60. Chapter 60
The piled up corpses were about to reach the height of the temporary walls. Walm perceived the strange sound of crawling around the corpses that were turning into a mass grave and rolling around indiscriminately.
Walm wanted to greet the owner of the sound with a halberd, but it clearly went to the weak spot of the formation before he could catch it.
“Careful! It’s going there!!”
Fleck, a great shield user, raised his voice.
A monster charged through the gaps between the experienced soldiers. A Highserk soldier swung down a short sword after the adventurer’s warning, but only managed to cut a few legs.
Ignoring the soldier, the “centipede” burst through the walls with its myriad legs. Not only that, an orc, a lizardman, and a goblin rode on the centipede’s back as it charged at them. It was as if they were one monster.
“Three monsters are on top of it!!”
The insect, with a total length of about 6 meters, crossed the castle wall and headed for the corner where the refugees had gathered. Troublesome things, monsters riding on the back, were scattered around the castle.
Walm wanted to smash the kobold in front of him and rush to the aid of his comrades as quickly as possible, but instead, an orc swung a war hammer to prevent him.
After deflecting his upper body and dodging a heavy blow, Walm plunged his halberd into the gap between the ribs and impaled the heart. He kicked the dead orc out of the ramparts.
Not only Walm lost time, but also the soldiers of Highserk and the adventurers who tried to stop the centipede couldn’t reach the refugees in time.
Damage was about to spread to the refugees who couldn’t fight.
The centipede, carrying away three monsters, opened its jaws for the predation, while raising its head, but a shadow that suddenly jumped out of the refugees literally crushed its head.
Along with the hard outer skin, sticky body fluids were sprinkled everywhere.
“Huh?”
No one blamed Walm for his dumb voice.
Depending on the growth, the centipede could reach A class. For among the refugees could kill such a B class monster and crush it with bare hands, of course, anyone there would be shocked.
The one who did it was a strong middle-aged woman with a well-rounded body.
“Hah, the Highserk soldiers who flattened the neighboring countries are actually pathetic!! The active adventurers, you’re all nothing better either.”
Although it was a provocation, there was no anger swirled up in Walm.
A Lizardman and a goblin tried to attack a middle-aged woman from the back of the now-deceased centipede, but the sword was flung away with their bare hands, and instead, a fist-shaped wind opened a hole in the Lizardman’s chest.
The Goblin had a chance and tried to cut off her feet with the sword, but the sword was deflected with her knees, and the upper body disappeared as it was.
The woman who came to the wall couldn’t be stopped by anyone, neither by humans nor by monsters. Then she ran towards the wall with a light step, contrary to how she looked, she was nimble.
A Skeleton wearing armor greeted her, but her fist broke through the spine together with the armor and it was flung high into the air.
“Mama?!”
“Deborah… what are you trying to do?”
Two panicked men tried to stop the woman, perhaps they were her relatives.
“I’m going to kill all those pesky monsters!!”
The woman lifted the spare bar for the gate that was leaning against the wall and swung around to wipe out the monsters that were trying to crawl up.
“It’s a good weapon. Not bad!!”
A Lizardman tried hard to hold onto the ground and reach the woman. It tried to attack her from the side, but its head was swept away with a fist from behind. Clearly, the woman had several “skills”, and at the very least, she had a skill with physical enhancement effects or a skill with physical hardening effects.
“Yogim, Moyes!! You guys are coming too! Don’t slack off!!”
Two men mentioned by a middle-aged woman called “Deborah” reluctantly crawled up to the wall.
At first glance, the two looked like a slender parent-child pair, but their movements were sophisticated from Walm’s point of view. The father, called “Yogim,” rammed a short sword down a werewolf’s throat and pulled it out, ignoring the crumbling scaffolding.
A “Hellbat” in the sky tried to drop from the blind spot, but was received by a sword and crashed, scattering the viscera into the sky.
The son, called “Moyes,” wielded a longsword with 《Super Strength》. The strength he displayed on the limbs that looked like dry wood was unimaginable. He cut off the poisonous tail of a scorpion, and while smashing its scissor-like pedipalps, he also plunged his sword into the cephalothorax.
“What’s with this parent-child combination…”
Al spoke for everyone’s feelings.
“You guys, are you okay with losing to a citizen of Myard?―― Clench your teeth! Move your feet! Put strength in your belly! Fight! Show what you truly got! FIGHT!!”
Shouted Walm, to bolster the dwindling morale of the troops. Sure, human physical strength might be finite. But the same couldn’t be said for the willpower to survive.
Walm knew well what made a person grow. Only in the deadly land would people show their true worth.
“Hahaha, monsters, monsters, monsters!! Monsters everywhere! I’ve never seen so many monsters in the same area, not even when I was an active adventurer!!”
Invited by Deborah, splattering blood and flesh, the soldiers in the crucible of war fall into madness.
◆
The twin moons were struck by the bright sun, which was about to rise into the sky.
Right. The time was almost sunrise.
A group of people, regardless of age, gender, race, or country, were equally involved in the struggle for survival.
It wasn’t the prayer for peace or the words of fraternity that united hearts, but the wave of impending danger. Really, what an irony.
