episode_0073

By pushing the black magic to its limit, the skeleton horse’s power was strengthened like crazy, and the skeleton horse rushed across the plain at an incredible speed. In the process, the bones of the skeleton horse and cart skeleton touched little by little, making a slightly bizarre sound, but the speed was incredible.

But it wasn’t just about running like crazy. This is because the entire road leading to the village I was in was not a safe place. There were places where monsters frequently appeared, and there were also places where bands of thieves occasionally appeared.

Of course, there were no bandits who would boldly run out even after seeing the skeletal horse and cart skeleton, but in the case of monsters, you would often encounter them while running. In particular, I tend to encounter stupid goblins who think they can win if they have a lot of numbers, or orcs who are so fearless that they don’t feel fear even when they see a warlock.

Ordinary people would run without slowing down even if they took a detour to avoid a battle with a group of monsters, but on the contrary, I would stop whenever I saw a monster. Therefore, it was impossible to continue running at a tremendous speed.

“Just grab the bones intact!”

The Skeleton Mage, who took the lead in deciding the direction, and several other skeletons were sent to capture the monster. The Skeleton Mage who was attached to the Skeleton Horse immediately ran ahead with the Skeleton Horse, followed by several skeletons.

In the direction they were running towards, there were three orcs holding what looked like crude stone axes. Of course, the orcs who saw the skeletons running towards them did not run away, but instead ran towards the skeletons in anger. I don’t know if I should say that he was a fearless orc full of anger, but first of all, he looked very brave.

“Become our colleague!”

Even, when I saw the skeleton mage suddenly throwing out a lump of black flame created by black magic, I even had the illusion that I had become a demon lord. A random thought suddenly occurred to me, like an Orc warrior fighting against the Skull Demon King.

I pictured an orc running like crazy with only one weapon in his hand as I commanded hundreds or thousands of skeletons with a single wave of my hand. The sight of an orc running straight towards me, crushing skeletons to a crisp. Of course, because it was my imagination, the ending was that I was lynched by the skeletons and became another skeleton.

After thinking about random things for a while, the Skeleton Mage came back. With the corpses of three orcs.

“What, did you catch it already?”

“Thanks to the dark magic you instilled in me. When I placed a curse using my powerful black magic, I died instantly.”

When I was told that the solution was solved with a curse, I checked the orc body and saw that it was completely clean and without any wounds. No, there were some charred areas, probably due to the impact of the sparks created with black magic at first, but other than that, it looked fine. Looking at the dark magic remaining on the corpse, I roughly inferred that it seemed like a paralyzing curse had been placed on him, but it was so strong that even his heart paralyzed and he died.

“Good job. Let’s pack it up, put it on, and move quickly.”

The fact that three bodies were in perfect condition to be made into skeletons made me hum, but I moved quickly again. Aside from being delayed due to watching the Yeongjijeon, there was a mountain of work to do back in the village. He had to make the blacksmith shop bigger, make more items, and get in touch with Father Thomas.

In particular, it was important to establish contact with Father Thomas. As the number of places conducting blood collection business will increase, it was quickest and most convenient to receive related cooperation through Father Thomas. If Father Thomas gave me the blood he couldn’t deliver during the winter and left before I arrived in the village, it would just take longer.

Anyway, I moved towards the village at a crazy speed, subduing the monsters I could see in between, and even though I was moving while subduing the monsters, the time was drastically shortened. At first, it was expected that it would take ten days to get from the Viscounty of Deputy to the village, but now, even though only a week had passed, the village was just around the corner.

In a way, it was like returning after spending almost the entire time I expected. I expected it to take 10 days to deliver the goods to the Viscounty of Defuty and return, but including the visit to the territory, it was 10 days.

“The Baron has arrived! Open the door!”

As I was thinking about whether the time had been shortened or if it had moved as expected, the village guards found me first and opened the door.

Thanks to the guards who opened the door first, I got off the cart and entered the village without having to do anything. As I entered the village, I headed straight to the blacksmith shop and saw the store quite crowded with people.

This was because the weather had warmed up enough for a territorial war to take place, and the number of people visiting the village again had increased. Not only mercenaries, but also merchants from nearby villages were snooping around to buy all kinds of goods.

Of course, Jiena was sweating profusely as she dealt with the large crowd of customers. It was strange that it wasn’t busy, since I had to pay, fill in items, and even take production orders.

“I’m the boss… … !”

Jiena, who was working hard and sweating profusely, found me and looked as if she had found me as a savior. He seemed to think that I would be of help to the extremely busy store. But unfortunately, I couldn’t help Ziena right now. Because there was so much to do.

“Siena, has Father Thomas come and gone?”

“No! It hasn’t arrived yet! It’s thirteen thousand six hundred meds!”

While answering my questions, Jienna continued to work hard to serve customers. Since a portion of the sales amount was used as an incentive, it seemed like they could not give up customer service even at this moment.

