The Returned Genius Blacksmith has Awakened as an all-Master - Chapter 121

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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 121
121. Relative Value
A goblin that had crossed through a Gate.
They were surely not all the same individual.
Unlike the one Geumson had encountered in the Age of Ruin, this goblin’s pointed ear was half-severed on one side.
Yet it was unmistakably of the same kind.
Moreover, the word “caravan” had even appeared in the item’s name.
In other words, these creatures operated as a group.
“Now then, what could it be that you people need? Kee-kee-kee, how obvious, yes? Hmm? Hmm?”
The Half-Eared Goblin circled the crowd, speaking in a mocking tone.
It opened the flap of its bundle.
Then came the aroma—warm, toasted bread and the rich scent of smoked meat, wafting from between the packs.
For the starving refugees, it was torture.
“Nngh…… the smell…….”
“It’s bread! Meat!”
“If we just had that…… our child could live!”
True to a merchant’s nature, the goblin grasped the situation at a glance and tempted them with exactly what they needed most.
It was no novice at this game.
What’s more, the Half-Eared Goblin seemed to revel in their stares, grinning wickedly with mouth split ear-to-ear.
“Kee-kee-kee! Indeed, nothing seasons hunger quite like desperation! Come now, come! I have mountains of fresh bread and meat here! Water too, and even sweet fruit!”
“How much? We’ll buy provisions! How much do you have in total?”
“Oh! Perfect timing! Though something feels off…… but why be tedious? Sell everything you have! I’ll buy it all!”
Not only Baek Jin-ju but Ma Jin-chul too cried out desperately.
At their reaction, the goblin nodded with evident satisfaction.
Yet his eyes gleamed with naked greed.
He flicked his fingers dismissively, as though money held no interest for him whatsoever.
“Money? Kee-kee-kee! I don’t need money. What use are such scraps of paper or lumps of metal? What I want is far more valuable than that petty stuff.”
“Not…… money?”
“What do you mean? Then what do you trade for?”
The goblin began pointing at them one by one with his fingers, as though he’d been waiting for exactly this question.
“You—that shield you’re holding. I fancy it. Hand it over. And you—those Blueprints! They look quite useful, I must say. Kee-kee!”
Baek Jin-ju’s face went deathly pale.
The shield she carried.
It was proof itself that she was a Holy Knight.
If she lost it, she would have to prove her Holy Knight’s credentials all over again from the beginning.
Above all, that shield held a unique power that amplified her Holy Power.
Without it, her healing and defensive abilities would be cut in half—that much was obvious.
And Ma Jin-chul faced the same dilemma.
The Blueprints that Ma Jin-chul carried with him always contained all the knowledge needed to create labyrinths within Lepiun.
Including the labyrinths he had independently designed.
It was an item holding everything he had learned from his time in Lepiun.
“This…… I can’t! Without it, I can’t protect the people…….”
“A maze-maker without blueprints? How do you expect me to redraw this from scratch?”
“Don’t like it? Then forget it! I’m not the one who’ll starve to death! Kee-kee-kee!”
Each item was a crucial piece for both Baek Jin-ju and Ma Jin-chul.
Losing them might force the two to abandon Lepiun altogether.
They were items with such unique properties that they could not be regained once lost.
Yet the negotiating power lay entirely with the goblin.
“Kee-kee! So those trinkets matter more than the lives of all those people behind you? Impressive designer you are! A Holy Knight, my ass?”
At the goblin’s mockery, Ma Jin-chul and Baek Jin-ju clenched their teeth.
They could not refute him.
Their dilemma deepened by the moment.
Especially for Baek Jin-ju, who bore the title of Holy Knight.
Then the goblin’s gaze finally turned toward Geumson.
His eyes shone with the most voracious hunger yet.
“And you…… that hammer you’re holding there. That looks the most delicious of all. Give me that too!”
The Hammer of Forgotten Void.
The core item Geumson had poured his heart into crafting, an essential tool for all his plans to come.
The goblin had identified with perfect precision the most precious possession of each of them.
Geumson met the Half-Eared Goblin’s gaze with eyes gone cold and still.
‘Same as always…… Different individuals, but they pull the same tricks.’
The Broker of Despair.
In the Age of Ruin, they were always like this.
They would appear at humanity’s most desperate moment and trade present survival for future collateral.
Still, the current offer was relatively favorable.
Back then, they would demand human beings themselves.
As though seeking sacrificial offerings that demanded blood.
They savored it.
Parasites that devoured hope and fattened despair.
“So? Quite a reasonable bargain, yes? The value of goods is always relative, after all! Kee-kee-kee-kee!”
The Half-Eared Goblin cackled, pressing them for an answer.
Baek Jin-ju and Ma Jin-chul wavered.
But the moment their gaze caught the sound of children weeping from behind, their eyes grew uncertain.
“…… I understand.”
Baek Jin-ju spoke first.
With trembling hands, she unfastened the Holy Shield.
“If this shield can…… save the children…… .”
Ma Jin-chul seemed to have made his decision impulsively in the wake of Baek Jin-ju’s action.
In precisely the direction the Goblin desired.
Just as the people of the Age of Ruin had done.
