It took a total team effort to clean up the battlefield. Skera gathered the bodies into piles. I looted weapons, armor parts, mana-crystals, crowns, and horse corpses (as emergency rations) into my bracelets. Emma torched the piles of human bodies and covered up the blood-soaked road with earth magic. Nairi was tasked to collect casings and bullets. Darkness was approaching, but with the lovely bonfires of dead bodies, we had just enough light to finish the job. It was definitely not a pleasant experience- I could smell the horrid stench of burnt hair all over.
But it was definitely worth the effort. From the dead, I was able to loot over hundreds of weapons, piles of armor parts (most of them were very well-ventilated), dozens of mana crystals, and thousands of crowns. A fine haul~
As I cheerfully chucked the last looted corpse into a big burning pile while whistling (Gaius and Valerian were fucking loaded!), Skera approached me with a difficult expression on her face. I didn’t blame her one bit- many soldiers of World War I had that same look when they first saw what happened in no man’s land after a failed charge. It was one thing to have a clean decapitation or a grievous stab wound to the chest. It was an entirely different thing to see human bodies so riddled with bullet holes that they barely qualify as “human bodies”.
“Forge-Master Rummy. I am certain that you are the devil.” A shellshocked Skera said.
“You know, I’m not entirely convinced that I’m not the devil myself.” I replied after giving Skera a weak smile as I tossed the Gaius’s body into the pyre.
“How… how can you be so cheeky and cheerful in the face of this inhuman slaughter? What you’ve made and what you’ve done… it’s unnatural!”
“Lady Skera, the people we were charged with protecting would’ve all brutally died had I not unleashed Lady Vengeance upon them. We did what we had to do.” I said as I began to drag the body of her liege’s brother (and technically the young master she was supposed to serve as a retainer of House Galahad).
Skera frowned as she heard the name of the machine gun. “Don’t you feel horror and dread upon inflicting this carnage in the span of mere minutes? Where is your humanity?”
I chuckled a bit at that question. “My Lady, when I built this weapon, I wished for the power to inflict this carnage in the span of mere minutes. We wouldn’t be able to survive the journey otherwise.” Home girl needed to wake up and smell the savagery. Chivalry as she knew was irrelevant in the Wilds. In fact, I’d argue that it was irrelevant anywhere.
Skera remained silent. This was something she was gonna have to grapple with herself.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have the luxury of pondering the philosophical implications of today. Thanks to that idiot, we only have 4-5 days of water on hand. We have to arrive at the Narrows by then or we will perish.”
She passively nodded, clearly still shellshocked.
“After dinner, I’ll take the first watch. You should rest up. It is going to be a rough couple of days for us both.”
As much as I loved to check out what kind of loot I got today, that’d had to wait. There was simply no time for an unboxing. After all, this harsh journey was just beginning.
***
*Boom!* *Boom!* *PING!*
Shit! I just ran out of ammo but there were still 2 wolves advancing on the crowd of people who couldn’t fit into the armored carts at the rear of the convoy. No help could be expected. Emma and Sapphire are at the front, Skera and Natalia are at the middle. So I ordered my canine trump card to intercept the 2 wolves as I frantically reloaded Severance Pay.
*Whoosh*
One of the attackers suddenly yelped in pain as an icicle spear 25 cm long pierced its left eye. Loki pounced on the wolf from its left flank and tore into its throat. Poor thing never stood a chance. The other wolf, visibly shocked, jumped back in a defensive position. I thought about taking it out, but I wanted to give my wolf partner a chance to fight his Wild counterpart. After all, he needed the experience.
*Boom!* *Boom!*
2 more wolves from further back got headshotted (didn’t even need <
“Good boy!” I praised him before returning to my sniping duties. 6 more wolves emerged from the brushes and charged forward. Based on the size differential, these were likely the strongest beta wolves in the pack.
*Boom!* *Boom!* *Boom!* *Boom!* *Boom!* *Boom!* *PING!*
OK, hopefully that was the last of them.
*AWOOOOOO~*
Or not.
I hurriedly began to reload as I heard a booming wolf howl from about 30 meters out. A boss fight- possibly one against a Champion- was about to go down. After reloading, I pointed my rifle towards where the howl was from, ready to pop the alpha the moment I saw it. Loki, however, had different plans. After hearing the howl, he immediately howled back in defiance.
