When he woke up his whole body ached. His mana had run dry after his fight last night, and not to mention his broken arm. ‘Wait, my arm feels fine,’ Bradley thought to himself.
He sat up to find that it was daytime. His arm was in a sling, and he stumbled outside.
He found the engineers reinforcing the fences, and setting up the hose. Squad 1 was stationed next to the working engineers, and half of Squad 2 was here as well. Bradley looked towards the corridor and noticed it stretched a lot further.
The girl who had buffed him noticed him first, “Sir Bradley, you’re alright!” Bradley stretched, “About as good as I can be, I went through mana withdrawal or something. Status!” Bradley noticed he was level three now. Having fought a wolf basically by himself gave him a ton of experience. His overall stat pool was all in the double digits, and his mana had grown a surprising amount. He also noticed a title, “First to Slay a Wolf! - 20% damage penetration to all wolf type monsters.”
“Ahh I need to thank you, what’s your name?” “Name’s Kelly Bertrum, glad to have been of use. Ben told me when to use each skill, so I’m glad I listened right. I noticed magic wasn’t doing much.”
Bradley smiled, “After the water station is set up would you like to join Squad 0?” The girl hesitated, but Bradley spoke up, “As your role is a supporter you would either be in the back or the center depending on the safest place in the formation. You would save lives. I won’t pressure you now, but keep it in mind.” Bradley jogged off towards Squad 0.
Bradley had been jogging for a while and still didn’t see them, but he deconstructed and deposited all the corpses into his inventory. His crystal count skyrocketed, and found wolves gave him a tier 2 spell crystal. ‘Boosts spell level when used through the crystal and reduces cost of mana. The buffs caused by it collecting its own mana over time.’ Bradley thought to himself, ‘So if it has enough time to collect mana it can increase a spell's damage or ability, otherwise it would function just like a tier 1 crystal.’
Bradley smiled, realizing that maybe with this and his title he could blast a wolf in the face with no danger. He continued to move towards the crowd slowly becoming visible. They managed to already set up a perimeter past the halfway point and all the way to the road.
“Hey guys, could someone catch me up to speed?” Ben quickly turned around and ran up to Bradley, “You guys continue with what I drew out, and if you have any questions ask Devin. I’ll be back in a sec.”
Ben hugged Bradley, “You crazy bastard! What were you thinking?”
Bradley shrugged, “I don’t want the engineers or Squad 2 to die. That is what I thought.” Ben slumped, “I was expecting a better reaction from you, anyways, you owe your life to Don and Kathy, so make sure to thank them. Kathy kept spamming her area heal, and Don kept giving her more magic.”
Bradley thought for a moment, “How did she do in the fight against the goblins?” Ben thought about it, “She dispatched quite a few, made sure to block and support when needed. Why?”
“Because she was a prissy secretary and now after some basic combat training she can kill, and strategize like her class needs her to. Isn’t that a bit odd? I was thinking everyone was adapting really easily, including myself. Like I don’t really think I’m the type of guy to put my life on the line that recklessly.”
Ben thought about it for a second, “It’s probably part of the system so we survive better. Like a basic subconscious tutorial or something.”
Bradley just shrugged it off, “What level are you now?”
Ben smiled, “I’m already level 2 after fighting off so many goblins. Most of squad 0 is now except for Betty, who seems to struggle a bit with getting her fair share of xp since she can’t kill goblins easily.”
Bradley smiled wide, “I may have risked my life but I guess it’s worth it, I’m level 3 now. Bragging rights fucker.” Ben smiled too, “I hope your stat boost was worth it, did you get any new skills?” Bradley scrolled through his system, “Magic Combinator, seems like it can combine low tier magic into mid-low tier magic.”
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Ben thought for a moment, “Wouldn’t it be funny if you combined Grease and Firebolt to create a Greasefire?”
Bradley thought about smacking him when he realized a damaging long range grease wouldn’t be half bad. “Magic Combinator! Grease! Firebolt! Greasefire!” Bradley fell over, after exhausting his mana again. “Damnit, I didn’t look at the mana cost of that. Withdraw 4!”
