We spend a couple of hours on the backfoot, leading the remainder of the horde from one landmine to the next. They don’t deviate from the course, but they move much slower than we expected. Part of that is down to the fact that the Acid Skunk has a hard time walking on only three legs, staying at the back of its army of minions.
But it also stops from time to time, calling on the monsters in the area to rebuild its ranks.
When that happens, the others spread out to intercept the newcomers and take them out before they can join the horde. Lots still make it through, but it’s better than nothing.
I’m still healing, so I can’t do much to help. I stay behind with Emily, who guards me until I can stand on my own and defend myself again. She jumped a few levels to 17 from killing so many monsters with the boom rods, and while I leeched some of the experience through the party sharing, I didn’t get nearly enough to level up myself.
As soon as I can, I want to join the others in whittling down the horde. But I know I’ll only get in the way, so I keep it to myself and don’t say anything. They employ hit and run tactics to take advantage of their ranged capabilities, while I’d have to get within melee range.
The monsters miss the first couple of mines, so we send someone around the horde to dig them out and pick them up. Can’t risk leaving them around, other survivors might step on them. The next few mines detonate successfully, each one killing a large number of monsters.
The experience from those gets shared equally between the group.
But the wave boss learns fast, and it starts deploying scouts ahead of the main horde to sniff out the mines. Those are mostly dogs — former pets by the looks of them — and when they find a mine, they howl. The other monsters leave the area before the scout that finds the mine steps on it to detonate the charge.
That pisses Jessica off to no end.
“They’re people’s pets, God damn it!” She complains. “This is some fucking bullshit!”
“Can you tame them to save a few?”
“No,” she growls. “I had a short grace period right at the start, but taming doesn’t work during sieges. Something about the wave bosses interfering with the process.”
There’s nothing we can do about it, though I don’t dare say that to her directly. She already knows and is only blowing off some steam.
“What now?” Pops asks.
I think it over. With his skills, Pops could shoot the mines to detonate them himself. But that would be a waste of perfectly good explosives, as the scouts are spread out far from each other. We’d only kill handfuls of monsters with each mine.
“Let’s go back, and gather the mines as we come across them. Then we can plant them around the safe zone before the horde gets there.”
I get a few nods, so we mobilize.
----------------------------------------
An hour later, we’re back outside the safe zone. A few people wait for us, meeting our group about half a mile out. Kurt and co managed to make the smaller mines after all, and they planted a bunch of them around the safe zone’s exterior. We need someone to guide us around them, as even though they’re weak, they could still blow off a leg.
We plant the bigger mines we brought back into the mix, then we retreat inside of the walls. Besides some of the fighters, the streets are completely devoid of people.
The silence and desolation make for an eerie atmosphere.
“I take it that the evacuation went okay?” I ask one of our guides.
“See for yourself,” the man says, jabbing over his shoulder at the apartment buildings in the distance.
We go over there, passing through the park in the way. Even from afar, it’s easy to tell that the buildings are chock full of people. Lots of them are by the windows, staring out as they try to get a glimpse of the action once it will start. Snipers wait on the upper floors and rooftops, ready to offer support.
The ground around the buildings is full of melee fighters standing behind waist height dirt walls that criss-cross the area.
We find William near one of the entrances, talking to the people inside as they board up the main doors.
“...and only come out when we give the signal, okay?”
“Got it.”
I pull him aside to swap reports. When he hears that I already took a crack at the wave boss and I left it an arm short, he raises an eyebrow.
“You’re crazy.”
“Very. Now, how are things going here?”
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“We had more than enough room for everyone. It’s not comfortable, but it’s safe.”
“What about these guys?” I continue, waving a hand at the fighters. “Why aren’t they on the exterior walls?”
“Here’s what I was thinking…”
William goes on to explain his logic. He split the defenders in two, posting half of them at the outer perimeter and the other half around the buildings. The outer guys will try to hold back the monsters for as long as possible, but once they inevitably fail, they’ll hide and let the horde in. Then, as the monsters descend on the inner line, we’ll have a bunch of fighters to assault them from the outside.
The monsters will be caught in the middle, forced to fight on two fronts. A classic double envelopment, or so William calls it.
It’s risky, but I like it.
“I’ll go on the outer perimeter,” I say.
“Those guys are mostly ranged, though.”
“I know, but I have a new trick up my sleeve. I’ll be a lot more useful there once the monsters move in.”
William nods. We shake hands, then I leave to find a spot for myself. Emily joins me, as does Pops, but the other ranged fighters hesitate before they start following. Jessica stays behind with her pets, recalling all of them to the inner line.
