Chapter 26
“Meteorite ash? You want me to find that?”
“You don’t have it?”
“It’s not that I don’t, but why would you ask for something so useless that nobody ever wants it?”
Choi Jooman clicked his tongue as he asked.
“I have a use for it.”
“Hm… wait here a moment.”
He rummaged through the back of the warehouse and came out with a dusty face, carrying a sack.
“This one?”
“Yes, that’s it. I don’t know what you’ll use it for, but just take it. We thought we’d find a buyer someday, so we accepted it, but it turned into dead stock and just sat in the warehouse.”
Meteorite ash.
An abandoned item that no one touched.
It mostly dropped in Abyss dungeons of grade A or higher, but no one ever picked it up.
There was only one reason:
As Choi Jooman said—it was useless.
In the early days of the Great Descent, many people put the ash into their bags, wondering if it might have some purpose.
Alchemists, sorcerers, countless heroes, and even gods researched it over and over, but the conclusion was always the same.
“It’s useless everywhere.”
It resisted item synthesis, caused strange chemical reactions in forging, and made trouble wherever it was applied.
So much so that keeping it in your bag would earn you the title of lunatic.
Naturally, Choi Jooman looked at me like I was some kind of weirdo.
I opened the pouch containing the ash.
A faint acrid smell rose, and pale gray ash filled the sack.
I reached inside and touched it lightly.
The texture was grainy, like sharp little crystals.
Sharp enough that my fingers almost pricked.
“The item is genuine.”
“And what are you planning to use it for?”
“Curiosity. I want to see for myself why it’s useless and whether it really can’t be used at all.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
There was no need to tell him more.
No reason to risk becoming a suspect.
Because this meteorite ash would play a key role in the攻略 of Hephaestus.
An item that nobody wanted was about to become crucial to me.
“Thanks for the goods.”
“I should be the one thanking you, for clearing out dead stock.”
As I strapped the pouch to my belt, Choi Jooman looked over the other goods I had pulled out of Kybisis and asked,
“But you’re really selling all these things?”
“Yes. I plan to sell them all.”
They were gifts I’d received from Gunther after defeating Siegfried.
Sandals of the Norse Vikings that gave vigor just by wearing them, a dwarf’s beard, a Viking helmet, and all sorts of rare materials.
Everything except Balmung was handed over to Choi Jooman.
There was no reason to keep them—I wouldn’t use them.
Better to clear up space in Kybisis than let them take up room.
“How much?”
“Seven thousand. I’ll buy them for seven thousand.”
“Nine thousand.”
“Hey now, if I pay nine thousand I won’t make anything.”
“These are high-grade goods, each worth more than their weight. Nine thousand is a bargain. If not, I can sell them elsewhere.”
If I did sell elsewhere, I could probably fetch ten million.
But I was willing to take a loss of one million just to sell to Jooman.
It was an investment—a way to make future deals with him smoother.
The long-term gains from tying him closer were worth much more.
At that, Jooman grabbed my wrist.
“Heh, don’t walk away so fast. What kind of merchant would I be if I can’t haggle? Hahaha.”
“You’ll give me nine thousand?”
“Fine.”
“Then with that money, I’ll take this.”
“…you thief.”
I pointed at a scroll that granted fire resistance.
A one-use scroll, but being grade A, it was worth about a hundred million.
In truth, we had both compromised by a thousand—it was even.
This scroll was the last item I needed for the Hephaestus攻略.
“Tch, just take it.”
“Thank you.”
I planned to apply it to the High Monk’s Armor right before the battle.
At the very least, it would let me endure Hephaestus’s fire a few times.
“But why are you buying things like this?”
“Confidentiality about clients is your store’s policy, isn’t it?”
“…true. Tch, can’t argue with that.”
After selling the last of my items at Jooman’s shop, I returned home and checked my equipment and skills.
“His arm was broken, right…?”
The arm that had broken during his fight with Ares wouldn’t heal easily.
Wounds inflicted by gods upon gods couldn’t be mended so simply with magic.
It was an advantage, yes, but I couldn’t let my guard down.
Even without being a combat god, Hephaestus was still one of the Twelve Olympians—his power was not to be underestimated.
“Even the Twelve bleed, once descended here.”
There was definitely a way to kill him.
Hephaestus had two fatal weaknesses, unlike other gods.
To win, I had to exploit both.
Which meant thorough preparation.
“I need to test my limits, and what I can use.”
That was my way of hunting.
Left hand—The Loner’s Sword.
Right hand—Dokmu (Poison Fog).
Dokmu’s durability had dropped to 15 after the battle with Siegfried.
“Even if it breaks completely, I’ll kill Hephaestus.”
I still had one vial of poison left. Enough to forge another weapon.
And if needed—
“It will be my last trump card.”
My ultimate, last-resort weapon.
In Kybisis, I also had the Giant’s Sword and Balmung.
