Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

"Kyaa!"

Screams and explosions filled the previously quiet night. The company of merchants was attacked by an overwhelming horde of monsters. Corpsewalkers led by a pack of lycanthropes. Now, if Seth had been here, he would not have called these things werewolves.

They had a big, bulky stature and were almost naked with thick leathery skin. Their heads resembled a wolf's skull with terrible burn scars. These were demon worshippers transformed by drinking the blood of a specific arc demon. The corpse walkers were a similar creation. The name was chosen by those who had to confront them on the battlefield.

Once normal people and commoners of the northern territories, they had turned into these sick abominations after being hit by a curse or drinking water poisoned with demon blood. Their skin was dried and wrinkled with a texture and defense like tough hardened leather. The deep, sunken eyes only hungered for fresh meat and blood.

They got their name because they had no more intelligence and walked around like zombies. But despite looking and acting like the undead, they were still alive, making them immune against many countermeasures that worked on the undead.

The company had left Ora several weeks ago and had taken the risk to travel further north close to the front line of the war with the demon worshippers. The merchants estimated to still be far away from the battle and wanted to sell supplies to the fortified cities that may be soon entangled in battle.

They were wrong. The enemy moved faster than anyone expected and they were stuck as they laid siege on the second city they visited. Unfortunately, "Yuelecat's Fur" was part of their escort and also stuck in this small city they didn't even know the name of.

The human territories were able to come up with a countermeasure to the demonic curses, but their troops were far inferior to the cursed soldiers that roamed the lands. Trying to survive the situation all adventurers and soldiers of the town were recruited to defend the walls and gates. As dangerous and cumbersome as the constant fighting was, there was an advantage.

As the defender, they were in an advantageous position and could literally slaughter dozens of enemies. Their levels rose with unprecedented speed.

Fin, Mina, and the rest of the party all finally reached lv.50 the original minimum to become B-Ranks. And they were finally able to grab one of the reasons B-Ranks had a qualitative change in power, compared to C-Ranks. The secondary class.

A second class gave not only new skills but also changed the modifiers of attributes by at least double or more, depending on the class. It was similar to how Seth had about double the attribute points than regular people because of his race. It came at the price of needing double the experience per level past 50.

It explained why B-Rank quests would normally deal with beasts and situations a single B-Ranks party couldn't handle alone. It was all for the experience.

Their boost in strength came a little too late to make a change in the situation as the rations were running out and the authorities became desperate. They knew there was no hope for reinforcements from the surrounding regions. Nobody answered their messages, they might even be the last city still standing. Those who answered were too far away or close to a crisis themself.

So, they decided. Before the troops became starved and weakened, they would attempt to breakthrough. The soldiers would buy time for the citizens to flee from the encirclement. They knew this would cost many lives, but at least some people would have the chance to survive.

---

Fin's fist smashed a Lycan's head like it was a pinata. She had originally wanted to take a class that was already similar to her current class. Something like a monk to increase her survivability and supporter qualities. Everything came a little different when she saw the options she could choose from.

Changing one's class and choosing a second class was a little different from Seth's first experience in getting a class. To begin with, people born into the system are born with a class. To change it they needed to visit the system church. In a dark room, one would see a random class wheel but also options based on all the qualifications they had, like current class, former classes, skills, race, etc.

Choosing a second class had the same option and different class wheels on top of it. The system was a little nicer to those who had already reached lv.50 so instead of a random class wheel with everything, there were wheels split into different categories.

Why would someone use a class wheel instead of a known option? In case one had little to no qualification, or there was no option of interest.

The fairy had ample experience with the procedure, as expected from someone with a unique class, and she instantly knew her choice when she saw it. It was a second unique class called "Melee Queen". It did not only increase her overall combat prowess in melee combat but also added melee attack skills of a royal theme.

This was what she had always lacked as a Battle Cleric. The royal theme came from the fact, that these skills derived part of their damage from the dignity stat she owned from her inheritance as a noble.

As such her fighting style had become a lot more elegant and dignified while packing an even greater devastating power. Like an animalistic savageness hidden behind a sophisticated façade. Royal indeed. It was almost tailor-made for her, the big advantage of a unique class.

In a place further away from the head-disintegrating fairy a horde of corpse walkers was diced and swept away by a circular wave of shadows. The next moment a dark figure appeared behind the shocked lycan that commanded this troop and stabbed a bright blade into the crown of his head. It easily penetrated the leathery skin and thick skull. In a dazzling light, the dying lycan's brain was fried by lightning. This needed to be done, so it would not rise again as an undead.

Heavily panting, Mina stood above the body of the fallen lycan. She had not just gotten a secondary class, but also changed her primary one. Based on her experience thanks to Seth's equipment she chose "Shadow Assassin" as a primary class and took "Shadow Mage" as a secondary class.

Shadow assassin was a rare-rated class and a common specialization for most assassins. It maximized the ability to hide from enemies' eyes.

Shadow mage on the other hand was an uncommon class, a specialization of Dark mage. Beastmen seldomly had the talent for caster classes. How did Mina get this class then? It was Mina's lucky hand.

None of the options she had satisfied her and they were not exactly in a situation where she had a lot of time to ponder or gain skills to change her option. They were in the middle of a siege. She chose to use the class wheel of dark professions. In the worst case, she would get a class that was of not much help but still get some boost. Best-case Scenario: Something like Shadow Mage.

With these two classes, she got the skills to hide and travel through shadows. She could either strike like an assassin or hide and chant shadow magic to attack. The only disadvantage was that she lacked mana for the magic skills. She was an assassin for most of her career, she had no reason to invest her precious point into intelligence. So, despite the class-modifiers and caster skills that boosted mana, her mana pool was pitiful.

The other party member had also powered up in a similar fashion which was the whole reason why they got confident in breaking through together with the other B-Ranks and their employer, the merchant company. They were still hard-pressed to get away from the pursuing army of undead. The only purpose of these minions was to stall them until the bigshots of the enemy.

"Yulecat's Fur" and the other B-Rank party hired by the merchants were already exhausted after several ambushes of this kind. All of them joined the merchants on the carriage and the driver spurred the horses on. It would still take another week before they reached Ora and it was unsure how far the enemy forces had already invaded.

Ora was located on the east side of the central mountain range and almost at the halfway point between south and north. They met enemies just a week's journey away from there. Nobody expected that the army of demon worshippers had already gotten this far south.

Everyone was exhausted, the horses, the merchants, the adventurers, and even the carriage made dangerous creaking noises as they traveled at full speed.

They were in a real pickle.