Darius raised his arm above and bellowed, using his [Engaging Roar] technique. It was a taunt, forcing every monster within a wide radius to focus on him. Since there was a line of fighters standing between him and the enemy, this distracted the monsters for a few precious seconds as they tried futilely to reach him. It was also a technique, not a spell, which was important because he needed all his mana for his shrouds.

He always made a point of learning techniques for magic classes, and spells for physical classes. Diversification was the way to go. It was similar to the idea of this village, in fact. Multiple walled areas instead of just one, so that when one fell the survivors could retreat to another.

He stretched out his shroud to another [Attacker] who had overextended themselves. He had given shroud focuses to almost everyone, but those were still weak and inefficient. They had lost too many people, so no one had time to swap out and let their shrouds recharge. He had also realized too late the obvious fact that the shrouds were drawing on atmospheric mana to recharge themselves. In a battle this thick, with dozens of spellcasters and no time to breathe, there was a real danger of the magic running out. The shrouds were slower to recharge, and Darius couldn't regenerate his mana at any real speed. Slowly but surely, they were being overwhelmed.

Darius wondered where it had all gone wrong.

It wasn't when the monsters had broken through the wall. That was inevitable by the time they were surrounded by a full horde, no matter how many fighters they had defending them. It wasn't even when the walls were surrounded in the first place; that, too, was inevitable. The moment he had realized just how big a horde they were facing, he had realized they were doomed. Villages didn't survive hordes of this size. Not unless the Eight themselves fell out of the sky.

But how had they gotten here in the first place?

As much as he wanted to blame the situation on Ruth upgrading the citystone, it couldn't be that simple. He knew something of history. Higher-tier citystones were common in the Old World. If they caused this effect every time they were upgraded, it would have been mentioned in the histories.

Nor could he blame it on mismanagement of the local monster population. Darius had been out hunting with Mary on multiple occasions while Josh and Ruth worked on their crafting. The area around the village was wild, certainly, but Mayor Vashti made a point of destroying any Formic colonies and Porcine burrows as soon as they appeared. Discounting the dungeons, which of course were still sealed, there shouldn't have been any major monster groups within ten miles.

And yet here was a seemingly endless horde. It made no sense.

The line broke in front of him as one of the fighters, a Knight wearing some of Samson's armor, was speared through the chest by a humanoid Lupine with sharp bone blades for arms. Darius used his Identify skill on it out of habit—it was a Level 33 Lupine Osteoclast—before dragging the fallen Knight out of the line.

Ruth took the opportunity to jump into his place, swinging her giant hammer with both speed and force. Her every blow smashed at least one monster flat, and this was with her being conservative with her mana. Darius could tell that she wanted to do more, to push her class farther. She wasn't even using her grenades any more, holding them in reserve.

He would have to get used to her being an [Attacker] now. He still wasn't sure it was a good idea; at least she was making good use of it so far. She had been dreaming of this sort of thing her entire life, so she knew what to do.

The problem was, he didn't know where they were supposed to go from here. If this was a normal horde, they would have already cleared it down to a manageable level. If this was a normal horde, it might even be a net boon. Everyone was gaining experience, and even spread out over the entire fighting force, it was a large amount. Deaths so far were minimal because everyone had retreated back here. If this was a normal horde, even the destruction of the other walls would be a benefit for his team, because they could help rebuild and gain much good will that way.

This was not a normal horde. It was being pushed forward by a [Tamer].

They weren't going to win this.

Mayor Vashti had taken a group of elite fighters to plug the hole in the wall. Darius expected little of them. He had personally killed dozens of Formics, and he wasn't even an [Attacker]. Every time he looked out and saw the still-endless horde, he knew the truth.

He had run a [Tamer] a few times, and while the role was hardly his favorite, he had learned a few tricks. In particular, he had noted how the [Bait Beast] technique and [Charm Beast] spell, temporary taming abilities, could be used to draw large groups of monsters around if used carefully.

No one ever did that, because it had a terrible chance to backfire. Trying to draw too many monsters could easily kill you, your friends, and any nearby villages.

At this point, Darius suspected that their mysterious [Tamer] had gathered up every monster within a hundred miles. Someone had drawn monsters from far beyond Mayor Vashti's defensive radius, and brought them crashing down like a tidal wave upon the little sand castle they had built.

The right move was to run, he knew. The earlier the better. The monsters were after all of them, of course, but most of all they were after the citystone. While killing humans would advance a monster greatly, devouring a citystone was orders of magnitude better. The sooner they escaped, the sooner everyone escaped, the longer the horde would be distracted with the citystone, and the more of them would survive.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

That was the cold calculus that he was famous for. He had run a [Healer] for most of his career as a reclaimer. He knew when to prioritize those who could live, and give up on those who could not. He had watched friends die, let them die, because it was better than letting the rest of the party die instead.

