Chapter 94 — Defense of the Wall (Part 4)

Chapter 94 — Defense of the Wall (Part 4)

Right now, we were standing on the wall, waiting for the Dark Wolves to appear. As usual, our plan was simple.

We had set up a tent in one of the buildings—on the roof of a three-story house not far from the wall. I had improved Rem’s tent: before, it had been Rank 1 and only provided slight soundproofing along with a couple of weak effects, but after upgrading it to Rank 4, it became much stronger. Now no one could eavesdrop on us in there.

The plan itself was as follows. As soon as the Dark Wolves appeared, I would teleport Rem to the Training Room, where she would start summoning enough golems. Sherial would use her skills to the fullest, after which I would immediately send her to the Training Room so she could recover a little while I dealt with the enemies myself. Then I would bring her back to the wall so she could use her abilities again. And so on—over and over until the very end of the battle.

Though at first, like an idiot, I suggested leaving Rem in the Training Room in advance—even before the wolves appeared. Of course, that was a stupid idea. They immediately explained to me that Rem had no intention of waiting several months or even a year for them to appear, considering the time difference.

The mood of the adventurers and soldiers on the wall was, to put it mildly, not the best when they learned that the Dark Wolves were also going to attack here, and that the battle was not over yet. However, everything changed when around two thousand Rank-5 golems appeared near the wall. The mood noticeably improved, and hope appeared that they might be able to hold out in this battle.

I heard people around me whispering that the information about the possible appearance of around two thousand Dark Wolves had to be a mistake, and things like that. It seemed they truly hoped so.

Their expectations and hopes were completely opposite to mine. I, on the contrary, wanted as many Dark Wolves as possible to appear. Yes, that was selfish of me, I understood that. But I needed experience points to raise my level.

"They’re approaching," Sherial said.

Just as we had agreed, Rem and I immediately jumped down onto the roof of the building where the tent had been set up. As soon as we went inside, I teleported Rem to the Training Room and immediately returned to the wall.

The wolves still weren’t visible. I waited about thirty more seconds, and soon some silhouettes began to appear in the distance. A little more—and it became clear that they were wolves. Dark Wolves.

Suddenly, the golems standing near the wall began moving toward the enemy. Sherial also prepared an arrow and started activating her strongest skill.

Unlike the previous monsters, the Dark Wolves were far more dangerous. As soon as they got close enough to the wall, casualties would be unavoidable, considering how weak most of the defenders were. So it was better to attack them as early as possible, from a distance.

The plan was simple, but there was one part of it that I didn’t like. At the start of the battle, my task was basically to teleport Sherial back and forth, allowing her to use her skills without interruption.

Sherial’s shot flew toward the Dark Wolves with a quiet whistle. The others started getting restless—apparently most of the adventurers still hadn’t even seen the approaching monsters.

A few seconds later, a powerful explosion thundered in the distance. I immediately understood that this time it was much stronger than before, when Sherial had used this skill.

Following the plan, Sherial and I jumped down from the wall and started moving toward the Dark Wolves. Soon we caught up with Rem’s stone golems and entered their ranks.

When we were among them and could no longer be seen from the wall, I teleported Sherial to the Training Room.

"So how many died? How many did you manage to kill?" I asked. I was curious, considering how powerful the explosion had been. It should have killed a lot of Dark Wolves.

"Fifty-two," Sherial replied.

"Only fifty-two?" I asked in surprise.

"What were you expecting? They’re higher level than me. Only the monsters that were at the center of the explosion died," Sherial said.

Yes, she was right. Those Dark Wolves were level 175—only a few levels below me. And honestly, that even made me a little happy. I had been worried that Sherial’s shots would destroy all the Dark Wolves and leave nothing for me.

I teleported back to the battlefield, activated Berserk, and dashed forward. I quickly reached the front ranks of the golems and, overtaking them, continued moving toward the Dark Wolves.

When the distance between us shrank to around four hundred meters, I deactivated Berserk and teleported into the Training Room.

"Oh, is it already time?" I heard Sherial’s voice.

Sherial was lying on a lounge chair. Nearby, on another lounge chair, Rem was also lying down with her eyes closed, as if she were asleep. But I knew she wasn’t sleeping—she was controlling the golems.

It was even hard for me to imagine how exhausting that was, considering the difference in the flow of time. If time here and outside passed at the same rate, it might be comparable to controlling units in a computer game. But with a difference like this, it was probably the most boring game possible—the golems moved far too slowly for someone inside here.

Sherial stood up, took her bow and arrow, came over to me, and began preparing her skill. The arrow started glowing.

About fifteen seconds later, I heard:

"Ready."

I immediately teleported her. The moment we appeared on the battlefield, she fired, and at that same instant I took us back to the Training Room, without waiting for the explosion.

