Master Smith Under Ministry of National Defense

Chapter 140: Show Times Show is a Show

Master Smith Under Ministry of National Defense

140 – Show Times Show is a Show

“Phew… Is this Liberty City? It’s truly enormous.”

For the first time, individuals who were not members of the Liberal Clan had entered the interior of Liberty City, which had previously only allowed access to Liberal Clan members.

The group, looking around as if they were country folk visiting the city for the first time, consisted of famous figures recognizable by anyone just by their faces.

[Attention visitors temporarily in Liberty City. You are currently within a temporarily designated visitor area. Please do not step outside the red-marked area on the floor. Once again, please do not step outside the red-marked area on the floor.]

Hearing the stern warning from somewhere, a large blond man spat out the toothpick he had in his mouth and said.

“What if I don’t want to?”

“Ivan, we’re guests here, so it wouldn’t be wise to cause trouble.”

The person who spoke to the man called Ivan was Orléans, the leader of the ‘ServiHum’ Clan, the most powerful awakened clan in the European region.

In response to his words, Ivan Svedov, the ‘Soul Eater,’ said.

“If you don’t want to become a zombie and my puppet, don’t give me orders.”

“What, you want to fight? Too bad, there’s no cemetery nearby.”

“Do you think necromancers can only fight if there are corpses around? Do you want me to show you otherwise?”

“Go ahead.”

“Hey, shouldn’t we stop them?”

The woman who spoke was Seo Ah-rin, a Korean Awakener who had recently returned to the ServiHum Clan after her suspension was lifted.

She watched the tense standoff between Ivan Svedov, the strongest Awakener in Russia and a top-ranking necromancer, and Orléans Perrier, known as the strongest water-type Awakener. She hoped someone would intervene, but no one moved to stop them.

Who was stronger?

Whose abilities were superior?

Unlike Ah-rin, who was a reconnaissance-type Awakener, combat-type Awakeners cared a lot about their ranks, even if they didn’t show it outwardly. This was especially true for Orléans, who was dissatisfied with the recent ranking update that placed him below Ivan Svedov.

In the first place, without equipment like a scouter, the outcome of battles between Awakeners could always be overturned depending on the compatibility of their abilities, regardless of their rank.

Orléans summoned a ring of water from thin air.

“You seem to be putting a lot of faith in the world rankings without any solid evidence. How about we find out who’s stronger right here?”

In response, Ivan Svedov summoned the corpse of a massive, crocodile-like monster from thin air.

“Fine by me. I need to measure the combat power of my newly completed modified ghoul anyway.”

“Oh, is that the ability of a necromancer? It looks like he’s revived the corpse of a monster.”

The man speaking with an amused tone, as if he had found an interesting spectacle, was Zhai Tianlin, the captain of the Superhuman Squad under the Chinese Military Commission.

The young woman standing next to him nodded in agreement with Zhai Tianlin’s opinion.

“Not just revived, it looks like it’s been modified too. The body seems to be that of a Reptilian Strider, but the teeth and claws appear to have been taken from another monster. Plus, monsters don’t have missiles like the ones on that crocodile’s shoulders.”

“Judging by the mark on the missile, it looks like a weapon purchased from the Liberal Clan. I’m curious to see how well it fights against Orléans.”

“Seriously, someone should stop them!”

Ah-rin spoke with a face full of frustration, but no one in the gathering paid attention to her words.

To those who were always ranked among the strongest humans in the world, the complaints of Ah-rin, a seeker-type Awakener with near-zero combat power, posed no threat.

‘Sigh… The people in the Liberal Clan weren’t like this.’

Ah-rin sighed deeply in her heart.

Unlike other clans that generally tended to disregard seekers, the Liberal Clan actually treated seekers as more valuable.

‘In the end, fighting monsters is all about compatibility. The better a seeker can assess the battlefield, the fewer casualties occur during the strategy. Moreover, finding a capable seeker is much harder than finding a skilled combat-type Awakener.’

The best example of Myung-jun’s belief was the presence of Ito Kei.

A reconnaissance-type Awakener who never participated in battles.

Despite being an elementary school student, an age often disregarded in the adult world, no one in the Liberal Clan ignored Kei’s words.

Even Myung-jun often prioritized Kei’s judgment over his own during strategies, which fostered a general atmosphere of respect for seekers within the Liberal Clan.

However, this wasn’t the Liberal Clan, and the people around her weren’t Liberal Clan members, so she eventually took out her phone and sent a message to Soo-jeong.

“Unnie, you’re watching, right? Can you do something about this?”

A moment later, her phone buzzed with an alert, and Soo-jeong’s reply arrived.

“It’s a duel between the Noble of River and the Soul Eater? To be honest, I kind of want to see it too.”

“If they fight seriously, the city will be destroyed.”

“The city isn’t built that weakly. Even if it gets a bit damaged, it can be repaired quickly. Besides, their goal isn’t to see who’s stronger.”

“Then what is it?”

“They’re putting on a show for us. There was probably some kind of deal between Orléans and Svedov. They’re pretending to fight to showcase their combat abilities to Myung-jun.”

Ah-rin recalled the scene at the airport where the two had been talking about something.

