Hyunsoo logged into Ares and received Nell’s congratulations.

[Nell: Congratulations. Becoming the first to gain over 400,000 subscribers in 8 hours, I think. It’ll probably keep rising steadily for a week and settle in the 1.3 million range, holding at 6th place.]

It felt new.

The blacksmith community. There was always a saying there, about Hyun’s Forge.

“There’s a limit to how far an individual blacksmith can go.”

Most of the people who tried to recruit Hyunsoo through Hyun’s Forge kept that phrase on their lips.

Within the top twenty in subscribers.

And among them, Hyunsoo was the first individual blacksmith.

It wasn’t just that, in sheer numbers.

[Nell: Now Hyun’s Forge is worth at least 2.5 billion a month.]

The revenue of the corporate-style forges within the top ten was between 2 and 3 billion.

Considering labor costs and other expenses going out, in reality, you could say Hyunsoo’s profit margin was overwhelmingly higher.

[Guild Master Hyunsoo: I’ll catch up to half of Black Anvil Forge’s subscribers.]

Hyunsoo had never once forgotten his promise with Rowoon.

Suddenly, as he looked at the quiet guild chat window with only Nell, he felt a pang of disappointment.

[Guild Master Hyunsoo: Did everyone go into a dungeon?]

[Nell: Yes. It’s an area where whispers and guild chat aren’t possible, so it’ll be hard to 연락 them.]

He remembered hearing about it in advance.

And now was the time for Hyunsoo to move toward his next goal.

[Nell: Today you’ll return to the Kingdom of Goyard, right? What do you think will happen with your title promotion?]

Hyunsoo’s chest ached.

[Guild Master Hyunsoo: Total Negotiation Progress is 79% right now, but it’s 5% Contribution per 10% Negotiation Progress, so I don’t think I can receive the Baron title right away ㅠㅠ.]

Usually, you could raise your title once you reached 100% kingdom Contribution.

[Nell: Still, that means your kingdom Contribution is over 60%, right? There probably isn’t anyone besides you who raised it this much in just two weeks, Hyunsoo.]

Nell was good at giving a jab and then a salve.

It definitely wasn’t because Hyunsoo was lacking.

Raising Negotiation Progress as a Negotiator was only possible if Hyunsoo was given tasks to carry out.

“It’s a shame, but I should be satisfied with this much....”

That was when—

[Soon, your vassals’ instructor duties will end.]

[After your vassals’ instructor duties end, Negotiation Progress will be granted according to the achievements they attained.]

“...!?”

Hyunsoo jolted at the unexpected notification.

Come to think of it, the day Hyunsoo was abducted into the Prahum Kingdom(?), five members of the Storm Brigade had been dispatched as instructors to the Cradle of Hell.

Hyunsoo realized.

“Depending on how much they made the Cradle of Hell soldiers grow, my Negotiation Progress could change?”

Hyunsoo waited, holding his breath.

Once their instructor duties fully ended, the results would be revealed.

*****

The Cradle of Hell.

The place where the Prahum Kingdom’s most elite soldiers were raised.

The average soldier level reached around 200.

But the 300 soldiers in this Cradle of Hell averaged 240.

Powerhouses who could handle five soldiers alone!

They couldn’t become knights, but they brushed the edge of knight-level.

That was why the Cradle of Hell soldiers’ arrogance pierced the sky.

And Chen, a Cradle of Hell soldier, could never forget the first day those people arrived.

He’d been late to the barracks because he had to process work, and as he headed there, he recalled the conversation the other soldiers had been having.

“Let’s grind them into the dirt.”

“How dare those Kingdom of Goyard soldier bastards!”

Chen pictured them getting beaten to a pulp by the Cradle of Hell soldiers, black-and-blue and swollen.

And then he’d opened the barracks door and gone in.

“Those instructor bastards, you beat them good—?”

Chen, stepping in through the door, lost his words.

Five soldiers oozing a vicious aura had beaten down over a hundred people inside the cramped barracks.

“G-gh....”

“Ugh....”

“H-hic...!”

Chen wound up hiccuping.

And those five members of the Storm Brigade.

Beasts raised from childhood for one purpose—killing.

Their captain, Kan, smiled faintly.

“Cute, huh?”

That was their first meeting.

