Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

"They use the bodies of fully transformed blood berserkers. The stronger the berserker was, the higher is the efficacy of the pellet. It is a highly sought-after cultivation supply among the black faction."

"EW! And people from your world ingest something like that willingly?!" Seth screeched, twitching in disgust.

The incident he remembered was the robbery of bodies from the morgue and some hospitals. The sick fu*cks actually stole corpses to make drugs.

"Some from this do, too," he reminded Seth.

"Urgh, don't remind me. I'm sure they wouldn't if they knew what that stuff was made of. Can you tell me any more about their activities in Delta?"

"Unfortunately not. They are being quite prudent, using native factions as intermediaries and not personally taking action in anything except the production, so far. I can't help but admire the ingenuity of criminals. I was unable to find anything on the distribution methods."

"Well, I can't blame you for that. Is there an antidote?"

Seth asked the probably most important question, but Yu only shook his head.

"At least there is none in our world, which is why even the unorthodox faction will heavily persecute the perpetrators and users. There might be ways, but I know none of them."

"... I see. Let's keep talking tomorrow, it is already late."

Heavyhearted, Seth decided to share the information with Mary and the others the next day, so they could talk about what steps to take. Hunting criminals was not their job, but if they fancied that adventure Seth wouldn't stop them. The blacksmith leaned more towards informing the police about what they knew and stopping at that.

He led Master Mountain to a guest room in the outer lobby. Even if he wanted to trust the old man, he would not invite him into their tower. According to Al'zalsar, Minas Mar was most likely able to withstand the siege of legendary existences, but not from the inside. He would not invite someone like Yu into his home when he still wasn't sure whether to fully trust him.

…

"It might be too late to not get involved," Mary stated.

Seth had called for a meeting of the Lords early in the morning before anyone could leave to do their duties and do their own stuff. The blacksmith had just shared the information he had gotten from Yu and Mary spoke up after a short silence filled with gagging.

"Why do you think so?" the blacksmith asked surprised.

"Things above are getting out of hand lately," Mina expressed hesitatingly.

Unlike Link, Alison, or Seth, the members of the field teams were directly involved in the emergency efforts and worked with the refugees. They had a better picture of the situation than the shut-ins and explained.

With Seth's information, the picture was completed and their suspicions were confirmed. There were two reasons for the attacks on the guards. Following the attacks on the guards, people used the weakened security to approach the refugees.

Sometimes openly, others under a guise, but their actions were the same. They got people to consume the Divine Strength drug. Some openly sold the drug, others played good Samaritans and distributed food laced with it and similar ruses.

The problem was that they became addicted after the first dose. They would quickly develop withdrawal symptoms and there was no known antidote. Even cold detoxification was meaningless. Instead of the effects weakening, they would become stronger with continued withdrawal.

As a consequence, the affected would do anything for the next dose. Things like drugging others, or selling their family, and there were simply too few people left to stop this from happening all over the place. The people of Sigma were completely disillusioned with their current circumstances and had a hard time trusting anyone anymore.

The second effect was a shift in reputation for Minas Mar. they were the only ones without any casualties because of the attacks. Of course, this was owed to their superior equipment and training. However, people were seldom rational when it came to their losses.

Was it really just because they wore better items? And really who would equip their guards in full sets of epic armor? Did anybody verify that?

On one hand, there was Minas Mar not suffering any setbacks no matter how often they were attacked, on the other side there was someone obviously gaining from the sudden lack of guards. There were not just one or two people who started suspecting them to be involved or even the perpetrators of the attacks.

Whether there was an obvious or logical reason for them to do so, didn't matter.

"They think we are gaining something from voluntary work? So, you are telling me some hidden gray eminence has started this elaborate scheme to distribute drugs and sideline us in the public?"

"Unfortunately, yes. That is my conclusion."

"Is there anything we can do about that?"

"No. If we try to go against the rumors, I fear people will only feel confirmed in their suspicions. I fear even if we shared the information about the drug, authorities might not take us seriously. The best course of action would probably be to ignore it and keep going," Mary summarized her conclusions.

"Any better ideas?" Seth asked in the round.

