Chapter 22

Chapter 22

I decided to test the jangseung by staging a simple theft in front of it.

Unfortunately, everything inside this house belonged to me, which meant I couldn't really count as a thief.

So I had no choice but to call over the guards.

The moment they heard what the jangseung item could supposedly do, their faces filled with curiosity.

One particularly large man stepped forward.

"My position is tank. A flogging means getting hit on the backside, right? If the item's motif is based on the story where the jangseung gets flogged, the punishment will probably be similar. I'll play the thief."

"Are you sure you'll be okay?"

"Of course. Ah! This item isn't A-Class or higher, right?"

"No. You can check for yourself."

The tank guard stared at the jangseung for a while before nodding firmly.

"I think I'll be fine. I may not look it, but I'm A-Class. There's no way a C+ item can take me down."

A-Class?

I looked at him in surprise.

Reading my expression, he awkwardly scratched the back of his head.

"I wanted to see the world's first S-Class production-type Hunter in person."

"Uh... But you haven't exactly tried talking to me."

"I don't mean I wanted to get close to you and profit from it. I just wanted to see the real person who possesses the world's first S-Class production skill. ...That's kind of a trivial reason, isn't it?"

"Trivial? I'm grateful, if anything."

"Ah, it's nothing."

For some reason, I felt like a celebrity.

The tank guard deliberately walked over to the drinking fountain I'd installed for Chaeri and lifted it out of the ground in plain view of the jangseung.

It was an item that always produced clean water and weighed quite a lot.

But the tank guard didn't look strained in the slightest.

He even winked at me and said he'd put it back later.

Stats really did turn Hunters into superhumans.

The moment the tank guard stepped through the front gate...

The pressure radiating from the jangseung intensified.

At the same time...

[Wise Magistrate Great General Under Heaven is enraged!]

[The Magistrate's Trial begins!]

The notifications rang out one after another.

Fog began filling the entire yard.

Light rippled across the jangseung.

In the distance, the guard holding the fountain staggered.

I narrowed my eyes and focused.

His face had gone pale.

[Wise Magistrate Great General Under Heaven asks whether "Chaeri's Drinking Fountain" was given to "Kim Ho-gun" by the village elder!]

The jangseung's eyes seemed fixed on me.

Almost as if it were warning me that something terrible would happen if I lied.

I glanced at the guard.

He was shaking his head rapidly.

By now, his face had gone blue.

The jangseung looked mysterious to me.

Apparently, it looked very different to the tank guard.

"I told him he could have it!"

I shouted loudly.

A tremendous exhale came from the jangseung.

As if to prove I hadn't imagined it, another notification appeared.

[Wise Magistrate Great General Under Heaven snorts loudly!]

[Wise Magistrate Great General Under Heaven says he will overlook it this once!]

The jangseung acted as though it knew perfectly well that I'd never actually given the drinking fountain away.

It almost felt like the item had been alive the entire time, watching everything that happened in the yard.

I rubbed my forearms.

When I looked at the jangseung again, it stood there blankly with only its usual solemn Aura remaining.

The tank guard silently returned the fountain to its original place.

Then he hurried over and spoke excitedly.

"Wow. This thing is incredible!"

"What was it like?"

"It felt like I'd been hit by a curse-type skill. My stomach turned over and my vision went completely white. At the same time, it felt like some enormous presence was glaring down at me."

The guard continued enthusiastically, apparently determined to tell me every detail.

"It was like being dragged into one of the Buddhist hells and put on trial. ...More than anything, I became absolutely convinced that if I was found guilty of theft, the punishment would be unbelievably painful and humiliating."

"Even though you knew it was only a C+ flogging?"

"Yes.... It just made me feel like I'd rather die than receive the punishment."

"The effect is better than I expected."

"Exactly. For one thing, it affected an A-Class Hunter. Mental-type skills, whether they come from Hunters or items, usually don't work if their rank is lower than the target's."

That reassured me.

I'd been wondering whether it could affect high-ranking Hunters.

If it worked on an A-Class Hunter, then the jangseung should be able to stop most thieves.

Then should I consider abilities created through Stories to be higher-level than ordinary skills?

Come to think of it, I'd simply assumed the functions created by Stories were skills.

