Blacksmithing Is Child’s Play for a Dark Mage - Chapter 110

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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 110
It wasn’t idle boasting.
Tay himself was a Black Mage, notorious for his sinister reputation.
Walking into a tent where one’s head might roll without surprise, she entered with a woman’s body and unmoved composure.
Hermina settled into her seat with a faint smile.
“Dangerous, you say.”
And she spoke calmly, yet with cutting precision.
“Surely with your power, conquering our county would be no more difficult than retrieving something from your pocket?”
Ah.
Amusement flickered across Tay’s lips.
She understood his position exactly.
That any struggle was futile, the outcome already written, and that risking one’s life to come here wasn’t even truly a gamble.
Cold calculation. The mind of a true mage indeed.
“That much is true.”
Tay made no pretense of denying it. False modesty would only waste both their time.
“Still, I’m grateful for your ready cooperation.”
Tay raised his cup and smiled wryly.
“Excellent. Shall we begin negotiations?”
* * *
The negotiations concluded smoothly.
It could hardly have gone otherwise. From the start, it was a negotiation where one side not only held the blade but owned the entire smithy.
Yet Tay observed certain boundaries.
He extracted money and resources at roughly half the rate he’d torn from the territories he’d conquered before, and that was that.
A thank-you discount for surrendering in advance!
A thoroughly capitalist fee structure: those who cooperated without resistance received a firm fifty-percent reduction.
Of course, even his clemency was rooted in cold calculation.
Once word spread, the next territories would open their gates of their own accord.
Fight to the last and be stripped bare; surrender early and pay half price. The moment this tariff became common knowledge across the continent, future conquests would become twice as easy.
But his forbearance had limits.
He confiscated all weapons except those kept by the handful of soldiers needed to defend the house.
Swords, spears, armor, bows, quivers of arrows—he took everything in one sweep.
He emptied the entire armory as though packing for a move.
After that.
Tay’s army departed the earl’s castle.
The next target: Sogin Barony.
Thus, methodically extracting various resources and the family’s treasures alike, he moved his forces onward.
He left not even a garrison to watch the place.
Why not?
Because he’d already confiscated all the weapons!
What could a territory without swords or spears accomplish in revolt?
Even an uprising would require nothing more than a cudgel.
No sentries needed. Disarmament instead.
This was security management of the highest order—costless labor, perfectly executed.
Meanwhile.
From atop the castle walls, the Earl’s wife Hermina watched Tay’s departing army.
White columns of soldiers dwindling beyond the horizon.
A madman who trampled winter beneath his feet as though it were his own courtyard.
Yet at the negotiation table, he’d been nothing but rational, keeping his promises with a blade’s precision.
Her gaze trailing his receding figure held something strange.
‘If only such a man were my husband.’
Her own husband, off at war with scarce word from him, kept overlapping in her mind with this monster who dominated the winter plains and swallowed five territories at a time.
Of course, it was a thought she could never voice.
Hermina shook her head, trying to banish such dangerous musings.
But once a thought has taken root, it’s rarely torn free.
For the first time in long while, she felt her body grow warm.
* * *
Before winter’s end, Tay’s army had conquered three baronies.
Some had surrendered in advance.
Others had fought to the bitter end.
The early surrenderers ended gracefully under the half-price scheme, while the stubborn resisters…… well, they replayed last year’s script.
The city gates opened in a single day, the territory was stripped clean, and the lord was dragged out by the collar.
The result was the same, but the fee had doubled.
And so the second winter tour concluded in spectacular success.
Then spring arrived.
The two giants, who could delay no longer, finally collided head-on.
The Salcatna Earl Army and the Harundel Marquess Army had at last clashed.
* * *
Battlefield Plain.
A combined force of one hundred thousand soldiers stood arrayed across the horizon, facing one another.
And it was Grimoire, the Harundel Marquess, who opened the curtain on this engagement.
The Marquess raised his hand slowly toward the center of the battlefield.
“Come.”
A single word.
At that one word, the sky tore open.
Crack-crack-crack―!
Enormous rifts split the air, and from beyond them, beings of impossible form began to pour forth.
A towering giant clad in steel armor set foot upon the earth, and the ground itself trembled.
A beast with three pairs of wings circled overhead, scattering tempests in its wake.
Something with no fixed form crawled forth and filled the gaps in the battle line.
Each one a being from another dimension, which even the Imperial Army could not casually face.
One. Two. Three.
Summoned one after another, they lined the battlefield!
The monster who ordinarily maintained dozens of summoned creatures stationed like armored ornaments in the inner halls had now unleashed his power without reserve.
What happens when one who maintained dozens of summoned creatures as a hobby brings full strength to bear on their true purpose? That answer was now unfolding across the battlefield.
