Chapter 13: Attack on Paxdom II
A loud rumbling noise can be heard as boots pound, sandals patter, and bare feet slap against the nearly abandoned streets of Paxdom. It’s a group numbering around 40 adventurers, all equipped with some kind of weapon or auxiliary equipment. Even while they run, they begin to spread out through the paved roads and back streets as they dodge overturned mana carriages and leap over canals on their way to the city of Paxdom’s northern gate.
A woman with vivid violet armor and her scarlet hair tied in a bun, who seems to be something of a leader for the rowdy bunch, lifts her voice and yells:
“Almost there, folks! Who’s ready to earn their keep??”
“YEEEAAAAHH!!”
They all seem excited to face the monster siege, with one notable exception—
“Put me down, put me down! This is kidnapping, damn it!”
“What, I thought you wanted to register at our guild? Come on, it’ll be easy, just prove your worth first!”
The only one not moving of his own accord is Diegi, being carried horizontally like a log by the scarlet-haired adventurer he’s recently met— whose name, he’s learned, is Vivian— and another eager adventurer. Squirming like a stuck pig, Diegi continues to argue against Vivian, who’s in charge of carrying his upper body, in favor of his own release. Nobody likes being confined, but his case is especially dire— the huge axe slung across Vivian’s back keeps bobbing close to his neck and threatening to cut him a new breathing hole.
As for the other carrier, it’s the swordsman that Diegi had hurt his hand against earlier. Diegi had thought that the swordsman looked scary in the Guild Hall, but has been forced to revise that assessment. To be honest, the swordsman looks more goofy than anything, always smiling and dressed in nothing but a pair of dark trousers held up with a few belts. Each belt hangs off his body like a vine, and holds at least two short swords— in total, he has to have more than twenty. Obviously, this getup of his shows off a lot of his dark skin. Though that part does work to his credit— his body is free of blemishes and rife with muscles. All in all, it’s… a strange fashion combination, to say the least.
But, we digress.
Paying no mind to his tormentors’ attire, Diegi continues to complain loudly and quickly, speaking faster perhaps than he’s ever spoken before. It’s as if he’s trying to break a world record.
“‘Prove my worth’ my ass, you’ve got it all backwards! I’m supposed to join the guild, then start improving my reputation. And why can’t I just sit this one little mission out? Come on, you can trust me. I mean, who wouldn’t trust a stranger who just randomly showed up in their city one day? It’s basic manners, a matter of etiquette! No, of hospitality! It’s the polite thing to d— ow!”
A fist concealed in a dark purple gauntlet finds itself pressed into Diegi’s stomach. Very menacingly.
“How about talking a little more nicely to the one that’s got you in a headlock?”
Diegi’s flapping gums quit trying to achieve liftoff, and he slaps a hand over them for good measure. Speaking muffledly through his fingers, he squeaks out a response:
“Uh… Touché…”
“Mmm hmm, that’s right. Now be a good boy and beat up some monsters for us, and maybe we’ll let you join up. Maybe.”
And then Vivian retracts her closed fist from his stomach, laughing heartily.
“Oh, and lighten up, kid! I wasn’t actually gonna hit you! We’re on the same side, aren’t we? Just wait until we take you to the battlefield, you’ll get over those nerves of yours quick as you like. Don’t worry, everyone’s a wreck before their first city-wide dispatch!”
> Yeah, well excuse me for being scared! A punch from you would probably kill me, I’ve only got ten health points! That’s gotta be worse than a baby’s… Shit, I don’t wanna fight monsters! This is basically child abuse! Or child labor! Or unpaid… whatever, it should be illegal! And what kind of psychopaths make me work before I’m even officially hired?
Diegi, nearly with tears in his eyes, thinks back on the past few minutes that had led to this terrible turn of events.
All he’d done was ask to join the Adventurer’s Guild, but without doing any work. Then everyone had gotten really quiet. That in and of itself wasn't a problem, just a bit of awkwardness. But what happened next was a problem— the bell that marked the start of the adventurers’ operation had rung. Instead of letting Diegi calmly make his way to the announcer lady onstage so he could be signed up, Vivian had grabbed him and forced him to come along with the northern gate strike force while shouting something about ‘taking responsibility.’ To think he’d been right there, right about to complete his tutorial quest… and now he’s being thrown into a deadly fight for the survival of an entire city.
So, how does Diegi react to this sudden call to adventure? Does he step up to the plate, finding the determination to protect not only himself but the innocent denizens of the city?
…
Oh, come on. You know him well enough by now, don’t you?
Hanging limply from Vivian and the swordsman’s arms, Diegi hangs his head and mutters, quiet enough that he’s the only one who can hear it:
“Taking responsibility for things is definitely not the Martinez family way… I think I’m going to faint.”