[Nine-Headed Viper – Grade A]
Effect: Greatly increases resistance to poison. Significantly lowers chance of being poisoned.
[Witch of the Lake – Grade A]
Skill: Mother’s Mercy
Effect: Restores 10–50% HP depending on missing health.
Cooldown: 12 hours
[Germanic Hero – Grade A]
Skill: Hrunting
Effect 1: Like a cursed sword that grows stronger with every kill, your power increases with each enemy slain.
Effect 2: The stronger the foe you kill, the stronger you grow.
Status Effect: Berserk – Stage 2
Attack power rises in combat. Defense suffers penalties when blocking.
Currently, I had these three skills registered.
And one unregistered:
[Nibelung’s Song – Grade A]
Skill: Dragon Grab
Effect: Pulls the enemy toward you with the strength of a dragon.
Finally, there was the High Monk’s Armor, soon to be engraved with A-grade fire resistance.
“Preparations are complete.”
Now it was time to act.
“Hephaestus must think he lost to Ares.”
By now, he would be consumed by rage.
Like a raging volcano, his fury would be tearing through the Pantheon.
Which meant—
“No one will dare enter his chamber.”
If I got into the Pantheon, it would likely be a one-on-one fight.
Even if I met guild members, it didn’t matter.
“Few of them are real fighters.”
Most of Hephaestus’s guild members were blacksmiths, with little more than auxiliary combat ability.
Even if I ran into them, they weren’t much of a threat.
“The real problem is sneaking inside.”
Luckily, that wasn’t hard.
I knew a hidden gap that led into Hephaestus’s Pantheon—
a flaw even Hephaestus himself didn’t know existed.
“Imposing, isn’t it.”
I stood before Hephaestus’s Pantheon, towering like a mountain.
Pantheons—temples for gods, but now serving as the dwellings or guild halls of the descended deities.
Each Pantheon carried its god’s authority, granting blessings to new guild members.
Ares’s Pantheon blessed weaponry and combat.
Freyja’s Pantheon blessed healing.
Hephaestus’s Pantheon boosted crafting success rates.
In front of the Pantheon stood countless blacksmiths—new guild members seeking blessings, craftsmen hoping to forge weapons with divine aid.
And with people came noise.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
The sound of hammers rang clear as blacksmiths worked at their forges outside the Pantheon.
Unlike dwarves, who crafted everything alone from start to finish, these smithies worked in strict divisions of labor.
One managed the fire.
Another melted and shaped the metal.
Another hammered.
Another quenched and polished the blade.
Another crafted handles and assembled them.
Countless smiths working together to run one forge.
It looked organized, but as soon as I saw it—
“Far inferior.”
Compared to dwarves, their shaping and forging were laughably crude.
Lacking strength, they relied on machines, but that couldn’t close the gap.
From forging to quenching—nothing impressed me.
“Pathetic.”
I now understood why Hephaestus feared dwarves.
Though divine weapons surpassed dwarves’ crafts, his guild’s smiths were far beneath them.
Three years from now, Hephaestus would secretly start murdering dwarves, one by one.
“That bastard.”
He slaughtered others to monopolize weapon supply.
Wrathful, envious, a twisted perfectionist who destroyed anything he could not have—
that was Hephaestus.
In my past life, Hephaestus died one year before the final war.
Killed by his own envy.
In a bid to forge a weapon stronger than Longinus, the spear of God that Lee Hyun possessed, he tried using the lava of Mount Etna—lava that could incinerate even gods.
The god of fire and forge himself melted and died in lava.
“Proof that gods aren’t immortal in this world.”
Gods could bleed, and they could die.
Around the Pantheon, the clamor of people never ceased.
But my concern wasn’t with the crowd.
What mattered was whether there were threats hidden among them.
“Only ordinary guild members near the Pantheon.”
Among guilds, gods often chose the most devout and talented followers, giving them special blessings.
They called them “Apostles.”
Apostles held terrifying power, sometimes treating their gods as family, bound by absolute loyalty.
“Fools.”
For gods only ever saw apostles as tools.
I recalled comrades from the final war, who had been apostles.
Smith, the American—Apostle of Apollo.
Miyamoto—Apostle of Vishnu.
Jang Mancheol—who admired Thor, becoming his Apostle.
Each of them was a monster who could overwhelm heroes.
Mancheol, they said, once fought six heroes alone.
Apostles were as dangerous as the gods themselves.
But if things went according to plan, I wouldn’t need to fight them.
At the Pantheon’s gates, I craned my neck to see the top.
“From today, Hephaestus’s Pantheon will be no more.”
I clenched my fist and stepped through the gate.
No one stopped me.
Of course not—
This Pantheon doubled as both smithy and shop, where items forged were sold.
Meaning anyone could enter freely.
And that was Hephaestus’s Pantheon’s fatal flaw.
“Welcome, customer.”
A clerk approached me.
“Are you looking for something in particular?”
