WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Mordor
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◈ Unbound Magic Swordsman ◈
Chapter 18: New Weapon
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The mercenary guild hall was already steeped in deep darkness when Lucian pushed open its doors.
The sunset had vanished completely, and only lamps lit at regular intervals barely traced the room's outline.
The counters would normally have been firmly closed by this hour, but Rina was still sorting through a mountain of documents.
She looked up at the sound of his arrival, and her eyes widened.
“Don't tell me you've already wiped out that enormous Giant Insect colony?”
“It's done.”
Lucian casually set the pack slung over his shoulder on the counter and opened it.
With a heavy scrape, Giant Insect remains spilled out.
The head of the Red Queen.
The head of a mutant covered in an unnatural purple shell.
And finally, severed antennae from dozens of ordinary specimens.
Rina swallowed dryly and blinked.
“All of this... in one day?”
“Yes.”
Her gaze immediately fixed on the purple specimen's head.
Its ominous, murky color was clearly different from an ordinary Giant Insect or the Red Queen.
Under the lamplight, its purple shell gave off a strange gleam.
“What is this? There wasn't any information about a specimen like this in the request.”
“A mutant. An unlisted superior specimen had settled in the deepest part of the nest.”
Rina's hand stopped for a moment.
A superior magical beast not listed in the request.
It meant the request's difficulty had been assessed completely wrong from the start.
She took out a fresh sheet of parchment and spoke carefully.
“If it's a mutant, it needs a separate appraisal. The guildmaster will need to inspect it personally tomorrow morning. For now, I'll settle the base reward.”
“Do so.”
Rina mechanically counted the bloodstained antennae.
“Forty-three ordinary specimens at fifty copper coins each. That comes to twenty-one and a half silver coins. Seven silver coins for one Red Queen. Twenty-eight and a half silver coins in total. The base request reward of four gold coins is separate.”
Four gold coins and twenty-eight and a half silver coins.
He would have received more if he had recovered every antenna from the burned and crushed specimens, but he had discarded the corroded and damaged trophies without regret.
“The additional payment for the mutant will be settled tomorrow. Did you happen to recover a core fragment from the superior specimen?”
Lucian took a dull purple crystal shard from his clothes and set it on the counter.
Under the lamplight, the crystal gave off a faint glow of mana.
Rina stopped breathing.
“Ah, th-this is... an Ether Crystal.”
“An Ether Crystal?”
“It is dense mana within a magical beast's body condensed into physical crystal form. It's a mass of pure mana, so it's a key material for alchemy and magical tools. An extremely rare item found only in superior magical beasts. At this size...”
Rina carefully lifted the crystal and held it to the light.
“It should be worth at least ten gold coins. Maybe even twenty.”
Lucian's gaze settled calmly.
More than twenty gold coins from a single Giant Insect extermination.
It easily exceeded the reward from the Troll hunt that had nearly cost him his life.
“The guildmaster will tell you the detailed appraisal results tomorrow morning. Please come back then.”
Lucian nodded and collected his reward for the day.
As he left the guild, he calculated the balance in his head.
Expenses: medicine and oil.
Income: the base reward, extermination reward, tomorrow's payment for the mutant, and the sale of the Ether Crystal.
Not bad.
Still, he needed to replace his sword.
It would be a painful expense, but it was an investment that could never be compromised on in a battlefield where death was always close.
* * *
The moment he opened the heavy stone door to his lodging, the extreme fatigue he had forced himself to postpone poured down his spine.
He had spent the day butchering a large Giant Insect colony and mid-grade magical beasts, Spike Wolves, in succession.
His mana had fallen below half, and his stamina was scraping the bottom.
Lucian removed his Wyvern Light Armor and took out his longsword.
The silver sword Hector had given him.
He still vividly remembered how the seed in his dantian had reacted sharply when he first gripped that blade inside the carriage.
But the blade had been completely snapped in two.
The hairline crack that had formed when it forcibly pierced a Troll's ribs had finally reached its limit after being exposed to the Giant Insects' corrosive fluids.
