WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Mordor
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◈ Unbound Magic Swordsman ◈
Chapter 8: Mercenary Guild
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The next morning.
Lucian pushed open the rough wooden doors of the Kaldia Mercenary Guild.
The interior was far larger than it had appeared from outside.
The first floor was a vast domed hall. One wall was covered with request notices stained with blood and dirt.
Before the reception counter on the opposite side, people lined up to trade their lives for silver.
Men armed with weapons crouched or wandered about the hall like beasts.
Mercenaries.
Longswords, axes, bows, and crude staves.
Their clothing was as disorderly as their weapons.
Leather armor soaked in blood, scarred metal breastplates, or worn cloth robes.
Lucian wore only the loose hemp clothes provided by the inn and a silver longsword at his waist.
For a brief moment, the air in the hall shifted.
Searching eyes fixed on the arrival of a new stranger.
But they soon scattered in indifference.
It was ordinary here for tomorrow's drifter to fill the place of someone who died yesterday.
Lucian walked silently to the counter.
Behind it stood a woman who looked to be in her early thirties, buried beneath stacks of papers.
Short brown hair. Sharp eyes.
She looked up and met Lucian's empty gaze.
“Joining the guild, or picking up a request?”
“Joining.”
Lucian took Hector's red wax-sealed envelope from inside his clothes and placed it on the counter.
“Deliver this to the guildmaster.”
The woman picked up the envelope as if annoyed.
But the moment she saw the silver eagle crest stamped into the crimson wax, her fingers froze.
“...Please wait a moment.”
Clutching the envelope, she disappeared through the door behind her as if fleeing.
Less than a minute later, she returned with a changed attitude.
“Please follow me. The guildmaster wishes to interview you personally.”
They passed through a corridor at the back of the hall, then a thick soundproof door on the second floor opened.
The office was broad and dark.
Bloodstained maps of magical beast exterminations covered the walls, while papers listing the prices of human lives lay piled like mountains on the desk.
And behind that desk sat a man.
The moment Lucian saw him, his eyes narrowed slightly.
Unexpected.
The head of mercenaries should have been a huge warrior covered in scars.
Instead, the man behind the desk was a short, stoop-shouldered middle-aged man.
Thick glasses. Pale hands gripping a pen. He looked every bit the civil official.
But Lucian was not fooled by appearances.
In this mad world, appearance could not be a measure of strength.
The man who managed a slaughterhouse could not be weak.
“Sit there.”
The guildmaster pushed up his glasses.
Lucian sat down without a sound.
The guildmaster unfolded Hector's handwritten letter of recommendation and read it with emotionless eyes.
“A personal letter from Advisor Hector Valdemar. It says you dealt the decisive blow in the extermination of a beastfolk chieftain-class creature. Your name is Lucian, and you have no family name.”
Lucian nodded dryly.
“No past either?”
“I don't remember one.”
A snake-like gaze flashed behind the guildmaster's thick lenses.
But he did not press the question further.
“This is the frontier. It is guild custom not to dig into the past. Still, there is one thing.”
The guildmaster set down his pen with a tap.
“Your skill must be verified. I can't assign a guild rank based solely on scraps of paper from that rotten military.”
“How do I prove it?”
“A field examination. Complete one request, and your rank will be decided by the result.”
The guildmaster took a bloodstained sheet of parchment from a drawer and slid it across the desk.
“There happens to be a suitable request. Scouts report that a goblin group is rapidly growing in the southern forest of Kaldia. Around twenty creatures. There is a high chance that stronger specimens are mixed in. The reward is fifty copper coins per goblin ear, and five silver coins for a stronger specimen. You have three days.”
Goblins.
Fragmented knowledge surfaced in Lucian's mind.
Small magical beasts, smaller and individually weaker than orcs, but capable of overwhelming their prey through cockroach-like breeding and sheer numbers.
Even a stronger specimen would not match a wolfman's overwhelming physical strength.
“I'll take it.”
Lucian answered shortly.
The guildmaster nodded, stamped an iron seal, and handed him a small piece of metal.
A temporary mercenary identification tag.
