Chapter 100
Aden faced Niketa, who had been waiting in the innermost room of the mansion.
Her snow-white hair and piercingly clear blue eyes were as impressive as ever.
“It’s been a while, Aden-nim.”
She greeted Aden with a bright, joyful smile.
He got chills hearing the Silver Witch’s friendly voice calling him “Aden-nim.”
‘I’m afraid she might appear in my dreams.’
It was a side of her he had never seen when she was cold and aloof.
Even when he asked her to speak comfortably, she stubbornly insisted on the honorifics.
For now, he hid his discomfort and asked her.
“……Is the expansion of your influence going well?”
“Yes. Thanks to the information you provided, Aden-nim, we have taken control of 80% of the underworld.”
Aden had given her a few pieces of future information he knew and the locations of several Chaos Warlock branches.
With her originally excellent abilities, she quickly took over the underworld faster than the future he knew, and her influence extended to the surface world as well.
“Thanks to knowing in advance about the drought in the Varken territory, we also made a great profit through the merchants. Thank you.”
There was no suspicion about how he knew such information.
Her demeanor was filled with trust and belief.
Who would believe that this woman was the leader of the Warlock organization and the ruler of the underworld?
Of course, he knew.
She reacted this way because she believed Aden was the incarnation of the Underlord.
But the gap between this understanding and his past life made him uneasy.
‘No, maybe this is her true nature.’
The last descendant of an ancient kingdom.
The sole inheritor of death and darkness.
She was the leader and queen of the Warlocks.
Thus, the woman Aden knew in his past life was always cold and aloof.
A lone flower blooming on a cliff, filled with poison and thorns.
It was just that he had never seen beneath her mask of a thorough ruler, and this might be her true self now.
He felt a bit guilty, as if he had cheated to peek at someone’s secrets.
Curse found this absurd.
-You, of all people? The one who naturally deceives and backstabs to the point of killing Sword Masters?
‘Shut up.’
He silenced Curse in his mind and got to the point.
“So, what is Silbeta Sias up to lately?”
Aden had her investigate the movements of Silbeta and his close associates, as well as the rest of the group.
At this, she finally put on a cold expression familiar to Aden, fitting of the Silver Witch.
“In the past month, the bases suspected to be connected to Sias have either been eliminated or withdrawn. It seems they are feeling a sense of crisis.”
The failed terror at the Imperial Banquet, the thwarting of the Sacred Fire Order’s puppetization, the destruction of the base in the Forest of Death, and the collapse of the Umbra Guild.
Seeing all these failures, she inferred that Silbeta was currently laying low.
When listed out, there were indeed many crazy actions related to Silbeta.
“And it seems there are signs of discord between the Chaos guys and the Thunder Knights.”
“Of course.”
Aden must have eliminated over two hundred Warlocks in his actions so far.
No matter how numerous Warlocks were, like cockroaches, it would have been a significant blow to them.
‘Considering the Red Knight in Yulikan City was talking to a Warlock, it seemed they were in a horizontal alliance rather than a subordinate relationship with Silbeta.’
They must have formed an alliance for mutual interests.
But the losses outweighed the gains from the alliance, causing cracks to form.
“Do you think they’ve figured out it’s my doing?”
She shook her head.
“That seems unlikely.”
At the Imperial Banquet, it was Dayer who captured Leonberger.
In the Sacred Fire Order, the Vice-Cult Leader’s identity was revealed through the testimony of the Leader, executed by the Inquisitor.
In the Forest of Death, those who could gather information were wiped out by the monster rush Aden caused, and the Umbra Guild’s collapse was attributed to the Maedala Guild.
Niketa’s lips curved into a pleased smile.
“As expected of our lord, no, Aden-nim. Personally dealing with such repulsive heretics. Truly worthy of the noble Underlord.”
“…….”
-Huh, she really knows something. I like this Warlock.
‘Shut up, it’s annoying.’
She believed Aden to be the incarnation of the Underlord.
She firmly believed he had appeared on this land to punish the filthy heretics and restore the orthodoxy of Warlock magic.
Of course, it wasn’t because Aden said so; she just assumed that by herself.
Looking at the facets of his actions, it was an understandable mistake.
“More importantly, how is the task I asked for?”
“Yes, I have it ready here.”
Niketa pulled away the curtain covering an object on the nearby table.
There lay chunks of metal resembling the night sky.
Pure black like pitch darkness.
Within the black light, there was a silvery sparkle like stardust.
The metal embodied the starry night, exuding an elegant presence like fragments freshly fallen from the dark night.
Niketa wore a proud and satisfied expression.
“Here are the seven pieces of Stellanium you requested, Aden-nim.”
Stellanium.
The decisive reason Aden had come to meet Niketa at the Warlock branch this time.
* * *
Stellanium, called a legendary metal, had strength comparable to Adamantium and conductivity and amplification of energy that surpassed any magical metal.
Mixing Stellanium with steel to make armor would create the finest armor, and forging a sword from it could produce a magic sword comparable to the 72 Great Swords.
