Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

952  951. Neither Seth nor Evee

Under the strikes of his hammer, the crystalline material was filled with his magic power and became malleable. As the hammer struck, demonic runes took shape from Seth's unintelligible growls and fell onto the <Enriched Necron>.

The blacksmith folded the material several times, to make sure the demon's blessing permeated it evenly. Murmur's tune was surprisingly enjoyable for Seth, although it was hard on his throat. The reason was quite simple, he did not have to care about the price.

In exchange for Murmur's blessing to necromancy, the demon would claim part of the lives and souls that were ended by the undead empowered by his blessing. Neither Seth nor Evee had a problem with that.

This meant he didn't need to concentrate on using <Soul Trade> while he was channeling the demon, running <Energy Manipulation 3>, <Singing>, <Seth's Voice> and other skills. With the amount of skills he had gotten used to activating simultaneously when crafting, just one falling away was a great relief.

Once the chunk of <Enriched Necron> was thoroughly "kneaded" he started forging it into shape. He decided to start with something easier and after some pondering, he began working on the armored boots.

The boots made of leather dropped by the Crypt Walkers of the Colossal Dungeon were already prepared by Neeco Boos. All the blacksmith currently needed to do was forging and attaching the fitting armor plates and shin guards. With practiced movements, he was able to finish them quickly.

After pondering for a moment he turned to forging the cuirass since it was the only other piece he could finish with waiting for Neeco. Seth had long since known Evee's measurement and was able to perfectly adjust the armor parts to her petite size. Four hours later, Seth wiped the sweat off his forehead and sat down to have a break.

Maybe, it was a little too much to try and forge the full set on a single day. Despite not needing to use <Soul Trade>, the forging process was more demanding than expected because of the power of death splashing with every hit on his hammer and eating away at his stamina. He munched a meal from his inventory as he waited for his stamina, mana, and mental power to recover before he continued.

The armor set the blacksmith had come up with this time was not a traditional armor design from Forgebrand's Archives. Instead, Seth took inspiration from some of his favorite games he used to play when he was younger as well as some movies.

This became most obvious with the headpiece. After the Necronite Armor, Seth realized that full plate armor was not Evee's style. The headpiece he planned out was the product of <Goldsmith> and <Blacksmith>, as well as a genuine fantasy gear.

A black circlet, like the refined version of the colossal lich's crude crown. Adding to it was a black veil of fine chain mail that would later be lined with the death fabric. Despite taking ages on the fine rings of <Enriched Necron>, Seth did not delegate any of this work to his assistants. This way, it quickly became evening.

There were only two things left to forge for the set. One were plates he would add to the sleeves of the gambeson of death, to give Evee at least some shoulder and upper arm protection. The other was the pair of gauntlets. Like the headpiece, Seth wouldn't be able to complete them until Neeco Boos was able to spin and work with the yarn of death comfortably.

The blacksmith hesitated, because it was getting late but decided to go for it. There was not that much left to do, anyway. Just as he wanted to continue, his communication orb on his workbench started ringing.

"Mary? Why are you calling me?" he asked surprised.

"Come up quickly, there was a terrorist attack in Delta-"

His heart immediately dropped when he heard what she said. Did something happen to Mina, Fin, and the others?

"I'll be there in a second," he interrupted Mary and directly teleported to the elevator which directly allowed him to enter the embassy from below. Just a minute later, he stepped out into the small private room behind the entrance hall.

"Mary, what happened? Are Mina and Fin okay?" he exclaimed as he breached into her office. The people inside who were focused on the scenes inside the big transmission orb on the table looked up in shock.

"Huh? What happened to-" "What happened to Fin!?" Leana suddenly interrupted Mary agitatedly, leaving everyone in the room stunned. An awkward silence ensued and they kept exchanging clueless looks.

"You called me because of a terrorist attack in Delta, right? Aren't the girls and Bulko out there? I thought..." Seth tried to explain. As he spoke, the others understood his reaction and Leana visibly calmed down, too.

"This has nothing to do with them," Mary explained calmly with a wry smile. "The terrorist attack was on the underground granaries of Delta. There is nothing clear yet, but the news said that more than half if them have collapsed," the chosen of Hestia revealed. The blacksmith looked at her stumped.

During the construction of the districts, all infrastructure that was needed to sustain the life of the population had been moved underground to save living space on the surface. Granaries, water supply, power plants, emergency shelters, and storage space, everything needed to drive the district as well as some parts of the living spaces, it was all under their feet.

Well, not under Minas Mar, but under the city in general. Seth stared at the orb, where scenes of collapsed buildings could be seen. In many places, the city above the granaries had also collapsed creating pure chaos.

"Did Delta ask for help?" Seth asked seriously, watching the scene of rescue forces scrambling across the ruins to find survivors. At this point, it was a good thing that many people had already left the district. This meant many of these buildings were almost empty. Mary shook her head.

