Riding up to the soldiers, a familiar sharp-faced gentleman makes his entrance like a gallant knight on horseback. It's enough to widen my eyes a bit.
“Butlerman, I certainly did not expect to see you all the way out here.” I say as I remove the hood of my sith cloak. I had enshrouded myself in the folds of the cloak to appear cool, so the de-hooding is part of it. After all, I have to strategically remove the hood with just the right timing so that I can encapsulate the essence of coolness and capitalize on my mysterious awesomeness to give off just the right impression of Alyce-chan extravaganza.
Yes.
“It's good to see you made it out of that hell alive.” Sebastian says. Clop clops and dust clouds erupt behind him as the middle of the pack arrives. In front there are some more guards, followed by several caravans and some wagons with supplies strapped to them. Among those arrivals there is a pitch-black caravan, its surface shining with black lacquer as the symbol of a lion stares at me. Then the lion symbol splits as the caravan door is flung open.
Out hops a blonde-haired shota, his eyes going wide when he looks at me. “Aaah!” He says, tears welling in his eyes. “You're alive! I'm so glad you're alive.” Ren-kun says as he charges me with tears in his eyes. He is like a dog that has missed his master. Let's pat his head.
Ren is about a head taller than me, so when he approaches me, I strategically reach out my hand and grab his head before he can envelop me in a hug. For a moment, he is confused, but then I ruffle his hair. Even though he is taller than me and it looks a bit silly, he still shows me a magnificent smile as I ruffle his hair.
“It's good to see that you made it out as well.” I say, finally letting go of his head. His medium length blonde hair is now a toussled mess reminiscent of bedhair, and with his moist red eyes and traces of snot dripping from his nose, he looks like a righteous mess. “But still, to run into you here. It must be fate!” I say, winking at Ren-kun.
His face grows a nice shade of red. “You're not delivering pizza, are you? I'm afraid I don't have any bathtubs in my cave.” I say, wagging my eyebrows at him. The red-faced shota shows me a deliciously puzzled expression, and I once more pat him on the head as the third and final wave of people arrive.
The rear guard. Well, color me fifty shades of surprised. Butlerman wasn't with the rearguard.
Perhaps they got it backwards and the rearguard is in the front and they reversed all the way here? After all, there's no way that the master of the butt, buttlerman Sebastian, would be in front instead of in the back. He is definitely in the back, okay? Goddamn it!
So that's why they definitely reversed the whole way here. No wonder they had trouble escaping from the boner.... but all things considered, perhaps it was wise of them to protect their rear from the boner by reversing uphill.
Ahen.
Anyway, it seems they've all arrived. There's a lot of shouting and soldier stuff and clanking of armor as guards reposition to close off the road leading up here. It's a nice corkscrew in the bottleneck style formation, designed to close off access to the peninsula-like flat area in front of the dungeon entrance. Although it's not filled with shirtless spartan soldiers, it is still a nice formation. Maybe if Leonidas-sama had a breastplate or chainmail, he would've done better, but I guess the abs and man nipples were more important than his life. Also, ringmail hadn't been invented at that point in time, but saying that makes my musings pointless so let's willfully ignore that fact.
Ahen.
Regardless, the soldiers have taken up formation and blocked off the road, and the civilians, of which Ren-kun is a part, are being evacuated to the dungeon.
Fufufu, they still think it's a wild dungeon. Little do they know that it is my secret coven hideout.
It's kind of annoying that I haven't had time to modify the interior and make it cool looking like an evil villains lair, but whatever, at least I get to crush some boners today.
That's what's truly important. Revenge. I will show bonerlord Lars rick who the real overloli is.
With that in mind, I walk over to the ranks of the soldiers, biting my lip as I look over the edge trying to get a peek at the enemies. I think I am starting to conquer my fear of cliff richards.
Just as I think this, someone bumps into me from behind.
With a shriek, I topple forward over the edge. Flailing my arms, I desperately try to regain my balance and move backwards, but gravity-chan is a devil and keeps pulling at me. Only my toes are connected to the cliff and soon even they will slip off!
Oh gosh, no, please. Anything but this. My world spins, the wind blows, and I am pulled back from the precipice of doom.
Falling back, I land on my tooshie and start panting, staring up at a spinning sky. If I was still human, I would definitely puke.
If I was capable of such a thing, maybe I could use it as a secret technique to projectile vomit myself back up to safety were I ever to really fall off cliff-san. Projectile vomit no jutsu?
Ahen.
