Blacksmithing Is Child’s Play for a Dark Mage - Chapter 97

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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 97
The trapped soul trembled violently. For it, this ordeal that did not end even in death must have been a nightmare made manifest.
“Now then, do cooperate. Who sent you?”
-I, I can’t…! I won’t speak…!
The soul seemed to possess some measure of honor, clamping its mouth shut stubbornly.
But Tay was no benevolent Black Mage.
“Rant taught me this—souls, it turns out, retain sensation quite vividly. Or rather, since there’s no living body to distribute the pain through, they feel it all the more acutely, I’d wager?”
Tay smiled thinly and sent a tendril of Curse coiling toward the soul.
The trapped soul let out a shriek beyond description. For a soul stripped of flesh’s protective buffer, agony was a direct hit with no shield—pure, concentrated torment.
-Ahhhhhhh!
“We’ve barely started. Souls can’t die, you see, so this is an endless refill. We’ll take our time until you open that mouth.”
Tay’s tone was perfectly serene, but his words painted nothing less than hell itself.
The small dialog box hovering above his shoulder chimed in with genuine enthusiasm.
“Indeed, Master! Impartial and merciless to both the living and the dead! This is true equality for all!”
“That doesn’t sound like a compliment.”
Ath from within the shadows adjusted his glasses with a practiced gesture. Despite being a demon straight from hell, there were moments when he felt his contractor was far more demonic than himself.
In the end, after several rounds of “endless refills,” the soul crumbled completely.
-I, I’ll speak…! Please…!
And as the soul spilled forth its information like vomit, Tay began recording it all with measured care.
The identities of the assassins. The chain of the contract. And the very source from which the order had originated.
“…Interesting.”
As Tay finished listening to the soul’s account, his eyes narrowed to slits.
This was no common banditry or vendetta. These assassins had clearly been sent by someone to eliminate the “Maker Baron” specifically and deliberately.
And at precisely this moment—right when Tay had formed an alliance with the Marquis and was about to field twenty thousand Skeleton Soldiers in the campaign against Count Salkartna.
The timing was far too perfect.
A scheme to sever the Marquis’s mighty blade before the war even began—eliminating a powerful ally before the fighting started.
“A common enough tactic,” Rant observed.
And indeed it was.
In the end, the architect of this assassination contract would surely be Count Salkartna himself.
Tay glanced around at the corpses of the assassins scattered at his feet.
It seemed wasteful to simply let the dead rot where they lay.
“Undead Creation.”
[Undead Creation activates.]
As Tay cast the new Black Magic spell, the assassins’ corpses rose with a dry rustle.
Those who moments before had sought his life now stood arrayed beneath his feet as loyal Undead.
Slay the one sent to kill you, then put their corpse to work. There was no more cost-effective recruitment than this.
“There we are. Even in death, they’ll earn their keep. My Domain has no unemployment.”
Tay murmured contentedly and set out toward his Territory once more, leading his newly acquired Undead servants.
He’d acquired plenty of Black Magic Tomes, purchased a full set of High-Grade Magical Tools, and as a bonus, gained assassin corpses to boot.
For a single expedition, this haul was generous enough that he might owe his would-be killers gratitude.
Regardless of who orchestrated it all.
Whoever dared aim a blade at his neck would pay the price in full.
Even if that someone was Count Salkartna himself.
* * *
Upon his return to the Territory, Tay immediately threw himself into mobilization preparations.
Yet there remained some time before his appointed march with the Marquis. And Tay resolved to use those precious spare hours wisely.
Namely: to recruit more knights.
His Domain had blossomed into a massive power of 360,000 souls, yet he commanded only a single knight?
That simply wouldn’t do.
Officers and commanders could never be too many.
No matter how many Skeleton Soldiers one possessed, one needed capable minds to direct and organize them.
An army with nothing but rank-and-file troops and no officers was as useless as anything could be.
And in this matter of knight recruitment, Tay possessed a trump card.
That card was Partan.
“My lord, entrust this task to me. I shall surely find able knights worthy of your service.”
Partan stepped forward with confidence, thumping his chest earnestly.
In truth, Partan commanded considerable respect among the knighthood.
Though he bore the stain of an embezzlement conviction in his past, the fuller story painted a different picture entirely. He had committed the act to raise funds for his ailing daughter’s treatment.
Among the knights, this tale was no mark against his character—rather, it was regarded as a testament to his virtue.

A man who cast aside his honor to save his daughter—such filial devotion moved people not to scorn him, but to quiet admiration.
