Chapter 29
Dwarf Hephaestus (1)
Ever since the Cheorwon rift was closed, the entire world had been in an uproar.
It did not take long to identify the man captured in the photographs as someone named Lee Shin, but actually approaching him proved far more difficult.
“Find him no matter what!”
“America has to bring him over. Absolutely.”
“Treat him like a national treasure!”
Yet finding information about Lee Shin was absurdly difficult.
He did not even have a single social media account, and because he had dropped out of school and spent most of his time at home, the only acquaintance anyone could identify was Choi Bom.
There was simply nowhere for information to come from.
“Did this guy seriously do nothing but stay at home...?”
That was exactly right, though it was difficult for them to accept.
“It looks like Dawn handled things extremely thoroughly. Judging from this alone, he looks exactly like an unemployed guy in his twenties who spent all day lazing around at home doing nothing.”
“Damn it. They moved this fast?”
They tried to uncover his address somehow and approach him.
Some even considered using extreme methods.
Groups from China and the United States had gone so far as to devise plans to forcibly abduct Lee Shin and take him away.
Strangely, however, those operations began falling apart before they could even begin.
Those who set out with malicious intentions suffered traffic accidents along the way, had their navigation systems malfunction and send them endlessly around the same roads, or saw their flights grounded by freak weather.
Some even managed to overcome all of that and reach South Korea, only to be struck by lightning from a clear sky the moment they arrived and be rushed straight to the emergency room.
As incomprehensible incidents continued to occur, only those with genuinely harmless intentions remained among the people gathering near Lee Shin’s home.
“...Approach carefully.”
“What the hell is this? There’s no way our intelligence was leaked, and even if it was, is it really possible to selectively eliminate only the people involved in specific operations like this?”
“It’s not like he’s a god or something....”
And yet, the coincidences were far too precise to dismiss as chance.
Those who believed Lee Shin himself might be behind all of it eventually reached a single conclusion.
“Do not provoke him. If he can close a rift, we can’t even begin to estimate what level of Hunter he is. We must not judge him by our common sense. Under any circumstances.”
With events unfolding far beyond the realm of common sense, everyone eventually became cautious.
Then, not long afterward, Dawn Management held a press conference.
“Mr. Lee Shin, who closed the Cheorwon rift, reportedly expended a great deal of power to close just that one rift. He will need to rest for the time being. Once his strength recovers, he intends to work together with Dawn’s Hunter Seong Chan-yang to eliminate as many rifts from the world as possible.”
“Does that mean another S-Rank Hunter has been born?”
“His rank is not something we would dare attempt to assign. What we can say with certainty is that Mr. Lee Shin requires the assistance of other Hunters in order to close a rift, and that he intends to continue cooperating with them to prevent this disaster.”
“So he’s something like a closing pitcher?”
“Yes. That would be a reasonable comparison. Until now, countless players had to be rotated in endlessly to keep the game going. But now, humanity has finally gained a closer capable of ending the game itself.”
“My God....”
A closer who could shut rifts.
That was far more dramatic than the appearance of an S-Rank Hunter powerful enough to conquer a rift alone, or even the emergence of a top-tier otherworld explorer capable of supplying mythical items.
Since the beginning of the new millennium—
for the first time, humanity could see an end to this fight.
And while everyone was trembling with awe—
“As expected of our savior and one true god, sent down from the heavens to end this age of chaos! Please deliver this message to the great and noble Son of Heaven! Tell him that the Lee Shin Salvation Church has prepared everything to offer unto God!”
“What the hell? Who let the cultist in?”
“Get him out of here!”
Among the reporters, a middle-aged man with madness blazing in his eyes suddenly threw his arms wide and began shouting strange things.
The room erupted into murmurs.
Then, astonishingly, an official response came.
“...Actually, Mr. Lee Shin also left a message for the Lee Shin Salvation Church.”
“He said he is grateful for your fervent faith. He said that if you continue believing in him with unwavering devotion, it will help him save this world, and that one day your faith will be rewarded....”
“...??”
Everyone doubted their own ears.
This was real?
Not some hidden-camera prank?
It was already widely known that despite possessing extraordinary abilities, Lee Shin was ultimately still a young man in his twenties, so the reporters assumed the response was nothing more than a bit of playful teasing.
