He Became the Genius Blacksmith of the Namgung Family - Chapter 114
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 114
Episode 114
Jingyuelou is packed full.
It seems people’s mouths watered at Namgung Cheon-gang’s egg fried rice mukbang.
“E-egg fried rice!”
“Here too!”
“Me too!”
People raised their hands and shouted, instantly turning it into a marketplace.
“Yes, yes!”
“20, no, 30 egg fried rice orders!”
Aeso and the other Jingyuelou servers moved busily.
Short-handed, even the innkeeper rushed about.
With a full stomach, I finally noticed my surroundings.
“Wow… business is really booming.”
This place originally did good business.
Whenever I visited, it was always full, but that was just the first floor.
The 2nd and 3rd floors were expensive, so customers were moderately present.
But today, even those 2nd and 3rd floors were packed with people.
Seeing the innkeeper bowing apologetically to incoming customers while carrying egg fried rice, saying there were no seats, it was obvious.
Just looking up at the ceiling, you could see how bustling it was.
“What’s going on? Is there a festival?”
It shouldn’t be that season yet, right?
“It’s all thanks to you, Young Master, huff, huff.”
“Huh? Thanks to me?”
Aeso, who had been diligently carrying egg fried rice to the 2nd and 3rd floors, caught her rough breathing and continued speaking.
“Yes. To be precise, it’s because of the Ungongwha shoes you developed, Young Master.”
Customers coming to purchase Ungongwha, merchants wanting delivery contracts and branch store rights, and so on.
“With warriors coming here too, not just Jingyuelou but other inns have no seats available. Right now, the entire Martial Arts World is in chaos because of Ungongwha. Among warriors, if you don’t have Ungongwha, you’re treated like a fool, you know?”
“Hmm. Is it that serious?”
“You’re pretending not to know when you already do, aren’t you?”
“Hehe, caught me?”
That’s right.
I know.
The comfort of clouds wrapping around your feet.
This alone would be treated as treasure-grade footwear.
While making them, I fully expected chaos to ensue.
Still, it’s only been a few months since I made them.
I thought it would take longer for rumors to spread throughout the entire Martial Arts World…
“I didn’t expect rumors to spread this quickly.”
“Sometimes when I see you, Young Master, it seems like you don’t know how amazing the Namgung Family you belong to is.”
“Me?”
“Of course. When the Namgung Family decides to spread rumors, what’s a few months? In one month, rumors would spread throughout the entire Martial Arts World and more, right? After the Namgung Ungongwha Store was established, the Namgung Family seriously spread the word, so it spreading quickly throughout the Martial Arts World was just a matter of time!”
“And yet a Jingyuelou server who knows the Namgung Family so well treats this Young Master, a direct descendant of Namgung, so casually.”
“Ow!”
Namgung Cheon-gang pinched both of Aeso’s cheeks and pulled them while speaking with a gentle smile.
Aeso made a fuss about it hurting.
When he quietly let go, she raised both hands to quickly rub both cheeks.
“Ow, that hurt…”
“It was supposed to hurt. You know that if you did that to other direct descendants, it wouldn’t end with just pinched cheeks, right?”
“I-I know. But you told me to treat you like a big brother, Young Master…”
Aeso hadn’t been casual enough with Namgung Cheon-gang from the start to say things like “how annoying” to his face.
What kind of place is the Martial Arts World?
Isn’t it a place where people constantly draw swords, sabers, spears, and daggers, getting serious and dancing spiritedly with blades saying “You insulted me”?
If you act thoughtlessly in such a place, you won’t see tomorrow’s sun, let alone tonight’s moon.
Moreover, being an inn server in the Martial Arts World is a third-rate job where you have to live on others’ moods like Beggar’s Sect beggars to barely preserve your life.
Could Aeso lack such awareness?
She has it like a ghost.
However, as a reincarnator from the free democratic Republic of Korea, Namgung Cheon-gang had human equality engraved in his soul.
