Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Chapter 26. Leaving Home, Again.

Seth felt a lot better about leaving his home this time compared to his first. He had the two best weapons he could possibly make and a light set of dark gray plate armor and black canvas that gave him some protection, but did not get in the way of his movement. All of it was snugly stowed away in his inventory together with all his rations, useful stuff, and other works.

Wearing a set of clean clothes, he had found in the house, he stepped out on the balcony leaving the empty suite, that had been his home for a few weeks, behind him. The glistening water surface was barely two meters below his feet.

Yes, he would have to swim! It was the only option now. He had observed the water for some time now and could not see any skull-penetrating tentacles in the water, or any other life to speak of.

Of course, he did not plan to swim all the way to Starta!

He hoped that he could find some floating debris and driftwood to build a raft he could use to sail back to Starta.

Seth was pretty sure that big old man with his big old folder had a counter plan for the flood, or else Starta would be gone. And if Starta really was not there anymore... well he could just keep sailing. He knew that the plains and the land in the west rose higher than Deltan, there was definitely dry land there. The water could not have covered the whole continent, right?

”Here goes nothing!”, he said and jumped down into the water holding his breath.

The water was warmer than he had expected, pleasant even. Well, this was about to become a desert and it was quite warm here. As he dove into the water it was so clear that he could make out the blurry outlines of the streets below. The streets had become a world tinted in an azure hue.

When he resurfaced, he gasped for air. No matter what one may say about the apocalypse, it created really spectacular scenes. At least for him. After reorienting himself with the map, Seth started swimming along the deep-water channels bordered by the house fronts and rooftops of the sunken city. The sun stood high in the sky as he set off.

Seth was looking for floating debris and drift wood he could use to make a raft. He had more than enough rope and even had made some space in his inventory in case he found something big.

After some time, he had already collected a few floating items he judged usable like the empty bottles of water dispensers and some wooden pallets that had probably drifted out from one of the stores in the vicinity. He was able to put those in his inventory!

He was swimming down a wide main street, pulling a mix of miscellaneous other stuff behind him, until a disturbing sight disrupted the young manʼs shopping spree!

They were here! It was the shadow of a giant tentacle in the depths of the water, slithering down the main street towards his location!

Seth panicked for a short moment and then became really calm. Maybe it had not noticed him yet? If he moved really slow and didnʼt disturb the water, he might blend in with the floating litter around him. Maybe he could reach the shallow water on one of the flooded rooftops to the side like this!

TV had taught him that this worked with crocodiles and things like that! So, he started to close in on the side of the road towards the edge of a rooftop as the shadow below kept getting closer and closer to his position.

Keeping his eyes on the growing shadow he fumbled for the edge of the roof behind his back.

When he finally reached it, Seth pulled himself into the shallow water on the rooftop, away from the wet abyss that was the street behind him.

Here he could stand up and the water barely reached his knees. Solid ground below his feet helped tremendously to calm his heart. Letting go off the rope he had used to keep the litter with him, he stepped closer to the edge again, to see what the shadow was doing.

It came closer to the surface and in the clearer water Seth could finally see what it was! A giant tentacle with two eyes! A snake!?

Standing on the edge of the building, his figure was minuscule compared to the gigantic snake that was passing him in the water below.

The beast was longer than the building he stood on and it felt like an eternity as he waited for it to completely pass by. Seth was horrified. This encounter easily topped his run in with that demonic griffin! This thing could probably eat those for breakfast!

Just standing there and watching this titan pass him like that got him closer to realizing his own mortality than even the ”Hanging Tree” had. This was just way too close.

And then when the tip of its tail finally left his range of sight-

His heart stood still. This thing was a field boss, TOO?! How could this have happened?! Why did he keep meeting field bosses?!

What Seth did not know was, that it was not uncommon to meet a field boss, as they were just creatures declared as such by being the strongest in the region by a certain margin. Not necessary all of them were genuine big shots like The Hanging Tree.

It took Seth some time to calm down, as he sat there in the shallow water on the rooftop. He checked the supplies he had collected and decided, that it was probably enough to build a simple raft and get out of this place. Meeting a monster like that when he was swimming in the water was a death sentence. Not that sitting on a nutshell was better. But it helped mentally.

The silver lining was that the field boss swam into the direction of the central plaza, the opposite of where he was headed.

It took several hours to build the raft. Seth even melted some of the medium iron-weapons to make nails for the raft.

” Quite good, if I may say so myself!”, he remarked proudly, looking his raft that was bobbing up and down in the shallow water.

The platform of the raft was made with pallets, he had connected with nails and other driftwood. He was sure of its sturdiness! The platform had the empty water dispenser bottles in the corners and all kinds of other floating rubbish like pieces Styrofoam isolation strapped below it to give it more buoyancy.

It had a mast and a blue-white striped sail formerly known as a curtain rail and a shower curtain. They were ”borrowed” from one of the rooms below his feet. It was a short diving adventure; he did not want to repeat. The thought of the flooded building, the darkness and chaos inside, filled with floating remnants of their previous owners, made him shiver.

Anyways, his work looked very... majestic. Yes! Well, at least it floated well. When Seth entered it, it barely lowered in the water.

The boss was an indication for him, that the water was most likely not as safe as it looked. Even so he had not seen anything down there. It would not have been a surprise. With the raft he fortunately did not need to swim from this point on, so he decided to wear his armor and sword, too. Just in case something attacked his vessel.

For this he used a function of the inventory he recently discovered.

It had probably been added when he reached lv.5 and made wearing his gear a lot easier! Auto Equip! A typical function in a game. Seth did not have to laboriously put on his armor like in medieval times, but it was automatically worn when he pulled it into the equipment slots!

Gauntlets, pauldrons, greaves, surcoat... he pulled everything to the equipment slots, and they appeared snugly fitting on his body. Soon the wet clothes he had worn were replaced by a complete set of armor. It was a mix of plate armor such as the gauntlets and cloth armor beneath it made of the black cloth from the tents he had looted at the plaza.

Except for the cloth that actually gave the armor a slight magic resistance, there was nothing special about it except the quality.

And it looked quite good, for Sethʼs taste!

”I shall become the king of pirates!”, he joked around as he entered his new vessel and started his journey.

Like this Seth set off and used ”Auto map” to find a way using the smaller streets and alleys to get out.. Our newbie sailor really did not want to meet a massive enemy like the boa when sitting on his little nutshell.