A cold metal plate engraved with his name and the words “Rank Undecided.”
“Pick up a detailed map on the first floor. And, Lucian.”
The guildmaster rested his chin on his interlaced fingers.
“I don't recommend working alone on any request. People aren't perfect. This request is no different. A single goblin can be cut down with a farmer's sickle, but if twenty of them rush you like mad, well. If luck turns against you, you may meet the Reaper. You'd be better off finding a party. It would be more profitable too.”
Lucian answered without hesitation.
“I'll go alone.”
A crease formed between the guildmaster's brows, but it lasted only a moment. He merely twisted his mouth into a smile.
“As you wish.”
Lucian left the office and collected the map from the first floor.
The parchment marked the goblins' territory and contained a warning written in red.
[Warning: Possible appearance of a Goblin Shaman. Prepare for magic and poison attacks.]
A shaman.
A beast that wielded magic.
Lucian's black eyes lingered on the word.
The law of this world he had confirmed when he pierced the wolfman's heart.
When magical beings were slaughtered, magical experience and source energy were absorbed.
If he cut off that shaman's head, the seed of mana budding inside him would grow faster.
He tucked the parchment away.
* * *
Thirty gold coins from Hector.
Since he could not kill enemies by throwing gold at them, it was wiser to buy equipment.
He searched the smoky alleys of the eastern market district and opened the door of a blacksmith shop called Iron Boar.
The heat of bellows and the sound of hammering battered his eardrums.
The blacksmith was a massive figure who looked like an orc half-blood, with forearms larger than the iron hammer they held.
“What are you looking for?”
“Light armor.”
Lucian's reply was simple.
He had no need for a breastplate covered in metal.
For Lucian, who fought through ambushes and close-range evasions, weight was a shackle of death.
He chose jet-black leather light armor reinforced with tough hide, covering only his chest, back, shoulders, and the arteries in his forearms.
Three gold coins.
He also bought hemostatic herbs, sturdy bandages, a waterskin, and dried jerky.
He stored the remaining twenty-six gold coins in his pouch.
His equipment was set.
The silver longsword Hector had given him was enough.
It was a good sword. There was no reason to spend money replacing a weapon that did not need replacing.
* * *
At dawn the next day, Lucian left Kaldia through the south gate, cutting through the cold morning mist.
His destination was the southern primeval forest, two hours away on foot.
Pale violet dawn light spread eerily across the earth.
The moment he turned his back on the city walls, the world became a death ground once more, a place where monsters opened their jaws.
But Lucian's stride held not the slightest hesitation.
Yesterday's Lucian and today's Lucian were fundamentally different beings.
Mana that had budded through devouring circulated quietly through his veins like a serpent.
His muscles had been compressed to the density of steel, and his senses had grown sharp enough to read even the texture of the wind brushing his cheek.
The palm gripping his sword held certainty in battle.
After a march of a little over two hours, the traces of woodcutters vanished, and Lucian reached the depths of a dark forest beneath tightly tangled canopies.
His steps stopped.
The smell.
A nauseating stench of rotten organs and excrement mingled with the fishy scent of grass.
The smell of goblins.
From beyond the darkness came the sound of bones scraping and shrill, squeaking laughter.
But he did not draw his sword.
Instead, he melted completely into the shadow of a tree untouched even by moonlight and approached the source of the noise.
A forest clearing.
The beasts swarmed there.
They had small bodies the size of human children and greenish-brown skin like rotten moss.
Yellow fangs jutted from their horribly split mouths.
Around a campfire pooled with blood, more than twenty goblins tore at bones and raw meat.
Most held crude spears made by fastening sharp stones to branches, though three or four gripped rusted human shortswords.
And in the deepest part of the group.
One deformed creature with a larger head than the others, gripping a staff hung with beast feathers and skulls.
A shaman.
The instant Lucian spotted it, the seed of mana budding below his dantian trembled like a predator's hunger.
A foul yet unmistakable magical energy, Ether, flowed from the shaman's body.
Killing intent flashed in Lucian's black eyes.
A frontal assault would be foolish.
He would gnaw away at them from the edge. His final target was the shaman with the staff.