The status window never actually called them skills.

It only referred to them as unique effects.

Maybe it really was correct to consider abilities born from Stories superior to normal item skills.

And perhaps the item's rank is determined by the size of the Story itself....

The greater the Story contained within it, the higher the item rank.

I looked at my Aura stat, which was getting close to 10.

For some reason, it felt painfully close.

I quickly dug out the phone I'd been neglecting and contacted Oh Hyeon-seok.

[Wise Magistrate Great General Under Heaven announces that outsiders have entered the village!]

The next day, Oh Hyeon-seok arrived with several Taepyeong Guild members.

The moment he saw the jangseung, his eyes lit up.

He might have expected a sculpture, but there was no way he'd expected a jangseung.

Yet his expression looked exactly like someone who'd received what he'd been hoping for.

"The item itself is C+, but I've confirmed that its effect works even on an A-Class Hunter."

I stood beside Oh Hyeon-seok while he examined the status window and added the explanation.

All thanks to the tank guard who'd worked hard yesterday.

Oh Hyeon-seok seemed to read the short status window several times before speaking in amazement.

"This is my first time seeing an item containing a Story. The description lists it as an effect rather than a skill too. I see. That's certainly unusual enough to affect an A-Class Hunter."

Oh Hyeon-seok clapped in delight.

When I asked whether he planned to move the jangseung right away, he nodded.

"Yes. Since you requested an entire pine trunk, we already expected the finished item to be large. Would you like to come with us? If you want to see it installed, we'll take you."

"Thank you for offering first. I was hoping to see the installation."

And while I was there, I could also look at Kim Gi-hun's face when he met the jangseung.

Oh Hyeon-seok isn't the building owner or guild master, so he should be free from the jangseung's chatter.

I smiled at him with satisfaction.

Just as the jangseung had said, the large guild members lifted it up.

[Wise Magistrate Great General Under Heaven is startled and calls for the village elder!]

At the notification, I hurriedly stopped them.

"You're going to the village that asked me to make you!"

I could feel puzzled gazes from beside me.

To everyone else, the item probably looked nothing but solemn and dignified.

Meanwhile, I looked like someone talking to an object.

I tried to hide my slightly flushed cheeks while waiting for the jangseung's response.

[Wise Magistrate Great General Under Heaven scolds the village elder, saying he should have been informed in advance that his posting was changing!]

[Wise Magistrate Great General Under Heaven clicks his tongue and says he hopes the new village elder has better manners!]

I pretended not to see it and nodded to the guild members.

No more notifications appeared after that.

Apparently, once it left the declared territory, it could no longer affect me.

I can't wait to see Guild Master Kim Gi-hun's expression.

He was about to gain an extremely talkative new companion.

Taepyeong Guild Vice Guild Master Oh Hyeon-seok watched the jangseung being installed at the main entrance of the guild.

Even while keeping an eye on Artist Do Hwa-in standing beside him, he couldn't stop staring at the item.

I never imagined it would be something like this....

Taepyeong Guild was a major guild.

Thanks to its aggressive members constantly clearing Gates, the guild received a large number of items.

And because they didn't auction off every item that came in, keeping plenty for guild events and internal use, most of them ended up stored in the guild warehouse.

I've seen plenty of Gate items, but never anything like that.

Because of the warehouse, Oh Hyeon-seok had personally examined an enormous number of items as vice guild master.

Many of them had been Gate items.

There probably weren't many people who had inspected such rare items as frequently as he had.

The Taepyeong Guild master barely ever went down to the warehouse because he was too busy punching monsters....

Why does he keep grappling with monsters anyway? Is he trying to show off that he used to do judo? I boxed before awakening, but I don't punch monsters with my bare hands.

...Anyway.

An S-Class production skill really was completely different.

He'd never seen a status window saying a Small Story had been embedded into an item.

And the effect itself was beyond imagination.

When he'd heard that the effect worked even on an A-Class Hunter, Oh Hyeon-seok had barely managed to stop himself from screaming.

At first, I was just cleaning up after the guild master....

And this was the result of that cleanup.

Not a single bit of the time, money, or materials they'd poured into Artist Do Hwa-in felt wasted anymore.

Goodbye to the days when I thought we'd permanently pissed off the world's only S-Class production-type Hunter. Get lost forever.

