Genius Blacksmith's Game

Lyles Mountain, not far from the nation of Hyun.

Once, monsters had swarmed here, but now it had become difficult to find any monsters at all.

The mountain, too, had become the nation’s property, allowing many people to use it.

Herb gatherers searched Lyles Mountain, which had been subjugated by the nation of Hyun, for rare things.

Merchants, too, could now travel here and there through Lyles Mountain, which had become safe.

That was right.

Lyles Mountain was both an asset and one of the routes leading to the nation of Hyun.

On that mountain appeared a decadent-looking woman wrapped in a black robe.

Wavy hair showed between the hood of her robe, and the woman, who liked that decadent beauty of her own, had drawn black eyeliner around her eyes.

It was Vera, the Death-Spirit King.

“Finally?”

Having arrived at Lyles Mountain, from which she could quickly enter the nation of Hyun, she smiled brightly.

Through the gaps between the trees, the capital of the nation of Hyun could be seen.

The confirmation is already complete.

There was something she had checked several times.

It was whether Asura Kabel was currently staying in the nation of Hyun.

Fortunately, he was no longer in the nation of Hyun.

Just thinking about that time makes me shudder.......

Vera was certain.

If that man called Asura Kabel had not been there, the nation of Hyun would have collapsed long ago.

“The Death-Spirit King commands you. Reveal yourselves in the light.”

KWHAAAAAAK—!

[Death-Spirit Prison.]

[The dead spirits imprisoned under the Death-Spirit King’s supervision are awakened.]

Black currents stretched out from the “Death-Spirit King’s Staff” she had obtained when she advanced to Death-Spirit King.

Behind her, massive dead spirits began to descend.

Legendary class. Death-Spirit King.

It was a special class capable of imprisoning dead spirits inside the Death-Spirit Prison.

In addition, most users in summoner-type lines were limited to roughly three to seven monsters they could command.

And even that number was reduced to only one or two if the monsters were high grade.

But the Death-Spirit King was “Legendary.”

And one at the very top of that line, even above Gremory’s first corps commander.

Because of that, the number she could command was far greater.

After advancing to Death-Spirit King, she had built her own corps.

Users capable of forming a one-person army like this were rare, and there was a reason the Special User Management Team had said she could reach the level of Valhalla or Kabel.

Even if one possessed the power to command a corps, even if one possessed a Legendary class.

They cannot form an army of this scale.

Five hundred elite dead spirits.

Their strength was tremendous.

[Dead-Spirit Soldier Lv.495.]

[Dead-Spirit Knight Lv.503.]

[Dead-Spirit Commander Lv.534.]

They rivaled the elite forces of most kingdoms.

In truth, Vera had gone around killing famous people in order to gather them.

They were merely labeled as soldiers and knights, but that was not what they really were.

Some had been assassins who had killed dozens without ever failing a mission.

Some had been rising stars of magic towers, famous for wide-area magic.

And they are going to enter the capital?

At a time when the Sword Kings had likely already infiltrated various parts of the capital.

It was the perfect time to carry out a massacre.

And what made her happiest of all was this.

I will put your people inside this prison. Hyun, hohoho!

That day.

If Master Blacksmith Hyun had not hunted Gremory, she would never have suffered global ridicule.

And when Hyun saw his own subordinates appear as dead spirits, he would despair.

“Go.”

Vera’s robe fluttered as she began quickly descending the mountain, and behind her followed the dead spirits trailing black currents.

Then, at that moment.

“Children, gather around. This is a cudrania tree, which becomes material for horn bows.”

“A cudrania tree?”

“His Majesty Hyunsoo said it, remember? Everything in nature can become material for us blacksmiths! You can eat the fruit of the cudrania tree, and even the roots are apparently used as medicine.”

“Wooooow.......”

Vera could see children between the ages of ten and twelve gathering around a tall tree.

Blacksmith children?

As this was a nation of blacksmiths, it was only natural that they would be raised as blacksmiths from a young age.

With child-sized hammers and the like at their waists, they looked terribly cute.

And seeing them learn as blacksmiths through something called a cudrania tree.

It was very heartwarming and lovely.

However.

......He will grieve.

The children seemed to number around fifty.

If all these children were massacred, the mind of Hyun, who was known to love mere virtual beings called NPCs, would collapse.

