Preparations are still underway when the wave of monsters hits. And unlike the previous occasions, they come at us in full numbers from the start.
A lot of the fighters are still here, saying their goodbyes to the families and friends that file into the house and the bunker in its basement. I send them scrambling, and although it’s difficult to peel themselves away from their loved ones, they do it.
Pops goes to leave as well, but I stop him.
“I have something else for you to do,” I say.
He raises an eyebrow. “And what exactly would that be?”
“Go get Mom and escort her around to the fighters. Tell her to layer her buffs on everyone. A three percent experience boost isn’t much, but every last bit helps right now.”
Pops nods and runs off. I turn to the last of my companions, who is hiding behind me to avoid the crowd of people.
“You too, Emily,” I say. “Get going.”
I expect a bit of pushback, but she gives me a solemn nod instead. She’s scared, like everyone else, but she pulls out her bow and turns to leave. I grab her before she gets away and pull her into a hug. Her whole body tenses for a moment, but she buries her face in my shoulder and relaxes.
“Take care out there, okay?” I whisper as she timidly puts her arms around me. “If your section gets breached, don’t stay to fight. Get to one of the fallback points.”
Not like I would do, I don’t add.
She nods, her face still in my shirt. I find myself wishing for this moment to last just a little longer, but we don’t have time. So I release her, and even though she lingers for a moment, she gets going. Once she’s down the street, I turn back to the crowd.
“Somebody send William up here!”
William arrives a few minutes later, finding me still coordinating people. The sounds of fighting at the perimeter fill the air, with the occasional flash of light from skills being used.
“Great news,” William says. “Doug has one hell of an arsenal down there, including some of these.”
A round object appears in his hand, pulled out of his inventory. William tosses it to me and I catch it.
“How the hell did he get grenades?!” I yelp, holding the thing an arm’s length away from me.
William shrugs. “As per your order to not say a word about it, I didn’t ask.”
“Okay, here’s what I’m thinking.”
I go on to explain part of the plan to William, the part he’ll be in charge of. He’s to get ten runners and have them distribute the ammo and guns to the fighters. They’ll also collect any of the pound bombs we still have left, and bring those, along with the grenades, back here for Mike to collect them. I’ll brief him on his role as soon as I find him in this chaos.
Even though I don’t want to admit it, there’s some merit to the method William and Pops tried to teach me. Not having to explain the whole plan to everyone saves me a lot of time and them a lot of headaches. They just need to know their roles and carry them out, while I take care of the big picture and how the plan comes together.
“As for you, stay down there,” I continue. “Keep about twenty percent of the supplies behind. I also gave you all the teens with classes and twenty adult fighters. If we fail up here, you’ll have some people and resources to work your way out of the bunker and escape. Take the second tunnel out in the morning and head downtown.”
William crosses his arms and frowns. He’s about to complain, but I don’t give him the chance. I take a step into his personal space, realizing I’m about as tall as him now.
“We’re not doing this right now,” I say, making eye contact. “You strong-armed me into this, so now you don’t get to complain. You have your orders, carry them out.”
William shakes his head, but the frown melts into a mischievous grin and his posture relaxes.
“Got it, boss.”
“Good,” I say, relaxing as well. “Then get to it. Keep the doors closed and the people quiet. I’ll send someone with updates for as long as I can, but if they stop coming, assume we’re all dead by sunrise. It’s your show from then on out.”
We shake hands, and William turns to leave.
“I hope to hear of your victory soon,” he says as he returns to the house.
I hope so too, but I let it go unsaid. No reason to inject my own worries and insecurities into the situation any more than I already have. I wait out here as the runners start coming in, and I instruct a couple of them to bring me the machine guns and the ammo for them.
As soon as I have the items in my inventory, I leave as well.
----------------------------------------
It takes me a while to locate the people I need and get the information I want. Once again, I find myself wishing we had a way to communicate remotely.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
The horde hit from the direction of the trailer park, breaking around the walls to surround the safe zone. Every choke point is full. The trenches help somewhat, but they’re not enough. They’re too shallow to be effective.
I get reports that some of Kurt's mines failed to detonate, but I was expecting that. The ones that worked got tripped by now, but with the monsters getting stronger, the mines didn’t do nearly as much damage as I hoped they would. The explosions hurt a bunch of the creatures and added even more confusion to their ranks, but only those right on top of the mines or in very close proximity got killed.
As for the wave boss, the reports are mixed. Some say they’ve seen it, some say they haven’t. It’s hard to tell since there are more bear monsters in the mix than just the boss, and no one’s wading into the horde to analyze them.
At the very least, I conclude it’s not dead yet. If it was, we’d all have gotten another system announcement about it like we did the last two times I killed the previous bosses.
I find Jessica first out of my immediate group, and she’s running around with her pets to offer support where she can. She takes a short breather to catch me up and see if I have anything for her.
“The walls are still holding in most places, but some monsters are getting through,” she says. “It’s not too bad yet, but it’ll get a whole lot worse in a hurry.”
“Yeah. Get your pets on perimeter patrol to contain any breaches. Then take Mike and a few fighters, and get him to the breaches so he can patch them.”
