Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Seeing their shields almost fail rattled the two robbers.

"What are you two doing! Can't you see they are reloading? Rush them, you numbskulls!" their leader was raging and pushing the tanks from behind. While their priest was still trying to cope with a terrible sneezing attack the rest of the party rushed towards Seth and the others.

The tank was a templar, the off-tank a knight, the leader an ax warrior. The last one vanished when the boss gave his order. It was a shadow thief, similar to an assassin class, but more focused on a thief's talents.

"Tekar, you take the back. I will play with these guys."

Seth felt a bit peeved thinking that Evee had actually told them to run away. Did they look that weak? He readied the big "Wyvern blade" showing his intent to take on all three of them on his own!

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An unwitting smile appeared on the opponent's faces as they saw his baseless bravado. They had an appraisal skill themself. They knew he was just lv.28, what could he do to them? He was just as dumb as the last guys who had helped the little monster escape.

With the shield in front of his chest, Seth took a stance and wound up for a wide horizontal strike. The bandits' confidence and their grin grew seeing him telegraph his attack like that. The tanks lined up to block whatever attack it was together, again.

But the blade didn't move.

"Dragon might!"

They heard a shout, and their bodies froze. A sudden weight forced them to stop in their tracks and an indescribable feeling of fear and imminent crisis encroached on their minds.

Now, the blade moved. The edge lit up with a terrifying pale light and as it moved into a horizontal slash and massive cloud of pale flame shot towards the petrified group of attackers.

Seth was not the smartest, but he also wasn't stupid. Why would he go into a melee fight with classes that were specialized in melee combat? Even though he had considerably improved during his spars with Tored, it was still painfully obvious that he had a great disadvantage against combat classes. Especially if they had a great level advantage.

The two tanks were able to get a grip on their thoughts and activated their protective skills right before the cloud of fire washed over them. They were surrounded by bright light from all sides and felt like getting cooked in an oven, despite their skills.

But they withstood it! The boss looked miserable ducking in-between the two tankers, but soon the attack would have passed them! …. Moments passed. Soon the fire would have passed them. Soon it would be over, right?

On the outside stood Seth and controlled the flames to form a rotating dome around the three. At this point, it cost Seth almost nothing to just maintain this dome. The street pavement started melting and glowing in a bright orange like magma. No screams would escape his hellish pizza oven. Seth waited for the kill notification.

< Ding! -Extra 3 lv.33- has been killed. You have gained experience.>

He pursed his lips. This wasn't Seth's kill. The thief had stood no chance against the combined might of his other party members. When he looked back, he could only see a headless corpse and some bloody residue on Tekar's shield. Did he pop his head with the spike?!

<Ding! You have killed --Crook lv. 39- You have earned Experience.>

<Ding! You have killed -...

… - You have earned Experience.>

Did their skills finally run out? The notifications followed each other quickly. The dome of fire dispersed the moment Seth stopped controlling and fueling it. On a red-hot bed of molten street laid three burned black corpses in twisted and broken poses.

Seth's heart raced and his stomach turned a little. It was the first time in a long while that he distinctly felt <Calm reaction>. It was easy to think of a way to reap lives, but this was only the second time he had to kill another human. But the effect was a long shot off from his first time. Was he getting used to killing humanoids?

"Are you okay?" Tekar asked worriedly with his deep warm voice. All of them had lived in a do-or-die world for a long time. The big man understood his feelings. Seth took a deep breath and sighed.

"I'm okay. Let's loot these guys and see what presents they left for us."

The equipment of the briquettes was ruined. Even if he melted it down, it was just ordinary materials that got their abilities from a dungeon at best. But there was still the item box that every player dropped. The thief's equipment was still okay, I could be sold in the city for some money.

In the meantime, the gourmet hunter and Alison had gone ahead and tied up the sneezing priest. Alison turned away as Link stripped the poor sob down to his underwear. He had just seen his friends get wiped out. Copious amounts of snot, tears, and drool had joined the compulsive sneezing. The wizard girl had no intention to get in range of the projectile-like body fluids.

Stashing away the loot and looking over the situation; Seth felt quite satisfied. He crouched down beside the incapacitated Evee and poked her cheek.

"Saw that? Huh? We are no pushovers. I knew your story sounded a little fishy. Who would spend so much time crying, when they already have a plan and strategy to gain strength? You would be a lot stronger at this point if your story was true. Before I help you any further, I want to know the truth. No more lies."

He kept poking her cheek to emphasize his words. And it was a little fun poking her puffy cheek, while she was looking at him with reproachful eyes and no means to stop him.

"I didn't lie. Not fully..."

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She was not a ghoul queen when she escaped the beast's maws but an Archzombie. She really had spent some time mourning and hunting. And there had really been visitors. It just was not Seth's party.

It was a few weeks after she had found her new way of unlife. She needed no food or sleep, so she spent day and night hunting and drawing wards. A safe zone in the middle of guaranteed death had soon attracted a bunch of people.

At first, there was a misunderstanding, but she was lucky.

The first people she met were other survivors from the immediate neighborhood. She had even met one or two of them before the disaster. They were able to communicate, and she gladly offered them to stay within the boundaries of her ward.

In time they all got closer and formed a party to hunt more monsters and widen the area of the wards. Among them was a farmer and they tried to start a field, so they would not have to scavenge for food anymore.

Their little community kept growing with every desperate refugee that somehow found his way into the safe zone. Many of them became her friends and it helped her to keep going. It was a distraction from her pain, to hunt and to live with them.

It worked for the first few months but there were not only nice people in the world. After some time more and more bad people started appearing in the ruins. It came to fights and losses. The number of graves kept growing until one day everything changed.

All the criminals and crooks that had fled away from Y-City's influence banded together and decided to conquer the one safe zone in hell. However, Evee and her friends had lived in the ruins for several weeks, they had become complacent. Protected by Evee's magic they spent the time mostly peaceful.

They stood no chance against the numerical advantage and were either killed or enslaved. Evee herself was caught, too.