Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Chapter 1271: Through the Dungeons old

“Seth?” Mark Baker exclaimed surprised, seeing right through the illusion masking their faces. The former man in charge of adventurer administration in Y-City exclaimed surprised. The blacksmith was no less surprised to see the current, elected leader of TS12 sitting at one of the tables, together with a little girl and a woman his age.

Was this his family? Seth found the woman slightly familiar, too. he felt like he had seen her somewhere before, but couldnʼt remember what occasion it was. It was a slightly awkward situation to suddenly see an acquaintance on vacation.

Seth didnʼt question how Mark Baker saw through his disguise. The man was not simply a high-level player, but a magician specialized in . it would have been seriously impressive if the make-shift illusion artifacts had worked on him.

“Hello, Mark. Fancy meeting you here. Are you also on vacation?” Seth greeted the man back. Seeing Baker stand up and speak to his guests, the blacksmith also stayed put, asking Mina and Fin to take a seat first. As the receptionist brought them to their table, Mark approached the Tower Master.

“Yes, Iʼm more or less. My sister asked me to take her here, to test the food. She insists that it will help her skill grow,” Mark explained a little awkwardly. “Oh, right. These are my sister Sherry and my niece Coralie. Thank you for taking care of them,” he added an introduction. It clicked in his mind when he introduced her.

“OH! Linkʼs flame was your sister? I understand now where I saw her before,” the blacksmith exclaimed. Sherry and her daughter were evacuated from Y-City sometime before the big battle and Sherry had managed to score a job at Minas Marʼs kitchen. It did not take long until the oven was not the only thing that was heated in the kitchens.

“But, what a weird coincidence that you just so happen to invite her out for food in the fanciest restaurant of Spring City while we are here for vacation,” Seth added with a wry smile. he knew Mark Baker a little too well, to believe that meeting him was a coincidence. Mark smiled a little embarrassed.

“You caught me, maybe I came here, hoping to meet you,” he simply came clean with him.

“If there is something you need, you could have simply called Mary, why did it have to be me?” the blacksmith asked.

“W-Well, you would have to agree to it anyway, so I thought I would take the shortcut and grant my sister and her daughter a wish at the same time,” he answered slightly abashed. Who would have thought Baker was such a family guy?

“Letʼs talk after the meal. You see, I am on vacation,” Seth decided to hear him out AFTER the fun. Especially since he saw Mina and Fin already ordering and he wanted to have at least some say before they simply ordered the whole menu.

Baker agreed and returned to his own table, allowing Seth to join his partners and make some quick orders after giving the menu a quick glance. The prices were anything but low, but they were still more tame than the blacksmith had expected.

As expected of VIP treatment, they didnʼt wait long for the first dishes to come out. The smell was mouthwatering. Finʼs, Sethʼs, and even Minaʼs eyes were glued to the food. For a short moment, they considered their surrounding.

The VIP section of pretty much the most fancy restaurant they had ever been to. They were surrounded by people wearing the worth of entire mansions on their bodies, displaying perfect and elegant mannerisms. The moment went by and the three jumped at the food like starved wolves.

They were the strong and the rich. Minas Mar was the defacto ruler of this world now. Why should they care? A secondary thought was that nobody except Baker could identify them anyway. they had even less reason to care as they gulped down the delicacies brought by the server.

Seth had to admit it, although there were no special effects in the food, based on the common ingredients, the taste was slightly better than what Link usually cooked. But to give the gourmet hunter credit where credit was due, he constantly experimented with new dishes using all kinds of monster material. The perfection of taste is secondary to the perfection of effects.

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In the end, they DID order almost the whole menu, so the meal stretched on over the next two hours. By the time they finished, several pounds heavier than before, Mark Baker had already been waiting some time for them to finish.

“Alright, letʼs talk,” Seth told him to sit at his table, while Mina and Fin who were not interested in the conversation went to humor Markʼs niece. They knew Sherry and Coralie a little better than Seth, so they had no problem sitting with them for a while.

