Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

A party of shadows arrived at the edge of a vast rocky desert. A heavy shower drenched their black robes. The shade in the front pulled out a small orb and called someone.

"My Lady."

"Do you have any news?" a female voice came from the little orb.

"Yes, we just finished scouting the area. It is as the Urthling reported. We found residues of wards, probably from the Theocracy. The corruption has spread after their Stronghold fell and nobody was left to inject divine power."

"How much did it spread?"

"It seems to have halted for now. This Urthling did quite a number on this place. The heavy rain of the recent day has washed away the ashes, leaving mostly barren rocks. Even the supernatural growth of this forest has a hard time encroaching on it.

I don't know what kind of fire he used, but the Corruption is staying away from this place."

"What measures do you think are appropriate?"

"We have enough materials to set up temporary system barriers. If his Majesty deems it important enough, we could reconstruct the Starta Village in this place to keep the situation under control."

"Good. I will contact father."

--------------

"Stay put, you beast! Come and face Buddha's wrath! This monk will liberate you from the burden of existence!"

She was running for her life. What was going on?

Aiming for Epsilon in the northeast of the continent, she had journeyed to find the mysterious figure that had beaten her up.

Traveling for days and weeks, she found nothing. There were no signs of Epsilon District, heck there were not even ruins! Only vast lands lay before her.

When she finally found signs of civilization, they were ruins. But not ruins from any civilization on Urth she knew of!

She had explored a vast temple that must have been quite imposing and glorious in its heyday. The large structure was full of holes as if it had seen a great fight and was abandoned afterward.

Although deserted and dilapidated, it gave her a dry place to sleep for a few days. She used it as a base to further explore these foreign lands.

Then she finally met another human. He gave the impression of a well-meaning pilgrim. However, the moment she approached him, he suddenly started shouting gibberish!

Buddha this, divine punishment that. It would not have been so bad if he didn't start attacking her.

Now, she was quite confident in her power, which had recently grown to lv.70. She had diligently trained her skills and grew tough as a nail.

Despite that! Every hit of the older man hurt like hell! Once again, she felt like a frail girl thrown into a world of violence! She had worked so hard, why did it hurt so much!?

The armor she bought in Y-City, which had served her well until now, broke after just two strikes which inflicted her with a weird dot-status the system could not identify!

"You can not hide the essence of your existence, demon! None of your magic can save you from facing this Buddhist's punishment today!"

Seeing her withstand his initial strikes, the Monk became serious.

"Why are you doing this!?"

With tears in her eyes, she did the only thing she could, run. There was no way she could fight that lunatic! In the meantime, the pursuer kept spouting self-righteous sounding gibberish she could not understand!

"I can read the fear in your eyes! Your demon magic cannot hold against my virtuous aura!"

The weirdo kept chasing her and tried to hit her with his fist. Every time he missed, he would smash boulders or create huge craters in the ground. With his bare fists!

What kind of level would someone with a melee class need to reach, to casually deal that much damage?

She had wanted to explore this place more since she had obviously entered a completely different world. She wanted to travel around and find out more about this place, but facing the current situation left her no other option.

She was unwilling. She was unreconciled. She was unsatisfied.

She used <Home Call> and milliseconds later, she appeared in Y-City. Her equipment was in tatters, she was covered in sweat and dirt. And now a heavy rain washed over her, drenching her in the city's cold.

At this point, she just wanted to curl up into a ball of sadness and wallow in self-pity right then and there. Who cared that she was in the middle of the street?

What had become of her? She couldn't get her revenge on the Champion of Zarkon. She couldn't find the mysterious figure that attacked her. She couldn't even explore a foreign world, without getting beaten up and running away...

Listlessly listening to the sound of the heaving rain and the static dialogue of passers-by, her ears suddenly perked up.

"... I don't believe it."

"I'm telling you! My cousin works at the association. The allied rescue forces had a great battle and managed to wipe out the Zarkists' main force."

"Isn't that just propaganda?"

"No, no, no. I heard Minas Mar was involved. It was their tower master who defeated the Champion of Zarkon."

"Minas Mar? That guild from the flyers?"

"Yeah!"

"hmm...their tower master is quite handsome."

"That's not the point!"

She looked up, but the two people were already gone. Flyers? Hearing such news, she had to make sure. Had someone else beat her to the punch and destroyed the Zarkists?

It was a weird feeling that was spreading in her stomach. There was joy and excitement, but they were bittersweet, mixed with regret and sorrow. She had sworn to take revenge. Although it had been pushed in the background... she still regretted that someone else took that chance away.

On the other hand, she needed to make sure, there really were no Zarkists left.

Having taken such a blow to her ego, she jumped at the opportunity to do something and distract herself from how miserable she felt.

Looking like a down-his-luck adventurer, not much better than a bum, she started looking for the flyer those people had spoken about. It wasn't hard as she quickly found a person distributing them.

Despite her appearance, she was greeted with a kind smile and a flyer was pushed in her hands.

At the front was the depiction of a pale young man's face, with black hair and a neat black beard, and his finger pointing at the reader. The caption read "Minas Mar wants you!".

She had to admit, that he was not ugly. She blushed a little. How long had it been since she had thoughts like this?

The flyer itself listed a row of rewards depending on the level and group size. This confused her until she read the cause behind the flyer.

"Looking for Group- Recruiting Reinforcements for the evacuation of Beta District!"

Beta was being invaded? She eagerly read through the flyer. It had been ages since she heard anything of the current world politics.

According to the flyer, Minas Mar was working together with the Leadership of Y-City to promptly and safely evacuate the citizens of Beta District.

There were only a few relatively safe paths through the mountains. The task of the recruits was to help the district forces in guiding and protecting the civilians on their way to Ypsilon.

In exchange, they would be rewarded with items or money, according to their qualifications, number, and contribution. Items included weapons and armor up to the epic rating.

...

This was Seth's answer to "Changing what he could change". He was no Hero who could fight an army and he was no Commander with a loyal army.

Due to the long journey, he had forgotten who he was.

He was a blacksmith. And he still had a monopoly on high-grade items. He was Mr. Moneybags. Simon said he could not save the world alone. That was right. If he couldn't do it with his own power or influence, he had to pay a price to make others move.

Since the leadership of Y-City had a vested interest to help anyway, he used his connection with Mike Baker to inform them and strike a weapon deal to make them move quickly. Why Y-City and not Delta?

Not only was Y-City closer, but they also had managed to create vehicles running on magic with technology. It would be a lot faster to evacuate people from Beta to Ypsilon.

At the same time, he contacted Samuel, the priest of Y-City to make a similar offer to the Adventurers of the district. With a reward like epic items, guaranteed by the system church, even the big guilds of Y-City moved to work with the government.

They had been in a predicament since the government had been developing better and better equipment made with a mix of magic and technology. Faster than they could acquire it from the dungeons.

Although the government was not too happy, that Seth planned to arm the adventurers, they were in charge of judging the contributions. This gave them ample power to tweak the rewards, which made them agree in the end.

Of course, Seth had only made the initial calls and left most of the managing stuff to his trusty partners and employees, like Mary and Jane. All he had to do, was produce the weapons. It was something he was confident in doing.

...

After reading the flyer, she felt conflicted. Should she join the evacuation efforts and get closer to Minas Mar? Or leave for Gamma and check on the Zarkist situation herself?

After some deliberation, she chose Gamma. After selling off the materials she collected on her journey, she had more than enough gold to reinvest in equipment and set off for Gamma.

The evacuation would take some time, if she was quick, she could still join after she finished her business.