LIGHTNOVELWORLD Chapter 23
Chapter 23 – Future Dreams (2)
—–CROW—–
I roared, filled with uncontrollable rage!
“How much is it now!!!!!! You fucking asshole!!!!!!!!!!!!”
It was the culmination of the fury I had accumulated over three years of living peacefully in this world, a rage directed at the absurd otherworldly people!!!
“Y-you son of a bitch! You wanna fight?!”
But the quack suddenly started throwing punches at me as if the parasites in his brain were having a seizure! Even with my vision blurred with rage, I easily caught his punches with the hand that wasn’t using Beast Regression.
Grab!
“You fucking bastard!!!! Who taught you to answer a question with your fists!!!!!!!!”
I had simply asked a question, but the quack had thrown the first punch. The audacity to punch a customer asking about the price!! He was the epitome of a quack!!!
Whatever his thought process was, I didn’t have to take it lying down. I deactivated Beast Regression on my right hand and pulled the quack closer.
“The price should go down if you sell them as a set, not up!!!!”
“Ugggh!!!”
Whoosh!!
Crack!!!
My fist connected with the quack’s face. It was a fleeting contact, but the satisfying impact resonated through my bones.
“This bastard has a great punch feel! Die and be reborn as a punching bag!!!!”
“Ughhh!!”
—Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
Merciless punches rained down on his upper body. His legs had given way the moment my first punch landed. His brain rattled, his face bled, he couldn’t breathe, and his stupid head went *thud* and shut down.
“Get up, asshole! You’re hard to hit!!!”
I cursed my poor judgment! I shouldn’t have aimed for his head first!
It was hard to punch him now that he had collapsed. My punches were stronger than I expected.
Lifting rocks trained your strength and grip. And grip strength greatly contributed to punching power. The strength I gained from swinging a rock larger than a washbasin, combined with the passive enhancement from Beast Regression, made my bare-handed attacks too powerful to control.
“Get up!!! A customer is here; why aren’t you getting up!!!”
“Ugh…!”
He was groaning, so he wasn’t dead or unconscious. But he still wouldn’t get up!! If he was too tired to serve customers, he shouldn’t have opened his shop!!!
“You spineless bastard!!!!”
I was truly enraged by the pathetic display of this fake macho man!!
Unlike the cliché in RPGs, many blacksmiths in this other world were wizards. Leather armor enchanted with magic was lighter, cheaper, and more cost-effective than metal armor.
Metal didn’t enchant well, so it was avoided as an equipment material beyond a certain level. It was inferior to enchanted leather or cloth, not to mention monster materials.
It was only natural. If anyone could enchant metal, what was the point of mithril or orichalcum? If you enchanted an alloy, it would become adamantium.
Also, rare metals imbued with mana were rare, so they were usually used for weapons, not armor, which required a lot of metal. There were cases where people splurged on rare metal armor, but they were rare.
Therefore, blacksmiths only needed a certain level of strength, and their skill was determined by their enchanting magic and dexterity.
But magic, as I’ve mentioned several times, was a high-level skill.
That’s why there were many blacksmiths who could work with metal but couldn’t enchant leather armor. This quack was a prime example.
A “self-proclaimed” master (idiot) who couldn’t use combat magic and only knew a little bit of enchanting!
A condescending old fart who lacked both strength and magical skill, yet overflowed with bravado and arrogance!
He probably worked at some small or medium-sized company before being fired due to office politics or incompetence and then started his own business. There were kind and hardworking people among them, but this guy wasn’t one of them.
“He’s like a shady computer repair shop owner!!!”
I roared, remembering my middle school days!
I felt like my head was going to explode remembering the time I was charged 60,000 won for formatting my computer! With 60,000 won back then, I could have bought so many Pikachu pork cutlets at the local snack bar!
“Get up!!! Reboot your left and right brain before I format your head, you bastard!!!”
As I grabbed the quack’s collar to wake him from his sweet slumber…
—Crash! Bang! Wallop!!
Thump! Thump! Thump!
“W-what’s going on?!”
A loud noise came from inside the blacksmith’s shop, and a woman rushed out.
She had brown hair tied back. She wore a dark brown work outfit that looked like an apron and reached her knees. Not a single inch of skin was exposed, as if to prevent sparks from landing on her.
Was she the quack’s daughter? Her speech was a bit too rough for that. I regained my composure at the appearance of a third party and said,
“I don’t know who you are, but I’m in the middle of negotiating the price with this gentleman, so please don’t interrupt.”
“Y-yes?! P-price?! How much did you sell something for to make him like this…!”
The blacksmith woman looked flustered. I released the quack’s collar and straightened my clothes.
“He said a whetstone costs 10 coopers. The price seemed a bit high, so I was asking if he knew how to count.”
“…That’s, that’s impossible!”
The woman, exclaiming with a shocked expression, rushed to the collapsed quack, ignoring my gaze. She was holding a small box. Was it a first-aid kit or something?
“Mr. Jason!”
Arriving next to the quack, she lifted the box and…
“You’re trying to ruin my business!! Just die already!!”
—Thwack!!
—She slammed it directly onto the quack’s balls.
“Oh my.”
“Ugh…!!”
The ball-busted rip-off artist screamed and collapsed. Like all men whose balls had been crushed, he clutched his genetic bank with both hands and writhed on the floor.
But the brown-haired woman didn’t stop there and mercilessly stomped on the quack’s back.
“10 coopers?! 10 coopers?! Do you think you’re from the Merchants Guild?! Even they don’t sell whetstones for 10 coopers!!”
