Chapter 7

Axel woke suddenly, jolting up in the bed. The last thing he remembered was a great deal of pain after he sealed the Miasma away. Rayner must have carried him here.

A woman sitting by his bed left calling for a man named John. When John came, he explained what happened while Axel was sleeping.

“He did what?”

“He left to fight the dragons, rescue the maiden and free our people of this scourge,” John explained for the third time.

Axel sighed, it sounded like something Rayner would do. Stupid hero. Not like he had much of choice. If he refused, Axel would still be asleep, or dead.

He thanked the man and went to get his things. Maybe he could catch up with Rayner if he hurried.

He could hear a commotion coming from outside, people were screaming. John was out the door first.

Outside villagers ran around in chaos. John stopped one of the villagers. “What is going on?”

“Attack. Goblins, wolves, kobolds, worms, drill birds. Everything.”

Before John could ask him any more questions, the villager ran off.

“What’s a drill bird?” Axel asked.

“It’s a monster bird with a sharp beak that spins as it dives toward a victim. That’s not the problem. The problem is why are they all attacking.”

“It could be the Inimi. They work with goblins.”

A woman with a spear hurried to them. “They are not working together. They are attacking together.”

“The difference being?” John asked.

“They attack each other instead of cooperating.”

If a luck stat existed, he would have to find it and check to see if it was zero. He wouldn’t be able to go to Rayner. “Looks like we are in for a siege. The village is walled right?”

“Yes,” the spearwoman said. “The walls weren’t built for this.”

“We will make it work. Who’s in charge?”

“Me.”

“Do you know what to do?”

“No. I would accept help.”

“You got it.”

Axel wished he had Rayner’s booming voice; with it he, John and the woman with the spear named Mary would not have had to run around the village trying to create order. Another man named Walker joined them later, to tell them bad news. “The worms are filling the trench. Soon the other monsters will be able to attack all around the wall.”

“Can’t the worms just tunnel into the village.”

“Our local God’s blessing prevents that. It’s why the village was built here long ago.”

“Any other benefits?”

“The well water is always clean.”

The small gods of Alta didn’t follow a theme. No god ruled over a single emotion or idea. Rather, they granted and represented a hodgepodge of abilities and ideals. It was a form of direct worship; villagers wanted clean water, they thanked the god for the clean water and lack of sickness as a result, and continued to get filtered water. He had not seen a single bible since coming to this world.

“How many men and women in the village militia?”

“20. The population of the village is 300 men, women and children,” Mary said. “Should we recruit more?”

“For now, no. They will be of more use supporting the fighters. Only in the stories do people who have never fought before perform well against monsters.” Axel felt strange, and he couldn’t figure out why.

Walker left to gather the militia to the walls, John checked if all those who could not fight were taken care of, leaving him with Mary.

“What skills does your militia have available?”

“We volunteered based on willingness to fight, not by skills. Some have none. I have a skill that increases the durability of my spear. The others have a skill to handle waste without getting dirty, a skill to feel when someone is sneaking up behind them...” She went on to describe useless but interesting skills.

Skills were the bread and butter of combat in games, and this remained true in this fantasy world Yazid sent them to. Everyone had skills, naturally. The difference is the use of mana that activated it. The magical energy, mana, enabled a supernatural quality to skills. Firing an arrow was a skill but only with mana did it become something more. With mana the arrow did not only rely on the physical power or talent of the user. In a way, even floor sweeping could be a special skill with mana applied to it.

He remembered what he had told Evans. He said that not all skills needed an obvious combat use. “Tell me the skills of the villagers as well.”

Standing on a guard tower at the gates, he saw the varied horde of monsters gathering around the village. He was not afraid of the sight. It was just a mob. A mob was as dangerous to itself as it was to others. This was how they would defeat them.

But the first part of his plan was to wait. They had walls, so they would take advantage of that. Using the skills of the villagers they would make sure the walls held.

A villager had a skill that stopped wood from splintering; he used his skill on the parts of the wall in disrepair. A boy who could harden mud helped him. A woman timed her skill so when the monsters pushed against the wall it became elastic then pushed back at them.

Those without skills poured hot water on monsters trying to climb up the walls. Some hurled rocks at the flying enemies. Meanwhile, children helped dig traps near the weakest parts of the wall, giving them another line of defense to fall back on.

Despite their efforts, monsters made it into the village by flying creatures like the drill bird, and ones that had great jumping ability like the spring spider.

Axel jumped from the guard tower, quickly engaging the spring spider. The end of its limbs looked like springs and he could hear a coiling sound as it prepared to attack him. Its many eyes didn’t allow it to see behind it as Walker speared it in the back. Even wounded it jumped away and into two women carrying buckets of water to the gates. They screamed, grossed out by the black hairy spider. Axel didn’t blame them; he wouldn’t want to touch the creature either.

The women may have been frightened of it, but not so much to miss an opportunity to kill the enemy. They took out their knives and stabbed it in the eyes.

Walker gave the women a nod of acknowledgment. “That will teach it to mess with our village girls.”

“Walker, I thought you were at the other side of the village?”

“I wanted you to know that the goblins are using ladders.”

“Where the hell did they get those?”

“Goblins are more than capable of building tools.”

“Right, still you could have just sent a runner.”

“Some of them are moving to this side, so I thought you would need the help.”

“Thanks, but we have to trust the others will hold out without further aid. For now, we need to make a sweep of the village to make sure none got inside by other means. Monsters have skills too.”

“I saw none on my way here, but it wouldn’t hurt to check.”

With that, the two looked for invading enemies.

“Over there, the rabbit.” Walker brought his attention to a cute little rabbit eating from a dropped basket of food.