The reason the Cradle of Hell was called by that name was its insane training intensity.

But these people were different.

Early morning.

“Run back and forth over the mountain ten times.”

The task the instructors gave was absurd.

But they ran with them.

They ran together, and when the soldiers ran five laps, they ran ten.

“...?”

No one could say it was impossible.

Why?

Because they did it.

They slept four hours a day.

And swung their swords all day long.

The sword training was simple.

“You use wooden swords. We use real swords.”

“...?”

These bastards aren’t in their right minds.

They held real swords and told each of them to fight thirty soldiers at a time.

The Cradle of Hell soldiers fought to survive, with intense focus and senses they’d never once dragged out in their lives.

Thankfully, they didn’t actually cut them with real blades, but still.

In the Cradle of Hell, the ones who inflicted training harsher than hell.

Of course, it seemed the instructors weren’t complete devils.

The instructors ordered them to climb a cliff barehanded.

Chen barely reached the top.

Instructor Kan, smiling gently, held out his hand.

“Yeah. They aren’t devils either. In the end, they’re warmhearted—”

“One more time.”

Instructor Kan, who’d taken his hand, let him back down toward the base of the cliff.

“You fucking bastard—aaaaaaaah...!”

These bastards are devils.

All the Cradle of Hell soldiers ground their teeth at them.

But it was strange.

“What is this?”

Their swordsmanship changed at a geometric rate.

The wrists that had climbed the cliff felt harder now, bracing firmly when they swung their swords.

Even with their breath swelling to its limit from running pushed to the extreme, they could still swing their swords.

One day.

Two days.

Three days.

As time passed, they grew accustomed to this insane training, and they felt themselves becoming sturdier and tougher.

You know what was even more ridiculous?

They surpassed knights if you only looked at “skill.”

They just couldn’t use mana, so they couldn’t exert a knight’s power.

In other words, their pure skill was on the level of the commander class in an ordinary territory, so the soldiers improved by leaps and bounds.

And when those five completed all their duties—

Chen and the other Cradle of Hell soldiers could feel they’d become far stronger than before.

Chen’s change was dazzling.

[Soldier Chen Lv.239]

He’d originally been around this level.

[Soldier Chen Lv.248]

Achieving that much growth in just ten days!

And the Cradle of Hell soldiers who had wanted to ignore them at first had completely changed.

Normally, soldiers find it hard to surpass their limits and rise into knighthood.

Only one out of twenty soldiers becomes a knight.

But they had awakened their own power.

The Cradle of Hell commander came and said,

“They truly are remarkable people....”

Even the commander spoke in admiration.

“You will now go to the Prahum Kingdom prisoner camp. Go there, lead the prisoners, and return them to your homeland. I will also lend you around twenty Cradle of Hell soldiers.”

The time had come for them to leave.

Now the Cradle of Hell soldiers’ loyalty toward them was so high it seemed to pierce the sky.

As Chen watched them prepare to depart, he asked,

“...Can’t you stay in the Cradle of Hell?”

Kan had grown attached to them too.

And Chen knew.

“If the commander of the Cradle of Hell recommends it, you should be able to remain here through the peace trade.”

But Kan was firm.

“No. Our liege is waiting.”

Hearing that, Chen thought their liege must be truly incredible.

“To win the steadfast hearts of people like them....”

“Move out!”

And the twenty Cradle of Hell soldiers and Hyunsoo’s vassals departed for the prisoner camp.

*****

A notification rang out to Hyunsoo as he waited for his vassals’ instructor duties to end.

[Your vassals’ instructor duties are ending.]

[The Cradle of Hell soldiers grow greatly.]

Hyunsoo’s chest trembled.

[This is an astonishing achievement.]

The notification Hyunsoo had always made happen—his vassals had done it in his stead.

[You obtain 23% Negotiation Progress.]

And at the ringing notification, Hyunsoo couldn’t help exclaiming in admiration.

In truth, Hyunsoo, as the main actor of the negotiation, was someone who could raise Negotiation Progress far more easily than they could.

He was the one who’d been assigned work dealing with a king—wasn’t that only natural?

That was why raising it this much outside the king’s gaze was astonishing.

[Total Negotiation Progress reaches 102%.]

For some reason, Hyunsoo understood.

“They did their best.”

