Chapter 297
The sweltering heat, the scent of sweat, and the harmonious sound of hammering metal reverberated throughout Muka’s personal workshop in Ferrum. It was small for the workshop of an A-rank artisan, of which there were only a hundred, but it had everything it needed.
“Oh, you’re here. You can take that,” Muka said, continuing to hammer the metal without even looking at Seong-Hwi.
“Are you busy?” Seong-Hwi asked.
“Hmph, I sure am! Just like you, who never came to visit all this time!”
Just then, Bulgasal started eating the refined iron bars in the corner of the workshop.
Pwooaaahh! Daddy! This place is heaven!
“Huh?! What do you think you’re doing, you crazy elephant?!” Muka shouted in shock and threw his steel hammer at Bulgasal.
Pwoo? Is that a snack?
Bulgasal caught the hammer with its trunk and ate it.
“Gaaaaahhh! My hammer! Cheon Seong-Hwi, you bastard! Is this how you repay me? Stop that thing!”
“I thought you couldn’t see me,” Seong-Hwi said.
“I see you! I can see you, you son of a bitch!”
Seong-Hwi snickered and said to Bulgasal, “Spit it all out, Bulgie.”
Pweeehh! No way!
“Ahem!”
Pweeeeehhh! You don’t let me eat your dreams, and now you don’t even let me eat metal! Daddy, you idiot! Mongrel! Sea anemone! Thumper! Echo!
Bulgasal sprawled on the floor and cried as it hit the floor with its trunk.
“I’ll let you eat as much metal as you want in the underwater city,” Seong-Hwi said.
Bweeehh! Really?
“Yup, of course.”
He didn’t know whether Gurzes had metal that would satisfy Bulgasal, but he would pacify first and find out later.
“Argh, dammit. Just keep what you ate! Take this, too!” Muka said as he approached them, placing a silver plate on the work table.
“It’s only been half a month since I sent it to you through Lord Bafor, but it’s already repaired? Thanks, Muka. This thing saved me many times over,” Seong-Hwi said as he grabbed the Steel Tortoise Heart Guard and wore it.
He was telling the truth. Even during the war, Haema Sanguis’s blood spear would have pierced his heart if not for it.
“Ahem, is that so? Ahem, that’s a relief,” Muka said, stroking his beard that reached his belly button, as he feigned coughing.
It was the joy of an artisan to hear that their equipment had helped the user, even more so since the user was Seong-Hwi, a brother who had saved him from the Tin Can.
“Gahaha! Since I’m in a good mood, you can take this, too. I heard you broke the Titanic Tide Kris. I have this weapon lying around, so you can have it.”
Muka handed him a dagger on his work table. Seong-Hwi accepted the dagger and took it out of its scabbard, revealing an unsettling black blade. It was a triangular blade, roughly fifty centimeters long. It could slash, but it was more specialized for thrusting.
[Knox Stiletto (Item)
Rank: F(0)
Description: A stiletto made by Muka of the Red Hammer tribe, mainly using graphite steel, janateel, and mukateel. It was made for Cheon Seong-Hwi, and a special skill is available when equipped by him.
Skill: Night Thrust]
...
[Night Thrust (Item Skill)
Rank: Shared - F(0)
Description: A strike that pierces even the night. Mana concentrates at the tip of the blade.]
Seong-Hwi inserted his index finger inside the ring on the Knox Stiletto’s pommel and spun it. The chilling sound of thousands of bees buzzing echoed.
“A weapon you just happen to have lying around has a ring on its pommel? Nice,” he said.
“Ahem, is that so?”
“And it fits my finger just right, too.”
“Ahem, what a shocking coincidence.”
Muka continued to twirl his beard around his finger and feign coughing. Seong-Hwi could tell just from the Akasha Messages that Muka had devoted himself to making the Knox Stiletto just for him.
He smirked and said, “Thanks.”
“It’s nothing. You’re going to Gurzes, aren’t you? You’ll have a hard time slashing the merfolk’s scales. It’s more effective to concentrate your power into one point and thrust like a harpoon.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Seong-Hwi placed the Knox Stiletto back into his scabbard and placed it at his waist. The uncomfortable feeling of having nothing there disappeared.
“Lastly, take this. Jurie asked me to prepare it,” Muka said, grabbing a light blue ring on his work table and flicking it at Seong-Hwi.
[Pneuma’s Ring (Artifact)
Rank: C(99)
Description: A ring imbued with Pneuma’s breath. It allows for breathing and conversations underwater.]
