Chapter 13: Act 3 – The Undead
“Brendel, Brendel?”
Miss Romaine poked his arm, while Sophie was absorbed in checking his own attributes, finding strength at merely one energy level. Unable to help but curse the NPCs for their lack of human rights—after all, even a skeleton had 1.5 strength levels.
All numerical units in attributes were measured in Oz, a shortened form of the ancient script Oauth, commonly referred to as energy levels. One energy level of strength roughly equated to the ability to lift about fifty kilograms and deliver a punch with a force not exceeding one hundred fifty kilograms, approximately equivalent to the strength of an adult man.
In the game, players started with base attributes of strength at two energy levels, agility at two energy levels, and constitution also at two energy levels. Intelligence, willpower, and perception were all at 1.5 levels, indicating about double the capability of an ordinary person. Absolute strength, or combat power, was approximately five, meaning the ability to deal with five ordinary people simultaneously was within reach.
Brendel, however, was a militiaman who’d gone through months of intensive training, yet the attribute disparity between him and players who began with ‘hero’ attributes remained so great. Although players opened the game as heroes, it wasn’t supposed to be off the charts like this, was it?
He had always wanted to criticize how players were termed as heroes starting their journey with strength only comparable to two skeletons. But now that he saw it from Brendel’s perspective, the previous players seemed genuinely like protagonists adorned with a hero aura.
The thought of not even being able to beat a single skeleton brought an overwhelming sense of sadness.
Sophie patted his arm, with the faint green number stubbornly lingering in his retina. He realized that there were some distinctions between this world and the one he knew. In the game, bandages were supposed to restore one unit of life per minute, so the six life points for civilians should have been fully recovered in six minutes. But here, it took several days.
This wasn’t a good sign.
Fortunately, the methods for using skills were largely consistent; he just had to recall the ‘basic knowledge’ gained from the civilian identity to remember some basic facts about this world. By drawing on the ‘military organization’ associated with the militiaman identity, he could also recall some common knowledge about Erluin’s military structure.
Though there were some differences, these knowledge bases felt like they were directly embedded in his true memory. As for swordsmanship, he could clearly feel it as an art that accumulated through months of training, instinctively integrated into every move. For instance, the stance when attacking, the proper placement of one’s center of gravity, and the need to pay attention to the position of the feet—the placement of one’s sword and the enemy’s sword, the use of feints, and the intent behind an attack.
In the game, the system would only suggest probable strike trajectories before one attacked, then assist in correcting the motions during the attack. Here, one didn’t need to care why, only to do it correctly. While seasoned gamers might have certain insights, they still relied on system assistance, so you wouldn’t see gaming geeks becoming masters of swordsmanship or combat arts in real life.
Some things simply had no shortcuts.
Sophie couldn’t help but grasp his own hands; the feeling of mastering them felt particularly great, contrasting sharply with the stiffness in the game. Here, the memories of self-mastery felt like an inseparable part of himself, to be utilized freely.
Of course, as he thought about it, Miss Romaine’s poking his arm made him immediately turn around alertly. His ears twitched slightly, and he had already heard the faint sounds coming from outside the room.
“Brendel, did you hear that?” The merchant Miss circled behind him and asked softly.
Sophie nodded. Outside, there came a line of ‘click-click’ footstep sounds, and there were quite a number. His heart sank as he immediately guessed that the vanguard of Madara’s forces had arrived. He made a silent signal and immediately pulled Romaine to retreat backward.
Madara’s vanguard arrived sooner than expected. At this moment, the countryside around Erlson-Golen was still deep in slumber, no one foretelling the coming disaster.
Except for himself.
The urgency of time made Sophie frown slightly. He led the merchant Miss into the room at the southernmost end, then gently and silently closed the door behind them. The room was full of dust, making both of them choke silently—it was a guest room that had been unused for a long time. However, he knew that from this window, one could safely oversee all that happened in the estate.
Sophie walked to the window, gently sweeping away the dust and lifting the curtain—
“Where do these things come from, do you know, Brendel?” The young girl asked with subtle curiosity.
“This is Madara’s army, the war has begun.” He answered while carefully peeking outside. Sure enough, it was Madara’s vanguard, and Sophie couldn’t help but take a quiet breath. In the center of the estate, there stood a dense cluster of skeletal soldiers. He counted three squads, totaling forty-five skeletal figures, with dark red lights flickering in the darkness. On the side, there were three necromancers controlling the lesser undead—always dressed as skeletons in robes, holding bone staves, their eyes glowing eerie green as they overseen the junior Madara soldiers.
