Extras: The Craftsman, the Novelist, and the Hound

For the master of the Fourth Equipment Laboratory in the Underground City beneath London, Arthur Conan's day usually followed a sacred and fixed mechanical rhythm.

Every morning at exactly seven o'clock, the deep, resonant chimes of Big Ben would penetrate the thick layers of earth, reaching this sunless subterranean kingdom.

He would promptly rise from his camp bed piled high with design blueprints and metal components, washing his face with a rough linen cloth soaked in chemical reagents.

Then, cold overnight black tea and rock-hard oat biscuits would serve as his energy source for the day.

From 7:15 AM until 2:00 AM the next morning, during this work period exceeding eighteen hours, his world consisted of only three things.

The roaring steam furnace, splashing molten iron, and core materials from UMAs sourced from various dark corners of the world.

With his hands, stained with engine oil and burn scars yet steady and dexterous, he would violently hammer and fuse the two fundamentally incompatible raw materials of "science" and "mystery."

The birth of each piece of Grotesque Armament was a desperate struggle against unknown concepts, a perilous gamble filled with risk and uncertainty.

Arthur was the most avaricious and also the most successful gambler in this blood-and-fire casino.

However, outside of these eighteen hours of clashing machinery and metal, few staff members of the Underground City knew about the other side of this "Mad Craftsman" who seemed possessed by demons during the day.

After dragging his exhausted body to close the laboratory door, engraved with a "No Admittance" warning, at 2:00 AM, he would enter another mode of creation.

He would return to his cramped dormitory, piled high with books and specimens, and light a dim, flickering kerosene lamp.

Then, he would carefully pull out from under his bed an exquisite mahogany box secured with three locks.

Inside the box were no blueprints, no components, and no UMA remains.

Only stacks of manuscript pages for novels, their edges curled from repeated handling, and a Parker fountain pen with a gleaming, well-worn nib. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

Arthur Conan, the top "Armament Blacksmith" of the I.A.R.C. London Branch, possessed another secret identity unknown to most.

An amateur, even somewhat unrefined, third-rate novelist.

Yes, a novelist.

This was perhaps the most inconceivable secret in the entire Underground City.

No one could imagine that the scientific fanatic, usually indifferent to everything except "Spiritual Coupling Rate," "Law Stability," and "Material Rejection Reactions," would spend the deep night weaving cheap words of fictional fantasy with the same hands that had forged countless armaments.

But for Arthur himself, the essence of these two vastly different creative acts was interconnected.

Forging Grotesque Armaments was about translating the chaotic, disordered mystery from the inner world into tangible, usable tools comprehensible to ordinary people.

Writing novels was about artistically processing and encrypting those equally real experiences from the inner world concerning death, fear, struggle, and the brilliance of human nature.

Then, leaking them to readers living in the sunlight of the Surface World in a manner safe enough not to cause panic.

Both were a form of translation.

And he, Arthur Conan, was the loneliest and greatest translator between these two worlds.

A year ago, he published his novella, a story about the "scientific reasoning method."

The protagonist was an eccentric private detective named "Sherlock Holmes" and his mild-mannered doctor assistant "Watson," who consistently served as a foil.

The inspiration for the story came from himself. Yes, he was "Holmes."

The "consulting detective" with an encyclopedic knowledge of chemistry, anatomy, and toxicology, capable of deducing the entire truth of a case from a speck of cigarette ash or a drop of mud.

The seemingly ordinary "Watson" was an "idealized avatar" he created for himself, the complete opposite of who he was.

Another self who could escape this eternal darkness, embrace the sunlight, experience love, and live a normal life.

The novel, titled "A Study in Scarlet," failed to make waves in London's literary circles after publication.

It was like a stone thrown into the Thames, silently swallowed by waters teeming with sensational news and gossip.

Arthur didn't mind this. His purpose for writing was never fame or fortune;he simply needed an "outlet."

A "pressure relief valve" that allowed him to safely release all the immense information and psychological pressure from the inner world, accumulated during the day, that he couldn't share with anyone.

However, not long ago, after receiving a letter from Lin Jie, whom he jokingly called "my poor friend who's always in crisis,"

A new inspiration brimming with "hellish aura" and "supernatural horror" struck his slightly depleted mind.

"Dartmoor... Black Dog... Mark of Death..."

Arthur repeatedly chewed over every detail Lin Jie described in that concise letter about the heart-pounding "Hound Battle" that occurred on the moors of southwestern England.

