chapter 217 – Building a Castle (5)
“What justhappened?!”
“Well, I swung my fist.” Shu looked at Kang Shin-hyuk in confusion, as if asking whether he could do it too. No, there was no way hecould!
“I’m kidding, grandpa.” Seeing his embarrassed expression, Shu added with a small smile. In the meantime, her enormous hand opened up and swept the lizards climbing up the mountain away like a broom.
“This is a trait of our people. It skips the intermediate processes to produceresults.”
“Sorry, that’s a little difficult tounderstand…”
“So, for example, if I want to kiss my grandpa…”
-That example isn’tappropriate.
Finally, the administrator stepped in. Shu giggled and nodded.
“Well, then shakinghands.”
“Huh?” Kang Shin-hyuk instinctively reached out at her words. Then, Shu smiled and raised her hand.
“Wow.” Only her hand clung to his, shaking it up and down. Honestly, it felt a little weird.
“Like this, it performs the intended action right away, without me moving in the middle or stretching my arms. Understand?”
“Then, doesn’t the result vary greatly depending on your mind?”
“Ooh!” Suga clapped at him, already figuring it out. The fist that had been knocking down the monsters vanished, appearing back on her arm as sheclapped.
“Of course, it takes a fair bit of energy. Not all of our people can throw a rocket punch like that… pow!” She immediately threw a second rocket punch at that. This time, it was a little larger than before. The lizards exploded in sparks, but the black glove deflected them all.
“Wow, the gloves are really great. It’s not hot at all.”
[Exactly… I have no choice but to admit it.]
Yeomin was nodding next to him. Even though he had suffered the lizard’s flames and the massive expansion of the fist, there was no trace left on the gloves.
“No matter how durable they are, it will tear. They have an automatic repair function, so you won’t need to worry thatmuch.”
“The best, grandpa! I’ve never worn a proper armament before, but thanks to you, my power has doubled at once!” She happily embraced Kang Shin-hyuk. Was that something that couldn’t be done remotely, or was that not the point?
“If it’s like this, I could attack their base!”
“Stop that.”
“Oh, just like grandpa!” Shu jokingly replied to Kang Shin-hyuk’s seriousness, but he didn’t relax.
“A weapon is nothing more than that. If you give it too much meaning, you’ll get hurt someday.”
“Wow, grandpa! Alright, alright, stop!” Shu twisted around and nodded. In the meantime, her fists were warping around and beating back the lizards.
[As you can see, it is difficult for us to attack them actively.]
“Huh? Ah.” Suddenly, the Yeomin spoke up. He belatedly looked over, having been engrossed in the sight of what Shu was doing. People were standing at the basin’s borders with metal spears, stabbing the lizards that cameup.
[That’s because they absorb our fire. Most of our abilities consist of fire, but they are completely immune to it. So we have no choice but to stab them with weapons that we can’t handle well. We can’t live like this forever.]
“I’ve got a rough idea of it.” That said, Shu couldn’t stay here forever either. The lizards were constantly rising up even though she was beating themdown.
“That’s why you want to build a wall.”
“Yes, grandpa.” While Kang Shin-hyuk listened to her explanation, Shu had successively swept away the lizards for now. However, had that been enough, Kang Shin-hyuk wouldn’t have been calledhere.
“Have you thought of destroying the source?”
“Grandpa, that means making an enemy of everything in this world. If we run wild outside of this basin, other forces will try to attack.”
“Are all of them with Jormungand?”
“It’s more irritating that they aren’t.” It seemed that Yeomin didn’t know about Jormungand. Rather, the other tribes of the world had little to do with Jormungand and lived within their own territories.
“Jormungand is still hostile, but the other races in this world won’t pay attention to what they should watch out for. They have no intention of cooperating.”
“Then, they won’t wake up until they become targets after this tribe perishes.”
[We won’tdie!]
“It’s just an example.” Kang Shin-hyuk realized that he still didn’t know her name at that point.
“What should I call you? Fireball?”
[****]
“What?”
[Ah… you can call me Kwati, Anvil.]
She had become more modest than before, perhaps because she had confirmed the power of the gloves he made. After greeting her, he glanced over at the people slowly gathering around them. They weren’t as different from humans as those in Neorust were, so he didn’t feel too odd being around them.
[So can we really ask for the wall? We have plenty ofmaterials.]
“It’s easy, but…” The problem was that the circumference on the wall would need to be more than a couple of kilometers. However, this world wasn’t like Kieron, where it could be made bigger by freeing it through spiritualpower.
“I have something to ask first. Do you usually head down the mountain when the lizards aren’taround?”
[We don’t need to. We have everything we need to eat here.]
Where? He didn’t need to ask, as he soon noticed the warmth underneath the basin. This volcano wasn’t extinct.
“Then you’ll keep living here? Won’t that be boring?”
[It’s a little different in peacetime, but right now, it’swar.]
He was wondering how different it would be. Kang Shin-hyuk turned to Shu without asking any of the questions he was thinking.
“Let’s survey it first.”
-The administrator has finished it. The basin has a circumference of fewer than 65kilometers.
“So, a diameter of a little over 20 kilometers.”
-To explain the circumference rate…
“It’s okay.” Kang Shin-hyuk boldly cut off the explanation and began to plan in earnest. Building a wall that perfectly covered that distance… wasn’t it impossible?
‘I’m a blacksmith, not the Chinese emperor Qin Shi.’
-This is the scale of the Hero Universe, and you are no ordinaryblacksmith.
‘I can’t approach it the usual way.’ Kang Shin-hyuk spoke bluntly with the administrator, having a flash of inspiration as he saw the thousands of men around him. Building a castle wall wasn’t elaborate work like designing an artifact. He just needed to mobilize the people here to build a barrier. A high wall would be needed, as there might be enemies other than the lizards, ofcourse.
‘They can build the wall themselves. What they want is a solid wall, but their material processing skills are lacking.’ That fact could be understood well just by looking at the shoddy weapons they used. The Yeomin must be a race that fought without weapons. Therefore, their ability to craft and use them was poor. As Shu said, they could create a good fire, but they didn’t have the ability to use it. If so, what he had to make now…
“Kwati, let’s see what materials you can supply first.”
[Well…]
Kwati knelt down and scooped up the reddish soil from the basin, then made a fire in her hand. As time passed, the soil fell away, and a metal lump of the same material as the spears they were using a while ago appeared. Kang Shin-hyuk accepted it, confirming it was more precious than any othermetal.
[Explosive Gold]
[SS+ Rank]
[Metal made by processing the soul found only in volcanoes that erupt with the flames of Yeomin. Once the shape is hardened, it is almost impossible to reprocess. When temperatures drop to the extreme, it returns to the soil.]
[It has explosive power and immense resistance to fire.]
“I see why you dealt with the lizards with this.”
[Your eyes are excellent. You managed to recognize it at a glance?]
“What do you think of our grandpa?” Shu seemed vaguely upset upon seeing Kwati’s astonishment; however, Kang Shin-hyuk had no time to tackle this. This was because he was intent on examining and analyzing the explosive gold with his spiritual power. Then, to his surprise, it lost its shape and returned to the red soil.
[How?!]
“Wow, what happened?”
“I was communicating with the materials. No, sorry.” He apologized, but he had found a way to move forward. What he had to make was not the walls.
No, he needed to make an artifact that could create the materials at will.