Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

“Evan, these are for you.”

“W-What are these?” the tamer-turned-champion of Hermes asked with glowing eyes when the blacksmith handed him three shiny, crystalline eggs.

At first, Seth hesitated to give Evan the eggs, in case they also bore the weird disease. But there had been nothing wrong with the worms in the cave when he entered, which made him believe that the one that attacked them was a rogue one that was infected earlier and split from the group.

“They are the eggs of dungeon worms. Here’s the info I got from Leana about them. They are a great source of materials, but even if you can’t breed them, they should be quite useful for construction projects.”

Especially their tunneling seemed really useful, even though the only big projects Seth could come up with at the moment was a sewer system for the Tree Stations. It was hard for Karina to grow one from roots, but if Evan could control the worms, they could add sewers, even to a finished city.

Of course, this kind of stuff would have to be left to actual architects and city planners. Seth had no real clue about the details of such work.

“Yes, Tower Master! I will not disappoint you!” Evan said motivated and scampered off, hugging his new babies.

When Seth turned, he felt something tugging on his shirt. Looking down, he faced the depressed gaze of Elly.

“Why is it always Evan getting cool stuff? Can’t you just find me a cool special slime or something?” she asked with a pout.

Hearing her mention cool special slime reminded Seth of something. Although he had nothing to give her, maybe she would cheer up hearing something new?

“You heard of the Voracious Cloud Continent right?” he suddenly asked. She nodded. Elly had heard the rough outline of what was going on with that.

“Did you know that they have something called a demon jelly, that actually has a spatial attribute? They actually make spatial equipment from their cores.”

Elly’s eye shone, hearing new slime trivia.

“Can we travel there at some point in the future?” she asked eagerly.

“Maybe if stuff calms down in Delta?” the blacksmith answered vaguely.

Seth wasn’t too eager to throw himself into a world that had the potential to be even more dangerous than Urth. Especially with a completely different culture and power system. The things he heard from Al’Zalsar and Master Mountain really dampened his wish to explore the place for materials.

After giving Evan the eggs and placating Elly he left the two tamers to their own devices.

Next, he called Leana about Al’Zalsar’s solution. Leana was bound to know of Al as she was responsible for Project Iego, but they never met personally. So he had to give a short introduction to Al, before talking about their barrier that needed testing.

He didn’t go into the details, since Seth himself didn’t quite understand them, but he asked whether she had a way to test it. Hearing that Minas Mar may already have a solution, the Princess immediately invited the blacksmith to the northern fort.

She led him straight to a room filled with figures in white coats. Leana explained to him that these were the Doctors, a unit of the Chrona Empire that specialized in dealing with the exotic and alien diseases found in other worlds. A man she introduced as the head researcher took a while to analyze the copy of the adjusted schematics he brought.

“This is your solution?” he asked after finishing.

“Your highness, this has nothing to do with medical magic or medicine. This is a soul-whisking formation.”

“What!? Seth, where did you get this?” she suddenly asked hysterically. From one moment to the other, people stared at him with shock and

The blacksmith got a slight suspicion that something was wrong.

“Al taught it to me, why do you ask?” he said carefully. It was better to push this on the sorceress for now.

“Where is Al’Zalsar now?”

“She left Delta yesterday for personal business. Would you explain why you react like this?

Seeing how he didn’t know what exactly was going on, Leana took a deep breath and calmed herself down, before she started to explain.

“Knowledge of this kind of magic is strictly controlled and prohibited for most people. It’s strictly banned because of the possibilities for abuse. It was judged as a war crime by the Chrona Convention agreed upon by most of the empires active across the pathworks.”

Seth couldn’t help but admit that it made sense. Not everyone had a way to protect their souls as Seth did. If such a formation was used on a large scale on something like a battlefield, or even a city… A magic that could kill silently and without any previous indicators, completely ignoring the target’s strength was especially terrifying

“I see your point, but do you have any better ideas?”

“What makes you think this will work? Did you already test it?” a doctor asked curiously.

“This one in particular? No. That is why I’m here. Al’Zalsar lowered the power to the point where it’s harmless to a normal person. But she said it may need some more testing and adjustments. That would be your job, no?”

Seth didn’t intend to reveal that he knew the original formation and that he had already tested it on the infected. Things may have gone much smoother if he did, but revealing the videos would disclose too many of the secrets he wished to keep.

Instead, he bet on the fact, that he had found no other viable way to effectively kill the infected he worked on. These doctors had probably been busy experimenting the whole day, yesterday. Judging from Leana’s readiness to ask him for his solution, they had yet to find a good way to deal with it.

Whether they liked it or not, this was a potential solution, even if he didn’t bring any evidence, they couldn’t ignore this option now. Seth observed the wordless dialogue between the head researcher and the princess. Judging by their expressions, the doctor was much less opposed to testing the prohibited magic, than the princess. As expected from a scientist.

“Fine, fine. I brought you here. Let’s test this.” Leana finally gave up and the doctors.

Quickly and professionally, the doctors started to lay out the formation as described in the schematics. It needed some special materials, but they had everything in stock. A magic circle quickly took shape in a specially prepared room.

It wasn’t the only one. Several more were installed as safety measures. Their next step confused Seth a little, as they brought a massive urn, that was shaking violently.

“Don’t tell me..?” Seth mumbled.

“Yes, we sealed their bodies in these magic and airtight containers after they went inactive. We didn’t expect them to somehow recover while inside.”

The men carrying the urn placed it in the middle of the formation and quickly left the room. The test was relatively simple. They would remotely unseal the Urn and then activate Seth’s formation. The moment the seal on the urn was released, the top of the urn shot off with tremendous force and the urn fell over.

From inside crept a terrible creature, barely human in shape. Many limbs and body parts were fused together with a mass of what was most easily described as molten flesh. A black sludge was trickling off its body and also flowing out from the urn.

It needed a moment to find its bearing before directly charging toward the observation window, everyone was standing behind. However, the moment it passed the line that indicated the border of the barrier, or rather the magic membrane, it suddenly started disintegrating into a reddish sludge, making the floor look like a bloodbath.

Everyone was shocked at the unexpected result, especially Seth. In his test the infected had merely fallen lifeless, leaving an intact corpse. It didn’t disintegrate like that…

“Don’t look at me like this. I also didn’t see that coming. Maybe we should do more tests?”