The central square of Winston had been purged of its usual mercantile chaos, replaced by a grand, elevated arena of industry.
Two massive stages of dark oak and reinforced iron stood side-by-side, each a temple to the god of the forge.
On each sat a master-grade anvil, a furnace already breathing orange fire into the humid air, and racks of gleaming tools that caught the sunlight like bared teeth.
For the Mero Company, this was the final checkmate on a long-contested board. For Khan, it was a desperate battle for the very soul of his lineage.
The announcer—a man with a chest like a barrel and a voice that rang like a brass bell—stepped to the edge of the platform.
"Citizens of Winston! Travelers of the region! Today, we witness the definitive clash of steel! Representing the Mero Company, the prodigy whose name has swept the North—Erina! And representing the legacy of the Winston Smithy, the successor to the great Khan—Grid!"
The crowd erupted in a roar that shook the surrounding storefronts. But as the participants climbed the steps, the cheers took on a distinctly lopsided quality.
Euphemina, draped in the carefully curated persona of Erina, moved with a grace that felt almost ethereal. She wore a wide-brimmed traveler's hat that cast a soft, mysterious shadow over the upper half of her face, but it could not hide the flawless porcelain of her skin or the delicate, doll-like curve of her features. To the male players in the audience, she wasn't just a competitor; she was a vision.
"Erina! Win it for us!"
"Is this a hidden romance quest? Because I've found my ideal type!"
"Marry me and forge my wedding ring!"
Euphemina offered a modest, practiced wave, a shy smile playing on her lips. 'Idiots,' she thought, her eyes scanning the crowd with the cold, predatory calculation of a high-ranked player. 'Your cheers are just the background noise to my payday. Scream louder; it makes the gold taste better.'
Then came Grid.
He stepped onto the stage wearing his usual blacksmithing rags—garments so stained with soot, grease, and metallic dust they looked like they had been chewed on by a direwolf and spat out in disgust.
He smelled of three days of unwashed labor and cheap coal. Seeing the male players showering Erina with adoration, Grid turned to the female audience members.
He puffed out his chest and gave a confident, toothy wave, attempting a "cool" smirk he had seen in a manhwa. But the response was a deafening, soul-crushing silence, followed quickly by a wave of audible revulsion.
"Ugh, what is that guy doing? I think I need a priest."
"He looks like a soot-covered gargoyle trying to act human."
"The bread I ate for breakfast is definitely making a comeback..."
Grid's smirk curdled into a mask of pure salt. 'This dirty, looks-oriented society!' he screamed internally, his inner monologue reaching a pitch that could shatter glass. 'If I were some K-pop idol with a hammer, you'd be throwing roses! Just wait until I win. I'll make you all eat those words without salt!'
Grid felt the weight of a thousand betrayals. Even the residents of Winston were blinking a bit too fast at Erina's beauty, their loyalty momentarily wavering. He turned his head sharply toward the blonde girl, his bloodshot eyes burning with a dark, petty fire.
"You," Grid growled, leaning over the narrow gap between their respective stages. "I'm going to win. And when I do, I'm going to enjoy every second of seeing that pretty little face of yours distort into a pathetic mess of snot and tears! Don't expect any mercy!"
Euphemina paused, her hammer halfway to the rack. She was genuinely shocked. Usually, men became stuttering, blushing wrecks in her presence, or at the very least, tried to act "chivalrous" to impress her.
She tilted her hat up, revealing her full, breathtaking beauty to him—her large, expressive eyes and shimmering hair. 'Taste my charm properly, you soot-stained brute,' she thought with a smirk. 'Break your concentration and fall into my trap.'
Grid looked at her. He didn't blush. He didn't stutter. He scanned her face, her height, and her figure with the cold, detached eye of a man appraising a low-durability item. He felt... absolutely nothing.
To Grid, beauty was a matter of specific, high-end "attributes." Euphemina was a petite girl, barely 150cm, with a modest B-cup chest. His ideal type—honed by years of "research materials oriented from JAV's"—was a towering 168cm with an E-cup; a woman whose physical presence matched his "Overgeared" philosophy of maximum volume.