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The swishing of steel slicing through the stale air, the thunking of arrows thickly hitting their marks, the heavenly tones of mana being consumed, the warps and roars of spells being cast, the dripping of blood as it descends from the edge of drawn blades, the crunching of grass underfoot as it’s crushed by stomping feet and falling bodies. All the telltale sounds of a battlefield, because this is a battlefield. Welcome to the outside of Paxdom’s main northern gate, that was peaceful and sunny just a few hours ago. Now, however, it’s lit only by the light of the moon, and is also currently occupied by a sea of oozing humanoid beasts and a vast amount of guards doing their best to protect their beloved city.
“We can’t let them through the gate! Come on, just a little more! Remember— don’t kill them, just blow them back! Knock them out! Stun them! Whatever. It. Takes!!”
Silver eyes blaze with determination as a brave fighter shouts defiantly at the wave of invading monsters. The guard, sworn by oath to protect Paxdom to his death and well respected by peers, does a splendid job of raising morale— her cry is met with a round of cheers and clenched fists. A large part, a vast majority, of the guards’ fighting spirits blaze brighter than ever— but, somewhat behind the frontlines, one flame is sputtering on the verge of going out.
“Are— are they crazy…? We have no chance of beating these things! I don’t get it— how could level 0 monsters be so damn troublesome?”
It’s none other than the normally-easygoing Linderton, having returned from raising the alarm and shepherding the fleeing citizens through the city gates. He tightly grips his golden spear and continues to sweat through his gear, feeling entirely out of place as his fellow guards fight valiantly against their monstrous opponents. It’s not their performance that’s filling him with dread… the guards are all doing extraordinarily well, showcasing their synergy and grit as sworn protectors. Rather, it’s what they’re up against that has Linderton’s naturally gaunt face even more pinched than usual.
“I saw it myself… Geo even used his staff to cast Status Project and scope them out… but they’re all level 0. Their names are just some garbled text… and they don’t even have any skills… So why, why, WHY!?”
Don’t get it twisted- Linderton’s a capable guard, usually nearly as devoted to his duty as any other. But in these extraordinary circumstances…!
Even as Linderton watches, nervously adjusting his long black hair that’s greasy with perspiration, it happens again. Rafini of the silver eyes, a captain of Paxdom’s guards, accidentally puts too much power into her spell and shoots down two of the invading monsters. Her face is strained with concentration, her extended pointer fingers red and swollen, her lips chanting both quickly and precisely, as she fires spell after spell. The bullets of silvery light tear into the encroaching monsters’ flesh— no, not flesh. They tear into some… substance and easily pass out through the other side. As she does so, the monsters’ health presumably depletes to 0, and the carcasses with their long dragging limbs and fading red eyes unceremoniously flop to the grassy ground. They’re totally, unmistakably, irrevocably: dead.
So, why?
Out of their corpses rise more identical monsters dripping with black ooze, again and again. More than enough to replace the lives of the fallen. They get up and groan, newly awakened red eyes gleaming with a dull thirst for violence.
It’s utterly baffling. The monsters have no reincarnation Skill, they’re not intelligent, and at level 0 they’re not even particularly individually threatening. Essentially, they have every trait of a throwaway mob. Nearly every skirmish is a one-hit victory in favor of the guards. But invariably, as soon as a monster dies, more arise, and they resume their slow march towards Paxdom’s northern gate. There’s no rhyme or reason, or even some cue to accompany it— the only indication that something is happening is a slight visual distortion that occurs upon revival, as if the dead and live monsters were extending into each other and briefly existing in the same space. What had once been one became twenty, what had once been twenty became one hundred, and on and on and on. The waves of monsters were, in a word— endless.
It’s honestly a miracle that the guards have even been able to hold out so long. They’re totally inexperienced against an unnatural enemy like this. Just the fact that the guards don’t have a proper name to call the monsters yet speaks to their strangeness… the beasts’ names couldn’t be deciphered by Geo’s Status Project spell, as if they weren’t meant for mortal eyes. From what the guards could tell, there wasn’t even any discernible motivation for the attack in the first place. The monsters were doggedly attempting to invade the city, paying no mind every time they fell… but why? It’s almost as if they’re in search of something inside the city wall, but without any further information it’s pointless to speculate.
“It’s over… we’ve gotta close the gates. Oh, but then— the last fleeing civilians would be locked out, but— the monsters!”
Linderton, attempting to think with his fear-clouded mind, debates whether to retreat inside the city and notify the guards on the wall to close the gates. It’s a last-ditch strategy that would at least prevent the invasion from reaching the inside of the city. Just as he convinces himself to leave, however, he sees out of the corner of his eye—
“No, Michael! Hold on!”