Bradley pulled out a charged crystal and filled himself up using it, in hopes it would be enough for now. He stood back up and went to check on the group’s progress. “Good work everyone! I’m proud of how well you guys worked together last night, and Kathy and Don, thank you for the recovery. I owe you guys my life. After this mission, I’ll upgrade your weapons to have a spell in it. And Devin, do you know how to circulate mana yet? You can’t even use your spear’s crystal yet.” Devin sighed, “Sorry Bradley, I think I’m close, but something just feels a bit off. I’ll keep at it.”
Bradley sighed and changed the topic, “The layout of the fences is smart. After dealing with that wolf, the more fences against these tall ass trees the better. Good job getting back to the vehicle already as well. I thought the widened corridor would make it difficult but it seems like it wasn’t.”
Bradley looked around for any sign of a goblin, “Did you guys have too much trouble with goblins today?” Kathy spoke up, “Nope, it seems like there was only a small group in the area, and we scared the hell out of em.”
Bradley nodded, and began to help the crew. After a few hours passed, the station was set up. The trucks were pulled in, and filled up with water, “Each time we fill up these trucks our whole squad will have to be deployed just in case. I don’t think that the goblins will mess with our fencing when we aren’t here, but we’ll have to be careful and be ready for both wolves, and any broken segment of fence. I imagine most of our missions will just be to increase our water supply or to start hunting down more food.”
Bradley walked over to Ben, “When we get back tonight we are gonna try goblin and wolf meat and figure out how edible they are. I have a feeling that’s our best option, and you’re the best cook I know so I’ll leave my tastebuds’ lives to you.” Ben shook at the thought, but agreed.
The engineers quickly finished up afterwards, and they all managed to return with no visible injuries. Kelly was brought back in the Squad 0 vehicle as she agreed to join the team. “Ben, good job telling her when to use her buffs, she saved my ass.” Ben smiled, “I was already thinking of recruiting her to Squad 0 too, so good pick.”
“Alright everyone, the siege is in two weeks now. Most days I imagine we will be guarding water tank trucks, and training. I’ll try to make sure we all hit level three by then, or at least get your skills leveled up a decent amount. I don’t know how this siege is going to work, but from here on out, I want each Squad 0 member to begin leading other Squads. We need more squads to even have a chance at succeeding. Squad 1 needs more members too. We’ve kind’ve taken all their aces and put them on Squad 0, so I think it’s fair we begin training more old Squads and integrating them into our ranks. Otherwise it would be like 30 people against an entire horde that we don’t know the size or composition of.”
With that, their first mission was completed. They returned, trained, guarded water, and even managed to convince USDC to allow all their other squads to undergo training. No other company offered any men however, instead they just tried to offer money, and the dumbass HM accepted, leaving us with only about 200 soldiers, 140 of which were classless.
None of the others had unique enough classes to be moved to Squad 0. Squad 1-6 expanded to 10 members each, allowing for the creation of a generally balanced group based on a similar class structure as Squad 0 withless experience and special classes. Squad 7-10 were Squads of 35 Classless each, all armed with modified guns, and using higher level magic bullets.
Their timer before they ran out grew from just a single day to several as Bradley focused on leveling it up desperately. Similar to how the objects needed mana proportional to their size, mana decay is similar. So an arrow or spear lasts much less than a bullet.
The siege quickly approached, as each Squad 0 personnel reached level 3-5, and all Squads 1-6 personnel reached level 2 or 3. Squads 7-10 all leveled up their stats through vigorous training if they couldn’t get enough xp to level up.
The water situation was handled, and would be fine for up to two weeks after the start of the siege, and the food situation was balanced out somewhat by the goblin corpses that were skinned and sent out as a different kind of meat. They had about two weeks of supplies for the general populace and about a month for those in the USDC or other Corps.
The Corp groups met in secret, and drafted a large number of down-trodden citizenry, and said that if they survived their sentence would be revoked. All they told them was that they needed to shout Status to gain their abilities if they haven’t yet and that they had skills so figure it out. While the USDC Squads prepared to face off against the wave in the comfort of the USDC company sector, over a hundred thousand citizens were forced outside the walls at gunpoint. They were forcibly conscripted in hopes that their deaths and feeble attempts at success would make the siege easier.