An army of summoned creatures. It was nothing less than a dimensional gate’s free distribution giveaway on a massive scale!
But.
The Salcatna Earl was not one to take this lying down.
“Presumptuous wench―!”
On the opposite side of the battlefield, the Salcatna Earl raised his staff high into the sky.
The Salcatna Earl. An upper-tier 6th-class mage.
Though he had turned his own territory into a chaotic mess, his stature as a mage remained imposing.
At the tip of the Earl’s staff, magical power condensed like the sun itself.
And.
The sky ignited.
Boom―!!
Spheres of flame dozens of meters in diameter rained down from the heavens.
The earth split open, and pillars of fire surged upward.
Sheets of pale lightning poured down like carpet bombing upon the summoned creatures’ heads.
6th-class Destructive Magic.
Each strike a calamity worthy of a strategic weapon, raining down mercilessly upon the horde of summoned beings!
The steel giant took a meteorite’s impact and fell to one knee.
The winged beast was pierced by lightning and plummeted from the sky.
Yet the spaces left by destroyed summoned creatures were immediately filled by new ones crawling from the freshly torn dimensional rifts.
Summoning quantity against Destructive firepower.
A showdown between monsters was tearing through heaven and earth alike.
And beneath it all.
One hundred thousand soldiers collided head-to-head.
“Hold the line―!!”
“Push forward―!!”
Spear met spear, shield locked against shield in ceaseless struggle.
Cavalry drove into the flanks, arrows blackened the sky like a storm. Above, meteorites and dimensional horrors raged; below, soldiers churned in muddy chaos.
Above, mythology. Below, hell.
A total war. The final act of this conflict, with every last trace of romance and fighting spirit ground into the effort.
And.
The war ended in decisive victory for the Harundel Marquess.
* * *
‘Ah. Did I earn too much?’
Tay glanced behind and gave serious consideration to the thought.
The wagons were brimming over.
So much so that.
The wagons seemed endless.
Turn your head and there were wagons. Gaze at the horizon and there were wagons. Close your eyes and open them again—still wagons!
All of it was treasure and wealth that Tay had seized, along with resources like food and weapons.
It was staggering.
Of course it was.
These were the spoils of plundering four entire territories.
At this point, it wasn’t an army so much as a colossal moving procession.
Well, moving one’s own belongings is different, isn’t it? This was moving someone else’s belongings, so—yes, it was an officially sanctioned logistics battalion.
As for the cash, he’d handled it without burdening the supply train. Whenever they passed a Goldmanta Bank branch along the route, he’d deposit the money immediately.
The storage fees rankled. I had to pay money to store my own money!
But there was no help for it.
In this romantic, spirited medieval society, Goldmanta was the only bank operating on a 21st-century system.
The fact that account transfers were even possible felt like a blessing. Customers are always the weaker party against a monopoly!
Tay was currently returning to the Gehenna Earldom.
Spring had come, and having done what needed doing, he figured this was enough reason to head back.
The second winter campaign had concluded triumphantly. Now only the return home and the accounting remained.
But then.
From far off, he spotted about twenty mounted riders kicking up dust as they galloped toward him.
Looking at their banner, they were messengers.
“Army. Halt.”
At Tay’s command, the white-clad multitude stopped dead in its tracks.
Watching more than twenty thousand soldiers freeze in perfect silence was something that sent a chill down one’s spine, no matter how many times you saw it.
And then he received the messengers.
The news they brought was twofold.
First: the Harundel Marquess had won victory.
Second: the Salcatna County was to be absorbed into the Harundel Marquessate.
Since the two territories were adjacent, they’d decided to refer to both regions simply as the Harundel Marquessate.
The ultimate form of territorial conquest.
Complete absorption, swallowing even the name itself. Salcatna was about to be erased from the map entirely.
Third: news that a victory banquet was being held and his attendance was requested.
Merit-based reward distribution would also take place, they said.
Where was it being held?
“In Harundel, sir.”
“Ah, I see.”
Harundel was indeed the greatest metropolis in the region. To host a banquet for tens of thousands, only a city with Harundel’s infrastructure could manage it.
‘I wonder who’ll be appointed to govern Salcatna Earl’s direct territory?’
The thought flickered through his mind, but he dismissed it just as quickly. It wasn’t Tay’s concern anyway.
Poking one’s nose into someone else’s inheritance disputes only brought headaches.
What occupied Tay’s mind instead was something else entirely.
It was the matter of his own territorial holdings.
A brief explanation is necessary here.
In this romantic, spirited medieval age, it was remarkably common for territories to be scattered far and wide from one another.
So much so that one could even own territories in different countries!
A Black Mage Is Too Easy to Make a Blacksmith
Author |
Automaton G
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(Co.) Samyang C&C
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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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