Iron Fortress, Forging District.
"Clang! Crash! Boom!!"
Hundreds of discordant tallic shrieks intertwined, the cacophony piercing through every corner of the district. Inside the newly erected, massive foundry, hundreds of Tier 3 Skeletons were forging with a fanaticism bordering on religious fervor. They swung heavy iron hamrs, their sole focus being the glowing tal slabs on their anvils.
Sparks erupted like fireworks throughout the factory.
One hamr, swung with too much force, missed the center and struck the edge of the anvil. The white-hot tal slab spun into the air like a lethal frisbee, splashed into a nearby cooling vat, and sent up a plu of scalding steam.
Another hamr missed its mark entirely. Carried by its own montum, it swung in a full circle and smashed into the user's own shin bone with a sickening crack. The skeleton looked down at its shattered tibia, nonchalantly snapped it back into place, and resud hamring.
Elsewhere, two skeletons working side-by-side saw their hamrs collide in mid-air. The massive recoil sent both skeletal apprentices flying backward. Their hamrs escaped their grip—one went spinning through the roof, leaving a jagged hole, while the other whistled toward the central high platform.
Paul was on that platform, putting the finishing touches on a red-hot breastplate. Hearing the wind behind him, he didn't even look back. He simply sidestepped to the left by a single pace. The hamr flew past him and embedded itself deep into a stone wall.
"I've told you! Confirm the trajectory before you swing! No un-telegraphed free-swinging!" Paul roared.
His face held no anger, only a burning passion. Before him was a mountain of iron ore; behind him were countless apprentices. For a blacksmith, this was the Kingdom of God.
"The curve! A breastplate needs a curve to deflect impacts! I didn't tell you to flatten it into a pot lid!" Paul yelled at one skeleton. "And you! That's an arm guard, not an iron pipe! Do you want the soldier's hand to get stuck inside forever?!"
Paul shifted his weight, feeling the reassuring rigidity from behind. A pair of undergarnts forged from pure iron hugged his body, providing absolute physical defense. This was his most important invention since arriving at Iron Fortress—a product of a very painful lesson.
Just yesterday, as Paul was rushing to save a skeleton that was trying to use its own skull as a helt mold, a strange sound had co from behind him.
"Sizzle—"
The sll of scorched at accompanied a thin wisp of smoke. Paul's body froze. Slowly, inch by inch, he looked down at his own backside. A skeletal apprentice was holding a red-hot iron rod against him.
Greed had placed a [Blood Protection] on the humans—a defensive ward that activated during lethal strikes. It could withstand any attack below Tier 2, but it wasn't perfect against "minor" accidents.
"You..." Paul's voice had trembled.
"Test," the skeletal apprentice had answered succinctly.
A second later, Paul had exploded. "Guards! Guards! Seize him! Bury him! Send him to the Re-education Zone imdiately!!"
Since then, "Iron Briefs" had beco standard equipnt in the Forging District. At least for Paul.
Kaito had given Paul no production quotas. He knew that expecting a country blacksmith and a bunch of single-minded skeletons to mass-produce high-end armants imdiately was unrealistic.
There was only one mission: Learning.
Paul had to learn managent and design. The skeletal apprentices had to learn how to swing a hamr and identify tools. They were using mountains of iron ore to "brute-force" their proficiency levels.
The results were obvious. Initially, these skeletons would tear the bellows apart just by pulling them. Now, they could at least produce iron swords with a recognizable shape. Even if the blades were full of nicks, they could still cut.
Now, Paul and his Bone Legion were challenging a new project: Armor.
Skeletons needed defense more than weapons. Their weaknesses were blunt-force trauma and Holy Magic. A heavy blunt hit could shatter their structure, and Holy Water could scorch their souls. A proper set of full-plate armor would drastically reduce blunt damage. Furthermore, the insulating properties of tal would render a Priest's pride-and-joy—Holy Water—mostly useless. Splashing Holy Water on iron armor would, at best, give the plate a nice polish.
"It's done!" Paul suddenly let out a cry of pure joy.