I've recovered. The soldiers are making noise, all tense and ready for a fight to the death with the rattling skeletons. I narrow my eyes to search for the bastard that nearly pushed me over the edge, but the coward is gone, having fled the scene of the crime like the unctuous scumbugger that he is. Instead, there is only Grom.
That's fine, maybe I will track down the bastard who bumped me and slowly torture him to death later.
“I really hate heights.” I say, getting to my feet.
Grom does his best impression of a serious person as he fixes his gaze on the horizon, resting his hand on that glowing blue sting impersonating sword of his. “This sure takes me back.” He says quietly as the wind tickles beard-san.
Yes, that's right! Wind-chan, you must breathe life into beard-san so that mister beard can finally become sentient! Tehehe.
“The monster meat in the dungeon was really quite disgusting. It tasted like cardboard, you know?” I say, looking over at Grom. “This time, I'm hoping for some more calcium in my diet.” I say, grinning up at him. He returns my grin with a smile. “I cannae say I know what calcium is, but I'm guessing it has something to do with them skellies over yonder.”
“Ai!” I reply and Grom chuckles.
“And I guess maybe, possibly I could nab a few of the soldiers that die during the battle. Bones can get a bit dry, so the Alyce-chan special could do with some juicy delicious meat once in awhile” I say under my breath so that only Grom can hear me.
Eye eyes me oddly, but his smile doesn't disappear and he just slowly nods. Although I didn't shoot Grom with the Alyce-chan beam of corruption, it seems he is still affected. Good good, let me show you the dark path, my meat pie. Fufufu.
Grom rolls his shoulders and takes a few deep breaths. “I'm just looking forward to a good workout and getting some revenge in on that damn bastard. Why can't the fucker leave me alone fer fucks sake, always chasing us around. This time, I'll show him.”
“Ah, that's right Grom. You didn't get to do much back at the dungeon, did you? Sorry about that, you need to get stronger too so you can kill your sister, right?”
“Aye lass.. Aye.” Grom says, his eyes narrowing. It is fascinating how a few words can affect someone. Just the word sister can elicit such a reaction from Grom... he is completely in serious mode now.
Not 猫耳モード although he is my しもべww.
In the distance, I can hear the rattling of bones, the clacking of jaws and the grinding of joints rubbing together unnaturally in what can only be called a cacophonous caucus of boners.
Ahen.
It seems the battle is upon us, and I must prepare myself accordingly. The grinding sounds of the boner-kun army has reminded me of my third class, necromancer! It's extremely cool, you know? But still, I am slightly troubled because of all the fleshlings around me. They might not be able to appreciate the greatness of having skeleton minions.
Well, first things first, I summon Raven-chan and her lieutenants as well as Elishmael my hot fire elemental and my lovely rape demon **cough** I mean Zan the cool, sulfuric acid dropping demon of lava soda streams. Yes.
Raven-chan opens hear beak and lets out a kaa kaa, call to battle. I notice that there are 12 ravens with yellow eyes surrounding my big, bad red eyed Raven-chan GPS. Nice, the black raven-chan squad is looking mighty fine.
It won't be long now until I can cover the skies with ravens and they can pluck out the eyes of my enemies and bring them to me, so I can eat them like finger grapes. Nummy nummy! Drool is overflowing just at the thought of popping a juicy eye into my mouth.
Fufufu, this army of mine is cool as fuck.
Alyce-chan is definitely extremely cool too, alright?!
From my head to my toes, I am tingling with excitement because I have 6 new spells to try. The trouble is that I don't know if I should summon my skellies or not given how my allies are made of flesh and hate boners.
The inner struggle is brief, and of course it's the 100% victory of the overloli. Nobody cares what the pathetic fleshlings think. This is Alyce-chan dictatorship, alright? That's why, obey your overloli and come!
This time it's not boner boner go away.
Instead, it's boner boner come this way, okay? Goddamn it!
I summon them.
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I start with skeleton warriors. I have to say, it looks weird. First, some bones appear out of thin air, and then they swirl and put themselves together into a skeleton warrior complete with sword and shield. The mystery of magic. It's definitely system-chan being weird again here. For sure. When in doubt, blame system-chan.
My summon skeleton is only level 1, so I don't really know how many I can summon, or if this is it. Doesn't hurt to try, I guess. So I keep summoning.
Turns out I can summon 8 skeleton warriors in total. They don't always spawn with swords, some of them have spears and some have axes, but they all have shields like tanks. That's good. Frontliners have to have shields. That's a no brainer.