Linderton manages to make a sudden move with his shaking limbs and dash forwards, intercepting the flailing limb of an attacking monster with his golden spear. He arrived just in time to prevent the beasts’ grimy claws from impacting his best friends’ head. With a grunt and a savage kick, Linderton easily counterattacks and send the offending monster flying. It’s only natural— Linderton’s Strength attribute has to be orders of magnitude above the level-zero beast’s.
“Linder. You helped me. Good.”
Michael, knowing how hard it was for Linderton to temporarily overcome his fear, wipes some blood from his orange stubble and thanks his best friend. His voice comes out more like a wheeze, and he briefly winces as he shifts slightly to his left to dodge another monster’s swing before slaying it with a single counterattack. Michael, always so clean and proper, is now covered with tiny bloody bruises and his sword form is seriously flagging. No major injuries— the monsters aren’t strong enough to inflict that kind of wound— but even minor cuts can kill if someone accumulates enough of them.
If even the oh-so-diligent Michael’s in this bad of a state, then the situation’s all but lost. Linderton quickly pays the price for his impulsively heroic actions as both him and Michael are surrounded by duplicate growling monsters. Linderton’s cowardly escape path— or, as he would call it, ‘tactical retreat’ path— that leads back towards the northern gate, is entirely blocked off.
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> We’ve already passed the Marketplace Square, so we’ve got to be more than halfway to the northern gates… shit, I’ve gotta figure out how to weasel my way out of the strike force and make it back to the Guild Hall!
Diegi, still being roughly carried among the adventurers’ strike squad, does his best to wring a good idea out of his tired head. Squinting his eyes to try and see through dusk’s darkness, he confirms via his surroundings that he’ll arrive shortly at the site of the invasion.
> Also known as, the site of my funeral. I should start sending out invitations— come and see me die! Hey Gloria, you wanna come? Why am I talking to people inside of my head? Heh… heh… noooooOOOO!!
Vivian, making sure to keep her right arm slung around Diegi’s thin form, uses her left hand to undo her bun and then draw the battleaxe from behind her back. Just these two little changes in appearance transform her presence and make her look much more striking. The intention is obvious— she’s switching her mindset, mentally preparing herself for a battle. It looks cool, it clearly communicates her intent…
> …and it’s exactly what I DON’T want to see, someone preparing for a fight! Damn it, what do I do? If I tell these guys about my abysmally low stats and attributes, they’ll probably get suspicious. But if I don’t, then they’ll make me fight whatever kind of monsters we find!
As Diegi had learned from fighting Terry the tutorial monster, he couldn’t do much against a singular weak foe, let alone an actual invasion of presumably strong ones. That was even an overstatement— he couldn’t do anything at all, except get spattered with a whole lot of disgusting black ooze.
> Okay, okay, try to think clearly. What are my tools? What can I use to escape? I’ve got a bag full of food in my hands, my real-world game knowledge, and the Main Menu. In that menu, I only know how to use two windows, and one of them is the Inventory which is currently full of… monster slime. Okay, that’s useless, next. I’m good at… trolling? Making people angry? That’s probably the opposite of what I want to do here! Damn it, why don’t I have any Skills to activate or Spells to cast? I got reincarnated into a fantasy world, give me SOMETHING! Being stuck in this dead-end avatar is so unfair!
Not only is it unfair, it’s completely incongruent with Diegi’s idea of what happens after being summoned to another world. He’d gained that idea, of course, from his go-to trusted source— movies and TV.
Well, despite that so-called trustworthy source, he’s still gotten into quite the pickle. Just who could Diegi blame for this series of misfortunes?
> It’s Automod. Automod! AUTOMOOOD!! It’s all that stupid bot’s fault! First your tutorial doesn’t actually fuckin’ teach me anything, and then you just straight-up disappear! What a useless overlord!
Thus Diegi fumes, conveniently ignoring the fact that his glitch is very likely the reason that Automod disappeared in the first place. Hey, he’s even the one who originally came to that conclusion. But returning to the scene— as Vivian and the swordsman who’s carrying him flit through a winding back alley, something clicks for the boy in distress.
> Back to what I’m good at. Trolling isn’t just about making people mad, is it? I disrupt conversations, mess with people’s emotions, shift the subject of people’s attention— damn, all of this just makes me sound like a total jerk! Well, I guess that would be a fair assessment, but— oh.
The dusty wheels of Diegi’s brain start to turn. He clenches his fists, gripping his bag of provisions tightly as the mental seed sprouts.
> Emotions… shifting attention… oh, yeah. There’s a good idea— that’s how I’m gonna escape.