Brendel’s grandfather’s old house was located on a hill not far from Buche with a view of the village below. It more resembled a small estate on the periphery of the town, originally home to five or six families, but they had long since moved away, leaving only Romaine and her aunt.
The maiden quietly inhaled in the darkness.
“Where’s Aunt Jennie?”
“My aunt has gone to the nearby town and won’t be back for a week.”
Sophie couldn’t help but glance at the other person. In the dark, he only saw a pair of bright eyes that twinkled with excitement.
“Are you not scared?” he couldn’t help but ask.
“I don’t know,” the merchant Miss softly replied, raising her head. “But my heart is pounding, like it’s quite exciting.”
Sophie was speechless. This young miss’s line of thought truly differed from ordinary people’s. But perhaps some people were born for adventure—maybe that’s who Romaine was.
He pretended not to notice and returned his gaze to the window pane. The necromancers still hadn’t cast their gaze in their direction, so Sophie could continue observing with ease—the shadows in the distance revealed many more enemies lurking in that direction.
A rough estimate suggested that the size of the advance force of Madara was over one hundred, a considerable number. A unit of such scale must certainly be controlled in the background by an undead witch apprentice. To him, it was terrible news.
In the game, Madara’s necromancer apprentice was roughly the equivalent level of a level-ten player. Even a single combatant of this level was not easily defeated by seven or eight well-trained adult men (soldiers or militiamen); not to mention that he and Romaine were only two against them and their large force.
Sophie couldn’t help but tap his fingers on the windowsill.
It would take the Buche vigilance team at least five minutes to reach here, meaning that if they encountered the enemy, they’d have to hold on for at least five minutes to wait for relief.
That’s assuming Buche even noticed they were under attack.
But how could they warn them?
He felt a bit troubled. The best way would be to start a fire. Bright flames and smoke were visible far and wide at night, and fire was an apparent warning signal to both humans and animals. However, whether to start the fire, and how to do it, was still an issue.
“Brendel, are we going to die?”
“Hard to say.”
The pitch-black room fell silent.
In the depths of the darkness, only the pale moonlight pouring in from the corner of the window cast a strip of silver light in the dim room.
Sophie thought for a moment and was just about to lower the curtain to calm down and consider a way out when some voices came from outside:
“Where is that poor fellow’s corpse? Bring it out for me to see. Didn’t the report say only two women live in this estate?”
First, it was the voice of a young man, but cold and shrill.
The next voice sounded dry and old, like broken wood making a raspy sound: “Just an unfortunate wretch, my Lord.”
This conversation made Sophie’s heart thump. He looked out again and quickly found the source of the voices beneath the shadow of a large tree: there, a man in a wide black robe was questioning his underling necromancer.
Sophie’s gaze quickly fell on the cuff of the other man, and he faintly saw a ring of gray-white bone decoration, proving that the other party was indeed a necromancer apprentice.
His guess was correct.
“… Remember, I don’t need your opinions, you only need to follow orders.” The wizard, completely cloaked, suddenly stopped speaking and looked in Sophie’s direction as he raised his head.
Sophie’s heart raced wildly, and immediately lowered the curtain. Darn, he had momentarily thought himself to be the 130-plus level veteran, entirely forgetting that the other’s perception was much stronger than his stealth level.
This might not expose them immediately, but the other side would surely be suspicious.
Sure enough, he soon heard that guy outside say: “Alright, hurry up. I sense there seems to be live people in that house. Be thorough. These days, I’ve always suspected that they’ve discovered our plans—”
Crap, as soon as the other side noticed that Brendel’s ‘corpse’ was missing, they would take immediate action. Sophie hurriedly thought. He considered the kitchen’s rear door, but there was nowhere to hide nearby in Erlson-Golen’s natural pastures. The slope below had a patch of woods, but there was an open distance of over a hundred meters, too exposed. What should they do?
“Brendel?” The merchant Miss looked at him questioningly.
“Follow me,” Sophie gritted his teeth; we’ll take it step by step.
He opened the door and just saw a necromancer and two skeleton soldiers entering the hall downstairs. The necromancer in the woven robe immediately spotted him and Miss Romaine—this undead quickly raised its bone staff, but Sophie had a quicker reaction—without hesitation, he raised his right hand, aiming his signet ring at them: “Oss!”
