76. A Tiger Leaves Its Hide When It Dies, And A Man… (2)

“Are we swapping out the bones again this time?”
“That procedure too. And there’s somewhere else I’ve got a use for it.”

The first stage of the procedure ran identical to the one that had remade Jo Seungcheol into a Dark Minion, swapping a few of the bones out for Lumps of Iron Steeped in Obsession.

Midway through carving the mana circuits into the iron, Shin Junseok let out a low hum.

“Is this the right orientation? It’s different from last time.”
“So you remember.”
“For some reason everything you tell me to do, business partner, sticks in my head.”
“Keep this up and you’ll have walked off with all my know-how.”
“Is that allowed?”

At Shin Junseok’s joke, Yujin gave a chuckle and parted his lips again.

“We’re going to synchronize the flow of spirit-power with the outside.”
“By the outside, you mean…? Ah!”

Quick on the uptake. I like that.

The brilliance to grasp ten things from a single lesson, and an eagerness to learn that brimmed over besides; it made a man want to teach. A fine alchemy sl… no. Partner.

“The outside?”
“He’s gonna be hanging onto thin air or somethin’, I reckon.”

The Scraps shook their heads, faces baffled.

Watch and you’ll find out.

Once all the mana-focusing circuits had been carved, Yujin this time set down two cheap iron swords and a single suit of armor he’d bought at the Hunter market.

“Can you replicate these?”
“Child’s play.”

Analysis was a basic alchemy skill Yujin had picked up as well.

He grasped the form and structure of the two iron swords and the armor with his mana.

Shin Junseok infused mana into the now-softened Lumps of Iron Steeped in Obsession and, modeling the structures of the weapons and armor he’d etched into his mind, wove them into identical forms. The technique reached into metal and molded it however the user willed. For all its difficulty, he finished replicating the iron swords and armor without a hair’s breadth of error.

“A novel experience, this. Replicating objects.”
“Splendid. The finish is good enough to make me doubt this is your first attempt.”

Yujin gripped one of the replicated iron swords and let out an unstinting cry of admiration.

“What? You can copy items?”
“Should’ve gone in for alchemy myself, I’m tellin’ ya.”

When Kang Minyeong and Lee Seongmin muttered enviously, Shin Junseok shot them a withering look.

“But these weapons. You know they’re useless in a real fight, right?”

Grasping the structure with mana and replicating it down to the last detail was no guarantee the thing would perform to spec. The material itself was different, for one. The iron-refining steps, the quenching and the casting alike, had all been skipped, and the mana circuits essential to any Hunter-grade weapon had never been embedded either.

“Swing one around without a thought and it’ll snap clean in two on the spot.”
“Nothing comes easy, does it.”
“Bro. You talk like you weren’t thinking the exact same thing.”
“Hmph. I don’t follow your meaning.”
“Senior. Don’t go weaseling out on your own, that’s just dirty.”

The two of them roped Kang Minho down to their own level.

Yujin gave a snort of a laugh, then had Shin Junseok’s replicated iron swords and armor fitted onto Song Myeongseok.

The armor and iron swords had been forged from the Lumps of Iron Steeped in Obsession, and circuits now linked the swapped-in bones. The moment the Reinforcement Circuit was carved, he poured spirit-power straight in.

— Sssht—!

With the momentum of a raging tide, the spirit-power took the mana-focusing array as its apex and circulated through every part of Song Myeongseok’s bones, the same reaction he’d seen when Jo Seungcheol was promoted to a Dark Minion.

Can’t have it ending here.

He nudged the infused spirit-power slightly upward. The Reinforcement Circuit threaded into the armor at the shoulders carried it along naturally, and it circulated through the armor, rode down the opposite shoulder, and crossed back into bone. The twin swords in his hands were no different. The spirit-power had come to recognize the ‘iron swords’ and the ‘armor’ as parts of Song Myeongseok’s body too.

If I’m not going to arm him with Unique-grade artifacts, this is the best there is.

The Lumps of Iron Steeped in Obsession had good synergy with undead. The crux of the procedure lay in getting Song Myeongseok’s soul to claim the scraps of metal, no, the armaments, that Metal Transmutation had shaped as its own flesh.

Get past that, and…

Cha-chak— cha-chak—.

The armor laid over his shoulder blades, linked by the Reinforcement Circuit, deformed to fit Song Myeongseok’s frame, and the swords gripped in his hands, or more precisely part of the sword-shaped metal scraps, soaked inward and reshaped into knightly gauntlets.

Fwooosh—!

Where the pupils should have been, blue ghost-fire blazed.

The promotion was proof that it had risen beyond a low-grade undead into a mid-grade undead possessed of a ‘self.’

“Do you recognize me?”

— Cheon Yujin.

“That’s right. Pleased to meet you. Mister Arahan’s Supernova.”

— Yes. My liege.

