The same smell of decay wafted towards him from all over the city as from the sinkhole itself. A sweet putrefaction mixed with a pungent smell of mold tickled his nostrils and this, despite his leather mask, covered his mouth and nose.
How much stronger could the smell be without his protection? One of the few things that wasn't on his list of things to do. The streets were teeming with swaying figures that could be seen in the distance.
The gate itself was horribly furrowed, as if innumerable sharp-edged weapons were brushing across it. It must have given way under immense pressure. He didn't even have to go any further to know what the crowds were in it. Why did he choose this river to begin his journey? Did he really want to avoid running into Lark so badly? The letter of recommendation from Sam could certainly be redeemed at every guild branch of the mercenaries.
But does this guild still exist? At least the city was noisy. With a little luck I should be able to find someone.
The moment he averted his gaze from the overrun city, another quest appeared right in front of his eyes, causing him to immediately start cursing.
[System: Clean up the undead infestation. Beware, their army grows with every passing minute that people die in their presence. They join their species under the cloth of the corpses.]
[System: 50% cleaned. Your equipment looks slightly outdated, replaces your existing set by using it as a basis, expanding its enchantments and quality to your current needs.]
[System: 75% cleaned. Not enough space? Maybe they have a passion for collecting things after all. Extends your dimensional memory by another 60 cubic meters, whereby your body and soul-bound memory gains a lot more space. This will allow your collection to grow.]
[System: 100% cleaned. Mana Swing skill. The system picked up her passion for research. But who wants to wait when he can fly instead of running tonight?]
How much misery could a person have?
Why did he keep running into troublesome business? Well, in this case the whole thing was hideously his fault, too. Presumably the water pushed the entrance to his staircase system into the sinkhole, making it easy for these undead to escape. Hardly could he imagine that there was still a way out of the hole itself, apart from the fact that they might have climbed the walls?
“Bloody bullshit! No. Do I really have to? No. I do not want to."
Leica didn't even stare at him reproachfully. If it were up to her, he thought she would just go and he himself didn't want anything more than just turn back. What he perceived as a misfortune, however, was always seen by the people of this world as an opportunity to prove himself worthy of the gods, and it also offered a direct way out of their poverty. These tasks were still a rarity in this world. At least that was what he had already learned from his experience.
On the other hand, he was languishing for the rewards. How could he have acted but stared at the rewards? The system played with its wishes again. He knew it! No, it knew exactly what it was longing for. Magna didn't even have to hide his own greed. Deep down he knew what he wanted and he really wanted these things! In addition, the new storage facility almost corresponded to a 40ft shipping container!
"Oh damn shit! Who am I kidding - the rewards alone are generous enough apart from the that the whole shit somehow grew on my shit" the fact convinced himself to intervene, even if greed itself was more his motivation.
He patted Leica's fur when he began to speak again.
"What do you think? You don't have to take part if you don't want to!" he said with as much indulgence in his voice as he could muster.
For a moment, Leica even seemed to consider the question before giving him a simple nod. But before he could react, her shape shrank slightly, which now made him feel a lot more like on a pony. Well, a wolf the size of a pony was still impressive enough.
As if out of nowhere, two wings rose from its sides. Their wings began to flap gently, shimmering in the sunlight, as black as a metallic shimmer. Then he held onto her fur a little tighter than usual. But she just hardened the fur around his legs and tied him tightly to her. No matter what happened, falling down was no longer an option.
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Before he uttered a scream, they were both in the air unexpectedly, he let his gaze wander over the city. Houses and other facilities were burning everywhere.
But, contrary to expectations, the city had not yet fallen. In the distance, he could finally see an ongoing battle with his own eyes.
After they landed on the 15 meter and 2 meter wide wall, he could easily see why that was the case, because the innermost area of the city also had a wall itself! Not as high as the outer wall, but still there. In terms of design, they were quite similar. It could well be that the second was added with the expansion of the city. There on the weirs he could see fire. Archers, magicians, people who poured boiling pitch or oil on the undead. But up to that point the interior of the city was filled to the brim with the living dead who had surrounded it. The end of this last bastion was only a matter of time!
Before he thought of doing anything in town, he jumped from Leica's back onto the wall, from which he threw a look in front of and behind the walls, with a slight nod he followed his thoughts. Not even a moment later the ground began to sink in front of and behind the gates. When the environment was deformed, the mana just gushed out of him so that anyone with a few eyes in his head could perceive the changes in the air.
In front of the gate, behind the gate, deep trenches opened up, which were closed with the walls. He repeated this at all gates that are on the outer wall, because if the dead left this, then their masses would gather there first. He really didn't have to pay for a couple of his napalm balls in the trenches. Inwardly, he only hoped that fire really was the answer to not life, but as much as the city's residents knew how to defend themselves with fire, it had to be something, didn't it?
