Kargos

Appearance

Kargos is a dwarf approximately half Sungjin's height. He has a beard and is most often seen beside his anvil, furnace, and hammer, sometimes resting with a pipe or cigarette when no commission occupies him. Prolonged work on the gem that becomes Ios leaves his face blackened with soot and several patches of his beard burned away, visually marking the extremity of that final undertaking. (Chapters 91, 111, 165, and 169)

Personality

Kargos is absorbed in his craft to the exclusion of ordinary Black Market gossip, saying that he speaks only to his hammer and anvil. He treats items passing through his hands like his own children and commits himself fully to their growth, yet he is candid that even their maker cannot predict exactly what an enhancement will produce. His blunt prices, plain assurances, and refusal to promise impossible certainty make him brusque rather than careless. (Chapters 91, 112, and 119)

His professional pride is accompanied by respect for the things he works upon. After discovering the spirit within Moon Specter, he expends extra effort because the blade is also someone's home. When confronted with a material he has never handled, he admits doubt instead of disguising it, but the difficulty excites him enough to recruit relatives, waive his fee, and risk exhaustion for the chance to make something unprecedented. (Chapters 94, 165, 169, and 174)

Biography

Smith of legendary weapons

Sungjin first seeks Kargos when duplicate Yanhurat necklaces and enhancement stones make ordinary shopping insufficient. Kargos explains the rules of combination and enhancement, warns that strengthening Yanhurat will worsen its dangerous drawback, and then fuses the copies when Sungjin accepts the risk. He cannot preview an enhancement's outcome, but his philosophy of treating every commissioned item like a child persuades Sungjin to entrust him with Moon Specter, beginning a working relationship founded on frank limits and demonstrated results. (Chapters 90–91)

The Moon Specter commission tests that promise. Kargos works through the night on the difficult, death-infused blade, recognizes the sealed Moon Specter Spirit, and improves the sword with special care for the spirit's dwelling. The finished enhancement restores her voice and substantially strengthens the weapon, and Sungjin's gratitude turns the smith from a useful merchant into the craftsman he consults whenever raid materials exceed his own understanding. (Chapters 93–94 and 111)

That trust expands when Sungjin brings the Dragon's Heart. Kargos identifies it immediately, explains that dividing or shaving it would sharply reduce its power, and proposes preserving the whole material as a magic-specialized sword suited to Sungjin's rotating arsenal. While the Heart slowly melts, he also enhances Artemio and enables the combination of four Blood Vengeance swords, then forges the Heart into Ariane, whose mana-supplying nature gives Sungjin a combat option that ordinary purchases could not provide. (Chapters 111–120)

Kargos subsequently becomes the interpreter of Sungjin's stranger hidden pieces as well as the caretaker of his established arsenal. He recognizes the Star of Winter, explains its solitary-raid function, and cuts it into Lathion; later he strengthens Ariane and Eye of Jeremiah. By revealing that mythological equipment lies above Unique Legendary craftsmanship, he gives Sungjin a new measure of how far exceptional materials and skilled forging can carry his equipment. (Chapters 135–137 and 143–144)

Crafting the stars

The gem associated with Archae'ard exceeds even the legendary materials Kargos has already mastered. He recognizes its many traditional names but cannot predict how heat or cold will affect it, and for the first time answers a commission with only a tentative possibility of success. Sungjin nevertheless trusts the record Kargos has built; in response, the smith waives payment, promises his whole effort, summons numerous blacksmith relatives, and commits at least three days to the work. (Chapter 165)

During the forging, Kargos and his relatives keep the smithy blazing while they work without acknowledging distractions. Soot blackens Kargos's face, his beard is scorched, and his eyes shine with exhilaration as he explains that the gem resists imposed form and returns by itself to the shape of a star described in ancient smithing notes. The collaboration shows him adapting to a material he cannot command through familiar technique while still reading its behavior well enough to continue. (Chapter 169)

The completed artifact is Ios, a mythological accessory whose Starlight ability reveals events twenty-four hours ahead and allows the user to attempt to change that future. Kargos leaves it in an iron box keyed to the shape of Sungjin's hand, ensuring that his client can retrieve it even after the smith collapses into exhausted sleep behind the anvil. His craft has thereby crossed from improving legendary weapons to giving physical form and secure custody to an artifact central to Sungjin's investigation of regression and the future. (Chapter 174)

Relationships

• Sungjin: Kargos becomes Sungjin's trusted regular craftsman through repeated commissions rather than personal reassurance. Sungjin brings him progressively rarer materials, accepts his stated uncertainties, and eventually entrusts him with the unprecedented gem that becomes Ios; Kargos reciprocates with careful work, candid technical advice, and a hand-locked delivery box made for his client. (Chapters 91–120, 165, and 174)
• Moon Specter Spirit: Kargos recognizes the spirit sealed within Moon Specter while enhancing the blade and treats the sword as her home, putting in extra effort to restore it. His work enables her to speak directly with Sungjin, and she later asks Sungjin to convey her gratitude to the smith. (Chapters 94 and 111)
• His blacksmith relatives: Faced with a gem beyond his individual experience, Kargos calls numerous cousins who share his trade. They work with him in the blazing smithy until the material settles into its star form, turning his final commission from solitary mastery into a family collaboration. (Chapters 165 and 169)

Skills and abilities

Master blacksmithing

Kargos can modify, enhance, combine, and forge equipment from materials that few blacksmiths can work. He recognizes legendary weapons and the Dragon's Heart on sight, improves existing weapons with enhancement stones, combines identical items through a specialized box, and produces custom equipment whose function preserves the defining nature of its source material. His results include awakening Moon Specter's sealed qualities, reforging the Dragon's Heart into a mana-oriented spellblade, and cutting hidden-piece gems into functional accessories. (Chapters 91–94, 112–120, and 135–137)

Appraisal and material interpretation

His expertise extends beyond physical technique to reading an item's tier, nature, and likely applications. He identifies the specializations of Sungjin's swords by inspection, explains why the Dragon's Heart must remain whole, and understands both the solitary function of the Star of Winter and the existence of mythological equipment. This knowledge guides clients toward viable forms, although it does not grant perfect foresight: enhancement outcomes remain unpredictable, and Archae'ard's gem initially leaves him unsure whether he can complete the work at all. (Chapters 91, 112, 135, 144, and 165)

Extreme concentration and endurance

Once engaged, Kargos can hammer for hours without breaking rhythm and notice a waiting customer through a blade's reflection without turning from his work. Exceptional projects still impose a real cost. Forging Ios requires assistance, days of continuous labor, scorching heat, and enough exertion to leave him soot-covered, burned, and asleep behind the anvil when Sungjin returns. His endurance sustains the work; it does not eliminate exhaustion. (Chapters 93, 116, 169, and 174)

Equipment

• Smithy tools and furnace: Kargos's hammer, anvil, and furnace are the center of his work, supporting everything from routine enhancement to the prolonged heating and forging demanded by the Dragon's Heart and the gem that becomes Ios. (Chapters 91, 112, 120, and 169)
• Combination box: A gray, gold-cornered box with a deceptively spacious interior fuses identical items after they are placed inside and the box is shaken. Kargos first uses it to combine Yanhurat necklaces and later lets Sungjin operate it for the Blood Vengeance copies. (Chapters 91 and 116)
• Hand-locked iron box: Kargos stores Ios in a small iron box whose lid bears an indentation precisely matching Sungjin's hand. The lock opens for Sungjin without waking the exhausted smith, providing a secure delivery method for the mythological accessory. (Chapter 174)