episode_0079

After watching Father Thomas leave for a moment, he turned to face Ziena.

“Fuuu… … . When do I get rid of all this?”

Jiena looked at the mess of the store, sighing deeply with her hands on her hips. She was an excellent employee herself. It was a little while ago that he was overpowered and trembled in my arms, but now he was thinking about cleaning things up.

Still, that makes sense because the store was literally in a mess. There were dozens of iron products lying on the floor, and blood stains were everywhere. In addition, there was soot on the wall from the black magic sparks thrown by the mage and a large hole from the knights, so it was strange that it wasn’t so difficult to clean it up.

“You have to have a skeleton do the organizing. If the products are damaged, melt them down and make new ones.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes. If you do it alone, it will take a long time.”

It was a bit difficult to get someone who had been crushed and crushed to tidy up.

“By the way, are you feeling okay? It looks like you were pressed hard earlier.”

“Ah, Father Thomas treated me. Besides, the boss saved you right away, right?”

“Thank goodness.”

Hee hee, I nodded lightly at the sight of Jiena smiling brightly and moved the skeletons.

Things that fell to the ground from the knights’ rampage and things that fell during the battle were all tangled up in a mess. The skeleton collected all of those items and took them to the blacksmith shop. Rather than selling a potentially damaged product, we decided to melt it down and make it again.

Then, he made them take a total of four knights’ corpses, which were lying on the floor and brought from outside, into the workroom. The plan was to extract information from the soul and create a skeleton all in one place.

“Boss. But what do you do with these?”

“Which one?”

“This is the skeleton that the boss called a replacement for a mannequin. It’s completely destroyed, so they can’t repair it?”

Thanks to conversations about this and that at home and at the store whenever we had time, Jiena’s aversion to skeletons almost disappeared and she gained some knowledge of her own. Perhaps that was why, but Jienna was saddened to see the remains of the skeleton scattered across the floor after being completely destroyed.

It seemed like he was feeling sorry for me because his half hobby was decorating skeletons used as mannequins with weapons and other objects. If restoration was impossible, I would no longer be able to pursue my hobby.

“That needs to be recreated as a knight object. There is no law that prevents something like this from happening again. If an object with sufficient strength were used as a mannequin, wouldn’t it be perfect for store protection and display purposes?”

If regular skeletons could not stop the knights, a stronger skeleton could be erected as a mannequin substitute. Frankly, it might be seen as a waste, but the store was quite important to me. It is also where a huge amount of money is stored, and although it is scheduled to be relocated, there is also a blacksmith shop attached and a workshop where I practice black magic and create skeletons. Rather, it was closer to the fact that the level of protection previously had been insufficient.

Anyway, after talking to Jiena about various things and watching her get organized, I headed straight to the studio. The rest of the organizing could be left to Jiena, so now was the time to summon the spirits and extract information.

“Now, let’s find out what kind of people they are.”

In fact, there were patterns on the armor they were wearing, but since I don’t know the nobles’ patterns, I couldn’t tell where they came from. If I asked the village chief or the guards, they would know, but I didn’t ask because it would only increase the hassle of the process. Anyway, all I had to do was summon the spirit and extract information.

Whatever the reason, I decided to summon the spirit first and got to work right away. No matter how much you can summon a soul, it is impossible to summon a soul that has been dead for a long time, so you had to hurry a little.

After mixing the blood collected from the corpses of dead knights and various reagents to create a dye, the dye was used to draw a magic circle. He carefully used his brush as if he were painting a picture and drew a large magic circle on the workbench.

After drawing various shapes, from circles and triangles to hexagons, as well as ancient letters that are said to contain power in the letters themselves, a perfect magic circle was completed. If dark magic was injected into this place, the power contained in the ancient letters would be revealed. Naturally, the type of power was the type that summoned the souls of the dead.

“Put this on the workbench.”

He took out the skeleton and carefully placed the corpse of a knight on the workbench. I was careful not to erase the magic circle, but perhaps because of the reagent, it had already hardened. Thinking that I was paying too much attention to the appearance that could not be erased even when the body was raised, I infused dark magic into the magic circle.

Although blood was included, the magic circle, which had a color close to purple due to the larger amount of reagent contained, began to slowly glow as it absorbed black magic.

And, the radiating light soon covered the knight’s body, and something rose from the center of the body. No, in some ways, it looked like moisture was forming into water droplets and about to fall. The difference from that is that the water droplets used to condense downwards, but now they are rising from the center of the corpse.

It looked like a condensed water drop, and gradually grew in size, and eventually it fell from the corpse like a water drop. At the same time, the light coming from the magic circle covering the corpse disappeared in an instant, and a round thing in the air above the corpse glowed faintly.

It floated in the air, emitting a faint light, and immediately slowly increased in size. What was the size of a single finger grew larger and instantly turned into a human shape.

“Oh… … . It was successful.”

Although I knew how to summon spirits, I wasn’t completely familiar with it, so I was a little worried, but fortunately, it seemed to be successful without any problems.

Anyone could see that the human figure floating in the air, with the same form as the knight sprawled on the workbench, was a success. Of course, there was still one process left to do, but it wasn’t a big deal, so it was safe to consider it a success.

“Then let’s wake him up.”

