Genius Blacksmith's Game

The Parion Empire.

The largest empire in Ares, a place that had built an even greater empire by turning multiple nations into its vassals.

Its population exceeded several hundred million, and considering that Goyad’s population barely topped three million, it was a nation with truly enormous power.

But being a giant empire also meant having that many enemies.

They were capable of fielding an army of ten million, but in reality, they could not.

Because the moment the army was pulled out, the nations already at war on every front would come flooding in.

As such, fielding an army of ten million was not nearly as easy as it sounded.

Goyad was now nothing more than one of the many nations Parion had started wars against.

“It is surprising that the Parion Empire was the one war was declared on first.”

But that declaration of war was enough to provoke Bolond, the king who led the age, and make him reveal considerable power.

The man who had just muttered those words.

A man dressed in rags so tattered it was hard to believe he was a noble of the empire, with a huge rusted greatsword at his waist.

Who was he?

A pitiful being who had been subjugated by the Parion Empire through sheer force.

Once, he had led pirates and been called the king of pirates.

Akao.

He had been a legend of the sea.

Duke Lukael looked at him with faintly curious eyes.

Even the one who was once called the hero of the sea ultimately bowed before His Majesty.

It had been quite some time ago.

The reason he had been called a hero was because, for a pirate, he had been strong, and because he had united the pirates and created rules for them.

And what kind of creatures were pirates?

Taking that into account, Akao had been an astonishing man.

Duke Lukael remembered as well.

Back when they had tried to force Akao into submission—

the sight of him uniting nearly a thousand ships and hundreds of thousands of pirates to resist them.

But now he was nothing more than Parion’s dog.

And his pirates had disbanded after that day.

Because Emperor Bolond had refused to recognize those filthy mongrels as citizens of the empire.

That was why Akao had every reason to make sure this war ended in victory.

“You must keep that promise. The promise that you would give Goyad to me.”

Lukael gave a faint smile and said,

“The soldiers of the Parion Empire will enter the Asgan Continent through many different routes. Through the many roads connecting continent to continent. And through this sea as well. Do not forget that this sea is the fastest shortcut to Asgan. Nor that the three hundred thousand imperial troops are in your hands.”

At that, Akao smiled with complete confidence.

“I hear that man called Hyun is making several hundred ships. Ships that were never meant as weapons to defend Goyad, but ships they were building to defend their own territory will now be launched for Goyad instead. Tsk tsk.”

Akao clicked his tongue.

“He is incompetent and foolish. The empire’s intelligence network goes beyond common sense. We are the empire that even knows how many maids a kingdom has. Of course, those ships may help defend Atlas, but we have already loaded cannons that will shatter those several hundred ships.”

Akao pointed toward a certain piece of equipment.

“Dragonfire Cannon. A large cannon that smashes through a ship’s deck and sinks it in one blow. And we also know the exact number of those ships. One hundred and fifty-four.” 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Knowing the exact number of the enemy’s ships.

That alone was proof enough that the sea had already been won.

“The moment even one of those ships sails out from Atlas, we’ll know.”

Akao was brimming with confidence.

Duke Lukael was the same.

“I shall lead the ground forces.”

“Yes. Then I’ll see you on the Asgan Continent.”

Having finished their conversation, the two men went their separate ways.

Then Lukael looked toward Akao’s fleet as it began to depart, carrying three hundred thousand troops.

Just as Akao had said.

We possess intelligence superior to theirs.

Simply knowing that they have several hundred ships is enough to prepare, and enough to cripple them in a mere thirty hours.

And the key point was this.

If the ships sailed, that meant Master Blacksmith Hyun would be aboard them.

Which meant he could be taken prisoner.

“Foolish. Utterly foolish.”

No one knew the sea better than Akao.

On the sea, he was a god.

And if ships came before a man like that, then the empire would be able to send every last one of them to the bottom of the ocean without expending much strength at all.

Just then—

a cat that could scout the enemy camp while invisible, with all presence completely concealed, revealed itself.

“Meow.”

A black cat, its tail plume raised, cautiously followed Duke Lukael.

And all of what it saw

was being shared with Hyunsoo.

*****

Pans.

The father of White Tiger, the unborn child whose prenatal name and actual name had recently been given by Lord Hyun.

Pans could feel it.

That this White Tiger, whose name had been bestowed by the lord himself, would become a truly extraordinary child.

Also, Pans and his wife had been poor from the start.

And because Pans’s wife was pregnant, she couldn’t work.

At that time, the merciful lord Hyunsoo had given his wife what people called a cushy job.

Selling tickets for Hyun’s Museum.

Normally, selling tickets at Hyun’s Museum was not a cushy job at all.

Because countless people came to visit.

But not now.

The crowds had already stopped coming even before the territory war broke out, and the museum had been temporarily closed for war preparations.

And today, one customer came.

It was her husband, Pans.

Pans stroked the belly carrying White Tiger, who was growing strong inside, then bought a ticket.

And with that, he entered Hyun’s Museum.

“White Tiger, ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ this is the place where the artifacts of the man who gave you your name are on display.”

Before anyone knew it, Hyun’s Spring Special Exhibition and even the autumn exhibition had already passed, and now a brutal winter had come.

And Hyunsoo, it was said, had gained a special power after this museum flourished.

That power was the shrine’s Achievement Paintings.

The Achievement Paintings meant this:

if he designated something he had gone through,

or something he would do in the future,

as an exhibition, then the paintings would be drawn on their own and displayed accordingly.

As Pans and his wife walked toward that painting exhibition, they looked puzzled.

“......The White Tiger Sword exhibition has changed?”

Up until just a week ago, it had been the White Tiger Sword exhibition.

What had been hanging there?

A painting of Hyun forging equipment among three tigers.

