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Chapter 508: Guarding

“Target is approaching the second defense line.”

“Has everyone retreated? How many people are left at the first defense line?”

“Two teams were unable to retreat in time. We’ve tried our best already.”

“May the Holy Light protect them. How’s the situation at the second defense line?”

“Not so good. It’s a temporarily constructed defensive blockade that can only buy some time.”

Combat information kept flooding in. Every sudden battle that occurred always brought very little good news, but endless amounts of bad news.

Despite all the bad news, there was one piece of good news from what Prince Link did before he died. He had brought more than three thousand members of the Cliff heavy infantry squadron here with him. With normal military formations here, that was an elite heavy infantry squadron sufficient to create three large troops. The three troops were split into three different eight-hour shifts to guard the path to the mountains. They had even constructed a temporary base there, and began patrolling the area.

When the undead arrived, the Cliff squadron’s base and patrol route naturally became the first defense line against the undead. However, nobody was counting on them to actually stop the undead.

When Salima took command over everyone, she didn’t actually ignore the Cliff squadron that was originally enemies with her. Instead, she sent out troops to save them, hoping that as many of them could successfully retreat as possible.

“Right now, every person is fighting for the living. As long as we can save them, we’ll save them at all costs!”

The Cliff squadron’s vice commander, Sandy, was a very tall man with barbarian blood. But, right now, he could only helplessly take orders from his “enemy”.

The moment the Undead Emperor descended, Sala Dukedom’s civil war became completely meaningless. In front of the Undead Calamity that threatened to destroy everything, there was no more differences between those loyal to the Sala royalty and those loyal to the rebel Marquis Stanley Taric. Everyone was now on the side of the living.

Sandy was no idiot. He knew that if even if he escaped from the undead, just the fact that Prince Link had been assassinated would likely make the royalty blame him for failing to guard Prince Link. Right now, Sandy’s best path to survival was to achieve more battle accomplishments.

Of course, the prerequisite here was that the living actually won this battle. Otherwise, there would be no more Sala Dukedom, and no more royalty to blame Sandy for Link’s death.

Meanwhile, my opinion was that despite Blood Spear Salima’s reputation being terrible for slaughtering survivors, she was indeed quite skilled. Judging from what I saw, she was a hardened commander who was willing to make any sacrifice to win.

To arrive here from the ruins, the undead would have to first travel across the mountains for a long while. And so, Salima sent out a suicide squad to set bombs on portions of the mountain trail, and set numerous lines of defense to slow down the undead’s arrival.

Any army’s marching speed would always be determined by the slowest type of troop with them. The undead weren’t very quick, as ordinary skeleton troops were their base unit. Plus, they had to climb the mountain on such a wet and rainy day, which slowed them down even more.

Mudslides created by bombs on a mountain slope were highly effective in slowing down any army. With the undead’s natural disadvantage in speed, this only served to slow them down even more.

However, even if the suicide squads were lucky enough to explode the portions of the mountain path assigned to them, the undead’s patrolling bone dragons and death knights meant that very few of these brave warriors would survive and return.

In order to unify everyone in Starwood City’s new temporary command center under herself, Salima sent out only her personal troops on these suicide missions. This was so that there would be no more internal conflicts at such a critical junction.

“Working her hardest to save the current allies who were just recently her greatest enemy,” along with “sacrificing her own loyal soldiers on suicide missions first” sounded quite noble. Militarily speaking, however, this would be the utmost foolishness. Yet, it was a truly wise leadership method indeed in such a hastily built alliance of the living consisting of two sides that were at war not long ago. At the very least, Salima had built herself up with the image of a fair and just leader that everyone was willing to follow.

Perhaps this didn’t seem all that useful for the living that still had many internal conflicts with each other, but this was still much better than the alternative of Salima being a “bastard who tells others to take suicide missions first” or being a “leader who takes advantage of the situation to spread salt on people’s wounds.”

“This Salima. Is she on the Eich’s famous generals rankings?”

“Nope. She’s only a general in such a small country. How could she possibly be on the fairies’ rankings? What, you think she’s pretty good?”

“…I think she might become impressive in the future.”

That was right, I was quite impressed with this Blood Spear Salima. It would seem that others had underestimated her abilities.

To tell the truth, even I wasn’t confident in doing better than her here. At the very least, I wasn’t the type who would send out my loyal troops to perform such a mission that might not even succeed but would almost certainly kill them.

And if I had to choose between my friends and my enemies to make a “necessary” sacrifice, I would unhesitatingly choose to have my friends live even if my friends weren’t as numerous. I was no saint, after all. I’d never denied that I had my selfish side.

Oops, I was getting off topic. All these sacrifices were simply to stall for time. And time was always the most valuable treasure of all on the battlefield. Since Salima could make such a decision to sacrifice her personal troops in order to save her previous enemies, the Cliff squad, this meant that her leadership capabilities were definitely above average.

“Hurry, hurry! Are there no more earth mages? Even scrolls or staffs are fine, solidify the town walls for me even more! Adventurers, this is no time to be stingy. No matter how much money you have, you have to be alive to spend it. Use every earth magic scroll you own! Sala Dukedom’s royalty has already promised to pay you back!”

