WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Mordor
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◈ Unbound Magic Swordsman ◈
Chapter 9: Request
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The tide of experience flooded in once more.
The energy flowing from the shaman’s severed throat was fundamentally different from that of ordinary goblin trash.
It had the same texture of mana Lucian had felt when he pierced the wolfman’s heart.
The amount was incomparably smaller than the wolfman’s, but its quality was unpleasantly distinct.
Sticky mana steeped in the nature of deadly poison.
When that murky energy seeped into his body and reached the root of his dantian, the starving mana root greedily swallowed it and extended another strand deeper.
A strange, delicate sensation bloomed from the root’s tip.
A feeling that could not be fully explained in words.
It was as if a faucet that had been forced half a turn open had now smoothly opened to one and a half turns.
The stream of pure mana flowing through his veins thickened slightly.
He still could not scatter magic through the air, but the density and control of the mana circulating through his body had clearly become another layer more refined.
Lucian stood in the middle of the clearing reeking of blood and exhaled roughly.
Twenty goblin corpses lay scattered at his feet.
Dark-red blood and foul green fluid had mixed together, staining the forest soil like a rotten swamp.
Now it was time to gather proof for the guild.
The request required ears.
Without emotion, Lucian drew his dagger, stepped on the heads of the curled-up corpses, and sawed off their pointed ears before stuffing them into a pouch.
It was nauseating butchery, but it would soon become silver coins for survival.
There was no room for petty sentiment.
He set aside the shaman’s large ear separately. As a superior specimen, it would be worth more silver.
He did not forget the fragments of the broken skull staff either. A magical trinket would fetch a decent price.
After finishing his work, the predator tied the dripping pouch to his waist and left the dark forest.
* * *
He passed through Kaldia’s southern gate again when the afternoon shadows had begun to lengthen.
Lucian went straight into the Mercenary Guild and set his blood-soaked pouch and broken staff on the first-floor counter.
Rina frowned, opened the pouch, and counted the bloodied ears one by one.
“Twenty-one. One of them is a shaman’s ear. You completed this... in a single day?”
Lucian nodded, and Rina’s eyes trembled slightly.
It was hard to tell whether that look held surprise or suspicion that he was telling an outrageous lie.
“Alone?”
“As you can see.”
A brief silence lingered over the counter.
Rina swallowed dryly and scratched a pen across a sheet of parchment.
“I’ll calculate the reward. Twenty ordinary goblins at fifty copper coins each comes to ten silver coins. One shaman is worth five silver coins. Fifteen silver coins total. We’ll appraise this broken staff and offer a separate purchase price afterward.”
Fifteen silver coins.
One and a half gold coins.
It was a fairly tidy sum for a day’s hunt that risked his life.
“And the examination result.”
Rina handed over another sheet bearing a seal.
“Goblin extermination request completed alone. Superior specimen included. Examination result: passed. Your rank is Copper.”
Copper rank.
In this line of work, greenhorns at the bottom normally wore Iron-rank tags and began their careers as meat shields.
Even by Rina’s standards, it was unusual for a newcomer to receive a Copper rank immediately.
“Please return your temporary badge. I’ll exchange it for an official mercenary badge.”
Rina took back the temporary metal plate and handed him a new one, crudely engraved with the Copper character and the name Lucian.
Lucian accepted the badge and tucked it deep inside his clothes.
“I want another request.”
“The request board is over there. You can choose one yourself.”
Lucian pocketed the silver earned with blood and stood before the request board.
Goblin extermination. Ogre subjugation. Magical beast ecology surveys. Merchant caravan escorts.
His cool gaze swept across the countless parchments before stopping on one written in red.
[Ogre sighted. Superior magical beast. Party of at least ten Silver-rank mercenaries recommended. Reward: forty gold coins.]
An ogre. A calamity of the forest, armed with overwhelming mass and destructive power.
The moment Lucian stared at the request, the mana seed below his heart trembled wildly.
The predator’s craving to tear apart greater, higher-quality life force.
But.
Naturally, he did not take that request.
Rush in headfirst, and all he would lose was his head.
Greed that did not know its place was the quickest road to becoming a rotten corpse.
Hunting had to be done steadily, one step at a time, tightening the enemy’s throat.
Instead, he tore down a realistic request suited to his rank.
[Exterminate Beastfolk scout party in the western forest. Small force. Reward: twenty silver coins.]
Lazy afternoon sunlight streamed through the window, casting a long, dark shadow beneath his feet as he turned away without a word.
* * *
The request to eliminate the Beastfolk scout party ended in slaughter within two days.
Five wolfmen stationed at the edge of the western primeval forest. A small unit that appeared to be a scouting party.
He did not know whether they belonged to the same group that had attacked the carriage, but their bloodthirsty savagery was the same.
But the Lucian they had to face was no longer the Lucian he had been then.
He ambushed three of them perfectly in the shadows of the forest.
The first at the nape. The second through the heart. The third at the spine.
Merciless, killing blows that gave them no chance to scream.
When the remaining two realized their comrades were dead and their eyes went bloodshot, Lucian’s silver longsword had already entered their reach.
The fourth swung its scimitar sideways, but Lucian ducked beneath the arc and sliced through the tendons in its forearm before carving into its throat.
Only three movements.
The exhausting battle that would have required at least five exchanges during the carriage escort had become mechanical butchery.
The fifth fled on all fours, terrified and showing its back.
Lucian pursued through the darkness like the wind.
