Regression of the Transcendent Blacksmith - Chapter 05

========== REGRESSION OF THE TRANSCENDENT BLACKSMITH CHAPTER 5 ==========

Arimir, who had been watching the inside of the tutorial, dropped her jaw.

She had spent an eternity as an administrator, but this was the first time she had been this surprised.

No, even in her entire life, she hadn’t been this shocked very often.

The sight Arimir was witnessing was that shocking.

“W-what on earth is that…?!”

Even at this very moment, amidst the countless Awakened struggling and failing to climb the tutorial, Shin Tae-ho, who had started much later than them, was breaking through each tutorial floor.

No, “fast” was an understatement.

[You have successfully cleared the 20th floor.]

[You have successfully cleared the 21st floor.]

[You have successfully cleared the 22nd floor.]

Shin Tae-ho’s advance was unstoppable.

Countless traps and monsters lunged at Shin Tae-ho, but none of them could pierce the armor he had made.

Furthermore, the hammer he was holding was no ordinary weapon.

Somehow, every time the hammer swung, monsters literally flew away, and their bones shattered.

“That kid should be weak from starving for so long. To pass through so easily…?”

It would be one thing if he had just entered and was full of energy.

Arimir knew that Shin Tae-ho was in a state of starvation, to the point where he had no energy left.

Then, there was only one remaining cause.

“That kid… what on earth did he make…?”

While Arimir was astounded, Shin Tae-ho was steadily breaking through the tutorial.

While the Awakened who started the tutorial at the same time were now challenging the 5th floor, Shin Tae-ho had already climbed to the 28th floor and was facing an Ogre.

Arimir’s eyes flashed at the sight.

The mission on the 28th floor was a level of difficulty so cruel it was hard to call it a tutorial.

No matter how weakened it was by the tutorial system, an Ogre was still an Ogre.

A race created solely for violence and destruction.

The 28th floor, guarded by the creature known as an Ogre, had never been passed by any challenger until now.

If you just rushed in, you would only die in vain.

How would Shin Tae-ho deal with it?

Arimir’s curiosity was soon resolved.

Thud! Crash!

-Grawwwr!!

As Shin Tae-ho swung his hammer, the Ogre hit by it collapsed.

Its thick, hard bones were broken, and its joints were twisted grotesquely.

However, the Ogre didn’t just stay down.

Struggling in pain, it instinctively swung its club, which struck Shin Tae-ho’s body squarely.

BAM!!

Shin Tae-ho, hit by a club the size of a tree, flew off into the distance.

The armor might have been fine, but it was an attack strong enough to rupture his internal organs from the impact.

Arimir, tense, held her breath and gulped.

Surprisingly, Shin Tae-ho got up as if nothing happened and brushed himself off.

“…Ha, haha.”

Arimir’s tightly clenched fist loosened powerlessly.

Shin Tae-ho, who had stood up, struck the head of the struggling Ogre while holding his hammer.

One hit, two hits, three hits.

As the hammer came down for the third time, the Ogre’s body, which had been writhing as if electrocuted, stopped moving.

[You have successfully cleared the 28th floor.]

Shin Tae-ho shouldered his hammer.

As he climbed toward the 29th floor, he only looked a little tired.

No injuries could be felt in his movements.

Arimir stared at him, dumbfounded.

“To make an item like that with items displayed on the 1st floor…? Is that even possible?”

All items provided in the tutorial were of Normal grade.

Only one weapon and one piece of armor could be taken from the 1st floor.

Every challenger who heard this understood it to mean they should choose only one single weapon and one piece of armor.

In fact, that was exactly what it meant.

But Shin Tae-ho had suddenly asked a question no one had ever asked before, flustering the system.

He had dismantled this and that by himself, built a crude, makeshift forge, and then created such a cheat-like item.

That was a method Arimir hadn’t even imagined.

And, although Arimir, as the administrator, thought it was a meaningless and stupid action, Shin Tae-ho had silently hammered away amidst loneliness and suffering, and eventually created such an item.

It wasn’t about thoughtlessly following the tower’s rules and system, but an act of forging a new path for himself within them.

Had there ever been even one existence that had even attempted such a thing?

There hadn’t. Not a single one.

Arimir stared at Shin Tae-ho with a flushed face.

If she could, she wanted to entrust her long wait and lingering attachments to him right now.

But for that, there was still a mountain Shin Tae-ho had to overcome.

“Overcome it. And climb to the end. If you manage to make it through that adversity. If you really do that for me.”

I will entrust the faded hope I have cherished all this time to you.

It was a heart closer to a plea and a prayer than a command or a proposal.

Arimir’s trembling eyes reflected Shin Tae-ho.

Unaware of that gaze, Shin Tae-ho was already passing the 29th floor and climbing the stairs to the 30th floor.

Shin Tae-ho, climbing the stairs to the 30th floor, stopped walking.

His limbs felt drained of strength, and his head felt foggy.

‘It’s tough.’

His stomach, which had felt like it was being squeezed from hunger even before challenging the 1st floor, now felt like his stomach skin was about to stick to his back.

Fighting in a starving state made his head spin, and he felt dizzy.

His physical condition was tough, but what made Shin Tae-ho’s feet heaviest was the unpredictable uncertainty.

‘The challenger who climbed the highest in the past tutorial was the 28th floor.’

Compared to that, the floor Shin Tae-ho was challenging this time was the 30th.

This was a floor no challenger in the past had ever reached.

In other words, he didn’t know how many more floors he had to climb.

If he kept challenging like this, he felt like he would really collapse before he could even fight properly.

