episode_0136

” Pathetic is pathetic… … . It’s also amazing.”

It was pathetic that he committed suicide in front of me, who was capable of manipulating souls, but at the same time, I found it fascinating.

I was amazed at what kind of people they were that could commit suicide like this without any hesitation. Any living creature is naturally full of longing and desire for life. The term ‘survival instinct’ does not exist for nothing.

It was a strange situation that I wasn’t surprised by, having personally seen a person kill himself while overcoming such instincts.

It goes without saying, but feeling amazing was the same as not being able to understand it at all by my standards. Being able to live for hundreds of years was one of the main reasons why I decided to follow in the footsteps of my very suspicious grandmother and become a warlock.

As someone who chose to become a warlock out of a kind of lust for life, I couldn’t understand why he would commit suicide without any regrets.

“What… … . It’s none of my business, though.”

Of course, the novelty was temporary. Rather than the novelty, my anger and irritation at having attacked my territory and my blacksmith shop were greater.

If it weren’t for these guys, I would have been leisurely hanging out – he grumbled in frustration and began to use his dark magic to summon the soul of the guy who committed suicide.

Thanks to the extensive handling of souls to create the Death Knight, it was now possible to summon the soul even without any special materials.

Although it takes a variety of materials and various processes to permanently summon someone and turn them into an undead, it was not difficult to summon them briefly to simply extract information, even if they only used dark magic.

Anyway, since it was possible to summon a soul even without any special materials, I immediately summoned the soul of the guy who committed suicide.

“… … Hmm?”

But I felt something a little strange. Originally, it was possible to summon the soul by putting your hand in the water and feeling like you were pulling out the soul, but now I felt quite a bit of resistance. It felt like I was pushing my hand into a pile of sand, not water. It seemed like it could catch the soul, but it was similar to not being able to catch the soul because the sand impeded its movement.

I wondered what on earth had happened, but upon closer inspection, I felt a bit of dark magic in my stomach. To be precise, I was feeling some sort of curse in my stomach. I don’t know if the poison I chewed and swallowed contained a curse, or if the curse-type artifact I had was activated when I chewed the poison and swallowed it.

Although we do not know the circumstances in which the curse was activated, it has been determined that the curse has been activated. I learned a lot about curses from my grandmother, so I immediately observed them. And, I was able to understand the curse easier than I thought. This is because it appears that no attempt was made to hide the curse itself, and the curse itself was very simple.

“Well, it must have been pretty well known that I was a warlock, so I must have been prepared.”

The curse felt in its stomach was a curse that weakened the connection between body and soul. Usually, it was a curse used to make people suffer and die as the connection between the body and the soul weakens, but now it seemed to be used for the purpose of preventing the summoning of the soul based on the body.

Even if he was caught, it seemed like the intention was to prevent me, a warlock, from extracting his soul and obtaining information.

Just in case, I checked other people who had been killed by skeletons, and they were all in the same situation. Realizing that there was no way to survive, they separated their souls from themselves to protect the information.

“… … Tsk, I’ll just be wasting precious ingredients.”

Of course, that doesn’t mean summoning spirits is completely impossible. This curse weakens the connection between body and soul, rather than breaking it right away.

It would have been impossible before when I had just started dealing with souls, but it was not impossible for me, who had focused on digging into souls to create Death Knight. It may take some materials, though.

Anyway, since I was able to summon the soul, I immediately prepared to summon the soul. Although I needed some materials, I could just bring them from the mansion. Since the Skeleton Mage, who has no flesh and blood, is lighter and can easily move through space, serves as the butler in the mansion, it didn’t take long.

Even before Amy arrived at the mansion after collecting the Death Knight and Minotaur, the necessary materials were placed in front of me.

These were objects that created the perfect conditions for summoning a soul, including the Mandrake, which is strongly imbued with the energy of death because it grows by sucking blood or semen that a person sheds at the moment of death.

Objects with magical meaning were placed around him, and materials that would strengthen the connection between body and soul while weakening the effect of the curse were used without hesitation. After that, I felt a little bit eerie and even had the illusion of hearing something like a haunting sound.

Of course, it was not a simple illusion, and since it was a process to summon a spirit, it was a sound made by a stern spirit. Since there was no need to worry, I immediately summoned the soul of the guy who committed suicide.

At first, it felt like my soul was being pulled out of a pile of sand because of the resistance, but now it has weakened considerably. Although it wasn’t water, it was closer to the feeling of taking it out of a sticky, thick soup.

“Quaaah!”

And, the soul of the guy who committed suicide was called out to me, screaming loudly.

Still, perhaps because the connection between body and soul had weakened, he showed no reaction with a rather dazed expression on his face. But there was no particular problem. Even though the situation looks bad, I made sure to answer the questions asked properly without lying.