"What are you looking at, you black-bellied fox?" Grid snorted, his voice dripping with genuine, unadulterated disdain.
"You're just a kid. Have you even graduated from high school? I'm not a lolicon. If you think acting cute will distract me from the game, you've picked the wrong man. You're unlucky to have met me today!"
Euphemina's face turned a violent, bruised shade of red. 'Kid? Fox? Unlucky?!'
The sense of shame hit her like a physical blow. She was twenty years old! She had an immense complex about her height, and this... this armored peasant had just trampled on her pride in front of a live audience of thousands, not to mention there might be some live broadcasters.
"U-Unlucky?" she stammered, her voice rising into a tearful, indignant shout. "Are you gay? Is that it? Fine! I'll make you regret being born! I want to say goodbye to your trashy, soot-covered face as quickly as possible! Start the game now!"
"Who is a gay?! Don't spout nonsense! I'm perfectly straight!, it's just I'm not into lolis!" Grid shouted back, his voice echoing across the square.
"Who are you calling a loli, you gay freak?!" Euphemina shrieked.
"Who else but you, you damn black-bellied loli fox!" Grid utilized his full, legendary spite.
For the first time in the history of Satisfy, a top-ranked player was tasting the concentrated saltiness of Pagma's Successor live on stage.
The Baron dropped the ceremonial flag, and the forge fires roared to life, signaling the start of the three-hour time limit.
Euphemina took a deep breath, forcing her white-hot anger into a cold, professional box. 'Calm down. He's just a variable. A rude, blind, soon-to-be-homeless variable. I'll use my Epic class to end this farce.'
She activated her core ability of Duplicator class: [Skill Observation].
Her plan was flawless. She would analyze Grid's blacksmithing skill, copy it at its peak performance, and then use the Raging Deer's Antler provided by Rabbit to create an item that defied logic. She had a Level 7 Skill Observation; she had successfully copied high-ranking NPC masters in the capital. This should have been a mere formality.
Euphemina fixed her gaze on Grid's hands as he gripped his hammer with a terrifying, vengeful intensity.
'Skill Observation!'
[The level of Skill Observation is too low.]
[You cannot analyze the skill of the target.]
Euphemina blinked. 'What? Did the system glitch—'
She tried again, her mana dipping. 'Skill Observation!'
[The level of Skill Observation is too low.]
[You cannot analyze the skill of the target.]
A cold sweat broke out on her forehead, chilling her skin despite the proximity of the furnace. This was impossible. Even an Advanced-level NPC blacksmith—men who had spent fifty years at the forge—could be copied at her level. For the skill to fail so completely, the target had to be... a Craftsman.
But there were no player Craftsmen in Satisfy. The highest-ranked player on the leaderboard was barely an Intermediate master.
"This... this must be a bug!" she whispered, her voice trembling. "Skill Observation! SKILL OBSERVATION!"
[The level of Skill Observation is too low.]
[You cannot analyze the skill of the target.]
Euphemina stared at Grid. He was swinging his hammer with a brutal, rhythmic violence that lacked any "grace." He didn't look like a master. He didn't look like a scholar of steel. He looked like a man trying to murder a piece of iron out of sheer petty spite.
But the system didn't lie.
'If he isn't an Advanced smith... then he has a hidden class,' Euphemina's thoughts spiraled into a sheer, vertical panic. 'An Epic class? No, I've copied Epics before. A Unique class? Has a Unique class already appeared in this backwater village?'
She looked at her empty workbench. Without a skill to copy, she was just a girl with a hammer and no technical knowledge of the specific item she needed to forge. She was a Duplicator who had found nothing but a terrifying, bottomless void where a skill should be.
Grid, meanwhile, was in his element. He wasn't thinking about Euphemina anymore. He was thinking about the debt, the house, and the women who had just called him a gargoyle. Every strike of his hammer was fueled by the salt of his soul.
'I'll show them,' Grid thought, his eyes glowing with a violet, legendary light. 'I'll forge something so powerful it'll make their eyes pop out of their heads!'
Across the stage, Euphemina stood paralyzed, her hammer trembling. For the first time in her career, the "Formula" had failed. She didn't know that the "Variable" wasn't just a master smith—he was a Legend.