Oh Hyeon-seok celebrated internally while maintaining as calm an expression as possible.

If the guild master ever pissed off the crafter like that again, he swore he'd smack the back of Kim Gi-hun's head and seriously consider quitting for an entire hour.

That bastard thinks just because he fights monsters with his fists, everyone else in the guild should do the same! Damn him!

He was skillfully cursing his boss in his head when Kim Gi-hun appeared in the distance.

A faint sulkiness remained on his face.

What a pathetic bastard.

The moment their eyes met, Kim Gi-hun's shoulders flinched.

Before Oh Hyeon-seok had gone to apologize to Do Hwa-in, he'd breathed enough fire at the guild master that now Kim Gi-hun pretended to read the room every time their gazes met.

Tomorrow he'd probably regain his confidence and say,

We got the item and everything worked out, so isn't that enough?

"Ahem, ahem. Is this the security item?"

"Yes. Ah, Artist Do Hwa-in wanted to observe the installation, so he came with us."

Greet him first while I'm asking nicely.

Oh Hyeon-seok straightened his back and glanced sideways at the guild master.

"...It's been a while, Artist Do Hwa-in."

Artist Do's lips curved unevenly, one side rising higher than the other.

"Yes. It certainly has."

"I'm sorry about last time."

"Vice Guild Master Oh Hyeon-seok already apologized to me a long time ago."

Artist Do didn't say It's okay even once.

He simply cut off Kim Gi-hun's apology by saying he'd already received one.

The guild master must have seriously fallen out of his favor.

Not surprising.

Kim Gi-hun could be irritatingly stubborn.

Sometimes he even looked childish.

The guild master approached the jangseung and seemed to open its status window.

"Hm...?"

But his reaction was strangely odd.

Was it because of the Small Story?

Or the item rank being unusually low compared to its effect?

"Wise Magistrate Great General Under Heaven? But this isn't a village.... Wait, the item is talking to me...?"

Kim Gi-hun muttered several incomprehensible things in a row, then hurriedly looked for Artist Do.

Oh Hyeon-seok looked too.

Artist Do was silently laughing.

He looked deeply satisfied.

"...Think of him as a new member of the family. A gatekeeper and magistrate who only handles theft."

Not really like that.

That was literally what he was.

Even after I finished explaining Wise Magistrate Great General Under Heaven, Kim Gi-hun's expression remained strange.

When he finally spoke, his reaction was still awkward.

"An item like this... is possible?"

Judging by everyone else's reactions, I was probably the only person who could make one.

Especially considering how every veteran Hunter kept looking shocked.

If it were someone else asking, I might have shown a little humility.

But with Kim Gi-hun standing in front of me, I didn't feel like it.

"Well. I managed it."

"..."

"Effects created through Stories aren't simple skills. And as I'm sure you've already been told, the item's rank doesn't represent the rank of the effect either."

"...Then what does?"

"Well.... That's a trade secret."

I smiled brightly before adding,

"I accepted this commission because of Vice Guild Master Oh Hyeon-seok. I'm not sure what will happen next time."

"...!"

"No one knows the future, right? Maybe we'll build a good relationship. Maybe we won't."

I told them I should head home and stood up.

When I glanced back, Kim Gi-hun's shoulders were drooping miserably.

Wise Magistrate Great General Under Heaven said he wanted a polite village elder. He's going to have a hard time.

But what choice did Kim Gi-hun have?

If he wanted to use an item like that, he'd have to endure it.

"Is there no way to turn off these notifications? They're too distract... No, sorry. My apologies...."

I could have sworn I heard Kim Gi-hun apologizing to the jangseung from behind the already closed door.

Probably just my imagination.

I hummed quietly as I got into the car.

Then I checked the messages I'd missed on my phone.

Messages from Eom Seok-hwan.

From Seol Ga-hyeon.

A greeting from Shin Ha-gyeon for the first time in a while.

Yoon Jamok asking how Chaeri was doing.

Kim Sang-hyeon asking whether there were any particular guards I liked working with....

And among them was a message from an unfamiliar number.

[Hello, Crafter Do Hwa-in. I am a manager from the Hunter Association's External Cooperation Headquarters....]