Naturally, Stellanium was highly coveted.
But on this land, Stellanium was so rare that it could be mined only by sheer luck.
It was a treasure hard to obtain even with a fortune.
The value of just one piece of Stellanium in front of him was enough to buy ten mansions.
Aden smiled with satisfaction.
“It’s a precious material. Thank you.”
Niketa waved it off as if it were nothing.
“It’s nothing. If you need more, I can quickly fetch high-quality ones from the floating island of Shamayim.”
The floating island of Shamayim.
A complex aggregate of techniques and magical knowledge, it floated hidden somewhere in the sky, concealed by a barrier.
It was the sanctuary and last bastion of the Warlocks belonging to Florence’s Fire.
In the past life, the reason Warlocks could fight against the mighty empire and four great territories for so long was because they couldn’t conquer the floating island of Shamayim.
‘The barrier around Shamayim could nullify even combined attacks from Archmage Shaura and high-ranking mages.’
And one of the factors that enabled the powerful barrier was Stellanium.
The floating island Shamayim was fundamentally composed of that precious Stellanium.
The techniques engraved on the Stellanium amplified and maintained the strong barrier and the floating ability.
Aden wore a wry smile.
“Is it really okay to take pieces so recklessly?”
“This much is just crumbs, so don’t worry about it.”
“Alright, then I’ll gratefully accept it.”
Aden had one reason for requesting Stellanium from her.
‘I need to make my own armor now.’
Armor optimized for his body and the most robust.
He had the finest sword, Baalzebul, but no armor.
To carry out his future plans, having such a fine armor would be a significant factor.
He had already gathered all the necessary materials, and now he had acquired plenty of the best material, Stellanium.
‘With this much, I can make armor not just an alloy but entirely of Stellanium.’
Thinking of the new armor made him smile.
‘Now I have all the materials.’
What he needed now was just one thing.
‘A skilled blacksmith to forge the armor.’
Fortunately, he knew just the right old man.
* * *
Aden walked through an especially deserted alley in Sias.
While the main street was crowded with people, the narrow alleyways were nearly empty.
Aden wandered the intricate, web-like paths.
“Not here either. Should I move on to the next alley?”
After wandering for several hours, Curse, bored, started talking.
-Where exactly is this skilled blacksmith? You often search for people in these back alleys.
Like with alchemist Cassie and Joseph, Aden often found valuable talents in back alleys.
“It’s just a coincidence.”
Among the skilled people he knew, those he could recruit and utilize often lived in secluded, shady places.
‘In that sense, the person I’m looking for now is an especially eccentric recluse among the reclusive eccentrics.’
But this old man was reliable in terms of skill.
‘And there’s one error in what you said.’
-Error?
‘The person I’m looking for isn’t human.’
At that moment, Aden finally saw the object he was searching for.
A decrepit, shabby door stood at the dead end of the alley.
The door had an engraving of an anvil and hammer overlapping in a symbol.
“Found it.”
The door’s location varied by time and circumstance.
Aden only knew the rough location of the door in this timeframe.
So he was prepared to spend two days searching, but he found it sooner than expected.
There was a square indent in the door, as if someone had deliberately carved it out.
Aden inserted the platinum plaque he had received from the Maedala Mercenary Guild into the indent.
Click.
It fit perfectly, as if it had always been part of the door.
Bang, bang, clang.
Faint hammering sounds began to emanate from beyond the door.
A bizarre phenomenon.
But Aden, treating it as a matter
of course, nonchalantly grabbed the door’s handle and opened it.
With a creak, the door opened, and Aden stepped inside.
Ordinarily, opening the door would reveal just a wall.
But this time, the outcome was different.
Bang, bang, clang!
The hammering sounds continued.
Upon entering, the warm air made his body feel hot.
Spears, ballistae, daggers, claymores, two-handed swords, rapiers… Hundreds, thousands of weapons were displayed on the walls of the vast workshop.
-Is it subspace magic?
Manipulating space was an ability forbidden to humans.
It indicated that the workshop’s owner was not human.
Bang, bang, clang…!
Whew, whew.
The rhythmic hammering carried a peculiar and heavy resonance, creating a bewitching sound one wanted to keep hearing, and the occasional sound of bellows harmonized with it.
The noise, just typical of a blacksmith’s workshop, held such a profound weight that it felt like listening to a performance.
Thud.
The seemingly endless symphony of hammering finally ceased.
Then, with steam still seeping out, the door opposite burst open roughly, and someone popped out.
“Damn it! What bastard has come now?”
A short, stocky figure the size of a child.
White hair, a stubborn-looking face.
Short, pointy ears that clearly indicated he wasn’t human.
A small old man holding a hammer glared at Aden with a cigarette in his mouth.
“Huh? What’s this pretty boy?”
“Blacksmith Hetos.”
Hetos, the dwarf blacksmith.
He had crafted weapons for successive Mercenary Kings and some of the top ten S-rank mercenaries.
Aden greeted the cantankerous old man, Hetos, with shamelessness.
“I’m here to commission a weapon.”