However, he was greeted with silence. When it came to the court of public opinion, it was always a tricky thing for most people. There were master manipulators out there, but none of them were here. They were usually not the kind of people Seth wanted to associate with.

"Fine, then here is my idea. They say we gain something from this situation and our opponent probably wants us to suffer in silence. I say, we use this situation and really gain something."

The faces around the table looked at him in confusion.

"How would we do that?" Mary summarized all of their thoughts.

"Someone handed us an anxious crowd of people that have lost everything and are more or less stranded in a foreign place grasping for any crumbs of hope they can get. Coincidentally, I know their one and only trusted leader and he owes me big time. The real question is, how couldn't we gain something from this if we put our minds to it?" He proceeded to lay out his idea in detail.

…

After the early meeting with the Lords, Seth picked up Master Mountain to visit Al'Zalsar. They didn't use Minas Mar's teleportation and instead walked around the mountain to reach Delta's city entrance by road.

On the way, they chatted about this and that. Yu was especially interested in Asterion, as he had never seen an automaton with flesh and blood before.

"I witnessed many weird and magical things on the Voracious Crowd Continent, but your gatekeeper ranks among some of the most curious things I have seen," he said on the topic.

"Oh, is he among the Top 10?"

"What does that mean?"

"I mean, is he one of the 10 most curious things you have seen, or maybe a little less special," he tried to explain what he meant.

"Oh, I understand what you mean. hmm, if you phrase it like this... top50?" "Only top 50?!" "I have seen a lot."

Seth was still careful not to reveal too much, but they continued to have a nice chat. He could also deepen his understanding of the Jianghu a little. Apparently, there were many factions, that were once again split into factions.

The biggest differentiation was into the black faction, the unorthodox faction, and the orthodox faction. Each had its own groups of alliances above the level of sects and big families. When he spoke of his homeland, he kept emphasizing how vast it was, at least several times bigger than Urth, and that the districts could barely compete with the number of people in some of the bigger cities of the Central 7.

Although the other only mentioned these things in anecdotes, together with the information he got from Al'Zalsar it gave Seth a more complete picture of this other world. What he really managed to ascertain was, that this place was maybe as terrifying as the mutating Urth.

"My young friend, I am sure you are virile, but I am a little too old to enter these kinds of places. I appreciate the thought, but we should really hurry to meet Fairy Sorceress."

At first, Seth had been confused when Yu called Al'Zalsar a fairy, as the only fairy he knew was Fin. But he realized that it was his way to call a beautiful, powerful woman. That he insisted on calling her Fairy despite knowing that she was several centuries old, said more about Yu's age, than anything else.

"We aren't here to buy you a woman... or whatever preference you have. Al'Zalsar made her base here. The building over there belongs to her."

Except for an awkward cough, Master mountains fell silent until they entered the building and met Al'Zalsar.

"Al, do you remember Master Mountain? He came to ransom our prisoner."

What followed was a conversation between two high-level existences, Seth did not bother even listen to. In the end, some knowledge and a person changed owners.

"Are you really returning right away, Yu?"

"Yes, I have to bring him back as quickly as possible," Master Mountain said.

The next moment the elder of the Northern Edge Sect was sucked into the small bracelet on Yu's wrist. Seth's eyes shone.

"Is that a spatial storage item?" he asked eagerly.

Although he had the system inventory, he couldn't use it on golems that counted as living beings, such as Ceres. He had been thinking of replacing his Wyvern Ring with such an item, though he would need Al'Zalsar's help with it.

However, if he could get one from Yu, it would be a lot easier.

"Oh, this? Yes, it is a spatial artifact I have refined over the past 50 years. It is quite rare since it allows to storage a living person, unfortunately, the size and capacity are not very big."

Seth's hopes were dashed, when Yu readily explained that he could at most fit two people in the bracelet and there was an upper limit for their realm. If the elder's cultivation was not broken, it might not have been possible to store him so easily.

The blacksmith could only accept, that the cultivation realm wouldn't throw an easy solution at him for free. They didn't talk for long before Yu really left. It seemed like it was true that he was in a hurry after acquiring the hostage. Though he promised to return with a reward for Seth, once his business was settled.