I sense unrest among the plebs and glance over to see the soldiers making a fuss. Sebastian is talking to them and doing a lot of hand waving. For a moment, he fooled me into thinking he was italian with just how much he is gesticulating and flailing his arms. Well, the butlerman is reliable in this kind of situation, so let's leave it up to him.
Besides, if the soldiers turn on me, I can kill them and eat them.... hmmm. No, stop that! Don't contemplate turning on your allies before the battle. I have to use them as sacrificial pawns against the boner-kun forces. Then I can eat them. It doesn't matter how they die, but it's best to put them to good use. Alyce-chan should not be wasteful with her food. Efficiency is important.
Next up is the Skeleton Archers. I was worried that 8 was the maximum limit for all my skellies, but it seems I can also summon 8 skeleton archers. They all come with longbows and a quiver of arrows, and they also have a leather belt with a dagger in it. I don't know how this summoning magic works, but it sure is mysterious. I can summon something from nothing like a God. Fufufu, I knew it all along. Alyce-chan is not just an overloli, but a god! Tehehe.
I wonder if their weapons despawn once they die, or if I can use this to exploit the system and get money so that I can buy unlimited honeycakes for me and Tie'sha.
I file that thought away in the back of my mind cabinet and summon the last of my skellie trifecta, the boner mages.
Honestly, they remind me of skeleton mages from Diablo.
Their hands are glowing different colors like red or blue depending on what element they can use. When I look closely, I can see that they are clutching strange orbs in their hands. Kind of cool.
It seems the soldiers are moving. A very important looking mustache with a man attached, is approching me with a frown on his face and his sword drawn. Backing him up is a group of 5 soldiers. But really, the mustache is huge. I can just see him twirling it and going oooooooooh. Perhaps he is allied to the master of the butt, sebastian.
He stops infront of my skeleton army and clears his throat, looking over at me. It's kind of cute how he is trying to appear serious and composed even though he is evidently quite nervous. Ehehe.
“Ahem. I take it you are Lady Alyce.” The mustache says.
“You take it correctly!” I say, giving him a smile and shooting him with the Alyce-chan beam. He is frozen for a moment, no doubt surprised by the sudden attack of the overloli beam. Fufufu, fall to my beam.
He once more clears his throat, his face a little bit red. “We-well then. Do you intend to attack us with those skeletons?” The man asks.
Maybe he is slightly retarded.
A cute slightly retarded closet homosexual that likes to say ooooh, and twirl his mustache? Although I haven't confirmed the oooh yet, it is but a hunch of mine, and of course my hunches are always correct, you know? Cocking my head to one side, I reply “No? And if I was, I would certainly not tell you, would I. What is the point of that question? The Lich army is almost here so go back and prepare your men. I'm also going to fight them, you know?” I say.
The mustachio meistro takes a few seconds to process my words. “How... how will we know which skeletons are yours and which belong to the enemy?” The man says. Glacing over at my boners, I notice that they do look a little bit generic. Uhh, that is certainly a valid concern. They are not like Zan or Elishmael or Raven-chan. They look a bit too factory production-liney but there is not much I can do about it.
They do have magnificent white calcium filled bones though. They definitely do, you know? My skeletons are strong! There's no way they have osteoporosis or crippling depression okay? Goddamn it!
The dubious oooh mustachio twirling closet man is still waiting for my answer, so I cock my head and HNNNG think really fast. I use the super Alyce-chan special parallel thought processing technique to come up with a master plan. Such a meagre obstacle is no bar to my path! The will of the overloli triumphs over all, even the gravest of odds shall be overturned by the Alyce-chan beam. This time, it was the triumph of my superior overloli parallel thought processing.
“Grom, Frodo baggins please.” I say, holding out my hand. Grom almost instantly replies and hands me the Corneliáves bag and I waste no time in fishing out exactly what I need from within its mysterious depths.
Fufufu, yes. With this, my skeletons will be unique.
As for what articles of clothing I pull from the bag? It's my socks, of course. You see, I packed many many pairs of cute long socks because I love long socks. What kind of overloli does not have long socks! Don't be ridiculous!
So yes, I pull out my long socks. “See, they came in handy.” I say to no one in particular. Tie'sha is all the way in the back with the pathetic weak adventurer kids, but it was her who objected. She kept saying 'my lady, you don't need to pack so many socks' but lo and behold, Alyce-chan the overloli was correct after all! Fufufu, I am a mastermind, you know?
Ahen.
Yes.
