Chapter 63- Homecoming, Meeting Hugh again.
Leo entered the smithy.
The heavy wooden door closed behind him with a soft thud that was almost lost beneath the steady rhythm of the hammer.
Hugh stood at the anvil, shoulders squared, arms rising and falling in a practiced cadence. Each strike rang out clear and sharp, sending bright sparks scattering across the stone floor. The air was thick with the familiar scents of hot metal, charcoal, and oil. Sweat darkened the old man’s shirt along his spine, and the forge fire painted the walls in restless orange light.
Hugh knew someone had entered. His head tilted a fraction toward the door—no more than that—but he did not stop.
He wanted to finish the blade before he gave his attention away. The hammer rose and fell for another ten full minutes.
Only when the steel glowed the precise shade of cherry red he sought did he lift the tongs, carry the sword to the quenching trough, and plunge it in.
Steam exploded upward with a violent scream. White smoke boiled across the workshop, briefly swallowing the anvil and the man who worked it.
Hugh waited until the hissing died, then drew the blade free, wiped it carefully with a clean rag, and only then turned to face his visitor.
He saw Leo.
A short, sharp snort left him. He turned his back at once and hung the sword on the nearest rack with more force than necessary.
"Tch. Hmph. I thought it was a valuable customer. That’s why I finished the piece so quickly. Had I known it was some ungrateful brat who vanished without so much as a proper goodbye, I would have taken my time."
The words landed heavier than the hammer ever had.
Hugh had been genuinely heartbroken when Leo left town with nothing more than a short letter of farewell.
A bitter smile tugged at the corner of Leo’s mouth before he could stop it.
Looks like the man had taken it to heart after all.
"Old man," Leo said, keeping his voice easy, almost warm, "how are you doing these days? The smithy looks good."
"Of course it looks good. I’ve been taking care of it—working my ass off. Somebody has to. The other one vanished without a word."
Every sentence carried a deliberate jab at Leo.
Hugh still did not look at him. He kept wiping the already-clean sword with the same rag, over and over, as if the motion itself could hold the conversation at a safe distance.
When Leo looked at him more carefully, the changes were impossible to ignore.
Hugh’s once-broad shoulders now carried a subtle sag, as though some unseen weight had settled across them and refused to leave. The lines around his eyes had deepened into permanent creases, and the skin along his jaw looked thinner, weathered beyond what only a few weeks should have allowed. Even the way he stood felt different—less rooted, more careful, as if the years had begun to press harder than they used to.
He looks older, Leo thought, a quiet unease stirring in his chest. Much older. As if years have passed instead of weeks.
For a moment the thought unsettled him. Then he pushed it aside. It had to be his imagination—the forge light, the long absence, the lingering guilt over the letter. Nothing more. He forced himself not to dwell on it.
Hugh’s voice dropped lower, rough and tired. "You left me a scrap of paper with three lines on it. ’Found work in the city. Don’t worry about me.’ Don’t worry your sister!! Hmph." Another snort. "I’ve had many disciples and workers pass through this forge. Every one of them left with a proper word and came back sooner or later. They brought their first sword, their first piece of armor, showed the old man they had made a life for themselves. You, on the other hand... you left with a letter. Like I was some landlord you owed rent to and decided to skip town."
Leo’s chest tightened. He had not realized Hugh would feel this betrayed. He stepped closer.
"It was temporary. I was going to come back soon. One thing led to another, and... here I am. I still came as soon as I could."
"As soon as you could?" Hugh set the sword down hard enough that the anvil rang. For the first time since Leo’s return, the old man looked him fully in the eyes. The same eyes that had once judged Leo’s earliest blades now looked tired, the sharpness dulled by something heavy sitting in his chest.
"Do you know how many times I looked up from this anvil expecting to see that thick-skinned face of yours, only to find empty air? I worried you’d gotten yourself killed. And you never sent a second letter."
Leo drew a slow breath, steadying the sudden rush of emotion. An awkward smile touched his lips. "I did look for you before I left. You weren’t here, so I left the letter."
Hugh’s mouth closed for a moment. When he spoke again, the words came quieter. "I was out. Might have been on an ore run. Who would have thought you’d leave so early?"
There it was. Two men who had simply missed each other, each carrying a share of the blame.
"You didn’t find me in the forge," Hugh continued, voice a little softer. "That’s on me, boy. But it doesn’t make the letter sit any better."
Silence settled between them for a long minute, broken only by the low crackle of the forge.
Leo broke it with a half-crooked smile. "I didn’t find work in the city."
Hugh raised a brow. "So the letter was a lie?"
Leo shook his head. "As soon as I left town I went to the Ascension Tower to receive my class advancement mission." He let the words settle, then continued in a steady voice that carried both weight and something close to wonder. "The class quest I was assigned teleported me out of this world entirely. A world called Asgard. Past the city, past every hall I knew, past everything familiar. There I found a broken hammer that once belonged to a god, an old man who might as well have been a god himself, and a princess..."
He stopped at the mention of the princess as old memories flared and then banked themselves again.
Hugh went completely still.
"I restored the fucking broken hammer of a god. Can you believe that? Forty-seven runes. I worked with an alloy they claim is three hundred and forty percent denser than any common metal." Leo’s voice stayed level, yet a faint spark of excitement—and residual horror—lived beneath it. "Half the time I was convinced I was going to get myself killed. Everyone in that world was fucking over level one hundred. The other half I was just trying not to drop the hammer on my own foot. You would have laughed yourself to death if you’d seen me. Probably would have demanded payment for emotional damage."
