Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Ortega had been a little depressed, seeing how the Tower Master had not taken them along. He knew this was because the master was worried about them, but Ortega could not help feeling that he didn't trust their abilities.

He and his team had come with the expectation to be able to shine in front of the Tower Master, the man who had enabled him to live a good life in these kinds of times. Not meeting any monsters on day one and being left behind on day two was... depressing.

The knight was not alone in his feeling, as the whole team had a gloomy atmosphere all day. Hearing the Tower Master not just praise them, but also give them individual advice after such a long battle really touched them.

Especially Ortega's worry was alleviated. If Seth didn't trust in their strength, would he have just stood by and watched? He was sure that the blacksmith could have ended the fight at any point, but he not only trusted their strength but also allowed them to monopolize the experience points.

Although exhausted, they were in a much better mood, feeling like they got their chance to shine in front of the Tower Master in the end. With the decision to leave made, they hurried to pack up their stuff and summon their mounts.

...

"Tower master, shouldn't we bring this back?" Morgana asked with the glint of curiosity typically for many wizards.

"Heck no. Who knows when it becomes active again? I will burn it here and now."

"You can't! We need to bring it back to research it and come up with a countermeasure."

It was one of the guards from Chrona, actually, it was the very dilapidated-looking guard captain in charge of the camp. He managed to be one of the last five survivors of the guard team. A testament to his strength, not necessarily his wisdom.

"I don't know what exactly happened in the camp while I was away., but it's pretty obvious that this thing absorbed people to heal itself. Do you really want to bring it to a place with a lot of people to absorb in case it gets away?"

"I know very well that it absorbed people, they were our comrades! We have to retrieve their bodies!" the captain insisted, still unconvinced.

"I can call Leana about this. I just spoke with her not too long ago." He raised the communication orb to show his readiness to bring the captain's superior into this debate.

The blacksmith didn't know which was the real reason as to why the captain wanted to bring the thing along, but one thing was clear: Seth wasn't going to take that thing back, even if the princess herself insisted to do it.

"I'm sure your friends would rather be incinerated and know that their killer was gone for good than take the risk of becoming part of it and doing to others, what happened to them." When he added that, the guard captain finally fell silent. After a moment of grimacing, he gave his consent with an unwilling nod. His fists were balled tightly, but his face was resolute.

With a wave of his hand, a circle of bright pale-blue fire surrounded the giant corpse and soon grew to a great pillar that lit the surroundings. The lighter human tissue quickly turned to ashes, but to Seth's shock, the dungeon worm's flesh did not.

The spirit flame burned brightly in the twilight of the ending day, but the corpse resisted the terrifying heat vehemently. The floor started liquefying, while the body was merely scorched on the surface. It was the first time the blacksmith faced something organic that withstood the spirit flame.

When he stopped supplying the fire with power, it immediately went out instead of burning on like usual. Seth ignored the stares of the team and stepped closer to the remains. A beast that had no soul and whose remains seemed almost immune to the flame of the underworld... It was just too weird. Maybe it just had a high fire resistance? Thinking this he switched to the draconic Titan Flame, the fire next best in damage.

Although he couldn't quite put his finger on it, the Titan Flame seemed to burn the corpse slightly quicker, but not as fast as expected. It did have a good resistance to fire, probably because it was a beast of the earth, with a body that was mostly made up of stone and metal compounds.

But, that didn't explain why the spirit flame worked less than the titan flame... Following a hunch, he also used Phlegethon's fire. The flame was dark and murky, even darker and oppressing than the draconic Titan Flame. He found that it had the greatest effect on the corpse. Though it didn't burn the corpse, it slowly melted it. The worm's mutilated body turned into a puddle of molten slag.

"Tower Master?" Ortega asked worriedly.

Maybe it was his expression that made him worried. Seth controlled his face and mounted an Alpeka.

"Everything's alright. Let's set off and quickly return to Delta."

They were not blessed with the calm journey they hoped for. They had been on the move for just over an hour when they suddenly saw a signal flare shoot across the sky. After exchanging a quick look Seth and the Guard Captain changed course to see who shot the flare.

A few kilometers off their original route they found a party camping out in a gorge. It had a tight entrance but widened to the back where it ended in a short cave.

"Hey, aren't you the party from the Boulder Guild?" Seth exclaimed when he saw some familiar faces.

He knew none of them personally, but he had seen their faces around Marcel, Elza, and Brock during the evaluation. The man standing at the mouth of the gorge greeted them and spoke to Seth.

"Yes, I'm Roark from the Boulder Guild. Tower Master, it's our first time talking personally which makes the situation even more regretful. I have to ask you to stay there and answer some of my questions before I can let you in."

"Didn't you light the signal flare to ask for help?" the captain inquired.

"Yes, but this and that are related. Did any of you get hurt in the fight with the worm last night?"

He asked this question especially to the guards of Chrona, even though their slightly bedraggled appearance was more than enough answer. The Oathguards' relic-rated armor and weapons didn't show many signs of use, while the chrona guards had suffered visibly in comparison.

"Not last night," the guard captain said indignantly.

Just like Seth and the others from Minas Mar, the guard from Chrona had not actively joined the parties in their raid on the worm. However, they were forced to fight the resurrected beast not too long ago.

"Not last...?"

"The thing somehow revived in the morning and laid waste to the base camp. They and Ortega's team fought the resurrected creature earlier, " Seth explained.

The man grimaced when he heard that.

"And were your people wounded?"

Seth looked at his back, but the members of the delegation from Minas Mar just shook their heads.

"Then I have to ask the guards to stay outside, for everyone's safety,"

"Why?" the captain asked seriously. Seth also looked at Roark curiously, it seemed like something had happened.

"I will explain."

Roark started telling them what happened after their departure for Delta.

"At first everything was fine, but when we were just an hour away from Delta, some among the group started acting...strange. Several people started convulsing and fell off their mounts. As the group turned back to help, more and more lost control of themselves.

When helpers arrived, they suddenly attacked them. As if they had lost their minds, they started attacking with weapons or bare hands. It was chaos, with many first helpers being caught off-guard and losing their lives," he described depressed.

"Okay, but what had that to to with us?" the captain insisted.

"I will show you, follow me while I keep explaining."

With that, he started leading them away from the entrance to the gorge.

" At first we still tried to solve it without using force, but healing magic had no effect and it also wasn't like they had contracted any status effects. In the end, we were forced to fight only to find out that they had the same unnatural healing as the worm did!"

They turned around a corner, facing a steep rock face. Seth's eyes widened in shock and he could hear the captain beside him breathe in in surprise.

"By the time we resolved ourselves to fight seriously, many of us had already been injured and not fit to fight. We could only flee. This is what happened later, with to those that got injured..." The place Roark had led them to was a steep rock wall, with roughly twenty people tied to it with magic rope. Their ankles and hands were bound, but they were snarling and struggling like rabid beasts that were trying to break their chains.