“Then, when Father Thomas comes, tell him I asked to see him. Because it’s important, don’t go anywhere and meet me first.”

“Yes, that’s right… … . Boss, where are you going?”

When I left the instructions regarding Father Thomas and turned to leave the store, Gienna caught me in surprise. I was so busy that I was sweating profusely, but I was met with stares as if I was asking where I was going without helping.

“I’m busy right now too. There’s a lot to do. Instead, I’ll give you double the incentive, so please help me out.”

“Don’t worry!”

Of course, that attention disappeared with the magic spell of double incentive. No, for a moment, with a flash of light, my gaze returned to the customers in the store. Now, it seemed to Ziena as an incentive for customers to walk.

After leaving the store with a smile on my face as I saw Jiena responding to customers with movements that seemed to be twice as fast as before, I quickly started to organize the things I had to do.

The first step was to go straight to the research and development headquarters. I wasn’t there to check on what was going on at headquarters, it was because I had a separate assignment to give them to study. I entered the headquarters, gathered the researchers in one place, and immediately gave them the task.

“We are going to build a large-scale blacksmith shop, so try building it in a structure that will be most efficient for production. The number of clients has increased so much at once that it will be difficult to handle it even at the current level. Thinking even further into the future, dozens of times more than now… … . No, on a scale that could make a hundred times more. Or, it would be okay to just do it a few times right now and add more when needed.”

The first decision was to build a large-scale blacksmith shop. Although the current blacksmith shop has continued to expand, this too has already reached a state of saturation. Although it was possible to fulfill orders from royalists in ten days, it was impossible to manufacture other items, so expansion of production capacity was absolutely necessary.

“Put aside everything else and study this part first.”

Although some researchers were very disappointed that they had to put aside their research for a while, they soon joined forces with other researchers to build an incredible blacksmith.

Immediately after seeing the researchers continuing to discuss whether this form or that form was better, I immediately left the headquarters. Of all the things I had to do, I had only completed one thing.

The next thing I did after leaving headquarters was to visit the mercenary hall. Now that spring has arrived and there are no major inconveniences in moving around, mercenaries are coming into the village one by one. Those people were looking for requests at the mercenary hall or gathering together to tell tall tales of epic adventures.

“… … I went to a city far away because I wanted to make a living even in the winter, and on the way, a wyvern flew over my head. At first glance, I thought a hungry bastard was targeting me, so I used my quick wit and dug into a nearby snowdrift. And you know what happened? The wyvern’s snout next to me snapped! I was stuck, but I thought I was really tired. But thanks to you, I somehow survived! Hahaha!”

“Puhaha! Is it barely that much? I had a very comfortable winter! I am!”

I looked at the mercenaries for a moment who were saying things that seemed to me to be nothing more than empty lies, and then I walked over to the empty bulletin board. In the winter, there weren’t many mercenaries and there wasn’t much to do, so it was empty, and I put up a post I had prepared in advance.

Naturally, the moment I posted the post, the mercenaries’ eyes immediately caught my attention. Since it’s been a while since they received a request, they seemed to be competing with each other as if they were trying to get it. However, no one was seen trying to move right away, perhaps because there was no one who could read the notice posted on the bulletin board yet.

As mercenaries operate through a type of contract, there were no idiot mercenaries other than newbies who would accept a request without knowing its contents.

So, this time I decided to read the request. Since mercenaries had started to come, people who would read the text would often stop by the hall, so it was enough to just read it once.

“Retrieve the corpse of a goblin or higher monster. The condition is that there is no damage to the bones. Please note that we will not purchase the item if any part of the body is cut off or the bones are significantly damaged. Additionally, in the case of shamans or warriors, at least five times the standard price is paid. The standard price for each monster is posted on the bulletin board.”

At my words, the mercenaries immediately jumped to their feet. It looked like it was going to run away at any moment, but it didn’t run out yet. He seemed to be thinking, “Why am I putting more conditions on it?”

However, as I was not saying anything, one of the mercenaries secretly raised his hand.

“How many do you want to buy? You have to tell me that before I go or not! Well, do you think we don’t know how to read or numbers?”

“Hmm… … .”

I did some calculations in response to the question raised by the mercenary. It was a calculation of the amount of blood that could be obtained by collecting blood not only from where Father Thomas was now, but also from Count Carbon’s estate and Viscount Defuty’s estate, and the amount of dark magic that could be increased with the blood essence made from it.

And, after calculating the skeleton that could be operated with increased black magic, I immediately gave an answer.

“About three hundred?”

“Four, three hundred… … !”

As soon as they said they would purchase about 300 mercenaries, mercenaries started rushing out of the mercenary hall. Purchasing 300 fish meant having enough money, but it was also similar to killing the monsters around here.

Even though there was a chance of encountering monsters along the way, that didn’t mean the world was full of monsters. In order to find and hunt monsters at close range, it was important to run out first.

I was left alone in the mercenary hall, which was suddenly empty, so I also left the mercenary hall.