Blacksmithing Is Child’s Play for a Dark Mage - Chapter 47

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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 47
“Let me see… Below our territory there is……”
“Pilkhaon Barony, sir.”
“Pilkhaon, the baron.”
The Harundel Marquisate was vast.
In this age, a marquis typically held a fief as large as a small kingdom.
Originally larger still, but divided among vassals as fiefs, it had shrunk to this size.
The heart of the Harundel Marquisate was the port city of Harundel itself.
Being the most prosperous and advanced capital, it was only natural.
To the south of the Harundel Marquisate lay Pilkhaon Barony.
A vassal of House Harundel, with a population of roughly twenty thousand souls.
He maintained a force of about three hundred soldiers.
Tay earned money in abnormal quantities, but typically a baron or viscount ruled over a territory of five thousand to thirty thousand people.
For a population of twenty thousand, three hundred troops was quite a considerable force.
And why was that?
Because one had to maintain at least one knight.
A baron might have as many as two to four knights.
“Do you think they’ll attack?”
“I heard Pilkhaon Barony’s harvest failed completely this season.”
“Hmm… They could always buy grain from us, couldn’t they?”
“That’s true, but… you never know. Besides, you’re different from the Pilkhaon baron—you’re not a vassal of House Harundel.”
“That’s fair.”
If both were vassals of the same marquis, mediation would be possible.
But Tay was not, so Pilkhaon could fabricate justification and attack.
Perhaps launch a surprise assault, honor be damned.
In that case, he would have to be killed without fail.
If he were discovered conducting a dishonorable ambush,
the Marquis of Harundel could punish him.
Honor. It seemed like nothing, but sometimes it became the greatest weapon of all.
Justification—a weapon unto itself.
“What will you do, sir?”
“But approaching them first feels wrong too, doesn’t it? And… if they do attack, that’s good for me.”
They attack us?
That picture was perfect.
With that as pretext, he could plunder their entire territory.
“We wait.”
At Tay’s words, Lant’s eyes glimmered.
* * *
After the Harvest Festival ended,
Tay did not sell the grain but stockpiled it. It would fetch higher prices in winter, or if next year brought famine as well, higher still.
Strategically too, hoarding grain was a sound practice.
At the same time, he expanded the chicken farm’s operations.
He also hired blacksmiths to install a Hot Water Boiler system inside the chicken farm to maintain temperature through winter.
Copper pipes were laid beneath the floor, carrying hot water through them.
It was the Korean-style ondol of the twenty-first century.
The expense was considerable, but the chickens stayed warm even in the dead of winter.
At the same time, Tay threw himself into mass-producing Skeleton Soldiers.
With the Lord of Death ability, he could command as many skeletal minions as he wished.
This required significant expenditure to procure bones for Skeleton Soldier production, but it was far cheaper than hiring mercenaries, so it was worthwhile.
And so, by the depths of winter,
his Skeleton Soldier force had grown to over one thousand strong.
At this scale, he could sweep away any ordinary baron or viscount in open combat.
Even if the opponent had knights among his ranks.
Of course, Tay was no fool,
so he never exposed this vast army to the outside world.
If it became known that the Lord of Death ability allowed him to command low-tier Skeleton Soldiers infinitely, complications would arise.
Now a large underground chamber had been constructed beneath the stone building at the town center—the one now called the lord’s manor—where they were stacked and stored carefully.
Since Skeleton Soldiers possessed excellent labor capacity in their own right, constructing the chamber had been straightforward.
While passing the winter this way,
a visitor arrived.
* * *
“I am Benet, Hyangsah to Baron Pilkhaon. It is an honor to meet you, Baron Maker.”
The man calling himself Benet the Hyangsah appeared to be in his mid-thirties, lean and spare of frame.
At first glance he gave the impression of a civil administrator, but the longsword at his hip and the coat of arms on his armor revealed him to be a knight of the realm.
A Hyangsah.
The term referred to those who bore a knight’s rank without being nobility—typically men who occupied the lowest tiers of a provincial lord’s inner circle or retinue.
Of course, not only knights received the title of Hyangsah; administrative officials often held the rank as well.
In other words, this man was a vassal of Baron Pilkhaon, and at the same time both an administrator and a knight.
A hybrid servant, one might say.
Does he want to take something?
Tay thought as much as he received him in the first-floor reception chamber of the lord’s residence.
The reception chamber was hardly impressive—a modest space of stone walls with a single table and a few chairs.
