Blacksmithing Is Child’s Play for a Dark Mage - Chapter 18

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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 18
The burly thug who had addressed Tae—the one assumed to be their leader—drew a blade from his waist.
Light flickered off the steel; either it was a Magic Tool, or he’d cultivated his Aura through direct training.
He strode toward the Hell Hound gnawing on his companion and swung his sword in one fluid motion, and with a flash of light, the creature’s head severed clean from its neck.
Whoosh!
The Hell Hound dissolved into smoke, reeking of sulfur, vanishing as swiftly as it had come—the nature of the lowest-tier Demon Type summoned from the pit.
But by then, Tae had already cast his next spell.
Boom!
A clump of sanguine flame shot forward, striking the shoulder of the leader just as he finished beheading the creature.
Crackle.
“Argh!”
The flame clung to him.
Truly clinging—Black Magic fire that would scarcely be extinguished by ordinary means.
The leader shrieked in agony.
In that same instant, more clinging flames flew toward the other thugs.
Some caught their faces, some their legs, some their hands.
And Tae was not throwing alone.
Tae. Ash. Dialogue.
The three of them hurled flames in rapid succession, and within moments every thug was screaming, dragging burning fire across their bodies, rolling and thrashing on the ground.
Tae grinned wickedly down at them, then drew a weapon from his waist.
A blade.
Thunk.
Killing men already maddened by pain and mind erosion was no difficult task.
Seeing this, the leader lurched to his feet and bolted toward the stone wall.
With Tae blocking the entrance, he meant to vault over and flee.
Even with his shoulder ablaze, he gritted his teeth and ran with a willpower that was anything but ordinary.
But.
“Infernal Power Arrow.”
Whistle!
Thud-thud-thud-thud!
Black arrows streaked through the air, piercing his back as he clung to the wall without mercy.
Strong will or no, with holes riddled through his spine, there was no enduring it.
“Argh!”
He screamed and crumpled beneath the wall.
Leaving the leader where he fell,
Tae finished the rest one by one.
When the leader was at last the only survivor, Tae approached and stared down at him coldly.
“You… you bastard…”
“Should’ve left when I told you to.”
“A… a curse… ngh…”
Before the thug could finish, Tae’s blade sank into his throat.
Tae turned his back on the corpse.
“At least I don’t have to buy any furniture. Though cleaning up bodies is going to be a pain.”
Having slaughtered several people moments after arriving in the Slums, Tae conducted quite the brutal inaugural ceremony. He grumbled as he stepped into the building.
* * *
In the Slums, a few dead bodies were hardly cause for the authorities to intervene.
This was a district where the law enforcement patrols didn’t even bother to show their faces.
One had to remember—this was not twenty-first-century Earth.
When screams of death echoed through the alleys, the nearby residents simply locked their doors in terror and kept silent.
In any case, Tae secured a dwelling and left the bodies where they lay.
Then he hurried back out.
For a Black Mage, corpses were a profoundly useful resource.
“Flesh Melting, and Undead Control and Undead Creation—all three together come to fifteen Goldmanta Coins.”
Clink.
Having purchased the Magic Spells from the Black Mage, Tae returned swiftly to his dwelling.
The bodies remained undisturbed, and no soul dared venture near.
Tae settled into a chair in the common room and opened the tome inscribed with the Magic Spells.
-[Magic Spell: Flesh Melting] has been acquired.
-[Magic Spell: Undead Control] has been acquired.
-[Magic Spell: Undead Creation] has been acquired.
“The system’s pretty good, I’ll admit.”
Tae was satisfied.
After all, he’d mastered magic just by reading through a book once!
“Your abilities are quite bizarre, Contractor. I sense no power at all, yet…….”
“I don’t know why I have this ability either. I just use what I’ve got.”
“I see.”
Setting aside the Imp Butler Ash’s words, Tae rose from his seat.
Then he went outside and stripped the clothes from all the corpses.
He made three naked bodies first.
Then he retrieved the staff.
“Flesh Melting.”
The moment he invoked the Black Magic, the corpse’s flesh liquefied like water in an instant.
What remained was pristine bone.
The melted flesh stuck stubbornly to the ground.
“Undead Control.”
A strange surge washed through him.
Bizarre power swirled around his body.
“Undead Creation.”
The bones began to clatter.
Black energy coiled around the skeletal frame, and from the two eye sockets of the skull, an eerie crimson light bloomed.
“Keeeeeeeeeee.”
An unearthly wail pierced the air.
Thus three Skeleton Soldiers rose from the ground.
The lowest tier of undead—Skeleton Soldiers.
Without the Black Magic of Undead Control to rein them in, they would indiscriminately attack any living creature nearby.
Curiously, they did not attack plants.
“Strip the clothes from the bodies.”
At Tae’s command, the three Skeleton Soldiers rattled and lurched into motion.
“Efficient.”
“Exactly. That’s partly why I’ve worked to become a Black Mage.”