Even if he somehow rejoined it, it would obviously snap again the moment it struck the next magical beast's bones.
It was regrettable.
But weapons were expendable tools.
As he grew stronger, he would hunt increasingly ferocious enemies, and the strain on his weapons would rise exponentially.
His next sword could not be steel. It had to be forged from magical beast bone or special ore, a blade capable of fully enduring the pressure of mana.
He lay down on the straw mat and closed his eyes.
At that moment, the experience of desperate battle began settling deep within his veins and nervous system.
As always, it was the time when Experience Points torn from slaughter were forcibly etched into his muscles and Mana channels.
What he had learned from the battle against the Giant Insect colony.
His sense for cutting down multiple enemies at once had advanced to another level.
All-around vigilance, reading threats charging from his blind spots through hearing and the instincts in his skin alone.
After enduring the hell of a nest where dozens of Giant Insects had poured in from every direction, the resolution of that sense had become abnormally sharp.
The same was true of his sense for throwing.
Moving targets, adjusting angles while running along a twisting path, the instant timing required to load mana into a throw and maximize its piercing power.
None of it was calculation in his head anymore. It had settled into his muscles as reflex.
The battle with the Spike Wolves had built his control to the limit.
Regulating his breathing with his stamina and mana depleted, wielding his sword along the smallest possible paths to sever the greatest possible arteries.
It was not merely the acquisition of techniques. It was the evolution of a comprehensive ability that elevated the entire paradigm of combat.
He could feel himself anchoring in the intermediate realm of a Warden.
Loading mana into his blade was now as natural as his heartbeat, and even injecting mana into his leg muscles to accelerate during battle had become something he controlled unconsciously.
It meant he now had room to think during battle.
The freedom to grip his sword and cut through an enemy's flesh while using his empty hand to channel mana and prepare a flame.
A Magic Swordsman.
At last, the foundation of a combat style worthy of that title was beginning to take shape.
Of course, it was only the beginning. If he kept fighting, it would eventually be complete.
His consciousness sank into sleep as black as pitch.
* * *
The next morning.
Lucian stopped by the guild to receive the mutant's additional reward and sell the mana crystal.
Guildmaster Graham personally appraised the purple specimen's head and the Ether Crystal.
An interested gleam passed behind Graham's magnifying glasses.
“This isn't an ordinary mutant.”
Graham set down the crystal and spoke decisively.
“Judging by the density of its mana, it goes far beyond the category of a mere Giant Insect. It was likely the larva of a superior magical beast that had parasitized the colony's nest from outside, then grew into an adult while reigning as queen. When the request was written, its mana may not have manifested yet, or it may have been hiding deep in the nest.”
“Then the request's difficulty was assessed lower than it truly was?”
“That's right. Including this mutant, the request you completed falls between upper Silver rank and lower Gold rank.”
Lower Gold rank.
A nest a Silver-ranked mercenary had cleared alone had been a deathtrap equivalent to a lower Gold-rank request.
Graham's gaze swept sharply over Lucian.
“Five gold coins as additional payment for exterminating the mutant. The Ether Crystal's purchase price will be set at fifteen gold coins. Twenty gold coins in total.”
Combined with the base reward he had received yesterday, it came to roughly twenty-seven gold coins.
It was overwhelming income, more than twice what he had earned from the Troll hunt.
“Well done.”
Lucian collected the payment without a word. Graham cleaned the glasses and added, “And the joint operation. Are you still withholding your decision?”
“Yes.”
“Four days remain. It's about time you finished weighing it.”
Lucian only gave a slight nod and left the office.
* * *
With the heavy pouch of payment at his waist, he headed for the eastern market district.
The Iron Boar smithy.
When the familiar blacksmith saw Lucian, the hammering stopped.
“Here to repair your sword?”
Lucian quietly shook his head.
“I think it needs replacing.”
Lucian drew the longsword from his waist and set it on the workbench.
The blade had been blackened by corrosive fluid, and it was snapped cleanly in two.
The blacksmith picked up the sword and examined it closely before clicking their tongue.
