WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Occult World’s Coveted Blacksmith ◈
Chapter 94: Unregistered Sorcerer
──────
[Emergency Broadcast] Cheongun Stadium: 3,127 viewers.
Crunch!
Shattered rock rained across the screen amid clouds of dust.
- Holy holy holy holy
- What was that??
- ???
- How did he do that just now?
- He completely smashed the boulder???
- Even Du-sik hyung couldn't handle that thing?
The chat flew by at an insane pace.
- Seriously, what the hell was that?
- Is he really Grade 3? Damn
- Whoa, Jin Mu-yeong is this strong?
- So there’s a reason they’re the Jin family.
- Hell yeah! You think the Four Great Houses are fucking nothing!!
- That was insane;;
Just as everyone cheered at his unexpected performance, the ash-gray umpire standing behind the catcher raised one hand.
Then, using both hands, the umpire formed a rectangle beside their head.
[Ah, hold on a moment~ At the umpires' request, we're going to video review~]
- ?
- Review? What review?
On the enormous outfield screen, the moment Mu-yeong shattered the boulder replayed in slow motion.
A boulder large enough to blot out the sky fell from above, and a pitch-black bat swung beneath it.
A hairline crack formed in the rock. It split apart, then exploded into fragments.
The screen zoomed in on the first small stone among the shattered fragments to touch the ground.
The image froze.
A red circle appeared around the fragment.
The stone had landed in foul territory.
- ...?
- Wait.
- No way.
Beep!
[After review, it is a foul~!]
- Are you fucking kidding me?
- That call is ridiculously biased;;
- They just do whatever the fuck they want.
- Fucking baseball, fucking baseball.
A yellow light came on for one strike in the corner of the scoreboard.
That made it the second pitch.
The faceless pitcher received a new ball.
Instead of winding up...
Crunch.
The pitcher crushed the ball in their hand.
- What is it now?
- I've never seen this move before.
Pieces of white leather. Red stitching. Clumps of torn thread.
The crushed fragments scattered through the air, each one giving off black smoke as they began to swell and writhe.
The leather stretched into torsos.
The red stitches sewed here and there, and heads rose up.
[Kreeeeek!]
Dozens of zombies screamed grotesquely and charged toward the batter's box.
- Holy shit.
- Zombies?
- How many are there?
Dozens.
A horde of gray zombies raced from the mound toward home plate.
Mu-yeong gritted his teeth in the batter's box.
'I'll do this one-handed.'
He adjusted his grip on the bat.
From a two-handed grip to one-handed rapid-strike mode.
Tap-tap!
Lowering his stance, Mu-yeong thrust out one hand and aimed for the head of the first one charging at him.
"Die!"
Thwack!
[Kieeek!]
The instant he hit it, the recoil snapped the bat back into position.
Riding that returning force, his next strike came even faster.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Crunch! Whack!
Merciless strikes rained down, drawing black trails through the air.
The charging zombies were struck one after another and sent flying.
- That's completely insane;;
- He's Grade 3?
- This is crazy.
- What? I can't even see his hand.
Just as he swung toward the last one...
Swish.
One zombie twisted its body strangely, narrowly avoiding Mu-yeong's swing, then hurled itself toward the catcher's position.
Thud.
It slammed into the faceless catcher's mitt as though being sucked inside.
[Two strikes!]
- ?????
- Ah, shit. He let one get away.
- That was so close.
- Wait, how many zombies were there just now?
- More than twenty, I think?
- He got all but one of them?? With one bat?
- He's really Grade 3?
- No, but I'm watching the replay again, and I can't see his arm.
- Hell yeah, I'm feeling the Four Great Houses pride.
* * *
Screech.
A black sedan stopped before the cordon.
This was the front gate of Cheongun Stadium.
Black vehicles already packed the eight-lane road in both directions.
Beyond them, yellow [Construction in Progress] signs had been placed everywhere to keep civilians away.
Kang Mujin, Junior Fifth-Rank Daoist of the Occult Management Bureau's First Investigation Division.
The moment he stepped out of the car, he lifted the cordon and hurried through the agents maintaining it.
He had not been home for days because of the Myeongjin Mega Field incident.
And now, a baseball stadium.
'...How many cases has that been this year already?'
Since the Myeongjin incident, the First Investigation Division had been pursuing a single group.
Their nationality, purpose, and size were all unknown.
All they could do was assume it was an organization made up of several high-ranking sorcerers.
There had been the sorcery university incident, and the iron stake that had come out of Baekrin's body.
They had extracted and analyzed the Spiritual Power forcibly injected into the Fetal Ghost, then compared it against the entire registry. Not one person matched.
The others were probably the same.
An anti-state sorcerer organization made up of unregistered personnel.
'...Maybe that incident too.'
Right. The Goblin Market terrorist attack, still unsolved.
The criminal had left traces behind, but they had never found the person responsible.
Come to think of it...
It had all started around then.
That criminal might have been one of them too.
It was only a suspicion for now.
As Mujin walked, he raised his head.
'That aside...'
He had not realized from afar.
"That's enormous."
Up close, the Barrier stained half the sky an unpleasant pale purple.
It had swallowed the entire stadium.