(Note: Ancient language of Wozeng, meaning wind.)
He could only pray that the ring would still work—
Fortunately, Sophie immediately felt the ring warm slightly. The air in front of him seemed to abruptly expand with a loud ‘whoosh.’
Like a hurricane sweeping through, the necromancer, the skeletons it was with, and the estate’s front door all shattered in an instant. Bits of wood, stone, and bone chips explosively radiated out, then gently fell like countless butterflies fluttering across the sky.
At the same instant, five golden light points flew from the shattered bodies of the necromancer and skeleton soldiers, quickly merging into Sophie’s chest—all this happened in a blink, without even the young man himself realizing it.
After the explosion, only a massive outward-radiating pattern remained on the ground.
Everything fell silent. Sophie was so amazed that he was momentarily speechless. In the game, a wind blast caused 30 points of air-based damage, more than enough to one-shot lower-level necromancers and skeleton soldiers, but its impact wasn’t supposed to be so exaggerated, was it?
A huge void now existed where the old estate’s front gate had been. This used to be his grandfather’s property, but at this moment, Sophie had no thoughts of regret, realizing he still needed to escape immediately.
“Brendel, you’re a wizard!” Romaine exclaimed in shock behind him.
“Sorry, I’ll explain later,” he breathed in, grabbing her hand and rushing down— the kitchen was on the first floor, and he had to reach it before the other side reacted.
“Wait, Brendel, I can’t keep up with you…!”
“Be careful, we’re going downstairs!”
“Ah!”
The sudden explosion made the skeletons outside turn their heads. But being lacking in intelligence, they only responded instinctively to the sounds. Therefore, they just stood there motionless, passively awaiting the orders of the necromancer.
The necromancer’s eye sockets’ green flames flickered, and it quickly raised its bone staff, a spark appearing on the tip of the staff.
“No fire, you idiot!” Suddenly, the cloaked wizard grabbed down the staff, gritting his teeth. The prior explosion had probably already caught the attention of people in Buche, so at this time, using fire would only serve as a warning sign to the humans in the village.
He quickly turned and pointed at the house: “Soldiers, seize those two!”
There was a loud clamor as Skeleton Soldiers all drew their long swords uniformly and surged into the house.
By this time, Sophie had already rushed down the stairs. He saw the swarm of skeleton figures rushing in, the countless red dots in the darkness, and couldn’t help but feel a chill run down his spine. But he wasn’t a 130-plus-level veteran now, and the ring on his hand was currently recharging. Thus, he had no choice but to take the challenge head-on.
If these skeletons got hold of them, they’d probably be hacked into minced meat by a dozen swords…
“Never a good day,” Sophie couldn’t help but feel utterly powerless.
The pain in his chest was overwhelming, but he still managed to beat the skeletons to the kitchen, promptly closing the door behind him. He hadn’t even had time to sigh in relief when there was instantly a ‘clatter-clatter-clatter’ of swords being driven through the wooden door.
He was lucky he acted swiftly; otherwise, he’d probably have been pinned to the doorframe.
“Close call!” Sophie felt his heart pounding, glancing around as he noticed that the other side of the kitchen led to an exit. However, he knew he couldn’t leave this way—he needed to alert the people in Buche, only then would he have any hope of saving himself.
And, fire could hold off the low-level undead.
“Brendel?” The merchant Miss bent over panting beside him, unable to help but look up at the other person. Never had she seen such decisive bravery in Brendel, causing great surprise.
“Miss Romaine, you hold the door for me.” But Sophie had no time to explain anything at the moment; every moment was crucial.
“Clatter, clatter, clatter—”
The skeleton soldiers were attacking the wooden door on the other side. This door wasn’t designed for defense and quickly had a few slits carved into it.
“Me?” Romaine blinked her eyes.
“Yep, I need some time.”
“What are you going to do?” The merchant Miss asked curiously.
“I need a way to warn the villagers. This is Madara’s army of the undead, we must alert the others.” Sophie struggled to remain calm, checking and searching for flint while answering her question.
He remembered where it should have been placed, right?
“Alright, I’ll do it.” Romaine quickly moved to stand between Sophie and the door.
“Will you be okay?”
“Sure,” the merchant Miss raised her stonemason’s hammer as matter-of-factly as possible, adding, “I’ll do my best. I’m going to be a great merchant in the future!”
Sophie halted, looked at her, and found himself nodding.
“You will be, Miss Romaine.”
“Alright, Brand…”