The rabbit turned toward them. Red eyes glowing, front teeth sharp as daggers. Another creature that had an ability to jump over the walls and small enough to escape notice. It was ready for them, bouncing side to side like a boxer. Walker moved first, but the bunny dodged with ease. Axel tried next, but the bunny was too fast. It jumped at Walker, head-butting him in the stomach.

“C’mon Walker, we are not going to get schooled by a rabbit!”

Walker clutched his stomach and leaned on his spear. “Rabbits are one of the more dangerous monsters around here Axel.” He parried another headbutt. “They ruin gardens and breed ... well, like rabbits.”

“Point taken.”

As the rabbit prepared to pounce on them again, one of the bucket-carrying women from earlier dumped scorching hot water on the rabbit, causing the rabbit to hop around in pain until it lost consciousness. She then finished it with her knife.

“You should join the village militia,” Walker said. Instead of responding she went back to refill her bucket.

A villager armed with a broom fought off several drill birds. When she swung her broom, the loose straws would harden and pierce the monsters, turning the broom into a spear and a distance weapon. Her act was proof of concept, everyday skills transformed with the use of mana. Their gods had blessed them with skills relevant to their daily lives.

“What kind of skill is that?” he asked the woman.

“I use it to straighten my hair.” Looking at the forest on her head she called hair he could see why.

“Head to the walls, that is a useful skill, it will be of more use there.” They left the woman after defeating the birds, looking for the next enemy.

It became clear the villagers were more capable than they gave themselves credit for. They took his advice about how their skills could be of use in non-standard ways to heart. If they kept this up, he wouldn’t need to enact his plan.

After clearing the village, they checked the walls. Mary shouted orders, running back and forth making her presence known. She wasn’t ready for an attack of this scale, so he told her that compared to others she was very experienced. Axel wasn’t just giving her a confidence boost, according to her stats she was as strong as Barny’s guardsmen.

She displayed her strength when a goblin got onto the walls with a rope. She engaged it without hesitation. Piercing it through the stomach, for good measure she threw it over the wall. She let the rope it used to climb the wall fall, along with the other goblins climbing it.

“I see you are doing well Mary,” Axel said.

She was, better than well, a grin was on her face. “If I knew they would be this easy to kill, I would not have hidden behind these walls for most of my life!”

“The walls make our paltry number of fighters look like a force 10 times our true number.”

Seeing that the walls were holding he went to get some rest. An odd thing to do during an attack, but if people did not get enough sleep, they would falter. So, he led by example and got some shuteye.

Entering John’s home, he saw Martha, the healer who used her skill to relieve him of his condition. She was looking for something. He could guess what.

“Ma’am, I know what you are looking for, it is best you leave it be.”

“It’s an evil thing you keep, I can feel it but I can’t find It.”

The ball of miasma that he sealed away not only floated it camouflaged itself. No that would be inaccurate. It was so horrible to look upon that anyone seeing it would tell themselves it wasn’t there. When he met back up with Rayner, he would put it in his notes to study the effect.

“Look, thanks for saving me, but shouldn’t you be resting? I have the object you are looking for contained. Besides, I don’t think I can destroy it.”

“It reminds me of the miasma close to our village. Nothing good comes from there.”

“I agree.” She didn’t need to know that the item she searched for was the miasma in its entirety. “Now if you don’t mind, I am going to get some shut eye.”

She didn’t question his choice to sleep during a battle. She mumbled about evil gods and left. The healing spell was supposed to cripple her. She must have exaggerated to Rayner the effects the skill would have on her to convince him to fight the dragons.

After she left, he went to sleep.

The walls held. He half expected everything to go tell hell while he slept. Even better, some of the more troublesome enemies had abandoned their attack. The flying enemies were gone, and so were the worms. Worms could not tunnel under the village and hurt themselves trying. That woman with the broom massacred the birds.

The retreat of the birds was not entirely a good thing. They were part of his plan to defeat the rest of the monsters. It was not a huge setback; he would just have to find another delivery method.

“Walker, you’re awake, did you not get any sleep?”

“I’m a light sleeper and the horde of bloodthirsty monsters at our gates doesn’t help.”

“What about Mary?”

“She refused to rest, and it’s probably for the best as not many in the village can lead.”

“Well if my plan works this siege won’t last any longer.”

“A siege. Something I can tell my kids about.”

“You have kids?”

“I will after this!”

A messenger came to update them on the situation. They had captured the monsters needed for his plan.

The group of monsters were tied up and being watched by no less than 40 of the villagers. One villager had a skill that let her tighten ropes to an extreme degree making it near impossible for the monsters to break through.

John moved between the monsters, double checking the ropes just in case. “Are you ready Axel? I have my doubts about this plan. It seems hopeful.”

John’s doubts were valid, he had never tested this before. It relied too much on luck. But using his skill combined with those of a few select villagers he might pull this off.

Axel pulled out his knife. “Have faith, John.” He activated his skill Fear Knife, cutting each monster. The skill differed from Pain Knife, the depth and severity of the wound didn’t increase its effects.

After brainstorming with the villagers, he had found a solution to improve the skill’s effectiveness: drugs. Using Fear Knife, drugs, a skill that increased the effects of debuffs and another skill that increased the potency of drugs, he got the result he desired. Terrified monsters.

That was the first step. With the help of the villagers, they took the terrified monsters to one of the gates. This gate had the most monsters in front of it and was the closest to breaking.

“Everything is ready for you Axel,” Mary said.

Three men with the required skills came forward, used their skills on the monsters and left.

“Open the gates!” a man said.

Then they released the monsters. The terrified monsters ran into the others who charged the now open gates. At first, the monsters simply batted them away. Then other monsters became just as fearful. It spread until all the present monsters attacked or ran away. When the uninfected monsters saw the others fighting, they assumed the tentative truce was broken and assaulted each other.