Except... there were no children at reclaimer outposts. Certainly no children in reclaimer combat parties. The rules might be loose out at the edge of civilization, but they didn't let kids fight on the literal Burn Line.

There were children here, inside these walls. Darius had seen their parents carrying them inside. He had seen them crying, seen them alone and in small groups. Dirty and injured and so, so scared.

He remembered watching the plays, seeing all the kids gasping at ancient plot twists. He had tried to be annoyed at them for being loud, and silly, and for every other little thing that kids always did.

He had never been very good at doing what he was supposed to.

Darius let out another [Enraging Roar], then restored Ruth's flagging shield with his [Bolster Shroud] spell. “Ruth! Hit them hard! I need a minute!”

She didn't even hesitate. She rushed out into the horde, swinging her massive glowing hammer around her and clearing the horde like a blender. Once she ran out of momentum, she dropped the hammer to the ground and threw out all of her remaining grenades at once.

Darius heard the explosion behind him, but he was already running inside the walls. It was chaos. The walls, once seeming so large and even decadent, were packed with civilians. There was barely room for them to breathe. All of them were unarmed, and most of them had children clutched close.

While everyone would of course have a [Combat] class, Darius had to assume that everyone who could actually fight was already on the walls. Many of the children looked younger than eight years old, meaning they didn't even have classes yet.

Many people stared at him with fearful eyes as he ran into the crowd. They moved away, but they called out to him, asking him questions he didn't have time for. He had too many questions of his own.

Eventually, he found Mayor Vashti, not at the breach as he expected, but at the center of the village next to the citystone, leaning on her sword and giving out orders.

“I want every single one of them out of here,” she said in a tone that brooked no argument. “I do not care if you have to lash them to your backs and carry them. Anyone old enough to have a class gets a weapon. No exceptions.”

Four men saluted and ran off, almost crashing into Darius before he dodged away. He didn't begrudge them their haste. Overseeing the death of a village could leave one somewhat... flustered.

He knew that too well himself.

The Mayor's eyes snapped to him. “Report?”

He shook his head. “Still no sign of Joshua.”

She took in a breath, then nodded. “We will operate on the assumption that he is dead.”

If she expected him to be upset, she would be surprised. “Of course. I doubt you have the manpower to spare searching for him now.”

“No. No, we do not.” Her eyes were distant for a moment, heavy with pain, before she focused on him again. “Once the citystone is destroyed, the horde will disperse. We will be able to return and search for survivors. It is the best chance to find him.”

What she didn't say—what no one was saying—was that there would be a few hundred monsters with extra evolutions wandering the ruins. Citystones were rich in power for monsters, and any that cracked off a single tiny piece would go up at least a few levels. It would not be a simple matter to just come back and clean up. This entire area was going to be impassable for months.

Probably longer. It had been a very long time since a monster horde had a chance at an Improved-tier citystone. It was even possible that, if a particularly large monster managed to take enough of the prize for itself, it could evolve all the way to the dragon stage. Wouldn't that be just what they needed. A dragon-stage monster rampaging around to distract them from the True Dragon just waiting in a dungeon.

Mayor Vashti would do her best; Darius trusted that much. However, there was a reason she was sending all the children away before the end. There was a reason she was arming them.

“Please be honest with me, Madame Mayor,” he said firmly. “Do we have any chance of surviving this night?”

To her credit, she made no attempt to downplay the situation. “If you mean the village, then no. The horde is too large. At this point, it is simply a matter of mitigating the damage.” She looked up at the citystone. “Perhaps if there was a defensive enchantment...” She shook her head. “No, the outlying circles have already been lost, and we are next.”

“I am certain you have some sort of escape route prepared.”

“Indeed. Various earth Mages have constructed multiple tunnels away from the village. As people do not use them with any regularity, there is nothing to draw the monsters towards them. They lead out to the south, closer to San Juan Bautista.”

Darius raised an eyebrow at that. “I did not realize there were villages out that far.”

Mayor Vashti gave him a rueful smile. “You would be surprised how far humanity has spread from the City. There is far more to the world than what sits in sight of the Burn Line.”

“A fair assessment, I suppose.” Darius had rarely traveled more than a dozen miles from the Burn Line. He enjoyed the creature comforts of the City too much. “If you are sending the children south, do the tunnels go any other direction? East, perhaps?” He doubted that west or north would be safe.

“Actually,” the mayor said with a grim smile, “I have a different task for you three.”

Darius suddenly had the very strong impression he would prefer to go out to fight the horde with his bare hands.