The response came a beat slow. Unlike Jo Seungcheol, this one had been raised as undead not long after death, so a residual hostility toward Yujin still clung to it.

“Eh. It’s fine. There’s plenty of time to train you.”

Even if it carried a grudge from its living days, he didn’t mind. Theirs was a cord bound at the soul. However fierce the thing’s will and fury, it could never muster a sturdier mental fortitude than Yujin, who had completed his 9th Stellar Rank.

— Kraaaagh!

The Skeleton Knight (Song Myeongseok) loosed a scream as vivid as a living, breathing human’s.

Rather than touch the bones, Yujin plucked at the directly connected cord of the soul.

“What’s wrong? You’re swaying on your feet.”

— Hngh, hnnngh.

Don’t worry. I won’t be blowing your self away or anything.
What would happen if I stripped the free will from a talent blessed with the aptitude of eight stars? You’d just be left a run-of-the-mill Skeleton Knight A.

“Instead, let’s settle the pecking order good and proper.”

Only one corner of Yujin’s lips twitched, conjuring a sinister smile.

— I pledge my loyalty.

The stray thought rang through the soul. There had been a trifling clash of wills, but Song Myeongseok soon bent his own stubbornness. Down on one knee, he raised his blade until its edge pointed back at himself, the very oath of fealty one would readily picture from a knight, his bearing heavy with dignity.

“Right. Received and accepted.”

The man receiving the oath answered, by contrast, in a flippant tone.

That oath is engraved into the soul. Once he’s already submitted, changing his mind isn’t easy.

Yujin’s grip over the undead was absolute. Short of losing consciousness or suffering some failure of his control faculties, there was no way Song Myeongseok could break the oath he’d just spoken.

Resplendent traits and skills. The Heavenly Bone was famous enough to pass over, but he hadn’t expected an A-grade trait like Twin-Hand Antagonism to be sitting there too.

A trait where the two hands strike and parry against each other. The right hand and left hand can each unfold a different art.

With Twin-Hand Antagonism layered on top of Master of Arms, his choice of dual swords as a specialty made perfect sense. The skills he’d mastered were each as staggering as the last. Even before the regression, Light-Splitting Sword and Flash-Thunder Step had earned Song Myeongseok his infamy as signature techniques, and since there was no way he’d come by them on his own power, they had to be chalked up to Arahan’s investment.

The low proficiency is because the true worth of those two skills is premised on aura usage.

Dual Blade was a tremendously powerful skill in its own right. Truly.

Set against grades this resplendent, the Scraps stood in sharp contrast.

My kids scrape by on D- or E-grade skills at best.

That promising prospect they’d poured money into without sparing a single coin had abruptly dropped dead.

Looking at the skill loadout, I can’t even begin to imagine how bitterly Arahan must mourn Song Myeongseok’s death.

He brought it on himself.

Yujin didn’t trouble himself much over it. The clash with Arahan had come far earlier than it had before the regression, but he’d gained just as much in return. He’d removed a future Guryongbang executive, then revived the corpse into a faithful subordinate. Keep the procedures up diligently, and the aptitude was staggering enough that, like Fafnir, or rather Park Haneul, before the regression, he might rise past Doom Knight all the way to Hell Knight!

Generous friends, every one of them. And I’ve received plenty.
This kindness I’ll keep in mind, long and well, and repay it by giving you a nice, peaceful death.

Bzzzt— bzzzzt—.

Caller — Chairman of Seongcheon Enterprise

Chairman Jin Seonghyeon. About a month earlier, the businessman had commissioned Yujin to save his daughter from Mummification Disease, and ever since the treatment he’d kept up a steady stream of goodwill, passing along intelligence, for one, that Arahan Guild had its eye on Yujin.

“Cheon Yujin speaking.”
“Ah, Saint! First, let me congratulate you on the double gate clear. You weren’t hurt anywhere?”
“Perfectly fine. I’m grateful for your concern.”
“Heh heh. I’d love to meet you in person and hear the war stories… but there’s something I need to tell you, and quickly.”
“It’s about Arahan Guild, I take it.”
“You’ve already guessed. They’re trying to make contact with your team members’ relatives and acquaintances.”

Tsk. The monotonous bastard. The pattern never changes.

He’d experienced this approach of Arahan’s to death before the regression. When a target stayed lukewarm about joining, they’d rattle them by scattering capital among the people in their orbit, enough, at least, to drag the Hunter they wanted out to the negotiating table.

“That much is fine. Let me know when they move on to the next stage.”
“By the next, you mean…”
“When the Rakshasa Guild makes its move.”
“You knew about even that?”
“I happen to have a fair amount of trivia.”

The Rakshasa Guild. A guild in name, but in truth a criminal syndicate notorious the length of Korea, a vicious Busan outfit that drew no lines on the kind of work it took so long as the money was good.

The truth is, it’s an organization the Arahan vice-president raised himself.

