Now Roberion had serious doubts of being with the fiznaults sometime in the future. Their culture was confusing. Roberion didn’t see anything wrong with peace, but he agreed that being weak in times of peace could bite someone later.
He remembered the promise he made after fighting the wildcats, Percival, as his witness. Remembering the knight, he was reminded that the capybara was talking with the kids, and probably with his belly full of food, there was no way Percival know what was happening now, so the faster way to summon him was by deactivating and activating again, he wasn’t fighting yet so it should work; he needed all the help he could get so he deactivated it.
Even though it was just some days ago, it seemed a little childish, but power and freedom still seemed to be his priorities. Still, everything showed that he had much to learn. He needed to know more, to live more. What was power? What was freedom?
It didn’t matter, in this situation he only had to do this challenge and win a reward. At first he thought all was a joke, but the talk he had with the old couple and seeing the fiznaults situation showed that this was a weird topic to joke about.
It was time to bite the bullet.
“Hello, my name is Roberion, it’s nice to meet you. What is this talk about reward?”
“It seems like you two didn’t tell him with who he was talking with. For you, it’s General Kannon, and we will talk about rewards when you finish your task”, said Kannon without losing her posture.
Great. Someone full of themselves. Still, being treated badly with some rewards was better than being a slave, so better to play the part. For now, thought Roberion quickly.
“Yes, General Kannon. How would I achieve this task? What is the rules? Where do I need to go? Do I need to fight all of them at onc—”
“STOP! You will do as ordered. Some curiosity is fine, but look too much at a solar star and you get blind.”
“As I want to see what you can do with little interference, fast, and without hindering the fight of the other fizznaults. You will fight there”, Kannon said with resolution, pointing just some distance ahead, where only burned soil remained.
“To make it interesting, we will make a proportional reward. The more undead you defeat, the better the reward.”
“The number of undead you will fight you increase, doubling each time, until you are too weak to fight or too wounded,” Roberion noticed the little grinning she did on the last word, it seems she was a little sadistic.
“Wait, let me deal with these undead first.”, the undead horde seemed like a alarm from ticking clock coming each time a few minutes elapsed. General Kannon killed them like they were dirty to be cleaned, swiftly and easily.
“Alright, so prepare yourself, each horde. I will let the right number of undead for you to fight, so go forward until you are the first to encounter them. If I see you doing stupid attempts at circumventing the rules, wounds would be the least of your worries.”
Roberion ignored Kannon threats, he wasn’t so dumb as to try to be cheeky, wouldn’t it be nice if she found him funny and helped him become a flame guy like her?! No way in hell that would happen, this is his reality, and the smell of burning corpses was here to make he remember that. He doubted even this fire protection spell could save him from her.
Roberion would be lying if he wasn’t curious to see how she did that. Killing only a certain quantity of undead seemed way harder than killing all of them outright. Though killing wouldn’t be the right word, as they were undead, maybe elimination. But he didn’t know much about them. Maybe there was more to the undead than met the eye.
Roberion prepared himself, activating the die. The result was…Percival again.
“Sorry Percival, we are short on time. There is a challenge for us. Each time we kill a number of undead, the next group will be double that number. When will it stop? When I can’t fight anymore. But honestly, let’s play it by the ear, we will be rewarded in the end”, he takes a glance at Kannon and spoke softly, “If things get bad, let’s use the fellworm strategy. We don’t have more toys, but we will figure something out”.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Kannon didn’t seem to show any emotion during their conversation. The old couple, though, got confuse.
“Sir, take this shield. I will make do with the rapier.”
“No, Percival, I will run around like hell and be the support. You will do the melee.”
“Understood Sir!”, Percival understood the hidden meaning.
A minute later, the undead were approaching. During this minute, Roberion noticed that a long way to his right, the fiznaults were fighting the undead. It was curious why the killing of the undead was so uniform here, like a zone of death. Now he knew that it wasn’t only Kannon work, it was a team effort.
The fiznaults controlled one side of the horde, the other side the enormous body of water somewhat repelled the undead that evaded going into the water. This gave an apparent line of targets for Kannon to do her work.
Enough of musings. It was time for Roberion to see what these undead can do, and how Kannon would accomplish such a specific challenge.
Smelling already the weird smell of the undead, a surge of flames encompassed them. As the flame vanished, only dust remained, or so he thought. To his left, an undead continued his march. Seeing that a now clear path was made, the creature ran diagonally, targeting Percival.
The capybara knight didn’t show any sign of fear, just keeping his ground. He wanted for Roberion to get a clear view of what an undead could do.
Nearing the knight, the undead attacked, with its long fingernails trying to claw on the unprotected section of the capybara’s face. The attack was fast; it was just slower than the panther they fought before. As the claw hit Percival’s shield, Roberion noticed the power of the attack. The capybara didn’t move, but the shield got nearer his body.
Percival did a counterattack, evading to the side of the beast and lunging straight to the beast’s shoulder. He needed to take his time in this exchange. This first wave was a lesson for them about the undead.
The creature’s shoulder endured a little, but the attack penetrated completely. Rapier going all out to the other side, without delay, Percival took out the rapier and dashed a small distance from the undead.
Dark purple blood started to seep from the wound, showing a viscosity not normally seem on the beasts they fought, neither the humanoids. Not showing any sign of pain, the undead attacked again, this time using its healthy arm, Percival just deflected the attack. The undead followed with its damaged arm, unaware that it was unusable. The result was just a weird shrug.
That was happy news for Roberion. The undead seemed to have low intellect, using simple tactics would work against them.
I wonder what the system would rate them, 1 stats in intelligence? Zero didn’t see right, but why couldn’t the system have like 0,05 intelligence or something? That seems like an oversight… Yes, Percival, let’s see how he will move with only one leg... Anyway, that answers how they can make this production line of undead’s dust. They said about a group of kids killing them; it was before or after they stopped training—
“It’s better if you tell the fur ball to stop playing with its food. That is only the start of the banquet.”, Kannon said in the distance, clearly using some function of the device to increase its volume.
Percival didn’t need an order, plunging the rapier deep into the creature’s heart. Before the horde continued their suicidal march, Roberion looked at how the creature still seemed alive, even without its heart, but its movement was limited, only being contractions as the next undead neared.
The wave of flames did its work again, their last undead enemy cremated with them as Percival came back. This time Roberion couldn’t see either how Kannon did that, if he had a better position to look at…But he didn’t, better focus on what he can do.
The next confrontation was the same, Percival already dealing a blow to the heart of one of the creatures, and doing his own test of the remaining one. Roberion focused his observation on the fallen one. Even as the blood left the creature, he could see that it seemed to recover little by little. The regeneration wasn’t great as the gecko he fought in the river, but was better than his for sure.The blood loss, though, was too much for the creature, ceasing all movement a few minutes later.
Looking at the remaining creature, he could only see with curiosity the morbid sight of the undead squirming on the ground, trying to bite the capybara. This time Percival finished it with a thrust to the head, the impact showering the capybara with bone fragments and brain matter at his feet. The creature ceased all movement completely after the blow.
“Percival, I will try to deal with two of these guys next. Try to see how they react when you damage their spine.”
“Alright Sir, near the head and lower back, would be satisfactory?
“It would, thanks Percival.”
The capybara didn’t show any signs of a new enchantment, but all his attributes saw a significant improvement. The knight would for sure have a good chance of fighting one on one with the panther from before without the need of explosives. Sadly, the panther would still have the upper hand.
As the flames vanished, the next round would begin. It was finally time for Roberion to enter the brawl.