Accomplice IV
Clang—!
The sound of hammering nearby shattered the world behind my eyelids, which had sunk into a dreamlike state.
A daydream. This often happened to me, someone who remembered all past events. The eyes I had just closed in the 53rd cycle were reopened in an instant in the 100th regression.
“Whew……”
A breath escaped me.
It was Noh Do-hwa. Half of her breath bathed in the blindingly bright sunlight of midsummer, and the other half was submerged in the navy blue shadows of the Jeongseon cave's abandoned mine.
“Well, it seems I’ve managed to make at least a kitchen knife. Hmm. I think I’ve made it better than this dwarf-like anomaly……”
“…….”
A mirage slowly danced.
In the breaths people exhaled, dust waves rippled through the sunlight and shadows, and then through the sunlight and shadows again.
It seemed the world needed both light and shadow to dance. In that case, the blink of an eye lightly swimming between notice and blindness must be the first dance of existence.
“Now, it’s time to challenge the next level. Hmm, I think tongs would be just right, Regressor Undertaker. If you find a dwarf anomaly making something suitable while wandering around the village… Hey. Hey. Are you listening to me…?”
“Yes, I am listening.”
By the way, it took less than three seconds for Noh Do-hwa to turn ‘hey’ into ‘you’ and then ‘you’ into ‘bastard’. It was nothing short of a magic tongue.
Noh Do-hwa mimicked cleaning her ears with a hoe, grinning.
“Do you have a metal rod in your ear? Since I’ve got the hang of it, find something a bit more difficult than this hoe…… Oh?”
She didn’t finish her sentence.
Swish—
The dwarf anomaly, who had been hammering the anvil soullessly until now, suddenly reached out towards Noh Do-hwa.
An obvious anomaly.
Thud, I instinctively hugged Noh Do-hwa and stepped back. Due to the sudden action, she dropped the hoe she was holding.
“Be careful, master.”
“Oh. Well, thank you……. But I don’t feel any hostility……”
“There are many anomalies in the world that don’t harbor feelings of hostility. Just as radiation isn’t malicious but still harms humans.”
-……
For some reason, the dwarf anomaly seemed uninterested in us. Instead, it slowly bent over.
There lay the hoe that Noh Do-hwa had dropped.
“Hmm……?”
The dwarf picked up the hoe and examined it, slowly, like a video playing at 0.5 speed.
-……, …….
Whoosh—
Wind blew out from the pitch-black eye and mouth holes, from the inside out.
And then something strange happened.
As if it had been a being of wind from the beginning, the more wind the dwarf anomaly exhaled through its holes, the more its body shrank.
“Oh?”
-……, ……. …….
The dwarf’s breath fell on the hoe Noh Do-hwa had forged. Like a painter adding layer after layer of watercolor, the dwarf anomaly added a final touch to the hoe with its breath.
Clatter.
The hoe fell again. The dwarf, having exhaled all its breath, shriveled like a balloon and disappeared.
“How interesting. What kind of anomaly is this, Regressor Undertaker……?”
“…I don’t know either. Although I found out about this mining village a long time ago, I’ve never delved into it.”
“Ah. Even after 100 regressions, you couldn’t figure out one village? Isn’t that negligence of duty……?”
“I’m sorry. If someone hadn’t strangled me to death in the last run, I might have figured it out.”
Noh Do-hwa blinked.
“It hasn’t disappeared…”
“Pardon?”
“Originally, anything created in this village disappeared shortly after. The kitchen knife I made this morning vanished the same way. But look. My hoe is still here despite the passage of time.”
“Ah.”
I stroked my chin.
“Indeed. Perhaps the essence of this ‘Jeongseon Dwarf Mine’ void is… a training ground for blacksmiths.”
“A training ground……?”
“Yes. You could call it a place for passing down techniques. Just now, master, you created a hoe and were ‘acknowledged’ by that dwarf anomaly.”
“I see……”
“I think I understand how to clear this void. There are a total of seven blacksmith dwarves in the mining village. Since you eliminated one, there are now six left.”
“You mean I need to be acknowledged by the remaining six masters?”
“Exactly.”
I picked up the hoe. The blade of the adamantium hoe bore strange letters.
An unfamiliar script. An unintelligible language. The closest description I could give would be this:
[Dicentra Spectabilis]
Noh Do-hwa peeked over my shoulder.
“Hmm. What’s this? I didn’t engrave any letters…”
“It’s likely the dwarf anomaly inscribed it with its breath. What else would a blacksmith inscribe on their work? It’s probably its name.”
“Ah?”
Noh Do-hwa took out her notebook. Frowning, she carefully copied down the letters [Dicentra Spectabilis].
“Master, why are you doing that?”
“Hmph.”
Noh Do-hwa didn’t respond.
From that day, our routine was set.