Human legs could not catch a wolf’s four limbs, but the dense trees and brush hampered the creature’s quadrupedal movement.
Lucian slipped into its blind spots and narrowed its escape route. The instant it caught on a bush and hesitated, he drove his sword straight down through its back.
Devouring five.
The experience of beasts flooded into him.
Nourishment of far better quality than goblin fodder.
He felt the circulation of mana inside his body settle another layer deeper and colder.
He cut off the five ears and returned to Kaldia.
Reward: twenty silver coins.
“Alone again?”
Rina frowned while stamping the documents.
“Yes.”
“In only two days?”
“Yes.”
Rina’s formerly businesslike attitude had begun to carry a deep curiosity, as though looking at some strange monster.
“You killed five Beastfolk alone in two days? Normally, at least three Copper-rank mercenaries form a party to hunt Beastfolk.”
Lucian did not answer. He had no reason to explain himself.
“Will you take another request?”
“Tomorrow.”
“New requests have gone up on the board. Take a look.”
And so began the monotonous, desperate repetition of hunting.
Third request. Fifteen goblin stragglers in the southern forest. Wiped out in a day. Reward: eight silver coins.
Fourth request. Investigate and eliminate an unidentified magical beast on the western road.
The creature turned out to be a giant venomous snake four meters long.
The fluid sprayed from its fangs was a dreadful acid that melted skin on contact.
The scales covering its body, except for its head, repeatedly deflected his blade.
If it coiled around him head-on, his bones would be crushed.
Lucian threw branches and carefully observed its attack pattern.
Three missed strikes.
The creature drew its head back, then shot forward in a straight line like a spring.
The moment he threw out a fourth lure and the snake pulled back its head, Lucian slipped in from the side like a beast, aiming for that brief opening.
The silver longsword sank deep into the thin joint of scales at its neck.
Thunk!
The snake convulsed madly and lashed Lucian’s lower body with its enormous tail.
The blow rattled his bones and sent him rolling, but Lucian did not release his sword. He twisted it like a demon.
Dark-red blood burst from the snake’s neck like a fountain, and its huge body convulsed before going limp.
Devouring experience.
The experience absorbed from the snake maximized his physical reflexes.
His ability to read an enemy’s killing intent and trajectory grew chillingly sharp.
And there was one more strange trophy.
Resistance to the snake’s deadly venom.
He felt faint but undeniable antibodies forming throughout his skin and blood vessels.
When he slaughtered an enemy, even that enemy’s fundamental traits were engraved into his body.
The violent system of a game’s “resistance skill” manifested in this world as the forced evolution of his immune system.
He cut off and collected the snake’s head, then separately sold its venom sac and scales to a leather merchant.
Twenty-five silver coins in total. More than enough for a day’s pay.
Fifth request. Repel a squad of eight orcs in the eastern hills.
This one took two days.
Even as low-ranking magical beasts, orcs possessed enough brute endurance and muscle to easily overwhelm a human warrior.
He beheaded two in an ambush, but the open battle against the remaining six was truly desperate.
Lucian used the terrain.
He lured them into a narrow ravine between the hills, creating a bottleneck where no more than two could swing their axes at once.
A muddy bloodbath lasting half a day.
Dodging, deflecting, giving flesh, piercing bone. Butchery repeated again and again.
After cutting down all six, Lucian engraved two cruel truths into his body.
First. The fundamental limits of physical stamina.
Mana could delay the point of exhaustion, but if a desperate battle dragged on, his muscle fibers still screamed as though they would tear apart.
When he split the final orc’s skull, Lucian’s legs gave out, and the arm holding his sword convulsed.
Second. A violent new use for mana.
At the desperate moment when his stamina was completely drained and his legs were about to buckle, mana from his dantian unconsciously surged madly into the muscles of his lower body.
It lasted only an instant, but mana-infused muscle fibers expanded explosively and forcibly squeezed out the destructive power needed for one final blow.
Rather than only channeling mana into his sword, he had found a technique to force it into his body as a buff, physical enhancement.
He still could not consciously control it perfectly, but he had grasped the first clue to twisting the rules of battle as a magic swordsman.
Reward: thirty silver coins. The accumulated silver was beginning to weigh down his pouch.
* * *
Ten days passed.
Lucian completed five requests at the Kaldia Mercenary Guild. All were solo assignments. All were perfectly handled within the time limit.
“This is... insane. A Copper-rank mercenary completing five requests alone in ten days? I’ve never seen anything like it, even in the guild records.”
Rina spoke without hiding her shock, but Lucian remained indifferent.
It was not as though he had desperately rushed himself.
As the number of killings increased, accumulated experience had simply stripped away the wasted movements in battle with mechanical efficiency.
Waste disappeared from the path of his sword, and his judgment when entering an enemy’s blind spots reached monstrous speed.
Even without conscious thought, mana gathered along the blade of his silver longsword and increased its hardness. In moments of danger, mana pumped into his muscles and forcibly drove his body.
The evolution of his senses was equally chilling.
His night vision could read bloodstains in darkness, while his hearing caught the sharp crack of a snapping branch fifty paces away.
Those senses were what pushed the success rate of his ambushes to the limit.
No status window text appeared before him.
He had no way of knowing his level or the rank of his skills.
But the veins pulsing beneath his skin proved it.
The Lucian covered in blood today was overwhelmingly stronger than the Lucian of yesterday.
His sword had become light as a feather, his footwork cold as a ghost’s, and the eyes that read killing intent deep as an abyss.
It could not be quantified, but it was a brutal and certain process of evolution.
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