It was too long a conversation to be just a simple greeting.

With a bewildered expression, Ah-rin tapped her phone and sent another message to Soo-jeong.

“This is all a show? Why would they do that?”

“Not everyone invited this time will become an instructor. Fighting in front of Myung-jun is practically a crazy move, so they’re probably trying to show off their most spectacular fight before he arrives.”

Soo-jeong’s guess was spot on.

Ivan and Orléans.

What they were thinking was to put on the most dazzling fight possible without causing harm to each other, to showcase their abilities.

Moreover, Orléans, whose last fight Myung-jun had seen was the battle against Banara in the Amazon, wanted to use this opportunity to change the image Myung-jun had of him.

‘Back then, even with the combined efforts of Pereira, Sven, and myself, we lost to a single Banara. Cha Myung-jun defeated Banara on his own. So, I need to show Cha Myung-jun how much stronger I’ve become through this opportunity.’

In reality, Orléans had grown significantly stronger compared to that time. Besides his personal growth, his combat power had increased immensely thanks to the rapier that Myung-jun had crafted for him.

In front of him, the necromancer Svedov continued to summon new corpses.

There was a giant crab-like monster with pincers nearly 2 meters long, a beast that looked like a bear but had sharp, sword-like horns on its head, and an monster resembling an Arachne with the body of a spider and the upper body of a beautiful woman.

Svedov, who had summoned ten monsters, each with combat power of grade-7 or higher, finally seemed ready. He looked at Orléans and spoke.

“I heard that the Noble of River lost to an monster of grade-8 level even with the help of two world rankers.”

“Sorry, but not all grade-8s are the same. Sometimes, within the same grade, there are monsters with strength that surpasses their grade.”

“Are you talking about Prime entities? I know them well. The corpses you see in front of you, they are all made from Prime-grade monster corpses.”

“I hunt Prime entities occasionally too. But the one we faced in the Amazon was different. If Prime entities are like mid-bosses, that one felt like the final boss.”

“You probably felt that way because you’re weak.”

“Why don’t you test it out?”

Orléans increased the number of water rings he had summoned around him to ten and began spinning them at high speed. He then drew the rapier from his waist and pointed it at Svedov.

The sky-blue blade of the rapier, reminiscent of the azure sea of a tropical beach, glistened with moisture as if it had just been dipped in water.

Watching the two, who looked ready to start fighting at any moment, the world rankers invited to Liberty City wore expressions of interest. They began to gauge how they would fare against the two using their own abilities.

‘Will poison work on corpses? Or should I use corrosive poison instead of intoxicating poison? Either way, my compatibility with Orléans isn’t great. Water dilutes poison.’

‘Damn, why doesn’t this city have a single street tree? Without trees, I can’t use my abilities. Ah, I should have summoned a bunch of Wood Giants from the nearby forest before coming in.’

While everyone was mentally simulating their battle plans against the two, Orléans was discreetly glancing around, assessing the situation.

He was checking to see if the city’s suppression system was being activated.

If the suppression system was activated, he would have to stop the fight immediately. The activation of the suppression system would mean that Myung-jun did not permit the fight happening in the city.

However, no matter how much he looked, Orléans couldn’t find any active turrets, and a small smile appeared on his lips.

‘You want to see this too, don’t you?’

Orléans simultaneously hurled the ten high-speed spinning water rings at the zombies summoned by Svedov.

And at that moment.

– Bababababababababang! –

A sound, reminiscent of the exhaust of a tuned sports car occasionally heard in residential areas, began to rapidly approach from across the street.

Along with that sound, a sleek sports car, easily recognizable even from a distance, sped towards where Orléans and his group were.

The terrifying speed of the car made onlookers instinctively step back.

But what shocked everyone even more was what happened after the sports car, which seemed like it would crash into Orléans’ group at any moment, was blocked by one of Svedov’s zombies.

– Clack! Clack-clack! Whirr! Clack! Whirr! –

The sports car suddenly leaped into the air and began transforming, reminiscent of a scene from a famous robot movie, performing a somersault as it did so.

Simultaneously, missiles and beam weapons began firing from the body of the transforming robot.

– Puh-puh-pung! Pung! Pung! Kwakwakwabang! –

– Kweeeek! –

Before the robot’s feet even touched the ground after its jump, all the summoned water rings and monster zombies exploded, leaving none behind.

Despite being summoned by a world ranker.

Having eliminated all the summoned creatures, the robot landed gracefully on the ground and issued a warning to the two through its speakers.

[Sorry, but the use of awakener abilities is prohibited within Liberty City.]

Hearing the dialect-laced speech that didn’t quite match the cool entrance, Ah-rin’s face lit up with a smile.

The familiar voice coming from the robot.

It was the ‘Driver’ of the Liberal Clan, sent by Myung-jun to stop the two’s show.

It was Byung-tae’s voice.

Byung-tae, who made a V-sign with his fingers towards Ah-rin, pointed a warning finger at the dumbfounded Orléans and Svedov.

Then, in his characteristic dialect-laced voice, he said,

[Message from the boss. There’s a separate procedure for rank assessment, so stop the show and come in quietly.]