Of course, a flying wolf with someone on it did not go undetected, which he noticed not least because people on the inner wall of the city pointed their fingers at him. All the attention made him feel extremely uncomfortable. Not least because he has always disliked being the center of attention. He had this natural aversion to too much of anything. Maybe it was a holdover from his school days when he never got enough attention? Not everyone wanted to give clown to classes forever, and he wasn't a bloody hero either. Naive idiots had been just as repugnant to him, because he certainly didn't care for these people out of pure kindness or charity, but because he wanted the things from the quest and after that he would look for a cozy place.
The undead also began to pay attention to his actions. Some even broke away from the seemingly endless sea of their numbers, whereupon they began to stumble on the gates. Was it ironic that their ranks were interspersed with countless lizardmen? All were equal in death, it came into his mind unintentionally. It made him shake his head sadly. Always at the most inopportune moments, proverbs had to wander through his head. Since he was born again in this world, he was still the same and yet not the same. He was all too aware that no matter where you went, you always took yourself with you and that nonsense of evolving could never hide the dark truth that all are still the sum of their parts.
Finally he had to banish these thoughts because as one of his favorite characters used to say it was time for a proper barbecue!
Unfortunately, there wasn't much left to the bones that he could roast, apart from the rotten, wet meat. Water corpses, converted water corpses it was!
His gaze turned to the increasingly crowded walls. Would he have got the quest even if no one was alive or would he have got it regardless of where he came across the hordes? Had all these people been given a job too? Was that why they were still in town? Did they think they could fend off and cash in an army of the walking dead?
Without further hesitation, he flew in the direction of the city center, keeping a suitable distance from the inner wall so that he did not get caught in the crossfire, which from there incessantly pelted the masses of water corpses below the wall. It was only then that he noticed that the undead were unevenly distributed throughout the city. This place was not the only one besieged, it was simply the center of attention of the corpses. All over the city there were barricaded areas in which people were still struggling to survive.
A circling flight around the center along the walls appeared dozens of his modified napalm bombs which demanded a lot more than the skill itself. Before the defenders could guess what was going to happen next, the blue glowing balls fell from the sky before bursting just above the undead masses and showering them with a real rain of fire that could not be easily shaken off. Running burning torches lit more of their kind, which led to a quick chain reaction, which he with oxygenated air, which he drove between their ranks with the help of wind magic, the fire only further spurred these creatures to send back to the hell from which they crawled.
An awesome shock swept over the entire fortification in the city center, which soon turned into an obvious jubilation. Of course, he couldn't destroy an army of the undead with it, but he could thin the lines along the walls so the defenders could take a deep breath.
Immediately afterwards, a performance indicator began to fill up with percentages. But it didn't even hit the double digits. The obituaries were negligible, too. Due to their fairly manageable level, which rarely went beyond the first evolution, they gave almost no experience at all. Their danger lay presumably in their more than opulent numbers with steady growth potential. His mana supplies weren't endless either, and with their numbers they could simply run over him, provided he wasn't floating in the air on Leica's back. At some point they would have forced him down with the compulsion to join them in their unsteady routine.
Still in the air, he wondered if he should help the encircled people, but they weren't really his problem. As hard as it may sound, once in a lifetime you have to learn not to interfere with other people's problems. He had to learn every lesson in life the hard way. Any botched friendship, relationship, and even being robbed by people whom you offered shelter for one night when you should have known better. He was not a saint, not a hero, felt no urge to anyone else besides having to prove something to himself or begging for approval from others. He had left hero stories behind for a long time. With each hero, villains followed, and the collateral damage done by a single hero in the name of the good was sure to ruin entire families. It would be ridiculous to be able to tick a box for hero damage with an insurance company, regardless of whether an insurance company even carried it! No. Glorification of heroism or other naive nonsense was more than repugnant to him! In every world there was only one thing that existed and that was interests.
Presumably they were even one of the decisive reasons why the city center was not overrun yet, because the masses were better distributed within the city.
If he helped them, it was from above. With the Leica under him, he flew some of the hot areas where fighting was taking place in the city. On the one hand there was the local mercenary guild, which together with the monster hunter guild held a barracks, which had a simple but still much inferior defense. It was useful to help them. On the one hand because they were his future employers, on the other hand because he liked them, owed them and on the other hand because with a little support they could employ a relatively large group of walking corpses.
A couple of his fire bombs around the barracks, reinforcement through a circular ditch around the position, like mending the weir in brittle places, earned him a lot of grateful calls from there. There, too, he avoided landing at first, but withdrew with the Leica to one of the city gates. It also made no sense to save excessive mana, which is why he spread his Greek fire over the undead masses towards the gate. Should they burn and help him move forward with it?
From the city gate he was sitting on, he could see some of the corpses coming in his direction. Fortunately, he had either blown up all the exits or filled them with pitfalls, but how could he expect what would happen?