Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

The blacksmith had hoped that would solve the situation for now, but he was wrong. In the end, someone still had to personally go to Delta to assess the situation. As the only sober person with authority currently awake in Minas Mar, this task, unfortunately, fell onto him.

So instead of making items, he had to give a visit to Wolfram and Leana. On-site he found a force consisting of people from Chrona and Delta, with groups of two constantly following the golem knights on the patrol.

Leana and another person stood beside Wolfram, who was stoically ignoring the two humans, giving him the stink eye. While the princess seemed to have calmed down, the guy seemed quite pissed.

He seemed to be in his mid-forties with some graying stubble like he didn't shave in a while. He seemed a little unkempt in general with his hair in disarray and his wrinkled gray coat.

"What is going on here?"

"Are you Seth Smith, the Tower Master of Minas Mar?" the man spat out his cigarette end and asked impolitely.

"Who is asking that?" Seth was in a good mood, so he decided to humor the man.

"Commissioner Cordon, I'm in charge of the investigation pertaining to the Divine Strength Drug."

"??? What happened that it involves you?"

Seth's confusion was only partially played. He even forgot the man's rudeness. The Tower Master knew about the true origin of the drug and its connection with the happening in the refugee district, but what had happened for the police to finally make this connection?

"What the...?"

The answer to the question came when they wordlessly led him to the giant crater. The street on the side was filled with body bags. Teams of firemen and policemen were still occupied with removing rubble and retrieving corpses from the rubble below.

What had Wolfram done while he wasn't looking?

"Yesterday around 8 pm there was a huge explosion that collapsed this building and four underground stories. We have been here all night, stabilizing the surrounding structures and searching the debris for survivors and corpses," he said with a slightly accusatory tone.

Seth gave Wolfram a side glance.

"How terrible, but what does it have to do with Wolfram and the rest of my golem knights?"

"According to the witness reports from the people of sigma your knights have been involved in several conflicts with invisible insurgents across the district, leaving their corpses in rooftops and alleys.

The people they freed from the building stated that it was your golems that stormed the building, not long before the explosion. However, your golem knights have refused to comment and instead continued to repeat that they were on guard duty."

It sounded bad the way the commissioner said it, however, Seth could filter out the important parts. Not only had the golem knights wiped out the invisible attackers they came across, they even saved people.

"Well done, Wolfram. So, why am I here?"

The commissioner was stumped for a moment. His left lower eyelid twitched slightly, before he grunted, and continued. Leana just silently listened. Was this her new hands-off approach?

"Many of the corpses retrieved from the rubble and the people saved from the building match the reports of missing people. Some of them were identified as bodies that had been stolen from hospitals and had a connection with the case of the Divine Strength drug.

We hope to get a full report about what happened inside the building and how it came to the explosion, to continue our investigation into the drug business. Since your golems refuse to cooperate, your presence became necessary."

Cordon's tone had become slightly more polite as they spoke. Having been here since the last evening, Seth could forgive his tone at the beginning. The blacksmith saw no reason not to cooperate. The commissioner seemed invested in the case.

The Tower Master actually saw it as a chance to share his knowledge of the Berserk Pellet. Although he didn't really have any evidence, whether Cordon would believe him was not his problem. On the other side, he was convinced that Wolfram had nothing to do with the explosion since he had no skills of that nature. Even if they tried to fine Minas Mar for this, he was sure they could deny responsibility.

"Wolfram, tell me what happened since you reported to me yesterday."

"...Yes, Master," the golem said solemnly and reported what happened.

Taking his guard duty very seriously, Wolfram had decided not to ignore the invisible presences that observed them from the shadows.

"How did you detect them?" Cordon threw in. The detection devices sold by Minas Mar and the subsequent mediocre copies on the market only had a low detection range. It helped fight the attacker, but not finding the scouts and such that were hiding.

"Golems don't see the world like we do, at least not mine," Seth said without further explanation.

The golems created with a soul could perceive the world in a similar way as the undead did. In the same way, the invisibility cloaks could not hide from the scent, heat cameras, or life detection, they also couldn't hide from the way his golems saw. Of course, Seth wasn't going to explain that he actually created golems with a soul, so he left it vague.

After the short intermission Wolfram continued, that they had followed one of these presences, that reported to another person, whom they followed to this place. They found many people held captive in terrible conditions. So while the rest of the knight order freed the people held captive, Wolfram ended up facing off against their presumed leader, who finally self-destructed when he was cornered.

~I'm sorry, Master. I did not expect the subject to self-destruct and cause this much damage.~ Wolfram apologized telepathically.

~So instead of reporting it to me, you tried to deny all connection with the incident?~

~Yes...~

~Good reaction, well done. Next time, you have to swear in the people you save, too. This was your oversight. You should also always report to me, unless I am celebrating, in that case, just act the same way you did this time.~

Seth praised the golem. He had really gotten far in the past months. Although it was no good to have secrets from him, he liked that Wolfram had already learned the concept of denying responsibility.

"Since you now heard Wolfram's story, I guess I also have some information that may help you. Though I have no evidence for any of it."

Since he was the Commissioner in charge of the investigation, Seth thought he was the best person to tell about the Blood Berserk pellet. Commissioner Cordon seemed a little overwhelmed by the information and excused himself awkwardly.

"If you knew all this, why didn't Minas Mar publish this information sooner?" Leana asked exasperated.

"As I mentioned, this is just what Yu told us. Would it have made a difference without evidence? Now there is at least some evidence, so I told you," Seth said in a nice way that it wasn't his job.

"I wasn't talking about this. Knowing that Urth is connected to another World not part of the Pathworks is important information for us," the princess complained.

"Oh, "us" being Chrona? Uhm, to be honest, I didn't think of it," the blacksmith admitted.

"I somehow assumed you already knew."

It seemed like a had subconsciously overestimated Chrona, it never came to him that they may not know about the invasion of another world. Retrospectively, Seth now understood why Chrona didn't push stronger for the protection of the people of Sigma.

They were trying to give Delta its independence. As a consequence, they obviously didn't get involved in something that seemed like a problem among the locals. Things were different if this involved an external power Delta wreaking havoc.

"I'm sorry."

He felt sorry for kind of avoiding Leana during the past weeks. It was nothing he had consciously thought about, but he now realized that he had. Maybe because of his dissatisfaction with her actions in Sigma, or the course Chrona had taken with Delta.

"You should be! But what exactly are you apologizing for?"

"You don't have to know," he said with a teasing smile.

He was too embarrassed to explain himself. She fixated on him for a moment, before letting go of the matter with a sigh.

"On another note, what is up with these golems?"

"What do you mean? You know Wolfram."

Leana had seen Wolfram and Ceres fight during their encounter with the 24th Ethnarch, so he didn't know what she was on about.

"I mean the other ones! Since when did you have so many strong golems?"

Seth looked down the street, at the Golem Knights. They had grown a little since Wolfram was leading them, but it wasn't like they had grown a lot. The lack of high-level beasts was the same problem for them, as for everyone else.

The biggest change may have been, that they were finally developing egos and skills, which catapulted the strength up much quicker than raising levels.

"What do you mean? They have been with me for a while. Since before the evaluation even."

it was probably better when he didn't mention that there were a lot more golems and other beings he made going around Delta and Urth. Some of the Faer had even left Urth. Who knew what they were up to?

They didn't talk for much longer, as Seth wanted to return to Minas Mar. he had already lost enough time.