First, we classified the remaining six dwarf blacksmiths by the difficulty level of the items they were making.
A dwarf making a small kitchen knife was level 1. A dwarf making a large greatsword was level 6.
“Well, let’s get started… I want to finish quickly, so Regressor Undertaker, assist me……”
“Wow. Only the Master could make an infinite regressor work as an assistant.”
“What nonsense? You’re the one who mortgaged my life to the National Road Management Corps, making me just an assistant…”
“I’ve got it ready, master.”
“Oh, good.”
Clang!
Noh Do-hwa’s hammer struck, sending sparks flying.
Despite her slender appearance with no obvious muscles, she pounded the anvil like she was demonstrating what true functional muscle was.
Her long hair fluttered in the cave below. From afar, she looked like she was dancing, perfectly synchronized with the hammer.
Sparks and shadows.
A waltz of red and black.
-……, Whoosh……
Seeing the kitchen knife she made, the level 1 dwarf also exhaled deeply.
The breath of the anomaly, probably from another world, allowed the knife to remain in this world. The anomaly left behind its language, an unrecognizable name, on the knife before vanishing.
“…….”
How did these anomalies come into existence? Even with countless regressions, I could only speculate about their secret, never arriving at the answer.
I cooked, prepared bathwater, secured our sleeping quarters, and stayed vigilant against surrounding anomalies, allowing Noh Do-hwa to focus on the 'slaying of anomalies.' That was my role in this void.
It wasn’t a difficult role.
The ‘assistant’ from the 53rd run had already spent 8 years working harmoniously with the skilled artisan before me. That memory was still etched behind my eyelids.
“Hmph……”
Next level. And then the next level.
In just six days, Noh Do-hwa reached the final blacksmith’s gate. The term "talent" must have been coined for people like her.
Yet, for some reason, her expression grew worse with each level she completed. She frowned deeply as she glared at me.
“What’s wrong?”
“Come to think of it, I’m really pissed.”
“……?”
“Isn’t it unnaturally proficient how you assist me? You hand me the tongs exactly when I need them, and hold things at the perfect angle for hammering without me even asking. You’re like a drone delivery service. Every time you do this, it reminds me that you’re a creepy regressor who knows everything I don’t.”
“What are you talking about?”
I was at a loss for words. Was she seriously insane?
“…I’ve never spoken like that in my life, and creepy? Creepy? Me?”
“Hmph. It’s just a figure of speech. Don’t get hung up on one word. You’re like a grandpa who’s at least 1,000 years old, the ultimate elder anomaly, yet you have such a narrow mind……”
“How many times are you going to keep insulting me in a row?”
“Alright, enough.”
Clang.
Noh Do-hwa tapped the hilt of the sword lightly with her hammer—clank, the misaligned notches fitted perfectly.
Level 6. The greatsword was complete.
-……, …….
She finished making the greatsword and immediately turned her head, like a salaryman smelling freshly baked bread at a subway bakery.
Then, she reached out to infuse eternity into the master’s piece—
“Ah. Hold on…”
But her hand only swiped the air.
Noh Do-hwa had suddenly tilted the greatsword back.
-……?
“Hmm.”
-……?
The black eyeholes of the dwarf looked up at her, like a cat whose treat had been snatched away.
Noh Do-hwa grinned.
-……? ……?
Hop. Hop. The dwarf, true to its designation as a "dwarf," could only jump up and down, unable to reach the greatsword Noh Do-hwa held aloft.
I too had question marks floating in my mind.
What’s this person doing? Has she decided to torment anomalies because she can’t be satisfied with humans anymore?
Noh Do-hwa grinned mischievously.
“I have no interest in putting you to rest. None at all. I’m not here to be your disciple either. It’s troublesome if you ascend, thinking you’ve passed on your legacy to me.”
-……?
“Honestly, I don’t need these junk tools.”
Noh Do-hwa tossed all the tools she had made—hoes, kitchen knives, daggers, sickles, pitchforks, longswords, and greatswords—into the smelter.
The smelter in the mining village quickly melted the tools back into adamantium. Noh Do-hwa’s hammer immediately struck the softened mass.
Clang—!
The mineral that originally didn’t exist in this world began to take shape beautifully. Clang! Clang! Without rest. Ignoring her own sweat, pouring everything into it.
“Small hammer.”
“Yes, master.”
“Chisel.”
“Here it is.”
“Sandwich.”
“Yes.”
Each time she requested, I handed over the tools and moved the cast.
-…….
The dwarf watched our work with empty eye sockets.
How much time passed? Noh Do-hwa, who had never once wiped her forehead during the forging, finally wiped her sweat with the back of her hand. Then she took off her monocle and put it in her front pocket.
“Whew, it’s finally finished……”
The appearance of the finished product left me momentarily speechless.
“This is…”
It was a cane sword.
Srrk— Noh Do-hwa drew the blue blade herself. A swordstick, also known as a cane sword.
