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Blacksmith vs. the System 217
🕑 Added 2025-03-08 09:39:34 +0000 UTCNot even for a moment did I believe that the two-pronged attack was a coincidence. Naturally, that didn’t mean Drakka and heretics were in alignment. It was likelier that heretics had been observing Drakka forces, and chose to launch their attack at the same time.
Then again, an alliance wouldn’t have been the shock of a lifetime either.
Ultimately, the possible lack of an alliance mattered very little in the short term. Collaboration or not, we still needed to deal with a two-pronged attack at once. And, since they attacked from two completely different angles, coordination was not a challenge for them.
To make things worse, both enemies were familiar with the many tricks I could pull, and an offensive implied that they had developed countermeasures.
“The question is whether they would be able to handle the new versions,” I said to myself as I stepped through the gate, once again at the mountaintop, dragging a giant lizard corpse with me, glad that I had already installed a rail to make it even easier.
People didn’t react to the giant lizard, admittedly, it wasn’t too unfamiliar sight for them, so it wasn’t a shock to see people move with purpose, some to the underground shelters, while the others moved to their positions.
Looking down, I could see more than a dozen trains returning to the towns, coming from the outer mines, each filled with several hundred tons of metal ore to be processed.
They weren’t the only team that was on the move. Several teams of farmers were returning from outside the walls, each led by a Mana Tender, returning from their planting tasks.
The dungeon wasn’t the only place we had been populating with stronger variants of vegetation. With more than eight thousand farmers at our location, each in a leveling frenzy, we were developing a surprising variance of skills and perks. Some were able to use the trees to fight like Logan, some directly controlled them, while others used them for scouting purposes.
I wasn’t aware of most of the details, as Terry was responsible for overseeing these new variants, with Harold and Rosie occasionally chipping in. Other than making specialized tools whenever requested, I stayed away.
As much as I wished to explore every single detail about their new perks, I lacked the time, which had a certain amount of irony considering I had wasted three years, but I even lacked the time to appreciate that.
So, I limited myself to reading the reports Terry had provided to me, going through them with a red pen to suggest some new methods and experiments, hoping that I would come across something useful.
There was one exception I might have made, which was also the variant we were yet to create. Intelligence variant. It might have been different if I could have focused on that for a week or two, but with everything going on, it was impossible.
It seemed that my human-computers wouldn’t be here for a while.
“Dragon One, report,” I called loudly even as I dropped the giant lizard down. “And, someone tells me where everyone is,” I declared before I went inside, bringing out another giant lizard.
Though, there was already another giant lizard pushing through the gap while I responded, this time a flying variant attempting to fly above the breach before I cut it down into two, and pulled out another lizard.
When I came out, I was looking at forty fighters, each decked in crimson full plate armor, and carrying both huge spears and shields, reminiscent of a phalanx, led by another with a different shaped armor, carrying a blade instead.
“Dragon One here and reporting, sir,” Logan declared proudly as he slammed his chest, his two-handed blade taller than him on his back.
He had not only proven himself when training with Harold, but also he had managed to push his skill to the peak of Legendary, which unlocked quite a few tricks to his ability to reform plants as weapons, even managing to achieve a minor class upgrade that increased his Vitality even further.
Altogether, he was clearly strong enough to lead Dragon One, our — rather pretentiously named — new elite unit, specialized for hunting lizards, for this exact purpose.
“The situation at the breach is getting intense, and I need your team to be ready to take over if necessary,” I said.
“We can go right now, sir,” he declared.
“No, not before the insect army is decimated first,” I said. “I don’t need your attention split both ways. Be on standby, find out where Rosie and Harold are, and learn the situation with the Drakkan army,” I said as I jumped back to the fifth floor, killing and pulling elite monsters out while I waited for the two.
I went back and forth multiple times, taking merely seconds as I pulled more and more boss monsters, surpassing my expectations, making me glad that I had erred on the side of caution while building the defenses near the breach. At the same time, I learned that the Drakkan army was still some distance away, allowing me to focus on the breach for the moment.
At one point, I was forced to change my plan. “Take points in the battle, Logan. Show me the power of Dragon One,” I ordered.
“Yes, sir,” he declared happily, which didn’t surprise me. It was his first proper battle, and it was inevitably exciting until the bodies started piling; something we had been shockingly lucky to avoid during our last two battles.
I doubted it would continue to hold, considering we were pincered by two overwhelming forces.
I expanded my aura of decay as Logan and the other forty elite farmer-turned-fighters took their positions in the inner fortress, the steam engine roaring into life, but I didn’t stop pulling lizard corpses… Until I saw Liam approaching. “Find me someone good with logistics,” I ordered him. “Someone that can lead it so that boss carcasses don't accumulate.”
“I can do that, sir,” he suggested.
“No, I need you to handle the shells against Drakka, or anything unexpected,” I replied.
Liam was quick to arrange a team to use the buried tracks to bring the boss carcasses out, another team quickly brought them to one of the many warehouses that we had around the gate — at this point, they were very familiar with processing and storing boss lizards.
Freed from both tasks, I paused for a moment, watching Logan and the nineteen others activate all defensive measures we had installed. The metal walls were raised, and all the gates but one slammed shut to force the lizards into one direction, steam-powered ballistas driving huge metal bolts to their bodies to immobilize them. The shells — improved from the last time — exploded in waves, dealing with anything below the bosses, clearing out their surroundings.
And, whenever one was immobilized, a team of ten left the fortress, moving rapidly thanks to the familiar movement of their Rare spear skills — one that consumed most of our remaining reserves of that particular skill — to deliver a combined killing blow with their tall spears.
It went smoothly, as their whole equipment had been designed for that purpose. Their interlocked shields easily ignored the flame attacks of the lizard, the tiny gaps allowing them to deliver their aggression perfectly.
That had two aims. Pinned down, it was faster to kill the lizard with their Vitality attacks rather than pelting it with ballista bolts for a minute.
More importantly, it was a good source of leveling, especially since they were still in their fifties, and each boss would still give them a considerable boost for their next level. With the frequency of lizards appearing, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them reached their seventies.
Hopefully, without losing any of their numbers.
I watched as the ten pulled the lizard back, retreating to the fortress, while the second team darted out, replacing the same approach, then the third and fourth. Rotation was there to both balance their leveling, and to make sure they had the time to recover their Health. The rich nutrient solution was something we had in extreme abundance — one benefit of having a town made almost exclusively of high-level farmers.
The only one that didn’t act was Logan, ready to intervene in case of emergency. One that happened sooner than I expected, when the section behind the first wall started to get too crowded.
It was important, as normally boss monsters avoided touching each other, but the crowd behind the wall forced them. One boss monster climbed over the other after using the first one as a shield to avoid the first salvo of ballista bolts.
Logan rushed forward with a battlecry, his blade already raised. On his way, he passed near one of the fire-repellant trees, and the tree reacted to him by wrapping around him, coating both his armor and sword.
Logan crashed against the beast, delivering a devastating strike. Ordinarily, the beast would have recovered in seconds, but Logan had a trick of his own. The tree bark that covered his blade stayed with the wound, attacking the beast even further.
The bark from his armor flowed to his sword for another strike while the lizard desperately bit off its own limb, only for the next blow to land directly to its head.
His unique skill was perfect to deal with dungeon monsters so long as the conditions were right.
It wasn’t the first time I watched him perform, but that didn’t make it any less impressive.
But, the show came to an end when I saw Rosie arrive, her dour expression not making me hopeful about the situation.
Comments
Undead Writer
Thanks for the chapter!
