#256 The Zhuge Family (2)
“Mmm—.”
While gathering useful information through the internet,
I stretched refreshingly and let out a short sigh.
“For now, things are proceeding smoothly, so it isn’t bad, but… his personality really does seem to have gotten too aggressive.”
Harris, the high elf from another world, who had been rampaging through the Ganghwan Realm in all directions.
In the end, he managed to receive an official invitation from the Zhuge Family and enter their stronghold.
Their first meeting could hardly be called pleasant, but even so, he was now being treated with a fairly friendly atmosphere. ‘To be precise… they probably have no choice but to treat him well.’ The reason the Zhuge Family had risen to its current position despite having no masters of the Profound Realm—let alone anyone who had reached the Transformation Realm—was because their techniques and formations were that peerless.
Not only their Qimen formations, which distorted phenomena by utilizing the surrounding environment, but also the combined attack formations performed by the family’s warriors and sorcerers in concert were said to be capable of opposing even a master of the Transformation Realm. ‘Of course, if the opponent is at the level of the Profound Realm, they’d need the help of a thoroughly prepared Qimen formation. Even then, it would probably only be useful for passive defense.’ That was why they couldn’t do a thing against Harris, who was acting arrogantly.
Of course, in a world where strength was everything, there was also the matter of showing due respect to a powerful figure who had already proven his martial might.
However, I, the person actually involved, couldn’t easily overlook that changed side of Harris.
“Mmm, I suppose it’s the surrounding environment after all.”
Whether due to his innate birth or his acquired skills, Harris was an entity that couldn’t help being sensitive to the surrounding environment.
Since someone like that had been dropped into a place where the energy of the world was gradually drying up, perhaps it wasn’t so strange that he was reacting sensitively. ‘Still, there’s no major problem right now, so it should be fine. I was planning to send him back to Auterica soon anyway.’ It had now been almost five days since Harris was transported to the Ganghwan Realm.
Half of the given time had already passed before I knew it.
The only things I remembered from that time were him joyfully causing havoc here and there, but since the results were good, this could be called a fairly successful start. ‘That aside.’ While searching through the system window, I found something interesting.
It seemed to be a change that appeared right after the entry into the Ganghwan Realm was completed smoothly…
『Item Purchase
-View Details』└Auterica└Ganghwan Realm
A category that allowed me to easily obtain items from each world by paying karma.
Before, I had only been able to purchase items from Auterica, but at some point, the name Ganghwan Realm had been added to that sub-list. ‘So it works like this too.’ Seeing that, I lightly nodded.
I had been worried that perhaps it would only apply to Auterica, the world formally assigned to me, but fortunately, the system didn’t seem to be that inflexible.
I immediately entered the “Ganghwan Realm” list and roughly skimmed through the listed goods. ‘Ten-Thousand-Year Snow Ginseng, Yin-Yang Fruit, Kongqing Stone Milk… It’s full of things that look impressive just from their names.’ The first things that caught my eye were various types of spiritual medicines.
Precious treasures whose grades, properties, and methods of use varied widely.
If the martial artists of the Ganghwan Realm saw them, they would have lost their minds and rushed in, but… ‘I have Harris, the natural-born spiritual medicine hunter, so there’s no need to pay attention to them right now.’ In fact, even here in Mount Longzhong, there were a few places where traces of spiritual medicines could be faintly sensed.
On top of that, wasn’t Mount Wudang, incomparably larger in scale and famous for its spiritual mystique, right nearby? ‘Even for a dragon vein, it was a place with especially strong energy. Unlike other places, it still had quite a lot of energy left. Spiritual medicines grown in a place like that…’ I smacked my lips as I recalled the sacred mountain I had glimpsed from afar while heading to the Zhuge Family.
After settling down appropriately, going to collect those things might be quite a bit of fun as well.
Aside from that, the shop list also contained quite a few famous pills with names like the Great Rejuvenation Pill and the Purple Dawn Divine Pill.