In the present age, vanishingly few people knew of the tie between Arahan and the Rakshasa. Even Chairman Jin Seonghyeon had barely managed to confirm it, top-secret as it was, through the Madam.

“Right enough. With that girl rating you so highly, Saint, of course you’d know.”

Yujin didn’t bother to correct Chairman Jin’s misunderstanding. There was no need to spell out that his source was his own future self.

“Let me know when that time comes.”
“It pleases me no end to be able to help you, Saint.”
“I’ll be counting on you.”

Click—.

Nothing major will happen for now.

For now the Rakshasa Guild only had to stay put. The relatives Arahan bought off would stir up some heartache, but nothing that rose to a matter of life and death.

I’d been meaning to drop by that quarter myself before long anyway. Good timing.

In this life too, his relationship with Arahan Guild had passed the point of repair. They no doubt reckoned the gap in power was plain as day. But there was no need to fight head-on when the weight classes sat this far apart.

I’ll gnaw away at you, bit by bit.

The knowledge and the power of the future. They wouldn’t even know who was beating them as their strength drained clean away.

Yujin chuckled.

Crash—!

A whirlwind of mana gusted up from the center of the room and shattered the window into countless pieces. A monstrous killing intent lived in the materialized mana. Caught in the blue storm, chair and desk alike were torn apart, no exception.

Krgch—.

When even the nameplate that read Arahan Guild Vice-President, Baek Seonghyeon had been split into dozens of fragments, the eyes of the man who’d raised the mana storm sank cold.

Cheon Yujin. That man has ruined everything.

The double gate, conjured by borrowing House Romanov’s power. There had been no variables. Jang Miseon might have edged out Song Myeongseok in a recent duel, but a sheet of paper separated the two in skill, and with the double gate’s monsters thrown into the mix, the outcome had been a foregone conclusion.

The sum the guild invested in Song Myeongseok, and yet —

The A-grade skills Light-Splitting Sword and Flash-Thunder Step. Everything they’d sunk in after marking Song Myeongseok’s talent had vanished like foam on water.

The official report? Baek Seonghyeon didn’t believe a single word of the well-dressed nonsense.

A laughable story. Since when was Song Myeongseok a righteous man?

Song Myeongseok’s image had been shaped partly by the man himself and partly manufactured at the guild level. The ambition that writhed behind those forever-smiling eyes was something Baek Seonghyeon had caught on to long ago.

This being how things stand, I’ll feel out the people around them, and if that fails, I’ll have to use the next means.

Cheon Yujin was a super-rookie who outstripped even Song Myeongseok. Let a talent who’d overwhelmed even one born with the aptitude of the Martial King keep growing, and he would become an enormous threat to the road ahead for Arahan Guild.

Knock knock knock—.

“Vice-President. The visitor from House Romanov has arrived.”
“Show them in.”

The secretary who opened the door started to gasp, huk, then clapped a hand over her mouth. There was little in the room left intact. Chair, desk, flowerpot, PC, every last thing swept up in the blue current and split apart.

A middle-aged man with yellow hair and blue eyes, a striking crow tattoo inked into pale skin, smiled faintly.

“You seem quite worked up.”
“My discipline is lacking. Forgive me for showing you such an unsightly scene.”
“Not at all. Is venting one’s emotions not also part of the pursuit of a higher Stellar Rank?”

The visitor from House Romanov. The very man who’d created the double gate in Daegu at Arahan Guild’s request snapped his fingers.

A 3rd-Rank spell that turned aside projectiles with a membrane of wind. He had unfolded it with a single snap of the fingers, no incantation, no mana realignment. Watching the wind membrane wrap the room, Baek Seonghyeon swallowed a low hum.

This is no simple silent-casting.

The man had reached into the very structure of the wind membrane, shaping it to wrap the room so that not a sound could leak out. Truly, the house of the Sorcerer King Dmitri was in a class of its own. A bottomless depth of strength, the kind that sent a chill crawling up his skin.

“I’ve cut off any chance of our conversation leaking out.”
“My thanks.”
“So then… you failed to recover the key from the double gate?”
“It was destroyed at the hands of Phoenix.”
“A regrettable thing.”

The man let out a short sigh.

The red crystal drawn from the core of the double gate. Prized even within the House, it was something that should have been recovered without fail.

“Understood.”
“You’re leaving right away?”
“Yes. I must report this matter to the Head of the House.”

Baek Seonghyeon’s brow twitched.

Arahan Guild had been quietly keeping a line open to House Romanov, and the loss of the red crystal would, beyond any doubt, gnaw at the guild’s standing in its dealings with the House for a long time to come.

“Until we meet again, may you keep well.”

The visitor from House Romanov turned on his heel and walked out.

And yet Baek Seonghyeon could not call him back. Where on earth was he to find a replacement for a red crystal already destroyed?

Cheon Yujin…!!

In the end, Baek Seonghyeon muttered the name at the root of this whole affair once more, and choked his fury back down.