I Became an SSS-Grade Time-Transcending Almighty Blacksmith - Chapter 56

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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 56
Episode 56
Kang Cheol-mangchi.
While Jang Gang-cheol swung his hammer.
Outside, Toran was swinging his pickaxe with fierce determination.
Every time he swung the pickaxe in the mine, the stone wall gouged deep, and there was hardly a creature in that mine that could withstand his strikes.
So he was confident he could shatter the fire turtle in an instant, but.
Clang!
“What’s with this thing being so damn hard!”
He was wrong.
The fire turtle’s shell was harder than he’d expected.
Of course, had he been his old self, no turtle shell could have withstood his pickaxe—
“Tch!”
Clang!
But now he hadn’t recovered even half his original power.
Attacking the fire turtle with mere Level 18 strength meant his blows simply wouldn’t land.
Still, he was barely managing to prevent the creature from attacking Jang Gang-cheol’s house.
Then.
“Toran, Grom! Catch this!”
Behind him came a voice.
His master, Jang Gang-cheol.
The moment he turned his head, he instinctively caught something flying toward him.
It was—
“A pickaxe?”
“It’s made of Water-attribute Stone! It should help!”
A pickaxe.
The head was fashioned entirely from the Water-attribute Stone itself—a pickaxe so obviously crafted from it that Toran could recognize it at a glance.
Toran didn’t know much about attribute affinities.
Whenever monsters appeared in the mine, he simply smashed them all with his pickaxe.
But this time, trusting his master.
“Got it, little one!”
He dropped the pickaxe he’d been holding and gripped the new Water-attribute Pickaxe firmly.
Immediately, toward the fire turtle that was about to spew flame at him again—
“Hyah!”
He swung the pickaxe with all his might.
At that, water essence flowed from the pickaxe head forged of the Water-attribute Stone, tracing an arc of liquid, and—
Crack!
It drove deep into the fire turtle’s shell.
And that wasn’t all.
From the pickaxe head embedded in the shell—
Splash!
Water burst forth.
The fire turtle’s shell was pierced, and when the water that could be called its vulnerability erupted from within—
“Grrrraaahhh…”
It collapsed to the ground, senses reeling.
Toran didn’t miss the opportunity, swinging his pickaxe repeatedly—
Thud.
He felled the fire turtle in moments.
All from changing just one pickaxe, and he’d brought down that impossibly hard fire turtle so quickly!
Even more remarkable—this Water-attribute Pickaxe looked less refined than the one he’d been using before!
This was enough to astound Toran.
“Ahahaha! Magnificent!”
With that, Toran began swinging his pickaxe repeatedly at the fire turtles pressing in from all sides.
Toran wasn’t the only one reaping the benefits of the weapon Jang Gang-cheol had created.
“Screech!”
Grom too had seized the axe that Jang Gang-cheol had made for him.
An axe with a head forged entirely of Earth-attribute Stone—a weapon of the earth element.
Grom didn’t overthink it.
He simply did as his master commanded: he released his original axe and took up the new one, swinging it with full force at the mucus toad.
And suddenly, the axe that had always glanced off or passed through the toad’s mucus without finding purchase—
Crack!
It drove forward without regard for the slime, stubborn and relentless.
Crunch!
The pickaxe buried itself in the toad’s body.
“Croak!”
The toad thrashed in surprise, but Grom seized the moment without hesitation.
With the skill of a seasoned woodcutter, he drew the axe with practiced ease.
Whack, whack, crunch!
He swung the axe in rapid succession.
The toad could endure no longer and collapsed with a heavy thud.
“Hehehehe, just like the master! Clever!”
Grom then began hunting toads just as Toran had, now with renewed vigor.
The change of weapon alone made an enormous difference in hunting efficiency.
When Serin picked up the Lightning Bow that Jang Gang-cheol had specially crafted for her, the arrows’ electrical power grew vastly stronger.
Zzzzzzzzzt!
“Kyaaaaaaa—”
She could now deal far greater damage to the Swift Wind Serpents.