As I looked at the soul floating in the air with its eyes closed, as if sleeping, I moved my dark magic. As if it were eroding my soul, the dark magic that erupted from me slowly began to color the tip of my soul black.

◦ at

Perhaps due to being eroded by dark magic, a tremendous wailing sound rang out from the soul that seemed to be sleeping peacefully. However, the surrounding area was covered with my dark magic, so there was no significant damage.

Anyway, as I pushed in a little more black magic and dyed about half of my soul with black magic, the hearing quality disappeared. At the same time, the sleeping soul also opened its eyes and woke up.

“This, this… … ?”

The awakened soul looked confused. He clearly thought he was going to die, but he didn’t seem to understand why it happened like this.

But soon, as I looked around to understand the situation, my soul turned bright red. In particular, the moment he looked at his corpse and me, he turned a very dark red. It was said that he was in a state of extreme anger that could be expressed in his soul.

“I will kill you!”

“That won’t work.”

I haven’t even lived 10% of my expected lifespan yet, so I can’t die already. I bound the soul that tried to fly towards me. Since I had already invested a lot of my dark magic, it was possible to stimulate only the dark magic slightly.

“Quaaah!”

In addition, it was quite possible to inflict pain on the soul through that dark magic.

As I was made to experience strong pain, the soul that was screaming and writhing soon turned to a light gray color. The anger was controlled due to the pain.

As soon as my soul regained its color and seemed to have calmed down, I immediately started asking various questions. Of course, at first he didn’t want to react, but after inflicting pain on him a few times, he started talking easily. In particular, after he said that he would make him into a specter, an undead spirit, and make him experience pain forever, he became very calm and did not even lie.

“So, you belong to Viscount Tar?”

“Yes, yes!”

“Why Viscount Tar? Chuck with me… … Was it long?”

When I thought about it, I realized that it wasn’t a particularly good relationship. He decided not to purchase any more raw materials from Viscount Tarr, but he also no longer had to pay taxes as he became a nobleman. No matter how you look at it, it is not a situation that the lord will be happy about.

Anyway, I continued to squeeze out information from the soul, and I was able to find out why the guys came and did what they did.

It is said that the nobles who lost in the Territory Battle turned on their eyes and searched for the cause, and discovered that my weapon was the cause. The mercenaries boasted about cheap and good weapons, and he said he recognized them because they were identical to the weapons used in the territory battle. Well, an internal investigation was conducted, but the main reason was word of mouth from mercenaries.

The story goes that the noble faction, who had even figured out that I was a blacksmith who could produce a huge amount of iron products with excellent quality in a short period of time, initially sent knights with the intention of persuading me. Since he led the relatively weak royalist faction to victory in the Territory War, the question was how outstandingly effective it would be for them.

So, while I was in Viscount Tarr’s territory, Viscount Tarr’s knights came according to the faction’s orders to send Viscount Tarr’s knights to appease me. With the successor of the territory who holds real power in his own way.

“… … Appeasement? But do you make the store like that?”

“Well, the master and the clerk… … .”

However, it was said that the plan was distorted due to the collaboration between a guy called Master and Jiena. I wondered why Jienna was the cause, but there was a reason.

The reason was that a boy with a temperament for prostitution flirted with Jienna after confirming that she was an elf, and Jienna responded. Considering his status as a knight, he grabbed Jiena and harassed her, who was trying to throw her out rather than crush her, but the situation escalated because the skeletons acting as mannequins judged the situation to be dangerous and moved.

As the skeleton holding the weapon moved, the panicked knights smashed it, and Jiena tried to use her strength thinking that they were dangerous guys, but was caught by another knight. As one guy overpowered Jiena, the other guys also helped to take down Jiena.

And, at that moment, Jiena’s scream and my appearance was the whole story.

“Wow… … . These days, appeasement is done in a very novel way? What kind of trick are you trying to appease?”

“Wow, that wasn’t the original plan!”

Since I came from a commoner background, I came here with the idea that it would be easier if I put some pressure on the knights and appease them, and I had no intention of being abusive.

Even if he was a commoner, it was absurd to think that a certified warlock would be intimidated by just a few knights. I even thought that the noble faction was just a collection of idiots full of greed.

That thought became even stronger when I summoned the souls of other knights and completed the cross-examination. The idea is that the noble faction is truly a gathering place of greedy idiots. These guys really came to me thinking that if I put a little pressure on them, they would immediately join the noble faction.

“Ha… … . Then it will be more troublesome. Since appeasement failed, you can think about getting rid of it altogether.”

For that reason, it could be said that the situation had become more of a hassle. It could have come out like, “If I can’t have it, I’ll destroy it.” Moreover, since I had placed a curse on the man who was now known as Viscount Tarr’s successor, the possibility was even higher. No, since I had no intention of joining that side in the first place, it was almost certain that we would clash.

However, I had no intention of running away to another place now. The foundation work for the new blacksmith shop had already begun. For many other reasons, it was impossible to move it.

“I can’t help it. First of all, should I make this village my territory?”

Of course, I wasn’t worried. If you prepare in advance, safety can be guaranteed. It was clear that if I made this village into my territory, and even more like my dungeon, I would be able to deal with a large army without difficulty even if they came.