Although a Villain, My Wish is World Peace

I headed to the workshop. Several days had already passed since I started melting Park Sang-pyeon’s magic sword. No matter how terrible an artifact it was, it should be done by now. As I expected, the magic sword in the furnace had melted away completely without leaving any form.

Ray made a strange sound as he watched me stirring the metal with a long rod.

—Uugh.

“What’s that weird sound?”

—Can’t you hear the resentment directed at you?

“Haha, what resentment? How many innocent people died by that cursed sword? Even if it harbors resentment, the souls of the victims will protect me.”

Yeah, what resentment for killing a bad guy.

Ray fell silent, as if losing the strength to refute my logical words. I turned my gaze to the metal in the furnace.

I plan to pour that metal in the furnace into molds to make daggers.

—The mold method again?

“Yes.”

I did look up how to work with iron on the internet, but to follow it myself, how should I say, it was too professional…

“I just couldn’t follow it at all.”

—Chicken?

“Where on earth did you learn such words?”

—I picked them up here and there.

“Stop watching weird things.”

To begin with, it’s arrogant of me to try to follow the skills of master craftsmen who have worked with metal all their lives overnight.

—The mold looks pretty good though.

Of course. When I made the bracelet, I made the mold myself, but this time I got help from Professor Geum and bought it from a master craftsman.

—So you do grow too.

“Damn it.”

It’s annoying, but not wrong. My handiwork was quite poor. Ironically, the more effort I put in, the worse the results were.

If I had been that capable to begin with, the system wouldn’t have mocked me like that.

A sword directly forged by a master craftsman would be much better than one made with a mold, but this is the best I can do right now.

When I hire a proper master craftsman later, I’ll have to melt it again and make a proper artifact then.

Anyway, the dagger made like that was…

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Cursed Dagger / B-grade

—–

Weapon – Dagger

A dagger cast in a mold by melting a cursed artifact.

It melts the user’s magic power and releases it as sword energy.

=====

Perhaps because I barely touched it, there was no phrase mocking my handiwork. Damn, it cursed the chair I put so much effort into with nasty words.

Actually, this one is called a ‘cursed’ dagger, but looking at the description, it seems that chair should be called cursed.

The large sword was made into six palm-sized daggers.

The grade of the artifact made was low compared to the material, but it had a special function.

The part about melting the user’s magic power and releasing it as sword energy.

I’ll have to find out what that means from now on.

I took out the dagger and infused it with magic power. And soon I could realize an amazing fact. Not only did the dagger simply release magic power…

“The daggers resonate with each other?”

Is it because what was once one was split into six? The six daggers resonated with each other as if they were one. It meant that even if I infused magic power into just one dagger, soon magic power would be transmitted to all six daggers.

“At this rate, I’ll have to use all six as a set.”

I was planning to secretly take just one since I lost the dagger I originally used last time… But at this rate, I’ll have to use them completely as one set.

—Come to think of it, you lost your dagger that day.

“Yes.”

Though I thought it was fortunate enough to have kept the mask, it was quite regrettable. I bought that for 3 million won. I still need to use 2,990,000 won worth.

—You’ve only used 100,000 won worth so far? For that, you seemed to use it quite diligently.

“That means I could have used it much more in the future.”

But what’s the use of lamenting over something already gone? I’ll have to get a new weapon for myself soon too. I’ve been making do with just one dagger for too long.

I’ll have to ask Professor Geum, or look for a new route.

First, I need to thoroughly test this dagger.

The will of the artifact that stubbornly absorbed the user’s magic power was gone, but the property of craving mana remained dissolved in the metal.

Even if you engrave mana circuits that accept mana, normal artifacts spit out about half, but this one was different.

Though no mana circuits were engraved at all, the dagger greedily sucked in mana more than any artifact. It even stole the mana flowing in my body.

“Oh my. At this rate, I won’t be able to use any other artifacts.”

The problem was that it sucked in even the mana that was supposed to be used for other artifacts.

“It’s quite jealous.”

Jealous, this expression is cute. To be unable to use any other artifacts while using this. It was a tremendous penalty.

Even now, I could feel the other artifacts worn on my body being neutralized one by one.

Hmm, how can I remove this property? How do I deal with a sword that doesn’t even have mana circuits laid down?

Sand spread at my feet. Oh? Before I could react, the workshop door flung open.

“What’s wrong!”

It was Han Seo-hyeon.

“What’s wrong with you!”

At my shout, Han Seo-hyeon said with a trembling voice:

“S-suddenly the ring’s signal disappeared…”

At those words, I looked at my finger. Ah, the ring. Come to think of it, Han Seo-hyeon gave me a ring before.

Did this dagger cut off that ring’s signal too?

I calmly explained the situation to Han Seo-hyeon. Han Seo-hyeon who heard my explanation made a chilling expression and said:

“That dagger. Throw it away right now.”

To tell me to throw away the dagger no matter what. I hugged the dagger tightly and said:

“No!”

“You said you can’t use any other artifacts if you use that! It’s completely trash!”

“But it’s too precious to throw away. Look.”

I laid five daggers on the floor and held one dagger. When I infused that dagger with magic power, my magic power connected to the daggers laid on the floor.

The daggers laid on the floor all flew towards me at my hand gesture.

“Oh.”

“Are you crazy!”

Han Seo-hyeon hurriedly drew up magic power and summoned a skeleton in front of me.

