A Noble Technique for One Gold Coin
"Philip!"
"Oh, you're finally here?"
Philip, who had been leaning against a post stifling a yawn, waved a hand in greeting as his companion approached.
"Why is it that you can never show up on time? Not even once."
"Hey, I made it pretty early today, didn't I?"
"...You're still twenty minutes late, you lunatic."
Trading good-natured barbs, Philip and his friend fell into step side by side. They had worked as mercenaries together since leaving their hometown; though their words were rough around the edges, a deep, unspoken trust bound them together.
"Is that escort contract locked in?"
"Yeah. The departure, waypoints, destination—nothing changed."
"...I told you last time, their rates are highway robbery. Let's not take their jobs after this one. We break our backs, and for what? Pocket change. And it's not like the rations are anything to write home about, either."
"I hear you, so stop whining already. Didn't I explain it? Our schedule blew wide open when that other job fell through, so I had to take what I could get."
The friend kicked a pebble along the cobblestones, then glanced sideways at Philip.
"Hey, what do you say we try diving into a dungeon?"
"Are you insane?"
"Come on! Word is the survival rate on Easy difficulty is actually decent."
Philip shook his head without a second thought.
"Don't listen to that garbage; it'll get you killed. What was that guy's name again?"
"Sampson?"
"Right, Sampson. Bragging about being some thirty-year veteran mercenary, strutting around as he gathered a party—and then vanished without a trace inside. If a thirty-year veteran gets swallowed whole, what business do the two of us have in there?"
"...You think I have a death wish? It's just that ever since we made Silver Rank a year ago, things haven't gotten any better—"
The friend's voice trailed off. His eyes widened.
"What on earth is that?"
"What are you talking about... Huh?"
Following his friend's gaze, Philip froze in equal bewilderment.
Stretching outward from the front entrance of the Mercenary Guild branch was a colossal line of people snaking far down the avenue.
"Is there some special event today?"
"Beats me."
Though fate had landed them in Dungeon City, they had never once seen the local guild branch so utterly swarmed.
"Whatever it is, my gut says we should jump in line right now."
"Oh, please. What if it's nothing?"
"Would this many people be standing around for nothing?"
Scanning the crowd, Philip's face suddenly brightened. A familiar face stood among the queue.
"Tommy! Hey, Tommy!"
"Philip? You guys here after hearing the news too?"
"...What news?"
Tommy shot them a look that clearly asked if they were joking, but seeing the utter blankness on Philip's face, his eyes went wide.
"Are you serious? How do you even put food on the table when you're this clueless about what's happening around you?"
"Just tell us what's going on!"
"The guild put out an official bulletin a few days ago," Tommy said, leaning in. "They announced they'd be selling an introductory mana breathing technique from a noble house."
For a second, Philip thought he had misheard.
"They're selling a mana breathing technique developed in-house?"
His confusion was only natural. Why would the Mercenary Guild sell a noble family's mana breathing technique? Acquiring such a manual was difficult enough, but distributing it was an even greater hazard. Even if the Mercenary Guild lost its collective mind, it had no reason to pick a fight with high nobility; likewise, no aristocratic house would ever leak its proprietary breathing methods to the outside world unless every member had gone mad.
"Not developed by the guild!" Tommy hissed. "I told you, it's an actual introductory breathing technique used by a real noble house!"
"...Do you honestly expect me to believe that?"
"Then what about everyone standing here?" Tommy gestured along the sprawling queue. "Do you think all these people crawled out of bed before dawn just for kicks?"
"So..." Philip's friend interjected urgently. "How much are they selling it for? If it's a noble family's breathing manual, it's got to cost hundreds of gold at minimum, right?"
"Hundreds? Try way higher than that under normal circumstances." A smug, irritating grin spread across Tommy's face as he held up a single finger. "Prepare to have your minds blown."
"One hundred gold?"
"Nope. Lower."
"Lower? Ten gold?"
"Lower than that."
Philip stared at him, incredulous. "You can't possibly mean... one gold?"
"Bingo!"
Philip and his friend stood struck dumb, rendered speechless by the sheer absurdity of it all. A genuine noble house's mana breathing technique sold openly by the guild, for the price of a single gold coin?
"Oh, look, the line's finally moving."
Just as Tommy said, the queue had begun its slow, deliberate shuffle forward.
"Anyway, you two better scrape together a gold coin right now! It's a lot of money, sure, but it's not like you can't come up with that much if you pool your pockets!"
Tommy wasn't wrong. A gold coin was a substantial sum to common sellswords, but it was an amount two Silver-rank mercenaries could realistically muster if they scraped their reserves.
"Do you have any spare cash back at the room?"
"I don't know, we'll have to check."
"Let's pool our savings and buy one copy together. We can both study off the same book!"
Without wasting another second, the two bolted back to their lodging, gathered their savings, and sprinted back. In the brief time they were gone, the line had grown substantially longer.
Fortunately, luck was on their side. They managed to make their purchase just as the branch's pre-printed stock was teetering on the verge of selling out.
Their first impulse was to inspect the text right inside the guild, but the ground-floor lobby was already teeming with buyers frantically flipping through pages. The two were forced to step outside into the open air before prying the booklet open.