*AWOOOOOOOOO~*
What the heck had gotten into him? After all those months of learning my martial philosophy of “one shot, one kill”, the big doofus decided to announce his presence and charged into battle like some brain-damaged anime MC! He and I were gonna have a serious talk after this battle. For starters, this dummy should kiss his daily jerky treats goodbye~
Well, shit. I didn’t have a visual on him thanks to the tall brushes, so he was truly on his own. The only things I could see were shots of <
“Everyone, stay down! And watch out for stray <
After a few minutes of struggle, I suddenly heard a yelp and a whimper. The fighting stopped.
*AWOOOOOOOOO~*
Loki howls in triumph. Or at least, I assumed it was Loki. Weird. Even if my theory about the way Champion mana-beasts was true, Loki just became a Champion. How the heck did he handily subdue a Champion mana-beast without any help? Was it because of his mutation? Or was it the way I raised him? And more importantly, why would he want to solo this?
A moment later, I saw Loki emerge from the brushes. An injured Champion wolf limps behind him in submission. The former alpha wolf had a light gray coat with streaks of white, along completely white ears up top. It was the size of a typical Champion wolf mana-beasts (roughly 3.5 meters long and 2 meters tall) and noticeably bigger than Loki (who had rapidly grown to 2.5 meters long and 1.5 meters tall thanks to the Adept-level mana crystal it ate a couple of days back). The civilians around me were understandably concerned at the sight of this Champion mana-beast. I pointed my rifle at it to assure them, but I knew that the danger was mostly over. This injured Champion wolf was in no physical shape to fight or run. Moreover, the submissive nature of its blue eyes suggest that it had no will to fight.
Loki approached me in a rather cheerful mood. He barked at me and licked my body armor where the life elemental crystal was housed.
I raised my eyebrows and looked at him weirdly. “You want me to heal it? Why?”
*AWOOOOOOOOO~*
I bent down and took a closer look at the wolf. Based on the <
Well, that certainly explained a lot- like why Loki ran off and challenged the larger Champion without my support. Sigh, I hated it when a guy lets his penis make tactical decisions… Well, I didn’t see a reason to decline his request. I touched the body of the female wolf and cast <
She was promptly shut down by Loki when he growled back at her. The she-wolf immediately rolled on the ground in submission. I knelt down on its throat, glared at it, and pointed at its snout.
“We defeated your pack, so you have to start at the bottom if you want to join our pack.” Good. If Loki couldn’t keep his bitch (not an insult word, but an accurate descriptor~) in line, then I wouldn’t have kept her around. But I could work with this. Plus, we could really use the help.
My meager weight wasn’t enough to completely close her windpipe, but it was certainly not a pleasant experience. The wolf seemed to get the memo; it whimpered a bit and looked down in submission. I got up and saw Skera running to me, sword in hand. She thought that I needed help after she heard the howl of the alpha, but that worry was unwarranted.
“Good gods, another one?!?” Skera looked at me in disbelief.
“It wasn’t my idea, Lady Skera. It’s that horny idiot’s idea.” I pointed at my soon-to-be-ex-virgin wolf. Loki unabashedly barked at her and smiled, as if it was saying, “don’t blame me, blame my gender”.
“Men...they’re all the same…” She grumbled as she returned to Natalia in the middle of the convoy.
***
Between the incessant attacks and the lack of carts, the convoy was quite a bit behind schedule. After 2 whole days of traveling, I estimated that we were a couple klicks south of the Western Settlement when we should’ve been past it by now. Maybe if we had more armored carts, things might be different, but this was the unfortunate hand we were dealt. At this rate, making it there in a week would be the best case scenario… Considering the 4-5 days of water we bought for the convoy, that was no longer a viable option.
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
The original supply plan prioritized the stockpiling of food at the expense of water because we’d be next to a freshwater river and it’d take time for food to grow. After all, we only had so much resources and we couldn’t simply buy everything in sight (besides, wholesale purchases like that would’ve definitely raised some eyebrows). Had her idiot brother not rushed the process, we would’ve eventually secured enough water for the journey. But since things turned out the way they did, we were now in a drought-like crisis.
It was because of this that I brought up changing the planned route to Natalia and Skera. Instead of skirting around the upcoming goblin territory, we would be cutting right through it. On top of the shorter travel distance, the flat and mostly treeless terrain would shave off several days of travel.
But that also meant 2-3 nights of goblin assault with war parties instead of mere scout parties. Fighting off that many goblins at night with just 1 MG-42 knockoff was a tough ask, but doable thanks to the flares and tracers.
Natalia and Skera looked distressed. Neither of the two choices before them were ideal by any means- I was basically asking them to risk death by goblin or death by dehydration.
