Thirty thousand Normal-grade minerals would be supplied every month at cost.
Takashi knew exactly what kind of synergy that would create.
It looks as though the kingdom is taking a loss, but it isn’t.
The nation of Hyun was a nation of blacksmiths.
The more they practiced, the better the things they made would become.
And once they were able to forge even Rare-grade items, the name Brand Hyun would begin to be attached to them.
The amount of tax revenue that came in from goods sold under the Hyun name was enormous.
“Each month, around 300 Rare, around 50 Epic, and about 5 Unique will be supplied as well.”
It was the sort of amount that would normally last a lifetime, arriving every single month.
Takashi asked the question with simple sincerity.
“What do you think would be the best way to use them?”
Takashi was someone who taught blacksmiths. He had little interest in how a kingdom was run or what direction it took.
And seeing Hyunsoo bring in such an immense quantity of minerals filled him with anticipation.
“I would like all of these special-grade minerals to be distributed to the finest blacksmiths.”
“But...”
Takashi looked concerned.
“There are far more blacksmiths below them than there are blacksmiths above them. Would it really be all right to grant such preferential treatment?”
Hyunsoo smiled as if there were no problem at all.
“On the contrary, I think it will produce even greater growth. If special minerals are given to the outstanding blacksmiths, then the blacksmiths below them will start thinking that if they grow enough to reach that level too, they’ll be supplied with them as well.”
In other words, it was a matter of motivation.
Hyunsoo had not been thinking only about taxes and supply.
“The excellent arms and armor forged by those blacksmiths will be supplied immediately to the finest soldiers and knights among us. Those soldiers and knights will be people selected by Borne, Luxiu, Bella, and the others.”
Takashi was startled.
“...So you mean to create an elite corps in the nation of Hyun as well?”
“That’s right. Every nation has an army that represents it. But ours will be even more special. Borne, Luxiu, Bella, Akao, and the others all train people according to their own strengths, characteristics, and methods. If the soldiers and knights selected from among them are armed with Rare-grade or better artifacts, they won’t fall behind any elite corps from any other nation.”
“...That is certainly true.”
It would be a corps in which everything was perfect.
In Takashi’s mind, he could already see them crushing the elite corps of enemy nations.
More than that—
Takashi simply watched Hyunsoo with affectionate eyes as the boy talked on with childlike excitement.
The boy who had once been as small as his grandson Aoi had somehow grown steady and dependable, and was still continuing to grow. That alone made Takashi happy too.
I need to push myself further as well.
What made Takashi happiest was that looking at Hyunsoo made him feel he needed to put even more strength into guiding the blacksmiths.
And there was another reason Hyunsoo had come to see Takashi.
He shared the quest that had been triggered when he became king.
[Kingdom Quest: National Treasure]
[Grade: SS]
[Restriction: First King]
[Reward: ???]
[Failure Penalty: the citizens’ disappointment]
[Description: Every nation naturally possesses at least one symbolic thing that represents it. Please designate such a symbol and have it evaluated.]
Takashi understood why Hyunsoo had shared it with him.
“You intend to designate an artifact, something fitting for a nation of blacksmiths.”
Takashi had seen straight through it.
“I don’t know what I should make.”
That was the reason Hyunsoo had come.
“Something that symbolizes a nation is important. And if the king himself uses that national treasure, its effect will be doubled.”
“That’s exactly why I’m troubled. At first, I thought about forging a sword that would suit a king. But I already have the Sword for the One Who Follows the King that you made for me, and I’ve already made too many swords. I considered armor too, but I decided that wasn’t quite right either.”
“Because the Overlord’s Armor Set you’re wearing is excellent as well, yes?”
Takashi smiled faintly as he looked at Hyunsoo deep in thought.
“Should you not simply think about what suits you best, and what suits blacksmiths best as well? It is the treasure of a nation of blacksmiths, after all.”
The treasure of a nation of blacksmiths had to feel like a blacksmith’s treasure.
That advice eased the weight on Hyunsoo’s mind a little.
But even so, choosing just one thing was not easy.
At times like this...
Whenever his thoughts became tangled, Hyunsoo always went somewhere.
