The Returned Genius Blacksmith has Awakened as an all-Master - Chapter 99

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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 99
099. Calamity
“M-Master! How did you…?”
Geumson’s eyes widened in disbelief.
Astrid had no business being here.
The side effects of the Elixir of Memory hadn’t fully worn off yet.
She was supposed to be conserving her Mana.
And yet Astrid had come anyway.
To the very heart of this war-torn hellscape.
“I grew concerned for you, so I came to see. You carry far too much upon your shoulders alone, my young student.”
Her voice held no reproach—only warmth, tender and genuine.
She could speak such words only because she had glimpsed his memories through the Elixir of Memory.
Knowing this, Geumson felt his chest tighten unbidden, yet now was no time for sentiment.
“It’s dangerous, Master! Please, we must leave this—”
Boom!
Before he could finish, an enormous boulder hurtled through the air in a graceful arc and struck the City Wall where they stood, embedding itself with a deafening crash.
Below the wall, a colossal Cyclops glared with its single eye, its roar shaking the earth.
Unsatisfied, the creature hurled another massive stone skyward.
“Dodge, Master!”
Geumson threw himself in front of Astrid on pure instinct.
But she didn’t flinch.
She simply raised the hand holding her staff, lifting it gently toward the incoming boulder.
“How tiresome.”
As her soft murmur fell, the boulder froze mid-air.
Then, as if time itself had reversed, it traced its exact path backward and struck the Cyclops’s head with perfect precision.
Crack!
The Cyclops didn’t even manage a final cry before the boulder crushed it utterly.
At that overwhelming sight, the Players fighting desperately atop the City Wall fell silent.
“What—what was that? Did that Cyclops just die in one hit? But that’s clearly a boss-ranked creature…”
“Is that old woman a mage? But… I’ve never seen magic like that.”
“Wait—why are the Aerthos mages reacting like that?”
All the mages of Aerthos.
Their gaze turned toward Astrid.
Then—
Thud.
“We behold the Star!”
Even in the heat of desperate combat, the mages fell to their knees.
As though monsters were mere trifles, as though this crisis meant nothing—they knelt before her alone.
And in that moment, they seemed only to mourn their own failure to hold back such darkness, their inability to manifest miracles.
“Oh, forgive me. I see you’ve all been working so hard. I should have come sooner.”
A simple remark, nothing more.
Yet among Aerthos’s mages, tears seemed to fall at those words.
But Astrid turned to address Geumson instead.
“Geumson, do you know why mages wear robes and pull their hoods down so deep?”
An abrupt question, utterly at odds with the carnage around them.
It seemed as though time flowed differently between Astrid and Geumson alone.
She was turning even this moment into an opportunity for teaching.
“Isn’t it because the robe’s broader surface makes it easier to inscribe more Mana? That would make the magic more powerful, wouldn’t it?”
Inscribing Mana on soft, wide-surfaced robes was far simpler than etching it into solid weapons.
This was the kind of answer Geumson, a blacksmith who had strengthened countless Players’ equipment, would naturally give.
But Astrid shook her head and replied:
“So they need not see.”
So they need not see.
It was an answer he had never anticipated.
Astrid continued:
“The screams wracked with agony. The eyes of those pleading for miracles. The deaths of comrades. Mages wear hoods to shield themselves from all of it.”
“So they need not see…”
“Yes. A mage must never falter. In the most extreme circumstances, magic must succeed—no exceptions.”
Even when those you love are threatened by monsters.
Even when your comrades cry out in agony, torn apart before your eyes.
Even in that moment when a monster hovered mere inches away, drool streaming from its maw, fangs bared and gleaming.
The mage chanted her incantation.
Hood pulled low, she spoke the words of power with absolute focus, surrendering herself entirely to the magic.
Because that alone was the only way to weave a miracle.
Because that alone was the only path to save them all.
“This is why mages wear hoods, you see. So they need not look—so they can think only of the miracle they must create.”
With that, Astrid unfastened her robe.
She draped it across Geumson’s shoulders and spoke softly.
“But you, Geumson—you must not do as I do.”
“Pardon? Then…….”
“Keep your hood off. Lift your head. Look directly at their suffering. Take in the sight of those in pain.”
In that instant, Astrid’s robe enveloping Geumson began to shift.