‘Should I just leave?’

There were no windows or clocks inside the Tutorial Tower.

Because he was immersed in making armor and hammers, Shin Tae-ho didn’t know the fact that half a year had already passed.

He just thought a quite long time had passed.

He could receive a class even if he left in this state.

Wouldn’t it be better to leave as soon as possible and do something else with that time, rather than keep challenging a tutorial that he didn’t know when it would end?

“…No. That’s an excuse.”

Shin Tae-ho, who shook his head, moved his feet again.

The purpose of his regression wasn’t to see the end of the Tutorial Tower.

However, if he couldn’t even clear the Tutorial Tower, how could he possibly climb the real tower outside, which was much harder and more dangerous?

Even to climb the tower later, he had to do his best at this very moment.

Step!

Shin Tae-ho, frowning from exhaustion, arrived at the 30th floor.

Soon, a message popped up before his eyes.

[You have entered the 30th floor.]

[This is the final floor of the tutorial.]

“The final floor?”

Shin Tae-ho was surprised.

He had been contemplating giving up just a moment ago, to think the 30th floor was the end of the tutorial?

If he had known after giving up, he would have kicked himself in regret for the rest of his life.

‘Thank goodness. At least I won’t starve to death in vain.’

Vitality rose in the exhausted Shin Tae-ho’s eyes.

Thinking it was almost over, he felt energy returning to his body.

‘Since it’s come to this, let’s be the first to clear the Tutorial Tower.’

Shin Tae-ho entered the 30th floor.

Perhaps because of the pressure of it being the final floor, the air on the 30th floor felt colder and sharper than other floors.

As he went inside, something caught Shin Tae-ho’s eye.

It was an old knight’s armor standing alone as if it were on display.

As soon as Shin Tae-ho recognized the armor, a message window popped up.

[30th Floor Clear Condition: Defeat Bedileem, the Elf Knight whose soul is trapped in the armor.]

“What? Undead?”

Shin Tae-ho’s eyes widened.

Trapping a soul in an inorganic object like armor was the ability of a class that handled undead, like a Necromancer.

Shin Tae-ho naturally knew at least that much.

Even so, the reason he was surprised was because of the nature of the existence called undead.

To deal with the undead, one needed the power of the holy attribute, which was the polar opposite, or Qi, which was the foundation of all attributes.

However, since one could only use Qi after obtaining a class, Shin Tae-ho couldn’t use Qi.

‘What kind of design is this? Making an Awakened who can’t handle Qi deal with an undead?’

Shin Tae-ho’s face twisted at the structure of the 30th floor, which was designed to be impossible to clear from the start.

Shin Tae-ho, who was wondering if it was some kind of riddle, opened his eyes wide.

‘Don’t tell me… does it mean only those who can use Qi from the beginning are qualified?’

Qi, a transcendental power that boosts physical abilities and can manifest supernatural powers impossible in reality.

Usually, it was a power that could only be used after awakening and constructing a Qi Circuit, but very rarely, there existed a tiny minority of Awakened who could handle Qi before obtaining a class or skill.

And most of them went on to become powerful challengers and became a pillar of strength.

‘Are they saying only those with such qualifications should challenge this…!’

Shin Tae-ho, who deduced what the 30th-floor clear condition meant, ground his teeth.

If that were really the case, Shin Tae-ho couldn’t clear this 30th floor.

Creak-

While Shin Tae-ho was agonizing, a sharp friction sound was heard, and the knight armor began to move with a creaking sound.

That meant the 30th-floor trial had begun.

Whoosh!

The armor kicked off the ground and rushed at Shin Tae-ho in an instant.

Shin Tae-ho, who jumped back to create distance, calmly swung the hammer he had been carrying on his shoulder.

Clang!

Sparks flew as the hammer and sword collided.

Even while doing so, Shin Tae-ho’s brain was spinning rapidly.

‘Don’t make me laugh. You want me to give up because I’m not qualified after coming all this way?’

The hammer swung again.

However, the knight armor avoided the attack by bowing its head and attacked Shin Tae-ho with a kick.

Bang!

The kick struck Shin Tae-ho squarely.

And the knight armor that delivered the kick flew back from the impact.

-?!

The knight armor that had fallen over creaked as if flustered.

But that was only for a moment.

Moving its body like a machine, as expected of an undead, the knight armor swung its longsword at Shin Tae-ho again.

Clang! Crash! Clang!

The longsword struck Shin Tae-ho in succession.

As fast and strong attacks poured out one after another, dust rose, obscuring his vision.

When the knight armor was looking around for Shin Tae-ho in the dust, a war hammer that pierced through the dust cloud struck the knight armor’s helmet.

Thud!

The knight armor’s posture was disrupted.

But that was it.

The hammer, swung with full power, bounced off without even leaving a scratch on the helmet.

Shin Tae-ho panted heavily.

“As expected, attacks don’t work without Qi. But it’s the same that your attacks don’t work on me either.”

If the opponent had been an Ogre, even if he hadn’t been hurt, he would have been flying through the sky every time he got hit.

But the knight armor didn’t have the absurd super strength of an Ogre, and the knight armor’s longsword couldn’t pierce Shin Tae-ho’s armor.

Having grasped the situation, Shin Tae-ho nodded.

“Wait a minute. Let me think.”

Shin Tae-ho, who had spoken to the knight armor, sat down comfortably.

Toward Shin Tae-ho, who was thinking with his chin in his hand, the knight armor’s dazzling and desperate attacks poured out.

To be continued in the next chapter ▶