WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Occult World’s Coveted Blacksmith ◈
Chapter 81: Wanna Press Foreheads for a Moment, Little Brother?
──────
“Do Emperor, what are you doing? Let’s go eat.”
Hmm. Was it already that late?
This was the marine spirit beast management facility beneath No Corp.
Glass tanks surrounded the corridor on every side, even overhead.
Marine spirit beasts swam leisurely through the shimmering blue water.
It was practically an aquarium.
You could call it a hidden little healing spot among the Seeds.
Splash.
In a temporary tank off to one side, a palm-sized, pitch-black little thing clung to the glass with its tentacles and stared up at me with bright eyes.
“Kyu?”
A baby Giant Ink Squid I had received from Cheonghae Fisheries.
Its name was Kkamang-i.
That’s right!
I had been taming this little one lately.
The reason was simple!
I wanted to find a way to activate the Giant Ink Squid ink I had brought back from Cheonghae.
Su-a dipped a finger into the temporary tank.
“Hehe. Kyu-kyu, paw!”
The little one slowly approached and wrapped its tentacles around Su-a’s finger.
“Hehehe, that tickles!”
Sliiide.
‘No, I even got praised by the noona spirit beast handler at No Corp for getting close to it so quickly.’
But Su-a had become friends with it on the very first day they visited? Even though it was such a scaredy-cat. Seriously!
Well, anyway.
Giant Ink Squid ink had the effect of erasing Spell Formulas.
The problem was that the effect only activated when it reacted to a specific kind of Spiritual Power the squid emitted while alive!
So whenever Kkamang-i sprayed ink, I had been gathering and analyzing the Spiritual Power waves occurring inside its body.
And today as well.
“Tut. Tutu. Tuttut~”
“Ugh... You’re doing something weird again...”
I placed a hand on Kkamang-i and chanted the rhythm.
‘All right, just like this.’
Then I dipped my hand into the basin of ink I had prepared in advance.
‘Tut. Tutu. Tuttut~’
What I was doing was matching the wave patterns.
It was similar to the anti-piracy coating that allowed only Spiritual Power of a particular wavelength through and bounced everything else away.
Yeah, the same kind of method I used on Yuha’s Japanese sword.
The difference was...
‘Is it done now?!’
Squelch. Sploosh.
“Ah, it failed. Again.”
If the wavelength and rhythm of the Spiritual Power I poured in were even slightly off, the ink hardened and turned into a weird jelly-like mess.
I threw out the hardened ink, poured fresh ink into the basin, and set everything up again.
‘All right. One more time.’
I placed my hand on the creature in the tank and traced the flow of its Spiritual Power.
If the anti-piracy coating had been like a lockpicking minigame...
This was like adding a rhythm game on top of it.
Which made it much harder.
It was sort of like trying to pick a lock while tap dancing.
Not that I had ever tap danced before.
All right, focus!!!!!
I focused on the vibrations at my fingertips.
‘Tut. Tutu! No. Ttut! Tutu~ Tutu, is this it?’
Now!
I dipped my hand into the basin of ink again.
“Ttut! Tutu~ Tuttut~”
Then I released the Spiritual Power wavelength I had prepared, keeping it in rhythm.
Ripple.
“...”
I cautiously opened my tightly shut eyes.
‘...Did it work?’
Swoosh.
A blue wave spreading from my fingertips swept across the pitch-black surface.
Flash!
The basin brimmed with ink that shimmered blue.
It worked!!!
“Hey! I did it!!”
“Huh? R-really?!”
“I did it~”
“Kyaahaha! Kyaahahaha!”
Clap clap clap clap.
Su-a and I kept high-fiving, but when I finally came to my senses...
“...”
“...”
Oops.
My hand had been dipped in ink just moments ago.
Ink had splattered everywhere.
There were ink stains all over Su-a’s swimsuit too!
Su-a slowly raised their head.
Their lips trembled.
“Y-you!!!!”
“Hey, sorry, sorry.”
“D-damn it, you get over here too!”
I dodged Su-a as they chased me with ink-covered hands.
“Hey, enough.”
They froze.
“I’ll buy you one. Let’s go shopping later.”
“Really...?”
I carefully transferred the activated ink into a glass bottle.
* * *
After dinner in the company cafeteria, I returned alone to the marine spirit beast management room.
Su-a said they had been incredibly busy lately with some kind of photoshoot, then trudged off somewhere with their shoulders slumped.
Slosh, slosh.
I gently shook the glass bottle.
It was a deep black that no light could pass through.
Ha. It actually worked!
For all I knew, I might be the first person in Korea to pull this off.
Maybe even the first in the world?
It had given me quite a bit of trouble too.
Ahem.
All right, time to figure out how this worked.
Shing.
I took out a test dagger I had made earlier that day.
I dabbed a little ink onto a brush and drew a line across the blade.
Then I poured Spiritual Power into the dagger and watched with Spiritual Power gathered in my eyes.
‘...Hmm?’
The spot covered in ink.
The Spiritual Power flowing through the circuits was sucked into the ink.
And it did not come back out.
Naturally, the Spell Formula engraved on the dagger did not activate either.
‘This is...?’
Did it absorb Spiritual Power?
The Spell Formula itself seemed intact.
I tested it several times, but every result was the same.
Hmm.
It had the property of absorbing nearby Spiritual Power.
And it could absorb a considerable amount.
‘Is that what happened?’
The ink on the Spell Formula absorbed all the Spiritual Power, so the Spell Formula could not activate.
