WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Mordor
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◈ Unbound Magic Swordsman ◈
Chapter 19: Upheaval
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Lucian left the blacksmith's shop and headed straight for the specialist weapon store next door.
There was one more thing he needed to buy.
A bow.
He had dismissed it before because it was cumbersome to carry, but circumstances had changed.
The desperate fight against the purple mutant. That horrifying spell attack's five-second charge time.
If he had possessed a bow in that moment when he had to risk his life rolling through the mud to close the distance, he could have pierced the creature from afar and shattered its spellcasting.
The same went for Goblin Shamans.
If he could first eliminate troublesome rear-line spellcasters before entering close combat, his tactical options would expand dramatically.
The inconvenience of carrying it?
His evolved body changed things.
His strength, agility, and endurance had all risen. The weight of a bow and quiver could no longer be a shackle holding him back.
More than anything, the most appealing point was that the principle behind the throwing daggers' absurd penetrating power could be applied directly to arrows.
If he could fire arrows with mana packed into their heads, he would gain a devastating sniping weapon capable of tearing through even Wyvern leather Light Armor.
The conclusion was simple.
The benefit of safeguarding his life outweighed the inconvenience. He had to buy one.
When he entered the specialist shop, dozens of lethal weapons hung along the walls, from crude shortbows to crossbows with monstrous draw weights.
Lucian's cold gaze settled on a single type.
Composite Bow.
A weapon crafted by layering and carving wood, animal horn, and tough sinew together.
Despite its short, compact size, it condensed the vicious destructive power of a longbow. The pinnacle of practical weapon design.
It offered a balance of mobility and power suited to Lucian's fighting style.
The shop owner approached.
“What are you looking for?”
“A Composite Bow. One that can fully withstand aura's load.”
Strictly speaking, it was mana. But now that he knew no one else could handle mana, he could not call it that.
The shop owner's eyes gleamed.
“A bow for carrying aura, eh? If you force aura into some cheap bow used by amateurs, the bow will shatter or the string will snap the moment you draw it. It needs some mineral that can endure aura, but…”
The owner carefully took a dark red bow from a special display in the corner.
“It is a Composite Bow made with an Ironwood core and braided Wyvern sinew. Ironwood has properties between metal and wood, so it can withstand the pressure of aura. And since the string is made from Wyvern blood vessels, its strength speaks for itself.”
It was about as long as an adult's arm.
When carried across his back, it would hang below his waist, a size that would minimize restrictions on his movement.
Lucian took it, casually strung the bow, and drew.
An immense draw weight.
An ordinary soldier unable to wield vitality would have trembling arms before giving up.
But the muscle fibers Lucian had forcefully evolved by killing magical beasts drew that insane tension as lightly as a feather.
He released the string.
Twang!
A heavy, chilling vibration tore through the air, running along the bow into his grip with a pleasing sensation.
“What about arrows?”
“Twenty ordinary iron-tipped arrows cost ten silver coins. Ten Wyvern bone-tipped arrows that can pierce magical beast carapaces cost two gold coins. The bow itself costs five gold coins.”
His bones ached at the expense, having just spent forty gold coins on the Silvermoon Grass longsword. But saving money on a blood-soaked battlefield was the quickest path to becoming a corpse.
Lucian bought everything without complaint, including a leather quiver that fit tightly against his back for two silver coins.
Total expenditure: seven gold coins and twelve silver coins.
His remaining wealth was about ten gold coins.
His equipment preparations were complete.
An Ironwood Composite Bow and quiver on his back.
A silver longsword at his waist.
Spare daggers and throwing daggers on both thighs.
The weight had noticeably increased, but it did not fatally hinder his ability to run, roll, and fight.
* * *
Lucian immediately returned to his old stone dwelling and set up a wooden board as a target in the open space by the stone wall.
Distance: ten paces.
He gripped the bow and nocked an iron-tipped arrow. He held his breath and fired.
Thwip!
The arrow flew and embedded itself in the board, but it missed the center by about a handspan.