Its form started to transform.
Swish—swish—swish.
The garment that had draped across Geumson’s shoulders.
Astrid’s Shadow Robe—pristine white, dignified and pure when she wore it.
But as it settled onto Geumson, it deepened gradually into a somber gray.
And rather than a robe, it began to resemble a cloak, its shadow-like folds obscuring Geumson’s form.
At the same moment, a message materialized before his eyes.
[Astrid’s Shadow Robe]
– Grade: Mythic
– Defense: 3,800
– Effects:
1. [Absolute Memory]: Once you have visited a place, you will never forget it.
2. [Shadow Concealment]: Conceals the wearer’s presence, mana, and even physical form.
3. [Mana Amplification]: Amplifies the wearer’s magic by 100%.
4. [Spatial Leap]: Enables short-range teleportation to remembered locations.
– Description:
An artifact designed to augment Astrid’s memory.
Regrettably, it can only remember locations.
Mythic grade.
A Mythic-grade item he had never once used in his previous life, nor throughout this entire one until now.
This was Astrid’s Shadow Robe itself.
Despite the modest description, it was anything but lacking.
If anything, it was excessive.
“Master, this is…….”
“An item no longer necessary for me, thanks to you. See how well it suits you? Before, it was rather too ornate, wasn’t it?”
Geumson, clad in heavy plate armor with a hammer strapped across his back.
He was unmistakable wherever he went—a walking beacon.
But the moment he donned Astrid’s Shadow Robe, he seemed nothing more than an ordinary traveler.
“You need not bear this burden alone. From now on, lean on me.”
The robe draped across Geumson’s shoulders bore no hood.
Just as Astrid had instructed, Geumson lifted his gaze.
Astrid stepped forward toward the battlefield.
But Geumson moved to stop her.
“Master! You mustn’t! If you expend your mana now…….”
You will lose your memories.
Astrid’s recollection was still fragile, still unstable.
Yet she answered as though the cost meant nothing to her.
“You showed me your miracle, didn’t you? Then I must show you mine. And I hope it will aid you on the thorny path that lies ahead.”
Astrid’s eyes grew distant and profound.
She knew the bitter road Geumson must walk.
She knew how much agony that path would bring—and so she stepped forward anyway.
Even if she lost some of her memories in the process.
Such a price was trivial compared to what Geumson would endure.
“Poor wretches…….”
Her gaze fixed upon the throng of monsters that choked the expanse beneath the City Wall.
She drew from her robes a glass vial brimming with dark liquid and hurled it down toward the masses below.
Crash!
The instant the vial shattered.
The monsters’ movement ceased.
No—the monsters suddenly began charging forward in a frenzy.
“Master… that’s not…!”
One could tell from the monsters’ reaction what had happened.
Astrid had broken the Beast Allure Incense.
An item that could summon beasts with just a single drop.
The very catalyst that had spawned the Monster Wave.
And she had shattered an entire vial of it.
Completely.
In that instant, the red dots that had been spreading across Geumson’s system map underwent a violent transformation.
They began to shift rapidly.
‘All of them… they’re converging southward!’
Every monster that had been pressing from the east and west, as well as the north.
They were all surging toward the south.
A Monster Wave.
But no longer merely a wave of monsters.
More like a tsunami.
The monsters had become a tidal wave, crashing southward in an unstoppable tide.
Before that monstrous deluge, the players lowered their weapons.
There was only a deep, weary sigh.
It was over.
This couldn’t be stopped.
As that thought took hold—
“Time Reversal.”
Astrid’s final whispered words.
And a single step forward.
As Astrid advanced one step, the wrinkles at her fingertips began to smooth away.
With another stride toward the City Wall’s edge, her dull silver hair, once so brittle,
unraveled like silk, streaming like the Milky Way across a night sky.
“Master…?”
Astrid grew younger before their eyes in an instant.
Time had seemed to rewind her to her prime.
But as if that were merely the beginning—
“Now then… watch closely. Don’t miss a single thing.”
The moment Astrid released the presence she had kept hidden all this time.
Geumson’s body went rigid.
Astrid’s presence.
It was as if he stood before the Calamity that humanity had once faced.
The very Calamity that had brought the Age of Ruin to its end.

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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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