The defending army was spending all its efforts on raising Starwood City’s walls even higher and strengthening the walls as much as possible right now. Although earth magic was the most common type of magic amongst the four elements, all the earth mages present had used up all their mana already on this task. Since the situation was so urgent, we even gathered up all earth magic scrolls and staffs from the various adventurers.

After using every scroll and staff, all the earth around Starwood City was dug up and added onto the town walls, which kept growing higher and higher. The fire mages were baking the earth into a solid new wall in the rain as a second method of reinforcement.

“Get rid of that idiot who used fireball magic to heat the walls! This is no time to create more chaos!”

A novice fire mage had just attempted to use a fireball to dry the mud, but ended up creating a large hole with an explosion instead. The mage also got covered completely in mud as a result. Although I understood that novices would always misunderstand simple orders, I could only give a big thumbs up with how creative he was to use a fireball rather than a small flame to bake the walls. Of course, others weren’t nearly as patient.

“Reinforcing the southern district’s #12 section has been completed. Which is next!?”

A young magic swordsman withdrew his silver magic sword, and inserted it into the ground, immediately causing the sword to dim. The magic swordsman then switched to a backup Olivia’s Magic Box before heading to the next district.

The most noticeable people amongst the town wall solidifying army were these Four Elemental Swordcasters and other magic swordsmen. Although they didn’t have much ability to control the elements, it was still possible for them to control some mud and form it into an earth wall. And since they were powered by magical engineering batteries, they had an almost limitless amount of mana to help solidify the town walls. Even the Cliff squadron had plenty of magical engineering weapons to draw additional batteries from.

Of course, considering that a major battle would soon commence here, the Cliff squadron didn’t allow too many of their resources to be used up on just the walls. They were using all the time they had right now to organize their equipment, stock up on food, adjust their weapons, and prepare for battle.

The freezing cold rain kept slamming down onto the Cliff squadron members’ faces, yet their movements weren’t slowed down at all. Such well-trained military fighters were the most trustworthy on the battlefield. It was certain that the Cliff squadron would become the main fighting force in the upcoming battle against the undead. As professional military forces and the main protectors of the Sala Dukedom, there was no possibility of retreat for them. I also reassessed this “not well known” squadron’s actual combat strength after seeing how they kept fighting on no matter how many casualties they suffered.

Everyone already knew that the undead had arrived. But in order not to shake morale, the information that an Undead Emperor arrived had yet to be publicized. After all, not everyone would have the courage to face such a brink of despair.

In this time of calamity, many adventurers answered the Sala Dukedom’s summons, and brought out all their saved magical scrolls and staffs. The adventurers also accepted letting Salima take command. But, unfortunately, earth magic scrolls with spells that could be used to solidify the walls were rather uncommon. It was left mostly to the Four Elemental Swordcasters to solidify the walls.

And so, the Four Elemental Swordcasters that were versatile to begin with now showed off their abilities in ever more complex situations. This job class was becoming ever more popular.

“Tsk, they only pay expenses for the earth magic scrolls used for solidifying the walls? A three-circle magic scroll is so cheap. They’re really on guard against people lying and claiming to use expensive scrolls in an attempt to scam money.”

“…It’s already such a time, so aren’t you the only one who would do such a thing? Hey, hey, hey, why are you pouting? Were you really intending on scamming money at such a time? Could you be any more shameless? Even a villain wouldn’t be as bad as you are, you hoodlum among all mythic heroes!”

“Hmph, it’s such a pity that my classmate, the earth archmage Kaid, isn’t here right now. Otherwise, we wouldn’t need those cheap scrolls at all. He could just show us the miracle of constructing an entire castle in one night.”

“A pity that Kaid isn’t here… Hey, hey, hey, aren’t you just trying to change the topic? All you think about is how to scam money while others are in such danger? Could you have a little more self awareness as a good person!?”

Starwood City blocked the only exit from the mountains. If Starwood City was broken through, the only terrain that remained later would be endless flat plains. No more terrain would possibly stop the undead invasion after that.

And once the undead spread out onto the plains, they would begin a huge slaughter, which would also add to their undead forces. The Undead Calamity would begin snowballing ever larger and larger, multiplying their forces at an exponential rate. The threat would begin multiplying unstoppably. Salima’s judgement was absolutely correct in that it was completely meaningless no matter where people fled to in the plains. Reinforcing this small city and stopping the undead here while waiting for reinforcements from other domains was definitely the correct and only method.

[…You’re trying to add in more background introduction? Are you trying to steal my role? You’re really trying to dodge the question about scamming money? Even if you want to scam money, shouldn’t you do something a little more high-class, such as a stock market crash that everyone will remember for ten years? Why scam such a paltry amount of money? You’re acting just like someone who worked for more than a decade and finally got promoted to manager, and now you’re showing off by writing off family expenses as business expenses… I can’t continue anymore, you’re too pitiful, and such a loser!]

“Of course, Salima’s correct decision is one matter, and being able to accomplish it is another matter. Based on my many years of experience with pitfalls, don’t even talk about an Undead Emperor, this place can’t even handle a slightly famous Undead Lord. Yep, if things go as I expected.”