And so the monsters attacking the vicinity of Jang Gang-cheol’s home were swiftly eliminated.
* * *
Just as Jang Gang-cheol had suspected.
The Fire Turtle and the Slime Toad were monsters that had been pushed outward from quite a distance away from the Swift Wind Serpent’s Gate.
The reason was simple.
The Awakeners defending that Gate had failed to contain these monsters properly.
Clang!
“What is this thing—so hard!”
The Awakeners swung their weapons, but they lacked the power to crack the Fire Turtle’s shell.
Even when they formed teams to attack the head and limbs instead of the shell.
Whoosh!
The Fire Turtle would retract its head and limbs into its shell at tremendous speed each time.
And whenever they tried to thrust their weapons into the gaps.
Whoooosh!
“Argh!”
Flames would burst forth from the openings, leaving them helpless.
A monster far too troublesome to face.
Because they could not handle the Fire Turtle properly, it had been pushed all the way to where Jang Gang-cheol lived.
And the same held true for the Slime Toad.
“Ugh, it’s so slippery! My attacks aren’t working!”
Physical attacks passed through it, magical attacks barely took hold—the Slime Toad was a creature of evasion.
Because the Awakeners could not properly counter it, the Slime Toad, with its remarkable leaping power, had spread across a considerable distance and reached Jang Gang-cheol’s location.
In the midst of this dire situation.
An unexpected reinforcement appeared before their eyes.
“Hahahaha!”
Short in stature, thickly muscled.
A bearded man whose frame appeared almost square appeared with a pickaxe in hand.
No—not a man.
To anyone’s eyes.
“A Dwarf?”
A being seen only in novels and films.
It was unmistakably a Dwarf.
One might have thought it a costume, but there was no way such a costume could account for that height, that build, and that pickaxe.
Yet it was hard to believe that Dwarves actually existed.
And this Dwarf who had appeared.
“Stand back, you lot! I’ll shatter these beasts for you! Hahahaha!”
Was smashing the Fire Turtle’s shell to pieces.
All the Awakeners gathered here, united as one team, could barely fell a single Fire Turtle.
Yet this very same Fire Turtle.
Not by exploiting weak points, but through sheer brute force—he was cracking its shell open.
And the opposite side was no different.
“An Orc?”
An Orc wielding an enormous axe had appeared.
I wondered if a new Gate with Orcs had appeared, triggering another Gate Break.
“Screech!”
Crash!
The Orc that materialized
was slaughtering the Mucus Toads.
Mucus Toads were enemies whose slime made most melee attacks useless,
yet somehow this creature ignored that slime entirely, pummeling the toads’ bodies as if felling timber.
“What in the world is happening……?”
A Dwarf and an Orc had appeared, battering monsters with pickaxe and axe.
Faced with this unbelievable sight, the Awakeners could only stand bewildered.
* * *
Everything is falling into place.
Serin is firing Lightning Arrows from the Lightning Bow I gave her, dropping Gale Hawks left and right.
Toran is shattering the shell-backs of Fire Turtles with the Water-attribute Pickaxe,
and Grom is decimating the Mucus Toads with the Earth-attribute Axe.
Thanks to that,
[ Your level has increased. ]
My level rose again.
I’ve jumped straight to Level 19.
If luck holds, I might even reach Level 20 by the end of this battle.
Still, I can’t just stand here watching.
“I should move around a bit myself.”
[ Crafting complete. ]
[ Crafting Evaluation: S ]
[ You have obtained a Lightning Bullet. ]
Having crafted bullets using Thunder Stone,
I aimed at the Gale Hawks that Serin had knocked down—still unfinished—
Bang!
and pulled the trigger.
Since these creatures had so little health left from Serin’s arrows, I could drop them in two shots at most.
“Master, I’ll handle things here. It could be dangerous, so please stay inside the house.”
“I’ll just clean up the monsters nearby. Serin has her hands full clearing the ones above anyway.”
“……Thank you.”
