My Students Regret It After I Retired

23 – A Manufactured Superior Artifact

Several Gatekeepers face a Minotaur mutant. The battle dragged on quite long, but the outcome seemed predetermined, with the majority of the group collapsing to the ground.

“Reck! Wake up, Reck!”

Cornered, Reck tried to attack the Minotaur mutant, only to be hit by an ultrasonic wave, and several others suffered burns all over their bodies from fireballs. A single monster had thrown the Gatekeepers into absolute chaos.

‘Why the hell…we’ve fought monsters countless times…this can’t be happening…’

As members of the Gate Management HQ, they participated in a huge number of raids with Leos. They went almost everywhere with him, and they killed monsters. That’s why this overwhelming defeat was something they just couldn’t comprehend.

‘It doesn’t make sense for us to lose… even if it’s a mutant monster…’

Reck, gasping for breath, denied the current situation. Leos used to take down mutant monsters without even breaking a sweat.

Reck kept trying to deny it, but he had to admit one thing.

“They’re on a whole different level… the difference between normal monsters and mutated ones…”

The man stared blankly at the mutated minotaur. When their eyes met, it grinned, like a human, and began to conjure a fireball.

“Ah…I don’t want to… I don’t want to die… please… please…”

The man said, backing away. But with his body injured and at this distance, escape was virtually impossible.

The moment Leck finally closed his eyes—

– *KA-BOOM!*

A huge explosive sound echoed. Leck looked at his body.

‘Why… why is my body okay?’

He had expected his limbs to be torn apart, but his hands and legs were all fine. Only then did the man raise his head and face the sight before him.

“Enas…?”

The explosion just now was none other than Enas, slamming into the fireball. Leck cried out in a desperate scream.

“Enas! Enas! Answer me! Enas!!!”

But instead of an answer, she threw a dagger at the minotaur.

“Kuh… kuh-eok…”

The dagger landed squarely in the minotaur’s mouth. The other head tried to unleash a fireball, but Enas crossed her arms in an X, shielding her face, and charged straight ahead.

It was madness. To block a fireball of such incredible heat that it could melt the earth with your own body was unimaginable. But, right before his eyes, that impossible scene was unfolding.

“Get a grip! Join the fight, now!”

As Enas spoke, Leck quickly got to his feet and started running. Belin and Kozarik, who had been lying on the ground nearby, as well as other Gatekeepers, joined the fight. The mutated minotaur struggled fiercely, flailing its body, but it could no longer use its sonic waves, nor could it shoot fireballs that were immediately blocked. It was all it could do. Finally, after a brutal fight, Enas plunged her sword into the monster’s magic core.

“Hah… hah… hah…”

Enas gasped, her breath ragged.

“I did it… I really did… that intel was right…”

Around her, staring blankly at the collapsed Minotaur, other members of the Gatekeeper Headquarters were gathering, beginning to praise her audacity.

“Enas, how on earth did you do that? Did you use some kind of artifact? How did you block that fire magic with your body…”

Lek, who was about to say more, stopped short when he saw Enas’s arm. There were huge burn marks on her arm.

“No way… did you really just block it with your body? How…?”

The characteristics of the Minotaur mutant’s fireballs. The longer the distance the fireball traveled, the greater the damage. That meant, the closer one gets their body to the Minotaur’s head where it was spewing fire, the less damage one would take. But even so, of course, it wasn’t possible to block it without taking any damage.

Enas, clutching her throbbing arm, spoke to those around her.

“Let’s… go back for now… everyone survived…”

*

“Boss! Is today finally the day?!”

“Leos-nim! Is it finally today?!”

Even though Bendict was always rowdy, today even Herysia next to him was yelling at Leos with an excited voice. It wasn’t hard to understand. For her, who was called an ‘Artifact Enthusiast,’ the opportunity to see a Superior Artifact was more exciting than anything else.

“Hold on. I’m going to craft it, no need to rush me.”

Leos said that, and then checked the Interrunner window floating in the Distance.

[Would you like to purchase the Superior Artifact Blueprint?]

[Points required for purchase: 10,000P]

[Remaining points after purchase: 3,500P]

Even at that moment, Leos nodded as he looked at the points that had accumulated again. Then, a blueprint-like thing soon appeared on the Distance screen.

[Out of a total of 1,521 Superior Artifacts, you can craft the one you want by obtaining the materials.]

“Whoa! Leos-nim! Can I! Can I take a quick look?!”

Heresia, face flushed crimson, darted over from the side, and Leos, handing over the distance, spoke.

“Just look for 10 minutes. Bendict, if you wanna see, look with us now.”

“I don’t understand that stuff, Brother! I’ll look when the items come out later!”

Bendict said that and stepped back, and Heresia began to scan the artifact list for a long while.

“Woah…this is insane…they can actually make all this? Really…? Leos-nim, how do you get on the popular posts? If I gather enough points, could I buy this too?”

“Don’t get caught up in useless thoughts. Just because you have the crafting recipe doesn’t mean you can make everything.”

“Ah… I guess that’s true…”

Superior Artifact Crafting Recipes. You can choose any superior artifact you want and make it, but it was limited to only artifacts for which you could get the materials. For example, artifacts that needed materials like an elf’s tear, which were difficult to even encounter now, were practically impossible to make even with the crafting recipe, and there were several such artifacts that were virtually impossible to make.

Leos retrieved the distance from Heresia and checked which artifacts he could feasibly make.

‘This, I could definitely try making. And I just happen to have creatures nearby I can catch.’

[Spyrel: Flies at a distance and detects nearby lifeforms. If enough mana is charged, it can drop a mana bomb.]

An artifact with similar capabilities to modern drone bombs. But, the clear difference from drones was that it didn’t require a separate power source, and there was no distance limit.

It could be moved anywhere the user’s gaze reached, and if mana was sufficient, it could drop massive mana bombs from above, so naturally, this was the top priority superior artifact to make when operating in secret like this.

‘These guys can use this too.’

Leos had thought several times about what artifact Bendict and Heresia would need to defend themselves against monsters if he left the bunker. But the conclusion was the same. A hand-held weapon was still too much for them. In that case, a spyrel that could scout and perform long-range interception was perfect.

“I’m heading out.”

Leos said that and only returned to the bunker after about 5 hours. His hands were full of the corpses of various mutant monsters.

“What…is this? You killed all of them? No way, do you need this many materials? It’d be impossible for any regular person to make this even if they had the recipe…”

Leos ignored Heresia’s rambling and pressed the distance screen. As he pressed the craft button, the materials outside began to be pulled into the distance, and then, a superior artifact, the spyrel, materialized into reality.

‘Excellent.’

Leos thought this and then spoke to Herisia,

“Herisia, could you attach a recording artifact to the front of the Spyrel? So I can see through a distance, even if I’m far away.”

“Of course! I already have one made, so I can give it to you right away!”

About an hour passed, and Herisia handed the modified Spyrel to Leos. As Leos touched it and linked his mana, the Spyrel, recognizing him as its owner, began to float into the air.

‘The screen looks normal. With this, I can observe the outside from the inside, too. And semi-permanently, until all the mana’s consumed.’

He’d have to charge it with mana every day, but that wasn’t much of a problem.

“Oh? Leos-nim? But… the bombing function is active? What are you going to use it for?”

At Herisia’s question, Leos showed her the distance screen.

[They say the Empire has dispatched a separate pursuit team to find someone? They’ve come near the vortex, and are checking everyone and everything. Guys, be careful.]

A post with this text, and photo proof of individuals who looked to be Empire personnel.

“I’ve got it, so I need to test it. To see what kind of performance it has.”