Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

The office the two were led to was clean, but spartan. A desk, chairs, and a bunch of filing cabinets. It didn’t seem like a place that was often used. The whole room was more like it was created just to have an office without the office saying anything about the man sitting at the table.

According to the little golden name sign on the desk, this was Governor Adam. The man sitting behind the desk was a lot more expressive than the room he was seated in. A hunk of a man, packed with muscles his clothes could barely contain.

The artificial druid looked absolutely displaced in this room, like a grown man playing tea party at a three-year-old's toy table. Contrary to his animalistic aura, he had a warm smile when he looked up and spotted the two. The item he had focused on previously was a form he had folded into a paper plane. Yeah, this man was not supposed to sit in an office, even less than their own leader.

“Welcome, Welcome! I’m glad to finally meet someone from Minas Mar. You must be Lord Mike; your cat ears give it away. Then this has to be Lydia, your consort?” Adam jumped off the chair as if he had just been waiting for a chance to get away from it.

“Erm, yes, hello. You must be Adam then?” Mike said hesitantly as Adam vigorously shook their hands.

“Exactly, exactly. I’m Adam, the Governor of Beta sent from Muir, but I’m actually a native,” he explained.

“How did you become their Governor, when you originally were from Beta?” Lydia asked. They knew a little about Adam and the other through his envoys, just enough to make them curious. That was why Lydia took the chance to ask right away.

“Ah, that’s a long story,” Adam said, surprised by the sudden question. “Maybe I could tell you a little of it later on. For now, I would like to talk about the reason I asked for this meeting,” he changed the subject.

“Oh, sure,” Lydia smiled apologetically. Of course, he would have some business if he asked for a meeting right after their arrival. “So, what is the reason?” Mike prompted him to continue. He already had a guess.

“You most likely met some of the new creatures among the beasts of the dungeons and those that came from other worlds through Pathworks, right? Our guess is, that they are the creatures spawned by the awakening of the slumbering realm, as the world messages mentioned.

As you can guess, they are quite the problem. As native creatures they seem to spawn at random during the awakening and we have no definite measures to stop them. We managed to deal with most of them, except one.

It’s a lv.156 chimera called The Questing Beast that built its nest in one of the water treatment facilities and keeps poisoning our water supply. The creature has the head of a snake, the body of a leopard, the tail of a lion, and the legs of a deer, and stinks ungodly.

I fought it several times, but it can only truly be harmed through divine powers. Personally, I lack the blessing of a god, neither am I a chosen or a saint. We were able to deal damage to it thanks to the blessing from the few priests we have, but we could give it any fatal wounds.

Minas Mar has a few chosen ones and I wanted to ask whether you could send one to help us slay the beast,” he explained their situation and his request.

“What is that beast even you can’t kill?” Mike asked curiously. They did not know a lot about Adam, but one thing that was beyond doubt was his strength. It was not just about attributes and skills, but having stepped onto the Path to Legend themselves, they could estimate that Adam was even a little ahead of them.

“It’s hide is incredibly resistant to normal attacks and a holy attribute allows to bypass this defense. Even then, I was unable to deal fatal damage in my strongest beast shape. Another factor is its poison breath, which kept forcing us to retreat because of a lack of priests to bless, heal, and detox us during the fight.

To make matters worse, it also knows advanced magic of poison, dark, and death attributes,” Adam roughly explained the difficulty of the opponent.

A chimera beast with the head of a snake, the body of a leopard, the tail of a lion, and the legs of a deer boasting high speed, high defense, strong physical combat, advanced magic, and poison breath. It was understandable that they struggled with it, with a lack of priests or potions and maintaining the surface safety on top of it

Although Adam had approached the two, who were in fact chosen, it didn’t seem like he knew about it. Mike, the chosen of Maahes, and Lydia, the chosen of Wepwawet, shared a glance. The question was whether they should convey this request to Minas Mar or directly intervene.

If they intervened now, would they both step up or just reveal one of them? Although Mike had the skills of Maahes, he still didn’t have his special equipment that could synchronize with the divine power. Lydia was the more sensible choice, as she had her divine bow and bat. After a moment of silent conversation, they made the decision not to make one.

“We will convey your request to the Tower Master and see if he will allow someone to intervene. We will give them a call right away,” Mike answered non-committal. They were here but Seth seemed worried during the call, and he told them that they may be in danger, so maybe the blacksmith would rather have someone else come to Thres and intervene in this matter.

“That’s great, thank you,” the governor said sincerely. “Then I will let you have some privacy so you can make your call,” he added and left the room. Slightly puzzled by the man’s quick exit, they tried to call Minas Mar again.

It had only been an hour since they got the earlier call, but Seth was already not reachable anymore. Instead, they called Mary and she was not against helping, but told them to at least wait for Ceres to arrive.

Considering the beast's level and skillset, this was the most sensible option. With the thunder parrot’s support, there would be nothing to worry about.

“Alright then, we will inform the governor of this. If Seth changes his mind, call us.”

They ended the call, and before they could go looking for Adam, the person in question was knocking on their door.

“Governor?” Mike asked when he opened the door, “You didn’t eavesdrop on our call, did you?” He questioned the man’s perfect timing to appear the second their call ended. Instead of feeling offended or caught, Adam smiled amused.

“It seems like your call ended. I just wanted to apologize for interrupting it. No, I did not eavesdrop on you. I came because I got a message that dinner is ready, and I wanted to invite you before going myself,” Adam answered in a relaxed manner that didn’t seem like he was lying.

“That would be great.” Lydia accepted the invitation. “You can tell us your story then.” she wasn’t going to let that go.

“We also just wanted to go looking for you. The Tower master sent us reinforcements earlier. We were asked to wait for them, before assisting you in your task,” Mike summed up the answer from Minas Mar.

“It’s good to hear that Thres is important enough to the Tower Master that he would send three people. I’m sure the third member will not be any weaker than you two?”

Lydia and Mike shared a glance. Could any of them compete with Ceres?

“You will be surprised,” Lydia assured before she took the lead towards the dinner. Just before realizing that she had no idea where they were going to eat which ruined her cool exit as she had pointlessly walked down the hallway.

“I will wait to be surprised,” Adam kind of stole her line and took the lead.