After getting his revenge on the soldiers, Tenma flew on for about an hour. As it began to gradually grow dark, he spotted smoke rising from the direction of the village.
"What's with that smoke?!"
A dreadful premonition crept over him as he kept flying, but when the scene below finally came into view, Tenma was stunned.
--- Hours earlier, before Tenma returned ---
"Celia, Merlin, when I give the signal, unleash your fire-area magic on the ones heading for the gate! After that, the warriors and swordsmen will clean up anyone who gets through."
He issued the orders and bided his time.
"Now! Fire!"
""Firestorm!""
The high-level fire magic crashed down upon the zombies. But zombies had no means of dodging magic, and it incinerated nearly the entire group.
Of the roughly five hundred zombies, only the twenty or thirty at the very front survived — the rest were reduced to ash.
Seeing this, I leaped out alongside thirty warriors and swordsmen.
"Listen up — put them down in a single blow! Once that's done, we pull back immediately!"
The front line was made up of strong fighters, so they all dispatched their targets with a single strike. Even though the enemies were goblin and orc zombies with no weapons, it was still smooth going.
The real problem was that the garrison had too few weapons in stock, especially arrows.
Normally the garrison should have held over fifty soldiers, which meant there should have been a reasonable stockpile of weapons and supplies, but this time there weren't even thirty. Damn it — if they wanted to cut costs, they could have done it somewhere else!
For the first year and a half, the garrison had always maintained about fifty to sixty soldiers, and when replacement units arrived, it wasn't unusual for the count to exceed a hundred. But all you ever encountered when you ventured into the forest were goblins and the occasional orc, so the numbers had gradually dwindled. Recently, there had been only twenty to thirty soldiers — forty at most, if they were lucky.
To make matters worse, the soldiers who had fled had taken as much food and weaponry as they could load onto wagons, leaving only a meager amount in the supply depot.
Because of this, the villagers had been forced to fight with whatever weapons they had each brought from home.
"Alright, pull back!"
"Right!" my companions shouted back and charged through the gate.
Holding out until reinforcements arrived didn't seem possible at this rate. In fact, this was the sixth assault since Tenma had flown off to get help. The number of enemies we'd taken down had to exceed three thousand.
Those damn...
Soldiers...
...they fudged the numbers on us. It was clearly off by more than just a thousand.
Whether it was the stress or not, his speech had reverted to his adventurer days, but there was no time to worry about that.
"Hey, Ricardo!"
"What is it, Mark?"
Mark, who was keeping watch, sounded grim.
"We're in trouble! This time it's Ogres! About thirty of them, and behind them, an estimated thousand Goblins and Orcs!"
That was indeed trouble.
Ogres were large Monsters, roughly three meters tall and classified as B-rank. With thirty of them, a makeshift fortress like this wouldn't last five minutes before being overrun.
"Celia! Merlin!"
"Yes!"
"Leave it to us!"
The two understood immediately and answered without hesitation.
"'Fire Arrow'"
They were a bit far out, but the two of them unleashed Fire Arrows in rapid succession.
The spell had low Magic Power consumption and excellent range, so they targeted only the Ogres. Even so, the Ogres weren't stopping, so when they got closer, each of them cast Fire Storm twice, striking the Goblins as well.
They couldn't wipe them all out, but they reduced the numbers to less than a tenth of what they'd been. Five Ogres remained.
"Charge!"
At my shout, my companions rushed forward. The Monsters were already battered, so we cut them down easily.
When the wave broke and we caught our breath, we took the opportunity to drink water and rest briefly. Celia and Merlin still seemed to have energy to spare, but perhaps to be safe, they drank a little Magic Power Potion.
After that, several more assaults came, and eventually the number per wave exceeded a thousand.
If this was the enemy's strategy, it was truly vicious.
They started with a small number of weak enemies, gradually increased the numbers, and then deployed stronger Monsters.
Whoever was controlling the zombies was probably a fairly cunning one.
"Ricardo, the enemy is pulling back."
"Did they run away?"
I asked Mark, wishing with all my heart that was the case.
"Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like it. They just retreated into the forest."
"I see... but it does give us time to rest."
Even though I doubted it was really that simple, I told everyone to rest while staying ready to move at any moment.
After a light meal, I checked our equipment and thought about the situation. If things were going smoothly, Tenma should be heading this way. Ideally, I wanted Tenma to not come back and just stay away, but that guy would definitely return and insist on fighting alongside us.
In about an hour, it would start getting dark. Thinking this, I passed word to those waiting behind to start building fires.
The fuel came from wooden planks we could spare from dismantling some of the stables.
That was when we heard the zombies' war cries from the forest once more.
"R-Ricardo! It's bad—!"
Mark's shout was accompanied by the screams of those standing guard atop the wall.
I scrambled up the wall and looked toward the forest. There, I saw—
"What the—! That number... there's got to be five thousand... no, closer to twice that!"
That's what I shouted, watching the zombies pour out of the forest one after another.
Zombies of every kind imaginable—Goblins, Orcs, Kobolds, Ogres, and Dragon Snakes—were flooding out of the woods.
This was a disaster wrought by the undead.
Not all of them were coming from the forest, so there was no way to know just how large the horde truly was.
Just the ones I could see already numbered close to ten thousand. When I considered how many more must still be lurking inside the forest, a feeling close to despair began to well up inside me.
But fleeing wasn't an option. To survive, we had to buy whatever time we could and hold out for reinforcements.
"This is going to be a desperate fight..."
Up ahead, zombies had gathered in numbers too sickening to count, and they were gradually spreading out to encircle the fortress.
Worse still, night was approaching. Zombies could move freely regardless of day or night, while humans were severely restricted in the dark. It was overwhelmingly...
humans
who were at a disadvantage.
"Get those fires blazing! We need every scrap of light we can get!"
At this rate, we'd burn through all the firewood we'd need for tomorrow night.
But if we didn't survive this moment, there would be no tomorrow. To have even a sliver of a chance, we had no choice but to gamble.
Watching the smoke rise into the sky, that's what I thought.
This chapter was mostly from Ricardo's perspective. Next time, we'll switch back to Tenma.
We're getting close to the end of Chapter 1, though I haven't settled on exactly how many chapters that will be.
I've been making small edits here and there, so there may be some inconsistencies if you're re-reading from earlier chapters. I appreciate your understanding.