Call me Ishmael (4)
Yu IlHan returned to his workshop. It was after he confirmed that the TV changed the announcement of the dungeon in the middle of the city. As he had expected, the Empress really had some amazing connections.
However, he didn’t need to know any of that now. The only important thing was: his skill!
[Sleeping 2nd class monster’s hearts 0/500]
[Troll’s blood 0/500 litres]
[Good sleep 12/100 hours]
[3rd class monster’s magic stone 1/1]
Yu IlHan couldn’t hide his smile while looking at the renewed resting skill evolution criteria.
“I knew people who do good things will get good things.”
[I don’t hate your positive mind that much.]
Was it Yu IlHan’s imagination that he heard it as an indirect insult? After he shut Erta up by shaking his head, he looked at the remaning homework.
“So the biggest problem is the trolls. I haven’t heard that there have been monsters from other worlds appearing on Earth yet……”
[If it was someone else, then he could have just received a suitable quest in another world to do it with.]
“Hmph, do you think I’m doing this since I don’t want to go to another world?”
Erta, who made Yu IlHan mad with a joke, consoled him by calling wind to cool his face.
[The concentration of mana on Earth is getting higher rapidly so you don’t need to worry. You will be able to meet trolls much faster than you think.]
“But you know? When you read fantasy novels, aren’t troll’s blood really popular and such? Aren’t they like more expensive than their weight in gold as a representative material in potion making? Isn’t the requirement for the resting skill to evolve because troll’s blood has a characteristic to heal wounds?”
[Yes, of course.]
Erta replied positively in a delighted voice.
[If you have extreme poison resistance!](E/N: almost spat my tea out)
“Fuck that.”
Why does that resistance go up by a level each time! weak poison resistance, poison resistance, extreme poison resistance – he couldn’t imagine what resistance will appear next.
[Don’t trust fantasy novels so much. Just what kind of insane human would drink monster’s blood raw? It isn’t that there aren’t any potions in another world, but the ingredients to make potions have nothing to do with trolls.]
“Yeah, whatever.”
However, that didn’t change the fact that troll’s blood was needed to evolve the resting skill. A skill that requires a monster’s blood that a human cannot drink.
Just where did this skill come from, and where is it going? Yu IlHan fell into half-worry, and half-expectation.
[Sleeping 2nd class monster’s hearts are quite difficult too, are you alright with that? You need to kill it in one go and not two or three goes.]
“I think I will be able to manage that if I enhance my weapons somehow……”
When Yu IlHan’s gaze turned towards the Harkanium on one corner of the workshop, Erta pulled on his hair.
[I said no.]
“Please gimme a little.”
[No.]
Although Yu IlHan got mad again, Erta couldn’t take a step back in regards to that.
[The balance will be too tilted. It’s a preferential treatment just to let you use the hammer and the anvil. So before the quest ends, just make some good weapons.]
“Tch.”
Well, it was indeed thankful that he could make his weapons with the wondrous tools that went beyond this world. As he had already repaired his steel spear, he could really feel that fact.
However, even if he processed steel, it was difficult to make anything better than the steel spear he already had. Now that it came down to this, was he to challenge processing titanium? Yu IlHan shook his head after he thought to that point.
“I should have learnt more deeply about processing bones.”
[Even so, considering your talent, metallic equipment will see more light.]
Yu IlHan also knew this well. This was also the reason he was thinking to whisk some harkanium away too.
“Ah, damn it all. Let’s just make what I can make now.”
[I wondered why you didn’t say that.]
The damaged leather which could only be used to make partial armor, and the black leopard’s bones which were more sturdy compared to that, and the muscles and the tendons he took just in case – these were all the materials he had.
He first repaired the mostly damaged harpoon set. As the pillars and the harpoons made from the Giant Leopard’s bones were mostly intact, he only made the ropes more sturdy and tough by supplementing it with the black leopard’s leather.