Below the platform, a skeletal apprentice held up a finished product. It was... an extrely "abstract" breastplate. It was covered in hamr marks of varying depths, the edges were warped, and one side sat higher than the other.
Paul leaped down from the platform and snatched the armor. He turned it over, tapped it with his finger, and checked the thickness against the light.
"Not bad! It's ugly, and the thickness is uneven, but it looks like armor! It has a curve! It has a neck guard!" Paul pounded the skeleton's shoulder excitedly. "Keep it up! You'll be back by the Lord's side in no ti!"
The Soul Fire in the skeleton's sockets brightened visibly. Paul watched this hopeful scene with satisfaction, completely failing to notice another flying hamr whistling past his scalp.
Iron Fortress, Agricultural Zone.
A plot of land was cordoned off by a wooden fence. A sign hung there, with words written in a shaky script: [Re-education Demonstration Zone].
An elderly villager squatted by the dirt, looking at a "radish" that consisted only of a skeletal head sticking out of the ground.
"Hey, Bones. Why'd you get planted today?" The villager took a bite of his bread.
The Soul Fire in the skull turned toward the sky, answering in a monotone voice. "Conducted an experint regarding thermal conductivity and biological tissue reaction."
"Speak English."
"Got curious. Branded Master Paul's ass with a red-hot iron rod."
The villager's hand shook, nearly dropping his bread. The ntal image sent a chill from his tailbone straight to his skull.
"Serves you right!" the villager muttered. He stood up and instinctively covered his own backside as he walked away.
For the rest of the afternoon, while the villager guided other skeletons in sowing and tilling, he maintained a very strange posture. He always stood directly behind the skeletons or directly in front of them. He scanned every movent with extre vigilance, never exposing his flanks or back to a single bone-rack's reach.
There were two other silent skeletons in the Re-education Zone. One had mistaken a companion's head for a wooden stump during sword practice and split it open. The other had been caught trying to teach a chicken how to use a Soul Link.
Yes, the Empire is truly thriving today.
anwhile, the Valley Base.
Kaito, Lust, and several hundred mages from the Arcane Legion were busy surrounding a massive magic circle drawn on the ground.
"A Teleportation Array is theoretically possible," Lust had said.
It was because of that one sentence that Kaito had smacked his forehead and imdiately dragged the Arcane Legion into a research frenzy. Of course, this was uncharted territory. Both Kaito and Lust had caused nurous blunders in practice.
"Report, My Lord! Circuit No. 3 is experiencing mana congestion! It might be because that skeleton stepped on it earlier!"
"My Lord, I believe a reverse-spiral structure could increase stability," Lust suggested, pointing to a corner of the blueprint.
Kaito took a look and waved a hand. "Makes sense. But it's too complex. Let's aim for 'functional' first, then 'perfect'!"
After countless revisions and argunts, the first version of the Teleportation Array was finally completed. Kaito looked at the thirty-ter wide circle consisting of intricate runes and rubbed his hands together.
"Lust! Inject Mana! Let's witness a miracle!"
Lust issued the command. Dozens of Skeleton Mages raised their staffs, guiding their Od toward the energy nodes. The lines of the array lit up one by one, glowing with a ghostly blue light.
However, the light lasted less than three seconds before turning a violent, piercing red. Unstable red lightning began to crackle and hiss above the formation.
Kaito saw the signs and yelled, "Not good! NIGERUNDAYO! (RUN!)"
At his command, Kaito was the first to bolt. Behind him, several hundred skeletons scrambled on all fours to escape the periter. The scene was pure chaos.
"BOOM—!!"
A deafening explosion shook the entire valley. A pillar of red energy shot into the sky, blasting a massive crater into the center of the clearing. The dozen mages closest to the center were instantly disintegrated into raw bone al by the shockwave.
After the explosion, the valley fell into silence.
A mont later, the Soul Fires of the powdered mages began to reform on the spot. They stood up, wobbling and clicking. They imdiately went back to work, clearing a new patch of ground to draw the second Teleportation Array.
"We'll draw it here this ti," Kaito said, pointing to a new spot. "The mana alignnt back there was cursed."
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