“Aaaaaaaah! My faith is overflowing!! Almighty God, protect me with your eternal light! Guide me with your holy wisdom, and when the road before me is wrapped in darkness, lead my soul with your sacred light! Almighty God, with your eternal light—”
“Get that bastard out of here!”
“Why is his voice so damn loud?!”
Everyone thought that way.
Everyone except one man.
Ding!
「The faith of your unofficial believers has increased.」
「Current Unofficial Believers: 2,771,398」
The Lee Shin Salvation Church.
The influence of the unofficial religion was steadily expanding.
***
Lee Shin’s position had now been announced through Dawn Management.
Rather than becoming a formal Hunter and taking the lead in suppressing rifts, he would focus his efforts on closing rifts that had already been stabilized.
From Lee Shin’s perspective, this seemed like the best approach.
Fighting for the peace of this world was certainly important, but countless Hunters were already doing that on the front lines.
There was something only Lee Shin could do.
[God, God!]
[Give me a hug!]
Something that no one but Lee Shin could accomplish.
‘If I’m not there, who’s going to take care of them?’
In the Cheorwon rift, a demon had been present, allowing True Justice to activate and grant him tremendous power.
But if there were no demon, then fighting the monsters would fall entirely to the believers from his small worlds.
If they did nothing but fight battle after battle, those worlds would never be able to develop.
With an enemy like the governor’s army already threatening them, Lee Shin did not want to turn the dwarves into machines that existed solely to wage war.
That was not the kind of world Lee Shin dreamed of creating.
‘The dinosaurs are still doing nothing but sleeping.’
The dinosaurs lounged lazily, grazing on grass. Once they had eaten it all, they would roll over once, causing their druidic authority to activate and the grass to sprout back up again.
They spent the entire day repeating the same cycle—eating and sleeping without ever getting up.
They certainly lived up to the name of their world.
But as Lee Shin watched them closely, a thought occurred to him.
‘...None of them are smiling.’
Blue Star had praised Lee Shin’s worlds because everyone there was smiling.
Yet in this paradise-like world Blue Star had created, not a single dinosaur seemed genuinely joyful or happy.
Why?
In such an abundant and peaceful place?
It seemed he would need more time to understand them.
For now, however—
[Infiltration complete!]
[Beginning reconnaissance!]
He had Small but Deadly World to worry about first.
“Faster! Keep working!”
Workshop No. 47 in Small but Deadly World.
Inside a building designed more like a prison than a workplace, countless dwarves repeated the same tasks over and over.
“It has to be done by next week. Meet the deadline.”
“How are we supposed to...?”
“We’ll have to lower the quality!”
“I don’t care. Just get it done. You think I need to care about your circumstances too? If you want to keep eating those shitty mud cookies, stop talking back and swing your hammers!”
The workshop had no windows.
The shackled dwarves lived under the control of other dwarves who had betrayed their own kind to survive and pledged loyalty to the governor.
“You brought this on yourselves. If you want to blame someone, blame those bastards who escaped the workshops and rebelled against us. If they hadn’t pissed off the governor, you wouldn’t be getting worked like this. They were even planning to allow banquets and festivals originally. None of this would’ve happened if not for that, got it?”
“If you’d just behaved and obeyed, they would’ve loosened things up and made life comfortable enough. This is why ignorant fools are hopeless. Tsk!”
“By the dwarves... how could you possibly say that? You must have lost family to those giants too. You must have lost the precious place where you lived. How can you exploit your own people like this?”
An elderly dwarf trembled as he spoke.
The answer came immediately.
“I didn’t lose anyone. My parents and my older brother all live in the residential district. We switched sides the moment the war broke out and got honorary citizenship. Smart dwarves survive. Haven’t you heard of natural selection? Old, ignorant dwarves like you are better off dying here while swinging hammers. It’s better for the world.”
“You’ll be punished by heaven... you will....”
“Puhahaha! Divine punishment? That god you people keep begging for? Didn’t he get scared and run the moment the governor arrived? The last priest got tied to a stake and burned to death ages ago. A dwarf blessed by flame burning to death—how ridiculous is that? Puhahahahaha!”
Tears welled in the old dwarf’s eyes.
“What will you do when we’re liberated? What will you do when the God of Small Things returns, drives out the governor, and the dwarves regain their independence?”
