Ch.192Army of the Dead (1)

“Yes. It seems that’s an undead.”

The undead were something our party… or more precisely, everyone except the dwarf brothers had seen before.

Not just seen, but we had fought against an entire army of them that filled a village, so it would be fair to say we were completely familiar with them.

“Looks like those damn ghouls and golems are here too.”

“Be careful, party leader. This is on a different scale from before.”

“Yeah… I know.”

Nearly 50,000 dead bodies stood at regular intervals, trembling as if awaiting orders.

They maintained a distance just beyond the range of our arrows… at least in terms of strategy, they seemed more skilled than the necromancer from Derikson village.

“They know we don’t have siege weapons. Quite meticulous, aren’t they?”

“Our arrows could reach them… what should we do?”

“Kill the ghouls. The regular troops won’t be able to handle them once they climb the barricade.”

“Got it.”

“Berkman. Target the flesh golems. They’re surprisingly sturdy, so rather than killing them in one shot, it’s enough to sever their legs or spine to immobilize them.”

“Understood.”

“Hawkman. Set up a fire barrier along the entire defensive line to block their approach. The ghouls and golems will break through, but the zombies won’t be able to advance recklessly.”

“Leave it to me!”

“Simon. Do as you see fit.”

“…Understood.”

Though the orders were simple, everyone nodded in agreement.

After accumulating so much experience as adventurers, we had reached a level where we could understand each other perfectly, even with minimal explanation.

Creak! Creeeak!

“Lord Victor! They’re bringing battering rams and catapults!”

At my subordinate’s words, I looked down at the enemy lines.

Dozens of catapults and five battering rams were slowly approaching, breaking through the ranks of corpses.

“Simon!”

“Hmm!”

Simon focused for a moment, then channeled magic into his staff and shouted.

“I command the lightning and wind! Shatter all bolts and hail that fall upon us!”

Crackle!

As he cast the spell, a sphere of lightning formed directly above the center of the barricade, and when projectiles flew from the catapults, the lightning sphere sent down bolts that reduced dozens of projectiles to dust.

“An interception spell… excellent, Simon!”

“Not done yet!”

With that shout, Simon extended his staff toward the sky, rose into the air, and began gathering clouds.

“Messenger of lightning drifting through the clouds! Bring down the thunder-born lightning to this place!”

Rumble… CRACK!

BOOM!!!

With the spell, five lightning bolts descended from the gathered clouds, striking precisely at the five battering rams, shattering them completely. Nearby troops were directly hit by chain lightning, turning black and never to rise again.

With just two spells, Simon had completely neutralized their siege weapons. He descended back to the ground, and seeing this, the battalion commander began rallying the soldiers below the wall.

“Did you all see that? This is the power of our lords! With them on our side, defeat is impossible!”

“Iron Walker! Iron Walker! Iron Walker!”

Thump! Thump! Thump!

The sound of spears striking the ground accompanied the chanting of our party’s name from behind.

This must be what it feels like to be someone’s savior and pillar of strength.

Bwooooo-!!

-Kyaaaaaaah!!!!!!!-

-Grooooooaaaar!!!!-

And with the sound of the war horn, the army of the dead began swarming to cross the barricade.

*

“Fire!!!!”

Thwack-thwack-thwack!

Arrows shot by nearly 300 archers flew over the barricade, striking directly into the zombie units making the first charge.

However, due to the zombies’ nature, except for the few dozen lucky headshots, the arrows had little effect. That’s when Hawkman stepped forward.

“Let’s play with fire, shall we?”

Hisssss….! WHOOSH!!!

As the large flamethrower on his back began spewing fire, the shambling zombie units instantly began to melt away.

Zombies trying to escape to the sides were being adequately checked by Simon, who was launching fireballs and lightning arrows, while the elf twins were frantically shooting arrows into the zombies’ heads with handfuls of arrows.

Shing…

I drew Purifier and looked at the grotesque ghouls and horrific flesh golems approaching in the distance, trampling zombies beneath them.

Soon, they would be caught in our field of fire.

“Berkman!”

“Grenade coming!”

BOOM!

The projectile—more like a rocket than a grenade—struck precisely on the head of a ghoul rushing mindlessly forward… and then exploded.

With its entire upper body disappearing in the explosion, the ghoul—now just an “oul”—collapsed in place, and Berkman laughed as he began loading the next grenade.

“Ha! How does that taste!”

Click!

The reloaded grenade launcher was aimed at a flesh golem this time, completely destroying one of its legs. The flesh golem fell awkwardly to the ground, flailing about.

Afterward, Cassia fired an aura-infused arrow into the flesh golem’s head for a confirmed kill, while Hawkman enthusiastically burned the zombies rushing to fill the gap.

“There was a time when our entire party struggled with just one flesh golem!”

“That was ages ago! You frontliners with nothing to do might as well be dancing!”

“Haha!”

Thwack-thwack-thwack!

No sooner had my laughter ended than another volley of arrows rained down from the archers.

Although they couldn’t kill many zombies, at least the arrows rendered the struck body parts useless, and the less armored ghouls were greatly hindered by the pain and resistance of more than ten arrows, forcing them to halt their charge.

The barricade was small enough that seven warriors could occupy a third of it. From the tower behind it, a different kind of attack was being carried out—machine guns and sniper rifles.

Simon had purchased these weapons with his own money due to our lack of support weaponry, but ammunition and spare parts were limited, so I had agonized over whether to deploy them in this battle.

In the end, my calculation was that good weapons are those that fulfill their purpose on the battlefield, and it would be acceptable if all the machine guns and sniper rifles were ruined in this one battle.

That calculation proved correct—the machine guns sprayed bullets like a mist while the sniper rifles fired precise single shots to destroy the weak points of golems and ghouls. Thanks to this, even after an hour of battle, not a single drop of the dead’s blood had reached the barricade.

“Ha! Is this the best your masters can do? This is what happens when mediocre liches or necromancers just increase their numbers!”

After saying that, I infused my sword with aura and sent blade waves toward the ground.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

-Groooooar!!-

With each blade wave, hundreds of zombies were swept away like fallen leaves, and the limbs of ghouls and golems were sliced like paper.

After about three hours of battle, the army of the dead, apparently deciding there was no way forward, began to retreat.

Ghouls bleeding profusely collapsed and died from blood loss as they retreated, while zombies slowed by arrows in their joints became excellent target practice for the snipers.

When the enemy became so numerous that even my aura-enhanced vision couldn’t see them all, I called the soldiers from behind the wall to clear the corpses to one side, burn them, and recover any usable arrows.

Soon, over 500 soldiers crossed the wall with field shovels and began clearing the bodies. It took a full ten hours to complete the task.

“Good work, everyone. Eat and rest. No need for night watch.”

“W-we can’t do that! How could we leave the night watch to our lord?”

“We have alarm magic, you know.”

“Oh.”

At my words, the battalion commander finally went down with his soldiers to eat and rest.

Since the soldiers in the tower couldn’t easily come down, food was sent up by rope, and they were busy cleaning the tower, sweeping spent cartridges down with brooms.

“How many did we kill?”

“By my calculation, we burned about 12,000 corpses.”

“When will they attack again?”

“They’ve lost a fifth of their total force. Whether they replenish their forces or revise their strategy, it won’t be soon.”

“Then we have some time… until they reorganize their troops.”

“That’s right.”

As I said this, fatigue suddenly washed over me.

It wasn’t so much physical exhaustion as the revulsion from seeing so many corpses and the strain on my eyes from all the red.

I finished a quick meal and fell into a brief sleep, only to be visited by an inspector at my quarters not long after.