“Name.”

“Amsar.”

“It’s a bit of a strange name. Well, that’s not important, so why did you raid my blacksmith shop?”

“Performing the request.”

I was puzzled by the word ‘request’ and immediately asked what the request was. The soul with a blurry face answered straight away, as if it had nothing to hide.

“Information collection and sabotage.”

“Information? What information?”

“Information on how to quickly produce large quantities of items in a blacksmith shop, and information on the process of making products called premium lines.”

Simply put, it was an attempt to collect information about the process of producing items inside a blacksmith shop. It was visible to some extent when the store and blacksmith shop were connected, but now it seemed to be because the work was done in a completely separate place and invisible to others.

The value of the method of quickly producing large quantities of goods in a blacksmith shop was quite high. Just as one of the factors that enabled many royalist lords to win the recent territorial wars that took place simultaneously was that they secured large quantities of high-quality weapons at once.

“How much information have you obtained?”

“Non-stop work using multiple undead. Division of labor in the production process. Production of goods through reprocessing of steel plates. Control of multiple undead using mage-type undead.”

I felt like I had finally figured out my blacksmithing in my own way. Still, I should say it was fortunate, but since I had summoned a Death Knight, I didn’t seem to have figured out anything about press processing.

Although there was a large press equipment in the blacksmith shop, it was nothing more than a huge piece of iron unless the Death Knight was holding it, so it was not surprising that it was impossible to understand. Since press processing accounts for a significant portion of the production at my blacksmith shop, I was very fortunate that information about that part was not leaked.

Of course, that does not mean that what has already been figured out is not important. It was no secret that a large number of undead were used, but things like division of labor in the production process and steel plate processing were effective in increasing productivity.

I don’t know who asked me to find out about my blacksmithing, but they said that if you want to follow me, you can somehow do it. If they hired a certified warlock and followed what I did, they could quickly chase me down.

It was like there might be a competitor who would imitate me in the near future, so I couldn’t help but sigh. Because the market they had monopolized might be taken away.

However, the regret was short-lived. From the beginning, I expected that there might be a competitor at some point, but no matter how much I tried to follow me, the gap was already wide, so there was no need to worry unnecessarily.

So, instead of feeling regretful, I decided to find out a little more information about the other person through the soul.

“How did you sneak into the city?”

“Disguised as a merchant. Attack a small business that is close to a grocery store and disguise yourself as that business.”

In particular, we first figured out why they were able to enter the city. Even though I was defeated like this now, I couldn’t be defeated twice by the same move.

We came up with countermeasures such as strengthening the identity verification process or identifying the location of outsiders in real time and responding in advance to prevent them from even accessing the industrial district. Of course, actual application requires a little more refinement.

Anyway, I was able to get a lot of information by asking various questions, starting with how I got into the city.

The Minotaur was lured into the city to draw my attention elsewhere, or it was a vulnerability in the defense of my territory that they identified while planning an invasion or escape.

Of course, we also found out the identity of the assailants who broke into the blacksmith shop. They belonged to a kind of mercenary guild, similar to a group of assassins who took on all sorts of illegal tasks. The reason they attacked my blacksmith shop because they were carrying out a request was in response to a request from an unknown client.

However, there was no information about the client at all, but even so, it was not a problem. It was obvious that it was related to the aristocratic faction. Because in the current situation, the only people who look down on me are the aristocrats.

“Still, it’s a bit disappointing that there is no evidence. If only there was evidence, we could have brought in the royal family.”

The soul did not know anything about the client and simply moved as instructed by its superiors. So, it was very disappointing that there was no physical evidence about the client. If there had been solid evidence, compensation for damages could have been properly obtained.

I felt regretful for a moment, but since I couldn’t create evidence that didn’t exist, I shook my head and shook off my regret.

Instead, I started digging up information about the assailant who had run away earlier and was running at breakneck speed. There is no need to dig up anything, but the role is to take the information obtained from the blacksmith and report it to the client.

“Tell me about the guy who ran away. What on earth is he doing that’s so fast?”

“Wolf beastman, Pastu. The guild’s main contact. The speed achieved when strengthening the body using mana is outstanding. The mission is to gather the information obtained and return to the guild.”

“Because he is a wolf beast… … . If it’s a beast, its movements make sense.”

It was a move that was quite possible considering that a beastman with physical abilities several times greater than that of a human could use mana.

After satisfying the curiosity that arose during the attack on the blacksmith shop, I dug up some more information and sealed the soul, whose face was still blurry, in a small bead. I thought that there might be things I hadn’t asked about and that I might find it useful someday.

Then, after extracting the souls from the two remaining bodies and sealing them, they began clearing up the raided blacksmith shop.