A weapon that could be used as a cane in normal times and as a self-defense weapon in emergencies.
“Regressor Undertaker. You asked me to make you a weapon when we came here, right……?”
“…Yes.”
“Hmph. Alright. This is the weapon I present to you……”
A cane. The simplest assistive device for people with walking difficulties. Thus, it bore Noh Do-hwa's touch.
A sword. The most common weapon for killing. Thus, it would bear my touch.
Perfectly reflecting both Noh Do-hwa and me.
“…….”
“Wait a moment.”
Noh Do-hwa held a carving knife against the blade. Screech, the sound of metal sliding.
[Dicentra Spectabilis]
It was the name believed to belong to the dwarf blacksmith who had once breathed life into the hoe.
Noh Do-hwa opened her notebook and carefully engraved the characters from [Dicentra Spectabilis] onto the blade, referring to her notes. A total of seven names. The characters, alien not only to this world but to another, rippled like beautiful tattoos.
And at the end.
Do-hwa (渡河).
The characters pronounced the same as Noh Do-hwa’s name, and the same meaning as her workshop, flowed onto the white blade like raindrops.
“Here it is……”
-…….
-…….
-……, …….
Looking around, I realized that the dwarf anomaly had vanished. There was no more breath of eternity.
Only a deep wind, whooooosh, blew through the mining canyon. The breath of the mountain, descending from the cliffs, swept past us and the sword.
In the wake of the wind, the village vanished. The adamantium ore, the smelters, the stone buildings, and the anvils the dwarves used—all had been blown away.
Only Noh Do-hwa, myself, and a single sword remained at the entrance to the enormous cave.
“…….”
It was a strange phenomenon.
But voids are inherently strange.
Noh Do-hwa paid no attention to the disappearance of the dwarf mining village. Instead, she was handing me the sword.
Evening. The blazing red sunset behind her was imprinting the scene before me onto my corneas.
As I finally reached out and grasped the sword, Noh Do-hwa’s lips, which seemed destined to remain silent, opened.
“Are you really going to take it……?”
“…….”
“It’s a fine sword. One that I can never make again. In your future hunts and slaughters, this sword will play a significant role. Do you understand? Regressor Undertaker. From now on, part of your achievements, your feats, your successes and failures, your killings—half of them will belong to this sword. In other words, by taking this sword, you are accepting it as your accomplice……”
“…….”
I nodded.
I grasped the sword.
“I will name the sword Do-hwa (渡河).”
“…Hmph.”
Noh Do-hwa chuckled softly.
The sunset cast a red hue on her smile.
“The share is fifty-fifty……”
What a harsh profit-sharing contract from someone claiming not to be an exploitative employer.
There’s an epilogue.
When the regressions reset, everything should return to its original state, but the sword 'Do-hwa' was an exception.
From the 100th cycle onwards, Do-hwa was always embedded at the entrance of the cave midway up the Taebaek Mountains. In subsequent regressions, Noh Do-hwa never made me another sword.
“…….”
It was a phenomenon that could only be described as an anomaly. In place of the original void of the ‘dwarf mining village’, the sword Do-hwa seemed to be fixed in time, immovable like a fixed coordinate.
Perhaps the ‘mining village’ had truly come from another world. And the flow of time in that other world was different from ours, causing 'Do-hwa' to be fixed in place, outside the normal flow of time.
Or, instead of the mining village, the sword Do-ha itself had become a void and an anomaly.
In any case, the mining village disappeared, along with the small veins of adamantium, forever. I would never uncover the secrets of that void.
In addition to the Silver Bells I always farmed at Busan Station, I had now acquired another ‘exclusive item.’
“Hmm? Wait a moment, Regressor Undertaker……”
“Yes?”
“Show me that cane.”
Noh Do-hwa almost snatched Do-ha from me, examining it closely.
“Hmph…”
With her monocle on, she scrutinized the sword, repeatedly drawing it from the scabbard and sheathing it.
A long sigh escaped her lips.
“…Regressor Undertaker. This sword. Where did you get it……?”
“Oh. I received it as a gift from the greatest blacksmith in Korea.”
“The greatest in Korea? Hmm, that seems right… Very well. If they crafted such a masterpiece, they deserve to be called that. But who is this Korean?”
The shadows of Noh Do-hwa's eyes, heavy with dark circles, burned intensely.
“Why? Are you interested?”
“Well… Anyone with such skills should be recruited into the National Road Management Corps or somewhere, to be used as an unpaid slave for life.”
How could I not burst out laughing at this?
Noh Do-hwa frowned deeply at my laughter. A pair of twin black islands, no longer lonely, glared at me.
“Hah? You’re laughing? What’s so funny? Do you want to die?”
“No. Absolutely not. I’ll tell you. Master, the person who made that sword is my―”
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