Blacksmithing Is Child’s Play for a Dark Mage - Chapter 102

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 102
“Ow~ This hurts again~”
A lord’s dignity was something Tay borrowed for a moment in front of guests, and the instant they left, he returned to his real job(?)—self-inflicted manual labor.
* * *
Several days later.
Reinforcements arrived at Tay’s home domain.
They were administrators—some twenty of them—a godsend in his time of need.
The origins of these twenty proved quite interesting upon inspection.
Five were elite administrators Kael had personally recruited by pulling every connection from the Academy, their careers honed through orthodox channels.
The remaining fifteen were homegrown talent, cultivated through painstaking education of those freed from slavery.
In short: five appointed from above, fifteen from open recruitment—that sort of composition.
Their backgrounds varied widely, yet each one was a capable hand, sharp and dependable when it came to the work.
They immediately set about seizing administrative control, bringing the existing administrators still present in the Gehenna Marquessate under their command.
It was a method of placing Tay’s people atop the seasoned local workforce—a bloodless entry into power, not a drop of blood spilled, the administration taken whole.
Of course, this didn’t mean staffing was generous; overtime and overwork were standard conditions for everyone.
Then, amid all this,
Bizan Baron came to see Tay—the representative figure among the Gehenna Marquessate’s vassals.
The ten-day consideration period had ended, and he brought with him the vassals’ answer at last.
“Well. What choice have you made?”
“……We have decided to leave our domain.”
Bizan Baron bowed respectfully.
Whether it was the new master’s status as a Black Mage that ultimately troubled them, or whether they had simply resolved to leave the land they loved—either way, it was their conclusion.
“Do as you see fit. I’ll honor the promise and set a fair price for your holdings.”
Tay nodded readily. There was no reason to hold back those who wished to depart.
Those whose hearts had already left would only become a chronic source of worry if forced to stay.
“……I am grateful for your mercy.”
Bizan Baron bowed deeply.
And so,
the Gehenna Marquessate fell completely into Tay’s grasp at last.
The capital, the wealth, the people, the administration—everything in this land was now entirely his.
First hunt: complete!
Now it was time to move to the next phase.
* * *
War was not a thing that happened as quickly as one might think.
The war that began with such swagger in spring had gradually slipped into the swelter of summer.
In that time, Tay had poured entire months into taking control of and stabilizing the Gehenna Marquessate.
Well, it couldn’t be helped.
Tay suffered from chronic understaffing.
In fact, getting Gehenna to run at all was nearly the result of squeezing blood from stone, leveraging every last resource.
The capital was taken in a single day’s fast conquest speed run, yet tidying up afterward took months—such a bitter irony.
Meanwhile,
Harundel Marquess, together with his vassals, was tearing through three domains.
But unlike Tay, he hadn’t attempted total conquest. After smashing a domain to pieces,
he simply accepted its surrender and moved immediately to the next target—a typical fast conquest speed run style, hitting the dungeon boss and leaving with haste.
Furthermore, the Marquess absorbed the defeated domain’s troops and dragged them along.
What was this? Using yesterday’s enemy as today’s ally?
One might think it absurd. Yet remarkably, in this age, such a thing was entirely natural.
Even in his previous life on Earth, concepts like nationalism and statism didn’t emerge in earnest until the 12th century at the earliest.
Indeed, from roughly the 16th to 17th centuries on Earth, hiring mercenary companies to wage war was utterly commonplace.
Enemy mercenaries who clashed swords one day would be serving as allies the very next—a sight so frequent it had become mundane.
Of course, the reason for all of it came down to one thing alone: money. For freelance mercenaries, what mattered was not the color of the flag, but the weight of gold coins in the purse.
And this world was no different in that regard.
Ordinary soldiers, in truth, felt little real loyalty to anything. As long as meals were provided regularly and on time, that was fine—that was all that mattered.
Regular soldiers, by comparison, had at least some sense of belonging.
But even that lasted only until the moment their lord surrendered. Then they thought, “Ah~ we lost~ a new master has arrived~” and switched sides cleanly. It was entirely normal.
Ultimately, whoever fed you well and paid your wages on time—that was your true lord.
In that romanticized medieval army, a warm meal beat loyalty every time.
Conscripting and dragging along forces this way yielded remarkable benefits.
For one, it eliminated all possibility of rebellion or unrest in the rear, while simultaneously swelling his own numbers—killing two birds with one stone.