— Drake Breath —
Only then did the two realize the true identity of the technique, and a collective shiver ran down their spines. Hadn't the entire city been buzzing about this very name just weeks ago?
"Wait... wasn't this auctioned off for thousands of gold back then?"
"That's what I heard, yeah."
"And now they're handing it out for one lousy gold coin?"
"...I don't know what kind of game is being played behind the curtain," Philip murmured, "but one thing is crystal clear."
His friend turned, eyes wide with question.
"This is an opportunity we can never afford to let slip."
The overwhelming majority of mercenaries were merely physically conditioned commoners, entirely incapable of channeling mana. Philip and his friend were no different. Yet now, resting in their hands was the proprietary mana breathing technique of a high noble house—the Drake Family, no less. The fact that it was merely an introductory manual did not matter in the slightest.
It was a technique refined by an aristocratic lineage. Even at the entry level, it vastly outclassed the dubious, nameless breathing manuals peddled in shady back alleys. Mastering this alone would elevate their strength to an entirely new plane.
"We're finally going to see the light...!"
They took a jubilant step forward, only to flinch and halt in their tracks.
Lined up before the Mercenary Guild branch were heavily armed knights who hadn't been there moments ago.
Emblazoned clearly upon their polished, light-catching plate armor was the crest of House Drake.
With expressionless faces, the knights glared at the guild facility. This was no idle surveillance; deployed in a loose semi-circular perimeter, they were effectively cordoning off the building. No one from outside could enter, and no one from within could leave.
Their stance screamed that they were ready to storm the premises at a moment's notice. Though they refrained from releasing overt bloodlust, the sheer hostility radiating from their ranks weighed heavily in the air. Even against the far greater number of mercenaries milling about, the pressure they exerted was suffocating.
Yet that imposing momentum did not last.
"What did you say?"
The commander's voice rang out so loud and sharp that every mercenary nearby heard it plain as day.
"The Adventurer's Guild and the Free Mage Association are selling Drake Breath too? At the exact same price of one gold coin? Did you verify this properly?!"
"We acquired copies from both and reviewed the contents, sir... It is unmistakably Drake Breath."
The knight commander was not the only one thrown into disarray. The rank-and-file knights, who had maintained stone-faced composure, openly betrayed their shock for the first time.
In contrast, the mercenaries waiting in line looked visibly relieved. While they had responded to the guild's bulletin in droves, a sliver of doubt had lingered in their minds. But the reaction of House Drake's own men had settled the matter beyond dispute. What the guild was selling was no cheap forgery—it was the genuine article.
"What are your orders, Commander? Given that the Adventurer's Guild and the Free Mage Association are moving in unison, they've clearly laid careful groundwork. We're even hearing reports that other organizations are distributing it as well."
"Who else?"
"The Alchemist Guild, among several others."
The commander's face contorted, paralyzed by indecision. It took a long, agonizing pause before he finally spoke.
"For now..."
"Yes, sir. Give the word."
"For now, we withdraw to the estate. This is... no longer a situation we can resolve on our own authority. We return to the family and await new orders."
The surrounding mercenaries, who had been holding their breath in fear of a sudden bloodbath, collectively exhaled.
Glowering at the guild branch one last time, the commander pivoted on his heel.
"Fall back!"
The knights broke their cordon and followed their commander away from the scene. The mercenaries who had been frozen in place clutched their copies of Drake Breath and hurried away from the plaza. Though their expressions carried the taut edge of those anticipating an inevitable storm, beneath the surface lay a thrum of pure exhilaration.
"Hey, let's get out of here too."
Philip and his friend melted into the dispersing crowd, eager to put distance between themselves and the brewing feud.
Bennett arrived at Balduin's workshop right on the agreed date.
"You're here," Balduin grunted.
"Is everything ready?"
Balduin, who was busy chugging ale straight from a small wooden keg, held up a stubby finger asking for a moment.
Thud!
"Whew! Now that's what I call living."
Having drained the keg dry, the dwarf ambled toward a corner of the smithy. It was the designated junk pile where he typically heaped raw materials and discarded components needed for equipment repairs. With a sweep of his thick arm, he shoved aside the haphazardly stacked salvage, revealing the items concealed beneath.
Resting there was the custom repeating crossbow and auxiliary hardware designed to be mounted onto Pungsan.
"Was it really necessary to bury it like that?" Bennett asked.
"You wouldn't be talking so casually if you were in my boots. Those inspectors have a habit of kicking my door in unannounced to poke around."
"You couldn't turn them away?"
Balduin's lineage carried notable clout within the Dwarf Kingdom. After all, when he had first tracked down Bennett's residence, he had casually mobilized the Dwarf Kingdom's domestic intelligence network to do it.
"I couldn't turn them away because you went and demanded an inventory of equipment currently in development," Balduin snapped. "If not for that little detail, I could've easily swept them under the rug."
"Hm. Fair enough."
Balduin shot Bennett an irritated glare. "Fair enough? Shouldn't a man at least offer a token apology in a spot like this?!"
"Sorry."
"...Talk about pulling teeth."