Shing.
The silver longsword slid soundlessly from its sheath.
* * *
The hunt began.
One goblin had strayed from the group to piss in the corner of a thicket.
Lucian slipped from a blind spot among the trees like a ghost.
Three silent steps.
A silver flash silently slit the creature's throat. Not even a scream escaped.
Lucian covered the decapitated goblin's mouth and quietly laid its spurting corpse in the grass.
The first devouring.
The experience points were as insignificant as raindrops compared to the wolfman's, but absorption was still absorption.
Two. Three.
Moving through the forest shadows, Lucian precisely drove his blade into the arteries and heads of goblins that strayed from the group.
Assassination in silence.
The beasts' flesh was sliced like tofu before the silver longsword.
Four. Five. Six.
After he took six lives, the group finally caught the scent of blood.
One goblin noticed the absence of its companions, found a pool of blood at the forest's edge, and let out a shrill scream.
“Kiiaaah!”
The whole clearing erupted.
Fourteen goblins raised their weapons at once, giving off murderous intent.
He had slaughtered a quarter of the group without loss. He had gained enough from the advantage of surprise.
Lucian stepped proudly from the tree shadows into the clearing.
A silver longsword dripping blood. A human with empty eyes.
Fourteen pairs of eyes fixed on him, then poured out rage-filled killing intent.
“Kikik!”
The fourteen goblins charged like a pack of wild dogs.
Without stopping, Lucian kicked off the ground and rushed toward them.
The stone spear of the leading goblin aimed for Lucian's solar plexus, but he twisted his upper body aside. He drove the sword's tip beneath its jaw and ripped upward.
Seven.
A shortsword and a stone axe flew at him from both sides.
He deflected the shortsword on his right with the spine of his blade, used the momentum to cut off its wielder's wrist, then spun and pierced the heart of the goblin on his left.
Nine.
The speed of the slaughter accelerated madly.
The goblins' movements were crude, their paths so obvious they made him want to yawn.
Lucian's silver blade drew bloody arcs as it ravaged the clearing.
Ten. Eleven. Twelve.
Experience points poured into him like a waterfall, and the density of his senses evolved in real time.
The experience from a single creature was trash, but continued devouring became a great mass that forcibly remade his body.
The moment he cut off the thirteenth goblin's head, Lucian felt a clear thrill.
His footwork was becoming chillingly optimized.
Without passing through his brain, his feet found and entered the deadliest blind spots. The recoil of each swing naturally led into the path of the next slaughter.
He had never learned any form of swordsmanship, yet his body was optimizing itself into the ultimate killing weapon.
Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen.
The clearing was slick with smashed goblin organs and blood.
Only four remained. One of them was the shaman.
Three ordinary goblins surrounded the shaman like guards, while behind them, the shaman raised its skull staff into the air.
Dense dark-green mana (Ether) filled with venom began gathering in the skull's empty eye sockets.
Magic.
Instinct warned him.
Lucian hurriedly rolled across the ground.
Fwoosh!
A sphere of condensed poison shot through the place where Lucian had stood and struck a giant tree behind him.
Sizzle!
The bark corroded apart, releasing a terrible stench. If it hit him, it would melt even his bones.
Lucian kicked off the mud and sprang up.
Five steps away.
The leading guard thrust its shortsword.
Lucian met the blade, crushed it down with force, stepped on the creature's back, and leaped into the air.
While airborne, he drove his sword into the crown of the second goblin's head. Using the blade as a pivot, he kicked the third goblin in the face and caved it in.
Nineteen. Twenty.
He landed before the shaman.
The shaman's bulging eyes filled with shock as it tried to gather a second sphere of poison.
But Lucian's sword strike was overwhelmingly faster.
A silver flash split the skull staff vertically in two.
Crack!
The gathering mana lost control and exploded, scattering green fragments in every direction.
“Kiiik!”
Foaming at the mouth, the shaman fell backward, but Lucian's sword point mercilessly gouged through its heart.
Its tenacious life ended, and the horrific light faded from its pupils.
Lucian roughly pulled out his sword.
Twenty-one.
At last, silence settled over the clearing.
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