Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

"Boss?" Link asked carefully after Seth had stiffened with a weird expression on his face. Were Alison's words too harsh?

"Oh, sorry. I spaced out for a moment. Hehe, you may think I got scammed on this one but just you wait and see. You will understand in the future, just how unfair this blessing is."

Seth was right, except for the fact that he himself still not understood how unfair this blessing really was. The others just looked at him weirdly. He harrumphed and changed the subject.

"Anyway. I guess we are finished here. Let's go back to Evee's base and prepare for the way back."

There were still about 50 bandits scattered across the ruins, but they did not have to hunt those down. Evee would cancel all her wards after leaving. The bandits would have no choice but to try and return to the slums or die out here. The latter had a higher chance of happening.

It was still dark when they returned to the girl's hideout, and they decided to have a good rest before returning. The gourmet hunter meticulously prepared a great meal before they went to sleep.

The wards really showed their usefulness. It was the first party since they left the safety zone that the whole party could get a good night's sleep. Not only did the wards repel monsters, but they could also warn them, if something managed to enter the perimeter.

In the morning Seth was woken up by a small rough tongue licking his face. When he drowsily opened his eyes, he looked into another pair of big green eyes that stared at his face.

"A cat?" he thought still not quite away. No, no this was no cat. Wasn't it a little too big? As he slowly woke up his thoughts became clearer. The size of a dog... a lynx or a bobcat? He had never heard of black bobcats.

It looked much more like a normal cat with the size cranked up. He cupped its head in his hand and rubbed the soft fur. It was very tame as it closed its eyes and enjoyed being petted. How did it come to this? He sat thee early in the morning, petting some strange big cat that had woken him up...

Seth heard a chuckle from the door and saw Evee hiding at the doorframe.

"Is this your doing?" he asked and gestured at the cat, without taking his hands off the purring furball.

It turned out that Seth was not the only one who had gained a lot from their little killing spree. While the others had leveled up or were close to a level up, Evee had the greatest gains. She had jumped straight past lv. 15 and unlocked several witch skills. Among them was <Familiar>.

For Evee the Pet-System was unlocked at lv. 15 instead of lv. 20 and the reason was this skill. As a witch, she obviously needed a familiar. For this, she had an additional pet space for her familiar. This gave her the ability to have two creatures to assist her in combat, her familiar and a pet. Normal people like Seth could only have one pet and a mount.

The difference between a mount and a pet was simple. A mount would only defend itself in a fight. It would not fight for its contractor and could refuse to come out during a fight.

A big difference between familiars and pets was that they would not die. Even if they were defeated in combat, they would only return to the pet space and recover. If Puffles was killed in a battle, there would be no return for it.

Evee had already checked her skills yesterday and held back from testing them. But she could not hold back from testing it after waking up early. She had drawn a magic circle with mana and mumbled some cryptic spells. The result was said to be totally random. There was no way to control what familiar a witch would summon with this spell.

Evee was very happy when it was a beautiful big black cat that appeared from the magic circle. Since it was early in the morning, she decided to play a prank on Seth to surprise him.

While Seth was still petting the fluffy familiar, she explained the other perks. A familiar would not only be able to fight alongside its summoner without the risk of permanent death. It could also grow on its own by defeating and devouring enemies.

And she could upgrade the familiar's power the more the skill itself grew. As she bragged about her new skill and powers it started to sound more and more like a sales pitch. Seth had already planned to count her to his people, so it was quite funny to see her so eager to join his party.

Looking at her skills, Seth could not help but think that witches were a really rounded class. They could cast spells for attack, brew potions for buffs, and had a familiar for defense.

"You guys are already up? Oh, who is this little fur buddy?" Tekar asked surprised when he saw the familiar on Seth's lap. He had come by the door and happened to look inside. He joined Seth in pampering the big cat.

A little later, after Evee unsummoned her familiar to save it from being rubbed by four people at once, everyone got ready to leave. Seth had given Evee a set of simple armor, one of those he had prepared for the auction, before they left.

On the way back to Y-City they decided to not be as quiet as they were on the way here. They wanted to gain some levels and gather some more materials. They put Evee into an armor to protect her since she had such a low level at the moment.

With Evee's scouting with <Astral Projection> they not only easily avoided stronger monsters while committing genocide on weaker ones, but they could also have a good rest during the night thanks to her wards.

Evee's ward also opened up a way to complete Seth's plan idea of having the mobs fight each other. I just needed some ward to attract and confuse the mobs to have them enter each other's territories and fight.

While several monster tribes had suddenly fallen into an all-out war, the party sat on a nearby roof waiting for a chance. As orcs were wrestling with Lizardmen and Kobolds were furiously ripping apart goblins Alison used the chaos to cast a fire rain over all of them.

This was not meant to be any kind of finisher but a way to steal some experience. In the chaos neither side could tell who had cast the fire and it just provoked them even more. And every time they killed each other the party got some experience thanks to the damage Alison dealt.

After most of them died or were severely wounded, the party swooped in to finish off all the remnant and harvest the loot. The materials could be sold, but they were all at most uncommon. On the other hand, the material Seth did appreciate and collect were steel and precious metals from the ruins. Now that he had recipes to refine iron and silver, he could not miss out on free resources.

By the time they reached the slums their inventories were packed to the brim with stuff. But in the end, the biggest gain was still the experience, as everyone leveled up and Tekar even reached level 40.

Evee was given a free bus ride and she reached lv. 26 while her familiar was close to lv. 20. But no matter how fast the familiar grew, it could not keep up with his Puffles. Puffles had not only reached lv. 33 like himself but also kept growing without stop.

Puffles also became quite ravenous swallowing everything that was left of monsters after Link had dismantled them. Seeing those changes Seth guessed, that Puffles might be close to another metamorphosis. Would he learn to make an even better thread? How was Seth supposed to sustain this glutton?

The <Celestial bronze> already needed several different rare materials and they had needed to visit a bazaar to find them, as the ivicer itself did not know which materials it needed. Mentioning those materials, Seth's stock of those was also dwindling. He had made Puffles produce celestial bronze nonstop, so he could send it to N?del at some point. There was no way to restock those on Urth...

"You there! Stop right there! Who do you think you are, that you simply cross the Shield Gang's territory?!"

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