“Oh, I can’t believe you managed to get this. Thanks,” Seong-Hwi said with a smile as he wore Pneuma’s Ring.
Gurzes was an underwater city. Since he did not have gills like the merfolk, he needed an item or skill for survival underwater. Based on the artifact’s description, it allowed him to breathe and talk underwater. Such items were in high demand, making them significantly difficult to obtain.
“Thank Jurie, not me. She cares deeply for you,” Muka remarked.
Seong-Hwi nodded and replied, “So do I. That’s why I left her a gift.”
***
Jurie’s blue eyes blinked dumbfoundedly, staring at the uninvited guests standing in her office. An Asian man with a missing right arm stood in the middle. He had a few grey hairs, making him seem roughly in his sixties, and was covered in scars likely from various trials and tribulations in life.
On his left was a kind-looking man. He wore a kippah, a traditional Jewish skullcap, making him look like a rabbi, and held a wine cabinet decorated with a grapevine design. On the Asian man’s right was a middle-aged European man who looked unfriendly and gloomy, staring intently at Jurie as if surveilling her.
“So, you’re saying... Seong-Hwi sent you here?” Jurie asked.
“Gehehe, that’s right. My name is Zhao Benshan. On my left is Havela, and on my right is Emil Mielke.”
“What are you all to Seong-Hwi?”
“We are his Children.”
“What?”
“He is our light, our master, and our benefactor who taught us the joy of subservience.”
Jurie remained silent, feeling like she was going crazy from the grown man’s odd style of speech.
“My lady, we cannot let such people reeking of bloodlust into the Fence for the Lambs,” whispered Gerard, holding his Steel Piano Wire behind his back, from behind Jurie.
What is the meaning of this, Cheon Seong-Hwi?! Why would you send such dangerous men to Lady Jurie? he thought.
He could instinctively tell that the three men before him were extremely dangerous. He couldn’t guarantee Jurie’s safety if the three of them were to attack simultaneously. He slowly began to draw out his new power.
“But... If Seong-Hwi sent them, he must have had a reason to,” Jurie remarked.
“That is correct. The Parent has commanded us to follow your orders, whatever they may be,” Havela replied with a kind smile.
“You’ll follow my orders?” Jurie asked.
The three men replied one after the other.
“Correct.”
“Gehehe, we Children couldn’t be happier to follow our Parent’s command.”
“We want to be of help.”
Jurie turned to Gerard, whose eyes had turned blood-red.
Gramps is wary of them, meaning they are powerful! she thought.
The Fence for the Lambs had been lacking personnel after its expansion. If viable, she wanted all the help she could get. She believed they would be helpful somehow, like the Maasai people, with whom she still maintained a cooperative relationship.
“Ahem, then let us begin the interview. Can you tell me each of your specialties?” Jurie asked with a smile.
The impetuous Benshan clenched his left fist and instantly replied, “Geheh! I am very good at killing people. If you have anyone you wish to be killed, just say the word!”
Jurie blinked, then nodded blankly. “I-I see. Good at... killing people. Great! That can also mean you are good at protecting people!”
She used her signature optimistic mindset to interpret Benshan’s words differently.
“Protecting? I am better at such duties than this one-armed bastard,” Havela jumped in as he mocked Benshan.
“What’d you say? All you do is control a fucking ghost! I control a malevolent beast!”
“Have you seen a ghost as capable as mine? Dybbuk can also distinguish truths from lies.”
“Hah! You mean the trash skill that couldn’t see through Lee Bong-Seong?”
“What did you say?”
“W-wait! Please calm down!” Jurie tried to pacify Benshan and Havela as they were about to fight.
They then instantly froze like machines as if they had been inputted a command code to do so, and stood at attention toward Jurie again.
“Understood.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What in the... Phew. What has Seong-Hwi been going around doing?” Jurie sighed as she swept back her blonde hair and turned to the remaining man. “Your name was... Emil Mielke, was it?”
“That is right,” Emil replied.
“You must be from Germany. What can you do?”
“I am the leader of Clan Spy, so I naturally gather information.”
Jurie’s blue eyes flashed. “You gather information?”
“We cannot gather information over a widespread area like the Network allows, but no one has us beat in gathering high-quality information from the inner zones. Our clansmen join the clans of other races and collect information that trickles down from them.”
“Information from the inner zones?!” Jurie shouted as she sprang out of her chair.
It was exactly what she had been lacking.
