Chapter 499: Schemers
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu
“Actually, I originally wanted to be a swordsman clad in a flowing white cloak who’s gone in an instant like a gust of wind. Just what went wrong in the end? Why did my style distort so much to become like this…”
I had previously purchased a shoddy mage robe, which wasn’t even enchanted, in town. Its defensive properties were basically zero. Of course, it didn’t have any buffing properties for my spells.
The only use for this low-quality mage robe was that it was dyed black. Its only purpose was to help me look like an evil undead mage, but unfortunately, it was too effective—effective to a ridiculous extent.
“Tsk, tsk, such crying. It’s as if they’re heading to the slaughterhouse.”
Perhaps I had gone too hard on Shink, or maybe that Shink fellow simply screamed too much during the process of transforming into an undead. The end result was, even though I was clearly part of the party that saved the villagers, the villagers were all looking at me with terror in their eyes. Some of the women and children were even crying constantly as if they were now suffering an even worse fate than being the bandits’ hostages.
So, at this moment, I could only sigh that undead mages had truly terrible reputations, and complain that my style was wrong.
“You wanted to be a swordsman clad in a flowing white cloak? Isn’t that just cannon fodder? So your original goal in life was to become cannon fodder?”
“Wait a moment, how does a white-clad swordsman equal cannon fodder?”
I felt like something was wrong with the silly cat’s retort. A white-clad swordsman was my mental image of a hero. How could he possibly be cannon fodder?
“Simply wielding a single sword or dual swords without any armor? That’s just like a farmer serf conscripted into an army and given the most common and basic longsword or dual swords. Then, just give the serf a wooden shield and helmet which can block a few arrows and force him to become cannon fodder. Such an ordinary sword with no enchantments wouldn’t even be able to slice through chainmail. And, with no armor, he wouldn’t be anything more than a free target for enemies to kill. What else could he be other than cannon fodder?”
The silly cat seemed to be quite obsessed about this, and I felt like I was learning the pattern as well. It seemed that every time I used death or soul magic, or obtained some breakthrough in this area, she would become really excited. In a way, this also proved that she was a fanatical researcher.
“With my long years of experience, common footsoldiers that have received even the slightest bit of training for battle will typically arm themselves with a sharpened bamboo pole as a spear. At the very least, the spear has a greater attack range, which will greatly improve the user’s survivability on the battlefield. Only disposable cannon fodder whose only purpose is to waste the enemy’s physical energy and mana will be sent onto the battlefield with nothing more than a single sword.”
Although I knew that Harloys was simply trying to crush my dream with evil intentions, I still thought it over carefully. Indeed, her words were the truth according to the logic of this world.
In my original world of Earth, advances in technology made clothing of any color possible extremely common. But in medieval times, dye could only be obtained from minerals and plants, and it was quite troublesome to produce. Meanwhile, in the world of Eich, the technology of dye colors had been monopolized by alchemists the moment it was developed. It started out as a technology that only alchemists profited from.
Although the merchants also had access to dye coloring technology now, so dye colors weren’t overly expensive, wanting one’s clothes to be dyed was still decently expensive.
Nobles’ clothes in this world were always colorful and extravagant. They would always wear colorful animals or depictions of legends not only to adorn themselves; these colors and complex designs were the very symbols of their status. Even the major merchants would always wear overly colorful clothing as a method of showing off their wealth. Most commoners would also have a few colorful pieces of clothing that they wore whenever there was a festival. Only the poorest commoners with nothing at all would wear completely white clothing which was undyed.
And out of every weapon out there, the sword, which was similar to a fruit knife, and had many different types of abilities, along with requiring few materials and being relatively easy enough to kill someone with even if the user had minimal training… at the very least, the sword wasn’t that prone to friendly fire, so it naturally became the weapon of choice to arm cannon fodder with.
After listening to the silly cat’s counter of my dream, I used my own imagination. The image of a sword-wielding hero in a flowing white cloak was mysteriously replaced with a tanned farmer warrior. The farmer’s tan was due to constantly working in the fields, and although he had a strong body, he had a silly and honest grin on his face which was the delight from obtaining a good harvest. He was wearing undyed white clothing with several patched holes in it, yet he couldn’t afford to throw it away. His straw shoes had been washed so many times they were pale white, along with being covered in mud. The vegetable knife hanging at his waist was stuck in a large carrot in order to prevent accidentally injuring himself.
