Blacksmithing Is Child’s Play for a Dark Mage - Chapter 108

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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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Episode 108
“……!?”
Geilard’s jaw fell open.
He didn’t even notice the wine glass tilting in his grip, the liquid spilling down his wrist.
“Your, your leg!? Why do you have a leg!? It was severed! I saw that prosthetic leg with my own eyes!”
“It reattached.”
“Reattached? What are you talking about? Legs aren’t lizard tails!”
Geilard reached out and touched Marent’s leg with skepticism in his eyes, then pinched it, and finally went so far as to grab and pull at his toes.
“Move them. Your toes.”
Wiggle, wiggle.
“You’re insane.”
It was warm. The pulse beat beneath his fingers. The toes moved. By every measure, it was a real leg.
“Is this some miracle from the Church? How did you scrape together the money for……!?”
“Not the Church.”
Marent sat down and unfolded the story calmly.
Tay the Maker. Limbs crafted by Black Magic. And a proposal besides—to take in all the legless knights as his own knights.
After hearing it all, Geilard fell silent for a long time.
“……Black Magic, you say.”
“Yes. It’s a type of Undead, apparently. It sometimes runs away, he said.”
“Runs away? A leg?”
“Once every six months. Then he makes a new one.”
“What kind of insane thing is that?”
Yet even as he spoke, Geilard’s gaze could not leave Marent’s leg. And soon, his eyes drifted to his own empty right sleeve.
That hollow, fluttering sleeve—barren to the wind for three years now.
Marent saw that look but did not press him. He simply rose from his seat, leaving only one word in parting.
“Take your time and think it over. When you’ve made your choice, come to Gehenna.”
And Marent left the inn.
On two legs. Long, confident strides.
Geilard, left behind, gazed endlessly at his departing figure—at that gait, steady and whole.
* * *
Rumor, they say, travels on feet without legs of its own.
And nothing spread faster in this world than word of a man who could fashion lost limbs anew.
Knights and mercenaries without limbs began to gather in Gehenna, one by one.
At first, they came half-doubting.
But the moment they saw Marent’s leg, they were halfway convinced. When a new limb was finally grafted onto their own bodies, they were entirely won over.
So it went.
Thirty-two knights gathered under Tay’s banner.
Thirty-two!
An absurdly large number to ever exist under a Baron’s command!
Even a modest Earl rarely mustered thirty knights. The mandate to raise the ranks to twelve had become a joke—the roster had tripled in near the blink of an eye.
Personnel quota achieved at three hundred percent before the quarter was done. This was the power of monopolizing a technology.
Of course, Tay had run the calculations carefully.
Since the grafting of limbs itself was an enormous price, he offered no estates as additional reward.
Instead, he ensured their monthly wages were generous.
None of them had complaints.
How could they complain?
Into lives spent crawling along the gutter on shattered bodies, limbs and knightly rank and substantial monthly pay had all tumbled at once.
Their loyalty, if anything, was fierce enough to pierce the heavens.
Among them were knights stronger than Partan.
Marent alone was a Gold Rank knight versed in Aura, and Geilard’s spear technique, returned to its full vigor, was superb.
Yet Partan was appointed Knight Commander.
Which was only right.
He was the first knight, after all, and had earned deep trust over time.
Rank was not decided by strength alone, but by seniority and reliability. Such was the personnel principle of the Maker Barony.
“K, Knight Commander……? This Partan, by your grace, my lord……!”
“Don’t cry. Please.”
And yet Partan received his commission with tears streaming down his cheeks once more. His emotional threshold remained, as ever, somewhere deep in the basement.
So autumn passed, and winter came again.
Tay’s military force had grown beyond recognition. A Ghoul army, and now thirty-two knights besides.
Meanwhile.
Harundel Marquess still hadn’t managed to decisively defeat Salcatna Earl.
The war was already entering its second winter.
* * *
Gehenna Earldom.
Tay remained here still.
And before long, a year had passed since his occupation of the Gehenna Earldom.
One year.
Not enough time for mountains and rivers to change, but more than sufficient to digest an entire territory whole.
Now the Gehenna Earldom had become completely Tay’s own.
Administration had been firmly secured long ago.
The administrators Kael had sent took root everywhere, and now even a single copper piece flowed into Tay’s ledgers with precision.
The military force composed of human soldiers had been equally secured.
The method of relocating families and rotating half their conscription worked perfectly. To a new lord who paid well and never withheld wages, the soldiers adapted quite readily.
Truly, the romantic medieval period!
And during that year, Tay’s military forces had grown by leaps and bounds.
The main stronghold of the Maker Barony had consistently sent Skeleton Soldiers, and Tay, for his part, had crafted Ghouls from corpse resources gathered here and there.
As a result.
Currently: twenty-five thousand Skeleton Soldiers and one thousand Ghouls.
The twenty-five thousand Skeleton Soldiers weren’t a concern, really. Infinite mass production was possible anyway.
The problem was the Ghouls.
