The Returned Genius Blacksmith has Awakened as an all-Master - Chapter 42

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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 42
042. The Devil’s Strategist
The Corrupted Earthworm that all of Kratoom’s players combined had failed to capture.
That calamitous monster had been dismantled by a single blacksmith in less than ten minutes, reduced to twisted scrap metal.
It was a one-sided annihilation that barely deserved to be called combat.
‘That thing…… is a monster. Not anything we could ever hope to face.’
Cold sweat trickled down Nachal’s spine.
He understood, on some primal level.
Geumsон existed on an entirely different plane from any player he had ever encountered.
The guild master’s voice echoed through his mind—an order from Choi Jin-Woong.
— Contact Geumsон discreetly. Impersonate Yeokcheon and threaten him into a deal. The more unpleasant the approach, the better, don’t you think?
Unpleasant?
If he tried something like that in front of this monster, his own head would be the first thing to fly.
As Nachal unconsciously took a step backward.
Geumsон’s icy voice cut through the air, freezing him in place.
“Is there still something you need from me?”
Nachal’s body went rigid.
The weight of that question hung in the air like a threat—as if the wrong answer would cost him his head.
“N-no! I, I merely found myself momentarily spellbound by such an extraordinary battle! Haha, hahahaha…….”
Nachal forced a smile and bent his waist in a ninety-degree bow.
His mind held only one thought.
‘I have to run. I have to get out of here right now.’
“Then, if you’ll forgive me, I shall take my leave! I pray for your good fortune!”
“Wait, about that auction earlier…….”
“I-I’ll definitely participate in the auction! Hahahaha! I must be going!”
Nachal turned, his voice on the verge of breaking.
Without so much as a glance behind, he bolted from the cavern as though fleeing the depths of hell itself.
Geumsон watched the receding figure and clicked his tongue.
The play had ended.
As the curtain fell, one face came to mind.
The current Asura Guild master, Choi Jin-Woong.
But it was not the Choi Jin-Woong of now who occupied Geumsон’s thoughts.
The Devil’s Strategist.
Commonly known as Mabrain Choi Jin-Woong.
In that previous life, when everything was crumbling to ruin.
Alone in the cold Command Bunker, hating the world—no, hating the monsters with every fiber of his being.
The Age of Apocalypse.
In those memories, Choi Jin-Woong never stood on the front lines.
His hands bore no warrior’s calluses from gripping weapons; instead, they were pallid and thin from processing thousands upon thousands of data streams.
His battlefield was not a blood-soaked inferno of carnage, but a cold darkness punctuated by the flicker of dozens of holographic screens.
He was always there.
Night or day.
With eyes that never closed, he read the ebb and flow of battle, driving the monsters into traps of death with cold, ruthless precision.
‘Does he smile and live more easily now?’
That Choi Jin-Woong had not smiled.
He seemed like a man who had forgotten how to smile altogether.
Around him, there was only ever a chilling silence and the bitter scent of half-finished coffee.
To recall that version of Choi Jin-Woong is to speak of anything but a “hero.”
He was cunning and cruel beyond measure.
His slaughter of monsters was so savage that even fellow players could only shake their heads in dismay.
He would unfold a single map before engaging in battle.
He predicted the monsters’ movements and dug traps at their most vulnerable points.
Burying tens of thousands of creatures alive using explosives in the Gorge was routine.
He deployed bioweapons in monster dens to spread plague, and he did not hesitate to pit different monster species against each other, letting them tear one another to pieces in mutual destruction.
Choi Jin-Woong’s objective was singular.
The extermination of monsters before they crossed into reality.
Nothing more—and yet the survivors who fought alongside him cursed him as a “demon.”
His strategies showed no regard for friendly casualties.
Indeed, he did not hesitate to use his own soldiers as bait, moving them across the board like pieces in a game of chess.
Though people trembled at his callousness, they willingly staked their lives on his strategies.
His operations had never failed, not once.
Choi Jin-Woong was no hero.
He hunted monsters the way only a monster could—a necessary evil for humanity.
A strategist who had willingly become a devil to prevent apocalypse.
‘If only Kang Mu-Jin hadn’t died, Choi Jin-Woong would never have become this.’
Choi Jin-Woong, who made the hardest choices and was rejected for them.
He hadn’t always been like this.
All that hatred, all that madness—it sprang from a single source.
From Kang Mu-Jin’s death.
Love-Hate.
No word better captured the relationship between Choi Jin-Woong and Kang Mu-Jin.
They were two men who constantly belittled and blamed each other, yet none were more aware of the other’s presence than they.
Eternal rivals locked in struggle for the highest seat.
But when Lepion threatened reality itself, they became the most reliable of allies, watching each other’s backs.
