Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

"Could you take Selene to the protective bunker? I have to get my son." Elisabeth asked Leana in a hurry.

They had not talked for long but seemed to be enough for the woman to entrust her daughter to the princess. She was a little stumped but seeing the mother's gaze she nodded in agreement.

"Mama, don't go." the little girl tried to stop her mother.

"Selene, be a good girl. The princess is still new here. She needs you to find her way to the bunker. Mama will follow once I found your brother." she convinced the girl to go with Leana.

When she finally managed to shake off her daughter, she charged out to look for her son, while Selene was looking at her leaving.

"Come, you are a brave and intelligent girl, right? Your mother gave you the quest to save the princess, are you up for the task?"

With a brave nod, the little girl grasped Leana's hand and led the way to the shelter in the underground section of the police station. It was originally one of the subterranean greenhouses of Sigma that was fortified for defense and reinforced with magic.

It was one of many, but there were still far from enough. The underground room was choke full as the scarce guards ushered in the people. None of the faces had any hope. Panic and fear were prevalent, only some seemed to have realized, that this was most likely their grave.

Sigma had no more forces. If the beasts came all the way to this point, even if they did not manage to get into the shelter, they would be unable to leave. At that point, they would stand before the choice to either die a gruesome death or one of starvation.

Selene stayed with Leana close to the entrance to look out for her mother.

"Th-They are closing the door! Leana, they can't close the door. Mama isn't here, yet!" the girl said in a panic when the saw the guard closing the thick blast doors.

"Don't worry, maybe she went to a different shelter?" she tried to calm the young girl.

"There is no other shelter here!" she cried, tears running down her cheeks.

"Y-you promised you would protect them. You promised!" the girl hugged her tightly, her tears and snot soaking into her robe.

"Urgh!"

Why did she have to promise that? She was sure Idyllin and the others would come back before something like this happened. She looked at the little girl with a troubled face before she made a decision.

"Don't worry. I will look for them. Promise me you stay here, okay?"

Seeing the girl nod, Leana charged out of the shelter just before the blast doors were shut. It would cost her dignity if she broke it. Probably 20 or 30 points, she couldn't take such a loss. Although she was not a combatant, she was confident that she wouldn't die here.

As a descendant of the imperial family of Chrona, she also had a number of trump cards.

The hallway outside of the shelter was empty. They had closed the door because no more people came. She looked left and right before she ripped a scroll and turned invisible. It was a high-grade magic scroll that turn her invisible for an hour, as long as she did not enter a fight. Ample time to look for Selene's mother.

She activated the magic on her shoes, that allowed her to use the <Quick Feet> skill of assassins and rushed up the stair that had led them underground. Leana followed the path she had taken with Selene back towards the room she had stayed in.

This was where she had seen Elisabeth for the last time, but nobody was there. She walked down the corridor in the opposite direction, where the mother had gone when she saw her last time.

Aimlessly wandering wouldn't help her, so the Princess took some time to think about it. She went off to look for her son, so where would a young boy go during a terrible time of crisis? If only Leana had any idea about young boys.

Maybe he would go to the kitchen to get food? There was a cafeteria on the first floor, maybe the boy went to get food? It was her best idea, so she turned toward the stairwell.

On the way down, he came face to face with beasts. The sight of these monsters up close almost made her gag. Why did these creatures all have to look like a drug-induced nightmare?

What made it worse was the fact that they had not been there before. They were spreading quicker than expected. She had to hurry. Invisible and equipped with <Quick Feet> she could freely move among the beasts and continued her way down.

She had crossed half the way back to the first floor when she suddenly heard the noise of battle. There was no time to think. She couldn't just keep going and quickly followed the sound.

Turning around the corner, Leana spotted a woman with raven black hair and a young child at her side. She swung a Dane axe with an agitated cry and split a grotesque monster made up of mismatched body parts in two.

The princess was lucky, she had found Elisabeth. But Elisabeth was not so lucky, as she was facing five or six of these creatures. Besides the hairy being, it was hard to discern the numbers of the amorphous nightmare beasts. Especially as the ground was already littered with more parts of them.

The mother was breathing heavily, it seemed her stamina wasn't too great. Leana had to hurry. Still invisible she charged past the group of beasts and threw an explosive in their midst, exposing herself.

"You?!" Elisabeth cried out.

"Get down!" she cried out as she lunged at mother and child to tackle them to the ground as a huge explosion happened behind them.

