Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

On one hand, he had the notion that he had to treat this business with care. An arms deal with such a universally disliked customer could negatively reflect on Minas Mar. On the other hand, he really didn't want to give up on this chance because of something as meaningless as public opinion.

Who were they to tell him, that he couldn't fleece a bunch of undead? Maybe the tournament came at the right time. If people got really upset about it, maybe they could use it to distract the masses. The blacksmith remembered that sports events were a common tactic to distract people from political problems.

In the end, he didn't really care about the court of public opinion, but what mattered were the opinions of his own people. Tree Station 3, or Little Gamma as they came to call it, had a lot of people who had previously come from Gamma.

Their elected leader might be against even a non-aggression treaty with the foreign invaders. They might also not care, since it was not necessarily Arget Nore that wrecked Gamma, but the Zarkists who had run rampant shortly after the apocalypse.

Anyway, with the initial talks with Arget Nore done, the blacksmith was able to shove the part about asking his allies to Mary and her people, while he was going to hide in his workshop. Seth spent about half an hour updating Mary, Jane, and Leana about what he had talked about with the dark elves.

At that point, Seth also informed them about his decision pertaining to the grand prize of their tournament. They agreed that a custom item would not only attract more contestants but also be a better show of his skills, as he offered to create whatever item.

“But you should still create one fixed weapon for the tournament and leave the choice up to the winner, whether he wants the finished one, or a custom one. Otherwise, people might get suspicious about your confidence in making a legendary item. After all, officially, you didn't already craft over 30...” Leana added a suggestion.

Right, Seth had almost forgotten about it. They couldn't advertise him as a veteran who forged out legendary items like candy. Otherwise, foreign empires may get weird ideas about kidnapping or getting rid of him.

Although Seth started thinking that he was not necessarily afraid of them, there was no need to provoke a disaster either. There were a lot more forces than just Chrona, Spatia, Arget Nore, and the Muir Empire out there and these four already had their own exotic and incomprehensible means. Who knew whether Minas Mar, the Guardian Trees, and Al'Zalsar's Iego project would hold up if they were hellbent on fighting them?

“Alright, then I will make... A spear for the tournament,” he said after some deliberation.

“A spear? Didn't you originally want to make a sword?” Jane asked a little confused by the sudden change.

“Yeah, but I only have 4 bars of <Adamantium> right now. If I make a sword, I would need to use at least two of them, but for a spear tip, I only need one, maybe a little less. I can make the shaft from the Guardian tree's wood and save some material.” he explained his pragmatic decision. The blacksmith simply wanted to save scarce material on an item he may have to gift away.

If the winner chose a custom sword, there was nothing he could do about it, but if they took the spear? He would have saved a bar of legendary material for something else. Seth was rather rich, but even if you were Mr.Moneybags, you had to stay thrifty at times if you wanted to stay wealthy.

“Oh, I see. Are you going back to the workshop then?”

“Maybe later. I want to check on everyone, first. I will start working on the spear in due time,” he said relaxed, not really having any plans. He had expected the meeting with the envoys to take longer. Maybe he would look into integrating the Basic Automaton Core into the stone golems after a short break?

…

---Beta, Thres---

“Is that it?” Lydia asked excitedly, pointing into the distance. After they had entered the vast tundra, they had entered a stretch of mixed woods before finally entering the old cityscape of Beta. Old was relative, since barely three years ago, this was still a healthy and thriving megalopolis with billions of people.

This had changed with the apocalypse. The vast net of interconnected cities that were almost like one giant metropolis were now abandoned and in disrepair. Monsters had taken hold of the city, quickening its decay.

Ruined skyscrapers lined the broken streets and otherworldly plants grew over everything. Beta had been hit by several catastrophes and the survivors were finally forced to flee by the chaos in the Muir Empire's second invasion, leaving the whole district in the hands of monsters and nature.

The reason Lydia suddenly thought that she had spotted the destination of their journey, was the dome of a shield in the distance, as well as a scenery that was mostly untouched by the encroaching vegetation. Or rather, freed from it.

Thres was a satellite city on the outskirts of the district, which was why they didn't need to go far to see it from the distance. Now the new governor of the Muir Empire had already been working for several months on cleaning and overhauling the place to allow the people of Beta to return home.

They had chosen Thres for this very reason. It was the closest city with independent maintenance infrastructure to Minas Mar. Going by mount from the mountains to Thres only took a few days, although the route was not the safest.

“Lady Lydia, please be a little quieter,” Pearl asked her scared. “There could be an ambush everywhere in this place and we have gotten news of many new and bizarre beasts appearing in these places far off of settlements,” she explained further.

“No need to worry. We are here, after all,” the chosen of Wepwawet calmed down the priestess of the White Snake.

“Still, it would be best if we reached Thres without fighting in these ruins,” she mumbled meekly. Urban combat in these kinds of ruins was a nightmare. Not only could attackers use the ruins to hide themselves and ambush or escape.

Even when they had the upper hand in a fight, there was always the possibility of a second enemy hiding among these ruins and getting lured in by the noise of battle. It was dangerous, uncontrollable, and hard to predict what came next, which was why Pearl wanted to through this stretch as fast as possible. Lydia sighed.

“You are right. I just got a little excited,” she admitted.

In Thres, they intended to split from the priestesses who came to help here and continued with just the two. She was looking forward to adventuring with Mike. Just the two, alone, hiking through the mountains. And then, in the knight, they would huddle at the fire, and cuddle and...She blushed, looking forward to spending time alone with him.

“Don't worry, Pearl. Although it may not seem like it, we usually don't actively look for trouble,” Mike calmed her with a smile. They had just sat back down, when the snake came to a grinding halt, throwing the soft priestess into Lydia's arms.

“Kyaa~” Pearl exclaimed in a sensual voice.

Lydia's eyebrows leaped up, receiving an unexpected feel of the priestess and seeing her reaction.

“You have quite the unruly body for a priestess.” “Lydia, I think Mina has a bad influence on you.”

“I'm just joking. Let's look at what is going on.”

When they looked out the window, the scene before them was in the middle of violently changing. The massive snake they were currently riding was facing off against a massive bear with fur made of stone needles, that had seemingly come from the gap between two adjacent buildings.

Thorn Bears were massive and powerful beasts, When they appeared in Ora one exemplar needed two A-Rank parties of adventurers to be subjugated. The snake they were riding was big, but lacked in combat prowess, leading to an unstable face-off between the two big creatures.

This situation was rapidly changing just when Mike, Leana, and Pearl peaked their heads out from the carriage on the snake's back. From the adjacent street between two high-risers a massive white wisent charged onto the street and directly rammed into the bear, pummeling it to the ground.

With almost 6 meters shoulder height, it was even bigger than the bear. Bellowing in pain and anger, ignoring the breaking stone needles that pierced its skin, the wisent mangled the powerful monster with its pair of horns, covering its white fur in the opponent's and its own blood. When the Thorn Bear couldn't move anymore, it started trampling the opponent with its massive hooves, leaving no bone intact.

Staring at its work, it gave a last angry huff, before it turned away from the horrible beast it had just trampled to death, before turning to the big snake, that had been watching the act apprehensively. The three and the group of beasts in the other parts were staring back.

There was a certain intelligence gleaming in the wisent's eyes. After a while, it simply turned away, as if it had decided that they were no danger. Ignoring the snake and its passenger, it started grazing on the grass that had broken through the street cover.

“What was that..?”