So basically, while Mustache man and Grom is watching with their mouthes half open, I unpack my socks and roll them onto the heads of my skeletons. It definitely does not remind me of rolling a condom onto a boner. This is very different, alright?! There's definitely nothing sexual about putting socks on some boners, okay? Goddamnit!
Although Tie'sha would probably beg to differ. That secret lesbianism is definitely also hiding a foot fetish somewhere in her closet.
Let's find out later.
Ahen.
So yeah. It took me awhile, but I finally finished putting socks on my skellies. I tried to match the color to the mages, but I didn't pack many red socks. The pink socks had to substitute. But I had enough blue socks for the ice skeletons.
The warriors got white socks, and the archers got black socks.
“Fufufu, this is a masterful plan, is it not!? Behold the genius of Alyce-chan!” I say as I gesture to my amazingly wonderful army of sock boners.
After an awkward moment of silence, Mustache man closes his mouth and turns back, walking away without a word.
Grom chuckles quietly.
My face turns red.
I clench my fists. “It's a good plan! It makes sense!” I say, stomping my foot and pouting up at him. How dare he mock my brilliant master plan.
“Sure lass, sure. It be a brilliant idea.” Grom says. The bastard, this time I can clearly tell that he is trying to not laugh! He doesn't even have diarrhea! How unabashed. Don't you know you're not allowed to make fun of the overloli or else I will punish you severely and step on your face, dog.
Let's step on Grom later.
For now, there is a battle of boners to contend with and so I have to postpone my punishment of Grom. Seriously, the dept of my minions is starting to stack up. I might have to spend many sleepless nights punishing them to make up for all the lost time. But I wonder if I will ever have enough time to slowly enjoy the punishments like that?
Certainly not while bonerlord Lars rick still roams these lands pretending to rule over them. What a false king. The only true queen of these lands is the overloli.
Yes.
Alyce-chan will go and let him know who the boss is right now.
The time has come. My powerlevel has risen a lot, and I am a mythic level monster. There is no way that a stupid Arch lich can be my opponent.
In the distance over yonder, where the soldiers are blocking the road, I suddenly hear a shout. Then swords and shields clash. It seems the first line of skellies from the Arch lich has arrived.
Grom is already charging over, clearly earger to get some kills in, but I don't really feel like joining the fray with small fry like that, so I wait and organize my troops.
There's a lot of grunting, shouting and clashing of blades, but the soldiers seem to be holding their ground well. Especially now that Grom is over there with them. Secretly, I order Raven-chan and her squad to fly above and make sure Grom is safe. I allow them to do some airstrikes from above and harass the enemy.
But still, since this is a hill I can't really get a good look at what's happening. All I hear is a lot of noise but the battle is definitely raging.
Suddenly, a chill sweeps over the land and the sky grows dark. I can hear a faint, unintelligble whispering in the wind and it is enough to send a chill down my spine.
Right after that, a group of skeleton warriors appear out of nowhere right behind the frontline.
Mustache is panicking, but this is my time to shine.
I order my sock boners to attack and engage the enemy skeletons. Let's do this! Boner against boner, who has the strongest boner?! It's Alyce-chan of course.
Ahen.
My warriors with white socks on their heads slash and block and fight quite well. I think the stat boost from my summoning magick skill and my special talent is working well. The mages and archers support from the back, picking off the Arch lich skeletons one by one with fireballs or arrows through the skull. My squad is fantastic! Not a single casualty and yet they are crushing the enemy.
Soon, there is nothing left of the ambush, and my skeletons still stand strong. I didn't even have to cast a single spell.
Well, I am reluctant to go to the edge and start attacking with magic since I will just get dizzy, so I hang back and wait.
The frontline is holding, but a few of the fleshling soldiers have been stabbed. None have died yet unfortunately, and the wounded are being transported to the back where Áithne is healing them. I need to acquire her for my coven so she doesn't waste her talent on meaningless things like keeping NPCs alive.
I might as well send out Elishmael and Zan. I place my fire elemental on the side of the cliff like a turret. It's funny. Almost like I am playing a tower defense game. Anyway, Elishmael starts raining hell down upon the boner-kun army and Zan joins Raven-chan in her fly-by attacks.
The temperature in the surroundings continue to drop lower and lower, and the skies grow darker still. The skeletons don't stop coming, and the frontline of NPC soldiers is beginning to get exhausted. Grom is still there though, so they are holding on. Ah, it seems the redheaded swordsman kenshin impersonator has joined as well. He is cool, as expected.
Suddenly, I feel a huge amount of mana accumulating below. Something is coming.
A terrible rattling noise rings out, like someone is playing a thousand ribcages with drumsticks.