It was a contained and condensed fire bomb. The fireball had a specific radius and thoroughly incinerated everything in its radius. A high-pitched howl of pain erupted from the blazing roars of the fireball but quickly waned and was swallowed by the fires.

It was another of Leana's trump cards. These kinds of magic bombs were hard to make and only meant for emergency cases. They could easily turn most lv. 80 adventurers to ashes.

"Are you okay?" the princess asked the two stragglers slightly out of breath.

"Y-yes, but what are you doing here? Where is Selene?" Elisabeth asked exasperated.

"She's in safety. I'm here because she asked me to protect you," The princess explained concisely as she stood up again.

"What about those things?" the mother asked, nodding at the fading fireball and the charred remains of the creatures.

"Don't worry, this kind of artifact should be able to kill any beast under lv. 80." she bragged a little butt her face fell when she heard a sound from behind.

Had the charred skeleton just moved? The biggest lanky corpse in the middle of the group suddenly twitched and raised its burned head. Between its exposed jaws it held another carbonized piece from the bodies around it. The thing was eating. Quickly the princess also noted that it was regenerating at a visible rate.

It was a very tall, naturally lanky humanoid with knobby joints. The mix of human and canine's teeth were exposed by a short snout without lips. The big eyes were deep-set and bulging at the same time. It took the princess a moment to realize why; the creature had no eyelids.

"Sh*t!" she cursed. The bomb had not killed it and it even healed as it fed on the corpses around it.

"Let's hide!" the princess urged them into the adjacent room and threw another bomb at the naked thing.

Throwing the metal door shut behind her, she took a moment to scan the room they had entered. The Armory. Of course! Where do boys go to play? The armory, it was obvious!

"Can you lock the door or something?" Leana asked in a hurry.

The modern door didn't have such a simple thing as a key lock with a conveniently sticking key on the inside of the door.

"Oh, yes. Let me." Elisabeth jumped to her side and started mashing in numbers on the keypad on the wall.

It beeped two times and they heard several bolts in the wall locking the metal door shut. They just let out a sigh of relief when something smashed into the door from the other side with tremendous force.

This answered Leana's pending worry, that the bats had even survived the second incendiary bomb.

Looking around she found the armory mostly empty, with only mediocre weapons left in the stands.

"Tsk."

She clicked her tongue and brought out her personal weapon. Even though she was a lady, her class as a royal granted her <Knightly Weapon Mastery>. Similar to the general skill <Weapon mastery> Seth held, it was a skill that granted mastery for several different weapons that were the signature of knights.

Her personal weapon was a slender sword for stabbing, almost like a broad rapier. Arcs of lightning crackled along the blade. This was the Lightning Needle, a legendary weapon that offered the wielder powerful bursts of power but had strict usage conditions.

The beast had survived her bombs, which meant she couldn't go easy. The princess ripped a piece of paper and took her stance, facing the door. Sweat started running down her face as she concentrated and readied the weapon's strongest attack.

"What are you doing?" Elisabeth asked from the side when Leana stopped moving and only watched the slowly deforming door.

"I only have this one attack. I have to make sure it hits," she explained with pressed-together lips.

Her whole body was tense, like a drawn bow ready to fire.

POW!

With a last hit, the door finally fell inwards and the beast rushed in, faster than any of the women could react, and crashed into an invisible wall. The paper she had ripped before was a barrier scroll that could instantly erect a protective bubble around the user.

Confused and with its charge halted, it had no other way than to face Leana's prepared attack. Afterimages followed her movements as she lunged forward into the stab. The images rushed to the tip of the sword where they turned into a lightning beam.

The attack hit the beast squarely in the chest and cleanly penetrated the fiend, but she knew this would probably not be enough. By slightly changing her stance she diffused the beam, turning it into a knockback instead of penetration.

Suddenly hit by the force the beast was flung to the door where it futilely tried to cling to the frame. In the end, it could not hold on. Its claws lost their grip and it crashed through the door on the opposite side and out the window of that room. Even if it survived the attack, even if it survived the fall, it would buy them time.

The princess kneeled down, panting heavily. If only the costs and side effects were not as extreme. Before they could be happy about their little success, shadows appeared at the now destroyed door. Leana groaned slightly pissed. They really just kept on coming.

Her arms felt heavy like lead, but she lifted her weapon again. She hated this feeling. Why did she have to go through this? She wasn't a fighter! But when she looked at Elisabeth and her son behind her and thought of Selene's face, she did not regret her promise.

Would have been nice, but she really regretted it. She swore to herself to never make any promises that could involve fighting ever again if she wasn't sure to have a subordinate to delegate it to.