“Ugh! M-Ms. Clara! I’m sorry! S-stop hitting me!”
“Stop?! How dare you tell me to stop!! Do I look easy just because I’m speaking politely to someone from the guild?!”
Her words and actions were filled with a level of hatred that rivaled my own. Startled by the sight of the blacksmith woman crushing the sword seller like a fly, I exclaimed,
“Can I hit him too?!”
“Yes! Join in!”
“Thank you!”
I happily rushed over and stomped on the sword-selling bastard.
That’s right! There was no need to bother lifting a fallen enemy; you could just kick him!
I hadn’t thought of that because I was so angry. It wasn’t good to be completely consumed by rage.
“Gyaaagh!!!”
Anyway, I stomped on the quack together with the woman I had just met.
I couldn’t kick him in the balls because I was a man. Not because I felt sorry for him, but because I didn’t want to touch another man’s balls.
Thud…
The quack, after being stomped on for a while, lay sprawled on the floor. I think we had stomped on every part of his body except for his head, which would have killed him. It was a very satisfying result.
Then, the blacksmith woman, catching her breath, said,
“Ah, I’m sorry, customer! I’m late with my greeting.”
She, probably married, judging by the ring on her left ring finger, spoke in a bright voice.
“Hello! I’m Clara Smithson, the owner of this blacksmith!”
“The owner?”
I blinked at her self-introduction.
“Then who is this… gentleman?”
Was he a part-timer? He couldn’t be her husband if she had crushed his balls, so he must be a part-timer.
He was even more pathetic than I had imagined. Working part-time at a shop run by a woman young enough to be his daughter, and ripping off customers!
What kind of mindset did you need to have to pretend to be a macho master in that situation?
“This… gentleman is a… gentleman sent by the Blacksmiths Guild because our shop wasn’t making enough sales!”
“Sent by the guild? This son of a… gentleman?”
“He’s famous for high sales at the guild-operated weapon shop! But I didn’t know he would sell a whetstone for 10 coopers!”
Clara looked around and took out a whetstone from a shelf. It was a whetstone wrapped in cloth and tied. It looked carefully packaged.
“Here’s the whetstone you were looking for! It’s normally 4 coopers, but since we made a mistake, we’ll give it to you for 3 coopers, including the oil and cloth!”
A 70% discount? Was this Steam? The rip-off artist margin, which would make even Gabe Newell cry, was impressive.
Anyway, there was no reason to refuse a discount. I didn’t know if the discount was real, but 3 coopers seemed like the normal price. I unwrapped the cloth to confirm it was a proper whetstone and paid.
“Thank you for your purchase!”
Clara said with a smile as I handed her the money. I was even touched by this smooth transaction.
Selling at a fair price and buying at a fair price. Such an obvious thing was incredibly rare in this other world.
It was like the feeling of receiving a bottle of Bacchus after a smooth, direct transaction, having been constantly scammed on Joonggonara.
“Do you need anything else?”
At her words, I looked at the quack, who was still snoring. He showed no signs of waking up, as if he was trying to hatch his balls like a hen incubating eggs.
‘Come to think of it, I don’t have lower body armor.’
Lower body armor was rare due to limitations in its design.
It was usually either chainmail worn like a skirt or a metal plate attached to the crotch like a boomerang-shaped underwear. The former was commonly used, and the latter was a relic of perverts out of touch with current trends.
But seeing that quack, I suddenly felt the need to cover my lower body with something. My balls were precious.
Even if Beast Regression increased my defense, if I got hit with a ball-buster kick the moment it wore off, my dick would be screwed like that quack’s. If my balls were crushed, it would mean my opponent was strong enough to defeat me even without Beast Regression.
Considering these factors, I needed a countermeasure before my balls became the Shikon Jewel.
The future where my dick escaped my crotch and sought freedom, like me!
I couldn’t bear such a future. The day my dick sought freedom would be the day I hanged myself.
If my dick was cut off, even if I escaped my master’s degree, I would be a eunuch. If I got a doctorate, I would be a doctor-eunuch. The day I became a professor, I would be a eunuch professor. Even if I found a way back to Earth, I would be a dimension-traveling, otherworldly, returning eunuch.
In that sense, my dick was as vital as my brain.
My dick was another heart, a second brain. Wearing armor to protect such a precious dick was a completely logical way of thinking. I didn’t even understand why I had left it exposed until now.
“Do you have any lower body armor? Something made of leather—”
“We specialize in metal armor, customer.”
Her tone was serious, her face expressionless. She had become like a perfectly painted mannequin.
“Uh, no, but I don’t have the money to buy metal armor right now. So, I’ll buy metal armor later, and for now, something made of leather—”
“We specialize in metal armor, customer.”
“Okay.”
That’s what she said.
“I’m sorry. But I don’t like leather armor. Ah, don’t get me wrong. I know how to enchant.”
Sigh—
Clara sighed deeply. At her words, I looked around the shop again. There wasn’t a single piece of leather armor, which was common in blacksmiths, in sight.
“Metal has its own charm! I’m sure a technique to enchant metal will be developed someday!”
Clara declared, clenching her fists. Her eyes sparkled with passion.
“Sure, metal armor is noisy, heavy, and above all, expensive! But nothing in this world can beat the coolness of shining steel!”
“The lineup of disadvantages is too strong.”
It was like the Suicide Squad.
As Clara’s—unintentionally accurate—self-criticism pointed out, metal armor had too many flaws to be chosen solely for its coolness. It was expensive and not cost-effective, so it probably didn’t sell well.
—–CROW—–