Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

--Shop-

The clerk hurriedly rummaged through a drawer below the counter and pulled out a mobile radio. It looked slightly modified with a magic rune carved in the side.

"Sir? Yes. No, I'm not slacking, Sir. I-I know, Sir. It is important, Sir. Just now I saw a man decked out in items I could not appraise. Sir knows I can appraise everything up to uncommon. All his gear must be rare or above!"

"You didn't offend him, right?" the man on the phone asked worriedly.

"No, no. He exchanged some currency and I gave him a map of Y and Koku, Sir. I think Koku will be his next destination. He just left the shop."

"You did well in calling fast. You might get a bonus this month."

With that, the voice ended the call and left the guy with a smile. Even so, he had to humble himself, headquarters always paid well for reliable info in this crisis.

----------

Seth felt relieved holding an actual map in his hands. He had only been in Ypsilon once before on vacation with his parents. But at that time, they had visited a city on the coast. Koku City was located on the border in the direction of the central continent, so pretty much the opposite side.

Remembering that vacation with parents lightly ached his heart, but he also found that he really appreciated the <Universal Translation>. Y-City district spoke a completely different language and he would have had it a lot harder trying to stumble through conversations with his broken knowledge of the Urth universal language.

He opened the map of Ypsilon or Y City for short. It was the district located almost directly south of the center and split into 14 smaller administrative units of satellite cities. Some of these regions were X-ed out, one of them was where he had been for vacation.

<Ding! New information acquired. Would you like to integrate the information into your Map? Y/N>

This surprised him, when he chose yes, his <Map> opened on its own and the previously grayed out area was filled with a picture of the map in his hands. Now, the map looked like a mix of 3D-Model and an image. The places he had been to were a detailed model, while the rest of Ypsilon was filled with an image of the map.

Had he known that he could integrate analog maps into his skill he would have bought more maps...

The outpost was located outside of the district's borders and as Jane had said, they walked for about an hour before they reached the metropolitan area. How much had he missed this view? Giant skyscrapers filling the skyline of the gray megacity. Covering everything in his sight like a dirty gray carpet. It lacked the yellowish smog-screen, but the landscape of concrete and glass still warmed his heart more than he had expected.

No more forests, caves, deserts, or swamps for him! He even started to silently hum.

"Asphalt roads, take me home~ To the place, I belong. Concrete jungle, fatty fast foods, take me home, asphalt road~"

Thanks to <Orpheus Voice> the text didn't matter. It sounded good enough to enchant the two girls and make them sing along despite the weird text.

Except for some obvious combat damages on the buildings and road, the city itself looked like a completely normal modern megapolis. The pedestrians were the ones that made it look weird. A big part of the crowd was wearing generic-looking fantasy gear; armors, robes, and hats.

When Seth heard there would be a transporter, he had thought that cars were running again and she meant a kind of bus. He gave up on that idea after seeing the roads being used by people riding mounts and beasts pulling carts. It also explained why the air was so clean.

It was not a weird Idea to think that cars would be working again, electricity was working too, after all. Jane didn't know the specifics, but apparently, there were classes like a variation of the dwarf's engineers. These people had now found a way to recover some of their original energy sources and were also researching new alternatives.

Seth was looking forward to the future. Hopefully, those people could bring back the era of gaming. Maybe he could relocate Fin, Mina, and the party to Urth once he secured his footing here. He had often thought of introducing the fairy to the world of gaming... he should have enough money to shoulder the destroyed screen and controllers if the fairy lost.

If he was lucky, he could even get Marn to immigrate after his training. Depending on the equipment situation in the city, they could even make a lot with Marn's current skills. How good would it be if he could leave everything to Marn and play games all day?

These were dreams of a far future, right now he would first have to make sure that this world was even safe and look for a good place to stay before he could even plan to get them here.

Seth took off his helmet and they mingled in the crowd. Another hour later they reached the bounds of the actual Koku City center and looked for a hotel to stay in for the next few days. Seth had money and he didn't plan on economizing with this small change. He was actually glad that he had only used silver coins back at the shop. Imagine he had pulled out several gold coins with each being worth 100k or more in that dirty little shop.

It was the girls who recommended an expensive hotel. They were originally from here and knew the place. 300 credits a night was expensive, but it couldn't faze Seth at all. If you converted the currencies, he had been staying at places that cost several thousand a night.

And it wasn't like he paid too much. The hotel was a Bonafide luxury hotel with pools, a spa, and a massive suite. It was better than any inn he had visited during his travel. It would definitely do until the transport came.

After realizing that they could not mean a bus when they said transporter, he had asked the girls what exactly it was. The answer was a kind of train that was not bound to tracks. It was one of the early inventions of this new era. Powered with monster cores it was a piece of magitec that roughly combined modern engineering and magic.

It was a heavily armored transport vehicle of the military and supposed to deliver and transport all kinds of cargo and supplies between the cities. They also transported a small number of passengers for a hefty sum of money. Strong adventurers could travel for free if they agreed to help in case of a monster attack or a raid. It reminded Seth slightly of the age of stagecoaches and railways, just that both were somehow combined.

Seth enjoyed the evening with a long visit in the spar and a good meal in the hotel's restaurant. He was glad, that his impression of food from the canteen at the outpost did not translate to the food here. Food still tasted great, even if the chef had no corresponding class.

All stress left him when he finally returned to his room and laid down on the soft warm bed. Before he fell asleep, he opened his inventory. Besides the weapons and items, he had worked on most recently and his rations there were the boxes he had snatched from Tored in a hurry.

Since he wanted to finish his own equipment and maybe start a new life based on his profession, he needed to organize his resources. He had a quiet minute now and decided to use it productively.

Taking out all the boxes he started to sort and order the materials. It was a bummer he had mostly grabbed those boxes in the front. Some of the boxes were not full, but he still got his money's worth.

Everything combined he now had 30 ingots of <Dwarven Copper>, 33 ingots of <Mithril>, 42 ingots of <Magic Steel>, 17 ingots of <Dark Steel>, and a thick sheet of leather from one of the boxes.

He had thrown 200 gold at the dwarf and he might have even made some profit. A lot in fact. Aside from these he also had a stack <High-quality Steel>, the <Fire Glas>, <Serenum> and <Dusk Iron>, and the materials from the snakes and the wyvern.

He judged that it was more than enough to make his equipment and start a shop. The only thing he was not sure about was the piece of leather.

<Hide of the White Bull, Crafting Material, Rare

This is the leather of a White Bull. They have a deep connection with the earth and life. These beasts are known for their gentle and calm nature. Killing them angers the land and any material harvested from a murdered Bull will bear a curse. >

This was a dilemma. How would he know whether this was cursed or not? He could show it to a tailor... but were there even tailors skilled enough to appraise this on Urth? He could just send a letter to Tored and ask about it. He just needed to hope that Tored didn't want it back.

After checking and sorting everything he finally fell asleep.

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