Serin tried to stop me,
but I was only finishing off the monsters she’d beaten down and sent crashing—the ones still dazed.
And not even through close combat, just pulling the trigger from a distance.
There was no danger in that.
If it had been dangerous, I would have been hiding inside in the first place.
‘Gate Break isn’t such a big deal after all.’
The moment that complacent thought crossed my mind,
“……Master, please go inside.”
“What? Why?”
“A Boss Monster is appearing.”
Something I’d forgotten about was beginning to emerge.
Right.
If it’s a Gate, there would definitely be a Boss Monster—even a Gate Break doesn’t change that.
The moment Serin mentioned the Boss Monster’s appearance and I quickly turned to leave,
Zzzzzt—
Black electricity crackled from the Gate suspended in the sky,
“Screeeeeeeee-!!”
and with a piercing roar,
the Gate’s Boss Monster began to emerge.
A massive eagle.
The moment it cleared the Gate, the creature spread its wings wide—dwarfing the ordinary Gale Hawks beyond any comparison.
And through Serin’s muttering, I learned its identity.
“A Storm Hawk……”
The Boss Monster of the Gale Hawks.
A Storm Hawk.
The Boss Monster that had appeared so swept its wings wide,
and the wind it generated through that motion,
No, spreading the storm in all directions.
Whhiiiiiii—!
Crash-boom!!
It began attacking indiscriminately.
No matter how expensive a house was, it couldn’t withstand the Boss Monster’s assault.
As a result, tens of billions of won in property collapsed helplessly.
Fortunately, my house remained intact, but even the wealthiest homeowner would feel the sting of losing a mansion at that scale.
“Serin, do you think you can manage it?”
“……It’s beyond my capabilities at present.”
“That’s all?”
“Based on my experience, with attacks at this intensity it would be difficult to land a hit, and even if I did, I doubt I could deal significant damage.”
Even Serin had that reaction.
Storm Repair.
It looked formidable, but the fact that Serin spoke so grimly meant this Boss Monster was far stronger than I’d imagined.
This left me in a difficult position.
What to do here.
There were a few options.
The first was.
‘Hide in the Blacksmith.’
But there was one problem with that.
My Forge of Time creates a blacksmith of the same size as the space I’m using it in.
What would happen to the Blacksmith if the space I was originally occupying was destroyed?
Without knowing that, I couldn’t just blindly take shelter inside.
The second was.
‘Wait.’
Endure until another Awakener arrived and took down Storm Repair for me.
But I couldn’t wait indefinitely for an Awakener who might never show up.
There was also the option of running away.
‘I’d only just gotten used to it…….’
I didn’t want to abandon this new home now that I was finally growing fond of it.
So I made a decision.
“Serin, hold on just a little longer.”
“Master, surely you don’t mean…….”
“You said it’s ‘beyond your capabilities at present,’ right? So I’ll craft you an arrow on an entirely different scale.”
Storm Repair.
I would bring that creature down.
After saying that to Serin, I entered the Blacksmith and immediately activated Special Crafting.
[ Activating Special Crafting skill. ]
[ Please provide a design blueprint for the special craft item. ]
Normally I swung the hammer without time to even sketch designs.
The current situation—a Gate Break—was more urgent than ever.
But things were different now.
To create the most appropriate ‘arrow’ for the present situation.
Considering the size of her bow, I designed the largest and most powerful arrow I could craft with it.
[ Please select materials. ]
For the most critical ingredient.
[ Thunder Stone ]
I dumped every Thunder Stone from the warehouse into the design.
I needed nothing else.
Using only Thunder Stones would drop the item’s durability to an extreme, but what did I care?
The amount of Thunder Stone I was using far exceeded what the arrow’s size required, but what did I care?
Regardless, I selected every Thunder Stone in the warehouse.
Then.
[ Beginning crafting. ]
I turned toward the pile of Thunder Stones before me.
Clang—!
And began swinging the hammer.
To defeat the Boss Monster outside that threatened my precious refuge.
Storm Repair.

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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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