A painting of Hyun standing before the great archdemon Gremory and saying, “Cry out, White Tiger.”

A painting of our lord smiling as he approached them in the middle of a huge crowd and gave White Tiger his name.

At the end of White Tiger Sword, their child White Tiger had been there.

That alone had moved the couple deeply.

The name of the current exhibition—

[Goyad Painting Exhibition]

“......?”

“......?”

The two of them held hands and continued inside.

The first painting.

It was the first meeting between Hyun, bowing low, and Sword King Barad.

Once Hyunsoo revealed his identity, Barad could be seen wearing a slightly startled expression.

The second was a painting of Hyun comforting Barad after killing Ifrit, when Barad had tried to take his own life in self-reproach.

Then there was a painting of Sword King and Hyunsoo becoming close friends and smiling at one another.

The two of them smiled without realizing it.

Because once upon a time, they too had been people of Goyad.

They kept walking and looking at the paintings.

The next one showed Hyunsoo, having been handed full command amid Goyad’s collapse at the hands of the Bloodthirsty Host, commanding the Goyad army.

Looking at it, the couple’s hearts began to pound harder.

Because they knew what kind of painting was coming next.

This next painting was a little special.

It was a painting of Barad saying something to Hyunsoo, and its title was Royal Command.

It depicted the day he fully acknowledged Hyunsoo as the king’s successor.

And then came the next painting.

“.......”

“.......”

When they saw it, both of them felt sad.

There were two paintings in all.

One showed the pirate king Akao, sent by the Parion Empire, advancing on Goyad with more than a thousand ships.

The second showed blacksmiths, who had been sweating as they built hundreds of ships, falling into despair after hearing Nell’s words.

Just like them, the couple sank into despair as well.

“......White Tiger, what are we supposed to do now?”

“The enemy knows everything, don’t they? That we were building ships, and that we were going to use them to protect the territory.”

“......That must be it. They told us to stop building the ships immediately.”

The Pans couple were heartbroken.

And they stroked the belly carrying their child, White Tiger.

They understood why the paintings no longer continued after that.

Because what would come next was the fall of Goyad and Atlas.

Just as no artist would ever paint their own downfall,

he was choosing not to paint what came after in this exhibition.

Right then—

Pans’s wife suddenly felt a heavy kick from White Tiger inside her belly.

At that, she looked back toward the paintings.

Both of their eyes widened.

“A new painting...... is being drawn?”

It was being painted at an unbelievably fast speed.

The first painting.

It looked so vivid it seemed to depict the current situation itself.

Sword King Barad and Hyunsoo stood facing one another.

From the sight of the two of them speaking with grave expressions, Pans sharply grasped the situation.

“His Highness Barad told him never to send ships into the sea......”

And then a painting was forming of Hyunsoo shouting something.

They couldn’t guess the words,

but the letters being inscribed soon revealed what it meant.

[I still have one ship left.]

“???”

“???”

Pans and his wife were baffled.

As far as they knew, other than the one hundred and fifty-four ships, no other ship existed.

At that moment, a new painting began to form.

The first painting.

Countless nameless people were shown hauling building materials as they built the first ship.

The second painting.

Countless people were shown coming to see that first ship.

And then the third—

SCRITCHSCRITCHSCRITCH—!

As the ship was rapidly drawn in detail, the Pans couple could not hide their shock.

Because what it was now depicting was something very specific.

And what was that something?

The ship they had believed was nothing more than a museum.

The ship they were standing in right now.

And along with that, another painting was drawn.

As they looked at it, the Pans couple’s hearts began pounding like mad.

It was a pair of blueprints.

One blueprint was for the one hundred and fifty-four ships.

And because Pans was a blacksmith, he could tell the moment he saw it.

“......Something’s wrong.”

“What is?”

“This is definitely a warship. But if you look at the materials used and all the rest, its durability is terrible. And......”

Pans wore a baffled expression.

“There aren’t any weapons on it at all.”

“What......? What do you mean?”

His wife couldn’t understand.

Soon the second blueprint began to be drawn.

At the time, Pans had not been able to take part in constructing that museum.

So when he saw the blueprint of the museum—the first ship—being drawn out before him, endless chills and endless excitement surged through his entire body.

He too, however lowly, was still a blacksmith.

Which was why he knew.

“......Perfect. And incredible!!”

He understood.

The one hundred and fifty-four ships were false ships.

The fact that every material used in them was cheap proved it, and they had been made by gathering nothing but common plank-board trash, without spending much money at all.

But on the other hand—

the blueprint of this ship was different from beginning to end.

Unlike those fake ships, this one was more than three times larger.

And on top of that, this single ship alone carried more than dozens of kinds of weapons.

“Gasp......”

What shocked Pans even more was that the ship’s durability and killing power were at a level that was absurd on sight alone.

He understood.

All the vast funds that had been earned recently—

had been poured, while pretending to build fakes, into this museum where not even an ant entered anymore.

And then—

SCRITCHSCRITCHSCRITCHSCRITCH—

the final painting was being drawn.

In that final painting, the ship was fully shown, prepared for departure.

And soon, from the tips of his feet upward, a single man began to be drawn.

“It’s our lord.”

“Ah, our lord.”

The hearts of Pans and his wife swelled higher and higher.

But the more of that figure was drawn, the more confused the two became.

Because he was not their lord.

The man being painted was far taller, with a face like a tiger.

And stranger still, though it looked subtly different from Hyunsoo’s, he wore at his side a sword that resembled the Twin Dragon Sword.

And the Pans couple realized it.

The one boarding this ship would not be Hyunsoo.

It would be the man before them.

The two of them stared in puzzlement at the final words inscribed onto the painting.

[The Last Ship and Yi Sun-sin.]

“Who is Yi Sun-sin?”

And amid their confusion,

a legend we know was being born.