Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

"Did everyone drink their Yokulet? This place has some serious stench."

Seth joked about a health drink but meant the Higher Antidote potion Alison had developed. It was a potion that was able to give full poison resistance for three hours after intake. It was a strong potion even within the journeyman tier.

Seth had joined Yulecat\'s Fur, or Field Team 2, meaning he was traveling with his old party that coincidentally had his two partners in it.

Entering the territory the demon maestro had claimed brought a distinct change in the landscape. The sick orange light of the Holy Land was dampened by clouds of poison fog. The gray light coming through fell on dark rocks, covered in black sludge. It was like the whole place was covered in the residues of rot and waste. The creatures they faced in this place were not all subjects. Many were hideous mutated versions of normal beasts.

<Corroded Warg lv.87>

It was a whole pack of malformed canine beasts. Wargs were usually a massive variation of wolves and these ones were even bigger with two meters shoulder height. Their size however wasn\'t the disturbing part. All of them were covered in bald spots as if they had mange. The bare skin was covered in scabs and oozing toxic puss.

They really fit the place. For safety reasons, Seth stunned them using <Dragonmight> while the others blew them away with ranged skills. It was definitely not because they were too disgusted by the sight and nobody wanted to get close enough for melee combat. Who knew what kind of disease they could get if some of the pus hit them?

What became clear as they faced hordes of beasts like Corrupted Rats, Corroded Wargs, and Scaleless Lizards was that the Maestro was some kind of faction that conquered a territory. This place was simply a polluted wasteland where monsters constantly mutated and tried to survive.

If anything it was one huge test area filled with deadly reagents that prompted released monsters to become stronger and more hideous. Seth had heard that some demons did so to cultivate materials for their experiments. It was callous, despicable, and disgustingly efficient. The demon just spawned a bunch of monsters, threw them out, and watched to see what happened.

"Do we have any information on dungeons in this place?" Mike asked, doing his job as a party leader.

"Nope. The members of the Adventurer Guild that had knowledge of the layout of this place all died in the last expedition. I just keep looking for cave entrances."

Seth doubted the demon would put any effort into expanding the dungeons or making anything special out of them. They were just monster spawners for him.

Since Seth had the Sight of Theia he was able to see most details all around them at a far distance, this made him the scout of the party. With this kind of sight, it didn\'t take long to find the first dungeon. It was little more than a hole in the ground. Based on the magic aura it exuded it was undeniably a dungeon entrance.

"Are you serious?" Lyxiss asked, looking at the "entrance".

It was a narrow gorge that led straight down into a side of a cliff. The wind blowing out from the gorge answered Lyxiss with a mourning moan. It was far from what they knew as a dungeon entrance since they should normally be at least wide enough for people to easily enter. Most dungeons had the courtesy to offer a staircase.

"I guess we should keep looking."

There was no use raiding the dungeons the Maestro obviously didn\'t put any effort into. Looking on, there were quite a few dungeons that seemed to be barely dungeons. They were surrounded by groups of brainless beasts and kept exuding toxic fog, like the vents of a poison factory.

"We should keep going until we run into some of his subjects," Bulko suggested when Seth told them about the various simple caves and gorges he could spot with his vision.

Thanks to Alison\'s potion they didn\'t suffer from the toxic nature of the place, but their mentality still took a hit looking at the dreary sight all day long.

"I have to say, that Maestro has a bad taste for someone who is supposedly an artist," Lyxiss commented after a while of trudging past the dark, muddy rocks.

"Brave words for someone wearing a tacky golden robe to battle," a voice commented snarkily.

Slithering out from a crash below the sludge covering everything, was a black slime that took the shape of a toad, once outside of the crack. The toad looked at the group with its translucent sludge eyes. A quick check told Seth that the toad was not dangerous. It\'s attributes were five across the board and its only skill was <Sound Transmission>.

"What do you guys want?"it asked, perched on a rock

Silence, everyone waited for Seth to answer.

"I\'m speaking to the Maestro, I assume?" "My Name is Payne Indias. What do you want?"

"Yeah, I bet you are. Anyway, you have a little debt to pay for your ambush on our former base. We thought of collecting that today. "

"So the other two groups of buffoons wandering haplessly through my experimental facilities also belong to you?" "Sure do."

Seth didn\'t bother to squabble about them being buffoons.

"...What kind of "debt" do I have to pay so you guys go away again?" the toad asked with a sigh.

Payne Indias was surprisingly cooperative contrary to what his name would suggest. The blacksmith was sure it wasn\'t that easy, but he also knew that demons had always been sensible when it came to gains and losses.

It was quite possible that the demon saw them as nothing more than an annoyance that had the potential to interrupt his work. In that matter, he might be a little like Seth. If the price was not too high, he would simply pay to get the flies to leave.

" We came for a little warm-up before we enter the abyss. Why don\'t you throw your strongest lab rats at us."

"Seth?" the others asked surprised. Weren\'t they here to crush the Maestro?

Ignoring them, he kept looking at the toad. His reasons were simple. Although most of these dungeons had been reconstructed to simply spit research subjects into this place, this wouldn\'t be the same for the dungeons he resided in personally.

A demon who was practiced in dark magic, alchemy, enchantment, and who knew how much more? The kinds of traps and countermeasures that would wait for them could be hardly counted. If they could lure the beasts to the surface it would be a lot safer.

"Haha! You want to go to the "abyss"? Fine, let\'s see what you can do. I will use you to get some research data. Don\'t blame me if you suffer!" Payne suddenly answered incensed.

Seth wondered what had happened for the demon to suddenly react like that while the toad already dissolved. The silence afterward didn\'t last for long as the vicinity was filled with a soft rumble. The blacksmith was able to see how an army of creatures emerged from the jagged gorges and caves. It was just- he wished he had not seen it.

Most of them seemed to be creatures made of humanoid monsters, but they were completely different from the chimeras as no single parts stood out or were recognizable as they were modified with dark music and alchemy to an unrecognizable state. It didn\'t help that they moved in quick, choppy movements. The unnatural walk looked creepy, even with his improved dynamic vision.

<Black Walker lv.89>

The stats of the black walkers were also nothing to scoff at. Each could have been a boss in an ordinary dungeon. They were in a different league from the research subjects. The fact that they had a name suggested they were a research result.

"Guys, get ready. This could get a little difficult."