Blacksmithing Is Child’s Play for a Dark Mage - Chapter 104

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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 104
Spring was arriving.
An emissary from Harundel Marquess appeared at Gehenna Castle.
And to summarize the Marquess’s intentions as relayed by the emissary, it amounted to roughly this:
For the time being, make no moves. Wait.
“You’re telling me to hold my breath, then?”
“Indeed, Baron Tay.”
To Tay’s question, the emissary nodded respectfully.
The man who had come as emissary held the rank of Baron, the same as Tay.
Moreover, he was a 3rd-Class Mage—a person of considerable standing among the Marquess’s vassals, dispatched in person.
His escort consisted of a single knight and six soldiers.
Sparse as it was, Tay understood perfectly that this represented the maximum number who could move during a season barely emerged from winter.
It was the limit of travelers a Mage could protect while maintaining thermal magic to shield the party—that was precisely how many.
Unless one did as Tay did, covering everything in Undead and lounging in transparent carriages, this was the very doctrine of winter travel in this age.
‘How everyone struggles along.’
Tay regarded it as someone else’s problem. And truly, it was.
“I understand. Since you’ve traveled far and labored greatly, please rest at your ease.”
“I am grateful for your hospitality.”
Being fellow Barons, their exchange carried equally formal courtesy. To outward appearances, it was the picture of noble decorum.
After the emissary had been shown to his quarters,
Tay posed a question to Partan, who stood nearby.
“Partan.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“What’s your sense of why the order came for us to remain still?”
Partan took a moment to gather his thoughts, then answered calmly.
“It’s a matter of merit.”
“Merit?”
“Harundel Marquess will inevitably be the one to establish the greatest merit, so for him it matters little. But his vassals—their situation is different.”
Partan continued cautiously.
“We are…… advancing too swiftly.”
Ah.
At those words, Tay grasped it at once.
When a war ends, there is a Merit Reward Distribution—a feast where lands, wealth, and titles are divided according to the accomplishments one has built.
But if you, an outside ally, swept up all the merit?
The Marquess’s vassals would never view it favorably. It wasn’t merely laying a spoon on someone else’s table; it was taking the entire table itself.
“Right. Five Domains in less than a year—that was a bit much, wasn’t it?”
“The winter campaign and assault certainly helped considerably, but……”
Partan added matter-of-factly.
“To speak honestly, even without the winter, the outcome would not have differed greatly.”
Partan had long since felt in his bones just how overpowering his lord’s forces truly were.
“True enough. Then……”
Tay fell into thought.
This enforced rest would come regardless. The question was how to make the best use of this interval.
The answer came swiftly. Internal administration.
‘I should reach out to Kael.’
Tay withdrew a Crystal Orb from his pocket.
A long-distance communication device.
Expensive.
Filthy expensive.
This tiny sphere was a luxury item whose value rivaled that of an entire modest estate.
There was no subscription plan or contract—one had to pay tens of billions upfront for the device, a truly outrageous thing.
But then again, for Tay now, it was hardly unaffordable. To a man who’d claimed five Domains, a single orb was nothing.
As Tay channeled mana into the Crystal Orb, Kael’s image soon materialized above the sphere.
His face bore deeper dark circles—the marks of overwork etched like medals across his features.
“My lord. Did you call for me.”
“Yeah. Kael. You’re doing well. How’s the recruitment of administrators coming along?”
“Smoothly, my lord. I’ve currently secured a total of fifty-six Academy-trained administrators. Sufficient personnel to govern a Barony.”
True to form, Kael’s report was clean and uncluttered.
In truth, a typical Barony with a population of ten to twenty thousand would run adequately on five administrators alone.
But Tay’s Domains already numbered in the hundreds of thousands. They wore the skin of a Barony while possessing the body of a near-Marquessate, so barely over fifty could keep things breathing.
Fifty-six administrative officials. By the standards of an ordinary marquess, it was more than enough.
But Tay’s answer was different.
“I like having an excess of administrators. Increase it. Around two hundred, I’d say.”
…….
Beyond the Crystal Orb, Kael’s eyebrow twitched ever so slightly. He’d agonized over finding fifty-six, and now two hundred? The target had quadrupled in an instant.
But Kael was Kael. Without a word of complaint, he immediately offered a practical solution.
“We may struggle to fill that number with Academy graduates alone, sir, but I can supplement with slave labor.”
“Do that. We’ll need to absorb Gehenna eventually anyway.”
Buy intelligent slaves, educate them, and put them to work as administrators.