"No, but he asked Wolfram and a troop of golem knights to go and help anyway," she explained. Seth nodded in agreement.

"But we didn't ask you to come because of that. We have to talk about the future. Without Delta's Granaries..."

"Right, if half of the granaries were destroyed..." he mumbled. It didn't take long for Seth to catch on. Ge grimaced. The chaos in the city was not the only problem. The others also had a complex expression.

After roughly three years, most of the storage and rations from the time before the apocalypse were used up. Beta had fallen, Y-City had lost its technology, and had recently become a lawless zone. Currently, the granaries of Delta were the only functioning ones from the old world and they had been barely sustaining the remainder of humanity.

Although Delta was the smallest district, one couldn't underestimate the yield of these high-tech facilities that were able to automatically grow and harvest crops across several tens of underground layers. They were able to sustain hundreds of millions.

Most of the regular food, currently stored in and circulating throughout Minas Mar came from the granaries of Delta. So shortly after their foundation, they were still highly reliant on Delta's food production. Only cities like Mount Agra which already existed on their own before were truly self-sustaining.

Whoever was behind this had hit the current Urth at their weakest point. Even Seth knew that there was next to no food production outside of the old districts.

"We are facing a possible food shortage, " Leana summed up the situation seriously.

"If we say about 60% of the granaries are destroyed, wouldn't the rest still suffice to sustain us?" Seth asked optimistic. They learned fundamental knowledge about the Districts in school.

If remembered correctly, Delta would have had a little less than 200 subterranean granaries, that could sustain the basic needs of up to 600 million people. Even though this was not even a quarter of the average population of a District in its prime, the Apocalypse had taken its toll on the populace of Urth as well.

However, Mary shook her head.

"It's just a rough estimate, but with all the refugees from Gamma, Beta, Sigma, Delta, and Ypselon, Minas Mar alone has almost 270 million people. Delta also remains with roughly 120 million."

Seth gasped for two reasons. The first was how far their population in general had fallen. Roughly 400 million people were left, not counting those still living in the ruins of the districts. Compared to the over 15 billion they were before the apocalypse...

The other was that it was the first time he actually heard how far Minas Mar had actually grown since he returned from Vacation. The number had more than doubled since they defeated The Scene in Y-City. How much of Ypselon had actually evacuated to the four Tree Stations close to Y-City? If it was like this, then there really was no barely scraping by, if more than half of Delta's granaries were destroyed.

"Even if Delta starts reconstruction right away, there is no emergency storage left. This will have a massive impact on Urth," Mary claimed.

"The food prices are bound to increase rapidly," Jane commented grimly.

Although they were reliant on Delta, they had other options, such as trade across the Pathworks with the help of the system church. However, this meant they were helpless to the whims of foreign merchants. It was a simple concept, that price rose with demand.

"We can send an emergency request to Chrona, however, I'm not very optimistic about their response," Leana mentioned. Minas Mar was not directly allied to Chrona like Delta was. And if Delta cared for itself first, they would not face a food shortage at all, even with less than half their production.

"Karina?" Seth looked over to the dryad. Maybe the nature spirit had a good idea, however, the dryad could only shrug apologetically.

"The guardian tree does not bear edible fruits. Although I can change the properties of offshoots to a certain degree, that won't change. Even with nature magic, I won't be able to suddenly summon massive orchards..." she explained with a complicated expression.

Between the Tree and the Dryad, it was the tree that had all the power. Although she could guide this power to grow Tree Stations, she could not just take it as her own to do something completely different.

"We could also try and negotiate with Arget Nore, to pay for Golems in food, although I don't know how much food production an empire of undead would have..." Luf suggested, however, she met with warning gazes.

"Luf, you are new, so I understand your confusion, however, we are not a charity. You have to distinguish between Minas Mar, the guild, and Minas Mar, the district. We offer the people a safe place to live, but we don't rule them.

This discussion is one about the well-being of our customers, not our dependents. Each Tree Station has its own elected leaders. We are having this conversation to see if there is a way for us to help them, not to pamper them."

It was a long-winded speech to clearly tell her: The golem money was the fruit of his work and not meant as a state fund. On one hand, it may have sounded cruel but Seth was also convinced that the people of Minas Mar were not his pets. He wouldn't bend and twist, to give them a perfect life.

It wasn't like people in the Tree Stations were struggling to make a living. The rents were much lower than they were in the districts back then and the System had opened a bunch of new possibilities to earn money. A rise in food expenses would not suddenly lead to a famine. After discussing for a while longer they came to the conclusion-

"It seems like we won't find a quick solution now. Let's talk about this when the full extent of the incident is clear." Mary exclaimed and ended the meeting.

They barely knew what exactly happened and they didn't have any immediate way or need to come up with countermeasures right now. Seth decided that it was not worth worrying, yet and returned to the workshop to try and finish at least the arm guard.

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