After organizing the six-in-one set to use it any time, he now turned his gaze to the muscles and the tendons.
“The muscles’ elasticity is no joke, this is.”
[You’re not thinking of something strange again, right?]
Why not? He grinned as if imagining about something and exprimented with the black leopard’s muscles.
However, no matter how elastic the muscles were, it was impossible to surpass the propulsion power made by modern gunpowder. As expected, even after becoming a monster, is it impossible to surpass the limits of modern gunpowder! – While Yu IlHan was sighing.
The tendons which had just toughness and no elasticity compared to the muscles were thrown away, ended up falling into the fireplace.
“No! I was planning to grill it and eat it after I learn extreme poison resistance!”
[It will rot before that!]
Anyway, I thought he was making weapons, but he had that kind of goal!? – Erta thought.
However, the tendons which fell into the fireplace showed an abnormal change. Yu IlHan, who noticed it fast, observed it with lights in his eyes.
“Look at this guy……?”
Was it because it had come in contact with the Eternal flame which cannot exist in this world? Or was it because the birth of the black leopard itself is abnormal? Although no one knew the reason, the thing happening now was neither magic nor miracle – it was reality.
As the Eternal Flame burned more and more while emitting light, the tendons were changing little by little while becoming heated red.
“You should have told me if there was such a processing method……!”
With shiny eyes, Yu IlHan fixed his gaze on the fireplace. However, Erta turned her face away with a hmph.
[I don’t have any relations with production and creation. There’s no way I will be able to know the change in characteristics of a monster’s tendons after meeting the Eternal Flame, is there?]
“Grill it a bit harder. I need to see the critical point.”
Yu IlHan was already not listening to Erta anymore. The Eternal Flame raised its temperature as if it had understood his words, and the black leopard’s tendons heated up even more while enduring the heat which was at a level not seen on Earth.
“Stop.”
Yu IlHan saw through the critical point with the instinct he refined for hundreds of years. At the same time he gave a signal, he carefully puled out the tendon with tongs.
After waiting until it completely cooled down, he used all sorts of tools in his workshop to hammer it, pull it apart, smash it down and even checked its heat resitance and cold resistance. After that, he could come to a conclusion.
“I will name this the Giant’s Rubber Band.”
The black leopard’s tendons were orignally tough. It didn’t get affected by fire, water or shock that much. However, when it came into contact with the extreme flames of the Eternal Flame, a truly amazing characteristic was added – and it was an elasticity that easily suprassed the black leoapard’s muscles.
Although it was hard to pull due to the amazing hardness, the elasticity produced the moment it was pulled apart and let go, was truly amazing. Yu IlHan didn’t call it the Giant’s Rubber Band for nothing.
It was no different to an extreme power source which produced more strength than it was applied with.
[It is surely amazing, but what are you planning to make with this?]
“There’s only one thing.”
That was the pile bunker. Although the basic principle was the same as a gun’s, it was a bothersome but a strong weapon for destroying the enemy by nailing the opponent using metal spikes instead of bullets, shooting it using the power of gunpowder at a super close distance.
Yu IlHan was thinking of making a pile bunker using the elasticity of the Giant’s Rubber Band instead of gunpowder.
[It’s you who’s strange to think of something like that!]
“Eternal Flame, you remember that temperature just now? We will process all the tendons here!”
Ideas about the device that he could make using the Giant’s Rubber Band burst out inside Yu IlHan’s head. He could also calculate how he would process the bones to supplement that.
[I really need to acknowledge your energy.]
In the end, Erta also sighed and decided to watch his work.
The biggest and thickest bone was modifed to be the barrel which included the delicate inner parts, and the Giant’s Rubber Band which was enhanced to the extreme due to the Eternal Flame wrapping here and there inside the barrel and being installed – such a process was so natural like flowing water to the point that it made Erta wonder if he was working after having learnt the design by heart.
“It should be good to wrap the handle with the leather, right?”