He decided he would rather think it through there.
[You have logged out.]
The place Hyunsoo arrived at after stepping out ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) of the capsule—
was the rebuilt forge.
Just a few years ago, this forge had been filled with nothing but blackened scorch marks and the traces of that accident strewn across the floor.
Whenever Hyunsoo had something he needed to think through deeply, he would come to this forge he had rebuilt with his own hands.
He sat down in a chair and sank into thought.
It has to represent what it means to be a blacksmith, and it has to remain in history for ages. Swords and bows are out. Armor isn’t right either.
Whatever he chose, he could secure the materials.
If he used the points he had accumulated in the Tower of Honor, he could draw whatever Transcendent materials he wanted.
Then Hyunsoo’s gaze stopped in one place.
There was a display case there.
Unlike the brand-new tools around it, that display case also held tools that were very old and blackened with soot.
An anvil, tongs, hammers, and many others.
Among them, Hyunsoo picked up one hammer.
The wooden handle had burned away completely and was blackened.
It was the hammer his father had given him as a gift the year he turned fifteen.
“This is a gift to tell you that I recognize you as a blacksmith.”
He remembered how happy he had been when he received it.
He also remembered this hammer lying all alone on the floor after his father had fallen into a vegetative state and he had returned to the forge.
“...I’ve decided.”
Hyunsoo tightened his grip around the hammer and made up his mind.
“There’s nothing else.”
As he held it, his chest flared like wildfire.
Something that symbolized a blacksmith without being a weapon.
And something symbolic enough to represent a nation of blacksmiths.
[You have connected to Ares.]
What he wanted to make was the tool often called the heart of a blacksmith.
He pulled out the thing he normally used from his inventory.
That thing was—
a hammer.
Hyunsoo began to draw up the design for it.
And although he did not know it yet, his choice to make a hammer was an outstanding one, even before it became the symbol of his kingdom.
*****
Special User Management Team.
Lately, Team Lead Kim and Associate Lee Jihee had stopped monitoring Hyunsoo directly and had been focusing instead on newly rising powerhouse users, so the fact that they were startled now was rare.
A blacksmith making a hammer to use for life—
that, in itself, was only natural.
So why were they so shocked?
The answer lay in the hammer Hyunsoo had been using all this time.
“Associate Lee Jihee, pull up the information on the hammer User Hyunsoo normally uses.”
“Yes.”
(Smith’s Hammer)
Grade: Normal
Durability: 500/500
Attack Power: 43
Restriction: None
Special Abilities:
· Dexterity +3
Description: The hammer used by Smith, a blacksmith in the beginner zone.
The moment they saw it, Lee Jihee and Team Lead Kim fell speechless.
The first reason:
“With a hammer like this, he made everything he’s made until now?”
The second reason:
“No, wait. Did he not know how important a hammer was?”
Shock and bafflement existed side by side.
At that moment, Sejin, who had been listening to the conversation from behind them, appeared.
“Even if he didn’t know, I wonder whether that is really something worth criticizing. And did User Hyunsoo truly not know?”
The two looked puzzled.
Was he not only now making the hammer he would personally use, a hammer that would also become the symbol of his nation?
“In my view, making it now is what suits best.”
Team Lead Kim and Lee Jihee struggled to grasp what Sejin meant.
Then they understood.
“...Everything is better now than it was in the past.”
“It is.”
When Hyunsoo first began Ares, the amount of superior minerals available to him had been limited.
In practical terms, Hyunsoo’s skill itself had not yet fully ripened.
That was because he had spent years away from blacksmithing.
But now, the situation was completely different.
Everything had reached maturity.
He now possessed superb materials, skill, titles, and overwhelming power beyond the Dexterity stat alone.
Looking at the monitor, Sejin found this thought rising.
I’ve seen truly extraordinary weapons in this land—swords, bows, spears, and all the rest.
Sejin knew many of the artifacts owned by the best users in Ares.
But among them, there had never been an artifact called a hammer.
That was why Sejin found the idea of this “blacksmith’s heart” so exciting.
Then another thought occurred.
It isn’t only Hyunsoo wielding an exceptional hammer that I should be looking forward to.