Feeling sorry for the young girl constantly bowing her head and waist while reading the mood, he told her to be comfortable…
Though it was difficult at first, after several years of treating each other like siblings, it had become this natural.
“I feel like you’re a younger sibling too, kid. Anyway, as I’ve said before, I’m fine with it, so be careful with other people. I don’t know about people from Anhui Province, but the Martial Arts World isn’t just Anhui Province.”
“Don’t worry, I don’t act like this with anyone except you, Young Master. When it comes to reading the mood at Jingyuelou, it’s Aeso, and when it comes to Aeso, it’s reading the mood at Jingyuelou!”
“Right, you’re so great.”
“Ow!”
Geez, this disobedient younger sibling-like girl.
“My cheeks feel like they’re going to fall off!”
“They won’t fall off. If it really seems like it’ll hurt, borrow our Baekseol’s wings. They’re cool and perfect for reducing fever.”
“Baekseol-a, oppa, or is it hyung? Anyway, can you lend me your wings?”
(•◇•): Beep.
Baekseol spread her black wings and placed them coolly against Aeso’s cheeks.
Aeso’s expression melted into bliss.
“Really, they’re so cool and perfect. Ah, this feels good.”
“Of course. Sometimes when I have a fever, if I put Baekseol’s wings on my head, it cools down immediately.”
Baekseol’s wings for headaches.
“Then you’ll be getting more fevers soon and need Baekseol’s wings a lot, won’t you, hyung?”
Aeso said this while keeping Baekseol’s wings against both cheeks.
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“I told you that without Ungongwha, there are rumors among warriors that you’re a fool, didn’t I?”
“You did?”
“That’s why. You’re already so busy you can’t even breathe, making deliveries to visiting merchants, but the problem is that warriors from all over the Martial Arts World are coming to find Ungongwha, and the shops, Cheonggung Clothing Store, and Namgung Ungongwha Store are bursting right now. The workers can’t even sleep at night, they say.”
“Ah.”
I think I understand what she means.
With so many places looking for Ungongwha, demand can’t keep up and the workload is exploding.
On top of that, with warriors also wanting to purchase Ungongwha, it’s even more problematic.
‘Merchants are hard to ignore, and warriors are even harder to ignore.’
How can you do business in the Martial Arts World without warriors?
Warriors are the top customers who buy swords, spears, sabers, weapons, replace torn clothing from fights, and purchase medicines and medicinal herbs.
Since fighting is their daily routine, they have no choice but to constantly crave new items, right?
Moreover, if warriors are treated like fools without Ungongwha, their warrior pride can’t stand for it.
‘This could easily lead to serious bloodshed.’
It wouldn’t be strange for warriors to say “You have them and I don’t, you’re my enemy.”
Besides, if demand can’t keep up and deliveries are delayed?
Counterfeit Ungongwha might flood the market everywhere.
For now, they won’t touch it since it’s the Namgung Family’s business, but is Namgung the only major corporate martial family in this Martial Arts World?
Are the other Five Great Families just twiddling their thumbs?
Furthermore, what about the Heterodox Faction?
Would the leader-level sect martial families in that criminal paradise care about the Five Great Families?
These are people who would suck Buddha’s fingers if there’s money to be made, so of course not.
Therefore, when the tide comes in, I need to definitely use my inner power to row and cross the Yangtze River dozens of times.
I need to perfectly embed in people’s minds that Namgung means Ungongwha, so I can be at ease later even if counterfeits flood the market.
‘Well, setting everything else aside, I need to prevent our Cheong-a Noonim from losing sleep over work.’
A woman’s life is her skin.
Losing sleep makes skin rough, stress accumulates, nerves get sharp, and fatigue builds up in subordinates.
‘If I don’t want to turn Noonim into a hysterical woman, I need to solve this.’
She’s already a busy person too.
“For the infinite development of Namgung’s Ungongwha business, I need to solve this. Though it’s fortunate I have something in mind, isn’t it?”
“Huh? You have something in mind?”