Yu IlHan created it to fit his use. Although, his standards were monstrous to the point that it could be called a problem.
“If I become stronger, then I can even tamper with the inner parts. I can add more rubber bands to make it stronger.”
[The thought that you’re doing something absurd doesn’t seem to leave my head.]
The pile bunker’s bullet was as important as the pile bunker’s main body! He made this using the teeth rather than the bones of the black leopard. As its body size was huge, its teeth was also sufficiently long and thick, and as a bonus, it was sharper and harder than the bones.
After making a total of 7 bullets, Yu IlHan fell into worry.
“I need to enhance them with magic stones…”
[It’s already sufficiently monstrous!]
“It will be a finisher if I nail the black leopard’s magic stone here.”
[Do whatever you want if you have the confidence to meet another 3rd class monster before trolls appear.]
Erta’s persuasion was strong. In the end, Yu IlHan had to give up on mana crafting. While resolving to enhance it after acquiring a magic stone befitting of this pile bunker…
He made the barrel and the bullet. The only thing left was equipping.
Slotting the bullet inside the barrel was simple. The problem was the process of pulling the loading handle while pulling the bullet inside the barrel and at the same time, slotting the Giant’s Rubber Band in the bullet.
Yu IlHan had made the device with a lot of detail, so it had 1st level, 2nd level, and 3rd level loading. However, as he tried, loading to just the first level was amazingly difficult.
“Uguguguguugkkkkkkk…… Mommy!”
[Your mother’s in another world!](E/N: savage)
Yu IlHan gasped for breath after barely pulling the loading handle to the first level. It was only possible since it was structured for the bullet to be fixed by a safety dvice.
“How many seconds did I take?”
[About 2 seconds.]
“As expected, it will be hard to use it continuously in practice. Fuck, I called mommy in loading the 1st level so if I load it to the 3rd level, I might call all my ancestors.”(E/N: some of the funniest lines in all of EER)
It took 10 seconds to load to the second level, and 2 minutes to load to the third. If he loaded it without stopping from the beginning, it would take much more than that.
Anyway, unlike his worries, he could load it before he called his great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother. After loading, as if it had waited, texts started appearing on Yu IlHan’s retina.
[Lightspeed Pile Bunker was completed]
[Rank – Unique]
[Attack Power –
1st level : 1,200
2nd level : 1,800
3rd level : 2,900]
[Option – Loading speed decreases and attack speed increases by 20%]
[Durability – 1,240/1,240]
[A weapon made by a peak level master smith using the Shadow Leopard’s bones, teeth and tendons. Although it’s truly praiseworthy to have implemented such a power without the use of magic or gunpowder, the fact that it’s hard to use and is a bother to move it around is clearly a disadvantage.]
On the pile bunker, which had an alpha option even without going through mana crafting, had a miraculous option attached. It was the reduction in time in loading and attacking! Yu IlHan was about to cry tears of emotion from the truly excellent option.
However, Erta, who had excellent ability in finding negative isdes to objeccts, interjected without fail.
[That really is a disadvantage. The length goes over 3m after combining the bullet.]
“Hmph, this is for the large scale monsters.”
[Don’t tell me you…?]
“I will now go into creating weapons to confront small sized mosnters!”
[Just rest, REST!]
Yu IlHan didn’t even get tired and made weapons with the Giant’s Rubber band. Continuously until the angels came to make the 3rd Trap of Destruction!
Author’s notes
If you try to make the Giant’s Rubber Band at a meat restaurant and grill beef tendons without eating it, you will receive a back smash from the owner. This work is fiction and the appearing tendons are processed tendons.
The pile bunker is one of the author’s romance. This work is planning for the protagonist to make a vareity of useless-looking weapons! I receive weapon recommendations! (T/N: I will tell the author if you like…)(E/N: oooh really?)
Translator’s notes
Pile bunker! Yay!
Editor’s notes
Enjoy~, also note, one of the funniest chapters in EER to date