“My Lady, I can forego my water rations if we take the safer route. I…”
“Don’t be foolish, Skera! If you’re too delirious to fight, then who will guard the center?” Natalia was swift in her admonishment.
“Besides, it wouldn’t be enough. There are simply too many mouths to feed.” I added.
“Rummy, how confident are you in holding off the goblins?”
“A lot more confident than holding off the inevitable dehydration.” The MG-42 was great at many things (mass slaughter, area denial, morale breaker, etc), but conjuring water from nothing was not one of them.
“I see. Well, I suppose we will have to take your advice on this. Skera, go sleep on the cart now. I will need you to be up all night from now on.”
“Yes, my liege!” She sauntered off to the nearest cart after her customary salute.
“Will you be ok, Rummy? I’m asking you to stay awake for the whole day today.” Natalia looked at me with concern. Wow, when was the last time I saw a manager feeling bad about sticking their underlings with forced OT?
“I’ll be fine, Tali.” I replied with a wry smile. This isn’t my first overtime, and something tells me it wouldn’t be my last…
***
“OK, let’s circle the wagons! Put the regular ones at the back!” I ordered. The makeshift wagon fort we put together was coming along nicely as the sun began to set. The goblins surely knew about our convoy by now. We ran into a few scouting parties already and I’d bet my bottom crown that they’d alerted the war parties of our presence. A night raid was coming- dread it, run from it, they’d come for us all the same.
I’ve planned and prepared as much as I possibly could. For starters, I placed the wagon fort in a flat terrain that was relatively open with sparse trees to maximize the efficiency of my MG-42. For lighting, I’ve dug in some fire pits filled with kindlings and branches (thank you, child labor), ready to be ignited by <
Since the attack was expected to come from the west, I placed my MG-42 on the west side of the fort. Emma and Sapphire would guard the east and take out the goblins trying to backdoor us. I loaned Aurelia and Swordbreaker to Emma in case she ran out of mana, or the goblins got past her spells. Skera and her redshirts would function as a last line of defense to cut down any goblin that gets through.
As the sun began to set, I told everybody to eat up and rest up. Skera, who just got up from her slumber, heartily ate her fill. After the sun set and the night began, I climbed on top of the armored carts and ran a final check on Lady Vengeance. Nairi, who had been collecting casings to reload dust and bullets, delivered another belt of 150 cartridges to me. She also came up with the idea to put a blanket underneath the MG-42 as an easy way to collect the spent casings. I mean, it wasn’t a novel idea, but the fact that she was actively thinking of a way to optimize the process showed that Nairi had serious forge-smithing potential!
An hour after sunset, I heard a sharp screech of a goblin who had landed into the spikes of one of Sapphire’s pitfalls. So it began.
“Look alive people! They’re here!” I yelled into the night.
I lit up a flare and chucked it as far as I could with a little help from <
Having lost the element of surprise and the element of darkness, the goblins screeched in anger, trying to intimidate us. I took out Severance Pay and aimed at the closest goblin at ~40 meters.
*BOOM!*
The sound of a suppressed Garand discharge echoed across the battlefield, and the unsuspecting goblin died with an exploded head. If these fuckers wanna dance, I’d give ‘em a last dance to remember.
The goblins reacted with a furious cacophony of screeching at the sight of their dead comrade. They sounded really pissed~ One of them decided to charge forward, which predictably triggered a full charge by the war party. A horde of goblins charging and screeching at you was a terrifying situation to be in, but with sufficient firepower and lighting, it wasn’t so bad. I slung back Severance Pay, got into a prone position, and took aim using the iron sights of Lady Vengeance.
*BZZZZZZTT!* *BZZZZTT!* *BZZZZZZTT!*
With my buzzsaw, I easily cut down the first wave. Since these bastards were unarmored, the .30-06 Springfields sliced through groups of goblins like a hot knife through expired butter. As for armaments, I noticed that most of them have wooden spears and bucklers. Very few of them had slings and rocks in hand. So as long as I kept them out of the 10 meters range, I should be safe from their counterattack.
*BZZZZZZZZTT!* *BZZZZZZTT!* *BZZZZTT!* *BZZZZZZZZTT!* *BZZZZTT!* *BZZZZTT!*
Lady Vengeance mercilessly crushed the 2nd and 3rd wave of goblins as white streaks of tracer rounds dominated the battlefield like an angry god on a rampage. Sadly, after that last burst, I ran out of ammo. I quickly took out the belt and replaced it with a new belt while throwing the empty metal belt to Nairi. After a quick peek at the goblins, I saw that they managed to advance to the trenches during the reload. I better hurry. Nairi helped me replace the barrel and I resumed firing.
