Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Sometime later, Seth and Fin grouped back up with Mina and Ellie. Lydia had Mike were sitting together with Elza and Marcel, absorbed in conversation.

"Did something happen? Did I embarrass you, Mina? I'm sorry." he laughed it off and begged for mercy.

"How could you embarrass me. I just taught some people a lesson."

She was just telling Seth what happened when a huffy lad suddenly approached. Slicked back hair, soft, handsome face. It was Rich, the slavemancer, and he looked angry. Though, it was hard to tell, since his features were distorted by rage, had literally zero intimidation factor.

"What did you do to Sarah?!" he spat out, barely able to contain his rage. It was like watching an angry little dog bark. One of those ugly ones, celebrities put in their handbag.

The one called Sarah had slightly recovered and came up behind Rich, propped up by one of her friends.

"It was her!" she pointed at Mina dramatically.

"How could you scare her like that?" Rich immediately started blaming the girl beside Seth.

"Mina did nothing wrong! If anything, she went too light on them." Fin intercepted before Seth could speak up.

"Be happy that Fin did not hear you! Fin would have crushed you to dust!" the tiny brutes killing intent had an almost corporeal intensity. However, unless one knew what she was capable of, she had the same intimidation factor as Rich.

"Fin calm down. It seems like there is a misunderstanding. Mina only reacted to the rude provocation of your friend." Seth explained calmly with an amicable smile.

He had trusted the effects of Persephone's blessing, to solve the problem peacefully.

"I heard it differently and I trust my teammates!" he said stubbornly

It seemed like the other was too blind to recognize an olive branch unless he was beaten with it in the face.

"And I know for a fact, that Mina doesn't have a habit of bullying weaklings. Now, what will you do?"

"I will complain to the Princess!"

"Go ahead. She can vouch for Mina's personality just as well as me."

"And Fin!"

Rich became a little insecure and looked back and Sarah who could not help but avoid his eyes. Tacitly admitting she was not completely honest. Rich let out a deep sigh and his fists unclenched.

"I'm sorry for causing trouble." he apologized and lowered his head. The rage had vanished like smoke in the wind.

"Could we maybe start over and forget something stupid like this happened?"

Seth looked at Mina, who simply shrugged. She had gotten angry on his behalf. It was his decision.

"Sure, don't worry about it." he slapped Rich's shoulder a few times with a smile.

"Really?"

"Water under the bridge. It's not like really anything happened."

"You have more substance than I thought. It's a shame that it's so hard to see behind all the bragging and babbling." Ellie commented. She did not further specify which of them she meant.

"I-I saw you dancing. It's very... unique." the slavemancer tried to keep the conversation going.

"You can just call it horrible. I don't mind. I'm better in playing music than in dancing to it."

"Really?"

"Oh, right. You mentioned that you were taking part as a bard. I actually thought you were joking. Hey, hey, can you play something for us?" the slime rancher commented with a chuckle.

"Ah... haha, maybe later?"

This way they got into a conversation. They sat down and talked for a while. Just like Ellie had prophesied, the slavemancer told them about himself, but in a more... humble manner.

Rich was originally from Gamma where he led a group of survivors. His epic class gave him extremely powerful passive and active support skills for allies. He could even revive people under certain conditions.

Allies in this context meant slaves. At this point Rich hurriedly explained that he was not a person who enjoyed this, it was just that his class worked like this.

To make someone his slave, the other had to sign a contract. Rich could freely set the conditions for these contracts, so they were often more like a limited mercenary contract than a real slave contract.

At this point, it was just a prerequisite to receiving his support skills and no constraint to the one signing it. He complained quite a bit about how hard it was to fight against the stigma of his class description.

As a slavemancer, he had no party limit, so at one point he had a group of almost 200 people fighting alongside him. They were resisting the Undead Empire when the Chrona Empire came to Gamma. After their truce, he was scouted by the princess in Gamma to come along and protect the first wave of refugees.

Although it was less annoying than Ellie described it, Rich really liked to talk a lot, especially about himself. But when he finished, the conversation slowly turned to the others on the table, such as Seth.

"Then... you are the blacksmith Lady Leana talked about?" he suddenly asked warily.

"Hmm, it seems like the princess told everyone about our little deal. That was not really how I meant it, but... Oh well, it's okay, since we didn't mention not telling you guys beforehand. Yes, i can supply equipment and can certain arrangements to help."

"S-so... how did I do? Because, you know, it's like this. Our funds, my funds are a little...almost nonexistent." he finally admitted embarrassed.

Despite having a lot of people, they never had a lot of chances to raid dungeons. Most of their current equipment was scavenged from the undead. It was not great from the start, but after the long journey, it was rather shabby.

The slavemancer had been able to make up for the lack of equipment with his support skills, but they were at the bottom of the barrel now. After arriving, the group of 50 that came along with him disbanded, leaving him with only 15 loyal people. Only 7 of them were ready to fight.

Even after they repaired their current equipment, it was far from enough to visit dungeons appropriate for their levels. They quickly realized that Rich alone was not enough to make up for the lacking equipment and party balance in an lv.50 dungeon.

They were almost broke. It had already been a big expense to buy cheap evening attire for everyone.

Seth saw the anguish on the slavemancer's face when he had to admit his inability to care for his comrades. He mused about it for a moment.

"How about you come to our guild building tomorrow. I will talk with the head of Administration. There are still about three months until we depart. I'm sure we can come up with a financing plan for you."

Seth wanted to help them, but he also thought about the irony of binding a slavemancer with a debt contract. No matter his intention, Rich's face lit up in joy and he thanked the blacksmith profusely. He was not just an expert in bragging, but also in bootlicking.

He knew that he had no small Ego, but even Seth found it off-putting and hurriedly found a way to send him away.

"That's quite the character," Mina commented.

"Quite the talker, yeah."

"You aren't thinking about scouting him for Minas Mar?"

"Hell no."

"Good," she said relieved.

"How about me?" Ellie suddenly chirped from the side. Her eyes shone like floodlights as she stared at Seth.

"What do you mean? Joining Minas Mar or getting equipment?"

"Both!"

"I don't mind giving you a discount, but I'm not sure about letting you join."

"I'm in favor." Mina suddenly said.

"Why?"

Seth didn't know enough about Ellie, but Mina took him to the side and started whispering in his ear. It was not just that she got along with her, but Ellie also had a reputation.

During the Chaos in Delta, after the abduction at the tournament, The Slime Rancher hat made a name for herself when fighting the random monster invasions around the city. As a single person, she was the biggest contributor aside from Minas Mar and other big guilds during this time.

There were stories of her taking care of some monster invasion alone before reinforcement could even arrive. The slimes she reared had a huge variation and many of them were specialized for all kinds of combat situations.

Ellie waited patiently at the table as Mina briefed him on her information.

Aside from everything Mina said, Seth remembered something else. When he had just returned to Urth, he had met an Oozer. The Ooze it had dropped was good material for the acids used in demonic inscriptions.

What if her slimes could produce similar variations of that? What kind of inks would Alison be able to make from those. There were all kinds of inks out there, that could be bought, but it would be a lot more convenient if a huge number of different inks could be made in-house.

"Welcome to Minas Mar," he said to the slime rancher, after sitting down.