His eyes sparkled with a creative fire even brighter and more fervent than when he forged a Kingdom-class Grotesque Armament.

This was it. This was the story.

Trembling, he spread out a fresh sheet of manuscript paper.

He would write down this real case, imbued with Gothic horror, ancient curses, and supernatural power.

He would make it the second installment of the "Sherlock Holmes" series.

He would bring that "Hell Hound," constructed from "fear," onto London's stage of crime, illuminated by gas lamps and filled with the scent of carriages.

He had already decided on the title.

It would be called "The Hound of the Baskervilles!"

However, just as he dipped his pen in ink, ready to write the first word, his movement abruptly halted.

No, not yet.

Something was still missing.

As a former physician, he knew well that a perfect work of art must possess a logical "anatomical structure" within.

And the structure of his current story was not yet perfect enough.

He needed more details, more tactical samples from different craftsmen on how to combat this type of "emotional aggregate" UMA.

Arthur slowly set down his fountain pen. The brief novelist's time had ended.

Next would be the working hours belonging to Armament Blacksmith Arthur.

He blew out the kerosene lamp, left the small dormitory permeated with the scents of ink and fantasy, and returned to the steel-clanging Fourth Equipment Laboratory.

But he didn't immediately head towards his beloved steam furnace.

Instead, he walked to the deepest part of the laboratory, to a massive communication instrument constructed of brass and crystal that he wouldn't normally touch lightly.

"Hermes Ether Communication Array."

This was the only strategic-level device in the entire Underground City capable of ultra-fast encrypted communication with I.A.R.C. branches in other countries.

Arthur detested this machine.

Because it always brought foolish, bureaucratic orders from headquarters, and even more intolerable, "technical exchange requests" from those self-important colleagues in other national branches.

Although Arthur would never admit it, he also knew he wasn't the only Armament Blacksmith in the world.

The I.A.R.C. was a vast organization like a colossal tree rooted in the dark world, its extensive root system already spread across the globe.

And in those equally dangerous foreign soils, some "monsters" who also made their living forging laws had "grown."

For example.

While expertly adjusting the complex frequency dials of the communication array, Arthur reluctantly recalled in his mind a few names he wished to forget but couldn't.

That old fossil stationed at the I.A.R.C. Munich Branch, within the "fortress" representing Germanic rigor and rigidity, the discarded son of the Krupp family, Leon von Essen.

That old fellow only knew how to forge one thing his entire life—"shields."

All sorts of bizarre and fantastical shields.

From the [Unyielding Wall] that could withstand cannon fire to the [Shield of Saint George] that could reflect curses, he seemed intent on using the uniquely German, stubborn-to-the-point-of-foolish "chivalric spirit" to withstand the entire chaos of the inner world.

A thoroughgoing, incurable "defensivist."

Then there was the one far away in the New World of America, a sworn enemy of the "Brotherhood of Light," stationed in the underground factory known as the "Crucible" at the I.A.R.C. New York Branch, the descendant of Italian immigrants, Nikola.

That fellow was the other extreme, a fanatical "offensivist."

He was obsessed with forcibly fusing "electricity," that new and unstable form of energy, with UMA core materials.

The "Thunder Spears" and "Tesla Coils" he forged, brimming with electric arcs and high-voltage energy, possessed immense power, but in Arthur's view, their instability risk...

They were practically a bunch of gorgeous "alchemical bombs" that could explode in one's hands at any moment.

And the last one, also the one Arthur found most troublesome.

Like Lin, hailing from the distant and mysterious East, reportedly secretly trained by the Qing Dynasty's "Jiangnan Arsenal" before joining the I.A.R.C., a man of no name.

No one knew his real name, only that his codename was "Tianji."

Arthur completely failed to understand that man's forging style;he seemed to pursue neither sturdiness nor destructive power.

The weapons he forged, such as the [Lu Ban Umbrella] capable of folding space and the [Tianyuan Chessboard] that could simulate battle situations in real-time on a sand table—were all imbued with the mystical implications of "Dao" and "strategic potential" from Eastern philosophical thought.

In Arthur's view, that wasn't forging at all;it was witchcraft.

"A bunch of hopeless heretics..."

Arthur muttered disdainfully in his heart, yet he had to admit that these colleagues, who also stood at the pinnacle of the "Armament Blacksmith" profession pyramid, might indeed bring some fresh inspiration for his upcoming hound novel regarding their understanding of UMAs.