Grumbling under his breath, Balduin pointed toward an empty patch of floor—the flattest, clearest spot amidst the surrounding clutter. "Set it down here."
Bennett summoned Pungsan from his inventory. The machine appeared in a powered-down state, its four legs folded tightly beneath its chassis as it lay flat against the flagstones.
Grabbing a set of heavy tools, Balduin got straight to work.
"Like we discussed last time, this repeating crossbow is a fixed pintle mount. It'll cover any target across your entire frontal arc, but it can't traverse to the rear, so keep that blind spot in mind."
"Is that the weapon?"
The repeating crossbow Balduin hoisted up looked unlike anything Bennett had seen before. While Bennett's personal weapon, Shooting Star, was compact and streamlined for concealment, this pintle-mounted variant was visibly longer and reinforced with heavier plating. What truly stood out, however, was the mounting column below and the ammunition feed. Calling it a magazine felt inaccurate; it was closer to an oversized ammo drum.
Bennett peered into the open hopper. Steel bolts were packed inside with surgical precision.
Judging by the volume...
"Three hundred and thirty rounds?"
"Hah, you catch on unnervingly fast."
"I handle crossbows every day."
"Well, either way, it puts out three hundred and thirty bolts before you need to reload. The drum and the feeding link attached to the receiver have to be swapped out together. It might be a handful for your little sister to manage, so you'll have to drill her on the procedure yourself. And remember, no enchanted bolts—every single one in there is a solid armor-piercer."
Whir! Click-clack!
Balduin bolted the mounting column securely into the chassis before latching the heavy repeating crossbow atop it. Unlike Shooting Star, a distinct box-cross sight—shaped like a gridded square—sat welded onto the top rail.
"What's this?"
"A relatively recent addition from the homeland. Starting with the latest production batches, they've made it mandatory to attach this type of sight. There were several variants tested, but the box-cross pattern received the best marks by far."
"Can you retrofit one onto Shooting Star?"
"...Don't push your luck."
Working with blinding speed, Balduin finished assembling the pintle-mounted crossbow in the blink of an eye. He then moved directly behind the mount to install a folding seat.
"I saw your little squirt last time, and she's practically bite-sized. I sized this specifically for her frame, so don't you dare try wedging yourself into it."
Much like the weapon mount, Balduin finished assembling the seat with practiced efficiency and pulled it open to demonstrate. The folded backrest snapped upward, followed immediately by a thick plate of armor steel that rose to shield the occupant's spine.
"Installed this so she doesn't take an arrow in the back while riding. Might look a little clumsy, but better ugly than dead." Balduin lifted his chin with unmasked pride. "Well? What do you think of Master Balduin's craft? Not half bad, eh?"
"Definitely."
It was far better than 'not half bad.' While Pungsan was heavy for its size, its overall profile was relatively compact, yet Balduin had managed to integrate every single component with remarkable balance. Prior to unfolding the backplate, the machine projected an unmistakable aura of lethal precision—the unnatural silhouette of a mechanical quadruped paired with a formidable, high-capacity repeating crossbow.
Bennett briefly contemplated testing the seat himself, but abandoned the notion. His sister would fit comfortably, but his legs would have dragged against the ground the second he sat down.
"Ah, almost slipped my mind."
Balduin clicked his tongue and shifted his attention toward the damaged sections of the robot dog's outer plating.
"This is an alloy developed back in the homeland. It's called Caldrium. To sum up its traits... it's absurdly tough."
"Tough? Tougher than dwarven steel?"
Balduin nodded firmly.
"It's light, extraordinarily durable, and holds up against extreme temperature shifts far better than conventional metals. It doesn't conduct or amplify mana, but it's still a marvel. Works great for weapons, armor, or just general metalwork."
"Did this originate from the dungeon world as well?"
"They didn't give me the full story on that... but honestly, wouldn't surprise me. Half the innovations spilling out of the kingdom these days were dragged out of that place."
Sizzle... hiss.
Even as he spoke, Balduin's hands never slowed, finishing the patch job in short order.
"How's that? Clean as a whistle, right?"
Where jagged holes and scorch marks had once marred the plating, the surface was now smooth and seamless. Whether due to the properties of the Caldrium alloy or Balduin's exceptional metallurgy, the repairs showed none of the crude patchwork typical of field fixes.
"Now, hand over the coin."
"I just remembered something urgent—"
"You pay for the materials before you take one step out that door, you bastard!"
"I must have misheard you," York said, his voice trembling.
The middle-aged man, who had kept a watchful eye on Bennett from a distance not long ago, found himself forced to repeat the question.
"Are you telling me... to bring that bas—er, to bring that man here?"
"You heard correctly."
"Did my report fail to reach you properly? I made it abundantly clear that nothing good will ever come from crossing paths with that monster."
"Believer York, your testimony was relayed through me without the slightest omission."
York could not fathom the rationale. "Then why...?"
"It is the will of That Person."
The priest's mild, benevolent smile vanished in an instant, replaced by an expression of bone-chilling frost. The abrupt shift made York instinctively recoil a step.
"So hold your tongue, and bring him to us."
"U-Understood."