So let’s kill them. Hohoho!!

Vera felt not the slightest guilt.

They were nothing more than mere artificial intelligences.

And because she needed symbolic meaning, she gave the order.

“Cut off their heads and hang them from the tree.......”

Then.

She could not finish speaking.

“......What are you?”

“???”

Vera could not hide her bewilderment.

A man had blocked her path.

He seemed to be a blacksmith.

He wore the comfortable clothes blacksmiths commonly wore, and he was holding something strange.

“A chopstick?”

“......It’s a throwing knife.”

“???”

Was he insane?

The reason Vera was flustered was that, no matter who looked at it, what he was holding was a chopstick.

And the fact that a blacksmith in the mountains was walking around carrying a chopstick was absurd enough, but calling that a throwing knife made him seem like a lunatic.

Throwing knife.

It was classified as a type of blade and characterized by its short edge.

But that was not the important thing.

What mattered was that this deranged blacksmith dared block her path.

Vera did not even feel he was worth dealing with.

“If your mind is that unsound, then just die today.”

When Vera’s cold sentence fell, the dead spirits standing behind her obeyed her command.

First, five dead spirits moved toward the children.

They were assassin-type dead spirits.

And a knight struck down at the chopstick-obsessed lunatic before her.

No, it tried to strike down.

Before that could happen.

Thunk—

“......?”

Vera was bewildered as she saw a dead spirit’s neck pierced at a speed she could not even see.

W-what is this!

Her bewilderment did not end there.

Even if the neck, a vital point, was stabbed, they were dead spirits.

Dead spirits had no blood to shed, so the status ailment “bleeding” did not occur.

What was needed to kill them was not bleeding, but an enormous amount of damage.

And yet.

BOOOOOM—!!!

The tremendous compressed power generated from the chopstick blew the “knight” away in a single move.

[The Dead-Spirit Knight scatters into a handful of ash.]

Before the assassins could even reach the children.

The man threw the chopstick.

CRAAAACK—!

In that instant, one assassin’s head exploded as if it had been shot.

BOOOOM—!

She thought the chopstick would pierce through as it was and lose its direction.

However.

GRIP—!

The moment the man moved his hand, that chopstick changed course.

Then.

PUFF, PUFF, PUFF, PUFF—!

It pierced straight through the remaining four assassins and came back, wrapping neatly into his hand.

Seeing him, Vera was shaken.

A skill?

No.

She did not sense that the man who had moved in that instant had activated a skill.

Vera, too, had once been one of the top high-rankers in Ares.

NPCs stood higher than the current position of users.

And among those NPCs who wielded swords, there was a power said to be available only to those who had reached the strongest realm.

Sword control by will!?

It was the ultimate power that allowed one to attack an enemy with only the user’s will, without consuming any MP at all.

Vera sensed danger, and hundreds of dead spirits struck down at once.

And Rock, the Overlord and youngest blacksmith, looked down at the throwing knife in his hand.

(Concealed Throwing Knife.)

Grade: Epic.

Durability: 2000/2000

Attack Power: 164

Restriction: None.

Special Abilities:

·It looks exactly like a chopstick, but it is not. Its blade and tip, visible only to the wearer, are hidden, allowing it to perfectly fulfill the role of a throwing knife.

Description: The first Epic artifact created by the blacksmith Rock, possessing an invisible blade and tip.

The Overlord had wanted one thing.

He wanted arms that could be used by children, old people, and women alike.

He also knew.

Even if they carry a throwing knife in their clothes, if their enemies notice it, their attack will fail.

And so he wanted it to be both a chopstick and a throwing knife.

Because an enemy’s “carelessness” became their greatest weakness.

And so, as he watched the five hundred or so enemies surging forward, he held the throwing knife out in front of him.

“What the eyes see is not necessarily the truth.”

It manifested.

The secret technique of a king who, in the distant past, had protected a nation alone.

“Annihilation.”

KWHAAAAAAAK—!

He swung it only slightly, but its power was not slight.

From his small throwing knife, hundreds of sword energies burst forth.

The ground gave a small tremor, and the sword energies ripped through the air as they swallowed hundreds of dead spirits.

KWARARARARARARAK—!!

