Chapter 196: the Smith is waiting

The open sea past the twelve-mile boundary line didn’t look like the calm, grey river channels. The waves here were high, black, and rough, hitting the old wooden hull of the lugger with a steady, heavy rumble that sent salty spray straight over the front glass of the low wheelhouse. The mist out here wasn’t yellow with city soot anymore; it was cold, clean, and smelled of deep salt and old mudflats.

Jun-ho sat on a low wooden hatch cover near the stern, his large rubber boots caked in grey salt crust. His left hand kept a loose, steady grip on the handle of The Ash Remnant, the solid black wedge resting flat against the deck planks. Every ten seconds, the twin diesel props of the old boat gave a low, uneven thud below the floorboards, but his frame didn’t move an inch. His multiplied endurance stat kept his posture perfectly rigid, his center of gravity shifting naturally to absorb the heavy rolling of the sea.

Right at the corner of his eye, the solid black numbers were waiting, perfectly silent.

[Level: 16]

[Mana: 1500/3000]

[Status: Outer Sector Logic Active.]

Inside the wheelhouse, Old Man Hak kept both hands glued to the wooden tiller, his leather coat stiff with salt crust as he stared blindly through the fog. He didn’t look back at the rear deck once. He didn’t dare to. The image of the black iron blade touching his coat button an hour ago was still fresh behind his small eyes, keeping his black-stained fingers perfectly compliant on the throttle handle.

The door to the forward cabin slid back with a short, loose click, and Eun-bi stepped out onto the wet deck planks. She had her canvas bag slung tight across her waist, her face small and sharp under the yellow hood of her rain jacket. In her hands, she held the green field radio she had taken from the surface station, along with a bundle of old copper wiring she had stripped from the ship’s emergency lighting box.

She sat down on an overturned oil drum right opposite his hatch cover, her knees almost touching his rubber boots in the narrow space. She laid the radio flat on her lap, her fingers using her trauma scissors to scrape the insulation off the copper wire tips.

"The main harbor tracking grid doesn’t run out here," she said, her voice dropping into a quiet murmur that was barely audible over the chug of the motor. She didn’t look up from her tools, her fingers working the wire into the radio’s secondary receiver port. "But the Ministry’s private communication channels use the high-frequency satellite relays for the offshore operations. If I lock my registration key into the receiver loop, we can intercept the internal guild audio files before they clear the daily logs."

She jammed the silver key into the side panel of the green box. The small plastic speaker let out a short, high-frequency whine before settling into a clear, uneven static.

Static. Whine. Click.

A sharp, arrogant voice cut through the noise—the voice of the Sun God regional director, sounding thin but heavy with a cold fury.

"—The retrieval operation in Sector 0 is officially closed. The logs have been cleared under Section 9. Due to the total loss of the core asset and the public logic blackout, Hunter Choi Min-ah’s registry is permanently suspended. Her guild contract is revoked, and she is ordered to remain at the district detention center pending a ministry audit for gross negligence."

The radio line went dead, leaving only the sound of the salt water hitting the side of the hull.

Eun-bi slowly slid her shears back into her belt loop, her sharp eyes looking up from the clipboard to lock straight onto Jun-ho’s face. The loose strands of her dark hair were wet from the sea spray, sticking to her forehead, but her regular, flat public-sector drawl was steady.

"She’s done, Jun-ho," Eun-bi said quietly. "They aren’t just taking her contract away. They’re turning her into the official corporate shield to explain the blackout to the shareholders. She won’t be stepping inside a public dungeon ever again."

Jun-ho didn’t blink. He looked out at the yellowed window of the wheelhouse where Old Man Hak was steering. "She wanted the short path. She just didn’t calculate the friction."

"And what about you?" she asked, her shoulder leaning slightly against the wooden frame of the hatch as the boat took a larger wave. "Your level is climbing, you have five hundred stones in the sack, and we’re heading toward an island that doesn’t exist on the government charts. If the sends their main line hunters after the ledger next week, this black iron bar is going to need more than just raw weight. You can’t even hold the handle properly without the scale cutting your palm."

"The blade needs an anchor," Jun-ho agreed, his fingers tightening slightly around the unpolished metal grip. The rough texture of the black iron was functional, but after hours of carrying it, the micro-pits in the scale were wearing down his gray shirt fabric.

"Well, you’re in luck, idiot," she muttered, pointing her chin toward the horizon ahead where the fog was finally beginning to part. " says the Black Slipway is right behind that ridge."

Through the grey morning mist, a massive, ink-black volcanic island rose straight out of the rough water. It didn’t have any green trees or clean sand beaches; it was a giant, jagged pile of dark basalt rock, its cliffs covered in dozens of low, stone shanties built right into the fissures. In the center of the dark bay sat the offshore trading hub—a massive, floating village made of old iron barges, wooden hulls, and rusted shipping containers all chained together with heavy links of unranked cable.

Tucked into the lowest tier of the floating market, right next to a smoking refinery chimney, sat an old stone structure with a red iron roof—the shop of Master Kwang, the black-market blacksmith.

Old Man Hak steered the lugger toward the black timber pier of the slipway, his hand slamming the throttle back until the single-cylinder engine let out a final, coughing pop and went quiet. The boat bumped against the dark wood with a heavy, wet thud.

"Get off my deck," the captain called out from the wheelhouse window, his face gray as he looked at the two canvas bags of stones. "The stones are inside the locker. Take your iron bar and don’t look back at the siding."

Jun-ho stood up, slinging his duffel bag over his right shoulder. He picked up The Ash Remnant with his left hand, his large rubber boots hitting the dark timber planks of the pier with a quiet, solid landing that didn’t make the old structure creak an inch.

Eun-bi climbed over the wooden rail right behind his shoulder, her yellow rain jacket rustling as she adjusted her canvas bag. She looked at the red iron roof of the forge ahead, the chimney spitting out a steady stream of yellow sparks that died instantly in the salt wind.

"The air down here smells like old copper and burnt coal," she said, her voice returning to that flat public-sector whine as she walked right next to his side, her bare thigh pressing against his shins for stability on the uneven planks. "Let’s find this smith before the local runners realize we have enough raw mana stones to buy the whole island."

"The smith is waiting," Jun-ho said, his boots making a steady, firm crunch against the wet wood as they walked toward the red light of the open forge door, leaving the city of Seoul and the remnants of his old life completely behind them in the dark gray mist of the open sea.