*BZZZZTT!* *BZZZZZZZZTT!* *BZZZZTT!* *BZZZZZZZZTT!*
Targeting the bulk of the attack force that got backlogged at the trenches, I ruthlessly cut down the goblin traffic jam in mere seconds. The dozen that survived finally got the memo and began to retreat. Regardless, I didn’t let up. Any goblin that survived tonight would surely be back tomorrow night. These shot-in-the-back kills were basically free real estate~
BZZZZTT!* *BZZZTT!* *BZZZZTT!*
Soon, the sound of silence returns to the night. My ears still rung a little bit (maybe I should work on an earmuff as the next project). We had handily won Round 1, but I knew that this was just the warmup.
The reason why goblins were such menacing mana-beasts (aside from the rapey-ness) was that they were, in my opinion, the smartest mana-beasts in the Wild. Although individually weak, they were smart enough to team up in war parties and ambush in droves. In addition, they had been known to utilize tactics like flanking attacks and night ambushes. But most importantly, these green little bastards were capable of adaptation. If their frontal assault failed, they’d try different tactics the next time around (whereas wolves, despite being able to utilize flanking tactics, would only stick with that tactic no matter what).
This was why I had hoped to get out of goblin territory after our 3rd night here (5th night since our departure from Carnwennan). The more opportunities we’d give them to figure out how to beat the wagon fort tactic, the less safe I’d feel. Unfortunately, I didn’t know if we could get out in time given our travel speed and the fact that most people were running on minimal sleep thanks to the fear of goblins rampaging in their minds.
“Alright, go to sleep if you can! We have to travel faster tomorrow! The sooner we leave the goblins alone, the sooner I’ll sleep easy!” I shouted to the mass of people in the wagon fort.
Well, I sure hoped the goblins didn’t come back for another raid tonight. I just slaughtered an entire war party, so it was unlikely that they’d have the appetite for another attack until they got reinforcement. On top of that, I was also worried about day attacks from their scouting parties. Which was why I had Loki sleep now- I had to rely on him to protect the rear while I napped in the mornings.
After a tense couple of hours, I saw the sun rising and the night retreating back under the horizon. My shift was finally over. I ordered my apprentices to harvest as many crystals and casings as they could from the dead goblins before departure. If those green bastards were offering up their crystals to our cause, I definitely didn’t mind the donation~
I walked over to Loki, who was cuddling on the ground with his alpha bitch (I was too bloody tired to think of a good one at the moment). Based on the pungent smell around the area, I’d say my buddy just cashed in his V-card last night. Good for him- I’ve been busting my ass for years for zero trips to the promiseland and this little scamp got laid a couple months into his life. I wasn’t jealous of my puppy at all. No siree~
I gently kicked his butt to wake him. Loki instantly got up, looked around to check for threats, and slumped back down as he waited for the convoy to get moving again. I climbed into one of the armored carts and knocked out. Natalia already planned for me to wake up around lunchtime, so unless there’s an attack, I should be able to get 6-7 hours of sleep.
Field Inventory
Primary Weapon
M1D Garand v.2.0 [Christened Severance Pay]
MG-42 General-Purpose Machine Gun v.1.0 [Christened Lady Vengeance]
Secondary Weapon
Colt M1911A1 Semi-Automatic Pistol v.3.0 [Christened Aurelia]
1x mithril parrying dagger [Christened Swordbreaker]
Armor
Crystal-modified dragon leather body armor set {<
Mana Crystals
1x Adept-level fire elemental mana crystal
1x Adept-level ice elemental mana crystal
1x Adept-level space elemental mana crystal
1x Expert-level earth elemental mana crystal
1x Expert-level space elemental mana crystal
Stash of various mana crystals [Loot from the dead]
Misc.
Stash of salvaged armor parts and weapons
1x storage bracelet, 2x goggles
Utility belt, grappling hook, rope, dark green cloak, field satchel, puppy backpack, waterskin, rations, boarskin map and steel knife
1x .45 ACP steel centerfire pistol suppressor
1x .30-06 Springfield steel centerfire rifle suppressor
1x crude telescopic sight
10x en bloc clips of .30-06 Springfield armor-piercing ammo
5x magazines of .45 ACP hollow-point ammo
6x belts of 150 .30-06 Springfield armor-piercing ammo
Spare ammo
3x mithril dagger
1x male mutated Champion wolf mana-beast [Christened Loki]
1x female Champion wolf mana-beast [Name TBD]