“Liberated? What a joke. You people can never defeat the governor. Besides, thanks to them, your technology has advanced and you’ve been able to accept a superior civilization. Tsk, tsk. You don’t even understand that?”
“...Dwarven technology was once the greatest even in the Worlds of the Stars. They didn’t bring us a superior civilization. They joined hands with evil gods, ruined our world, dismantled it piece by piece, and turned the entire world into a factory. How can another dwarf fail to understand that...?”
“God, you never shut up!”
Thud!
The supervisor kicked the old dwarf in the stomach.
His small body lifted off the ground and flew backward. He clutched his belly, groaning and sobbing.
Whether the tears came from the pain of the blow or from the unbearable injustice of the situation was impossible to tell.
“Whatever. Figure it out yourselves, assholes!”
Bang!
The supervisor slammed the door and left.
The dwarves working nearby immediately crowded around the old man.
They all looked worried.
“Sir, are you all right?”
“That damn bastard....”
“I’m... fine. Everyone... go back to work. If we go hungry again... it’ll be hard to endure.”
The elderly dwarf forced the words out.
Then another dwarf who resembled him approached.
“I really can’t take this anymore, Grandpa.”
“Hephaestus....”
“Why do those idiots who don’t even understand specialized techniques get treated well, while you—the greatest craftsman—and the rest of us are forced to do inferior repetitive work that dwarves abandoned hundreds of years ago? Why are dwarves being forced to work for the very people who ruined our lives and destroyed our world?”
The old dwarf’s grandson, Hephaestus.
Unable to suppress his grief any longer, he continued.
“Where is the God of Small Things who was supposed to always protect us? Where is the glorious Order of Steel Knights that once defended the cities of craftsmen?”
“Chichi turned ten last week, and she died of dust sickness. She coughed every day in this windowless workshop. But yesterday... I stopped hearing her cough. Three days ago, Gemini died too. He used to save his mud cookies for his little brother. He died burning with fever.”
“....”
“Why did the world become like this, Grandpa?”
No one could answer the young dwarf’s grief.
Not his grandfather.
Not any of the shackled dwarves working around them.
Silence filled the workshop.
Then—
Boom!
A sound came from the tightly shut door.
Everyone turned toward it.
Boom!
Another impact.
Then once more—
BOOM!
The iron door shattered apart, and the supervisor who had swaggered out moments earlier came flying back inside, covered in blood.
And from outside entered dwarves whose star-shaped pupils gleamed brightly.
They were clad from head to toe in shining plate armor.
The elderly dwarf, who had been breathing with difficulty, suddenly opened his eyes wide.
His mouth fell open.
His voice trembled.
“...The knights.”
“What?”
“The Order of Steel Knights... has returned.”
One of the armored dwarves raised a hand high into the air.
“Brothers and sisters! You are free!”
At that moment, a brilliant light descended.
As the light fell, every dwarf working in Workshop No. 47 looked up toward the sky.
Creeeak—
The suffocating ceiling broke apart.
For the first time in what felt like forever, they saw the blue sky.
A dazzling sun hung above them.
And there was something else there as well.
A presence that overwhelmed even the sun itself.
“The God of Small Things has returned!”
The scouts—the paladins of Lee Shin—did not even need to shout those electrifying words.
The moment the dwarves saw the sky, their very souls were already crying out.
Their god had returned.
And—
「A ‘Hero Candidate’ has been discovered!」
Just as they looked upon their god—
their god was also looking upon them.
「Last Successor of the Eternal Flame」
「Name: Hephaestus」
「Class: Flame Blacksmith」
「Soul Grade: Common」
「Overall Assessment: The final successor of the forgotten ‘Flame Blacksmiths.’ In the past, it was through their hands that items of myth ceased to exist only in legend and appeared in reality. Only one descendant now remains of the greatest blacksmiths, those who once forged miracles from flame and steel.
Yet even if only an ember remains, an ember is still flame. If this ember is nurtured instead of being allowed to die out, then just as in the most glorious age, the flames of the dwarves will blaze brightly enough to illuminate the entire Worlds of the Stars.」
「This soul is a Hero Candidate.」
「A puzzle piece for a ruined world has been found.」
「Collected Pieces: (1/4)」