“Right, right, that’s the exact image! It’s the perfect representation! As expected, young people like you have such excellent imagination.”
“…Harloys, I choose you, throw the cat ball attack!”
I reused the cat ball throwing attack that I hadn’t used for so long by throwing the silly cat with all my might while grabbing her neck. “I shall return, meow!” kept echoing in my mind as she flew off like a meteor into the distance.
“Phew, I feel much better now after some exercise.”
After such ridiculousness, I indeed felt better instead of feeling depressed. Perhaps this was just how the silly cat worried about others.
Obviously, undead mages were highly unpopular. In most stories and legends, undead mages always played the role of antagonist. Still, I was rather dissatisfied with being stared at like a murderer when I had just helped to save the villagers.
[Would you even care about how strangers view you? I bet it’s because that little girl is looking at you like that, which is causing your dissatisfaction.]
Perhaps it was due to seeing such a pile of corpses after a slaughter. Katerina seemed quite unaccustomed to seeing all those bandits’ corpses piled together, and the way she looked at me seemed to becoming stranger and stranger. She was completely hiding behind Old Barton now.
“…Do you think that I really have no method to get rid of you?”
[I’d like to see you try.]
“You shameless Goddess! Do you really think that I can’t deal with you… If you don’t tread carefully, I’m going to go read porn magazines tonight!”
[…That’s so weak, is that the only revenge a virgin man like you can come up with? At the very least, why don’t you try looking at the real version, you coward who can only think about it, but not act? You deserve your fate of having been single for the past three hundred years. Who could possibly stop you when you act ridiculously like that?]
“I, I, I’m going to take you down with me! I’m going to go look at Goblin Playboy magazine right now! The gay edition! Ptui, the way those midgets look while hugging each other… Urk.”
I recalled an advertisement for the gay version of Goblin Playboy that I had previously come upon coincidentally. This caused a mysterious sense of disgust in me that caused me to start wanting to vomit.
[I surrender… Those green and shiny midgets are too disgusting. They’re truly willing to sell anything for the sake of money.]
I finally won, but I still felt a mysterious sense of sadness accumulating in my heart as if I had accidentally lost something important to me. Was it my sense of shame? Was it my limits? Or had I lost the final pride of a 100% straight man?
“Master, I’ve already left the message ‘Everything was successful, tonight’s trade will take place at the usual place.'”
Meanwhile, a thick and low voice turned my concentration to the single-eyed ranger before me.
Compared to while he was still alive, Shink’s appearance hadn’t changed by much. It was just that his skin became slightly darker, and there was now a mysterious aura around him. It was as if something invisible was wriggling under his skin. Also, the pupil in his single remaining eye had disappeared, and there was something resembling a black cross in his eye white. It gave him a frightening appearance.
“How’s your job change to dark ranger?”
“My arm strength has just about doubled. My stamina has no limits, and my vision has improved by four to five times. I still need time to get accustomed to darkness Divine Arts. Just this alone is more than enough to kill off three of the original me with zero problems.”
Shink seemed to be quite satisfied with his current amount of power, and had zero complaints about his physical appearance that would probably cause any child to cry. I also nodded in satisfaction.
“Don’t go overboard. You no longer have your senses of pain and fatigue, but that doesn’t mean that your muscles won’t be injured or fatigued. Your half-living physical body’s structure still needs perfecting. I don’t want my experimental subject #2 to mysteriously die off without obtaining enough data first.”
Experimental subject #2? Of course, as a top-level undead mage, how could I possibly show off my skills if I simply transformed such a grudge-filled soul and almost Legend-rank physical body into a normal undead? Rather than making Shink into a pure undead, I instead turned him into the half-living. When compared to pure undead, the half-living would indeed have many disadvantages, but the greatest benefit was the retention of growth potential that the undead were most envious about. I was really looking forward to seeing how much the second half-living being I created would achieve since I used an almost-Legend for the base creation.
The second? The silly cat that I just threw away was of course the first. However, in order to ensure the success rate, I hadn’t cared about the material cost for the experiment on Harloys. I even used resources such as Shadow the Divine Sin. Plus, Harloys was a natural undead and the princess of Gold Elves. There would be a tremendous difference between her soul and an ordinary human soul like Shink’s. The only similarity Shink’s experiment had with Harloys’ was pretty much just the logic behind the transformation ritual.
