Requiem Of A Failed Hero

"Ha ha ha... that is one hell of an expensive joke." Mok Jae Hwa pointed out, laughing sheepishly.

His laugh came to a lame end when he saw that Raith still had that blank expression of his own.

"Ah, right! You said you wanted to see Dong-Hyun"

He needed to avert the topic in order to escape the situation and this was just the perfect thing to do.

Raith nodded and looked back at the two: cat and dog who have been silent since he entered.

"Shin-Hye this is Hunter Raven. Korea's Catastrophe rank hunter whom you wanted to see so badly, how come you are not saying anything now that you are seeing him?" Mok Jae-Hwa spoke, his words sounded sincere but his tone was clearly mocking his girlfriend's cocky attitude.

"Hello"

Raith greeted them, bowing his head a little.

"Ha– h-hi" Her reply was a bit retarded but she replied anyway. Seong Nara was unable to say anything, she just stood and averted his gaze away from him.

'...I feel an aura of death from her...' Raith glanced at Shin-Hye again.

"Then we should head to the smithy." Mok Jae-Hwa suggested and led Raith out of the room.

Immediately the door shot close, it was as though the heavy pressure that was hanging on the atmosphere suddenly dropped to the ground, Seong Nara dropped to her feet.

'No way, is that really a catastrophe rank?'

The semblance that surrounded Raith was one that she had never felt before, apart from Seong Nara's extraordinary affinity for ice, she was also known to be supersensitive, hence that was why Mok Jae-Hwa was enjoying it so much.

It was not just Raith's presence that pressured her, it was the endless sea of darkness as she stared at him that lost her, it was as if she was trying to find her senses that were drowning in an expanse of a certain sea of darkness.

...

Even though Raith had been here before, he was still lost in the magnificent sight of this place. This time around, there were a lot of clanging sounds of metal as if a large number of people were working on something. No matter how much Raith tried to mind his business, he just couldn't avoid asking.

"Is there a special occasion?"

Mok Jae-Hwa with his lively eyes, as usual, looked around before realizing Raith's question. "Oh, this? Ah, yes... there's this mass production we are working on." He had gotten so used to the sound of the smithy that it had become normal for him, hence, causing him not to immediately figure out that Raith was asking due to the several sounds of metal hitting metal.

Finally, they entered a chamber, an enclosed office without a window, and was dark, almost looking like a separated space from the underground smithy.

clang

clang

clang

clang

Raith paused as he saw the sparkling light that escaped every time the metallic sound was produced. If not for his [darkvision] there's no way he would have known someone was inside the dark, without any light was hammering a metal.

Raith's eyes widened, 'How is he even able to do that in the dark."

The hammer kept hitting the same point, apart from the fact that the room was totally dark, another amazing thing was that with the enormous sparks of light that each hit exuded, the person hammering was not wearing any facial protection, and also wasn't backing away from the sparks fly.

It was truly commendable, each strike was impressive.

'No, matter what direction they came from, no matter the direction he threw his hand upward to, when it is coming down it arrives at the same point.' Raith rubbed his chin as he observed a bit more.

'...If I could apply this principle to my sword fight. I wonder if it will make any significant difference.' Unbeknownst to Raith, he was already becoming a swordsmanship fanatic.

"Isn't it amazing?" Mok Jae-Hwa commented with a proud expression, his gaze standing high as the both of them from the entrance of the dark room, watched Dong-Hyun super focused on what he was doing.

'Right... he's still here.' Raith had been so busy with his thoughts that he had forgotten that Mok Jae-Hwa was right beside him.

In that split two minutes, he had run hundreds of simulations in his head trying to picture how the swordplay would turn out if he tried to adopt what Dong-Hyun was doing.

"What the hell are you two doing here?" Dong-Hyun asked, standing in front of them.

