Blacksmithing Is Child’s Play for a Dark Mage - Chapter 109

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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 109
The order was to plunder a few vassal territories of Salcatna Earl and harass their rear.
‘Interesting.’
Tay’s lips curved upward ever so slightly.
Last year they’d told him to sit tight and build his war record. Now they were begging him to move. In a single year, the balance of power had flipped.
Reading between the lines, the situation was clear enough.
“It seems Salcatna Earl is putting up a respectable fight with all his strength.”
At Tay’s words, the Sorcerer Baron smiled bitterly.
He neither confirmed nor denied it, but his expression spoke a hundred answers on its own.
Salcatna Earl. That pitiful lord who’d let his own domain crumble into chaos was now, pressed to the edge of a cliff, showing his teeth. The strategy of curling up like a hedgehog—gathering his vassals into the fortress—was proving harder to crack than expected.
The Marquess, hammering away from the front, had been locked in stalemate for a second winter without resolution.
So at last, they’d drawn that card again.
The only army that could move in winter. Undead legions that didn’t tire in blizzards, didn’t freeze, didn’t starve.
The Maker Baron’s card.
‘Well, I’m not complaining.’
Tay’s mind clicked through the numbers like an abacus.
An order to plunder vassal territories under the guise of rear harassment was essentially handing him a legal license to pillage. For Tay, who’d tasted the profits of last winter’s campaign thoroughly, there was no sweeter commission to be had.
And this time, the force was upgraded with an additional thousand ghouls.
Faster and more thorough than last year!
Tay burned the sealed letter in candleflame, speaking without emotion.
“Tell the Marquess that things will go as he wishes.”
Ash drifted down in pale flutters.
“Everything will come to pass.”
* * *
Dawn, with the blizzard howling like a thing possessed.
The gates of Gehenna Castle swung wide open.
Through that gap, an endless white army began to pour forth.
The start of the second winter campaign.
The same picture as last year, but on a different scale. Far vaster this time.
For one thing, the number of Black Mages leading the force had swollen dramatically.
Bonded mercenary Black Mages alone numbered a staggering fifty-two!
The result of indiscriminate hiring through the Mercenary Guild.
They’d swept up every Black Mage they could lay hands on—debtors, drifters, the lot. At this point, Tay was a major player in the continent’s Black Mage labor market. No, more than that—he was the market itself.
Robert and Temmy were naturally among them.
“Sigh… Another winter campaign? I’m sick of this.”
“Hey. They’re paying triple wages. Shut your mouth and be grateful.”
“Even so, the cold is the cold…”
“The carriages have Heat Preservation Magic running at full blast! What’re you complaining about, you fool?”
The grumbler and the curser kept up their usual banter.
And then there was the true new weapon of this campaign.
Twenty-five newly enlisted knights accompanied the expedition.
Tay spared no expense in outfitting these knights.
First, he had Skeletal Horses made for them—Undead mounts that never tired, never panicked.
And he issued each knight an item that let them command Undead.
A Madness Engineer’s Command Item. With one in hand, even a knight could give orders to the Undead.
And the Undead the knights commanded were all refashioned as Skeletal Centaurs.
Upper body: skeletal soldier. Lower body: skeletal horse. The two lashed together—a Skeletal Centaur!
Each knight had fifty Skeletal Centaurs attached to them.
In other words.
Over a thousand mounted troops!
Twenty-five knights, each commanding fifty Centaurs, for a total of over a thousand Undead cavalry—an entire mounted legion had been born.
A mere Baron with a thousand cavalry. Cavalry was ordinarily the cavalry of the nobility—feed costs, stable upkeep, management—bleeding money at every turn. But Tay’s cavalry ate no grain and needed no stables.
Zero-maintenance cavalry!
The knights had been uneasy at first.
“You want us to ride… these? Heaps of bones?”
“The feel is completely different from living horses, so it’s…”
Fair enough.
For knights who’d spent their whole lives in the saddle of living mounts, a clattering skeleton horse was an unsettling prospect.
But after a few days of riding, their attitudes had changed completely.
They’d realized just how tremendous an asset it was—mounts that never tired, never broke stride in fear.
“This is…… formidable!”
The cavalry’s greatest vulnerability—the burden of horse management—had vanished entirely.
The knights were utterly delighted.
Moreover, Tay had spared considerable expense to outfit each knight with Heat Preservation Magic and Cold Protection Magic items.
Scarves, gloves, boots—a complete cold-weather ensemble layered onto every man.
The reason was simple: they needed to fight.
Frozen fingers cannot wield a sword. Last year’s enemy soldiers, their flesh ruddy with ice atop the ramparts, had been living proof.
Equipment investment was combat investment.
And then there were the cooks and servants who attended to the knights’ needs.