And to that, the reputation of Tay’s Domain added considerable weight.
While drought scorched the entire continent into a hellscape, the Maker Barony stood as the sole paradise where water and provisions overflowed in abundance.
Word of such prosperity spread like wildfire through the neighboring regions, and naturally, wandering Free Knights seeking employment came to regard it as nothing short of a dream posting.
In short, the Maker Barony was the blessed workplace of the drought age—a premier enterprise with a competitive ratio of dozens to one.
Among all applicants, Tay chose to recruit primarily Free Knights.
Free Knights.
Warriors bound to no lord, inheriting no lands, who drifted from place to place on skill alone.
They were ready to offer willing loyalty if stable employment were guaranteed—in essence, excellent prospects on the free agent market.
The recruitment terms were straightforward.
“At first, I won’t grant estates. Instead, I’ll pay you a generous monthly salary without fail.”
Tay’s policy was strict wage employment. Rather than distributing land from the outset, he would manage his people through steady pay.
“However, if you demonstrate clear achievements in the field, then I shall grant you an estate.”
In other words: base salary guaranteed by monthly wage, but if you achieved something noteworthy in battle, you’d receive generous performance bonus—doled out in generous land grants.
At this shrewd offer, which promised both security and the chance for a grand reward, the Free Knights’ eyes lit up at once.
And so two new knights came into Tay’s service.
One was Haroldt.
A man of remarkable height, whose spear technique made full use of those long limbs with practiced excellence.
He was so tall that standing beside him gave everyone a crick in the neck.
The other was Amos.
True to his name, his defensive prowess was unmatched anywhere on the continent—a stalwart shield specialist of the first order.
Taciturn and steadfast, once he planted himself in place, it was said a stone wall had little on him. Thus the epithet: Amos the Unbreakable.
Spear-wielding damage dealer and shield tank. Upon recruitment, the balance of their combination proved impossibly perfect.
And before marching out, Tay entrusted the defense and administration of his Domain to Rant.
“I need you to look after the Domain. The household, the defenses—everything rests in your hands.”
“……So this tiresome work falls to me again, naturally.”
Rant replied with dry indifference, his dark-circled eyes weary, yet he showed no sign of refusing.
After all, Rant knew the state of the Domain better than anyone, and the newly recruited Haroldt and Amos would provide solid support in military matters.
“My lord, I ask but one thing of you.”
“What is it?”
“When you return, buy as many Black Magic Tomes as you brought home this time.”
“……You truly are consistent, aren’t you?”
Rant’s hunger for Black Magic Tomes remained undiminished even on the eve of war. Tay let out a helpless chuckle but nodded his assent nonetheless.
And to the main force marching out, Partan would accompany them.
Partan, who had originally been charged with defending the Domain, now found his circumstances changed, as Rant and the new knights would fill that role.
“My, my lord……! Are you truly taking me with you!”
Tears welled up in Partan’s eyes once more.
The instinct of a knight to earn glory in battle had at last found an opening. This man’s threshold for emotion remained as low as ever.
“Don’t cry. If you shed all your tears before we even march, what will you do then?”
“I, I am grateful, my lord! I shall devote this entire body to your service!”
Tay merely shook his head in resignation.
At last, all preparations for departure were complete.
In this campaign, Tay made a remarkably bold decision: to field his army composed purely of Skeleton Soldiers.
Not a single human soldier would accompany him. No supplies, no provisions, no morale management required—ten thousand Skeleton Soldiers. He would wage war with them alone.
When you thought about it, there was no unit quite so overpowered.
Skeleton Soldiers did not starve, did not tire, did not fear, did not flee.
No desertion, no complaints, no wages to pay, and if they fell, you simply reanimated them! What could be better!
By discipline, the strongest force in the empire. By cost-effectiveness, the strongest force in the universe!
Of course, he did not take only Skeleton Soldiers.
He brought along some hundred personnel to attend to Tay and Partan.
“One cannot live like a beast merely because there is war, after all. As a nobleman, shouldn’t I dine well in the field, drink fine wine, and live with dignity? Don’t you think?”
In other words, even amid the roughness of war, he would not forsake the dignity of his station.
This was not camping but glamping, not a campaign but a luxury expedition package. While others chewed hardtack in the mud, Tay would sip wine beneath his pavilion.
Though in truth, Tay was hardly alone in this.
All nobility lived thus.
For that is what nobility is.
The Black Mage is Too Easy as a Blacksmith
Author |
Automaton G
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Samyang C&C Co., Ltd.
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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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