I Became an SSS-Grade Time-Transcending Almighty Blacksmith - Chapter 85

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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 85
Chapter 85
Kang Cheol-mangchi’s escort.
They were no ordinary Awakeners.
Among those affiliated with the Awakeners’ Association, they ranked among the strongest.
Ordinarily, they were not the sort to take on escort duties.
But the Association Director himself had made the request.
And they were curious enough about this rumored Kang Cheol-mangchi to accept the mission as a special assignment.
Still, they’d thought there would be no need for them to intervene directly.
Boom!
Then things went wrong.
“We’re under attack!”
The lead vehicle’s tire burst, and the convoy behind it lurched to a halt.
In that same instant, smoke grenades detonated around them.
Though escort work wasn’t their specialty, these were all high-tier Awakeners.
Just as they would when ambushed by monsters at a Gate,
they moved with practiced efficiency, blocking and counterattacking against their assailants.
Yet.
‘They’re strong.’
The attackers proved far more formidable than anticipated.
Most of the Awakeners on escort duty weren’t quite Rankers, but they were close enough—powerhouses by any measure.
These enemies handled them with ease.
If such fighters existed in Korea, they would have known.
Which meant one thing.
‘They’re foreign.’
These attackers had come from abroad.
And judging by their tactics and the pattern of smoke grenades,
one of the escorts managed to identify them.
“Dark Night Society!”
The Dark Night Society.
A fairly notorious criminal organization.
Though primarily active in China, they operated on a global scale—an international network of Awakener criminals.
Their membership, he’d heard, was a mix of nationalities and felons.
“Damn it, we have to protect Kang Cheol-mangchi!”
There was only one target worth the Dark Night Society’s attention here: Kang Cheol-mangchi.
They were already fighting to shield him.
But seeing the enemy’s movements grow more aggressive toward him, the escorts pressed their assault harder, pushing the attackers back with renewed fury.
Just as they were driving the enemies back,
Crash-boom-boom-boom!
A tremendous explosion tore through the air.
A blast so violent it deafened.
It carried the force of a Gate’s boss monster’s final strike.
And it detonated right in front of them.
Right in front of Kang Cheol-mangchi’s vehicle.
Right where the Dark Night Society members had been clustered.
The startled escorts gathered their wits, pushed through the smoke, and reached the scene.
“What in the…”
A gruesome sight met their eyes.
The blast had left a massive crater, and scattered around it lay Dark Night Society members, bleeding and unconscious.
Even accounting for the Dark Night Society’s preference for light, mobile armor over heavy protection, to see all of them laid out by a single strike—
What kind of situation was this?
It made no sense.
“Arrest all the Dark Night Society members!”
But they made their decision quickly.
The attackers were down, but not dead.
Given time, they’d come to and get back on their feet.
They had to apprehend them all before that happened.
Yet there was something more pressing than that.
“Kang Cheol-mangchi!”
Yun Seong-hyeok, the Awakener who’d been driving Kang Cheol-mangchi’s vehicle,
He rushed toward the vehicle in haste.
The vehicle too had been caught in the blast, with one side crushed severely and pushed clear across to the opposite side.
Still, befitting an armored security vehicle, the car hadn’t been completely destroyed or overturned.
He tried to open the door, but the warped metal wouldn’t give way easily.
Having no choice, he used his Awakener’s strength to wrench the door open by force.
“Kang Cheol-mangchi, are you alright!”
Fortunately enough.
“Well, sort of……?”
Kang Cheol-mangchi, who had survived thanks to nothing but Gerom and Toran acting as cushions, wore an awkward smile.
* * *
The explosion had detonated one timing earlier.
The silver lining was that I’d closed the car door the moment I threw Ghost Flame’s Requiem to enter the Forge of Time.
And the other saving grace was that the vehicle I rode in wasn’t an ordinary car, but an armored security vehicle prepared to withstand Awakener attacks.