Yes, watching the explosion would have been more spectacular, but we were too close to the epicenter, and it was unlikely we would have seen anything truly impressive.

Now all that was left was to wait. According to Sherial, for the larger fragments and dust after the explosion to settle enough for normal visibility, we had to wait around thirty seconds.

That meant I wouldn’t have to wait eight hours here.

Damn, I could even take a nap.

"Here’s your place," Sherial said, pointing to another lounge chair.

Well, no choice. I couldn’t exactly fight while fragments were falling from the sky and it was impossible to see properly what was happening around me.

I sat down, then lay back on the lounge chair.

Yeah, a lot had happened today. It wouldn’t be bad to sleep… though I had already slept recently. Fine, I’d just lie down and rest.

—

About eight hours passed.

Of course, I couldn’t just lie on the lounge chair the whole time. I was too excited about the upcoming battle, so I trained with my sword—basically just swinging it around.

"Are you sure about this?" Sherial asked.

"Yes. I need to keep improving too," I replied.

"Fine, suit yourself," she nodded.

Originally, the plan had been simple. Rem would endlessly summon golems for as long as she could, and I would teleport Sherial to the battlefield so she could attack the Dark Wolves. That way we could defeat them more safely.

But that plan had one small flaw—I would barely get any experience points. Maybe the system would give some kind of reward, but that wouldn’t compare to what I would get by personally fighting the Dark Wolves.

"Be careful. Don’t do anything stupid. The moment you get wounded—come back here immediately," Sherial said.

"Yeah," I replied and teleported back to the battlefield.

I activated Berserk at once and rushed forward. The dust still interfered a little with visibility, but I could already make out silhouettes ahead—the Dark Wolves were moving straight toward me.

Finally.

I was charging forward, and the Dark Wolves were racing toward me. The distance between us was closing rapidly.

The first wolf had already opened its jaws while running, preparing to tear me apart. At the last moment, I sharply changed direction, and its fangs passed within barely ten centimeters of me.

My sword immediately plunged straight into its open mouth, tearing its body in two.

[Dungeon monster defeated: Dark Wolf (Lv. 175)]

[Received: +453,715,198 experience points]

Right after that, I couldn’t kill the next wolf the same way. We were moving too fast—both them and me. They simply didn’t have time to react properly, but I also had to constantly adjust myself.

It was actually a little fun—sharply changing direction, shifting to the side, and correcting the angle of my sword while moving.

The next wolf fell as well.

Yes, it became a bit more difficult when two or three attacked me at once. But that wasn’t a problem. I just avoided unnecessary attacks, chose one target, and destroyed it.

That continued for a while. By my count, I had killed more than a hundred wolves.

But the fun didn’t last long.

I broke through the stream of Dark Wolves and ended up on the other side. Most of the pack kept moving forward, toward the wall, trying to break out of the dungeon. However, about two dozen of them stopped.

Looks like not all of them had made it past yet.

Alright… that actually made things more interesting.

It wouldn’t have been very fun if I had simply needed to chase them.

I dashed forward. Several wolves lunged at me at once. But considering that I was smaller than them and superior in physical stats, that gave me a serious advantage in maneuverability.

I dodged their attacks.

Damn—one set of jaws snapped shut right in front of my head.

Fine.

I cut off the first one’s head.

Nineteen left… no, twenty.

Whew.

Another one. Another.

I kept moving, slipping away from their attacks. Not so easily that it became boring, but enough to preserve a sense of control.

Oh—one of them still managed to clip me.

Ah, whatever. Just a small scratch… though there’s probably a little more blood than I’d like.

Fine, not critical.

In less than thirty seconds, it was over.

Hm.

Now I’d have to catch up with the rest of the Dark Wolves.

I moved forward.

It looked like the battle between the stone golems and the Dark Wolves was in full swing. The golems were losing. Yes, some wolves were getting destroyed here and there, but overall, each wolf managed to destroy dozens of stone golems.

Though on the other hand, the stone golems couldn’t really lose. Their ranks were being replenished even faster than they were being destroyed. Right now I could see no fewer than four thousand golems, and their numbers were still growing.

I wanted to simply join the fun, but those damn Dark Wolves started behaving strangely.

Their focus shifted. Instead of just destroying the golems, they started breaking through them. They killed the ones directly in front of them, then leaped over the rest.

Yes, the golems were starting to adjust to this behavior. But if this kept going, some of the Dark Wolves would still be able to break through the blockade and reach the wall.

I swung my sword, taking the heads off the Dark Wolves.

I just needed to reduce their numbers. Destroy as many as possible—then they wouldn’t manage to break through.

Damn, several Dark Wolves still broke through the blockade and were already racing toward the wall.