On a hill overlooking a wide field, numerous parties of players stood in neat formation as they gazed eagerly at the fortress town in the distance with battle lust in their eyes. There were a few NPCs leading this group and each NPC was carrying a large banner that had the insignia of the Dire imprinted on it. This was an NPC-led army of players and they were poised to attack the town below, which belonged to their enemies, the Lycans.
The NPCs leading this army were those that held rather high-ranking positions in the Dire’s Army. The players weren’t officially part of the Dire nation’s army, but they were conscripted as mercenaries through the Main Story Quest that was issued. The town below was heavily fortified with arrow towers and thick walls that seemed to have been enchanted with magic, the battle ahead would be tumultuous, but the players were extremely eager because they were finally able to properly partake in the Main Story Quest.
“Our scouts confirmed that there were a lot of players disguised as NPCs in the town. If they wanted to trick us, then they shouldn’t have enchanted the walls with fortification magic that only players would use…” Gerald said with a shake of his head.
The Citadel’s vice-guild leader, Regis, chuckled and said, “If there are players around, then things are going to be a little more interesting, wouldn’t you say?”
“As great as it is interesting, don’t forget that their presence will only make our jobs harder.”
“We’ve constantly been clashing with them for the past few days, but they’ve only sent out small teams and groups at us. I want to experience the large battlefields like on the previous planet where everything was so chaotic!”
“Makes your blood boil, right?”
“Yeah~ anyway, since we know how those guys down there operate, should we spread the info that we have on them to the others?”
“We might as well. The fewer casualties we have taking this fortress town, the better.”
“Yup, and by the way, will you be leading the guild later?”
“Do you wanna do it?”
“Yeah, why not?”
“Then go ahead. I’ll stay back and watch the situation with our reserve team. If you need any reinforcements–”
“Reinforcements for these guys? No chance man. It’s not like we’re facing one of the game’s top 10 guilds, so don’t worry about it too much,” Regis replied confidently with a smile.
“...Alright, I'll be entrusting this battle to you then. Remember, they’ve definitely booby-trapped the area around the fortress town’s walls, so proceed with caution and don’t be careless,” Gerald said as a final advice to his Vice-Guild Leader.
“I’ll go and inform the other leaders about this. We're about to start our attack!”
“Mhm.”
Gerald was actually one of the commanders in this operation. He and another NPC named Faithe were leading the players today. He was actually supposed to be led by Faithe, but since Gerald was a Guild Master and a person well acquainted with the Dire's Empress, he had been assigned deputy commander and could lead the players alongside the NPC. Since Faithe had just arrived on the continent alongside the Dire's main fleet, he wanted Gerald’s help in leading the players in this battle, since the latter already had experience fighting here on Vanargand because he was part of the advanced party.
Gerald walked back to a tent nearby and entered it to see a pale-faced old man sitting in front of a table with a map spread on it. The old man looked up and, upon seeing Gerald, he smiled at him.
“Duke Gerald, you’re back! I thought you said you would be leading the troops?”
“My guild’s vice leader decided that he wanted to do it, so I let him.”
“Just like the Empress, you are also letting others gain achievements through this war! Splendid!”
“Commander, I have news from the scouts. I think it’s best you relay this information to all of the players so they can adjust their strategy accordingly.”
“Hmm…” Faithe listened to what Gerald had to say before nodding after hearing it all. “I’ll tell my adjutants to send down the word…just as His Grace, Duke Ash, previously said, the enemy will employ out-of-the-box tactics, so we shouldn’t judge their actions by our standards.”
Before Maria halted her war against the Lycans, which was before the players had arrived, the humanoid mutts–aka the Lycans–were only capable of using simple strategies and tactics in their battles against the Dire’s forces. Of course, those strategies and tactics were only ‘simple’ in Maria’s eyes. Her advantage was that she possessed and had access to a lot of information from the real world, so she was able to see through many of the Lycan’s plans by just analyzing the situation.
Now, with the addition of the players fighting against her and the Dire, things have become a little more complex. As much as they were winning, Maria’s side also lost a few battles as the enemy forces would use some kind of weird tactic that completely blindsided them. Thanks to the players, the Lycans became a lot less predictable and more versatile in their attacks.
The Lycan King was bold to let the players take command of his soldiers, but he was smart enough to do that and not let his pride get in the way of what was truly important, survival! If he stubbornly clung to his pride and authority, he would simply lose to his enemies sooner or later. If he had remained stubborn and didn’t let the players take over and do things their way, he would’ve already lost a long time ago. Their situation was even worse now since the rest of the Dire’s armies had finally arrived on the continent, so the battles would only become more and more difficult now for them.
Faithe soon ordered his army to launch the attack and all of the zealous players who had been waiting for the order immediately charged down the hill towards the fortified town below. He had relayed the information that Gerald had given to him to all of the players commanding their own teams or groups, so no one just recklessly charged down.
Just like Gerald had predicted, the area around the town had been booby-trapped with delayed and trigger-activated mine-type magic spells, so once the first spells activated, the charging players stopped and began sweeping the area in front of them using spells and abilities to either disarm the traps or activate them before anyone got too close.