There were even martial arts manuals from several sects and divine weapons that could be called the magic tools of the martial world—there was practically nothing it didn’t have.
And among them, several items with tremendous prices stood out.
『Blood-Jade of Ten Thousand Children (1,190,000)』
『Ten-Thousand-Year Ice Essence of the Eternal Glacier (780,000)』
『Incomplete Wish-Fulfilling Pearl of a 999-Year-Old Imugi (1,530,000)』
『······』
I still didn’t know much about the Ganghwan Realm in detail, but even at a glance, the names looked anything but ordinary.
It was obvious they were items whose value matched their prices. ‘So imugi really did exist. Then are there dragons too?’ However, even if they were interesting, they weren’t things worth paying attention to at this stage.
For now, it would be enough just to remember that such things existed.
There was something else I could use right away.
I entered the conditions I wanted into 『Item Purchase』 and separately displayed the corresponding list.
Then, after skimming through them once—
I smiled in satisfaction and repeated purchasing and transferring them to the 「Avatar Cloud」.
***
Clang—! Claang—! Clang!
‘Hm? What is that sound?’
Zaonic, who had been taking care of business outside and was entering the workshop, furrowed his brow and listened closely.
Of course, he knew it was the sound of a hammer striking metal, but the point he found strange was in the finer details.
“Huh…”
But no matter how much he focused, he couldn’t understand it at all.
In the end, as if entranced by something, he walked deeper into the workshop where the sound was coming from.
Claaang—! Chiiiik—!
After the forging came the sound of quenching.
And Howard, pouring sweat like rain from his bare upper body as he focused on his work, entered his sight.
It was truly a commendable scene brimming with passion and vigor.
“What… in the world…?”
But Zaonic’s gaze immediately passed over him and became fixed on one place as if nailed there.
Before he even realized it, his mouth had fallen open, and an exclamation escaped his throat of its own accord.
“Wh-what is that? That metal? Huh? Something like that? Mmm…?”
The dwarven master stammered, unable to continue speaking as if he had malfunctioned.
He fell into confusion upon seeing an alien metal he had never seen in his life, nor ever imagined could exist in this world.
“Ah, you’re here?”
Sensing his presence, Howard, who had finished his work, turned his head and greeted him, but Zaonic was in no state of mind to accept such a carefree greeting.
Until now, even when Howard had used rare minerals he said he had obtained from the northern mountain range, Zaonic had simply accepted it.
Of course, that wouldn’t have been easy either, but he had thought it wouldn’t be impossible for the Hubert Company, which had grown into the undisputed top merchant company in the Tulk Kingdom. ‘…But that is different. No, it isn’t just different. Something like that existed in this world?’ The metal Howard was handling now.
That was “something” even he, who as a dwarf blessed by fire and metal prided himself on being versed in every metal in the world, could not easily understand.
He simply couldn’t accept that such a thing existed.
But since it was clearly right before his eyes, he couldn’t just deny it outright…
“Ahem! This is a metal Hubert sent over, saying he newly obtained it from the northern mountain range. Would you like to take a look?”
Just as Zaonic’s mind was growing increasingly disordered,
Howard cleared his throat lightly, took another lump of metal out of subspace, and casually handed it to him. ‘There’s more of that?’ Contrary to his inner thoughts, his hands moved instinctively, and before he knew it, he was holding it. ‘Ah!’ And the moment that metal touched his hand, he could feel it intuitively.
The emotion he had felt was absolutely not a misconception.
“What… in the world is this? Why does something like this exist in this world?”
Even as he muttered those words in a daze, he unconsciously moved busily.
He glared at it intently and stroked the surface with his hand. He flicked his fingers against it to feel the vibration and listen to the resonance. He sniffed at it with his nose.
Not stopping there, he even stuck out his tongue to taste it and smacked his lips, and in the end, put it in his mouth and crunched down on it…
‘Ugh, what is he doing?’
Howard’s expression turned awkward as he watched that scene from right in front of him.