He laid out the grandest stage for Kang Mu-Jin to shine, and Kang Mu-Jin danced across it more brilliantly than anyone, cutting through enemy lines with savage grace.
The perfect blade to save the world, and the sharpest mind to clear the path before it.
They were perfect rivals, each growing sharper through their awareness of the other.
But Geumsон could still not forget that day.
The day tens of thousands of monsters came crashing down like a tidal wave toward the final defense line.
Choi Jin-Woong’s strategy had been flawless.
Except for one variable: Kang Mu-Jin.
Kang Mu-Jin, as always, ignored the plan and rushed out first.
For it was Choi Jin-Woong’s audacious strategy—the kind that demanded sacrifice from allies.
It seemed to be going well, as it usually did.
Right up until his Great Sword pierced the heart of the monster horde, punching through the chest of the Lord-rank Monster.
The problem was that Kang Mu-Jin’s own heart was pierced by the claws of another beast.
On the main screen of the Command Bunker.
Kang Mu-Jin’s face was magnified there.
Even as life drained from him, a faint smile lingered at the corner of his mouth.
With his last breath, he forced the air from his lungs and shaped words soundlessly.
“Hey, Choi Jin-Woong…… You see? My Great Sword was faster than your calculations…… wasn’t it?”
Those were his final words.
The screen went dark. Kang Mu-Jin’s vital signs ceased.
The Command Bunker fell silent.
A complete silence where all sound had vanished.
Choi Jin-Woong said nothing.
He only stared at the darkened screen.
His shoulders trembled faintly, though whether he wept or suppressed his rage could not be discerned.
After that day, the variable called “humanity” vanished entirely from Choi Jin-Woong’s calculations.
His equations contained only “efficiency” and “annihilation.”
He no longer fought for victory.
He fought only to erase—to destroy every monster in a world that had taken away his only variable: Kang Mu-Jin.
And so Choi Jin-Woong of the Asura Guild became the devil’s strategist.
Mabrain Choi Jin-Woong.
“I wonder what he’s like now? Can you even reason with him?”
Geumsон let out a soft laugh and pulled himself from his reverie.
The Choi Jin-Woong of this age was merely a shallow schemer squabbling over scraps within a game.
But Geumsон knew.
The madness sleeping beneath that shallowness would one day raise its head.
And that cunning, ironically, was a strength humanity would need.
Geumsон watched the direction where Nachal had vanished completely into darkness.
He spoke softly, as if to himself.
“Choi Jin-Woong, don’t worry. This time, Kang Mu-Jin won’t die. So…….”
He swallowed the rest.
Geumsон had begun to notice that Choi Jin-Woong of the Asura Guild was beginning to take an interest in him.
But now was not the time to meet.
Geumsон gathered his thoughts and turned his gaze toward the enormous hole from which the Corrupted Earthworm had erupted.
From within came a thick, stifling heat like boiling lava, and the faint stench of sulfur rose upward.
‘The Dragon’s Blood Herb will be down there.’
Without hesitation, Geumsон threw himself into the hole below.
Iron Walker, too, hurled his massive frame after his master.
* * *
Beneath the hole lay precisely what he’d expected: an enormous Lava Cavern.
Molten rock churned from all sides, filling the cavern’s interior with a daylight-bright luminescence.
Geumsон could bear the scorching heat thanks to the thirty percent flame resistance granted by his Dragon Scale Breastplate.
Iron Walker, forged from steel from the start, had no trouble with the temperature so long as he moved without excessive vigor.
“There.”
Geumsон’s gaze fixed on a small rocky islet rising from the center of the cavern, where lava flowed like a river.
Upon that islet grew a strange herb, its form peculiar, radiating a vivid crimson as if steeped in dragon’s blood.
A system message materialized.
[You have discovered the Dragon’s Blood Herb.]
Using Iron Walker as a stepping stone, Geumsон crossed lightly to the rocky islet.
Seen up close, the Dragon’s Blood Herb was even more wondrous.
Each leaf pulsed faintly, like a living heart.
“Harvesting.”
Geumsон employed his newly acquired Harvesting skill.
His hand movements, learned from Paracel and refined by his own skills, grew yet more precise and fluid.
[You activate the Harvesting skill.]
[Resolute Intuition marks the herb’s most delicate stem.]
[Possessed Dexterity maximizes harvesting speed and precision.]
[Precision Stat bolsters your finesse.]
.
.
.
[You have harvested a superior Dragon’s Blood Herb.]
[Your Harvesting skill proficiency rises dramatically.]
[Your Harvesting skill has reached Lv.2.]
“Indeed—the skill synergy is remarkable.”

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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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