Nam Sung - Legendary Moonlight Sculptor Volume 17

Weed tore at his hair. The King Hydra and Imoogi leather that had been stacked like a mountain was shrinking. If bronze or iron had been used as materials, then he could melt them down again and reuse them, but for the most part, he couldn't recycle the leather materials and had to discard them.

“It's hard enough making a child that's flawlessly bright, but darkness follows brightness.”

In the eyes of the parents who couldn't have the child, such brightness would be pain that would chip away at their hearts. Even so, their sadness would be infinitely greater if he made a child that was shrieking as it cried.

“Magnum opus. I need to create a magnum opus…”

Weed fell into confusion. His worries on what kind of work he should to make were growing even more severe.

“Should I guess how Seo-yoon looked when she was young and make that?”

Escaping from reality!

He thought it'd be easy to sculpt Hwaryeong or Irene in their youths. However, Weed soon saw the error of his ways and shook his head.

“The player named Mandol believed in me and entrusted this to me. I can't just do a rough job.”

It seemed like doing the quest would be way easier than agonizing over something that was so difficult to resolve.

The proficiency he accumulated while making dolls also amounted to 36 % of level 7. Even if his skill level and expressiveness grew with experience, it was no good if he couldn't decide on the right subject.

“I'm not being too greedy… I just want to sculpt the best little girl that I can.”

Weed's worries kept deepening.

Since there was no word from the expedition that had gotten the shared quest and had left for the Embinyu underground prison, he just kept sewing dolls. As he repeatedly experienced countless failures, he was trying to make that something .

Dolls, dolls, dolls, dolls!

“Gaaaaah!” Lee Hyun kicked away his blanket and stood. It was such a big issue that he couldn't sleep. “I thought I'd never have to suffer because of a doll again.”

The dolls of young girls wouldn't leave his mind.

“Should I just make it as a bronze statue? If I make it using gold or silver, then…”

He came up with ways to escape, but he didn't want to run away from it like that. Such an action would be completely betraying the trust he had gathered in sculptures thus far.

“I can't just forget about it without even being able to make the requested sculpture.”

It wasn't his way to give up because it was hard. No matter what, he just had to find the method!

Lee Hyun went to the market to cool his head. The dawn market was overflowing with liveliness from the people buying and selling things like vegetables and meat. But even within that liveliness, he couldn't think of the right sculpture for the young little girl.

“Should I try going to the maternity ward or a preschool?”

He could see little kids there, but it wasn't like he didn't know what a child looked like.

“They're sleepy little devils that get hungry and you have to frequently change their diapers.”

No matter what kind of little girl doll he made, he wasn't pleased.

On his way home, Lee Hyun passed a photo studio. Photographs for the first birthday celebrations of little kids and wedded couples were on display.

As he looked at those photos for a long time, Lee Hyun gained enlightenment.

“For a sculptor, the subject can be felt and seen in the finished work alone. That's probably very different from a parent's perspective.”

There was a life to a child even in an ordinary photo, and to a parent, that one photo would be a truly precious work.

Lee Hyun tried thinking of saying farewell to a little girl from a parent's shoes.

Just what was he supposed to do about a parent's breaking heart as they parted with a doll of a newborn baby!

“Making a doll of a child was wrong from the very beginning!” Lee Hyun suddenly shouted.

If he thought about it from a parent's perspective, then he already had the most definite answer.

Weed brought out the King Hydra and Imoogi leathers. Even after making stuffed animals and failed dolls of children, there was still quite a lot left. The very best of the leather was left, too.

For works of art, the first one made wasn't always the best, and the last one didn't necessarily have a high degree of finishing. However, a sculpture that didn't move the emotions wouldn't be able to impart any emotions to the opposite party.

He had saved the best materials in case he came up with a sculpture that he really had to make!

“I should be able to make 40 dolls. It's a shame, but this should be more than enough.”

Weed cut the leather and started from making a sculpture of a newborn baby. It was a little girl who had just been born. Her skin was wrinkled, and she looked like she was about to cry, as if she had truly come into the world for the first time. She was small enough to be held in one hand.

“A living being within a few hours of being born. This is a baby that has made her first contact with the world after coming out of her mother's womb.”

Having already received information about Mandol and his wife, Weed took a little of their features when making the doll. Even so, however, there wasn't a particular characteristic to the newborn babe.

“Alright. The first one is done.”

Weed laid down the baby doll and raised the leather again. He needed to make the second doll now.

As he made the doll, Weed's hands were very careful. “It's a newborn baby. In her first year, she'll start toddling, and changing her diapers will be awful then, too. From a parent's perspective, it'll be a time when they can't help but be worried all the time.”

Imagining the future of the little girl that Mandol's wife would have given birth to, Weed made the doll very tensely.

“She needs clothes, too.”

He had covered the newborn baby doll with clean cloth, but now he used Tailoring to clothe her in baby clothes.

He completed the doll of a little girl gurgling into a laugh at her first birthday party!

“Now she knows her mom and dad… it's the time when she's growing up like that.”

The doll he made next had grown a little more. She was taller, and her fingers and toes had grown longer. She also had hair in cute pigtails.

“The age when she'll learn how to speak and start acting mischievous.”

He clothed the fourth doll he made in a kindergarten uniform. It was a doll of a young student wearing adorable clothes and even a backpack.

The fifth doll had grown up quickly; it was time for her to go to elementary school.

She had just been a baby-faced and cute kid until now, but from the sixth, she began to have a slightly feminine charm.

“The neighborhood boys will really want to flip up her skirt, and she'll have grown into a girl with a pretty smile.”

The little girl who made mischief and ran around like the queen of the neighborhood would grow up charmingly. Her eyes would be as playful as before, but brighter, and she would be taller.

Every doll he completed after that was taller and had longer hair. The hairstyles also changed several times, ranging from long straight hair men preferred to a lively pixie cut.

“This is also pretty hard work.”

He had to go buy hair from the sculpting material shop and sew them all in; even so, he didn't tire because his efforts were making something.

From the fourteenth doll, she had already graduated high school and had become an adult.

She had grown into a woman who seemed very energetic and talkative. As if she was going to suddenly bring her boyfriend over to introduce him to her parents, she had rosy cheeks and charming expressions. He even made pretty accessories like a hairband and necklace with through crafting. She only needed a book bag and a uniform in her high school years, but she was now a college girl. He had to make her a bag and heels, which were like the lifeblood of a woman.