A small smile formed.

When he returned, he would reward them.

Just then, Ben came with his hands clasped behind his back.

“I hope you won’t give me a moment to be bored.”

He meant: come visit often.

“Your soldiers have headed to the Prahum Kingdom prisoner camp. If you also join them and send the prisoners back to your homeland, your schedule as a Negotiator will end.”

After Ben disappeared, Hyunsoo took out the bow from his inventory.

It was his Masterpiece.

It was a custom-made bow crafted for Ian, but Hyunsoo 고민ed carefully.

“Do I sell it, or not?”

And after coming to a decision, Hyunsoo departed for the prisoner camp at once.

*****

Bella folded up a letter.

That letter had come from a small territory.

Its contents were as follows.

“I do not have the strength to govern this territory that keeps growing larger and larger.”

“I keep hearing stories of his ever-growing standing, and of the people who yearn for him.”

When Barad first received this letter, he’d thought this.

“As a lord, it must be truly difficult.”

The territory’s people kept speaking a name ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ that wasn’t their lord’s, but merely a passerby’s.

He’d thought it must be hard to endure as a leader there.

“I too wish that the owner of this territory were not me, but him. The territory that had lost its vitality has become full of laughter because of him, and the number of guests only keeps increasing, so I cannot be happier.”

But it wasn’t like that at all.

Rather, the lord was saying that was why they were happy.

“Write it.”

As Barad continued speaking, Bella at his side couldn’t hide her surprise.

“...He is currently in another nation as a Negotiator. Entrusting territory to him when he is only a Junior Baron is contrary to reason. However.”

Barad then let a small smile linger.

“The Negotiation Progress he has built will decide him.”

Soon, a letter was sent, and Bella still couldn’t hide her astonished expression.

“What surprises you so? My letter?”

But Deputy Commander Bella shook her head.

“No.”

“Then?”

“The one most suited to the Vallas Territory. That is, the idea of a master blacksmith becoming the lord of the blacksmith’s territory already feels like it will surprise me.”

Bella was in awe.

A blacksmith’s territory led by a master blacksmith.

The one who had sent the letter was Belin, the lord of Vallas.

The problem was this.

“How much Negotiation Progress would it take for granting a new territory to a Junior Baron to draw no criticism?”

Barad did not give easily.

So if he couldn’t do it, he would not give it.

“Well. What’s certain is, it should be to the point where I and the nobles think it is astonishing.”

When he returned, they would know.

What title he would receive, and what rewards.

Meanwhile—

Ben’s face twisted.

“W-what...?”

The words from Rek, the deputy leader of the Red Dragon Brigade—who hadn’t opened his mouth no matter how many days they tortured him—were shocking.

“The entire Red Dragon Brigade has probably already raided the prisoner camp.”

Rek smiled.

“Our Red Dragon Brigade are the Prahum Kingdom’s hunting dogs. What do you think will happen if we kill every prisoner and soldier there?”

Ben’s face reddened.

Even if it wasn’t the situation the Prahum Kingdom intended—

if the Red Dragon Brigade killed the Kingdom of Goyard prisoners, things would spiral out of control.

In other words, peace between the two countries would be completely ruined.

Ben urgently sent a letter.

That letter was directed to one person currently heading there.

But he couldn’t have high hopes. The Red Dragon Brigade numbered around seventy.

And even if he set off now, by then everything would already be over.

And Hyunsoo, nearing the prisoner camp, received the flying letter and read it quickly.

Ding!

[Kingdom Quest: Prisoner Rescue is created.]

Grade: S

Restriction: A person proposed by the king

Reward: Obtain Negotiation Progress X2

Penalty on failure: Affinity with Barad and Ben decreases.

Description: Kingdom of Goyard prisoners are currently in danger of being massacred. Protect them and ensure they return safely to their homeland.

Hyunsoo, reading the suddenly triggered quest, was stunned.

“Double Negotiation Progress...?”

In other words, like doubling experience gain, if he succeeded here it meant a doubled gain.

But Hyunsoo focused on something else.

[Vassal Kan is in danger.]

[Vassal Berm is in danger.]

[Vassal...]

Hyunsoo’s teeth clenched hard.

He got down from the carriage Ben had provided, mounted a horse, and spurred it into a sprint.