The beginning of Hyunsoo’s idea to make a blacksmith’s heart had come from a quest.
And that quest had clearly said this:
Please have it evaluated.
Ordinarily, one might think that meant evaluation by the system.
But that isn’t the truth. There is a separate examiner.
A king had to be special.
A king had to demonstrate and prove ability, and a kingdom had to possess qualifications.
The being that verified those qualifications was what was called an examiner.
What did an examiner do?
Literally, an examiner assessed and evaluated everything about a kingdom.
And in the end, even the item designated as its treasure was subject to that evaluation.
If the evaluation was failed, the kingdom’s qualification could even be stripped away.
It was not Sejin who had built such a system into Ares.
It was the Ares supercomputer itself.
In its earliest days, Ares had judged that there could be those who became kings through immoral means.
Of course, examiners revoked a kingdom’s qualifications only in the very worst cases.
Only when the situation was truly absurd.
Leaving behind the Special User Management Team, now utterly absorbed in studying Hyunsoo’s design drawings, Sejin returned to the office.
Soon, a notification rose on the monitor.
[Examiner Purung awakens to evaluate qualifications.]
“...Purung?”
Hearing the name Purung, Sejin was startled.
Purung was the most demanding examiner.
Purung was also the only examiner who had volunteered for the role.
The problem was that Purung was far too exacting, and because that came from the NPC’s personal disposition, Pureum could not control it.
As someone who volunteered to become an examiner, Purung holds deep contempt and hatred toward unqualified kings.
Sejin soon realized why Purung, the highest-ranked examiner, had awakened.
Hyun King.
That was because Hyunsoo was a king who had been born together with a grand epithet the moment he became king.
Then Sejin remembered the king Purung had once served, and goosebumps rose all over.
Is this fate, or ill fate?
At present, Sejin did not know what kind of connection this would prove to be.
But Sejin did know the identity of the king Purung had once served.
The Overlord.
*****
A quiet forest.
“If one lacks the qualifications, kingship must be stripped away.”
That was Examiner Purung’s signature line.
It was also a declaration of the examiner’s arrival, and of Purung’s iron determination to judge a king’s worth.
Awakening amid thousands of fragments of light, Purung smiled faintly at the sweetness of breathing air again for the first time in a very long while.
And Purung liked the line just spoken.
You were unworthy. Just like you, the unworthy bring nothing but pain to their people and retainers. If one lacks the qualifications, kingship must be stripped away.
Thinking of the king once served, Purung ground his teeth.
Information on the one to be examined was soon poured into Purung, newly awakened after hundreds of years.
Blacksmith.
Hyun King.
Purung was taken aback.
A blacksmith gained an epithet the moment he became king?
As far as Purung knew, there had never been such a case.
Purung now understood why this awakening had happened.
Reaching out, Purung took hold of the Sword of Judgment descending from the sky.
The more the assessment gauge within that sword filled, the more clearly it revealed whether its target was truly fit to be king.
Of course, Purung’s own thoughts and judgment were reflected in it as well.
I’ll have to examine him thoroughly.
By Purung’s standards, gaining an epithet immediately was no ordinary matter.
As Purung walked, a carriage soon came into view.
“Where is this headed?”
“To Atlas, capital of the nation of Hyun.”
Purung was just about to climb aboard when realization struck.
I have no money.
It did not matter.
Purung could wield the power of a Legendary being.
Having become an examiner, Purung had received the blessing of Ares and grown even stronger.
With such a superhuman body, Purung could simply walk there.
At that moment—
“Get in. I’ll cover it.”
A rough old man’s voice rang out.
Purung climbed into the carriage.
Purung was neither a good person nor an evil one.
Purung was simply the sort who despised kings who were nothing more than ordinary people.
There were three men in shabby robes already inside the carriage.
At the center sat a gaunt old man.
To the left sat a giant man with a body like forged steel.
To the right sat a man wearing the thumb guard used by archers.
Purung introduced himself.
“Thank you for the fare. My name is Purung.”
They introduced themselves as well.
“Ben.”
“Barad.”
“Antro.”
The carriage carrying the four of them set out for Atlas.