Ah, could this be that the first prototype version was like the cheating version, while the second version was the ordinary unlucky game player who mysteriously ended up dying? While mass-produced versions seemed mighty at first, they would always become the source of cannon fodder and random bystanders that ended up dying after a flashy entrance? So this world was actually entirely pay-to-win? Combat strength comparisons depended entirely on the difference in resources invested? It would seem that I had unknowingly come upon the truth.
Cough, getting back on topic, Shink, who was filled with desire for revenge, was an excellent tool that I could make use of. In fact, to make him feel better, I even had the bandits of the “Swift Sword gang” properly buried.
“I thought you wouldn’t be interested in the defective products anymore after you had a new toy?”
“Silly cat, you want to go flying again after you just returned?”
Although I was verbally denying it, I mentally agreed with Harloys’ guess. Indeed, when compared to Shink, some normal zombies and skeletons wouldn’t even be worth mentioning.
And unlike Harloys, who had many limitations, dark ranger Shink had been designed by me to be a pure slaughtering machine. The reason for his increase in strength was because I had removed all of the human body’s natural limiters on using one’s true muscle strength. This made Shink’s original physical strength more than triple. He also no longer had any feelings of pain or fatigue.
Although Shink’s heart was still beating, his heart was no longer the fatal weak point to strike at. The core within his brain was now the true main organ. Burning within was now a soulfire on the level of an Undead Lord. This soulfire gave him the power to use darkness magic and Divine Arts. And, it also provided energy that could replenish and repair his body whenever he was injured, giving him a limitless amount of life force and stamina. The combination of life and death in a half-living body resulted in this slaughtering machine of a physical body with limitless potential.
Of course, the combination of life and death would also result in some negative side effects and contradictory powers. It was quite possible that his physical body would collapse at any moment. But, before that happened, Shink would likely have more than enough power to take the revenge that he desired, which would also provide me with plenty of useful experimental data.
If Shink had two years’ time to grow, it was highly likely that he would develop to become stronger than even the average Saint rank. But, when considering the likely battles and clashes before me that were likely to reach a national level, I needed something more than Shink’s current power level right now.
I glanced over at the bandit corpses, but could only give up helplessly. Just as the silly cat said, these ordinary human corpses that hadn’t even reached Silver rank were nothing more than defective products in my eyes. None of the bandits had any special bloodlines or abilities, so reviving them as undead would be nothing more than wasting my time and energy. And if I sewed them all together into something like an Abomination, that would attract far too much negative attention and enmity from the living, and I would receive only a Gold rank fighter at the very most. It wasn’t worth it.
In the end, I could only look over at my companions traveling with me who were currently chatting with each other—those mercenaries and the Northlands trio.
“It would seem that I will have to think of ways to obtain combat strength from the living.”
———————————————————————————————————–
While Roland was busy being frustrated about the lack of aces at his disposal right now, knight domain lord Kaen’s domain was currently quite busy.
Every single path into the mountains was now blockaded, with fully armed royal soldiers acting as the guards. Anyone who got near would be told to leave. The nearby villagers that relied on the mountains for their livelihood were forced to find other means of supporting themselves.
The Archduke’s second son, Prince Link, wasn’t someone who rushed out to face an unknown threat even though he was just a young man who recently reached adulthood and obtained his own noble title of Earl.
As a mage, Prince Link understood quite well just how troublesome something from the scholars’ generation could be, along with what possibilities the ruin might contain. He also knew that the treasure map’s information had already been leaked to everyone, which meant that he would only have one chance that he absolutely needed to grasp.
Prince Link planned on making his move only two weeks later. By then, the royal engineering experts and Sword Saints would have arrived to reinforce him. According to his calculations, no matter what other country learned about these ruins and started taking action, it wouldn’t be possible for any other country to be quicker than him within the next two weeks.
However, what Prince Link didn’t know was that someone else had their sights set on the same ruins: his father the ruling Archduke’s greatest enemy noble, Marquis Taric’s treasure hunting forces. Marquis Taric’s forces were already in the area and awaiting any opportunity, preparing to forcefully break past the blockade at any moment.
Of course, Prince Link also didn’t realize that his country’s seemingly obedient and loyal new knight domain lord was actually secretly scheming to have Second Prince Link “die in an accident”.
Even more unluckily for Prince Link, a certain member of the Calamity Rankings had also arrived. Roland was also targeting the ruins from the scholars’ generation, and was already present in this relatively small and remote domain!
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