“Of course. When Ungongwha debuts as a business product, I expected Anhui Province to be packed with people, so how could I not anticipate that we wouldn’t be able to keep up with demand? Naturally I have something in mind.”
Again, I just didn’t know it would happen this quickly.
“Wow, that’s amazing! As expected, you have it all planned out, hyung!”
“Of course, naturally. Who am I? I’m the genius blacksmith who conceived and developed Ungongwha, Namgung Cheon-gang. For a genius, anticipating such situations and preparing solutions is only natural, Aeso.”
Namgung Cheon-gang winked one eye.
Aeso laughed brightly and replied.
“You’re really annoying, hyung.”
* * *
After stretching and pinching both of Aeso’s cheeks to scold her.
Namgung Cheon-gang was about to head straight to Cheonggung Jugeom Gak.
Cheonggung Jugeom Gak is the forge newly created by the Namgung Family after Cheoneumjeong was disbanded.
Of course, it’s not an exclusive forge that manufactures weapons only for the Namgung Family like Cheoneumjeong was.
An iron workshop created with business goals to widely supply Namgung’s iron products nationwide.
‘Well, just because it’s called an iron workshop doesn’t mean it only makes weapons.’
Agricultural-related products, construction-related products, and so on.
It’s a place that makes contracts with various places that need ironware and produces appropriate products.
Cheoneumjeong operated similarly, but the scale differed between ‘nationwide’ and ‘single location’.
‘Well, that said, I can’t deny that most customers are warriors.’
Since this is the age of warriors, weapons like swords, spears, and blades sell better than farming tools.
In a way, the iron workshop could be seen as no different from a military supply contractor in the martial arts era.
‘And for warriors, wearing military boots professionally manufactured by military supply contractors would be much better than ordinary Ungongwha.’
Military boots are more uncomfortable than sneakers.
This is a clear fact.
However, the two products have distinctly different purposes.
General shoes and combat shoes.
They can’t be the same.
Since most of a warrior’s life is combat, military boots are more suitable than Ungongwha.
‘They might wear Ungongwha in daily life, but well, warriors don’t exactly live ordinary daily lives.’
Since daily life is combat, they’re more likely to wear military boots more often than Ungongwha.
‘So, when the Ungongwha business takes off, what I had in mind was dividing production between warrior-use and general-use.’
General Ungongwha at Ungonghwa-ryu-jeom.
Combat-related military boots at Cheonggung Jugeom Gak.
‘What I distributed to Hwang hyung and the Gaebang brothers, and furthermore to the Iron Sword Sect before, were basic Ungongwha.’
If anything could be called warrior-specialized Ungongwha, it would be the custom Ungongwha I made for Yahwel hyung and the Namman Brothers.
‘Anyway, I’ll start manufacturing proper warrior-exclusive Ungongwha from now on.’
So, I was about to visit Cheonggung Jugeom Gak to suggest dividing and sharing the work.
“Younger Brother, this is Deputy Financial Director Namgung Mo. He’s been selected as the future Financial Director and is currently being trained under the current Financial Director.”
“It’s my first time meeting you, Young Master Namgung Cheon-gang. I am Deputy Financial Director Namgung Mo. The reason I asked Lady Namgung Cheonggi to arrange this meeting is because there’s something I’d like to ask for help with.”
“Is that help perhaps related to Ungongwha?”
“How did you know that!”
“I told you, Deputy Financial Director. Our younger brother has insight different from others. Hohoho.”
It seemed like it would be resolved more easily than expected.
“I was actually planning to go to Cheonggung Jugeom Gak to discuss this matter… This works out well, Noonim. I already have something in mind. Ah, but first.”
Namgung Cheon-gang cupped his hands and bowed his head respectfully.
“Namgung Cheon-gang, eldest son of Namgung Gang, leader of the Namgung Iron Sword Sect, pays his respects to the Grand Scion of the Namgung Clan. Please forgive me for not greeting you properly before.”
And that too with the appearance of an unexpected figure.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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