Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

"Hey! Wait a moment. You did really great in there. I have never seen Valen speechless." the cybergoth followed behind him with a radiant smile on her face.

"Don't you mean Uncle Valen?" Seth said with a laugh.

"Bah. That vampire is over 200 years old. I don't know what kind of fetish he has, to make everyone call him Uncle. I'm not doing that, it feels weird."

"Hmm, noted."

"You are returning into the Batcave?"

"That's the plan."

"You sure you don't want to have some fun on the surface before returning to the crypt?"

"Are you very bored? "

"Actually, yes. And you seem really interesting. Don't you want to have a look at Delta, or is there something important waiting for you downstairs?"

Seth had to admit that Lydia was right. Evee was sleeping and the caravan would take at least a day to arrive through the maintenance tunnel. He took a deep breath before answering.

"Alright then. Show me around your city," he said with a smile. The woman's expression lit up and she led him back to the lobby and out of the doors.

To Seth's surprise, Delta seemed completely normal at first glance. People wore normal casual clothes; the streets were clean and pristine. Nothing made it seem like there was a problem with random portals or dungeon breaks.

At a second glance, all these casual-looking clothes were low-grade equipment. Uncommon, rated t-shirts, jeans, and jackets. Just like the clothes of the cybergoth and the rest of the Willis family, everything looked normal but was a system gear.

Another difference was the races that mingled with the crowd. They were hard to notice, as they easily blended in by wearing the same modern clothes as everyone else. Some animal ears here, some horns there, demons with pale blue or red skin.

Some non-humanoid demons were more noticeable, but aside from some side-glances, nobody seemed to care. Unlike Y-City or B-City, as far as he heard, here many races lived together.

It must have been the influence of the Chrona Empire that had made a deal with the Leadership of Delta and the Demons. Who would have thought that there would be such a huge difference compared to Y-City?

But even in Delta, some changes were straightforward and not to overlook. The magical shops and street stalls dominated the shopping district. All the new and magical professions had taken over the economy.

Seth was especially interested in the material shops and other blacksmiths. It was a huge difference to Y-City where the public skill level was barely able to make uncommon gear. Here uncommon was good quality and some shops even displayed fancy rare weapons to attract customers.

The weapons looked better than they performed, in Seth's opinion. But it seemed to work. The shops were filled with customers. Overall, the situation was similar to the human district of Ora, where most shops were run by aspiring Blacksmith hoping to gain access to the dwarven city.

"Are you interested in equipment? You don't seem to need any new stuff, though."

"Oh, I'm just scouting out the competition."

"So you have a good crafter?"

"You could say that," he said with a smirk. She probably thought he was a magician. The smile was replaced by a look of surprise. There was a shop full of pots, pans, and other kitchenware. It was the first time he even saw Kitchenware with a rating.

"Why is that blacksmith shop selling kitchenware?" he asked in surprise. Now Lydia followed him in looking surprised.

"Why wouldn't he? Chefs also need their equipment, don't they? There are a lot of these shops in further away from the center."

Lydia was not an expert, but she shared what she had heard. Apparently, making kitchenware was a good practice for beginner blacksmiths to train their skills. It was a lot harder to make a weapon, so they were the financially stable alternative to start off with.

Not every blacksmith had their own smelter, failing to make an item meant wasting material they had to sell as scrap. Seth started off learning making equipment using <Blueprint>, a skill, common blacksmiths did not have from the start.

The knowledge was so common, that nobody ever told him, who already knew how to make weapons. It never really came to his mind since all the kitchenware he saw was common and sold in general stores. He simply thought there was a different job like tinker who made those.

Seth was not to blame, not even Link had asked him for cooking stuff.

"Interesting."

Under the confused eyes of Lydia, he started to buy several different versions of pots, cauldron, pans, and knives. The price was several thousand credits. It was negligible. Although it didn't hurt Seth's finances at all, the shopkeeper was over the moon to have sold so much in one go.

With all the stuff he bought, he could scan it and add the kitchenware to his <Blueprint> and start designing better versions. Although he had never seen any enchantment for cooking, just with different materials he could probably optimize the function.

Thinking about the possibilities they kept walking around the shopping street until his eyes fell on a set of leather clothes. It was uncommonly rated and made of snake leather. He had seen it before. To be precise, he had made it.

It was Mina's leather outfit he had made for her in Ora. What was it doing here?

"Can I help you?" a quick clerk suddenly materialized and asked him from the side. He didn't see him materialize but he also didn't notice him until he spoke.

"Ah! Hello. Can I ask where you got this leather armor?"

"Oh, this one? It's a very good, uncommon-rated leather set from Namia. A very sweet cat lady that came to the city a few weeks ago sold it here. She was very sexy, at least 9/10"

The last part he whispered into Seth's ears. Hearing his items and on-off lover praised felt good, but it did not distract him from the fact that this meant Mina had come to Delta. If Mina was here, then the rest of the party was probably not far.

His heart started racing. They had come several weeks ago. Their level was practically halved in this world. Who knew what could have happened to them? He had read and seen too much to stay calm.

"Are you okay?" Lydia asked beside him.

"Hmm, no. Do you have a way to find people in Delta?"

"Errm, official way or shady ways?"

"Doesn't matter."

"Shady ones then. Yes, I know some people. But it's a little early. I can introduce them to you later."

"Good."

They kept strolling around town, but Seth could not stop worrying until it was finally time to meet Lydia's contact. It was evening and she led him to a fancy-looking nightclub. It was really as if the apocalypse never happened.

People dancing, drinking, laughing in an atmosphere of loud music and neon lights. Seth hated it. He would rather enter a damp dark dungeon than a damp dark disco. The only good part about this experience was that he could finally wear a set of casual clothes.

Lydia had forced him to shop around among the fashion shops. The tailoring business was booming in Delta. It was the easiest field to fuse modern knowledge and the new arcane knowledge brought by the Chrona Empire.

Now he wore uncommon-rated jeans, a T-Shirt and a jacket on top of Nädel's Set. He was still like a sore thumb in this environment, compared to the happy cyber goth that was dancing her way through the crowd.

"Wait here for a moment. I will go and talk to them." with those words she left him at the bar.

He stood at the bar and ordered a drink while waiting. He sipped on his glass when it suddenly fell to the ground.

"You gotta be kidding me..."

Entering through the door was a giant guy with broad shoulders and a sleek-looking young man in stylish black suits, a short woman in a fancy dress, a sexy woman in a small black one, and a tiny figure on the big guy's shoulder sparkling like a diamond.

Bulko, Mike, Lixiss, Mina, and Fin looking posh like celebrities had just entered the nightclub. They were led straight to the VIP-Rooms.

"Okay, we can go meet them now in the VIP Lounge. "