For his first shot, the trajectory was not bad.
The second. The third. The fourth.
Mechanical repetition. By the tenth shot, the deviation had narrowed to within a finger's width.
The twentieth shot.
Three arrows struck the crosshair at the exact center in succession, splitting the board apart.
An abnormal rate of mastery.
Lucian had surpassed in a single day the training that would normally take an archer weeks to reach this level of accuracy.
The muscles, neural pathways, eyesight, and sense of aim that had been optimized for sword trajectories through repeated combat were transferring without resistance to the bow, a different weapon of slaughter.
The miraculous mystery of accumulated experience had created a genius-like synchronization across every form of weapon mastery.
He continued with another attempt.
Infusing mana into an arrow.
The maximization of killing power that had worked with throwing daggers.
Lucian forced mana into the arrowhead.
Hardness reinforcement.
Thwip!
The moment he released the string, the arrow shot toward the board like lightning.
Crunch!
It did not merely sink halfway into the board.
It pierced the thick plank, struck the stone wall behind it, and left the arrowhead protruding from the other side.
Effective.
Next came the layering of heat. The application of Fire Blade.
With the string drawn, he exploded the mana from his dantian and crammed it into the arrowhead.
The silver iron tip faintly glowed red.
The duration was short, but the arrowhead withstood the extreme heat until the instant he released the string.
Thunk! Sizzle!
The arrow embedded itself in the board, and the pungent smell of burning wood spread through the air.
The heat had transferred successfully.
A Fire Blade arrow.
It meant that against disgusting regenerative magical beasts like Trolls, he could now burn away their regenerative cells from afar without approaching them.
The tactical landscape had expanded dramatically.
His assets had fallen from over fifty gold coins to ten, but he did not regret it in the slightest.
If he killed stronger magical beasts with stronger weapons, more gold and Experience Points would come in.
When he grew stronger, he devoured, and when he devoured, he grew stronger still.
As long as the acceleration of that blood-soaked virtuous cycle continued, the loss of gold was only temporary.
Yet even as Lucian sharpened his weapons in the cold underground dwelling, the world did not remain still.
* * *
The following morning.
Lucian headed to the central square for bread and soup, and immediately sensed that the atmosphere was taut with pressure, like a drawn bowstring.
More people than usual crowded the streets, their faces all clouded with ashen despair.
The notice board before the lord's residence.
People swarmed like flies before a massive proclamation scrawled in red ink, murmuring among themselves.
Lucian stood at the back of the crowd and coolly read the words.
[Emergency Proclamation for the Western Border of the Arlan Kingdom]
- The Kaizen Duchy has breached the border checkpoint and illegally invaded kingdom territory.
- Full-scale war has broken out on the Eastern Front. The Regular Army's Second Corps is engaged.
- Emergency conscription of the western border garrison. Two of its three companies have been deployed in full to the Eastern Front.
- Remaining Kaldia Garrison force: one company, comprised primarily of recruits.
- Full authority over border defense and magical beast control is delegated to the Silver Lion Knights and the Mercenary Guild.
- All residents are forbidden from leaving the city. The nighttime curfew must be strictly observed.
At last, the beginning of war had arrived.
The Kaizen Duchy's invasion. The devastating deployment of the kingdom's regular army.
The Kaldia Garrison's two core companies had departed for the Eastern Front.
Only one company remained, made up of recruits who could barely wipe their own noses.
In practical terms, the only forces standing against this borderland, like the maw of some enormous beast, were thirty Silver Lion Knights and mercenaries who sold their lives for money.
“This is insane… War? Those Kaizen bastards finally crossed the river.”
“If the garrison is all pulled out, those Beastfolk bastards in the forest will climb over the walls!”
“You think we're safe inside the walls? If even chieftain-class Beastfolk come at us, we'll all be ground into meat!”
Fear and panic were devouring Kaldia.
Sitting in a corner of the restaurant and chewing bread, Lucian coldly reconstructed the situation in his mind.