In a half-destroyed building, Walm finished less than two hours of sleep on a “clean” floor with only dust and dirt. The familiar sound of battle meant that the fight with the monsters was still going on.
Walm was grateful that the temporary walls hadn’t been breached even after a long day. Once again, he had managed to survive another day.
Despite the protracted struggle, breakfast was waiting for Walm, who had just excreted yellow liquid in “time-attack” fashion without getting even another drop out of his lower body.
There was no problem with food, as many refugees who couldn’t tolerate the fight were in charge of cooking, and the good news was that there was a big pot of soup in front of Walm.
An old woman with a thin body, indistinguishable from the undead, and a girl who might have just turned 10, poured an overflowing soup into a bowl and gave it to Walm. The food situation must have “improved”, because the number of employees was decreasing day by day.
Walm sipped the soup, chewed and swallowed an unfamiliar chunk of meat, bit into the black colored bread with his molars, and let it go into his stomach with the help of the soup.
Good sleep and high caloric intake were required to restore depleted mana. Even the cobblestone bed with gravel and boulders was as comfortable as a feather bed. It was like going to heaven. All that remained was food.
Sticky blood and body odor mixed, and the smell of viscera was drifting in the air. Mealtime was colored red. In addition, a chorus of screams and cursing as a good morning. What a “good place” to have a nice morning indeed.
When Walm opened the folded poor cloth, he could see the hard-baked biscuits, which were preserved foods. With no hesitation, his teeth hit the biscuits, albeit with water. Eating when there was no water, at such time, he substituted the water by deploying the magical barrier to strengthen himself. It was an ironic scene. But after all, he didn’t want to lose his teeth from eating rather than from a fight.
“I really need water.”
Walm laughed a little as the figure of a former superior chewing on such a “weapon” came to his mind.
He chewed the cookies with a rattling sound and swallowed them with water. After repeating these actions several times, Walm’s breakfast was finished.
Then he lit a cigarette, inhaled the purple smoke as best he could, and exhaled the smoke into the air. Sadly, he didn’t even have time to finish the cigarette.
Walm called out to the soldier who was also sitting nearby and eating.
“Do you smoke? You can smoke the rest.”
“Thank you. As expected, Knight-dono is the same as us.”
It was unclear if the soldier hated the biscuit, but he gladly put them in his mouth which had no front teeth. He inhaled the cigarette Walm had given him into his lungs and spat out words in a sloppy manner as he exhaled.
“May the fortune be with you. Good luck.”
Shaking the now small cigarette, the soldier saw Walm off.
After returning to the ramparts, Walm stepped to the side of Deborah, who now had a dead smell drifting around her, and asked.
“How’s the situation?”
The adventurers were asleep. The four Platoon Commanders, Napolk, Wake, Friug and Jol, who had been placed under Walm’s command by the Wartime Brigade Commander, Justus, were busy leading the troops. The only one who looked free was Deborah and her family, who remained on the walls. Therefore, Walm asked her opinion without hesitation.
“Listen, I don’t remember becoming a soldier.”
Deborah, crushing the goblin’s head in order as if she were playing Whac-A-Mole, changed the tone of her voice as she continued speaking.
“The pressure has weakened. Maybe because of the fact that more than half of the monsters are following the Flame Emperor Dragon. Still, there must be other leaders.”
“It hasn’t been confirmed yet.”
The living natural disaster “Flame Emperor Dragon” was classified as a species of the SS class. The leaders of a Great Outbreak, that were behind a swarm of over 10,000 monsters, couldn’t just be A-class.
“There must be other leaders and their followers. I wish they’d stay still.”
“Well-informed, aren’t you?”
“Yogim and I, we’re retired adventurers… there was an outbreak, albeit a smaller one than this time, that flowed to the Republic of Falmunch when I was an adventurer. There were multiple Leaders at that time, but the one I fought together with the army was classified as a “Lord” species.”
Walm explored his memory.
The Republic of Falmunch was a country that was destroyed by an outbreak more than 20 years ago, and the final remaining territory was annexed by the Highserk Empire.
“Soldiers and adventurers are all dying. Haha, maybe I should pray to God?”
Yogim who always had good luck, couldn’t help but have a forced smile on his face.
Walm didn’t believe in fate, but one thing he believed was that if God was truly out there, must be a fucking bastard.
The only hope for me to stay alive is…
“Don’t pray to me!!”
If Deborah was to leave the battlefield now, Walm would pray to God from the bottom of his heart, if that was the only way to stop her.
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Thanks for chapter
Sooo….lets talk about the elephant in the room. is the mc going to slay the dragon i think its a bit too early for it plus theres a 300 thousand monsters going with the dragon even if the mc and everyone in castle goes its still not enough i think here’s how screwed they are, even if you combine all the militias and regular soldiers. the highserk empire will not have more than 50 thousand in which case the only option is they will kill only their leaders and throw the monsters into choas.the dragon will be a problem but the general said there are bigger countries outside the map shown to us maybe they have something to atleast ward off the dragon
I like this series since the MC isn’t a totally OP character. It’s nice to see that has his limits and that there isn’t a singular hero that saves everyone.
As for the Dragon, rather than defeat it, divert it to those who caused the outbreak.