Undead were certainly dead, yet it was known that to some extent, their old instincts and unconscious impulses lingered.
That’s why they could “understand” and act on a command like “strip the bodies of their clothes.”
Had he issued such a command to a Golem, it would have failed entirely.
Golems worked like robots, after all.
Clatter. Clatter.
The Skeleton Soldiers moved, peeling the garments from the corpses.
“Bring the bodies here.”
The Skeleton Soldiers understood and obeyed.
Soon the corpses were stacked neatly.
Naturally, he melted their flesh away on the spot.
Then he raised those bones as Skeleton Soldiers once more.
When he had raised about twelve of them.
A tingle came.
He felt it.
Ash felt it too.
“It seems further control is impossible.”
“This is my limit.”
One could not command undead without restriction.
Undead were a type of Corpse Ghost—beings formed when remnants of the dead’s obsession and fragments of soul clung together—and they possessed consciousness.
Using the Black Magic Undead Control to forcibly puppet them had its constraints.
“Still, twelve isn’t bad. Good for guards, useful for menial work.”
Tae chuckled softly.
For all the ghastliness of the scene, Tae felt not the slightest emotional disturbance.
He had witnessed horrors aplenty in his past life, and this life had been no different.
Perhaps that’s what happened when you created undead from day one?
Even in a place that was a Cursed House.
No vengeful spirits had appeared.
* * *
Tae’s Stone Wall House soon became famous throughout the Slums.
Once a Black Mage took up residence in a Cursed House, that was bound to happen.
Moreover, having wiped out one of the numerous organizations calling themselves the Olson Faction in the Slums and fashioning Skeleton Soldiers from their corpses, ordinary people wouldn’t dare approach him even if fear compelled them to keep their distance.
Tae began to stay at the Stone Wall House and started purchasing various items.
“Are you truly planning to set up a smithy? You’re a Black Magic practitioner, after all.”
“Even so, this side makes money better.”
Madness Craftsman.
As a Crafting-class Hunter, he could create all manner of exceptional items.
And the primary material was ‘madness’ itself.
Since he used people’s irrational mental vibrations as material, production costs were low while the items sold at a premium—excellent value for money.
“First I’ll make money. Build up my gear a bit, then head back out hunting.”
“Making money and hunting… That’s rather intriguing. It seems I made a fine choice in contracting with you.”
“Didn’t I?”
Tae exchanged these words, then immediately set about his work.
First, he purchased blacksmith tools.
There was no way around it if he wanted to activate his class ability as a Madness Craftsman.
But as he bought this and that, his funds had nearly run dry—that was the problem.
Still, it didn’t matter.
Now he just needed to craft sellable goods and move them.
“So. What will you be making?”
“The thing I used in the Sewers before.”
Twisted Bone Spear of Finger Sacrifice
Quality: Excellent
Grade: Magic Tool
A bone spear imbued with ritualistic power.
In exchange for breaking one of the user’s fingers, it is guaranteed to strike the target.
Ability: Guaranteed Hit
Ability: One of the user’s fingers breaks.
Ability: Cannot be reused after deployment.
A spear of guaranteed accuracy.
The material required only bone. And fortunately, he’d recently managed to secure a considerable quantity of it.
Fresh bones extracted after melting away the flesh from human corpses.
With this he could craft at least thirty bone spears.
“Who would buy a weapon that breaks your finger?”
“People would. Believe me. First of all, the Guaranteed Hit effect is just too good. Plus, this thing—it allows target designation.”
“Target designation, you say?”
“You can aim it at the head when you throw it.”
It strikes the head with perfect certainty.
In other words, a one-hit kill.
“Hmm… That’s rather useful.”
“Evasion is impossible. Defense is possible, but… not easy.”
“What about distance limitations?”
“There are none.”
“Pardon?”
“None at all. As long as you can see the target with your eyes, no matter how far away they are, it flies out and strikes true.”
“My word…”
“That’s why combining it with Far Sight magic is perfect.”
Far Sight is a second-class spell.
Even Black Magic practitioners can learn and use it.
True to its name, it’s a spell for scouting vast distances and quite serviceable at that.
And if you link this spell with throwing these bone spears.
You could snipe from several kilometers away.
“Now that’s an interesting capability.”
“Right? For various reasons, these are useful and sell well. The problem is the price.”
“Hmm. Being single-use… How much do typical one-use magic items typically cost?”
“Permanent ones fetch at least 100 Goldmanta Coins. Single-use ones are cheaper. Some go for 1 Coin, others for 10.”
“I see.”
“A Basic Healing Potion goes for about 10 Coins.”
By Tae’s reckoning, that was an item worth roughly ten million won.
“Then. Shall we begin crafting?”
He picked up a hammer. Then he stacked bones to one side and started work.
Flash!
Light bloomed, and with it came a spear forged from twisted bone.
Being a Black Mage blacksmith was far too easy.
Author |
Automaton G
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(株) 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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