At the edge of cliff richards, on either side of the frontline, I see white bone growths suddenly appear.
Oh cool, it's a road of bone. A stairway of boners. For the boners, by the boners! Rise up!
Lich-chan is marching troops up those bone constructions like they are siege towers... and more and more of those stairways appear all along the edge.
As one, I see skeletons appearing on the horizon, like a huge wall of white skellies walking on air. There are even some mage skeletons here and there.
It's my time to shine. The frontline will be decimated if I let this go on for much longer, so I command my skeletons to battle. “Go! Show them the true power of Alyce-chan!” I say, and my sock boner squad begins they fight.
For my part, I start casting some conflagrate, darkbolts and throwing out some howling curses of weakness. Fufufu, I'm racking up the kills! But still, just how high is this damn bonerlord's skill with skeletons to be able to summon so many. It's ridiculous and they just keep coming.
I'm not complaining though, since it's easy exp. Although they probably don't give me much considering how weak they are. I'm really destroying them left right and center.
There is a lull in the fighting, as the boners stop coming. Half of my skeletons are down, so I take the opportunity to raise them back up. Luckily they retain their sock-helmets.
But it really is strange though. Why did the attack stop? Did Lich lord Lars rick realize my amazing power and run away? That can't be. He's a stupid boner, so of course he will keep attacking me, right?
Yup, turns out I was right. Suddenly, spikes of ice erupt from the ground and skewer the frontliners. Once I've confirmed that Grom is fine, I turn my eyes to the skies because I feel an ominous blanket of mana covering the area.
The sky is full of glittering icy spikes raining down. It's a rain of deadly icicles.
Eh, that looks like a pain in the ass to get hit by and my water/ice resistance is in the minus. It's my weakness. Why is the fucking skeleton using my weakest element against me!? Stupid boner.
Alyce-chan uses her quick paralell thought processing to come up with a master plan.
[Greater Firewall]
Yes, I rely on my trusty firewall. I focus my mind and imagine the firewall appearing not vertically, but horizontally like a giant roof over me. I even extend it to cover the frontliners. Most of them are dead from the ice spikes, but Grom is there.
Mana rushes out of me as I stretch my hands out to the skies. Starting over me, the fire spreads with a roar and suddenly, the sky is on fire. I focus on making my fire thick and hot and burning! バーニング！
A moment later, I hear a loud hissing sound and steamy mist erupts, covering the area with white smokey smoke hot steam.
It's very cool, but I can't see anything at all. I wish I had wind magic to blow it away. I could use another firewall to burn the steamy smoke away, but that seems like a waste. I think I have to conserve my mana to fight with the Arch Lich. It seems he has some big AoE attacks up his sleeve.
Ah, I wish I had some huge AoE attacks like that as well, like rain of fire or something. I must learn later! Absolutely.
I widen my eyes and try to peer through the mists covering the battlefield. Near the frontline I see a towering shadow approaching the remaining frontliners. They shrink back from it. The shadow is even taller than Grom, and almost as wide. I can see a huge staff in its hand.
There is no doubt in my mind. That is definitely the main boner.
It is my chance. My chance to take revenge for Lintball, for Weimar, for interrupting my feast of honeycakes and nearly killing my meat pie.
“Grom, Hal, everyone fall back!” I shout to the remaining soldiers. Mustache is still standing, as is Sebastian. It looks like they still have some fight in them, but apparently they have recognized their overloli as the supreme commander, because they obediently retreat like good minions.
Excellent.
Now it is Alyce-chan's turn. I will show them the ultimate coolness.
Thinking that, I walk over to the towering shadow.
It raises its staff and the rams it into the ground, and all of the white mist evaporates to reveal the biggest skeleton I have ever seen in my life.
A dark silken mantle covers it shoulders and streams down its back like a huge cape, and it's wearing something like a black kilt. Its' ribcage is exposed, and in that ribcage there are 13 floating, sickly green orbs.
I look up, way way up, into the skeletons face.
Pale green orbs stare down at me, smoke flowing from its eyesockets.
“You...” It says, in a very deep, gravelly voice.
“Me.” I say, pulling the incinerator wand from my belt. Comparing my small wand to the huge staff of the skeleton lich, I can't help but think that lars rick is compensating for something.
But now is not the time for jokes.
Now is the time for the showdown.
Holding my wand delicately betwixt my fingers, I gesture to the skeleton to come at me.
The Arch lich clacks its jaws and lets out a deep hiss, a whisper of death.
Then it raises its staff.