“Damn it! Take it! Take the cursed thing! You filthy wretch!”
In the end, the two chose provisions.
At their decision, the Goblin’s mouth stretched so wide his smile nearly touched his ears.
Now only one remained.
Geumson alone.
“Well then, what will you do? These two made a splendid choice—surely you won’t be so greedy as to refuse alone? Kee-kee! You can always find such things again, can’t you?”
Every eye turned toward Geumson.
The desperate gaze of the refugees, the resigned look in Baek Jin-ju and Ma Jin-chul’s eyes, and the Goblin’s mocking stare.
Within the weight of all those eyes demanding a choice.
Geumson slowly opened his mouth.
“No.”
The laughter drained from the Half-Eared Goblin’s face.
Baek Jin-ju and Ma Jin-chul stared at Geumson with shock written across their features.
“…… What? No?”
“Geumson! What are you doing right now—!”
“Hey! Are you insane? You’d let all these people die over a single hammer?”
Geumson, who had been the most passionate about rescuing survivors until now.
His unexpected refusal struck the two like a physical blow.
But Geumson didn’t blink.
Instead, he stepped forward and spoke coldly to the Goblin.
“Listen, Half-Eared. I agree with what you said. That value is relative.”
“Kee-kee! So you understand, yet you refuse? What a heartless fool! If you don’t like it, quit! I need nothing from you!”
The Goblin snorted and began packing the bundle again.
He was confident.
That they would cling to him in the end.
It was an unchanging truth gleaned from manipulating countless humans over time.
Humans were always creatures of emotion, after all.
But this time, his opponent was different.
“Nothing? I think you’ll find that’s not quite true.”
Geumson’s voice dropped low.
Somewhere between one breath and the next, the Hammer of Forgotten Void had come to rest in his hand.
An aura poured forth from the hammer, wrapping around Geumson.
It was unmistakable killing intent.
“What? Why would I need anything from—”
The Goblin’s remaining ear trembled slightly.
Though he affected composure, his body instinctively stepped back.
That human’s gaze.
That was not the look of someone seeking a bargain.
It was the look of someone genuinely prepared to take a life—not a threat or bluff, but cold certainty.
Yet the Goblin was no stranger to dangerous dealings himself.
“Kee-kee-kee-kee! Stupid fool! Do you think I haven’t faced creatures like you a dozen times over? Take it by force? Impossible! I’m leaving! Listen up, you dimwits—because of that bastard, you’ll all starve to death!”
The goblin left behind a contemptuous sneer and reached toward empty air.
Mana gathered at his fingertips as a Gate began to tear through space.
This was their way of survival.
The moment danger seemed to threaten, they’d open a Gate and flee.
An escape route only they could access—unreachable to any pursuer.
Crack—
Fissures began to spread across the space.
Baek Jin-ju and Ma Jin-chul watched the sight with expressions of despair.
It was over.
Their last hope was slipping away.
But Geumson didn’t move.
He simply stared at the point where the Gate was opening, his gaze cold and unwavering.
And in that single instant.
‘Now! Insight of Veins!’
His eyes flashed blue.
The flow of mana composing the Gate was laid bare before Geumson’s sight.
A complex tangle of mana threads.
Among them, he could see the single crucial node—the one point that anchored the spatial coordinates.
And with it, the linked skill activated.
‘Mana Dominion!’
Geumson manipulated his own mana with precision, firing it toward that nexus point.
As if that alone weren’t enough, he brought the hammer in his hand crashing down against the earth.
“Silence of the Earth!”
Boom—!
The moment the hammer struck the ground, a transparent shockwave radiated outward from Geumson at its center.
An Anti-Magic Field.
The hollow power that suppressed and negated all magical phenomena took hold of the space.
Crackle-crackle-crackle…!
The Gate that was tearing open convulsed violently.
Like a television screen caught in static interference, the spatial rift flickered and trembled unstably.
“Wh-what? What? Why is this—why is this happening?”
Panic was written plainly across the goblin’s face.
He had never encountered anything like this.
His unique ability—Gate Creation—was being blocked.
His ears turned crimson as he poured mana into his efforts with desperate abandon.
But the Gate he sought would not open.
Instead, the mana interference sent by Geumson twisted the coordinates, causing them to collapse and backlash.
Pop—!
With a small explosion, the Gate vanished uselessly into nothing.
The goblin lowered his trembling hands, which had been gesticulating at empty air.
Then slowly, he turned his head to look at Geumson.
Geumson had already closed the distance—he was mere inches from the goblin’s face.
“W-wait! Wait, wait! Don’t come closer! Stay back, human! Get away from me!”
The goblin scrambled backward, landing hard on his rear.
All trace of laughter had fled; only terror remained on his face.
There was nowhere left to run.
To the trembling goblin, Geumson produced something from his pocket.
A single gleaming Gold Coin.
He tossed it onto the ground at the goblin’s feet.
Ting—
The Gold Coin fell with a clear, ringing sound.
The goblin stared at the coin with trembling eyes.
“So let’s continue our deal. What’s the price of your life?”
The goblin’s expression twisted.
Geumson smiled, baring his teeth white.
Now he held the upper hand in the negotiation.

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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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