At something that had occurred in a mere three seconds, Vera was seized by immense fear.

Because what the man had swung was clearly a chopstick.

The man asked,

“What does this look like to you?”

She felt she had to answer the question well.

Because she must not offend the man’s mood.

She said carefully,

“A throwing knife?”

“It’s a chopstick.”

“You crazy bastard!”

The Overlord wanted it to look like a chopstick.

And.

THUUUUNK—!

The flying chopstick(?) pierced Vera’s heart, and it happened in only a single instant.

[You have been forcibly logged out.]

[Because all beings imprisoned in the Death-Spirit Prison have died, you receive a penalty.]

[All beings inside the prison are extinguished and vanish.]

[Level decreases by 10.]

[You must gather the beings inside the Death-Spirit Prison again.]

It was from that day onward.

The day Vera, the Death-Spirit King, began suffering seizures and panic attacks in reality and in Ares whenever she saw chopsticks.

*****

“Haaah, haaah.......”

Bardan.

He looked at the woman named Bella, who was trembling with her whole body drenched in blood.

Unlike her, there was not a single scratch on the body of 4th Sword King Bardan.

Bardan’s specialty lay in his fast dual swords.

Just as each Sword King made use of their own specialty, Bardan was the same.

And the woman before him also did not focus on using power, but on using speed.

She was the same type as Bardan.

However.

“How pitiful.”

She could not keep up with Bardan’s speed, and she was helpless against Ban’s attacks coming in from the side as well.

However.

The mental strength to endure without falling.

Her straight, unwavering eyes were splendid.

As expected of a woman who had once been the knight captain of Goyad.

However, the white cloak fluttering behind her back, marked with a crossed hammer and anvil, forced him to face the fact that she was a traitor.

“If your birth had not made you a woman, the result would have been different.”

Those were Bardan’s sincere feelings.

He was not criticizing women.

They accomplished things men could not.

And men accomplished things women could not.

Their roles were simply different.

“Do you despair because of your birth?”

If she had not been a woman.

She would have achieved rapid muscle growth, and perhaps more than Ban here.

More than Bardan himself, even, she might have walked the path of a greater Sword King than any of the Sword Kings throughout history.

The fact that she had overcome such birth and grown this far was that remarkable.

However, Bardan spoke the clear reality.

“Accept it. Birth cannot be changed.......”

No matter how hard one struggled like a dog and swung a sword, one could not keep pace with the muscular growth of men.

The same was true of power, and the same was true of the body.

And these words from Bardan were not mockery or pity, but sincerity he spoke aloud.

“If you still cannot accept it, I will teach you with my death.”

Bardan was a man who knew his duty.

This battle was over, and it was time to put a period on it.

At that moment.

The blood-drenched woman showed that she had not yet broken.

“You said it cannot be changed?”

WHAAAAAA—

Bardan was startled.

The atmosphere changed......?

Bella.

She acknowledged everything he had said.

The innate limits she had felt herself.

And so, half a year ago, she had gone to Hyunsoo, and he had made her a certain gauntlet.

She reached out to remove the gauntlet on one of her hands.

“This gauntlet. When I told His Majesty Hyunsoo the same thing you just said, Sir Bardan, he stayed up day and night making it and putting it on me.”

Bardan listened to her story.

It was courtesy toward her pride.

He could also tell.

She, too, had keenly felt her own innate limits.

“The name of this gauntlet is ‘Weight.’ It contains many meanings, but in reality, when this gauntlet is worn, ‘immense weight’ restricts the wearer.”

Bardan was surprised.

That meant immense weight had been applied to the gauntlet worn on her hand.

In other words, if she removed it, she would become lighter.

But.

Ten kilograms? Or twenty?

What could she do with only that much?

“When worn, it makes the entire body heavy.”

The gauntlet she had been wearing on her hand came loose and fell to the ground.

At that instant.

KWHAAAAAAANG—!!!

The earth shook violently, and a thick cloud of dust rose, sweeping past Bardan.

What......!?

WHOOOOOOOM—

A faint rumble still spread through the ground.

It told him that several tons of steel had fallen to the earth.

“His Majesty said this.”

From within the cloud of dust, she spoke the words Hyunsoo had said to her.

“Your inborn nature is that of a knight.”

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