A few days later, Jin-ah woke to the sound of clanking. Loud. Rhythmic. Metal hitting metal.
Clank! Clank!
She sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes. The morning light was still grey. She had not slept this late in days.
Clank!
Another clank echoed from outside.
She got up, pulled on her tunic, and walked through the main room. The front door was open. She stepped out.
Gaon stood in the middle of the clearing, stripped to the waist. Sweat ran down his back. His muscles—lean—tensed with each swing of a hammer against a lump of dark metal resting on a flat stone. A small fire burned beside him, glowing red in the dawn light. A pile of rusted scraps lay nearby: broken hinges, twisted nails, a cracked pot.
She walked closer, her bare feet cold on the grass.
"Where did you get all this? What are you doing?"
Gaon did not stop hammering. His voice came out between swings.
"Making an iron bar. It won't be pure. But at least it'll look like an iron bar."
Jin-ah tilted her head. "What is that? And how?"
He paused to wipe sweat from his forehead with the back of his wrist.
"Took some rusty old metal from the ruins of destroyed houses down the valley. The ones that collapsed years ago. Nobody wants them. So I took the scraps." He pointed at the fire. "Heat it. Hit it. Fold it. Heat it again." He lifted the hammer. "Trying to make something useful."
She watched him swing again. Sparks flew.
He works like he has done this before, she thought. But his hands are still soft.
Gaon caught her staring. "Go eat something. There's leftover porridge inside."
She nodded but did not move. She kept watching the metal glow and flatten under his strikes, thinking that maybe he was trying to build more than just a bar of iron.
He stopped for a moment, closed his eyes, and his body tensed. The muscles along his arms and shoulders swelled. His back straightened. His jaw tightened. Then he raised the hammer and brought it down again. Harder. Faster. The metal screamed under each strike.
Jin-ah watched from a few feet away, arms wrapped around herself.
"Gaon," she called out.
He did not stop hammering.
"What is your power? I keep wondering. I've been watching you. You don't have overflow ki like what I felt. But you have something else. Something massive. The external force you use it never runs out. It just keeps coming."
Gaon's hammer paused in the air for a moment. Then he brought it down again.
"I have a power," he said, "that matches the enemy. Or the opposite." He struck the metal again. "If someone tries to attack me, and they're two times stronger than me, then I become three times stronger than them."
He did not look at her.
He did not want to tell her the truth that Titan's Mantle was his secret. His only real advantage. If people knew it was just a borrowed power a scaling trick with a weak body underneath he would lose everything.
Jin-ah tilted her head. "Even anyone?"
He kept hitting the metal. Sparks flew.
"Everyone and everything."
She stood there for a long moment, watching the muscles in his back shift with each swing. Then she nodded to herself, believing him completely.
"That's amazing," she said quietly.
Gaon said nothing. He just kept hammering, the iron glowing red between his strikes, his lie hanging in the air between them like the smoke from his fire.
Her eyes drifted to the side of the clearing. A dirty sword leaned against the old woodpile, rusted, the grip wrapped in fraying cloth. One of the scraps Gaon had collected from the ruins, probably.
She walked over and picked it up. The weight surprised her. Heavier than she expected.
Gaon glanced at her between hammer strikes. "You can try to swing it if you want. Your body seems okay now. Not as weak as before."
She looked at the blade, then at him. A small smile appeared on her face.
"Thank you."
She held the sword with both hands and gave it a slow swing. The blade cut through the air with a dull whoosh. Not graceful. Not powerful. But her arms did not tremble. Her wrists did not give way. A month ago, she could not have lifted it at all.
She swung again. Then once more.
After a moment, she lowered the sword and leaned it back against the woodpile. The smile stayed on her face as she turned and walked toward the hut.
Gaon watched her go. The door closed behind her.
He raised his hammer and brought it down on the glowing metal again, the clang echoing through the clearing.
***
An hour later, she sat inside with her eyes closed, legs crossed. The meditation was becoming easier. The small flame inside her the one that had sparked when the needles went in flickered steadily now, no longer threatening to go out.
Outside, Gaon set the hammer down. The iron bar lay on the flat stone, dark grey and misshapen but solid. Not pretty. Not pure. But it was metal, and someone would buy it.
He picked up a cloth and wiped the sweat from his chest and arms. The morning had been hot, and his skin was slick. He pulled his tunic back on and tied the sash at his waist.
He walked to the door and leaned inside.
"I'm going to sell the iron. You come with me."
Jin-ah opened her eyes. Her hands rested on her knees.
"Is it okay?" she asked. "What if someone knows me? What if they came from the Dig?"
Gaon thought for a moment. Then he stepped into the room and walked to the wooden cabinet. He pulled open the bottom drawer and took out a piece of dark cloth an old sleeve he had cut from a ruined robe months ago.
Sruk.
