Blacksmith vs. the System-Chapter 214

It made sense. Ultimately, they were attacking us to get our resources. Forcing us into a siege that would occupy two ascended from their end in a semi-permanent manner would not fit their own brand of gunboat diplomacy.

“We’re lucky that this whole place is in a mana-dead zone,” she added. “Things wouldn’t have gone that easily if they could send mages.”

“Certainly,” I admitted. I had seen the way Maria fought with near-limitless mana once, and I certainly didn’t want to be on the other side of it. “But, even with it, we can’t be complacent. I’ll see if I can develop a variant that’s especially effective against mana shields.”

“That would work well,” she said. “I still can’t believe that there’s a skill like that, effective against both armor and mana shields. Usually, they falter against one type.”

“It’s because it comes from another world,” I said.

She chuckled. “Good one —” she started, but that died quickly when she noticed my expression. “You’re not joking.”

“No,” I replied. “It literally comes from another world. Or, at least, that's my leading theory.”

“How so?” she simply asked instead of challenging me for being crazy, which I appreciated. I must have earned enough credit from her to make such outlandish declarations.

“I have three pieces of evidence that led me to that conclusion,” I started even as my hammer danced, turning heated metal into shrapnel for shells, each hit imbuing them with Radiant Flame. “First, Leona’s general attitude against anything modern. She acted like she had never seen any of them before. She tried to hide it, but with Wisdom, I could see it’s genuine.”

“Interesting, but not conclusive,” she said. “It’s more believable for them to just be a part of some kind of hidden community, raised in seclusion.”

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“True,” I admitted. “That leads to my second piece of evidence. The difference between the skill she gave me, and every other skill we have. They are fundamentally different despite looking similar on the surface. Like two books, one translated from French, the other from Mandarin. The whole cultural context underlying it is different.”

“That’s…” she muttered as her eyebrows crossed, considering my words. “It’s both stronger and weaker,” she said.

I understood what she was driving at. While it looked believable, it was still a vague impression I had, one that I couldn’t share easily, depending on not only Wisdom, but also my general understanding.

“Fair,” I replied. “The third piece of evidence is my opponent earlier. He directly accused me of being favored by my master. I baited him by asking whether Drakka and Asterion came from the same world.”

“He answered?”

“No, but he was very smug while avoiding answering it, like whether they were from the same world is a big secret,” I replied. “Combined with everything else, it’s enough for me to make the final judgment.”

“The theory is still a bit thin for my taste. The idea of other worlds and travel between them is not too surprising after the Cataclysm and the System, but to what end —” she started, then gasped. “The disappearances,” she added.

This time, I was the one that was surprised. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“We know that Horizon had collected people with higher soul strength. We assumed it was just about dealing with potential threats, but what if it was worse?” she asked.

I frowned, not liking where it was going. “Are you saying…”

“It certainly fits,” she said. “The skills and classes are too much of an advantage, maybe even more than what we could produce. Assuming it continues to be just as important —”

“It’s even more important,” I cut her off. “Fighting against that ascended has shown me that ascension made it significantly more taxing in terms of this so-called soul strength,” I added.

”Are you sure?” she asked.

“As much as I could be from the observations during a battle,” I said. “His symptoms were too similar to the exhaustion I displayed whenever I played around with Meditation.”

She started walking back and forth angrily, the biggest display of emotion I had seen from her. “Perfect. On top of everything, we have an interdimensional human trafficking ring to deal with,” she added.

I wanted to correct her about the word interdimensional, as we had no evidence of it. It was equally likely that they came from another planet, traveling through some kind of magical method, be it faster than light travel, or some kind of wormhole. But, I wisely recognized that it was not the time.

She walked around silently while I focused on my forging — which was going much faster thanks to my growing familiarity with the technique — for several minutes before she gasped. “It explains how the others were able to guarantee that Horizon would not be active around here anymore. Otherworldly powers must have taken over.”

“Either that, or it was a part of the deal all along, and once the other players were able to deploy their forces, Horizon pulled back,” I commented.

“Maybe. Or it might be —”

“I’m going to stop you there,” I said. “Throwing theories around is one of my favorite things, but it’s too early to discuss their objectives. Focusing on their limitations, even on the theoretical side, is better.”

“Like what?” she asked.

“The absence of an army of truly high-level characters is a clue,” I said.

“Do you think they don’t have the System?”

“Not likely, especially with the Radiant Flame skill stone. It’s not perfect evidence, but it strongly implies that they have access to the System … or something functionally similar to it,” I added.

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“Either it’s resource limitations preventing them from leveling up freely in their world, or it’s difficult to transport people,” she guessed.

“Reasonable probabilities,” I responded, thinking for a second while I continued to forge more and more shrapnels for the inevitable next wave. “I don’t have evidence either way, but the general impression I got from the situation is that the second is more likely. It might be that they are unwilling to send important members, or the cost scales up with the level of the target,” I said.

“That sounds like a weird limitation,” she commented.

I shrugged. “It's not like I know a lot about the situation. It might even be that we all belong to the same System, but every planet has its local servers, with an associated switching cost. It would incentivize them to send their weaker members.”

“Especially if there are certain benefits that they can’t find in their world, like safer leveling spots,” she completed. I opened my mouth, about to argue against her, but a memory from my dream, monsters spilling from the sky, distracted me. “Every year since the arrival of the System, the monsters are getting more and more dangerous. What happens when a monster is too far away from civilization, constantly absorbing whatever powers the monster for months and years… For all its advantages, Drakka is already struggling to control the monsters that constantly attack from the sea.”

“Not just years. Decades, even centuries,” I responded. I could easily see it turning into a problem, especially in areas far from any single city, requiring a certain cooperation to deal with them. “No, you’re right. That’s also a possibility,” I said.

We stopped talking, processing the latest revelations, my hammer still dancing on the anvil, creating another set of tools for murder while we discussed the possible interplanetary invasion.

There was one good thing about living in a Post-Cataclysm world with a game-like System that explicitly rewarded us with levels and stats as we killed monsters.

An invasion from another planet wasn’t exactly outlandish in comparison.