It was a method already tested once before—proven and reliable. Merit over credentials, a distinctly Tay-style open recruitment.
“And hire some mages as well.”
“Mages, sir?”
“Yes. Regular mages, not Black Mages.”
Beyond the Crystal Orb, Kael fell silent for a moment. A Black Mage lord seeking ordinary mages—he seemed to judge that clarification was warranted.
“Should I source them for administrative work within the territory, sir?”
“Both administrative and combat—can’t they do both?”
“……That may prove difficult to source, sir.”
A jack-of-all-trades mage skilled in both administration and combat. No such hexagonal talent would tumble into this backwater. If such a thing existed, the central powers would have claimed them long ago.
“Then source them for administrative work first.”
“Understood, sir.”
Communication ended.
As the Crystal Orb’s light dimmed, Tay stretched lazily and murmured to himself.
“Good. Then I’ll wait patiently. In the meantime, let’s manage the territory. Partan.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Increase the knights as well. Up to twelve.”
Partan’s eyes widened slightly.
A marquess commanding twelve knights.
Honestly, it was madness by any measure.
For an ordinary marquess, maintaining even two or three knights would strain his coffers. The expense of supporting a single knight was worth dozens of soldiers.
But Tay’s circumstances had changed.
His territory was growing by leaps and bounds, and with it came the means to grant landed estates to knights who distinguished themselves.
Salaries to distribute, lands to award as bonuses. By any measure, it was the dream position for any knight.
“Yes, my lord.”
Partan answered vigorously, visibly moved by how his lord’s power swelled with each passing day.
His eyes seemed to grow moist again.
‘He’s about to cry again.’
Tay politely turned away.
Thus.
While others forced him to rest, Tay converted even that respite into careful consolidation—laying groundwork for the next phase.
Rest was not merely rest; it was preparation time for the game ahead.
* * *
A period of leisurely waiting.
Tay decided to use this time to undertake a long-deferred project.
The ghoul problem, precisely.
With lower Undead like skeletal soldiers, Tay could maintain them limitlessly thanks to his Blood Lineage Ability. Whether ten thousand or a hundred thousand, he could spawn them endlessly without worrying about Dominion constraints.
But ghouls were different.
Mid-tier Undead required Dominion expenditure to command.
Thus far, Tay had been steadily increasing his ghoul forces, casting the 3rd Class Necromancy spell Ghoul Creation bit by bit.
Ghouls possessed bodies as hard as metal, and with flesh and muscle intact, their raw physical power was in an entirely different league from skeletal soldiers.
The problem was a limitation—Dominion capacity.
No matter how many ghouls he spawned, there was a hard ceiling on how many he could actually command.
Like having a full grain store but too few bowls to serve from.
To secure additional Dominion, he would need to construct a dedicated necromantic structure to house ghouls.
But here lay the real problem.
To build it, he needed the design blueprint.
The blueprints for structures that increased Dominion were classified as secret teachings within Black Magic itself—unobtainable, even with money in hand.
An out-of-stock item with no market supply. More accurately, never released to market in the first place.
“Ath. Do you happen to know anything about this?”
“I do not, contractor.”
Even the demon Ath shook his head.
“That is a secret art that Necromancer bloodlines have guarded for generations. Even demons from Guchen Hell cannot peer into the sordid vaults of human secrets.”
“Sordid, you say. Speaking of ancestral treasures that way.”
“But it is the truth, is it not?”
He could not acquire it. He could not learn it. Even demons did not know it.
Then there was only one answer.
Develop it himself.
How?
With the power of a Crazy Craftsman!
If it doesn’t exist, make it.
That was the fundamental philosophy of the crafting world.
Tay’s Madness Accumulation gauge was full to bursting, sloshing over at the edges.
All the horrors he had witnessed throughout the war had been steadily compiling into a savings account called Madness.
Tay resolved to spend that Madness generously, drawing out the crafting method first.
‘Design Drawing by Madness-Tinged Imagination.’
Skill activated.
-Consuming accumulated Madness.
-Extracting blueprint.
In truth, this was a random gacha.
Rather than pulling exactly what he wanted, the system threw blueprints at him at its own whim, within the bounds of imagination.
So all Tay could do was what he always did.
“Please be good! Please be good! Please be something GOOD!”
Rubbing his hands together in prayer—a ritual before the gacha altar.
Before gacha, all are equal. A great lord who had swallowed five domains was no more than a free-to-play player before the system.
After several draws,
Tay finally fished up a usable blueprint.
[Tower of Abhorrent Flesh]
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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