“Okay, you know how we have been working on a new train technology to connect the Tree Stations via subway as an alternative to teleportation and traditional travel?” Mark started off with a question.

“Mark, Iʼm the Tower Master. That idea came from me,” Seth reminded him who he was talking to. The original idea came from trying to keep Evanʼs dungeon worms from undermining Minas Mar and not some altruistic goal for the people, but Mark didnʼt have to know that.

“Ah, yes. Of course, sorry. I felt like I needed to mention it to explain where Iʼm coming from. Since Minas Mar has now officially absorbed Delta, I wanted to suggest clearing the original Maglev Line between the two districts and connecting the Tree Station in Y-City directly with Delta,” Mark revealed his objective.

Before the apocalypse, the districts were connected by a simple net of trains and highways to allow quick travel of people and goods between them. During the apocalypse, these connections old or modern had been infested and incapacitated by beasts from gates and dungeons.

Although they had found new land routes or cleared old ones to travel between districts, the subterranean tunnels that led through the mountains stayed the territory of dungeons so far. There were many reasons why nobody attempted to clear them, but to summarize them: it simply was not worth clearing and repairing them.

But now? Seth could see where Baker was coming from. Now they not only controlled Delta, but they had allies in Ypselon and Beta. The advantage was that they already had the technology thanks to their own project, all they needed to do was clean the dungeons from the tunnels and install it.

The carts built to run in the almost circular tubes reinforced by Guardian tree Roots would have little to no problem adapting to the pre-apocalypse train tunnels.

“If you want to take charge of clearing the tunnels, I donʼt see why I would stop you,” Seth agreed readily. Who would have thought their conversation would end this quickly? contrary to the bard expectation, the leader of TS12 seemed more troubled than happy about his permission.

“Err, actually I wanted to ask if Minas Mar could lend us some manpower to clear the dungeons. Since the dungeons that appeared in the tunnels are some of the oldest on Urth, they broke quite a few times and the levels of monsters inside are above 90 in some cases..” Baker posed his actual request. However, his request slightly befuddled Seth.

“Shouldnʼt you have enough people to raid such a dungeon with Bart and his people joining?” the bard asked puzzled. Bart, the Chosen of Krios was scheduled to set off about the same time as Mikeʼs and Alisonʼs expeditions to the south.

Since he had joined Minas Mar as an official member, they decided that he would go back to Y-City, collect his people, and join the Tree Stations in Ypselon, primarily TS12, which was closest to Y-City, Lezzekai, and the uncommon beasts that were spawning in the vicinity.

Bart also wanted to take care of the branch of the System Church in Y-City, to make sure Spatia or someone else couldnʼt secretly send people over. Maybe the chosen was still busy.

“The chosen of Krios? I heard that we should get ready to receive another group of survivors, but I donʼt think it mentioned someone like that? Maybe I missed it... Are you sure they will be enough?” Baker asked a little confused. and a little embarrassed. If what Seth said was true, he had disturbed his vacation for almost nothing.

“Bart should be enough to practically solo most dungeons below lv.100. It will also be good training for him,” Seth assured him. The chosen of Krios was currently the weakest holder of legendary items, level-wise because he never lacked the environment to properly farm levels. Clearing a bunch of dungeons around and above his level would be the right start, before moving to the Holy Land of the Adventurer Guild.

“I guess, I bothered you for nothing then...Iʼm sorry,” Mark Baker apologized, his face flushed.

“I mean, you still got your permission to proceed with your idea, no? Itʼs nice to get an update in person from the one responsible. I like your idea to reinstate the old infrastructure. It means we are now finally at a point, where we can consider reclaiming some of what was lost,” Seth supported him.

As long as Minas Mar stabilized enough, there was even a chance for people to attempt more than just reclaiming some subway tunnels.

They talked for a while longer about the details of Bakerʼs idea, before finishing their conversation in consideration of their company. After Mark, Sherry, and Coralie left, Seth shared a gaze with the two girls and pulled out a couple of invitations.

“These are the ones happening tonight? Any preferences?”