The winter forest did not care that a village had burned.
Snow fell. Birds circled. Somewhere in the distance, wolves howled. The world moved on.
Ji Haneul didn't.
He woke beneath a pine tree, limbs stiff, the scroll still gripped in his fingers. The sky above was pale gray, and his breath misted in short, shivering bursts.
He sat up slowly, eyes swollen and dry. He could still hear it—the flames, the clash of steel, his mother's final scream.
But no one came.
No one ever came.
His stomach growled. His fingers ached. The scroll had frozen into the curve of his chest overnight.
He unrolled it slowly, brushing off bits of frost. The ink had smudged slightly at the corner, but the poses were still there. Familiar. Steady. Like a quiet friend who hadn't run away.
"I don't know what to do," he whispered to the page. "But I'm not going to die here."
He stood.
And began walking.
—
He didn't remember how far he went.
The days blurred—cold, wet, and cruel. He scavenged roots, drank from half-frozen streams, and avoided smoke in the distance. Always moving, never back.
On the sixth day, his legs finally gave out near a half-collapsed bridge crossing a quiet stream.
"Did you get into a fight with winter?" a voice said above him.
He blinked.
An old man stood by a stump, wrapped in too many layers of fur and oilcloth. His beard was wild, his eyes sharp, and he held a bundle of chopped firewood like it weighed nothing.
"Don't die on my bridge," the old man said. "I don't want to clean up the blood."
Haneul opened his mouth. Nothing came out.
The man sighed. "You breathing?"
A nod.
"Hungry?"
A slower nod.
"Well, good. Means you're still human." He crouched beside him and gave him a quick look-over. "You'll last another day. Maybe."
Then, without warning, the man hoisted him up onto his back.
"I didn't say I wanted help," Haneul mumbled.
"I didn't say I wanted a kid in my forge, either," the old man replied. "Yet here we are."
—
The forge was more shack than shop.
Built into a mountainside, it reeked of coal, old steel, and stronger wine. Tools hung on every surface—chisels, tongs, hammers, and half-rusted blades. The hearth still glowed from the morning's work, casting flickering shadows across piles of ore.
Haneul didn't say much the first day.
He just ate. And slept. And woke. And watched.
The second day, he tried to leave.
"You'll last about two miles before falling over again," the old man said without looking up from his blade.
"I can survive."
"No doubt. But you're not surviving well."
Haneul hesitated. "Then… what am I supposed to do?"
"Up to you. Eat. Sleep. Work. Or die quiet."
He stayed.
—
Time passed.
The forge became his new rhythm.
He cleaned tools. Hauled coal. Swept ash. The old man didn't ask questions. Didn't force him to talk. But he watched.
"You've got strength," the old smith said one day, handing him a mallet.
"I've got anger," Haneul said.
"Same thing. If you don't waste it."
Weeks turned to months.
Winter softened.
Haneul learned the rhythm of metal. The roar of the bellows. The way heat made steel sing. The old man didn't teach with words—he taught by repetition, by correction, by silence. And Haneul, who had learned alone beside the river, adapted quickly.
He never spoke of the scroll. Or his family. Or the flames.
But every night, when the forge dimmed, he stepped outside.
And practiced.
The cuts were quieter now. More refined. His body, hardened by labor, moved with unfamiliar weight—but also purpose.
The old smith noticed.
"You're not swinging like a boy anymore," he said one night.
"I'm not a boy anymore."
"Hmph. That's true. You're something else."
He took a long sip from his gourd.
"Still got a long way to go."
"I'm not in a hurry," Haneul lied.
The old man didn't press.
That night, for the first time, Haneul placed the scroll beside his bed without hiding it.
He fell asleep staring at the ink.
—
Years passed.
And in the mountain forge, beside the embers and anvil, Ji Haneul grew.
Not as a hero.
Not yet.
Just as a survivor learning how to stand.
And when the time came to inherit the hammer and flame—
He would begin forging not only a sword.
But himself.