'Eh?' Raith's eyes widened, 'When did the hammer stop?' He questioned himself. This time, he couldn't tell if he was the one that was immersed in his thoughts or if there was more to Dong-Hyun than meets the eye. After all, the sequential time flow of the hammering sound was the time measurement he used for his simulations. By the time the hammer strikes down the hot metal on the anvil, his sword was diving deep into his opponent.

"Ah, ah, ah... Dong-Hyun, you don't need to be that harsh. Hunter Raven here said he wanted to see you about something." Mok Jae-Hwa said, looking at Raith.

Dong-Hyun also turned his gaze to Raith, "I hear you are now a catastrophe rank hunter. Well, congratulations... do our guild well. You do know that our guild president almost died trying to protect your ass that ran away after fighting with Turner," The macho man said to Raith, glaring up at him.

Dong-Hyun was not short but he wasn't tall either.

"Ah, ah. Dong-Hyun, you don't need to be like that. You know I would have done that for anyone." Mok Jae-Hwa said, warding off Dong-Hyun's aggressive approach to Raith.

"Whatever. What are you here for?" His eyes stayed on Raith who stretched forth a black-sheathed sword.

The blacksmith Instinctively stuttered backward as he saw what it was, "Are you crazy? What do you think you are doing?!" He snarled at Raith.

"It's broken" Raith stated, looking down at the sword.

"Huh? I didn't catch that." Dong-Hyun re-composed himself and moved closer to Raith but wasn't as close as he used to be before.

"I said, it broke?" Raith repeated.

The man tilted his head with a frown, his face was saying they seriously can't believe whatever was before them.

"Are you kidding me? You broke that demonic sword?!!"

Raith looked at the sword again, "Well, logically speaking... I was not the one that broke it. But the person I was fighting with."

"What Turner?!"

Raith was getting fed up, '...since I can't tell him about Briceus, so we can just go with this.'

"What that is impossible! I watched your fight with Turner. You didn't use a sword."

'Oh just great, now how do I cover this up' Raith's eyes narrowed, "You watched it?"

"There was a satellite footage of the two of you. But it was nothing significant and is Korean property, we will never let Turner see it, to prevent him from knowing your abilities." Mok Jae-Hwa assured him.

"I don't care..." '...I didn't even use my abilities' "...what I want is the footage" Raith said to them.

"Oh, no problem then." Mok Jae-Hwa responded.

"So will you tell me how you broke the demonic sword?" Dong-Hyun pressed.

Raith averted his gaze from him and looked to his side– there was nothing at his side. It was a dumb way to ignore someone.

"So you are not going to say huh? Then I'm not going to touch that thing."

"Ha! Dong-Hyun-ssi, don't do that. I'm sure Hunter Raven has his reasons for not wanting to speak. But if he came here that means he is confident in your skills, isn't that development, it's good news right?!" Mok Jae-Hwa exclaimed with a radiant expression.

He was very talented at cajoling Tae Dong-Hyun.

The blacksmith stared at Raith for a few more seconds before finally speaking:

"Let's get out of here." He said and led them out of the dark room to another chamber that was pure white with white led bulbs.

A long white platform sat in the middle of the room with numerous led lights shining down on the platform, it was in a way like a surgical operating room.

"Put it there." Dong-Hyun requested, carefully looking at Raith who in response stepped forward and removed the sword from its sheath and spread all the broken parts on the white table.

Raith sighed as he looked at the broken blades, he remembered how the broken swords came back to find him–

After his fight with Briceus, he passed out and woke up in the hospital. He forgot the broken sword in Briceus' hideout but after his fight with Briceus that he was taken to a monster valley by the abyss because he passed a trial without failing. The sword came to his rescue even though it was shattered, it flew through distance– he couldn't tell how that was even possible but what Raith knew was that the broken sword and all the broken parts were tearing through monsters on their own.

That was why he had ended up growing an increased fondness for the sword. And he wanted to repair it.

"So would you be able to make him whole again?"

He had even started personifying the sword.