As I woke up, the world had flipped upside down. The sky and the ground had switched places, and monsters were chasing after me as they ran on the ceiling.
“Ugh… my head is killing me.” I mumbled.
The world’s nastiest migraine was pounding my head like a tyrant gorilla.
“You’re awake! Thank goodness…” a voice said near me.
I shook my head, and the world finally began to make sense. I jumped off Anbu’s shoulder and began running alongside him towards the walls.
“What did I miss?” I asked.
“Nothing much. You killed the phoenix and thousands of monsters in one fell swoop, I began digging into the giant ice crystal you created to get you out, I found you in the middle of giant magic formation that disappeared when I got close, you healed most of your wounds in the short while it took for me to get out of the ice, the archers killed the rest of the flying monsters, and we’re now running back to the walls. Oh, and these belong to you.” He said, handing me my staff and a red mana core.
The monsters’ growls behind us grew ever more distant as the arrows continued to butcher them by the hundreds every second.
“Wait, what happened to my staff?!”
The frost stone orb was completely gone, leaving just wood gifted by the Life Dragon.
“No clue, I just picked it up as it was. There wasn’t much for me to do besides that.”
I pocketed the mana core and holstered my staff on my back as the two of us jumped onto the wall, where Lord Heri was waiting for us.
“Kiara! I am glad to see that you are still with us.” He said with a warm smile.
“So am I, Lord Heri. I am glad no one died in the fighting.”
Lord Heri’s expression dulled.
“I am sorry to say, but quite a few brave men and women have given their lives in this battle. Some were killed by stray ranged attacks, others were killed in the exchanges with the phoenix or the flying monsters. Some were killed when the walls they stood on were smashed by your body when the phoenix struck you down.”
The atmosphere grew solemn as we stared at the piles of monsters accumulating in front of us.
“Oh.” I said, the horror of being responsible for their deaths sinking in.
“Don’t blame yourself for this. There is no such thing as a battle without losses. There wasn’t anything you could have done about the phoenix launching you at the walls either – it’s a miracle you stood up to a legendary, rank A monster from the fourth layer in the first place. And to top it all off, you even won!” Lord Heri said encouragingly.
“For once, the snob’s right, kid.” Theos said, having jumped up from the labyrinthian wall kill zone to join us.
“Theos, weren’t you supposed to stay down there?” Anbu asked, only to get a shrug in return.
“Bah, take a look ahead of you. Does it look like any of these things are coming our way? The battle’s already won. The only thing left for us to do is make sure no other dangerous monsters come our way with funny business in mind. In any case,” he said, turning to me, “you’re the reason many more of these people lived today. The monsters flying in the air are a hundred times more threatening than the land monsters rushing our way. Walls, trenches, and traps can’t do crap against them, it’s a helluva lot harder to hit them, and there’s nowhere to run for the average schmuck from a winged monster. And you handled that part nearly singlehandedly. If I catch you blaming yourself for the few deaths we got, I am gonna beat the snot outta ya myself!” he said, smacking my back so hard as to nearly trip me over the wall as he laughed heartily.
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As I took a closer look at the battle, it seemed that most of the monsters were dead, and that only a few thousand remained.
Suddenly, a notification popped up in my vision.
Skill [Asexual Reproduction] removed.
Eh? Why?!
Before I could think about it, someone spoke up, forcing me to shelve the thought for later.
“I am more concerned about God-King Katu. What kind of nation would tolerate nearly ten thousand classers with a grudge against its god, especially after they’d been abandoned to the wolves?” Lord Heri said, quickly shutting up Theos’s laughter.
“There’s no need to worry about that. The God-King will only be happy to know that more classers were born, even if they’re hostile to him.” Anbu said.
“Enough to overlook that they don’t like him?” I asked incredulously.
Anbu nodded.
“God-King Katu wishes to see excellence, even at the expense of everything else – his own life included. Not that he thinks anyone else could pose a threat to him. There is nothing he hates more than mediocrity.”
“Hmm…”
As we saw the last of the monsters being wiped out, a notification suddenly rang out.
Mission Completed: [Siege of Erdu!]
Rank: A
The port town of Erdu is under siege by an army of flying and amphibious monsters. Hold the line no matter the cost, or twenty thousand people will perish!
Rewards: Title – [Mad Dog]
…
I held my temple, trying to prevent my headache from hurting even more than it usually did.
Putting the system’s naming shenanigans aside, I appraised the title in question, and I wasn’t disappointed.
[Mad Dog]
The sky belongs to you and yours, and you will bite to death any brazen fools who think that they could wrestle it away. After you butcher them, you will gleefully throw their mangled bodies right back at their allies, reminding them of the fate that awaits any who dares to do the same.
When fighting for air supremacy during a battle, gain a 75% bonus to damage against airborne enemies.
I whistled.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
“I am guessing your mission rewards were about as good as I expected?” Anbu asked.
I grinned, and the others waited for me to elaborate further. I didn’t.
Theos sighed.
“Well, it’s not surprising at all to see that, given how much she did. Maybe you lot shouldn’t have fought so hard, else I’d have actually gotten something out of this!” Theos laughed again.
He seems to enjoy doing that a lot.
“Leave it to an oaf to complain about minimizing casualties in the pursuit of glory and system rewards.” Lord Heri said in distaste.
“Hey, it was just a joke!”
***
Over the next hour, some of the townsfolk began moving the wounded to Lord Heri and the local healers, while others began burying the dead. There was plenty of rubble and nearly a hundred and fifty thousand monster corpses to clean up, so anyone else that was free began trying to move them all into organized piles. In order to preserve the monster corpses, the monster corpses were placed near the ice crystal my failed spell had created, which was so cold that most people couldn’t stay near it for too long.
After asking Anbu about the phoenix’s corpse, I went to retrieve it. Seeing that it was in near perfect condition, I encased it in ice and removed its weight, dragging it behind me on the way back.
Shortly after, some of the others who’d been assigned to western Kengir, including the Regillus twins, began arriving to reinforce us, though the battle was already over.
The sun was finally setting, and with Lord Heri’s wooden constructs manning the walls, the town threw a feast in celebration.
***
Lord Heri, Theos, Anbu, and I were all heralded as the town’s guests of honour and were at the center of the celebrations for most of it. Now that people were settling down to enjoy the food, I had finally found the time to sit down with familiar faces.
“I can’t believe we missed all the action. Urgghhhhh…” Atria complained as she dug into a chicken drumstick.
“This outcome is the best one that a port town like this one could hope to achieve. Don’t put the cart before the horse. More importantly, it is concerning that many of the people who were assigned to the west still have not shown up.” Silia said.
Silia was right – including the twins, only five people had arrived to reinforce Erdu.
“Well, where might the rest be then?” Atria said as she stripped the drumstick clean of the last bits of meat before tossing it into the bonfire.
“It’s taken too long for them to still be on their way. Either they were too wounded to return our way, or their mission failed and the villages they were sent to were wiped out.”
As we all let Silia’s deduction sink in, the sounds of the bonfire crackling and the distant celebrations echoed for a while before a familiar voice spoke through my head.
Congratulations on your victory, dear. Come back to Kengir City; we have much to discuss.
I stood up and stretched my limbs.
“It was nice working with you guys, but mom’s calling for me now. The town should be capable of defending itself now, so I’ll take my leave. Stay safe, and send my regards to Theos and Lord Heri!”