Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Three people were leisurely sitting in the front row of what looked like a home theatre. A few others were sitting in the seat behind, but only their silhouettes were visible. This was the solution of the three, Hades, Hephaistos, and Seth.

Instead of showing the other god's clips one by one, they sold tickets for their theatre where they played the highlights of Seth's adventures.

On the screen was the scene of Seth's attack on the bandit base.

Unnoticed by the guards, the hunter had quietly spread accelerant around the bandit base and the barricades. All Seth then needed to do was set light it with his powerful spirit flame. The terrifying fire surrounded the base in the blink of an eye.

Alison cast a storm wind to further stoke the fire before she continued to cast the fire rain. In the meantime, Seth had prepared an escape route out of the encirclement. At the end of the route waited his summoned smithy aka his workshop. Here Cerberus was already ready to give their guests a heartfelt welcome and a big hug.

Seth wanted to capture them alive, so Evee could have her revenge. During the best part, when Seth received their blessings, the door to the home theatre flew open. It might be more accurate to say that the two wings of the door exploded and flew into the theatre.

"Seth! Where are you! You mutt!" an angry voice echoed. It was a featureless god in a funny-looking wizard robe that had entered the room.

"S-system God! Why are you here?" Seth asked shocked. The other gods in the room had hurried to vanish. Only the three entrepreneurs were still in the theatre.

"I said clearly nothing from your specialty! What's with that voice skill?"

"What do you mean? I'm mainly the god of chaos, destruction, and violence. Giving him the voice of a storm god should not be a problem, right?"

"Don't think you can fuck with me! That voice skill is clearly of chaotic nature!"

"So what? I'm the god of chaos, of course, I cheat. The blessing is given. There is nothing you can do about it now."

The two Olympian Gods backed away from Seth as they felt the system god's anger bend time and space around him. The system god raised his threatening index and at this moment this finger seemed to grow in presence while everything else darkened. As if this was the only object in the universe.

Seth could not help but sweat buckets, but he stood his ground. Then everything returned to normal, and the index was slowly lowered. The system god did not need violence, Seth was used to beatings. There were more painful means.

"Yeah, the blessing is given, and I won't take it away. But don't think there is no punishment. No private champion for you! Hehe, this third of a champion is all you will ever have on Urth. How do you like that?" the system god said full of schadenfreude.

Seth's face fell. "You can't do this!"

"Hah! I can and I did. That's your punishment. Oh yeah and you!" the terrifying index was suddenly pointing at Hephaistos' forehead.

"Thin line! VERY thin line, my friend. Hephaistos, "the crafty one", don't think you can mess with me."

With that the system god left the theatre as suddenly as he had entered it, leaving behind two gods dripping with sweat. The only one still calmly sitting on his seat was Hades- The other two looked at him hatefully when they heard him rummaging in his popcorn. He only gave them a contemptuous smile.

"I always play by the rules," he said with a smirk and ate some popcorn. It was true, hades had not tried to circumvent the rules, instead, he gave their champion the probably strongest blessing. The skills themself might not have been too special, but the point was the level. With the skills given by Hades, the little blacksmith would be able to find and harvest even epic materials.

If this wasn't the most useful and powerful blessing for the current Seth, then what was?

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The street was blocked by three people, while five more were in the surrounding building and aimed their bows at them.

"What's the Shield Gang? Are you highwayman or something?" Tekar mumbled unwittingly.

"Don't call us that! We are fair and just businessmen. We keep this road clean and safe, so you have to pay a highway tax for using it. That's not unreasonable!"

"Yeah, it isn't!" one of the three confirmed.

"So... you are a kind of Militia?" Seth asked.

"Militia? Hey Tom, what's a Militia? Are we a Militia?"

"I don't know Jom. We should ask Papa later."

"Tom, Jom, Som! Stop wasting time!" one of the archers shouted. He wore a pair of small circular shades and slurred the end of the words.

"Archi, is that you!?" the gourmet hunter suddenly called out.

"What?" the archer lifted his shades to get a better look at the travelers.

"Link? The heck are you doing here? Didn't you become some bigshot in the city or something?" he said and lowered the bow.

"Guys lower the weapons! I know that guy. No need to fight." he put away the bow and jumped down to the street and greeted the hunter with a bear hug.

"Archi, I didn't see you ever since the war. Why are you living in the slums?"

"Com 'on, Link. Not everyone can have a super cool class and make it in this world. You know me, also this is dangerous, it's a simple life." he answered and patted his shoulder.

"Anyway, how about we talk at our hideout? Don't worry about these guys, they are actually more or less okay."

Link gave Seth a questioning look. The other just shrugged his shoulders and they followed Link's friend to the gang's base. On the way, Link told him that he knew Archi from the time before the apocalypse. He had no problem telling them that he was involved in some shady stuff. Times were tough back then.

It was a block of four barricaded buildings making up the gang's hideout. Unexpectedly, it was not an ambush. Women and children were living in this stronghold and going about their daily life. They saw people tending to gardens and washing clothes. It was a really rustic picture of society.

"Tom, Jom, Som! Why are you bringing in people again!? You were supposed to find food or money. Not more mouths to feed!" a grumpy older man with a big unkempt bird was standing in their way and scolding his three sons.

"Papa, are we militia or highwaymen?" Jom suddenly asked.

"What the heck are you talking about? You know what? Just be silent. Archibald, what is this? Who are these people?"

"Boss! They are friends of an old friend. This is Link! We were partners before the fall." he introduced them to the boss of the stronghold Bart. They were no dangerous criminals. At his place were mostly people that ran away from something. Debts, the law, oppression, or simply the old life.

They were a little like settlers. They had conquered a piece of land for themself and lived by their own rules in this place. Seth could feel the romance of simple life, but he wasn't tempted. He was a child of the city and civilization.

Bart invited them for lunch. It was a rather meager meal, not just compared to Seth's usual portions, but also compared to a normal-sized meal. He had obviously not managed to control his expression completely.

"I apologize, but we are a little hard-pressed when it comes to food. Our farms are not big enough to sustain us completely and the ruins are more or less cleaned of rations in this area. All we can do is ask travelers for... kind donations."

Seth felt a little bad for these people. As someone who appreciated good and big meals, seeing people starve touched him. Link was also throwing glances at him as if he wanted to say something. They had a lot of meat in their inventories.

But Seth was not touched enough to simply donate their "hard-earned" spoils. But he had an idea.