The daggers flying towards me were deflected after hitting the skeleton. Some of them were deeply embedded in the skeleton’s bones. If they had flown straight into my body, well, my body would have been full of holes.

“Are you in your right mind?”

“Wow, amazing! Your summoning speed has improved a lot. Wow, when did you train like this?”

“It’s not pleasing at all to hear such words in this situation! Don’t think you can gloss over it with halfhearted praise.”

“Ahem, ahem. Anyway, don’t you think it could be used quite well with some practice?”

To be able to control not only the daggers touching my body, but even other daggers I didn’t even touch!

Plus, maybe because it’s so good at accepting magic power, the magic power consumption was low too.

“Throw it away right now.”

Han Seo-hyeon still said firmly.

Damn, did I show too clumsy a use? He had a face that couldn’t trust me at all.

“Tsk, I thought it would suit Jae-ho well.”

“…Isn’t Boss going to use it?”

“This kind of dagger would suit Jae-ho, who can use space three-dimensionally, better than me. Plus, he can hide in shadows if necessary, so the dangerous flying won’t be much of a penalty for Jae-ho.”

“Hmm.”

Han Seo-hyeon’s eyes narrowed.

“So Boss isn’t going to use it…”

I don’t know what he thought, but soon Han Seo-hyeon smiled again and said:

“Come to think of it, that dagger. It seems very useful.”

“Weren’t you telling me to throw it away just now?”

“…It does seem too precious to throw away. Make sure to give it to Jae-ho hyung, don’t use it yourself.”

“Am I that untrustworthy?”

“Because if it’s Boss, you’ll probably use it saying ‘Fatal Return to Origin!’ whether your body gets pierced or not.”

—That’s right.

I wonder what on earth they think of me.

—What do you mean what they think, they see you as a masochist who enjoys tearing up your own body without knowing how precious your body is.

“Urgh.”

The state of conscience is prickly today. No, it’s been like this every day recently, hasn’t it? If I grumble to Ray, he’ll say it’s all my fault, so I’ll have to pretend not to know.

Anyway, I’m glad I got Han Seo-hyeon’s permission.

How much magic power should be put into each dagger for it to move? Can the direction be changed? There were still many parts to experiment with, but since Kim Jae-ho has innate talent in handling body and magic power, he’ll probably figure it out on his own if I leave it to him.

—You’re planning to carry out that self-learning method that’s written as autonomous learning but read as neglect again.

‘Ahem, I’d like to figure out all the usage methods myself and give it to him, but aren’t the situations different for Jae-ho and me?’

Unlike Kim Jae-ho who can literally freely move through space, my usage method can only be two-dimensional. Even if I figure something out and tell him, it means he’ll eventually have to figure out his own usage method.

Plus, if I say I want to use this dagger a bit more, Han Seo-hyeon might kill me…

I quickly changed the subject.

“How’s what you’ve been researching lately? Can you show me?”

At my question, Han Seo-hyeon flicked his finger to unsummon the skeleton full of holes and summoned a black skeleton in front of his eyes again.

“I think I roughly get the feel.”

Recently he’s been mainly using sand so I almost forgot this kid was a necromancer, but what Han Seo-hyeon has been putting the most effort into lately was strengthening skeletons.

The intensive research with the corpses he took for experiments last time was also to increase the number of magics that could be done with bones.

The number of skeletons Han Seo-hyeon could control increased to three in total.

The white skeleton first contracted, the dark skeleton made from Park Sang-pyeon’s corpse. And the third skeleton additionally contracted from the experiments gathered last time.

Han Seo-hyeon placed bone armor on that skeleton.

“It’s bone armor and bone sword.”

The skeleton wearing armor and sword made of black bones looked quite impressive. The durability of ordinary bones isn’t very high, but the bones imbued with Han Seo-hyeon’s magic power were different.

Light like bones but harder than steel.

Plus the movements were quick too. As a result of roughly clashing with the skeleton holding a dagger, I could confirm it had durability almost similar to artifacts.

“Plus I can do things like this by applying bones.”

Han Seo-hyeon who stepped outside the building showed me a new technique.

The so-called ‘bone bomb’.

It’s a technique that explodes the bones he summoned. Like shrapnel from a grenade, the fragments of exploded bones caused chain damage.

And that explosion was quite amazing. The area around where the bone bomb exploded was literally scorched earth.

“Wow…”

“But I have to consume bones.”

“You mean you need materials.”

“Yes. It’s possible to explode skeletons too, but the skeletons get destroyed.”

I decided not to ask how he knew that.

Hmm, they were all bad guys anyway. It should be fine to turn even their bones to powder, right…

“How about animal bones?”

“I tried with chicken bones last time, but the destructive power was terribly low.”

He didn’t know yet about monster bones since he hadn’t tried, but he said such destructive power doesn’t come out with ordinary animal bones.

The bones with the strongest destructive power were human. Among them, awakener bones.

Though the very thought of using human body parts as consumables is quite inhumane, it certainly had tremendous destructive power.

“Monster bones might be more effective, but I’m not sure yet.”

Since necromancer magic power has especially good compatibility with monster corpses, that side might have decent destructive power too.

‘Hmm, I’ll have to pick up lots of monster corpses next time we stop by a Gate.’

Everything sold in the black market is terribly overpriced. As expected, direct from the source is best for everything.