'This is really... a Mindscape Barrier?'
A Mindscape Barrier of this scale made no sense.
"Where are you from? Entry is currently-"
"First Investigation Division."
Mujin showed his nameplate, and the agent blocking his way flinched and stepped aside.
"Thank you for your work, Daoist."
Right in front of the Barrier, a white-haired man stood with his palm pressed against its surface.
Heo Dam, a barrier officer who was in the same cohort as Mujin.
He was not actually that old, but apparently his hair had gone white from pouring so much Spiritual Power into Barriers.
"How is it?"
"......"
Instead of answering, Heo Dam shook his head.
"I can't see anything inside."
"Can you decipher it?"
"That too."
Heo Dam pulled his hand away from the Barrier. His palm was red, as though burned.
"We have no choice but to force it open."
"Can you do it?"
They called it a forced release.
In reality, it was like defusing a bomb without a single blueprint.
They did not know what kind of Spell Formula it used or how many layers made up the Barrier.
They had to read the pattern along its surface, identify which thread among thousands was the trigger, and cut them one at a time.
All while it held twenty thousand living people inside.
Touch one line wrong, and there was no telling what would happen inside.
"The team's setup is finished."
"How long do you think it'll take?"
Heo Dam looked up at the Barrier.
"At least an hour."
An hour.
No one knew how many more people might die inside during that time.
"An hour? You?"
Only then did Heo Dam turn to look at Mujin.
"Hey, Mujin."
"Honestly, I don't even know if this will work. To properly undo it, we'd need someone like Danmok."
"......"
Danmok would never come all this way.
With a grim expression, Mujin took his smartphone from his pocket instead of replying.
"I'll contact them anyway."
On the screen:
[Emergency Broadcast] Cheongun Stadium: 12,483 viewers.
A yellow-haired man was adjusting his grip on the bat in the batter's box.
'...Ridiculous.'
They could see so clearly inside.
Yet they could not enter.
Mujin turned off the screen.
"Start for now. Hurry."
* * *
'...What is that ball now?'
The pitcher on the mound threw the third pitch at Mu-yeong.
This time, the ball rippled, split into dozens of illusions, and covered the batter's box.
It was an impossible pitch. He could not even follow the real ball with his eyes.
Then one of the illusory balls Mu-yeong hit bounced violently toward the stands.
Straight toward where Eun-chae was.
"......!"
I reflexively wrapped Eun-chae in my arms and caught the ball with one hand.
Whack!
Hissss...
Fortunately, I had spread Spiritual Power over everything below my face, so it did not hurt much.
"......"
But in that brief instant, I felt something strangely off about Eun-chae in my arms.
'...What is it?'
Something was wrong.
It felt as though something was missing, but I could not immediately tell what it was.
I looked down quietly at Eun-chae in my arms.
A small face frozen with eyes open.
"......"
Then, as I drew in a breath, I finally realized.
'...There isn't any smell.'
When Eun-chae had linked arms with me earlier, and when Eun-chae had come close to check the photo, there had definitely been a refreshing citrus perfume scent.
But now, there was not even perfume. There was no human body scent at all.
I raised my head and slowly looked around at the frozen people, the scoreboard, and the yellowed sky.
Ah.
So that was it?
Grin.
Thwack!
[Strikeout!]
Unable to hit the ball split into dozens of illusions, Mu-yeong struck out.
Bzzzt.
Mu-yeong's figure in the batter's box distorted like static, then reappeared in the aisle-side seat beside me in the blink of an eye.
"Huff, huff..."
Mu-yeong collapsed into his seat, breathing heavily.
Since it did not appear to track outs separately, it seemed they intended to keep this insane game going until every sorcerer brought here had been eliminated.
[All right, next! Eighth batter, Oh Sejin!]
Bzzzt.
Another person vanished from the stands and appeared in the batter's box.
"...Good work."
"No."
Mu-yeong checked his arms and legs again, then wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
"It looks like they just send you back if you strike out."
"Yeah."
"But what do we do? This doesn't seem like it'll end."
"No, I have an idea."
.
.
.
"...What? Is that really true?"
"Yeah. I think so."
"......"
"How many slots are left on the bat now?"
"I used two this morning and two earlier... Four slots remain!"
"Let me see it for a moment."
I took the bat from Mu-yeong.
The round connection ports engraved around its pitch-black body had exhausted their Spiritual Power, and the ink had been erased.
'I brought it just in case, but...'
This would take some time.
The game continued in the meantime.
Boom!
[Oops~ Retired~]
The words on the scoreboard changed, and another sorcerer disappeared into the dirt.
[Eighth batter, retired! According to the rules, we will recruit a new player~!]
Ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum...
Along with the drumbeat, a yellow beam began sweeping across the stands.
It slid over the frozen people.
It lingered briefly only over those who could move.
Past the outfield seats. Toward the infield seats.
The beam drew closer and closer to us.
Swish.
The beam paused above my head.
It wavered as though hesitating for a moment.
Then.
Click.
The space above me lit up.
"B-boss?!"
[Newly recruited player! Congratulations~!]
Flash.
The scoreboard lit up.
[Eighth batter: Lee Do-hyeon]
My face filled the screen.
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