Of course, he could fully understand the feelings of a man who had lived his entire life with metal.
What he was holding was a metal that did not exist in this world, and one said to be precious even in the Ganghwan Realm: “Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron.” ‘Still, a dwarf is a dwarf after all. He recognized it at once.’ Then again, there was no way Zaonic wouldn’t be able to feel what Howard himself had felt, so it was only natural.
Howard looked at Zaonic, who was still out of his senses and indulging in the metal, and gave a faint smile. ‘Magic tools imbued with the laws of another world do not apply in other worlds.’ He already knew that fact very well.
But that didn’t mean the physical properties of the material itself changed, did it? ‘It probably won’t be possible to add some additional special mystery to it, but Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron can be called the finest metal just by itself.’ Rather, its characteristic of rejecting the mysteries of another world could be used in reverse.
For example… armor of absolute indestructibility, disgustingly hard and even ignoring the effects of magic. ‘There’s no need to make the whole thing out of Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron. It should be enough just to cover the outside with a suitable thickness.’ Naturally, because the nature of the material was different, it would be difficult to handle, and applying it where needed wouldn’t be easy either—but one couldn’t know without trying.
If he searched for a method, one way or another, it would come out.
After all, he was a dwarven craftsman, born as part of a race so absurdly fraudulent in creation that it felt unreasonable.
“By the gods. This… this came from the northern mountain range? What in the world is happening in there? Th-the Immortal King? Did that bastard do something?”
At that moment, Zaonic, who had finally begun to come back to his senses, muttered in a dazed voice.
There were still many other metals left aside from Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron, such as Mysterious Iron and Meteoric Iron…
‘Mm, I’ll reveal those gradually.’
There were still many things he needed Zaonic’s help with, and if he showed everything now, the shock might make him collapse.
***
On the sixth day after Harris entered the Ganghwan Realm, five days having passed,
he, who had briefly left Mount Longzhong, the territory of the Zhuge Family, returned not long afterward.
“Great Hero Hae, where did you suddenly go… hm? And who might that be?”
With someone he had never seen before at his side.
At that, the face of the second captain of the Heavenly Mechanism Guardian Unit, who had greeted Harris at the main gate of the family after his outing, twisted subtly.
He was already furious because Harris had been acting rudely, and now he was even bringing an outsider inside as he pleased.
“Ah, it seems you haven’t received the message yet? I said I was going out to bring an acquaintance.”
“…Is that so? There must have been some mistake.”
To be precise, he had one-sidedly notified the attendant serving him and then promptly left, but Harris, who had grown even more shameless, replied smoothly without a change in expression.
“Then may we go in now? I’d like to introduce this friend as soon as possible.”
“Mm, please wait a moment. I will quickly… Ah! It is done now. Please enter.”
The man, who had been speaking with a troubled expression, soon confirmed permission through a sound transmission secretly sent from inside and nodded.
Inwardly, he wanted nothing more to do with them, so he quickly stepped aside from the entrance and silently urged them on.
Hoping they would hurry up and disappear inside.
But the other party did not move according to his thoughts.
The young man who had come with Harris moved his feet and approached him.
Then, toward the man who sent him a puzzled gaze, he respectfully performed a fist salute and lowered his head slightly.
“I have caused trouble with this sudden visit. I apologize, warrior.”
“…Not at all. I merely act according to my orders.”
Since the other party showed him such courtesy, the second captain also had no choice but to respond with a fist salute in kind.
He had assumed, because the young man was with the previous uninvited guest, that he would be the same kind, but perhaps he had more common sense than expected.
“My greeting is late. It is a pleasure to meet you. I am…”
And the young man, who at a glance looked like the scion of some prestigious family, wearing luxurious martial robes and carrying an antique sword at his waist, opened his mouth again with a refreshing smile.
“…Ha Seunghun.”
The name also used as Hesperon’s alias, Ha Seunghun.
Following Harris, the new alias of the entity “Hugo” deployed into the Ganghwan Realm.