Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

"What did you mean?" the lanky man rushed into the store following Seth. With a roguish smile, he indicated for Neeco to follow him to the second floor.

The second story was only for people who had the needed cash to buy things from this place. There were only a few people present right now. Neeco only saw the silhouette of Seth vanishing on the stairs and followed him to the third floor.

Seth sat at one of the tabled and talked to the waiter, ordering food.

"What did you mean just now?" the effeminate man repeated his question.

"Calm down. Have a seat." Seth said with an amicable smile. The driven and confused look a Neeco's face lifted his mood a little. The other was even more appalled by traditional armor than Seth was with superhero suits.

"How many people do you think are allowed up here right after opening?" Seth continued after Boos sat own. The tailor only shook his head confused.

"Only me and my friends. So, take a guess. Who do you suppose am I?"

Neeco's eyes widened, and the shock turned into fury.

"So you are the philistine who dared to put this blemish in front of this one's eyes!"

"I think you used that word wrong, but yeah. Great to finally meet you. I'm Seth Smith. I made most of the merchandise in this place and am somewhat of the owner."

Seth said with glee and grabbed one of Neeco's wildly gesticulating hands to shake it.

"D-don't touch me!" he screamed and pulled away his hand.

"Now, now. No need to be impolite. I'm also not very enthusiastic about someone propagating something like superhero suits. I still decided to tolerate your business and open my shop here."

"In god's name, why? Just to spite my art?!"

"Why? Of course, to greater my profit. You can't expect adventurers to go and fight monsters in pajamas. One can always equip a suit of armor on top of such a skintight suit of embarrassment. Spiting you was just a happy little accident."

"Em-embarrassment? How dare you call my creations embarrassing?! I have never heard anyone complain about my merchandise!"

"I mean, it really takes a special kind of people to enjoy having their junk presented as a prime target to any dungeon mob... "

Neeco quietened down and his face turned burning red at Seth's filthy comment.

"All I am trying to say is that we are not enemies, despite our differences in aesthetics. On the contrary. We could be allies."

"Allies?" the tailor asked suspiciously.

"Of course, Allies. It isn't like we offer fundamentally competing products." Seth said with a tinge of bewitching charm swinging in his voice.

"What do you mean?" the tailor asked confidently but his eyes shifted away, he had realized it himself.

Neeco Boos was a Spell Weaver, a unique class which mixed the skill of a tailor with those of a magician and an enchanter. Usually, one would associate a Spell Weaver with a great magician who can weave many different spells to gain a greater effect.

Contrary to this Neeco Boos could learn magic and turn spells into threads to weave fabrics. Depending on the tailor's skill level and the compatibility of the magic he could make items with up to three effects that could be activated by supplying mana into the item.

This was a tremendous achievement for a cloth armor. But it came with drawbacks. Magic thread had a dismal durability and offered hardly as much protection as a common cloth armor.

As such he had to incorporate other materials like leathers and threads into his suits to increase these two aspects at the cost of the magic effects. But it was simply not enough. In the beginning, his suits were just fine, but now that the level of people rose the trend was slowly dying.

Adventurers had already started wearing armor on top of his creations. A half-assed armor could simply not cut it on the higher levels in a dungeon.

Being directly confronted like this, the tailor had to admit that his business had slowed down lately. As the founder, he was the first to feel his empire crumbling even though the trend was still doing somewhat okay.

"We can work together. We can prosper together. What do you say?" the charming voice was lingering in the Tailor's ears, telling him to grab this hand. Assuring him this was the right thing to do. If he didn't want to become a side note in history, he needed to take this hand.

Seth's magic laden voice did its best to crumble the tailor's aesthetic beliefs and make him susceptible to the idea of making part of an armor set and let off the idea of superhero suits.

Finally, hands were shaken. But the Tailor was not beaten.

"Just wait. Once my skills have grown, I will show the world the greatness of skintight spandex suits once again!"

"You cheeky little- Just wait. I will show you the true power of armor."

Their hands were bound in a strong handshake where they tried to crush each other's hands. Seth had an incredible advantage as a blacksmith, but he showed respect and held back from breaking the other man's hands. They had come to an agreement.

While the store below them was filled with all kinds of adventurers who were just looking, window shopping, or stocking up for the next dungeon dive, there sat two men with a unique class on the highest floor and had a meal together.

A good meal helped smoothen their differences and they soon were entangled in an enthusiastic conversation about armor and their future cooperation.

After Neeco came to terms with the thought that his products would be part of a bigger setup, he actively spoke about possible ways to link their two businesses. Seth had felt a little bad to have used <Voice of Seth> but it seemed that he had not brainwashed the man, but just helped him to see reality for what it was.

One thing they came up with was that the tailor would start offering traditional cloth armor and clothing that could be worn below a regular plate armor or chain mail. This came with the benefit, that Neeco did not have to worry about the durability or defense of these items.

They could be worn for the effects, while the armor could take care of defense. And Neeco could then send these people to "The turquoise Anvil". If they had enough money to buy items from Neeco Boos, they could directly enter the second floor.

Seth too was interested in these items of Neeco Boos. Although he could not rival Nädel's skill as a tailor yet, his abilities as a unique class were quite tempting. Especially with Seth infused a soul into these clothes making their effects permanent.

They would make for a great addition to the gear of his people and maybe even his own. After a good meal, Seth had a new business partner. He would leave the later interactions to Jane since he had other things to do. He had soaked up quite a lot of knowledge.

It was time to make the Lord Armors and maybe even more. He had always been worried about just grinding out heaps of epic-rated items. He couldn't just sell them to every Tom, Dick, and Harry. Together with Al, he might have found a solution for his lacking trust in humanity.

However, there was still a lot to do before that day came.