Thanks to that.
Crash-boom-boom-boom-boom!!!
The car lurched violently from the explosion and crumpled inward.
“Oof!”
“Screech!”
“Master!”
“Noum!”
Thanks to my companions clinging to me, I was able to weather the blast’s aftershock unscathed.
I’d worried whether the enemies might survive even this.
Fortunately, not long after.
“Kang Cheol-mangchi, are you alright!”
The Awaker who’d been driving tore open the door and came to rescue me.
Looking outside, I could see the enemies being restrained.
Only then.
“Phew…….”
A relieved sigh escaped me.
I hadn’t been certain of the bomb’s destructive power.
I hadn’t been certain whether that blast would actually bring down the enemies.
And at the end, I hadn’t been certain whether I myself would survive that explosion.
Yet somehow, my plan had succeeded.
After that, the situation resolved itself quickly.
In particular, the enemies who’d attacked me turned out to belong to an organization called the Dark Night Society.
“That was a close call indeed.”
“The Dark Night Society?”
“A worldwide criminal syndicate. Especially the ones who attacked this time appear to be elite operatives from within the Dark Night Society, so it was truly a dangerous situation.”
So they were quite dangerous opponents, it seemed.
Especially, they were specialists in crimes like kidnapping and theft.
And then.
“And, we all wish to apologize to you, Kang Cheol-mangchi.”
“What? No, I’m alive thanks to you all.”
“That’s not so. We nearly failed to protect you. I’m not sure how you managed it exactly…… but you were truly remarkable, Kang Cheol-mangchi.”
The Awakeners assigned to my protection crowded around me and bowed their heads.
Still, they bore me no ill will whatsoever.
The situation itself was beyond anyone’s control.
Far from accepting their apology, I was the one grateful.
Assignment or not, without them, I would already have been kidnapped by those Dark Night Society thugs.
“Would you mind sharing your phone numbers with me?”
“Huh? Your phone numbers, but why……”
“I’m truly grateful, so I’d like to give each of you a commission request soon.”
“A, a Kang Cheol-mangchi commission right! Are you serious!”
In that sense.
I took down the contact information of those who’d protected me and saved it.
Well, it wasn’t as if I was refusing to pay them.
A commission or two—I could easily afford to offer that.
And then, shortly after.
Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-.
The sound of helicopter blades reached my ears.
“Are you all right?”
“There was no need for you to come in person, Director…….”
The Association Director had arrived.
I’d wondered why he’d show up when the situation was already over.
“It can’t be helped. I entrusted you with this task, and you failed to see it through.”
Everyone flinched.
“N-No, Director. That’s not it. We did our best, but the Dark Night Society came after us!”
“Shouldn’t you have prioritized the escort first and gathered at the center, rather than engaging them from the start?”
“……Ah. W-Well, yes, but this was our first escort mission…….”
“That’s an excuse. You must have performed protective operations for ranged combatants plenty of times during party hunts in Gates.”
“That’s…….”
“It seems you need new training.”
“Ughhhhh…….”
He’d clearly come to oversee and manage the Awakeners’ Association members.
Of course, that was only a secondary purpose.
The real reason he’d come was to check on me, or so it seemed.
Once the Association Director arrived at the scene and surveyed the situation.
“Dark Night Society operatives reaching Korea, no less. We’ll need to tighten Awakener entry security even further.”
“They probably didn’t come by plane, sir. An Awakener of their caliber would have alternative routes available.”
“Have you detained them?”
“Yes. Thanks to Kang Cheol-mangchi, we were able to detain them without difficulty.”
“Good. We’ll interrogate them, locate their headquarters, and wipe them out.”
“Even if we find the headquarters, it’s probably scattered across foreign territories, sir.”
“An organization like the Dark Night Society would be able to receive support from any country where they have a base. I’ll handle that part myself.”
“Understood, Director. If you say so.”
He swiftly organized the situation.
