Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Deftly, Mike avoided the grab of a mechanical claw, as a weird creature fell from the ceiling above. His silver sword was clad in bright flames that brightly illuminated the new opponent. The being in front of him was roughly humanoid, very roughly.

It had a slim, languid torso covered in overlapping sheets of metal, two strong digitigrade legs, articulate, mechanical arms, and a long, slender neck. Staring at Mike was a massive, red eye in the middle of a bulbous head at the end of the neck. Its pupil shrunk in the face of the sudden light.

“Judgment adjusted. Commence Harvest.” it sounded from the creature as it ducked down and tried to attack Mike's legs. The beastman made no move to evade, the mechanical fist made of six fingers crashed into his shin guard, only to be easily deflected, leaving the creature wide open.

The flaming sword swung down at its neck. With incredible speed, it brought up its other arm to grab onto the blade, only for the hand, arm, and neck to be severed in the same smooth swing. The cross-section was glowing with molten metal, at the same time the smell of burning flesh crawled into Mike's nose.

A fountains of black, oil-like blood pumped out from the cut neck and he heard the hissing of the cut metal parts being rapidly cooled down by it. Emitting a terrible stench, the thing collapsed on the ground.

Mike was unable to appraise it, so it didn't count as a monster, just like the soulless golems of Seth. Judging by its speed and durability when the sword cut it, he was able to estimate its strength to be around lv.70 of a humanoid monster. By no means enough to face Mike, but the people in this place might have had a hard time facing it, especially when they had no good equipment or good combat-oriented class.

After waiting a moment to see if there was another one he put the body and head in this inventory and kept looking for a usable vehicle. And he actually found one. Opposite the blast door was a haphazardly parked ATV truck, with a trailer and the keys still stuck. Maybe someone had used this to lure the creature in here and locked it inside?

Seeing the car was not pure electric but had a converter for mana inside was a sign that the car was quite new. This was originally technology from Y-City, the car couldn't be here for longer than half a year. Someone had come here not too long before him... or the technology of Y-City had found its way here much earlier than they expected.

Of course, Mike didn't just have a bunch of magic crystals with him, even when Minas Mar was able to produce them. What he had, however, was a stack of magic crystal grenades Evee and Alison had invented for their raids in Y-City. They were not hard to disassemble, so Mike wouldn't need to worry about fuel.

What he needed to get out of the way was the blast door, which would not budge without a power supply. Since he had already destroyed the thing that was locked in here, he saw no reason not to break through.

With Mikes's skills and the Whitehilt, the blast door was no obstacle. He used basic swordsmanship to cut apart the ordinary steel door in several slashes. With the parts crashing to the ground, his way out was opened. Before he went back to the car his eyes fell on the door to the mine. He was worried whether there were still survivors.

If he left like this, he would have to leave the door in the barrier open. The barrier may not have been able to stop a strong beast or Mike, but it was probably able to fend off against these robot things.

Pondering, he stepped to the blast door and knocked. Of course, a simple knock would be impossible to hear from someone inside, so he knocked hard enough to smack a dent into the outside of the door. He banged a rhythmic tune, hoping that if someone were inside, they would realize he was not a monster.

He did it for approximately five minutes when the door suddenly moved. It didn't move much, just enough for a tiny slit to be visible. A waft of warm air escaped from inside.

“Who are you? Are you human?” a shaking voice asked from inside. The man inside didn't seem like he was in the right state of mind, grasping for straws.

“My name is Mike. I'm the leader of Field Team One and a Lord of Minas Mar,“ Mike announced his rank in this world.

“M-Minas Mar?” the man inside asked hopefully. Minas Mar was a name only few in this world didn't know. Mike wasn't one to brag, but their reputation was quite good, no matter in which field they came up.

“Johnson! What are you doing!? I told you not to open that door under any circumstances!” another, labored, voice came from the inside and the beastman was able to hear irregular steps approaching the door. “You know what those things and bastards are capable of!”

“B-But he said he's Lord Mike, from Minas Mar. Maybe he can help us?” Johnson squeaked surprised.

“This is the first time one of them tried to pose as a person from Minas Mar... Fine. Go and close the lower gate behind you, I will see if he really is what he pretends to be.” the other voice finally said. The sound of hasty steps followed, as well as another heavy door closing. Then the outer gate opened until there was an about 10cm wide gap.

“I'm not as easy to fool as Johnson. If you really are who you say you are, step closer to the gate and let me check you.”

What appeared at the gap was a middle-aged man, with graying hair and a wild mustache. In his hands, he held some kind of device, from his words Mike concluded that it was a machine to appraise others. However, Mike didn't step forward. Since he had a vehicle, he didn't need to barter for food.

“I just wanted to inform you, that I will be taking the ATV in the hangar. I killed that weird thing inside, but if you don't want more of them entering, you should close the barrier after I left.”

“Wait! You are just going to leave...?” the old man suddenly asked shocked. He had expected that Mike wouldn't cooperate, but he did not expect that he was just going to say whatever he wanted and leave.

“That's my car! You can't just run off with it. Where do you even plan to go from here? There are only monsters and cyborgs for hundreds of kilometers.” he exclaimed.

“Cyborgs?” Mike asked confused by the word, as it was not translated for him, it was a concept he was unfamiliar with.

“Those bastards are the reason we have to be so careful. One moment they look like normal people, the next moment they turn into these weird machines attacking and kidnapping people. I just wanted to scan you, to make sure you weren't one of them...”

Although the older man was rough, grumpy, and pessimistic, it was quite clear that he also wasn't ready to let go of this last straw of hope. As he said, Mike was probably the only normal person for hundreds of kilometers, and if he said the truth he was someone from Minas Mar and strong enough to kill cyborgs.

“Fine, scan me. I also want to hear more about the things that are going on here.”

Mike was confident in the armor Seth gave him. Although he lost his Helmet of Krios and currently had no legendary items, he doubted there were any items around, that could hurt him through this armor.

The small device shot out a green laser grid that wandered across his body the moment Mike was close enough. It really wasn't anything invasive or harmful.

“Alright, you are clean,” the middle-aged man said with a sigh of relief. “Come in quickly, let's talk,” he said and opened the doors just wide enough for Mike to squeeze in and quickly closed them behind him.

“By the way, what would it mean if I was not clean?” Mike asked curious.

“It's a long story... but the short version is that this device can scan for the cyber worms that infect and turn people.”

“The what?”