The Eastern Front was a sea of blood. The defenses of the western border were empty.
And in three days, the Silver Lion Knights were scheduled to launch a large-scale operation to exterminate the Beastfolk stronghold.
If the Knights entered the depths of the forest while the garrison was crippled, Kaldia's defensive line would have to endure with only recruits and the remaining mercenaries.
Rather than defense, the Knights had chosen a preemptive strike. An eradication campaign.
Whether that decision was right or wrong, the result would prove it.
In any case, what mattered to Lucian was the operation's gains and losses for his growth.
If he joined the operation, he would be bound by the Knights' chain of command.
In a large-scale melee, he would not be able to claim targets for himself, so his Experience Point absorption rate would hit rock bottom.
But if he refused and remained in the city, he would fall out of the Knights' favor and face oppression. And if a horde of magical beasts came, he would have to bleed atop the walls for a pittance anyway.
There was a third option.
Participate, but take a position outside the main force's formation where he could hunt magical beasts independently.
‘Vanguard scout.’
The only role where he could avoid the command structure and hunt the enemy's vital points alone.
If it was a Beastfolk stronghold, then naturally a boss-class creature leading the pack would be lurking there.
He recalled the red-eyed leader he had barely managed to kill while escorting the wagon in the past, but Lucian was no longer the greenhorn he had been then.
Stabilized mana at mid-rank Warden. The Silvermoon Grass longsword's lossless conductivity. The applications of Fire Blade. Throwing weapons and a bow.
The evolution of his body and weapon mastery was almost too much to list one by one.
With his current equipment and killing power, he could properly fight a chieftain-class creature in a battle of life and death.
And if he killed that chieftain-class creature, the high-quality experience it would yield could allow him to achieve another devastating physical upheaval: a level-up.
He finished his calculations.
He would participate in the joint operation.
But he would insist on the condition of joining the scouting unit, where independent action was guaranteed.
* * *
After eating, Lucian headed straight to the Mercenary Guild.
After the emergency proclamation, the Guild's request board had been covered with military requests bordered in red.
City wall patrols, monitoring magical beasts on the outskirts, escorting supply routes, evacuating residents. Typical wartime requests for disposable meat shields.
Lucian ignored the board and approached Rina at the counter.
“I wish to see Guildmaster Graham.”
“Graham is on the second floor.”
Graham was buried beneath a mountain of wartime documents in the office.
“The joint operation. I will participate.”
Graham narrowed their eyes over their spectacles.
“However, I have a condition.”
“What is it?”
“Put me in the scouting unit. Not mixed into the formation, but in a role where I can operate independently ahead of the main force.”
Graham clicked their tongue, brow creasing.
“The Knights will object that assigning a Warden-class force like you as an uncontrollable scout is a waste of manpower.”
“Then I will not participate unless I am a scout.”
A brief, weighty silence followed Lucian's firm answer.
“I'll be honest.”
Graham removed their spectacles and sighed.
“Sir Kairon, the Knights' deputy commander, is pressuring us to requisition every Mercenary Guild member ranked Silver or above. It may look voluntary on the surface, but it is effectively a forced mobilization order.”
The blond knight who had stood at the head of the cavalry, radiating the aura of a High Warden.
“If I refuse?”
“The relationship between the Knights and the Guild will deteriorate to its worst point. It will also put painful restrictions on your activities in this borderland.”
“Even so, my condition is scouting.”
Graham stroked their beard and nodded.
“I will negotiate with the Knights. A Silver-rank Warden is volunteering for the most dangerous assignment, scouting. They have no reason to refuse.”
“Thank you.”
“There is no need to thank me. Your participation in the extermination operation benefits our Guild as well.”
Lucian left the office.
The joint operation was in three days.
Scouting.
Before walking onto the battlefield, he had a mountain of things to do.
Mastering the bow.
Pushing the limits of mana fusion with the Silvermoon Grass longsword.
And endlessly testing the expansion of the mana coiled deep within his body.
He returned to his dwelling.
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