Then he came over to me.
“I’ll take responsibility for eliminating the Dark Night Society operatives. Don’t worry.”
He’d relieved my concerns.
Of course, this wasn’t a complete solution.
Even if they were the Dark Night Society, they were merely hired hands who came on someone’s request.
There would be a client elsewhere.
The Director would try to find that client, but it wouldn’t be easy.
And even if the Dark Night Society were eliminated, as long as there were people targeting me, these threats would surely continue.
For now, with the help of the Association and my assistants, I hadn’t been taken.
‘I need to find some method.’
That thought struck me.
If things continued this way, I’d face kidnapping threats every time I stepped outside.
My assistants were reliable.
The Awakeners’ Association was reliable too.
But I felt I had to find some other means of protection.
Well, there’s nothing I can do about that right now, so I’ll think about it later.
“The Dark Night Society has an international bounty on them. I’ll send you the bounty for the ones you’ve detained as soon as it comes through.”
“Pardon? But I didn’t capture them.”
“Since your escorts failed in their duty, it’s only right that you receive it. Does anyone have objections?”
“No, sir…….”
The Director decided to give me the bounty placed on the Dark Night Society.
When I looked into it, the bounty was larger than I’d expected.
I’d earned money I never thought I would.
And my earnings from this incident weren’t limited to that.
“Under international law, spoils of war obtained from defeating such criminals belong to the one who defeated them. Therefore, I’ll transfer all the confiscated items to you as well.”
“All of them?”
“Does anyone have an objection?”
“No, sir!”
“So that settles it.”
All the items the enemies had possessed became mine.
Of course, beyond equipment, there wasn’t much else.
It appeared that the Dark Night Society members left non-essential items back at their headquarters during missions.
Still, this was no small thing.
All the Dark Night Society operatives appeared to be quite high-leveled.
Whether I repair and resell them or break them down for materials, either way I turn a profit.
After wrapping up that conversation,
we climbed into a fresh armored vehicle, and this time the Association Director took the front passenger seat himself.
Thanks to that, we made it home safely.
“You’ve all worked hard today.”
“Puff, puff…….”
“Wheeze, that was grueling.”
“Noum did his best!”
“I’m sorry, Master. If we’d been any stronger…….”
“There’s nothing to be done about it now. What can you expect when your level is so low?”
I spent the time chatting with my assistants.
My appetite was shot, so I just sipped water.
Toran cracked open a bottle of liquor.
Gerom grabbed some kind of ham called jamón straight from the fridge and gnawed on it whole.
Serin nursed a drink.
Noum barely paused between bites of snacks.
While they did all that,
I was cataloging the items we’d just acquired.
“They were all pretty high-level gear.”
The explosion had taken its toll on the durability of the equipment,
but with proper repairs, these pieces should fetch a decent price.
What struck me most was that nearly all of it was assassin-class gear.
I suppose not everyone who Awakens as an assassin becomes a criminal.
But after chasing down actual criminals, you start to notice that assassins do seem to be disproportionately represented.
In any case, as I was examining the items,
“Huh?”
I jerked upright in surprise.
And for good reason—in the equipment I’d just identified,
[ Seal of Silence ]
Form: Ring
Grade: S
Restriction: —
Description: A ring forged from cold black obsidian that stills the wearer’s breathing and tremors, drawing them into a state of extreme concentration at the moment of assassination.
Ability:
Moment of Silence
, Concentration Lv 2
—there was a special ability attached.
I’d seen special abilities on weapons and armor before, but this was the first time I’d come across one on an accessory.
By the looks of it, this was a special ability tailored for assassins.
Curious, I read through what the ability actually did,
“This…….”
and my eyes couldn’t help but light up.
This special ability, “Moment of Silence,”
was clearly designed for assassins—suited perfectly to the art of assassination.
“But I could use this too.”
The ability seemed like it would be tremendously useful for a blacksmith like me as well.

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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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