Aria

I listen at the door for several seconds for any sounds coming from beyond it before quietly tightening my grip on my sword and cracking open the door with my other hand. Then I peek outside to find a staircase leading to another door. So I open the door wider and enter the staircase, eventually stopping in front of the next door to repeat the process.

This time I hear some faint voices slowly growing quieter as if soldiers were passing by the door.

“-coming back,” one voice says. “I wish we didn’t get assigned to the same side of the mountains as him.”

“You probably shouldn’t say that if you don’t want to become a zombie yourself,” another voice says before the voices begin to trail off, having gotten too far away for me to hear.

I frown slightly at the voices. Partially because they don’t have any accents, and partially because of what they’re talking about.

Come to think of it, I wonder if the System is translating languages for us? It’s hard to believe that another world would speak the same language.

Everyone on our continent speaks the same language simply because there are only two nations here, and it’s not really that large of a continent. But for otherworlders to speak our language is stretching things.

Much less with them having no accents while speaking it.

Even the Albarians and Arterians have a slightly different accent despite speaking the same language. More of a dialect than an accent, to be honest.

I purse my lips before shaking my head and cracking the door open slightly to peek outside. And after finding it clear of anyone, I crack it open a little bit more and stick my head out to get a better look.

Still clear. Looks like the bandits were right. This place is rather secluded.

I glance behind me at the smell before quickly stepping outside of the door, closing it, and sprinting around the building to the back, out of sight.

It’s probably secluded due to the smell of corpses that’s clinging to the building despite the room being underground.

Actually, I’m rather surprised by just how bad it smells, considering how there are less than a dozen corpses in there, and none are too badly deteriorated.

Anyways, the necromancer’s storage seems to be at the very back of the base, along the cliff containing the tunnel. Although a lot closer to the wall than the tunnel itself. So I slowly sneak my way around behind the buildings and tents, trying rather hard to avoid any eyes along the way. And as I do so, I hear one conversation from passing soldiers after another.

Most of the soldiers seem to be talking about the invasion, what sorts of benefits they’ll receive from this, them being happy to finally be leveling, and some of them discussing my recent attack.

From what I can gather, the soldiers here seem to have been raised entirely for the purpose of this invasion. Something that’s apparently commonly done by worlds integrated into the System. Where they raise and train an army of level 1s so that they can invade another world and annex them. Either that or they reset their levels to participate. Something that’s apparently possible but no one has mentioned how yet.

The soldiers who participate are given a large reward and land in the new world, along with any levels they receive during the invasion.

Meaning they all see us natives as nothing but a way to gain wealth and power.

It’s disgusting.

Then again, I go around killing enemy soldiers every day and have been doing so for years now, so I’m not really one to talk about war.

After a little bit of traveling, I manage to find the first food hut that I had seen from above on the cliff. Then I sneak inside when no one is looking before reaching into my bag and grabbing the explosives that I was given for this mission.

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I set the tiny bombs infused with magic around the hut in places that won’t be seen, only for someone to enter the hut while I’m inside, making me rush to hide in a corner. Fortunately they leave without finding me or my bombs after grabbing a crate of food. So I manage to sneak out and continue moving through the base.

So far so good.

Time passes while I am going around the base, setting up bombs in about five different food storage huts – I found an extra one while searching – and the three weapon storage huts I spotted from the cliff. Then I look at the hidden compartment of my military coat to find that I still have about a dozen more of the tiny, bead-sized remote bombs.

In that case, how about I cause some more trouble.

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It takes a while, but I finally manage to make it to the tunnel leading deeper into the Great Divide. And after arriving, I quickly take in the defenses around it. Which mostly just consist of a small wall with two guards stationed on either side of a single gate. There doesn’t appear to be any magical barriers, and the guards are the only ones here. Probably because this is the inside of the base at its center and barriers aren’t easy to make.

I study the wall for a little bit before deciding that I can just scale over it. As long as I make sure I’m at the very back of the wall.

A few minutes pass in silence as I wait for an opening before one arrives in the form of some officer arriving and speaking with the guards at the gate, drawing the attention of everyone nearby. So I quickly sprint across the short space between the hut I was hiding behind and the wall. And I don’t stop after reaching the wall, instead quickly climbing up the cliff until I reach the height of the wall. Then I peek over it, find no one there, and jump.

Alright. So far so good.

I listen for the conversation at the gate before deciding to wait for them to finish. Since the officer is currently there looking at the guards. Meaning he can see inside of the gate.

I’m too far off to the side to see though. So I’m fine here.

A few minutes pass before the conversation draws to an end and I hear footsteps moving away from the wall.

Good.

I wait another minute, just in case. Then I quickly move towards the tunnel, which is unguarded on the inside.

The tunnel quickly becomes dark after I enter it, but I pay that no mind as I begin digging out tiny holes in the walls with my sword’s tip, into which I stick the remote bombs spread out along the tunnel. And right when I’m about to finish, I hear a shout echoing from further into the tunnel from where I am, bringing my gaze up from the bomb I had just implanted in the wall to find an enemy soldier having spotted me from further into the tunnel.

Without hesitation, I grab a knife from a sheath at my thigh and toss it at them before they can say anything. And the knife ends up hitting his throat, but not going in and instead bouncing off thanks to whatever armor he’s wearing.

The soldier is clearly an officer of sorts judging by the fancier armor he’s wearing, and the fact that he’s in this tunnel in the first place. But even with that I still manage to clear the distance between us right as the officer raises his weapon, making our two swords clash.

I grit my teeth when I find their strength to be a lot more than my own. Then I look up at their level, finding it to be at level 4. And I lower my gaze again when the man – whose long golden hair is flowing over his back, atop his golden armor – exclaims, “It’s you! But you were dead! How are you-”

I interrupt him by purposefully letting his blade move closer before ‘accidentally’ slipping my hold on my sword, making it fall as his own blade cuts into me. An act that surprises him quite a bit, only for his eyes to widen at the sight of me ignoring the fact that my arm is almost falling off thanks to his sword cutting through my shoulder as I reach for my sword with my other arm. Then I swing it horizontally to the left, cutting straight into his armor and a few inches into his gut.

He falls to his knees, his grip on his sword failing as it stays lodged in my own shoulder.

I continue ignoring my wound that is slowly beginning to push the weapon out as it heals with a crimson light when I yank my own blade out of him and step back, raising it into the air.

And without any fanfare, I bring it around to cut straight into his neck, the man’s eyes still widened in absolute shock.

I quickly turn around to look at the end of the tunnel, but I don’t find any commotion. Meaning we’re too far from the entrance for the guards there to hear. So I turn to look at the end this officer came from, but that end, too, doesn’t show any signs of movement.

Good.

I sheathe my sword again before grabbing his sword that is still slowly dislodging itself. Then I yank it out, causing a lot of blood to come out with it until the wound seals itself with the usual crimson light.

And right when I’m about to toss the sword, I take a closer look at it and realize it’s enchanted with more advanced enchantments than my own officer standard sword.

Huh. I think I’ll be borrowing this.

After ‘borrowing’ the sheath for the sword and strapping it around my waist on the other side of my own sword, I quickly begin making my exit to the end of the tunnel. But the moment I exit the tunnel, I find both of the guards turning to stare at me as one of them is holding the gate lever, seemingly about to open the gate to let in some officers outside of it.

An awkward silence fills the air for a split second before one of them shouts, “Capture her!”

Then I pull out the remote control in my pocket along with the one bomb I saved, toss the bomb at them after setting the charge, and mutter, “No thank you.”

And press the button on my remote, causing dozens of explosions to ring out through the camp and the tunnel behind me.