Chương 19: Safety?

It was afternoon when Seth finally opened his eyes. He had slept like a log and had been completely exhausted. What actually woke him up was his stomach rumbling. So much happened, he could not remember the last time he had 'rationed' his food. Good thing he had saved his backpack. It was a little burned on the outside, but inside was most of the food he had bought in Starta. Seth gorged on the jerky and bread until he was full.

"This is a lot better~", he sighed and stood up. He rearranged his inventory to place all the food he had in there. He had learned his lesson and didn't want to risk losing it Judging from the lack of search parties the undead probably thought he had died in the fire. Checking himself he realized that he had actually not gotten any damage at all! His clothes on the other hand were done for. Even the little armor value they had was gone, as the durability had fallen to 0.

They were so burned and ripped; he could only throw them away now.

"Status!" Name: Seth Smith Title: "Faster than the Thought" Level: 8 Exp: 27% Race: Ori Huma Sex: Male Age: 23 Class: Spirit Blacksmith (Unique) Affiliation: None Health: 1000/1000 Mana: 120 Strength: 15 Dexterity: 17 Agility: 20 Intelligence: 12 Willpower: 14 Endurance: 18 Personality: 8 Luck: 15 Free AP(Attribute points): 50 Free SP(Skill points): 4 Defense: Physical: 104 (54+50) (ENDx3) Magical: 53 (28+25) (WILx2) Fire Resistance: 100%(50%+50%) Skill Window: Calm Reaction(Passive) lv. 5 Blacksmith(Beginner)lv.

8(51%) Blacksmith's Eyes lv. 2 Smelting(Beginner) lv. 7(11%) Blueprint(Beginner) lv. 2 Weapon Mastery(Beginner) lv. 8 (50%) Spirit Smithy lv. 2 Spirit Capture lv. 2 Map lv. 1 Fear Resistance lv. 5 Fire Affinity lv. 5 Stolen novel; please report. Soul Infusion lv. 1 Observation lv. 2 Concealment lv. 2 He had leveled up! And so did many of his skills with <Weapon Mastery> leading the way! Also his <Fire Affinity> had leveled up. This explained why he took no damage in the fire!

His resistance had actually grown to 100%! It was great that his skills were growing, but his blacksmith skills were falling behind! It was high time he got himself a hideout to grind his skills. With the resources in this city he was sure he could grind his skills to mastery! With this thought he made his way out of the highly barricaded room. But when he shoved a dresser out of his way it fell over and scattered it´s contents all over the floor. His eyes fell on a pile of jewelry that fell out of a small chest.

he was able to pay with iron ingots in Starta village, so would their empire also be interested in precious metals? Smelting gold would also level up his skill, so he didn't lose anything by trying, right? He put the jewelry in his dilapidated backpack and left the apartment. He saw the same zombies as the night before, when he sneaked down the stairs. They had not increased since then, so that undead must have gone somewhere else. He decided to dispatch these stragglers. Better be safe than sorry.

The Zombies were not very hard opponents, if you sneaked up on them. They were generic zombies, so Seth easily got rid of them with his billhook. Collecting some experience and proficiency on the go was nice. Fighting felt a lot more comfortable now. The city was empty during the day, and he could freely walk on the street, but he could feel the stares of the zombies from the shadows in the ruins and windows. But it felt like there were a lot less than the day before. He had no explanation, just a hunch.

While he was looking around the city he could not withstand the seduction of the rebars sticking out like broken bones from the concrete ruins that made up a lot of the scenery. Seth only needed an hour to fill a full stack of 99 rebars in his inventory space. Now he also knew the maximum size of stacks. Seth followed the trail of destruction in reverse. The outskirts were still in rubble and barely reconstructed, but the closer Seth wandered to the city center the better and new the buildings looked.

Reconstruction must have started here. But with the better environment came more gore. Most people in the city must have lived here, the streets were painted in dried blood and filled with broken glass from windows and doors. He could see signs of fighting. Broken pieces of weapons and armor were visible here and there, but <Blacksmith´s Eyes> told him, that they had all been low grade stuff. Oddly enough, he felt no stares anymore. There were no zombies far and wide, nor did he meet any other monsters.

What happened? There was blood all over the place, but no monsters. Did they hide? Migrate maybe? It surely was his fortune that there were no zombies, but it was terribly suspicious. Was there something even more terrifying here? And where did that giant army of undead go? He checked the apartment buildings and skyscrapers to the sides of the roads, but except the gut-wrenching sets for zombie movies, he found nothing. Of course, he used the chance to loot food and also some jewelry.

Seth had reached his destination, so he could take his time for the good side of apocalypse life. Freely robbing anything he needed or that caught his interest. When he reached the roof of an apartment building he was just done checking he sat down to count his spoils. Looking at the food he found assured him, that he would not have to return to Starta as often has he had expected. Settling down here somewhere in the center would not be a bad idea, if not for the weird disappearance of all those undead.

He had a good view from this roof. Seth pulled out his fathers binoculars to get an overview of the city. This was when he a noticed a small cloud of unnatural black fog above the center plaza of Deltan. It was shrinking at a visible rate. Seth wanted to look at the plaza, but he couldn't see it as other buildings were in the way. Whatever weird thing was going on in the center was probably connected to the missing mobs. He could only look for a better vantage point to find out what was going on.

he had to know, to decide whether he would stay here or look for a different neighborhood. Seth decided on a high-rise closer to the center. He climbed the 15 floors worth of stair with a sour expression. The elevator worked, but on the other hand he didn't want to get stuck in there with no one around. <Ding! Thanks to continuous training you have gained: END+1>"FU*K!", he cursed as he breathlessly flopped down after reaching the roof. He had actually gained endurance by walking stairs.

He scrambled onto his feet and looked towards the center. Seth could see the black fog with his bare eyes, but it had almost vanished. Taking the binoculars from the inventory again, he looked at the center plaza. What he saw was a camp made of big dark tents filling the center plaza and a giant black membrane occupying a whole side of the plaza. It was gate. How did he know? Because he actually observed the undead vanishing into the darkness, as if they were swallowed by a tar pit.

Seth was actually quite lucky so see this. Almost all undead were gone from the plaza. He was just in time to see the rearguard vanishing into the portal before it closed!

"This has to be the Pathworks the priest mentioned! But why did they leave...?", Seth mused still watching the now empty camp. He didn't believe it was because of what he did yesterday. Whoever these people were, they had slaughtered everyone in the city center and probably collected them as undead. The few zombies he killed that night would barely make a dent in their army. Seth sat down and ate while he kept an eye on the camp. After an hour Seth was more or less sure that they were gone for good.

Seth guessed that he had not encountered any zombies since he entered the city center, because they probably collected them all and left. So this part of Deltan was technically safe now! Whatever their reason to leave was, it probably wasn't a danger here.

"I guess i will stay here then!", Seth decided happily. Deltan was now his base.