“You’re pretending not to hear anything? Forget it, just say whatever you want…”

I ignored my System’s insults, and pretended not to see the silly cat’s evil grin. Right now, I was standing on the wall while watching everything, but it was a bit too chilly for me. As I pulled my jacket closer to myself, I felt that this battle was indeed rather difficult.

Yep, let us talk about serious matters now. You should just pretend not to have seen any of those random things just now.

It was quite obvious already just how troublesome Undead Emperors could be. Although they were only SemiGods in name, that was no good measure of their power level. Both myself at my strongest and Ayer could be called Undead Emperors. It wouldn’t have been that difficult for either of us to directly kill off one of the weaker True Gods. Everything past Myth rank was all classified as SemiGod, but the difference in strength between SemiGods could fluctuate wildly.

“Solidifying the town walls is mostly just for a placebo effect…”

Yep, even though everyone was working so hard on strengthening the town walls, I didn’t think that it was useful at all. The bone dragon knight vanguard circling beneath the clouds meant that we had already lost control over the skies. The never ending sea of skeletons could easily fill up any trenches that were just dug up. The earth-magic-solidified town walls would still be unable to take a single blow from bone giants or death knights charging. Not to mention, the undead had an Undead Emperor leading them… Any Undead Emperor would be an S-class tactical weapon by themselves. Who knew what an Undead Emperor was capable of?

I agreed with Salima’s assessment as, tactically speaking, defending Starwood City was the only plausible strategy. However, I didn’t think that their efforts were useful at all, because it wouldn’t be that easy to make up for the enormous difference in strength.

“It would seem that I will need to personally intervene in this battle? I think that Zero will be quite excited if she sees me here. It will likely escalate the entire battle.”

“Even if she doesn’t know that you’re here, isn’t this still an all-out battle already? Do you think that the undead are here for a picnic?”

The silly cat napping on my shoulder opened her eyes. Reflected within her eyes was a patch of gray and barren mountains. Countless undead were slowly proceeding forth, with corpse zombies, gargoyles, zombie warriors, skeleton archers, banshees, abominations, and all other sorts of undead among them. The undead even included the Legend-ranked Winter Demon undead that I had previously met the last time that I fought Zero.

But no matter how many undead there were, the pitch-black undead army proceeded forward in silence with resolution. The only sound that could be heard here was the rattling of bones. In undead army terms, this meant that there were enough low- and mid-level commanders to control and prevent every single skeleton from making any idle noise. Such a level of Undead Calamity would be far more difficult to deal with than people were expecting.

The next instant, a white bone arrow shot directly at what we saw, destroying Harloys’ clone. That was all the information we received, and we didn’t even discover where the arrow was shot from.

“Damn it, don’t they know that battlefield reporters aren’t supposed to be attacked?! Although many of them are also spies, and many of them will die in mysterious ways…”

However, my rambling didn’t ease the atmosphere at all. When faced with such an Undead Emperor, the silly cat didn’t have a good expression, either. Of course, it might also be that her face was pale with anger because her clone had just been destroyed.

“There are more mid-level undead than low-level undead. And, this Undead Calamity hasn’t even reached its full potential. As long as they have enough corpses, they can expand ten times… a hundred times, or even a thousand times!”

Obviously, it was a bad deal to bring low-level undead to Eich as that would be a waste of the precious souls sacrificed to bring them here. Only the powerful and elites were brought into the mortal plane. As for cannon fodder? Undead armies would never worried about lacking cannon fodder. They would receive plenty of cannon fodder after one or two battles.

After seeing such an army, I was no longer worried about whether or not Salima could defend this city. I was now worried if everyone would even survive the undead’s first attack.

Such a situation helped to make up my mind. I would intervene in this situation.

“Since this war is already starting, then I might as well activate ‘War’ so that the undead become the enemy of the undead. Awaken, Mars of War, the leader of my Four Heavenly Knights!”

While I was trying my best to maintain my image, the professional critic silly cat struck yet again.

“…Four Knights? You created three similar-level creations? When? How come I didn’t know?”

“Haha, of course you didn’t know, as this was my biggest secret… Stop biting me! Can’t I act cool once in a while? It’ll be really cool if I can have Four Heavenly Kings under me, you see, just ‘War’ alone doesn’t sound cool at all, it takes four of them to sound cool! Just how amazing does it sound! Maybe I’ll create a Plague Knight, Death Knight, and Famine Knight to assemble the Four Heavenly Kings one day! At that time, when they meet an enemy army, the four knights will all ride their horses on a hillside and coldly look down at the enemy, making them afraid without even fighting. That would seem so much like the antagonist’s style. Isn’t it cool?”

“Shut up, jinxer, I already have an ominous premonition about this. With your typical results, you’ll never create a cool knight like that. You only know how to create shameless perverted gentlemen!”

“People must have dreams! Even if those dreams will never come true!”

“…Even you realize that your dream won’t come true, so give it up already! There’s no miracles in cell phone games. You’re someone who will never pull a single SSR, so just obediently play with your Rs.”