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Naturally, the enemy players and Lycans that were watching from atop the fortress town's high walls didn’t wait for them to clean up all of their traps. They started firing their own attacks at the incoming players. This put a halt to the advance because the allied players had to worry about the enemy attacks from above and the traps from below. The troubles didn’t end there as a few large boulders were shot from inside of the town and rained down on the friendly players like meteorites.
“Knights! To the front!”
The knight-class players quickly stepped forward and put up their shield before using their class skill [Bastion]. A phantom of a large shield appeared in front of the shields the players were holding and as they angled them upwards, it covered the sky above the players at the vanguard. The large boulders struck at the large phantom shields created by the knight-class players and broke apart into numerous pieces. These boulders weren’t ordinary boulders and were ones created from a magic spell. When the boulders broke apart, they blew up and spread shrapnel and dust everywhere.
Thanks to the shield, the players below were safe from the shrapnel, but the dust completely obscured their vision, so they couldn’t see anything ahead of them. The players behind the knights didn’t dare to rush forward because with their vision blocked, they wouldn’t be able to see where they were going. They might head into a spot that had a lot of traps buried under the ground or they might walk themselves into an unprotected spot where the enemy players and Lycans were shooting their attacks at. The biggest fear was naturally the explosive boulders that were being fired from the town. If it landed on an area that didn’t have the knight’s [Bastion] protecting it, the outcome would be quite horrific.
[Bastion] was a rather powerful skill, but unfortunately, it stopped the user from moving, so the knights couldn’t just slowly push forward while their skill was active. This put a halt to the entire charge and the allied players had to hunker down in the area since the order to retreat was not given yet. The only thing the players could do at the moment was have the range class players and mages shoot blindly through the smoke at the enemy town.
It was an unfortunate sight to behold if you were on Maria’s side. The enemy players were cheering and taunting from within the town and the allied players could only grit their teeth in anger because they couldn’t do anything at the moment. The explosive dust boulder was something new so Gerald, who was watching the battle unfold at the top of the hill, couldn’t help scratching his chin thoughtfully at the new toy the enemy had taken out just to defend the town.
“Our forces are pinned down and with the area blocked by the dust and smoke, we can’t even see what’s going on down there… blocking our vision and the way forward. It’s rather smart…” Gerald mumbled to himself.
“What shall we do, Deputy Commander?”
“Tell Commander Faithe that we should pull back the soldiers until the dust settles down. We can’t command our soldiers to fight if we can’t see what’s going on. Also, that dust doesn’t seem to be normal…”
The dust that had appeared as a result of the boulders exploding had a rather odd shine to it and Gerald was only able to notice it because he was looking at the dust from afar. It was indeed as he suspected, the dust really was out of the ordinary because after it had completely spread throughout the entire battlefield, the town stopped firing those boulders and instead, a lone arrow that had its tip ignited by fire was shot from the town.
Gerald saw this and he immediately shouted inside of his guild’s group chat, “REGIS, RETREAT! RIGHT NOW!!!”
However, it was too late. When the fire arrow came into contact with the dust, it immediately caused an explosion. The explosion engulfed all of the allied players inside of the dust cloud as the dust cloud itself blew up.
Gerald watched on as the explosion ruined the battlefield. When it subsided, there were still a lot of players left standing, but a large portion of their HP had disappeared thanks to the explosion. The players couldn’t even take a breath to recover themselves when they heard the town’s gates open and out came a horde of players that had murder in their eyes. All of them were mounted and they quickly charged forward without warning. Gerald saw this and he immediately messaged his guild’s reserve attack team to mobilize while he himself also did the same.
“Guys, we’re going to save those down there! Get on your mounts and follow me!”
Gerald led the charge to rescue the surviving allied players. A few others also followed after him when they saw him moving, but since their allies were closer to the enemy town than they were to the encampment, the enemy players got to them first, so by the time he and the others arrived, only a handful of groups remained. Despite only a few remaining, Gerald continued to charge forward to save them. At the very least, he wasn’t going to have the players on his side experience a complete wipeout. This was the first battle for a few of them and if they experienced such a devastating defeat, it would completely shake their morale and that was bad.
The enemy players didn’t overextend themselves despite obtaining such a great advantage in this battle, so when they saw the reinforcements appear, they quickly stopped their attack and returned to the town while only experiencing a few casualties.
Gerald cursed because he could see that the enemy was being smart. Instead of trying to completely wipe them out, they only did as much damage as they could before retreating, so they barely had any casualties. It was the complete opposite for the Dire forces. They had lost a significant portion of the players they brought along this time just to take down a small town that had a pretty strategic location.
The loss was humiliating, but they weren’t the only ones experiencing such a thing. In many other places that the Dire was attacking, the battles ended in a similar fashion. Only a few battles ended on a good note for the Dire while most of them were horrendous. The number of player casualties hit almost half a million from just the first battle and this greatly surprised Maria who received the war reports later that day.