Meanwhile, the Black Mages and others were transported in specially crafted wagons—which naturally had Heat Preservation Magic and Cold Protection Magic layered upon them in abundance.
To the naked eye, it was a death column crawled forth from Hell itself; but peer inside, and you’d find a procession of sightseeing buses flush with warm air.
And at the very heart of the army sat that thing.
A flesh tower atop a wagon, swaddled thickly in cloth.
A wheeled Wi-Fi router commanding a thousand ghouls, rolling forward toward its debut battle.
After days of such movement,
Tay’s forces finally arrived at their objective: Hansen Earldom.
Tay raised his hand from within the glass-paneled carriage.
“Encircle them first, then send an envoy.”
Certain formalities had to be observed before beginning a siege.
* * *
Gehenna Castle.
Hermina, wife of the Earl and mistress of the castle, stood upon the ramparts looking down at the spectacle below.
The horizon, painted not black but white—a vast army of Undead.
Hermina was a mage.
Though only 2nd-Class in rank, such ability was sufficient to command the forces of a domain.
With her husband away, she was the de facto military commander of this territory.
‘That mad craftsman, the Skeletal Baron……!’
The madman who marched armies through winter and laid waste to all. She’d heard the rumors so often they’d worn grooves into her ears.
Last winter, he’d torn through blizzards to appear and swallow four domains whole—a Black Mage of terrifying power.
His notorious fame, having torn sleeping lords from their beds, had spread across the entirety of Salcatna County.
‘But surely. Surely he wouldn’t attack our domain!’
Rumor and sight were worlds apart.
That white army filling the horizon sucked the breath from her lungs.
And Hermina calculated the reality coldly.
The Hansen Earl’s forces were two-thirds depleted.
Her husband, Hansen Earl, had led most of the troops to join Salcatna Earl and now fought against Harundel Marquess.
Winter had frozen the fighting into a stalemate, but the bulk of the troops remained in the field nonetheless.
Which meant the garrison here was pathetically thin.
And that meant ruin.
Defense, fortification—both required bodies. Holding off that vast host with a near-empty castle? It was arithmetic that needed no calculation.
Moreover, it was common knowledge that the Skeletal Baron had taken five domains last year.
Not one of those five strongholds had held for even a single day.
At that very moment, a soldier came rushing in with word.
“An, an envoy has arrived!”
The envoy sent by the Skeletal Baron delivered his message with courtesy but unmistakable clarity.
It was a call to surrender.
Hermina gritted her teeth.
Her noble pride rose like bile in her throat.
To open the gates without even fighting—such shame was unbearable for one of her station.
And yet.
She knew that resistance would bring only destruction.
A mage’s mind was cold. Pride paid no wages.
In this case, pride would devour the lives of every soul in her domain.
All five lords last year had clung to their pride only to lose their castles in a single day, she’d heard—stripped of everything they possessed.
Then the answer was clear.
Surrender beforehand.
If surrender was inevitable, then yielding early preserved more cards for negotiation.
“I will surrender. However, I would negotiate the terms.”
This was Hermina’s reply to the envoy.
The envoy departed with that answer in hand.
* * *
“The Earl’s wife is a military commander? A mage?”
When the servant he’d sent as an emissary returned with his report, Tay’s eyebrows rose.
“Yes, my lord. A 2nd-Class Mage, it seems. She’s overseeing the domain in the Earl’s absence.”
“Hmm.”
Tay found himself intrigued.
So she was putting forward negotiation terms before they’d even crossed blades—quite different from those stubborn lords of last year.
“Perhaps being a mage makes her more rational.”
Mages, after all, were creatures of calculation.
They calculated mana expenditure, success rates, profit and loss. And with an opponent whose calculations made sense, dialogue became possible.
“If she’s willing to cooperate this far, I’ve little cause for complaint.”
From Tay’s perspective, there was nothing to lose.
A siege, no matter how one-sided, always exacted a price. Skeletal troops shattered, time crumbled away, and innocent castle walls crumbled with them.
If he meant to take the fortress anyway, accepting it whole and intact was the superior outcome.
Bloodless Entry.
Wasn’t this the very pinnacle of cost-efficiency?
“Tell her we’ll proceed with negotiations. Have her come out beyond the walls so we can speak before the gates.”
* * *
Beyond the castle walls.
Tay had pitched a tent and waited inside.
The interior glowed warmly with Heat Preservation Magic layered thick as frost, and a table held hot tea already prepared.
It resembled less a surrender negotiation than a social gathering.
Presently.
Hermina, the Earl’s wife, stepped into the tent.
She came with only a modest escort—walking on her own feet straight into the heart of the enemy encampment, where Undead legions stood arrayed.
Tay gestured to a seat and spoke first.
“How gracious of you to venture out in person, despite the danger. Truly remarkable, my lady.”
The Black Mage’s Apprenticeship is Too Easy
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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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