That was why it had looked like the Spell Formula was being erased.
‘It was absorption all along.’
Then!
Something suddenly came to mind, and I pulled a sheet of Yellow Talisman Paper from my pocket.
I dipped the brush in ink again and made a stroke.
As I filled it with Spiritual Power...
Hummm.
‘...!’
It was going in. It was going in.
It just kept going in without end.
The stroke held an immense amount of Spiritual Power, nothing like what it could hold with Mirror Cinnabar.
‘This is insane.’
Ink that could hold this much Spiritual Power.
My heart raced.
Ha! Would you look at that.
Just looking at it, the possibilities were endless!
Ah, I was excited. So excited.
What should I make with this?
Hmm. Talismans or paintings first?
It was ink, after all, so that seemed fitting.
* * *
Noh Jin-hyeok Corporation, CEO’s office.
“...They want an introduction?”
“Yes. We were contacted through Seo Ji-an.”
The secretary continued the report while swiping through the tablet.
“Hmm. A spell painter or a talisman sorcerer...”
Noh Jin-hyeok leaned back in his chair.
He did not know what Do Emperor was trying to make this time.
‘...But the timing is good.’
He had been thinking it was about time to bring it up anyway.
Then he should make the introduction.
To No Corp’s best talisman sorcerer.
“Introduce Ms. Kang.”
* * *
“The person you’re introducing me to... is at the training facility?”
“Yes.”
I was walking with the secretary through the corridor between the training facilities on Basement Level 6.
Hmm. Come to think of it.
I had heard before that the teaching assistants and instructors responsible for training the Seeds were also hidden powerhouses from non-House backgrounds.
The talisman sorcerer I was meeting this time was probably one of those instructors.
Thinking that, I followed behind the secretary.
“This way. ...They just started.”
The secretary stopped in front of a special training room surrounded by thick soundproof walls.
Then they held out what looked like a headset.
The kind you wore at a shooting range.
“...?”
I took it and put it on for now.
Creak.
The soundproof door to the special training room opened.
The moment I stepped inside.
Rat-tat-tat! Bang! Bang!
Boom boom boom!
“...!”
Inside the spacious training room.
Automatic rifles floated through the air on their own, flying around freely as they fired in unison.
On the opposite side, mannequins holding swords were performing a sword dance.
‘Whoa... That’s cool as hell.’
It looked like a scene from a Hong Kong noir action movie.
Looking more closely, I saw that each rifle barrel and mannequin forehead had a yellow talisman stuck to it.
And in the center of that chaos.
A woman stood amid the rain of falling shell casings.
Red lipstick. A black cheongsam embroidered with plum blossoms.
Every time she lightly flicked a finger, the guns floating in the air changed direction and the mannequins changed their movements.
“Ms. Ha-na.”
At the secretary’s call, the woman stopped moving her hand.
Clatter!
Thud, thud, thud.
The floating rifles all fell to the ground at once, while the mannequins collapsed where they stood like puppets with their strings cut.
“Oh my.”
The woman turned toward us.
“Is it already that late?”
“Then please speak among yourselves.”
The secretary gave a small bow, quietly closed the door, and left.
Only then did I slowly take off the earmuffs.
Click. Click.
The woman approached in heels.
A thick plum blossom scent swept over me through the heavy smell of gunpowder.
“So you’re Do Emperor?”
She had catlike eyes and alluring red lips.
“You’re much cuter in person than you looked on screen.”
“...Thank you?”
* * *
We sat facing each other on an old sofa set up in one corner of the training room.
As Kang Ha-na crossed her legs, a sliver of white thigh showed through the high slit in her cheongsam.
Trickle.
She leaned forward and poured tea into my cup.
Then, between the loosened frog buttons at her collar...
‘Ahem.’
I quietly looked away.
My gaze landed on the rifles scattered across the floor.
‘You could do something like that... with talisman sorcery?’
Those mannequins earlier too.
The guns that had floated and flown through the air.
Since they all had talismans attached, she must have controlled them all with talismans.
The world really was vast, and there were countless things I did not know.
“By the way.”
Something suddenly occurred to me, so I asked.
“Guns... don’t work on ghosts, do they?”
Physical bullets could not do much damage to Cursed spirits or spirit beasts without physical bodies.
There was no way to infuse a bullet with Spiritual Power.
That was basic common sense in the Occult World.
Kang Ha-na gave a faint laugh at my question.
“Well, firing them looks cool.”
“Huh?”
“And... they work on people.”
“...?”
What was that? Was she joking?
“So? You want me to teach you talisman sorcery?”
“Ah, yes.”
“For free?”
“...Well, is there something you want?”
“Hmm...”
She pretended to think for a moment.
Then she leaned closer with an alluring smile.
“Wanna press foreheads for a moment, little brother?”
Swish.
A hand reached toward me along with the words.
A yellow talisman was tucked between her fingers.
“...”
I slowly leaned my upper body back.
“Pfft. I’m joking, I’m joking.”
Kang Ha-na burst out laughing and leaned back again.
“I’ll teach you talisman sorcery as much as you want. In return, do me just one favor.”
“A favor... like what?”
“Ah, I’m about due to debut too.”
‘...Debut?’
Debut?
What was that supposed to mean?
...She was a Seed?
Footnotes:
“Gang-si” can mean either “jiangshi” or “Ms. Kang” in Korean, creating a wordplay before Kang Ha-na’s introduction.
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