“This can't be repaired. The corrosion's eaten into the metal's structure. Even if you force it back together, it'll shatter in the next battle.”
It was the diagnosis Lucian had expected.
“Do you have swords forged from magical beast materials or special ore?”
A merchant's gleam appeared in the blacksmith's dull eyes.
“Of course. But they'll cost a fair bit.”
The blacksmith opened a heavy safe at the back of the workshop, rather than one of the ordinary display cases.
Three swords, carefully wrapped in silk, appeared inside.
Their method of storage alone spoke of their quality.
“The first.”
When the silk was unwrapped, a straight sword with a cool blue sheen appeared.
Fine wave patterns rippled across the blade's surface.
“A sword alloyed from refined Sea Snake fangs and steel. Magical beast bone from creatures that live exposed to deadly venom and salt is highly resistant to corrosion, and three times harder than an ordinary sword. It suffers little metal fatigue even when saturated with aura. Thirty gold coins.”
A practical weapon focused on lifespan and durability. The price was reasonable as well.
“The second.”
This time, it was a heavy scimitar with a black sheen.
Even without being drawn from its sheath, it gave off a faint heat.
“Made by casting Flame Lizard scales. The blade itself is imbued with a weak heat attribute, so it glows red-hot when you load it with aura. It's an extremely useful sword against magical beasts with regenerative abilities, like Trolls. Thirty-five gold coins.”
Equipment specialized in blocking an enemy's regeneration.
Combined with his own Fire Blade, it would create a synergistic effect.
It was an appealing trait.
“The third.”
When the final silk wrapping was removed, a nearly pure-white silver straight sword revealed itself.
The moment the sword caught the light, the seed curled beneath Lucian's heart trembled.
It was a primal, intense resonance of mana that could not be compared to when he had first held Hector's sword.
The blacksmith explained in a weighty voice.
“A sword forged from mana metal extracted from the heartwood of Silvermoon Grass. It's a rare mineral plant that grows only beneath moonlight, and its heartwood contains highly concentrated mana. This sword's greatest feature is its overwhelming mana conductivity. Whether loaded with aura or Ether, it carries the power to the blade's edge with almost no loss.”
Aura and Ether.
Lucian's dark eyes grew still at those words.
“You said it conducts both aura and Ether?”
“That's right. Silvermoon Grass mana metal is a neutral material, not biased toward any particular attribute. It accepts aura and Ether with equal efficiency. Of course, no creature in this world can use both at once, so in practice it will only conduct one or the other.”
Someone who made that impossible contradiction real was standing right before them.
“The price?”
“Forty gold coins.”
It was the most expensive of the three.
An amount equal to seventy percent of his current assets.
But Lucian did not hesitate.
He did not need the Sea Snake sword's durability or the Flame Lizard sword's additional attribute.
What he needed was an empty vessel that could receive pure mana itself, mana neither refined into aura nor converted into Ether, without loss.
There was no weapon more suitable for him now.
“I'll buy the third.”
The blacksmith's eyes widened in surprise before a satisfied smile appeared.
“An excellent eye. There are few warriors in all Kaldia who could draw out this sword's full value.”
Lucian paid forty gold coins without regret.
He had just over twenty gold coins left.
But the moment he gripped the silver straight sword, all sense of losing gold vanished without a trace.
A perfect sense of unity, as though the blade were an extension of his hand.
When he consciously let mana flow into it, the energy spread evenly through the entire blade.
There was none of the resistance or localized concentration he had felt in Hector's sword.
When he poured heat into it, the whole blade warmed smoothly and evenly.
When he applied hardness reinforcement, he could feel the density of the metal compressing to its limit.
Extremely high mana conductivity meant he could produce vastly greater destructive power than before with the same amount of mana.
A dramatic increase in combat efficiency.
He sold Hector's spent sword as material for three silver coins.
There was no reason to cling to a tool that had served its purpose.
Still, he added one thought to himself.
'You did well.'
The words were for the sword, or more precisely, for himself.
Lucian fastened his new longsword at his waist and left the smithy.
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