I also tell her about the grenades and what I have planned for them. After she finds Mike, she’s to take him to Doug’s house so he can load up on explosives. Kurt’s pound bombs are stronger than the grenades, but they need something else to set them off. That’s easily solved by taping grenades to them. Then, while they run around the perimeter walls, Mike can occasionally throw a charge over the wall and into the horde.
“Why him?” Jessica asks. “I’m sure you could throw them farther out to do more damage.”
“Yeah, but he needs the levels more than I do. The higher his level, the more mana he’ll have, and the faster he’ll be able to repair the damage to the walls.”
“True.”
We part after that. I’m itching to join the fight, but I still have something I need to take care of first.
I want to get the machine guns to the frontline and find people who can make good use of them. It would usually take multiple soldiers to operate these things, and while I’m sure I could fire them from the hip with my increased strength attribute, I see no point in it. I’m geared towards direct combat, but others have classes that can enhance firearms.
Their skills help with everything from keeping the guns cool, to reloading them faster and giving the bullets more oomph.
I run into Mom and Pops as I near the perimeter, and while Mom works her magic on the fighters, I get Pops to help me out with the task. The machine guns would’ve been great at the choke points, but we only have three of them and five choke points to cover.
Pops looks at the thick horde of monsters pounding on the walls some hundred feet away, then at the houses inside of the safe zone.
“Range isn’t a problem on the M2’s,” he says. “They were used as snipers at some point. We could set them up at the first fallback points and they’d still be able to fire over the walls and into the horde. That way, even if the perimeter gets breached, we won’t lose access to the machine guns. We’ll have people ready to give cover fire as the frontline fighters retreat.”
I like the way he’s thinking. We need to make the machine gun nests high up off the ground anyway, so we might as well have them deeper in the safe zone. That way, they’ll be able to help both now and in case we suffer a breach.
“That’s all fine and dandy, but we still need people to operate them,” I say. “Preferably people with compatible classes.”
Pops nods. “I know just who to get.”
----------------------------------------
We wait for Mom to finish, which takes a couple of minutes. Even though she only uses the experience boosting skill, she’s low level and her mana pool is small. She can use the skill a couple of times on up to five people at once, then she has to wait a bit to recharge.
That’s fine for now, but I make a mental note to look into the problem later. The fighters are all shooting up through levels fast, but the non combatants barely inch along. Mom does leech some experience from the people she buffs, which is part of why I wanted her to go around and cover everyone, but most people with support classes don’t have buffing skills.
Jessica and Mike ride in on pets while we wait, doing rounds of the perimeter like I asked them to. I analyze Mike and see he’s gone up a few levels, so he’s already throwing bombs around.
We chat for a bit as they give me updates, but they don’t have much. A few breaches here and there, but Mike can keep up with them for the most part. It helps that most of the monsters funnel into the choke points, where the fighters are making noise, instead of trying to break through the walls at random points.
Mom is done with the group here, so I hand her over to Jessica and Mike to free up Pops.
“You’re running around the perimeter anyway, so drop her off at the next group and pick her up a few minutes later. When she’s done buffing everyone, give her a pet and send her to the central hold.”
Jessica gives me a thumbs up, and Mom climbs behind Mike. They take off, and a few moments later, I see Mike chucking a ball of duct tape over the wall. It lands in the horde and explodes into a fireball, sending bits of monsters flying.
A paw the size of my head lands a few yards away, the dirty brown fur singed black.
“Lead the way,” I tell Pops.
----------------------------------------
We go around for a while, pulling some of the ranged fighters off of their rooftops. Three of them in total, each in a different part of the safe zone. I don’t bother analyzing them for their names, levels, or classes, there are already too many people here for me to remember everyone.
If Pops says they’re good, they’re good.
I hand each one of them a machine gun and two thousand rounds. Said rounds come in belts of a hundred bullets each, packaged in metal boxes. They’re quite heavy, and I’m thankful for the inventory system not having a weight feature.
There are twenty of the belts per gun, which while impressive at a first glance, isn’t a whole lot right now. I doubt they’ll do too much killing considering how strong the monsters are getting, but if we have them anyway, we might as well use them.
“Try to conserve ammo,” I tell them. “Only shoot when you think it’s necessary, and try not to hit the walls. Keep five or six belts in reserve in case of a breach in your area.”
The three take their new toys, and I absently notice that all of them are older men. Likely other army veterans that Pops knows and trusts. We talk about positions for the nests for a bit, then they’re off to prepare.
Once that’s taken care of, Pops takes his leave as well. Except he’s not walking back towards the perimeter, but to the interior of the safe zone.
“The fight’s back that way, old man,” I say, jabbing a thumb over my shoulder.
Pops laughs. “I know, but those three will need help. It takes a few people to properly operate a machine gun, and we have more guys with experience sitting on their asses. I’ll go fetch them.”
“Levels?” I ask, wondering why we have fighters that don’t do anything. The plan specifically calls for everyone to be around the perimeter and only retreat towards the central hold in case of a breach.
“None,” Pops says. “They’re classless. But that didn’t stop them back in ‘Nam and it won't stop them now.”
“Just don’t get them killed.”
“I’ll try my best.”