Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Seth ignored the whines of the man crawling on the ground and the shocked looks of the other scum in the room while checking his weapon. A twelfth effect had been added to the blade. The Curse of Obedience which had a low chance of temporarily forcing someone to follow the wielder's orders.

It was a shame this ability was placed on a weapon that would either kill or cripple a target on hit. When he looked back up from the sword, he found that the man on the ground was actually drinking a high-grade potion from their shop.

Seth was displeased at the waste of one of their potion, because as the guild master soon found out- the potion could not help reattach his arm. No matter how much he pressed his severed arm to his shoulder, it did not heal back on. Instead, the shoulder healed up as a clean stump, as of he never had an arm.

This was the effect of the Ravenous Sog devouring that part of the soul. Seth felt no pity for the man, this was what it meant to make an example out of someone. He lifted the chair that had been kicked away back up and sat down at the head of the table.

...

What was this situation? The members of the Nelgiv guild were paralyzed and looked at the Tower Master in shock, while their guild master was still whimpering on the ground somewhere beside that man's chair.

The man who was blessed by the dark goddess of beauty Nelgivara, the man who was handed the guild master position without opposition, who had always gotten what he wanted since gaining the blessing-had been completely crushed.

"Well then, gentlemen. Let's start by putting everything on the table."

"W-What?"

What was this scary man talking about? What did he want? They were too confused and afraid to think straight.

"Compensation. We will start by you putting all the gold, money, and items in your inventories on the table. Then we will proceed to do the same with all your guild members until I have all the items you ransacked from my shop back, payment for those you already used, rent for usage, and compensation for stealing them in the first place and using nefarious skills on our Guild members."

They hesitated, unsure what to do, when the man lifted their guild master up, showing the cleanly healed stump where his right arm once was.

"That is of course unless you want to become a one-armed bandit like your friend here," he added a threat.

The scene became more shocking because their guild master still desperately tried to press his dead arm against the blood-smeared stump. It wasn't just the fact that this man seemed to be able to do permanent damage in an age when healing magic was able to cure virtually everything. It was also the pure desperation of the man he held up.

The guild master they knew as a callous and crafty man with too much confidence for his own good, was a broken mess.

The quickest one immediately started piling up all his possessions on the table. His example spurred the others to do the same.

…

"You too."

The helped to bring the guild master back to his senses, somewhat. The grip on his neck, which helped him up, made it clear that he did not have a choice in the matter. Like in a game, when one slayed a boss, riches kept piling up everywhere in the room.

They didn't possess a lot of gold, but they had sizable amounts of silver, copper, credits, and some good materials. The most valuable items were still those they had ransacked from the Turquoise Anvil.

When the stream of items finally stopped, a parchment with golden embossing appeared in Seth's hand. After all, letting a man with such a dangerous ability live was only reasonable because Seth had a way to disarm the danger... well further disarm him.

Before anybody left the room they would sign a soul contract and he had a special one for the guild master. On the big, ornate parchment he showed the man, was only a short paragraph. He would be unable to use his skills against any player unless he got the personal, one-time permission from Seth or a Lord of Minas Mar.

In the end, they were living in a society. Seth couldn't just kill people with the ability to mind control others, or else he would be the bad guy. Crippling them in self-defense and forcing them to pay compensation and sign a contract was much more reasonable...probably.

Seth felt a lot better after he got collecting 75 gold, several thousand silver, copper, and several millions of credits into his inventory. The power of money was truly miraculous. After cleaning the table off the things he would keep, he called some staff to collect the other items and informed Mary how their further actions.

She was to take this bunch back to their guild and recollect all the items and compensation they still owed. Since all of them had signed the contract, they couldn't worm their way out of this, which was why Seth felt safe to leave it to Mary and a team of Oathguard to retrieve their possessions.

"Urgh, what an annoying business..."

Seth plopped down on his chair in the workshop. It had gotten late by the time the blacksmith could return to Minas Mar and he felt tired, mentally. Why couldn't people be responsible with their power, like him? HE didn't go around abusing to get stuff for free.

Following this event, Seth found that it was also necessary to equip the noncombatants accordingly. Mind Control abilities were maybe some of the most frightening of skills out there. He had thought that having everyone equip soul armament would be enough, but with the Age of Gods coming about them, he was obviously wrong.

What was annoying was that this guy was not even a chosen. Seth had already guessed that there was more to the world quest than just people becoming chosen. They could also gain blessings from the gods. This dude that had cost him a whole day and a bunch of stress only had a strong blessing, he wasn't even a true chosen. It was kind of aggravating that even these small fish dared to mess with them.

He was pondering on a way to make items to protect the administrative members of Minas Mar from similar future incidents. It was a shame that Demons were bad when it came to protective abilities. Those were more so the domain of gods and deities. Maybe he found a special kind of soul...

Sitting in his workshop and listening to Cerberus rhythmically striking the metal, he had a sudden inspiration and suddenly started to work. Not with metal and hammer, but with feather and parchment. The bard decided to write a ballad.

Only a few demons had secondary protective abilities, most lacked any at all. But what all of them excelled at where usually offensive means. What was the saying? The best defense was to attack. So what if he made an item that would directly strike down whoever tried to use a charm ability on the wearer?

He didn't know a specific demon for this purpose, but in theory, it didn't matter. The demon would come following the intentions of the song. However, maybe a song alone was not enough... he got stuck when he found that he was something missing.

It was late when Seth appeared at the auction house. Lately, he had only been searching for materials, but today he was here for something else. He had just made some money and intended to spend some.

Ever since he returned to earth, he had not learned any new enchantments. One of the reasons was that there was no real need, the other was that enchantment scrolls were terribly expensive at the auction house. Since he didn't necessarily need them, they were not worth the price.

Now, however, there was an enchantment he wished to get. It was Mind Cocoon, a specialized version of the barrier enchantment that could protect from crowd control effects and mind attacks. Seth immediately used the scroll to learn the enchantment. Despite the enchantment itself not being very strong, his mind was immediately flooded with ideas.

He hurried back to his workshop to harness the wave of inspiration.