----------------------------------------
We end up on a rooftop, facing the general direction the horde will come from. I chat with Pops for a while as we compare skills and numbers, and we find out that we’re not far apart in terms of attributes. We have different distributions, with his class focused more on agility and perception, but the total number of points is in the same ballpark.
The real difference is in the class skills, with him having access to nine of them by now.
Emily lingers nearby, listening to us but not joining the discussion. I’m tempted to ask her for details, but I’m stopped by a line of monsters on the horizon.
“Here they come!” Someone yells off to my right.
A few others pick up the message, shouting it to get the signal down the line. Emily pulls out her binoculars, and after she takes a look, she hands them to me. What I see gives me pause. Despite our efforts, the horde’s numbers are back up to over a thousand.
“Shit.”
I pass the binoculars around to the others, getting similar reactions. It doesn’t look good, but at least in theory, I don’t think our chances are too bad. While we only have around three hundred fighters by now, our forces are much more dynamic on the battlefield. Plus we’re playing defense, which automatically makes our job easier and safer.
Overall, I like our odds.
We wait for a few minutes as the horde gets closer. They stop in a patch of forest about half a mile out, and they break up into smaller groups. The first of said groups takes off towards us, spreading out to encircle the safe zone before they get into range. They’re all smaller monsters, probably fresh recruits the skunk picked up on the way.
A rough count puts their numbers at around two hundred.
“I think they’re probing our defenses,” Pops says from my side.
I nod, but I don’t say anything. The monsters rush in, weaving from side to side. A few of our guys open fire, and while they occasionally score a hit or two, they mostly miss.
“Stop wasting ammo!” I shout. “Wait until they hit the trenches!”
That gets them to stop, but I can see them fidgeting uncomfortably. The monsters get closer, and as they do, their movements get even more erratic. By the time they reach the trenches, they’re near impossible to hit.
Then they enter the minefields, and the first few charges explode. I expect them to scatter or retreat, but they keep coming, tripping more and more of the mines.
“The skunk sent the weaklings ahead to get rid of our mines,” I realize. “Start shooting, take them out!”
The order gets passed up and down the perimeter, and our gunmen get to work. I watch the monsters advancing, unable to do anything to help.
Pops steps forth, takes out his revolvers, and he starts shooting as well. The air around him grows thick with mana, forming a colorful, swirling aura as he activates skill after skill. His bullets zip across the distance in fractions of a second, hitting like cannon balls and obliterating scores of the agile monsters. When he runs out of ammo, he puts the guns away into his inventory and pulls out another set that’s loaded and ready to go.
Those are also revolvers. Figures. He always said he’d love to be an old-timey cowboy in another life.
He’s by far the most successful in taking out the monsters, but he’s just one man. Lots of them make it through, taking out dozens of our mines in minutes. Once he thins out the numbers in our area, he jumps over to the next building, making his way down the perimeter to help out.
Emily looks at me, bow held in her hands.
“Don’t,” I say, putting out a hand to stop her from going anywhere. “You don’t have enough arrows, save them for later.”
She nods, so we wait for things to die down. Ten minutes later, the majority of the monsters are dead and most of our mines are gone. Even the big ones blew, shattering windows and eardrums all across the safe zone as they gouged craters into the landscape.
Good thing we have the system enhanced healing.
In the distance, the skunk gets another group ready to charge. This one is about four hundred monsters, nearly half of what it has left. I get a sinking feeling in my stomach as they start advancing towards us.
The monsters hit our walls a few minutes later, unimpeded by the few mines the sweepers missed. Our guys shoot into the crowd, but these monsters are higher levels and they shrug off most of the hits.
“Start hiding! Let them through!” I give the order.
It gets passed up and down the perimeter, and one by one, the guns fall silent. We all retreat into the buildings, waiting with bated breath as the monsters tear through the barricades and keep going deeper into the safe zone. Most of them don’t stop, but a few break off and start sniffing, entering the buildings in search of us.
Some of the other defenders are forced to fight, but we can’t see how they’re doing. All we get are distant gunshots mixed with howls and screams.
“Alright, let’s move,” I tell my own group. “Sweep this building for monsters. Keep any kills as silent as you can so we don’t attract more of them.”
We do just that, but luckily, we find the lower floors clear. By the time we reach street level and get outside, the fighting starts at the inner perimeter. I see a lot of the other groups getting out into the streets as well, so I give the order to move in for the double envelopment maneuver.
We have to move fast, else we risk getting trapped ourselves by the monsters the skunk kept behind.