He tossed it to her.
"Wear this over your mouth. And put on a cloak. There's one hanging by the door. It's too big for you, but it'll cover your body."
She caught the cloth and looked at it. Then she nodded.
He turned and walked back outside to wrap the iron bar in a thick rag. When he looked up, Jin-ah stood in the doorway. The cloak swallowed her small frame, the hood pulled low. The dark cloth covered her face from the nose down.
"No one will know you," Gaon said. "Let's go."
They reached the city just before noon.
Hwagok. His birthplace. The streets were crowded merchants shouting, children running between legs, the smell of grilled fish and fresh bread hanging in the air. Gaon walked through the main gate without stopping, the leather bag with the iron bar slung over one shoulder. The weight pulled at his arm, but he did not slow.
Jin-ah stayed close. Her small hand gripped the back of his tunic, fingers curled tight into the fabric. Her hood was up. The dark cloth covered her mouth. Only her eyes moved, darting left and right at the unfamiliar faces.
Gaon glanced down at her. Then he reached back with his free hand, gently took her wrist, and pulled her arm forward. He looped it through his own, so she was holding his arm instead of his shirt.
"Like this," he said. "Stay close but walk straight. Don't look down."
She nodded, her fingers wrapping around his forearm. The cloak hid most of her, but he could feel her trembling slightly.
He shifted the leather bag to his other hand and kept walking toward the market.
He walked through the market and stopped in front of a two-story building with a wooden sign hanging above the door. The sign read Hwagok Iron & Weaponry in bold black strokes. This was the main merchant for blacksmiths and martial artists in the city where weapons were sold, iron was traded, and repairs were commissioned.
Gaon pushed the door open. A bell chimed above his head.
Inside, the air smelled of coal smoke and oil. Weapons hung on the walls swords, spears, a few axes. In the back, a large counter separated the showroom from the workshop. Behind the counter stood a broad-shouldered man with a grey beard and thick arms. His name was Manager Choi.
Choi looked up from a ledger. His eyes narrowed, then widened.
"Well, well. The clerk's son." He set down his brush. "Yeon Gaon. Been a while. Your father still doing ledgers for the merchants?"
Gaon nodded. "Yes, sir. I think he's well."
Choi's eyes moved to the cloaked figure clinging to Gaon's arm. He raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
"So," Choi said, leaning on the counter. "You come back to Hwagok from mountains. What are you selling?"
Gaon lifted the leather bag onto the counter. The wood groaned underweight. He untied the cloth and pulled out the iron bar dark, rough, but solid. No rust. No cracks.
Choi picked it up, turned it over in his calloused hands, and tapped it with a small hammer. The bar rang with a clean note.
"Not bad," Choi muttered. "Not pure. But not bad. Where did you get this?"
"Made it myself," Gaon said. "From scraps. Melted them down in a furnace I built."
Choi looked at him for a long moment. Then he laughed.
"A clerk's son, melting iron in the mountains." He shook his head. "I'll give you fifteen copper coins for it."
Gaon did not blink. "Thirty."
"Twenty."
"Twenty-five and I'll bring you another one next week."
Choi stared at him. Then he grunted and reached under the counter for a small leather pouch. He counted out twenty-five copper coins and slid them across the wood.
"You drive a hard bargain for a boy," Choi said. "Next week. Same time. Don't be late."
Gaon took the pouch, tied it to his belt, and bowed. Jin-ah bowed beside him, her hood still low.
They walked out of the shop, the bell chiming behind them.
Choi watched them leave, as the door swung shut he picked up the iron bar again, turning it over in his hands.
For a kid his age to make this... not bad. At least he didn't bring me rusty scrap from some corrupt vendor.
He set the bar down and glanced at the door.
And who was that kid in the cloak? Didn't say a word. Strange.
He shrugged and went back to his ledger.
***
Outside, Gaon led Jin-ah through the crowded market toward the food section. Stalls lined both sides of the street vegetables, grains, dried fish, hanging meat. The smells mixed together: sesame oil, fermented soy, fresh bread.
He stopped at a rice merchant's stall. A fat woman with a kind face sat behind sacks of white and brown rice.
"How much for three pounds of white rice?" Gaon asked.
"Eight copper."
He nodded and handed over the coins. The woman scooped the rice into a cloth bag and tied it with twine.
Next, an egg vendor. A thin old man with a straw hat sat beside baskets of brown eggs.
"Six eggs?"
"Three copper."
Gaon paid. The eggs went into a separate cloth pouch, wrapped carefully so they would not crack.
Jin-ah watched everything from beneath her hood. Her arm was still looped through his. She said nothing, but her eyes followed the food as if she had never seen so much of it in one place.
Gaon tucked the rice and eggs into his leather bag, now empty of the iron bar.
"Enough for now," he said. "Let's go home."
To Be Continued.