Blacksmithing Is Child’s Play for a Dark Mage - Chapter 31

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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 31
Tae picked up the Staff.
“Rant. Lock Daisy, Miron, and Tella in the Inner Room. You support from the Second Floor Window.”
“Yes.”
Rant moved swiftly.
Following the emergency protocol to the letter.
With those words, Tae stepped outside.
Ash burst from the shadows, and Dialogue on his shoulder began chattering away with unbridled cheerfulness.
“Hahah! The master’s experimental subjects are rolling in of their own accord! Welcome to voluntary service, I say!”
“Where on earth did you pick that up from? No—it must be my own subconscious.”
Sighing at Dialogue’s nonsense, Tae stepped outside into a scene of fierce combat.
Armed with axes and shields, or flails and shields, the intruders clashed at the Main Gate—and already several lay dead.
‘Six corpses. Fourteen still alive. None of the Skeleton Soldiers at the Main Gate have been destroyed. These are small fry, then?’
Moreover.
The number of Skeleton Soldiers exceeded those pouring through the Main Gate.
Left alone, they’d all be slaughtered.
‘So the elite have infiltrated the West Wall side instead.’
There must be someone skilled over there.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t have received a message that a Skeleton Soldier was destroyed.
—Skeleton Soldier destroyed.
As he was thinking.
Another fell. In that moment, the battle at the Main Gate grew fiercer.
“Damn it! What are these things! This isn’t what we were told!”
“Why are there so many!”
“Argh!”
The intruders began falling one by one, and soon they started backing away.
He couldn’t simply let them flee.
He’d ordered the Skeleton Soldiers not to leave the house—they might clash with the constabulary if they wandered through the Slums—so if these attackers escaped, he couldn’t pursue them.
Tae raised the Staff.
“I shall shake your minds here in this place. Dark magic, heed my command and form the law. The wave of Mental Erosion.”
Light flashed as dark magic activated.
“What, what the hell is this!”
“I can’t see my hands but I can see my teeth where am I ahhhhhh!”
“Arghhhh!”
In an instant, five of the gathered intruders went mad. Victims of the Confusion dark magic.
The Skeleton Soldiers surged in without hesitation.
“Ugh!”
Whoosh! Crunch!
In the blink of an eye, skulls shattered and they all became corpses.
All dead in moments!
“Good. Follow me.”
It was time to deal with the intruders breaching the West Wall.
* * *
Kaizel spat curses.
“Damn it!”
Kaizel and Desh.
They were currently the Black Finger thief guild’s strongest forces.
Kaizel was an Aura Beginner and a 2nd Class mage.
And Desh was a 2nd Class dark mage.
The combined strength of these two was considerable.
And naturally, they moved alongside ten elite operatives from the guild.
The plan was for the guild’s swordsmen to charge through the Main Gate while the elite unit scaled the West Wall to infiltrate—but.
The problem was that the dark mage’s undead, the Skeleton Soldiers, proved far stronger than the easy prey they’d expected.
Two meters tall, massive frames, clad in heavy armor—who could have anticipated such monsters waiting for them?
When one wielded its Flail, one subordinate’s skull burst like a pumpkin.
Kaizel himself had stepped in at once, infused his blade with Aura, and severed a Skeleton Soldier’s head to neutralize it—but the sheer number was the problem.
“Raaaah.”
Clank. Clank. Clank.
Eight Skeleton Soldiers began closing in at once.
“Hold them! Desh! Use dark magic!”
“I’ll control it. Buy us some time.”
While the dark mage Desh raised a staff carved from some nameless monster’s bone and began chanting, his subordinates rushed at the Skeleton Soldier.
‘Thank the gods I cast the support spells before we entered.’
It was plain to see that the subordinates were losing ground to the Skeleton Soldier in stature and raw strength.
Without the strength-boosting and stamina-boosting support spells granted before entry, they would have fallen in an instant.
“Ahhhhh!”
A scream came from the direction of the Main Gate.
‘The Skeleton Soldier is that powerful? The intelligence was wrong from the start then! That bastard Litsh… damn it! But if I back out now, the losses will be catastrophic….’
That was when it happened.
A chill ran down his spine.
When he turned, he saw a dark-red fireball hurtling toward him.
He knew what it was.
The dark magic skill—Clinging Flame!
Whoosh!
He poured his Aura into his blade and swung it with all his strength.
In midair, the Clinging Flame collided with the sword wreathed in Aura.
Crack!
With the sound, the Clinging Flame snuffed out entirely.
Clap clap clap!
Someone appeared amid the sound of applause.
“Impressive technique there. Using Aura like that—you’re no amateur. So tell me, where are you from?”
“Contractor. Is there need to ask? You’re going to kill me anyway, aren’t you?”
“Why would I? I could let you live, depending on the terms. Corpses don’t fetch much coin, after all.”
“Truly, you are wise, Master! That’s right! Living flesh profits far more than dead meat! And this one looks sturdy enough—as a slave, he’d fetch a tidy sum! Or perhaps we could drive him mad and use him as a Madness Battery!”
“Wow… that’s something even a demon would find shocking. Dialogue, you really are something.”
“Indeed. I, a genuine demon, can vouch for it. That was a remarkable statement.”
