Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

After enlightening her they talking for a little more. When Seth asked, Mary also told him that Drosi and his company had already reached Mount Agra and would return soon.

Seth had been a little worried when he didn't see the group during his initial scan of the tower. Since they would call back the Chimeras there was also the question of their future.

The blacksmith shared a few ideas pertaining to this with Mary, but ultimately he wanted to leave this choice to the individuals in Question. There would be more than enough work along the route, if they didn't want to fight for their whole life.

He didn't even want to forcefully bind them to Minas Mar. They seemed quite happy in the mountain city and Seth would not stop them if they chose to settle there.

Maybe Seth had a change of heart, or maybe unlocking the option to create a butt load of strong, mindless drone soldiers had made him less desperate to amass power. Although he had to admit that having the Vampires would have been very enticing.

Everything else was working smoothly for now. Mary had only praise for Jane's handling of the new shop. Although a group of obviously enraged merchants seemed to be trying to make some trouble lately. Seth heard this with a smile and would visit Jane to talk about this matter.

At least the implementation of the unique certificate tokens had worked well and showed the first results. Copycats wouldn't vanish in a week or two but the problem was already a lot less prevalent since people would start asking for authentication.

It worked so well, that Jane had even hired a talented appraiser. Now they offered besides appraising services the possibility to issue certificates for a previously bought item. Hearing that everything except their biggest project was going rather smoothly calmed Seth a lot.

As he had expected, Mary had also made sure that Minas Mar was doing their part in disaster relief

They talked for a while longer about Seth's personal plans and more generic stuff, before Seth finally excused himself.

Transporting into his quarters, he found Mina fast asleep. Carefully he snuck to her under the blanket and fell asleep.

…

The two spent the whole morning "celebrating" their reunion before Mina regretfully had to wash up and leave. She wanted to say with Seth but their party had promised to help with the evacuation efforts and the management of refugees in Delta.

That was why the catlady had to rein in her desires and make do with a morning of passion for now. Their party traveled to Delta's System Church from where they followed Leana's orders. Their task was relatively simple as it was to help in guiding and protecting the huge number of people that arrived from outside.

As pure Adventurers, Mina and the other members of Yulecat's Fur were not used to this kind of work. It was time for the Oathguard to shine. As people trained by a former policeman and detective, Jack Felton, they were proficient in keeping public order. Many of them had already gained some experience in this during the Theocracy Incident.

Mina couldn't hide a mischievous smile, when their team split up and she was alone with Fin.

"What? " Fin asked when she couldn't take the cat stare anymore.

"How's practice going?" she asked curiously.

Fin sighed. Ever since the fairy had told them about the ancient magic for shape-shifting Mina had kept asking. She had been really touched when Mina offered her support, but she didn't expect that Mina was even more eager to have her join them than she was...

"I-It's harder than Fin thought," the Fairy explained a little depressed and embarrassed.

She practiced in her room when she had time, but it was surprisingly hard to change shape into something specific, not to mention keeping that shape. Since it was an ancient magic and not a skill, she had to not just practice but also understand it.

"Shall I tell you something to cheer you up? It's a secret and you can't tell Seth that I told you," she offered secretive.

The fairy's eyes shone. She loved secrets. Especially if it was about knowing the secrets of others. She nodded excitedly and prompted Mina to tell.

"Good. Listen closely. This is something Seth told us not to tell you, but do you remember that Minotaur Seth talked about before we went to Sigma?" she whispered.

"Yes?" Fin's eyes shone like searchlights.

"Seth actually finished it some time ago. It's stationed as gate guardian at the Gatehouse," she revealed to the fairy brute.

Mina felt a little bad about reveling the secret, since Seth's reason were sound. Asterion was sentient and once Fin's expression lit up, she knew that she would pester the poor guy from now on. Maybe he had made a mistake, what if the little brute would turn to stalk the Minotaur and forget to practice?

"Try to be subtle about it, okay?" she tried to do damage control, but she wasn't sure whether Fin even knew what subtlety was...

At least the fairy seemed a lot happier now, even if that meant she had possibly ruined someone else's future days.

The two were patrolling the vicinity and it had been a rather relaxed day up to now. A panicked crowd suddenly came running in their direction from up ahead. Mina vanished in the shadows and Fin flew over the crowd to reach the scene.

On one side of the road lay a party of bleeding, unconscious adventurers. It was unknown whether they were even still alive. On the other side, they saw a party of their Oathguard defending against an invisible attacker if one could call that defending.

Bright sparks kept flying all over the place when the attacker's weapons failed to overcome the oatharmor. Although they were on guard, they were helpless against the invisible enemy. The armor was the only reason they were still alive, but it did not stop them from being battered.

"Go for it, I will give support." Fin said seriously and he assassin vanished back into the shadows.

The fairy couldn't see them, just like the oathguard members, but Mina was different. She was a beastman, her senses were a lot better than many other races. Even if she didn't see them, she could track their scent and sound.

She appeared from the shadows of the oathguards in the middle of their circle and together with her, rows of shadow spikes shot out from the ground and pierced the supposedly empty air. Blood splattered in several locations.

Blood soaked into the "air" in some places, while the disembodied wound tried to run. The floating wound was promptly pummeled by a tiny figure that was almost invisible as she was too fast and small for human eyes to spot.

Mina also pursued some of the wound and incapacitated the invisible people.

"Some got away," Mina said with a frown when she came over to Fin, after hunting down all the attackers she could get a hold of.

Seeing the danger was over, the Oathguard members finally relaxed and scratched their heads a little embarrassed.

They had been unable to react and were even seen by their superiors. They had also been unable to help their fellow adventurers and could only look at their corpses guiltily. Fin had already checked them, but most had died with a single attack, the others were beyond saving by the point they arrived.

"Did you catch some alive?"

Mina nodded, but when they got to check them, they found that it wasn't the. Their bodies appeared when they stripped off a thing from the cape they were wearing. They became visible only for the party to see that they had foam in front of their mouths.

The attackers had actually committed suicide in this short amount of time, leaving them with no way to gain information from them. Just who were these people?

Soon the guard and other adventurers arrived with Leana at their helm.