Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

They arrived at the garrison located at one of the highways leading out of Delta towards the north. This had once been a highway leading toward Omega. Parallel to the streets, one could see the slowly decaying rails of the bullet train that had once run parallel with the highway.

The garrison here was built with the arrival of the Chrona Empire. Seth heard there were quite a few fortifications built in cooperation with the empire to protect Delta. Even as the smallest one, Delta was still a massive district holding millions of people.

Modern cities weren't built with fortifications in mind, which left a lot of openings for attacks when the danger of an attack from outside became a reality with the start of the Apocalypse. Although the district was surrounded by natural barriers, the empire had helped close these gaps by building garrisons and magic barriers in places like this highway.

Once Al'Zalsar's Project Iego was finished, even the air space would be tightly guarded. But even this could not block everything, as lately tremors had rocked some parts of the northern Delta.

"I'm glad you decided to come." she said a little awkwardly. She had been worked up before and had not realized that their first conversation in weeks had started with her screaming at him.

Seth arrived with a team of 10 Oathguards in relic-rated armor. The field teams 1,2 and 3had their own work to do. It was already hard to book good dungeons, so Mina and the others couldn't skip, not after they had already canceled their reservation last time.

This was why Seth brought a team of Oathguards with him. Aside from them, he had Ceres, Wolfram, the Golem Knights, and a few other available Golems on standby in Legion. He didn't call back Tatzel and Puffles who were on their own adventure with Python somewhere in the mountains. He doubted there was a need for it.

"Well, you will have your reasons if you request for me personally. But don't misunderstand, the services of the Tower Master of Minas Mar are pricey."

Seth was not really angry anymore, but he strictly separated business and personal matters. After all, he had left his forge for this.

"I'm sure you will be satisfied with the work and compensation," she answered confidently.

He didn't quite know what that was supposed to mean, but Leana already went off, gesturing for them to follow. After an awkward greeting, she led their team to a big seminar room where they were briefed about the situation.

They were not the only team present, the hall held at least a dozen different teams, clearly distinguished by the color of their armor and guild emblems. Although they had used dies on the armor, Seth could recognize quite a few that had left their workshop.

Although Seth didn't make a lot of armor for retail, he was very familiar with Wedan's style, there were also some made by Cerberus, who copied the way Seth worked. The rest of their equipment was made up of roughly matching dungeon items.

Although it was not very pretty in most cases, Seth had to acknowledge that these people had done a good job in matching the power of the armor pieces, fitting with their classes. The blacksmith had to admit that individual dungeon equipment could be quite strong, though he was still of the opinion that a load-out, or fully planned-out sets, made by a talented blacksmith were better on average. Especially in a world like Urth, where there were no very old dungeons.

The young dungeons in Urth had little chance to contain the genuine pearls. In a place like Ora, old dungeons were like oysters. The treasures found were usually not generated by the dungeon from nothing, but the items of previous adventurers that lost their lives in a dungeon.

Like an oyster, making a pearl from a grain of sand, the structure would collect and refine them. A mix of a blacksmith's skills and the magic of a dungeon. Depending on the time and initial quality of items, people could even find relic-rated items in old dungeons.

Those were the real pearls, the treasures many adventurers would seek by diving into dungeons over and over again. However, those had a hard time appearing on Urth since it had been something barely three years since dungeons even appeared.

Seth's ended his idle thoughts when Leana finally appeared on the rostrum and began to explain why exactly they were even here.

"We suspect that a group of tunneling beasts have spawned from a portal to the north and started tunneling under Delta's northern border," she explained after a short greeting.

According to her explanation, Delta's current protective measures only worked up to 50 meters below the lowest floors of Delta. Since the district and its subterranean levels were built into the solid mountain rock, there would have originally been no problem with just a few tunnels.

These countermeasures were primarily so no subterranean beasts tunneled into the city from underground. However, now that some mysterious creatures had started eating massive tunnels into the bedrock below Delta, the structural integrity of the northern parts was endangered, to the point that microearthquakes occurred.

"Do you have any clues as to what it could be?" one of the other team leaders asked.

"We have a few candidates, but our scouts did not enter the tunnels. The worst possible creature we have in mind could be Dungeon Worms. And that is why you are here gentleman."

Dungeon Worms had only indirect connections to dungeons. They were huge solitary beasts that would gather during the mating season. The group would build a kind of nest in a mountain to hatch and rear their young before scattering again once the young were old enough.

They were called dungeon worms because these abandoned nests would often become the seed for new and expansive dungeons to develop. Some of the biggest supermassive dungeons within the Pathworks grew from the abandoned nests of these creatures. She kept showing several diagrams to make sure everyone knew what a dungeon worm looked like.

Seth also understood what she meant by the fact that the work would be satisfying. An adult dungeon worm would not be below lv.80, which meant it was like the boss of a high-level dungeon in Delta. He was not the only one with glowing eyes when he heard this.

"If we are really facing dungeon worms, we cannot risk the lives of our scouts or guards. Simply said we lack dependable manpower to explore these tunnels. That is why we want you to enter the tunnels and to map them out. The objective is exploration, we don't expect you to fight them. However, if you do fight and subjugate them, you will be rewarded accordingly."

She proceeded to explain the rewards. Not only were they paid for their participation and the exploration. Information concerning the possible culprit or the confirmation that it was dungeon worms would be rewarded.

In case they were right, the reward to subjugate a dungeon worm was 5 gold and they offered to purchase the bodies above market price. The purchase offer and smaller subjugation rewards also extended to other beasts that may be the cause.

At this point, not fighting was out of the question for most, especially if it was a dungeon worm They could get the experience AND a reward? The teams from the various guilds saw no reason to deny this blessing.

Seth wasn't as interested in the rewards, although the experience was tempting, but more so in the fact that Chrona was eager to purchase the materials from the dungeon worms. Had these worms a material that even tempted the empire?

After the briefing, they all summoned their mounts, except for Seth who was riding with one of the Oathguard on their Alpeka. Since his mount and pet were off somewhere else, he didn't really have a choice. They rode off the highway, down into the wild mountains.

Leana was not coming personally. Instead they were led by a team of guards and their captain. Three hours later they arrived in a valley in the north close to Delta.

The perfectly circular holes that were penetrating one side of the valley were visible from afar and hard to ignore. As mentioned in the briefing, they all ranged from 3-5m in diameter. There was more than enough for every team to comfortably choose an entrance without getting in the way of someone else.

"As the Princess has explained, my men and I will set up the camp and wait for your return outside. Please make sure to return in the next 5-7 hours, before night falls."

While the adventurers were going in to scout, the guard would set up a permanent camp with fortifications for the night. The exploration was expected to take a few days, so they got ready to stay temporarily.

It was easier than returning to Delta every day. Especially since the mountains outside were still dangerous. If all the adventurer team was traveling independently from Delta to the valley, there was a big chance for unforeseen things to happen.

After the guard captain's announcement, the guild teams entered the vast system of tunnels. Seth waited a while longer, deliberating which hole to choose before he finally led the ten members of the Oathguard into a hole that was halfway up the mountainside.