The number of Ghouls could not increase rapidly like the Skeleton Soldiers.
They were mid-tier Undead, so only Tay could manufacture them.
No subcontracting, no outsourcing—purely the proprietor’s personal handiwork. It was a tearful cottage industry that required the CEO himself on the production line to function.
Here, let me introduce that heartbreaking process.
Step one: Low-tier Black Mages use the Flesh Crafting Spell to knead and stick the corpses’ flesh together.
Clay sculpture. Except the material is corpses!
The problem is that this Flesh Crafting didn’t mold as cleanly as bone.
So the result becomes a monstrosity of mismatched pieces. If Dr. Frankenstein saw it, he’d hand over his business card as a colleague in the same industry.
Still, the Black Mages laboriously reassembled those corpses into roughly two-meter tall, one-hundred-eighty-kilogram hefty frames.
Naturally, extra bone had to be stitched together to support that build.
Step two: Turning that into a Ghoul falls to Tay alone.
It’s completely manual work and time-consuming, so they’ve only managed one thousand so far.
But they were strong.
Especially, the massive physique made all the difference.
Ordinary Ghouls look like emaciated corpses.
Most stand around one hundred sixty centimeters tall.
Because Ghouls are formed from accumulated bitter resentment.
And those who die harboring such resentment are usually powerless commoners. What grievance would a well-fed, well-lived corpse have to nurse?
So they have small frames and light weight.
A typical Ghoul weighs about fifty kilograms?
But what Tay created was two meters tall and one hundred eighty kilograms.
More than triple the weight of ordinary Ghouls, and proportionally more powerful.
Ghoul strength increases explosively with physique, so what happens when such a heavyweight body becomes a Ghoul?
It develops insane levels of raw power!
That wasn’t all.
There was good reason Ghouls were classified as mid-tier Undead.
These creatures carried Necromantic Power and Corpse Poison in their grasp.
They could withstand Aura Blades for a time, and they tore steel apart like paper.
Their bodies were hard as steel—without an Aura Blade, Holy Power, or magical force, they were nearly impossible to wound.
Simple and devastatingly strong!
Ordinary soldiers practically couldn’t contest them!
Swords wouldn’t penetrate, and when those things clawed you, they shredded armor and flesh alike.
To a common soldier, there simply existed no strategy to overcome them—they were an unscalable wall.
In other words.
These Ghouls were quasi-Knight-tier combatants.
One thousand of them.
Enough to overwhelm and slaughter dozens of Knights through sheer numbers alone!
No matter how skilled a Knight might be, if ten quasi-Knight-tier monsters descended on him from all sides, he’d have no answer.
Aura isn’t infinite, after all!
At this level, they could match even an Earl or Marquess in direct combat.
Long ago, in the wars against the Demon Kings of legend, armies of the dead were born into this world in secret, unknown to all.
While the world descended into chaos, Tay had quietly cultivated this overwhelming force.
As others clashed and exhausted themselves in attrition, he alone had leveled up in obscurity and emerged victorious.
‘Just looking at them fills me with satisfaction.’
Tay gazed upon the Ghouls arrayed in the training ground and smiled with contentment. Wrapped in Bone Armor that concealed their grotesque forms, they cut an almost impressive figure.
First and foremost—overwhelming physical presence!
The medium-sized Skeleton Soldiers were formidable enough, their bones bound together and armored to add weight.
Yet despite their frame, they proved heavier than expected.
These Ghouls were the perfect evolution of those medium Skeleton Soldiers!
“Master! Behold those magnificent muscular forms! I can hear the very foundations of beauty crumbling! And yet—because they are strong, they are beautiful! Ahahaha!”
Dialogue, perched upon his shoulder, chattered away with glee. Beauty measured by strength—truly, it was an aesthetic befitting Dialogue himself.
—Contractor. With an army of that caliber, you could now stand toe-to-toe with even the great noble houses. Might I suggest expanding your ambitions somewhat?
Ase’s voice whispered from the shadows. Demons, it seemed, specialized in temptation.
“Ambitions? I simply wish to live warmly and comfortably.”
—To live warmly and comfortably, you’ve assembled twenty-six thousand Undead. I suspect you are unique in that regard.
“A generous insurance policy is always prudent.”
And so, today as well, Tay continued his peaceful(?) labor, sculpting Ghouls from the darkness.
Then a messenger arrived.
And it was a familiar face.
The sorcerer-noble from before—the Gold Rank mage favored by the Harundel Marquess—had ridden the long road once more.
That he had come in person at the beginning of winter spoke volumes about the gravity of his errand.
* * *
The reception chamber.
Tay met the sorcerer-noble alone.
He dismissed the attendants and locked the door. Then the sorcerer-noble drew from his robes a Sealed Letter in Wax.
A secret message from the Harundel Marquess.
Tay broke the seal and read through the letter slowly.
Summarized, its contents were these:
Attack several enemy territories during the winter months.
Black Mage Is Too Easy as a Blacksmith
Author |
Automaton G
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Samyang C&C Co., Ltd.
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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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