Still, it served adequately as a place where a lord could receive guests.
“Welcome, Benet. It must have been a long journey.”
Tay greeted him with proper courtesy.
Ath remained hidden in shadow, but Dialogue still clung to his shoulder.
All who saw Dialogue were seized by a sense of oppression.
And Tay’s profession, after all, was that of a dark mage.
Such an eerie artifact could only inspire unease.
Lant waited in the adjoining room.
She listened to the conversation so that she might offer counsel afterward.
“Thank you for the warm reception, Baron.”
Benet bowed respectfully before taking a seat.
Yet his eyes betrayed no such respect.
As he surveyed the chamber, his gaze held a clear contempt for its humble confines.
His true thoughts were written plainly across his face: ‘To be sent to deal with a provincial lord.’
Or perhaps something more bitter: ‘A mere dark mage, a commoner risen to an inheriting lord’s rank.’
Tay paid no mind to such attitudes and offered him tea—nothing so fine as black tea, merely an herbal brew.
“So, what brings you here?”
“I shall speak plainly, Baron.”
Benet did not so much as taste his cup before continuing.
“We have heard that Maker Barony achieved a bumper crop this year. Baron Pilkhaon wishes to purchase a portion of that grain.”
“Purchase, you say.”
Tay nodded thoughtfully as he asked:
“How much, and at what price?”
“We propose half the market price from last year.”
“Half?”
Tay’s eyebrows rose.
Half the market price from last year.
This was a great famine year.
Grain prices would have soared several times over from last year, and could well triple by winter.
Yet half of last year’s price—that was extortion by another name.
This was no purchase. It was plunder.
“What justification do you offer for such a price?”
Tay asked while smiling. His lips curved upward, but his eyes remained cold.
Benet met that smile with unshakeable composure.
“The justification, Baron, is this: Baron Pilkhaon commands four knights, and has the means to employ two additional knights errant besides. I trust you are not unaware of what six knights and a regular force of three hundred soldiers signify.”
Now his true nature showed.
This was not negotiation. It was a threat.
Six knights.
In this age, a single knight’s combat strength was valued at anywhere from dozens of ordinary soldiers to—at the high end—a hundred men.
Six knights alone represented a fighting force equivalent to hundreds of soldiers, and combined with three hundred regular troops, they constituted a force capable of waging a small war.
And rightly so.
A knight trained in the Aura wielded superhuman strength utterly beyond that of common men.
Tay’s territory had no knights.
Though he possessed one thousand Skeleton Soldiers, this fact remained unknown to the outside world; so far as Benet knew, Tay’s fighting strength amounted to mercenaries and soldiers totaling perhaps three hundred.
Could three hundred men without knights stand against six knights and three hundred regular soldiers?
Such was the threat being made.
Tay fell silent for a moment.
Then he spoke.
“War, then. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Not precisely, my lord. Wouldn’t unnecessary conflict be disadvantageous to us both?”
“Ha! You peddle nonsense with admirable confidence.”
Tay nodded.
Then he asked.
“But doesn’t war require justification? You’re a vassal of the Marquis of Harundel, and launching an unjustified war within his territory would be rather awkward, wouldn’t it? Moreover, though I haven’t bound myself by feudal contract to the Marquis, I am the lord of a newly developed fief. If you invade the lands of a baron who’s only just received his title, it will surely tarnish the honor of the Marquis who granted me my rank. What do you make of that?”
Benet’s eyes narrowed.
“We have justification already.”
“Is that so? I’m listening.”
“We have intelligence that the Maker Barony has harbored fugitive serfs from the Pilkhaon Barony. Sheltering fugitive serfs constitutes a serious cause for dispute between fiefs.”
Fugitive serfs.
When one lord accepted serfs who had fled another lord’s fief, it was considered a clear violation under the customary law of this age—as good as stealing another lord’s property.
Tay smiled inwardly.
“Such eloquent nonsense, Master! How shall we proceed? Your opponent seems even more skilled at spouting fabrications than I am!”
Dialogue called out cheerfully.
Benet’s expression darkened momentarily, then cleared.
Either way.
Tay grinned widely.
All of Tay’s subjects were either impoverished people from Harundel or purchases from the slave market.
He had never accepted serfs from the Pilkhaon Barony.
It was impossible to have done so.
But from the other side’s perspective, such details hardly mattered.
Justification could be manufactured at will.
You simply seized some random pauper, claimed he was a fugitive serf from their fief, and the deed was done.
The Dark Mage Blacksmith
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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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