“Thank you for the praise!”
A human. A demon. And something unknowable.
The sight of the three chattering together filled the observer with both grotesqueness and revulsion.
It wasn’t just their appearance.
The aura they radiated was profoundly irritating, unpleasant, and deeply unsettling.
‘A mental attack. And this demon’s form is unusual. It feels like an imp, but… is it not an imp? Damn it all!’
Kaizel cursed inwardly.
That was when it happened.
“Obey my command!!”
The dark mage Desh raised the Bone Staff high above his head.
Boom!
A powerful wave of dark magic erupted outward in all directions.
The Skeleton Soldier fighting the subordinates froze mid-motion.
The dark mage Desh had succeeded.
Kaizel’s lips curled into a grin.
“Hah! So you’re the master of this house—Tae, is it?”
“I am. What of it?”
“If you want to do business in this district, you should’ve paid me tribute. Now here I stand, obliged to visit in person.”
“And who, pray tell, are you?”
“Kaizel, Guild Master of the Black Finger.”
“The Black Finger? That thief guild operating in the Slums?”
Tae replied with a laughing expression.
At that sight, Kaizel’s face twisted with fury.
“Dark mage Tae. Are you truly unaware of your situation?”
“On the contrary. I’m well aware. I know your dark mage took control of my Skeleton Soldier. But here’s the thing.”
Tae snapped his fingers.
Then.
Clank. Clank. Clank. Clank. Clank.
More Skeleton Soldiers emerged from behind Tae.
Many. Far more.
Their number reached dozens.
“It’s you who doesn’t grasp your situation.”
In an instant.
Kaizel’s face went rigid—clenched tight with tension and fear.
“Any last words before you die?”
“Attack!”
After barking the command to his subordinates, Kaizel drew a Disposable Magical Tool from his robes.
That was the moment.
Crack!
Something pure white streaked through the air with a sound like splitting wind, piercing straight through Kaizel’s skull.
Thud!
He died without ever summoning the magic or Aura he’d so proudly boasted of.
The subordinates who’d been rushing forward froze as though suddenly turned to ice.
And then.
The Dark Magic user Desh lowered his Staff and spoke.
“We surrender.”
Tae had won so easily it felt almost anticlimactic.
* * *
The battle was over.
Or rather, what could barely be called a battle—it had been a one-sided massacre.
The Courtyard was littered with corpses and groaning wounded, while Skeleton Soldiers clattered among them, bones rattling.
One man with his skull caved in by a Club—dead on impact.
Another who’d been hit by Mental Erosion, gone mad with ravings before being bludgeoned to death by a Skeleton Soldier.
A third still writhing on the ground under a curse of agony, screaming.
And.
Kaizel.
A pure white bone spear protruding from his head—already a corpse.
Tae glanced at Kaizel’s body for a moment, then turned away.
Second Floor Window.
Rant stood looking down, her hand resting on the frame.
The ring finger of her left hand bent at an unnatural angle.
When Tae called to her, she hurried down to join him.
“Rant. Well done.”
“I only did what needed to be done.”
“Few people can do what needs doing properly. You’ve performed beyond your own limits—I’ll see that you’re rewarded for it.”
“Might I choose my own reward?”
“It seems you have something in mind already. Fine. Once we’ve dealt with all this, you can tell me what it is.”
“Yes, my lord.”
‘My lord… That’s a strange way to speak. Is it because she comes from high nobility?’
Tae turned away with that thought.
The Twisted Bone Spear of Finger Sacrifice.
Guaranteed Hit—a weapon that never missed, but cost the user one broken finger each time it was used. A Disposable Magical Tool Tae had crafted.
It was a backup weapon he’d made.
He kept spares stockpiled at home, and Rant had used one to kill Kaizel.
The timing had been perfect, but most wouldn’t have the resolve to do it.
A mercenary hardened by years of blood and ruin might easily accept losing a single finger—but for a girl from high nobility, it was not a choice anyone would expect her to make.
Tae held that decision in very high regard.
What’s more.
Though she cradled her broken ring finger in her other hand, her face showed no trace of pain.
It wasn’t that she felt nothing—that much was certain.
Whether it was the discipline instilled by a high noble house, or some strength of spirit unique to this girl, he couldn’t say.
“Let’s get that treated first. You there—come over here.”
He gestured to one of the surviving swordsmen from the Thief’s Guild.
The man shuffled forward hesitantly.
The Skeleton Soldiers looming nearby with their Clubs made any thought of resistance impossible.
“Life Force Absorption.”
“Ahhhhh!”
The swordsman who’d approached let out a scream and collapsed to the ground.
His life force drained away from his body.
Without so much as a twitch of his eyebrow, Tae brought the absorbed vitality to Rant’s hand.
A green glow flowed from the swordsman’s body through Tae’s hand and into Rant’s broken ring finger.
Crack.
The sound of bone grinding back into place.
“Hah…”
Rant’s face scrunched up for the first time. Broken bones reknitting couldn’t possibly be painless.
But it was over in moments.
The swelling faded, and her finger slid back into place.
“Move it.”
Rant bent and straightened her ring finger.
It moved normally.
“…Thank you, Tae.”
The dark sorcerer makes being a blacksmith look far too easy
Author |
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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