Hugh’s lips twitched despite himself. Watching Leo’s serious expression, the old man found himself momentarily speechless.
He sighed.
"Forty... forty-seven runes, and you almost dropped the hammer on your foot. Some things never change."
Leo pressed on. "It isn’t that I didn’t write. It’s that I couldn’t. I was out of this world entirely. There was no way to contact anyone."
Hugh remained silent for a long moment, studying him. Then he walked closer, eyes narrowed in quiet assessment.
"Hmm. Something did happen to you out there, boy. I can see it. You’re not the same brat who nearly burned down my smithy."
"Of course not. I’m a proper blacksmith now." Leo puffed his chest out just a little.
A genuine smile finally tugged at Hugh’s mouth. "So you worked with an alloy several hundred times denser than ordinary metal? I’ve never come across such a thing myself, though I’ve heard whispers."
He paused, then nodded and headed toward the rack.
"I’ve been a blacksmith for forty years, and the best thing I ever made sits right there. A good sword. Not a great one." He looked at Leo again, pride and residual hurt tangled together on his face. "Still... something feels off about you. You don’t feel like just a blacksmith anymore. I can’t quite put my finger on it."
Leo hesitated only a second before drawing the dagger from his belt.
The green sheen of the blade caught the forge light and held it. Hugh’s attention locked onto the weapon instantly. His hands moved before conscious thought, stopping only inches from the metal.
"What is that, and why is it glowing that eerie green like it still owes someone money?"
"Something I made," Leo said quietly. "Today."
Hugh took the dagger carefully and turned it over in his calloused palms. He tested the grip, ran a thumb along the edge the way any true smith would.
"It feels... alive?"
"It is.... really alive. Of course it is... Sigh!... I know you would never forge an ordinary dagger like a sensible person. But what is it, really?"
"Soul forging," Leo answered. "I can forge a soul into steel now."
Hugh’s hands froze on the blade. His eyes widened.
"Wh... what did you say?"
"Soul forging."
For a long moment the old man said nothing. Then he set the dagger down on the anvil as carefully as if it were a sleeping animal that might wake and bite.
"Souls aren’t ore, boy." His voice had gone low and grim. "Playing with the dead is dangerous work. You hammer the dead, and the dead remember. Whatever you put in there might not be finished. It might still be watching you."
Leo said nothing, though the corner of his mouth twitched. He could almost see the dark imaginations spinning behind Hugh’s eyes.
"Keep it close," Hugh said at last. "And don’t let it decide things for you. Last thing I need is for you to disappear again because the dagger asked you to open a bakery."
From within Leo’s consciousness, Surtr—who had been listening to the entire exchange with growing amusement—finally spoke.
"Hahaha! Leo, I like this man. He knows you’re an idiot. HAHAHAH."
Leo ignored him.
Hugh had already turned back toward the rack. "So you didn’t come just to see this old man’s face and scare the shit out of me with glowing ghost knives, right? Out with it. What do you want?"
Leo’s smile warmed. "Of course I came to see you, old man. I missed you. But yes... I also need materials."
"You see, I still have two new souls that are too good to waste. I need materials compatible with them."
"What kind?"
"One with dark attributes, and another with blood or killing attributes—something along those lines."
Hugh fell silent, sifting through memory. Then he moved to the stockpile, rummaged, and pulled free a dark, matte bar of metal.
"I got a shipment of shadow-forged alloy from the Umbra Range. Umbra’s Shards, they call it. Eats light. Hungry metal. Perfect for someone who already carries a knife with a pulse and a questionable personality."
Leo nodded.
Hugh weighed the bar in his hand. "This is good metal. I’m planning to forge something with it myself. I feel like I might reach new heights in the craft soon."
Surtr’s voice slid into Leo’s mind, quieter now, almost clinical.
"Yes. This man is nearing a breakthrough, and he doesn’t have much lifespan remaining."
Leo’s heart stopped. The unease from before creeping back.
"What do you mean, Surtr?"
"He’s old, and he carries an old injury—some fire or may be forging accident from years past. It’s been eating away at his remaining years. If he breaks through, the problem lessens. If he doesn’t... his days are numbered."
Leo stood frozen, watching the old man’s broad back as Hugh continued searching the pile of ores, humming some tuneless old song under his breath...
The earlier observation returned with sudden force. The sagging shoulders. The deepened lines below his eyes. The way the years had seemed to press harder than they should.
It had not been his imagination after all.
The image of his own father flashed behind his eyes and overlapped with Hugh’s figure.....
The silent forge. The debt. The way the Stone name had nearly ended with a man who had given everything he had and still run out of time. Leo had been powerless then.
And now here stood another old man who had taken him in, given him ore and charcoal and patience and forty years of hard-won blacksmith’s wisdom—and Leo was watching him fade the same way, one quiet heartbeat at a time, and Hugh did not even know.
The tears came before he could stop them. They streamed down his face unchecked. He did not wipe them away. He simply stood there, staring at the man who had once been the strongest presence in his world, now humming over a pile of metal while his remaining years slipped through unseen fingers.
Not again, Leo thought. I will not let it happen again.
"Surtr." His voice came out raw. "Can we do anything to help him?"
.....