For the next few hours, the humans defended the walls against the vast forces of the dark army that was besieging their city. The effort was valiant, but as time passed, the humans slowly began to exhaust their defensive resources. The trebuchet’s stockpile of ammunition, the ballistae bolts, the jars of burning oil, and the arrows, all of them were nearly depleted as the dark army’s forces did not relent in their assault. No matter how many monsters were killed, more of them would just take their place with no visible end in sight.
Morte and Calen had marched to Dor’ian not only with their army but also with the vast number of undead mobs that Calen had raised from Melu’er City’s dead. He didn’t have complete control over them, but the ability to just slightly influence their behavior was good enough, as Calen was able to have them move together with Maria’s dark army.
These mobs were the ones that Morte was throwing at the humans for the past few hours and, after exhausting quite a bit of the humans’ defensive resources, he finally ordered the main force to start attacking.
He and the Black Orc’s display of strength at the start was just a small skit he made to give the humans the illusion that they were going to attack with everything they had. To sell the illusion, he had to stay on the frontlines, but it was just a ploy to exhaust the humans. The real attack would only happen once Calen was finished with his preparations. The Lifestealer had managed to sneak into the city through the eastern wall and it was thanks to Maria’s help.
Maria had studied the wall’s structure beforehand and she relayed the information about the places Calen could sneak in through without being noticed by anyone. Naturally, Maria’s camera was rolling and she had disseminated a few of them across the area of Dor’ian City to capture the perspective of the war on various fronts. The best was naturally the one that was following Commander William since he was currently the most active.
After that, it would be Richard and Rio’s camera because they were the main cast of the story. She didn’t forget to capture Morte and Calen’s perspective, since their actions and movements would add quite a bit of interesting things to her video.
It was especially so for Calen because at the moment, he was sneakily spreading the zombification virus to the people over at the southern wall and once the zombification process was finished, the humans would have to start defending themselves from both inside and outside of the city.
Over at Richard’s side, the battle with the undead was pretty heated, but not as heated as the battle on the northern wall. Maria was actively fighting and, since these mobs weren’t part of her army, she didn’t mind cutting them down. Thankfully, her army’s main force was going to be attacking the northern wall so she wouldn’t have to pretend to kill her own units.
“Rio, don’t get carried away! If you’re exhausted, fall back!” Richard called out to the young boy who had been running back and forth across the wall, cutting down all of the zombies that were climbing and trying to climb over the battlements.
Even though they were pretty slow mobs, the zombies were acting pretty smart. Instead of trying to smash down the gate, which they probably wouldn’t be able to do, they were piling on top of each other to try and climb up the wall. Their numbers allowed them to create a large enough zombie ‘hill’ that allowed a few of them to get onto the walls. Maria was moving around dealing with these monsters but she’s been at it for a long while now.
It was all part of the act, but thankfully, the zombies gave her some EXP, so she wasn’t just exhausting herself needlessly and doing it for nothing. Even though the amount of EXP she was gaining was pitiful, EXP was still EXP. She’ll take whatever she can get because leveling up was already extremely hard for her, who had a racial penalty.
Hearing Richard’s words, Maria stopped and began panting in ‘exhaustion’. To sell the part, she had to look exhausted from all the battling and running around even though she actually wasn’t.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“O-Okay…”
Rio wasn’t the only soldier fighting on the walls. Many people were there too, so he didn’t need to overextend and ‘exhaust’ himself.
“Captain, the fight on the northern wall doesn’t look so good. I fear that they will soon fall,” Kurt reported.
“They’re bearing the brunt of the enemy’s assault, so it’s nothing to be surprised about.”
“Commander William has requested that the west and east fronts send some of their troops to bolster their defenses.”
“...Alright, we’ll send our reserves. 20% of our forces should be enough,” Richard said after contemplating for a moment.
His side’s battle wasn’t really intense, so he didn’t need to keep everyone here. They were able to comfortably fight and rest on rotations, so he didn’t see a problem sending some men to the north walls.
“Captain…Commander William has requested that the east wall sends at least half of the troops…”
“What?”
“The commander requests half of our–”
“Dammit, I heard you the first time! What is that bastard thinking? Is he stupid? There’s no way we’ll send that much over! We still need to defend our side!”
“What should we do then, Captain?” Kurt asked.
Richard clicked his tongue before saying, “25%, that’s the most we can send over. Have those in the reserves start preparing to move. I’ll take full responsibility for going against his orders.”
“Yes sir.”
Kurt left for the reserve camp while Richard stayed on the east wall and cut down a few more zombies that had made their way up to the walls while keeping an eye on their situation. Everyone was exhausted and their defensive resources were nearly depleted. Richard obviously wasn’t going to send the required 50% of his forces because that would spell doom for his side.
“Bastard, does he want us all to die? What kind of dumb order is that supposed to be? Once our side fails, then it won't be long before they fold as well.”
Maria was recording everything and she had heard the absurd request their Commander had given to Richard, but if that wasn’t enough bad news for him, Maria noticed that the zombification of the people on the southern wall had been completed. There were now some undead inside of the city and they had started to move. Morte seemed to notice this too and the main force of his army began marching towards the city walls.
“The fun is going to begin now~”
Maria had a smile on her face hidden underneath her helmet. The moment was going to come when she could finally push Richard into the spotlight as the story’s hero. The MC and hero were different, but this was for the best. It may disappoint some people that the MC wasn’t the story’s hero, but it was necessary that Maria made the MC into something like a side character to the hero’s story.
About half an hour later, after most of the soldiers in the reserve camp had departed for the north wall, Maria noticed that a few of the zombies from the southern wall had made their way over to the eastern wall’s nearly empty reserve camp and were moving to attack the remaining people down there.
She pulled on the sleeves of the person next to her and pointed at the zombies below, “What is it Rio–Holy shit! W-What are those zombies doing here in the city? Did they breach through one of the walls already?!”
“The Captain…”
“T-That’s right. We have to report this to the Captain immediately!”
Maria and this soldier were both a part of the team that went on the scout mission together and he was one of the more amiable soldiers that sympathized with Rio’s backstory. The two of them quickly rushed to Richard, who was directing the battle, and when they brought this up, Richard immediately rushed to see what was happening and, unfortunately, what Rio and the other member said was true.
“Goddammit, did they manage to breach one of the walls? It doesn’t seem like they’ve taken down any of them though…” Richard skeptically said as he looked over to the north and west walls.
He saw from afar that the walls were still holding strong, so he turned his sights on the south wall.
“There’s no way…”
None of the guards on the south wall had reported any undead heading their way, so although he couldn’t understand how, he was sure that the zombies definitely came from the south wall.
“I need to report this to William. If I send a messenger, he’ll probably just scoff at the report, so it’s best I head there myself! Kurt, you take command here!”
“Yes sir!”
“Send a team down to help the reserve camp! It’s nearly empty and most of those left behind are our field doctors and the injured!”
Richard quickly headed over to the north wall after leaving behind those orders, while Kurt ordered Rio and Donald, the soldier that had come with Rio, to take a squadron to deal with the zombies down below.
From what could be seen, the number of zombies attacking them wasn’t too many, so a squadron should be enough to deal with them. Rio and Donald followed Kurt’s orders and went to deal with the zombies. Their squad was able to deal with all of the zombies, but unfortunately, this wasn’t the end of that just yet.