the smaller profession quests alone earned him a nice amount.
—Profession Quest: Respond to a customer requesting sharpening. (1/1) Complete!
—Profession Quest: Respond to customers requesting sharpening. (5/5) Complete!
—Profession Quest: Respond to customers requesting sharpening. (10/10) Complete!
By the end of the morning, he’d earned 70 coins.
Converted into Korean won, that was 1.4 million won.
—Pretty decent, huh, kid?
“Yeah. Honestly, I didn’t expect it to go this well.”
—Hurry up and thank me, kid.
“I was gonna, but now I don’t feel like it.”
It was nearing lunchtime, and Gangcheol was thinking of grabbing food after finishing his current job.
Though his hands were busy, the atmosphere was peaceful—
until another customer arrived.
“Excuse me. Could you take a look at something for a moment?”
“Yes, just a second.”
After stopping his work and wiping the moisture from his hands, Gangcheol looked up to see a customer whose expression practically screamed, “My luck is absolutely screwed.”
“Yes, what is it?”
“Thank you for your hard work. Um…”
The customer started to speak but struggled to continue.
More accurately, he seemed unsure how to even explain it.
“No matter where I take it, it never feels as sharp as before. You seemed popular, so I thought maybe you’d understand if you looked at it…”
“You had it sharpened, but it still doesn’t feel sharp?”
“It’s… sharpened, but I can’t tell whether it feels dull or whether it’s not exactly dull… I’m not sure how to explain it.”
At first glance, it sounded absurd.
A blade that had been sharpened should either feel sharp or not sharp.
—If he can notice something like that, he must be pretty skilled with blades.
Gangcheol subtly nodded in agreement.
The customer was describing something only someone deeply familiar with blades could sense just by holding one.
Not the sort of intuition gained through ordinary training.
Yet unexpectedly, the customer seemed unsure of his own judgment.
“Could you show me?”
The customer handed over the knife while still in its sheath.
It was a plain molded sheath that clearly outlined the blade’s silhouette.
A fairly long blade protruded slightly from the opening.
Shhhhk.
As Gangcheol drew the knife, the scraping sound between sheath and blade grated unpleasantly against his ears.
Fresh grinding marks remained near the edge, as though it had recently been sharpened.
The steel there was brighter than the rest of the blade too, meaning not enough time had passed for oxidation.
“Is this carbon steel?”
“Yes. I was told it’s spring steel.”
Gangcheol held the blade under the light, studying it carefully.
Then his eyes widened as he noticed something strange.
“You’re a hunter, right?”
“Yes.”
“Do you happen to carry a flashlight? Could you lend it to me? Not too bright.”
The customer switched on a flashlight and handed it over.
Gangcheol rotated the blade while shining the light across it from different angles—
sometimes from the spine,
sometimes from the edge,
sometimes from the tip.
Then—
Thunk.
He set down both the flashlight and the knife.
“Can you… tell what’s wrong?”
“I can. But… sigh. This is seriously unacceptable.”
Gangcheol scratched the back of his head roughly.
Frustration. Regret. Anger.
Suppressing the emotions rising inside him, he asked:
“That son of a bitch charged you money for this?”