The only drawback to scraping together indiscriminate forces this way was that elite troops were impossible to form—a motley crew, a neighborhood soccer team at best!
But that was fine, really.
Why? The enemy’s forces were probably in just as poor a state anyway.
When both sides were raw manpower clashing with raw manpower, there was nothing particularly disadvantageous about my own troops being in that condition.
Everything was undertaken beneath the grand banner of ‘romance’.
Romance! Spirit and vigor!
That was the very essence of the Medieval age!
But amid all this, Tay alone walked a path entirely different from the rest.
While others struck hard and withdrew quickly, Tay meticulously laid groundwork to properly and effectively control the Gehenna Marquessate.
First, Tay left behind two thousand Skeleton Soldiers and five hundred troops from the Maker Barony in Gehenna—a reliable insurance policy to crush any potential unrest before it could even take root.
And what of the existing forces?
There was no need to enslave them.
Tay absorbed them directly and then divided them evenly between the Maker Barony and the Gehenna Marquessate for garrison duty.
He even relocated them along with their families.
It was only natural that troop strength increased as a result.
This way, naturally, adequate control became possible. With families anchored in one territory like hostages, it became deeply uncomfortable to harbor any duplicitous thoughts.
Instead of wielding the whip, he had shrewdly secured family as insurance.
Once all the arrangements were complete, autumn had crept steadily closer.
Around that time, a messenger arrived from Harundel Marquess, urging him to attack the remaining territories.
“Not yet. Please grant me a little more time.”
But Tay was unhurried, waiting calmly for the right moment.
As autumn ripened, Harundel Marquess demolished two more territories in succession.
Salcatna Earl, meanwhile, hardly ventured out himself.
Instead, he called all his vassals to his castle, steadily amassing military strength.
It was a textbook siege defense buildup, concentrating power for the decisive battle.
And then, at last, winter arrived.
Everyone spoke of the same thing in one voice: come spring, the two sides would clash in a great pitched battle.
Winter was always a difficult season to move armies, after all.
The bitter cold that stripped skin, supply problems besides—it was a season fraught with complications for conducting war.
It was at that very moment.
Tay slowly rose from his seat.
And pulling the corners of his mouth upward, he bared a smile so utterly vicious it was almost inhuman.
“The time has come.”
While everyone else shook their heads and said “no,” there was one person who cried “yes” alone. That person was Tay.
“We march! Target: four adjacent territories!”
Just as everyone was settling in for winter sleep in the warmth of their sleeping quarters.
Tay kicked away and rose abruptly the moment winter began.
* * *
The entire world had become blanketed in pristine white snow—the depths of winter had arrived.
From the ashen sky, heavy snow fell without cessation, and a sharp, biting wind howled across the snow-covered plain where every step sank deep.
Any living creature would have huddled by a warm brazier—such was the brutal, merciless season that had come.
Yet across that pristine white expanse, an endless procession of another white mass was marching.
It was Tay’s Undead army.
Snow and bone mingled together, creating a strange sight where white layered upon white.
In a cold so severe that any living being would have collapsed from frostbite long ago, the Skeleton Soldiers didn’t shiver once.
Cold? That was a luxury only the living bothered to worry about. For bones already dead, the sub-zero gale was nothing more than a gentle breeze.
An invincible army capable of marching through the harshest winter conditions. That was the Skeleton Soldier.
And at the very heart of that white procession.
Tay sat leisurely in a specially crafted Bone Palanquin, gazing freely at the snowy landscape beyond the window.
This palanquin was no ordinary object.
What bore the palanquin was none other than a Giant Skeleton Soldier standing four meters tall—a creature boasting overwhelming bulk, easily twice the size of an ordinary Skeleton Soldier.
Moreover, this Skeleton Soldier was no ordinary beast.
The upper half was vaguely humanoid, but the lower half was unmistakably equine in form—a four-legged gait.
In other words, it was a bone-wrought centaur, a Black Magic-crafted hybrid bearer. With such massive frame and four legs, it traversed the snow-laden ground with stable, steady strides.
But the true marvel lay elsewhere.
The palanquin’s four sides were entirely transparent glass.
Glass, no less!
And this was an absurdly expensive material!
In this age, glass-making technology was not entirely absent.
But the process was so difficult that it commanded a staggering price.
A single pane of proper glass could easily exceed several years’ worth of a commoner’s livelihood—a luxury among luxuries.
The Black Mage is Too Easy as a Blacksmith
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Automaton G
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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