Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

After a small introduction Seth, Fin, Mary, Asso and the secretary of the former guild master and head receptionist, Olivia, were all sitting in a big meeting room of the guild hall. The room was not dirty, but you could see the lack of care it experienced over the years.

What it lacked in maintenance was made up in hospitality. Seth and Fin were settled with a hot cup of tea and a plate of sugary pastry native to Zhiqe. It contained very sweet honey and tasted quite succulent. The tea′s strong taste matched it well and calmed Seth′s mood considerably.

Asso had been treated by a guild healer. He still looked miserable, but he was awake and could talk normally. Olivia glared at the beastman after hearing what had happened from Seth. Mary was not better off; she knew she had not handled the situation correctly. Both hung their head in shame under Olivia's sharp eyes. "Explain!", she barked at Asso, who looked like a depressed puppy in this moment.

It all started with the reason why Asso even managed to become a promising adventurer to begin with. He had a unique skill called <Golden Opportunity>. This skill allowed him to see items and materials that could help him become stronger by purifying his bloodline. As a reptilian he had the chance to rank up his bloodline all the way to draconian if he was lucky and got the right opportunities. The benefits of this were obvious: Stronger attribute-growth and greater multipliers!

Assos mission was initially really to patrol the old district and help people who had lost their way. However, when he wanted to approach Seth and the Fairy <Golden Opportunity> showed the young traveler in a golden hue! He had either something on his body or in his inventory that might be of great help to his promotion!

Seth lifted an eyebrow at this statement. What could he have, that could help this guy promote?

So Asso talked to his party before talking to travelers. He had planned to bring them to the edge of the old district and intimidate them there! Once they emptied their inventory, he would have been able to discern what the item was and either explain the situation if he could pay for it, or run off with it if it was too valuable! He was confident in his agility!

He looked almost smug when he mentioned that plain robbery was not his first choice. Just how did this guy grow up to think his actions were appropriate? At least it did not seem, like he used violence at any point in time before.

Asso knew about <Observation>, but as a beastman he lacked the talent in magic to acquire it. And since his level was not considered high, he also had no skills to compensate for this lack, yet. So, he had severely underestimated the two travelers and got his butt handed to him. And now Asso even had to pay the guild healer for treatment...

When his report turned into random rambling Olivia told him to shut up. She had heard enough. This guy had pulled off stunts like this before, but it was the first time Olivia could force him to talk about his reasons. Normally these incidents ended with the first option. People got a scare and then sold him whatever trinket or item he wanted. It did not really impact his reputations since he paid well and the people happily forgot the scare.

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"How far has this city sunken, that a D-Rank can act like this", Olivia thought shaking her head.

"Asso is clearly in the wrong. He and his party will pay 5 gold as reparations. At the same time, their dungeon license will be suspended and they will have to do menial quest for 6 months.", she looked to Seth, but her eyes stayed on Fin, "Is this punishment acceptable to you?"

Fin and Seth just nodded. They did not really care about this anymore. Seth was more interested in the thing Asso wanted.

"On another note, I hope you can forgive Mary her misconduct. She is still new and inexperienced.", Mary twitched when her name was mentioned, but looked up, when Olivia actually spoke in her favor.

" Fin thinks she has learned her lesson!", the fairy answered while Seth′s eyes stayed on Asso.

"Asso.", he said which made the lizardman wince. "Asso is-! I- I am very sorry for what happened. Please forgive me."

"Yeah, yeah. Calm down.", Seth waved his hand, "I more interested in the material you saw with <Golden Opportunity>"

Seth had just come to this world and people already wanted to rob stuff from him, he did not even know he had!

"Let′s meet later and look through my inventory. Maybe I will still sell you what you need, if the price is right.", Seth said with a twinkle in his eyes.

With this, Olive concluded the meeting and asked Mary and Asso to leave. Soon only Olivia and Seth′s party were left in the room. Olivia turned to the innocent-looking fairy.

"Now then, what else can I do for the B-Rank adventurer Fin Bellsmiter? I have heard about you. Our guild already looks like this. I hope you don′t plan to go on a drunken rampage like in-"

"Lies! Stop slandering Fin in front of Seth! Fin is an upstanding member of society! Fin never demolished a bar!", she cried out, waving her tiny fists with a crimson red face.

"So, Fin had a past like this, huh?", he thought and chuckled upon the image of tiny Fin being drunk and starting a bar fight. Seth obviously knew Fin had been an adventurer before, she had mentioned it in Ivicer, but had not further talked much about it.

"Anyways, we actually came to the guild for two reasons. I want to join the guild and we picked this up in Ivicer.", he pulled out the log book from his inventory.

"Ivicer!? You actually came out of cursed Ruins alive?!"

Shock was written all over Olivia's face. Even when this young man was really an ori huma and Fin was a B-Rank adventurer, it was incredible they made it out of there. Nobody had ever returned from there!

"Yes, barely. Without the hints from this book, we might have died without knowing what killed us."

Now that the conversation was finally on the book, Seth described what happened in Ivicer and their escape from the ruins without going into too deep of a detail. As if the earlier shock was not enough, Olivia lost control over her expression, as Seth told her the story. He told Olivia about the quest and gave her the book, but the quest did not react.

"That is weird, didn′t we hand it over like the quest told us to?", Seth asked puzzled. Olivia had a complicated expression after hearing his question.

"I don′t know how to tell you this but... Maybe you have to talk to and give this book to the guild master. The problem is, that the guild master stopped caring about his job after this incident in Ivicer."

She had not been here at the time, so she could only give a rough explanation. 10 years ago, this guild branch was the headquarters of the region. With many strong adventurers they kept the creatures of the marshlands at bay and the materials also brought prosperity to Zhiqe. But something terrible happened and the Ivicer branch stopped responding.

The guild master sent a contingent with most of the high-ranking members of the guild to subjugate the threat, but all of them vanished in those ruins. Having lost the forces that culled the creatures in the surrounding area was one of the reasons Zhiqe had lost most of its glory. The guild master blamed himself for this and was reprimanded on top of this.

When she joined the guild, the master was only coming sporadically to the guild hall. This neglect caused new promising adventurers to leave. The branch had lost its standing and was degraded. Lately the guild master only held this role in name, but seldomly showed up in the guild. Like this, only Olivia was left to lead what was left of the guild.

"So... you might have to go and look for the guild master to complete your quest. I′m sorry.", she said and gave Seth the book back. Seth sighed, of course it could not be easy for once.

"It′s not your fault, I guess. but I can still register here, right?", Seth tried to stay motivated. The quest could wait.. He still had lots of things to do.