Chapter 16
Standing before the enormous Sacred Wood that seemed to contain the night sky itself, I adjusted my work clothes.
Even while my hands busily checked my clothing and tools, my eyes never left the wood.
If someone else had been standing here, they probably wouldn't have understood what I was looking at.
They might've assumed I was still working out the design in my head.
That would've been half right.
I was making full use of my carving-tool set effect.
A sketch appeared across the Sacred Wood.
It showed a woman in the middle of lowering herself to one knee.
Silver lines glowed over the surface, constantly shifting by small amounts as they searched for the best possible form.
I slowly circled the rounded timber, refining the sketch as I went.
Part of the reason I'd boldly chosen Sacred Wood as the material for this sculpture was because the client was Badger Guild, which controlled the Gate where Sacred Wood appeared.
But there was another reason.
I wanted the viewers to feel the stubborn vitality of wood.
Its quiet endurance.
The passage of time contained within every grain.
And if I combined the mystery of Sacred Wood with the effects of my Aura stat...
Maybe I could give the viewers something close to a sacred experience.
I'd always sculpted while thinking about the people who would eventually look at my work.
But this time, I was imagining a much larger audience than usual.
I wanted as many people as possible to feel as much as they could from my sculpture.
In my own way, it was a challenge.
Then again, since I started sculpting, there had probably been fewer times when I wasn't challenging myself.
"Chaeri, Dad needs to focus from now on, so I might not answer properly. If something urgent happens, gently peck the back of my neck to let me know."
A cheerful chirping answered me.
"I left that window open, so use it when you're coming and going. Don't do anything dangerous. And be careful around strangers. Got it?"
"Do I look like a child?"
"Huh. You really have grown a lot, haven't you?"
A bird that hadn't even been alive for a year was saying something with the childish pride of an elementary schooler.
It was ridiculous.
And adorable.
I nodded enough to satisfy Chaeri, then put on my headset.
Normally, I would've preferred to pick up my carving tools and work using familiar woodworking methods.
But Sacred Wood wouldn't allow that.
Perhaps because it grew inside a Gate and was treated like a World Tree there, its hardness rivaled steel.
Before properly beginning the sculpture, I'd tried scratching one corner as a test and ended up startled by how hard it was.
How do people even eat something this hard as medicine?
For a moment, I imagined people chewing on pieces of wood that shimmered like the night sky.
My brow furrowed.
Maybe because I was still young.
Or maybe because I was simply a sculptor to the core.
Either way, the imaginary scene felt like watching people bite chunks out of precious sculpting material.
I pushed the pointless image out of my head and picked up my widest chisel.
My other hand gripped a hammer.
The tools were made for stonework, but I intended to follow woodworking principles.
I would work carefully from bottom to top so I wouldn't damage the grain.
What I trusted was the stoneworking-set skill:
One Doe, One Mal, One Seom.
When I first saw the skill, my first thought had been that I was finally free from using grinders.
But now, handling a material taken from a Gate, I realized that One Doe, One Mal, One Seom might actually be the most effective skill possible for working with monster and Gate materials.
The skill was limited to A-Class materials, but that didn't disappoint me.
S-Class materials were so incredibly rare that I'd only ever heard rumors about them.
There was no chance something like that would land in my hands anytime soon.
Tok. Tok. Tok. Tok.
Unlike usual, the sound of many small hammer strikes echoed through the workshop.
I was putting an incredible amount of effort into controlling my strength.
The chisel gradually sank into the Sacred Wood without slipping even slightly out of place.
Whether it was because of my consistent force or because of the skill, even the chips falling from the wood had smooth, clean surfaces.
Tap.
After a while, the first piece of Sacred Wood finally fell away.
The newly exposed interior contained even more clusters of starlight than the outer surface.
It looked like the Milky Way.
Since ancient times, stars have always symbolized heroes.
Looking at the night sky I would soon shape with my own hands, I became certain I'd chosen the right material.
"Are you really not going to change the location?"
"Yes. I don't think there's a better place."
"..."
Even through the silence on the phone, I could hear Yoon Jamok's worry and unease.
Although the Badger Guild master had readily agreed when I first asked to change the installation site, she occasionally revealed her anxiety like this.
"If you're this worried, you could simply tell me to change it. But you aren't."
"...I may be someone who swings a sword for a living, but I know at least this much. Sometimes the way people experience an artwork changes depending on where it's installed."
"..."
"Even knowing that, I still can't stop worrying. That's simply an old coward's anxiety."
Yoon Jamok added that her repeated concern wasn't meant as disrespect.
She even apologized for bothering me.
Perhaps because of the position she held, even her apologies felt clean and straightforward.
Instead of reassuring her that I didn't think she was insulting me, I asked something else.
"Would you like to come see it?"
"...Haha. No. I can't take up more of your time. But if you don't mind, could I see the sculpture before it's transported?"
"Of course."
"Oh, and when you take a break, please contact Ga-hyeon once in a while. She seems to be waiting for her friend's messages."
There was unmistakable satisfaction in Yoon Jamok's voice.
Whatever misunderstandings had existed between them for a while, Badger Guild really did seem to have close relationships internally.
Unfortunately, I doubted I'd be able to contact Seol Ga-hyeon very often despite Yoon Jamok's expectations.
Like always, once I started working, I stopped noticing the world around me until I was exhausted enough to collapse.
At least Chaeri occasionally flew over and pecked the back of my neck until I ate something.
Because of that, I was taking better care of myself than before.
If it weren't for Chaeri, I probably would've taken my improved awakened stamina as an excuse to work through several nights in a row until I ended up in the hospital.
[Recently, there was talk about putting some team members under me.]
I slurped down noodles while checking the messages I'd neglected.
Shin Ha-gyeon, who had introduced me to Yoon Jamok, hadn't contacted me since.
Kim Sang-hyeon occasionally sent a message asking how I was doing.
Eom Seok-hwan sometimes invited me out for drinks, but I'd been too busy and kept turning him down.
The rest were from Seol Ga-hyeon.
She sent me messages as though she were a student reporting experimental results.
Most of them explained how much her life had changed because of my advice.
Part of me wondered whether it was really okay for her to tell me this much about internal matters at Badger Guild.
I've never had a friendship like this before.
My social circle had always been small and deep.
But I'd never had a friend who treated me almost like a benefactor.
Was someone this sincere simply incapable of expressing gratitude casually?
Now that we were friends, she could've thanked me in a lighter way.
Her stubbornly earnest personality really showed through in moments like this.
I shrugged once and turned my attention back to the work I'd been holding.