“Yes. In their clans, our clansmen are practically slaves who handle menial tasks because of the limitations of simply being human. However, such positions are actually better for collecting information from the inner zones.”
“I-it’s perfect! But... Clan Spy? I’ve never heard of such a clan.”
“We are not a known clan because we don’t use the Network.”
A fanfare of joy was going off inside Jurie’s head. She had been frustrated lately, exactly because she lacked information from the inner zones. If this man were telling the truth, it would supplement the Network’s biggest flaw.
“Seong-Hwi, you lovable bastard! Thank you so much!” Jurie shouted, jumping in place as she clapped.
Gerard, who had been staring at the three men disapprovingly, sighed once he saw Jurie’s attitude.
I suppose we can’t chase them out, he thought.
***
Gurzes was an underwater city located in the deep abyss. The swaying seagrass shone, iridescently illuminating the dark abyss. However, the turbulent atmosphere in South Merfolk Town, much further south from Central Merfolk Town, where the Ocean King’s Castle was, made it seem like something terrible was about to break out.
“There was another murder!’
“A dozen have died today alone!”
“By fellow merfolk, no less!”
“Fellow merfolk? Fucking nonsense! Those ganoid scale bastards are no longer part of the merfolk!”
“Those fucking pisciceps!”
“I’ll rip off their goddamn scales!”
The merfolk screamed their desires for revenge, their eyes bloodshot. At the center of South Merfolk Town was the bone of a giant creature. It was an insanely large shark’s tooth, large enough to have made a building out of it. The people of South Merfolk Town respectfully called it the Shark’s Nest.
A large, dark-blue male merfolk sat on an extravagant throne made with unidentifiable bones, deep inside the Shark’s Nest. He rested his chin on his hand with his sharp teeth exposed, and a shark fin was sprouting from his muscly back. His long, untied white hair and his bloodlust-filled red eyes seemed to show his personality, and his skin was spiky as if fangs were growing out of it.
Once he removed his chin from his hand and let his arm rest, his dark-blue scales pulsed threateningly.
“Say that again,” he said.
“Yes, Father. Natantes has requested help from the Sēmen,” said a shark merfolk standing across from the throne.
He was smaller than the man on the throne and had black hair, but looked identical to him. His name was Otodus, Carcharocles’s second son.
“The Sēmen?”
“Yes. He claims we of the placoid scale tribe are rebels trying to cause a civil war.”
“Kekekek!” cackled Carcharocles, the Ghost Tooth, one of the two pillars that supported Pontus alongside Natantes, as he stared at his son. “Kahahahaha! How laughable, Natantes! Your ganoid scale tribe was the one who started the merfolk hunt first!”
Sharp bloodlust filled Carcharocles’s red eyes. He did not expect that taking responsibility for Ocean King Squama’s death and resigning from the position of supreme commander would lead to this atrocity.
“Do you want to wipe out the placoid scale tribe so badly that you would even involve the Sēmen, whom we have distanced ourselves from? Bastard! Natantes!!!” he screamed as he gripped the bone throne tightly, his tooth-like scales grinding the throne. He then asked, “Which consul is coming?”
“The thing is... It is not a consul.”
“What?”
“Someone known as an inspector is coming.”
Otodus replied, “It is a position the Sēmen has newly made. From what I have heard... they have the right to investigate whether one has violated the World Law, and the right to expel them from the Sēmen.”
“Right to expel?” Carcharocles asked, his eyes widening.
The First Lord, Grandis, bestowed that kind of absurd authority on an individual? he thought.
“Father, we know what the ganoid scales are scheming now. They’re going to have that inspector investigate us placoid scales and expel us from the Sēmen to secure justification for their massacre!” Otodus shouted.
Being expelled from the Sēmen meant that they were made a common enemy, becoming isolated from the Mirror World and unable to request a trial even if they were wronged.
“Natantes! Would you go so far?!” Carcharocles’s dark blue scales rose like a hedgehog’s spines. “And where is this inspector right now?”
“He is on his way to Gurzes.”
“We must not let him arrive! Stop him!”
It would be over for the placoid scales if the inspector arrived and expelled them from the Sēmen. Regardless of the truth, every resident of Gurzes would turn against them.
“Yes, Father!” Otodus responded with a determined attitude.
Carcharocles rose from his bone throne and shouted, “We will strike before they have their way! Very well, Natantes! Let us go all the way to the end. Placoid scale tribesmen! Prepare for war!”
His thunderous voice echoed throughout the Shark’s Nest.