Chapter 122
Acting separately from Izam-san, I'm currently attacking a fortress alongside a horde of monsters. I hide in the shadow of a monster larger than me, while firmly blocking any attacks that look like they might hit me with the large shields in both hands.
"Whoa! This is awesome!"
"It really feels like we're at war!"
"It's more immersive than a VR movie. Though I suppose that's only natural when we're the characters in it."
"Yeah! I know what you mean!"
"Aren't you guys a little too carefree!?"
The companions clinging to my back and shoulders to ride this out were enjoying the situation without a thought for the trouble I was going through. I know being the shield is my job, but couldn't they show me a little more appreciation!?
"Now, now, Eiji-han. Calm down, yeah?"
"That's right. If we get killed, then that's that. Let's remain calm and unshaken."
Shichiko and Moss-san, perched on my shoulders, casually tapped my head with their respective wings. What they were saying wasn't wrong... I think? It was hard to tell... Whoa!? Magic!? That was close!
"Huh. Even a drop from a Troll can block attacks this well, huh?"
"The funny thing is, we slipped right in without anyone noticing. They haven't got a clue."
At present, Eiji—that's me—along with Toji, Shichiko, Moss-san, and Shiitake, had blended into the horde of monsters that had begun its assault on the fortress and were carrying out our own attack. Once we brought it down, we planned to steal some items and escape.
We were equipped entirely with secondhand weapons dropped during our previous battles. They looked shabby, but I thought that was the only way we could blend into the horde without being discovered. In fact, we had managed to deceive the monsters, whose eyes were fixed solely on the fortress ahead, and that was how we were able to fight like this.
"Guhhh! It's so heavy!"
Izam-san had told us to take down a few players if possible. He'd also said that managing to do so in the process would be a bonus, so as Moss-san had said, failure wouldn't be a major problem.
So I suppose I should approach this casually, but I was in no state to have that kind of leeway. This shield was sturdy for a piece of hard wood roughly shaped into one, sure. But the fact remained that it wasn't good enough to withstand attacks from high-level players!
"Crap!? There's a crack in the shield!?"
I didn't know how many hits it had taken by then, but the shield that had been blocking magic and arrows finally began to cry out. This was bad, bad, bad! It was going to break at this rate!
"GROOOOOOOAR!!!"
Just then, the fortress gate shattered. A somewhat larger Troll that had been at the front, battered and bruised as it continued pounding away, had finally done it!
"Now! Charge in!"
"Let's do this!"
"This is exhilarating!"
"We can actually do this."
"I can only provide support, and I'm slow, so match my pace, okay? Count on you for that."
I was desperate to get inside the fortress as quickly as possible, while Shichiko and Moss-san were fired up for battle. Toji remained calm even at a time like this, and Shiitake stuck to her own pace. Thus, our disorderly group rode the flow of monsters and surged into the fortress.
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"Damn it! They're about to break through the gate!"
"What do we do!?"
"Don't ask me! I have no idea!"
The players who had been fighting from atop the gate were panicking as they faced a gate that looked ready to collapse at any moment. They were not a well-organized army, so naturally they were thrown into disarray. Almost all of them were ordinary people behind their avatars, so this was unavoidable.
"Calm down, everyone!"
"T-Taro-san..."
There were five fortresses, and the event participants had been distributed among them so that their fighting strength was more or less equal. However, players belonging to the same clan had always been assigned to the same fortress.
Naturally, the person who gathered together the players at each fortress would end up being the leader of a large-scale clan. At this fortress, that role fell to Taro Saemon-no-Jo, the representative of the large clan 'Sengoku Ransei' and the player known as Taro.
He had been selected for his ability to unite everyone from hardcore history buffs to people who merely liked Japanese-style designs, and from combat classes to crafting classes. Combined with his personality, this meant that most of the players, particularly those from small and midsized clans, had come under his command.
Of course, there were those who opposed him, and there were also solo players who found grouping up bothersome, so not everyone obeyed him willingly. But in a situation like this, it was human nature to focus on the first person to speak up. His avatar was an old man with a full white beard, and he spoke in a voice befitting his apparent age, yet still full of vigor.
"This fortress will not hold! It is plain to see that the gate will be destroyed at any moment! However, the commander of this fortress told us to serve as the rearguard!"
The players began to grow noisy again at that, but Taro Saemon-no-Jo drew the Japanese sword at his waist with a grand flourish. Everyone's attention naturally returned to him.
"Even if we die, we shall rise again! But those known as residents cannot! Therefore, it is only right that we serve as the rearguard! Yet I have no intention of dying for nothing!"
He paused there, looked over everyone, and continued.
"Things have come this far, and we can no longer win. We cannot prevent the fortress from falling. However, if we take the enemy general's head, we may be able to throw the enemy into confusion!"
He then pointed the tip of his sword at the particularly large monster. As if in response, the gate was breached, and the monsters came surging in.
"From this moment on, we shall become a single arrow! Pay no heed to the rank and file! Aim only for the general's head, and fight as doomed soldiers!"
"U-UOOOOOOOH!!!"
Led by Taro Saemon-no-Jo, the players began charging forward with fierce determination. Lacking specialized military knowledge, they could not establish another defensive line, no matter how skilled their leader was. But that did not mean they should simply sit there and let themselves be killed for nothing.
Taro Saemon-no-Jo had therefore decided that if they holed up and tried to intercept the enemy, they would only be crushed. Instead, he directed their attention toward killing the enemy commander. This freed them from the stress of a defensive battle, while urging them into a desperate charge raised their morale and heightened their fighting spirit.
An extremely aggressive rearguard action. Most of the players, including Taro Saemon-no-Jo himself, would almost certainly die once, but it should buy the NPCs as much time as possible to escape. This was the only—and best—plan Taro Saemon-no-Jo could think of.
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"Hmm, hmm. Very good... They're doing their best..."
From the roof of the lookout tower, Usuba looked down over the battlefield and watched the players' movements with amusement. Since they were doomed to be killed no matter how much they struggled, they might as well make a desperate charge. Their refusal to simply give up by saying, 'We're going to die anyway,' looked good to him.
"Charisma enough to unite a rabble in this situation, along with genuine ability... If he were at full strength, I would very much like to cross swords with him."
In the end, whether someone was a worthy opponent he wanted to fight was what mattered to Usuba. When it came to passion for fighting other players, he might have been the most enthusiastic of them all.
"...Boss. They're escaping through the rear entrance."
"I see. Just as planned, which is excellent."
From their high vantage point, they spotted figures stealthily escaping through the rear entrance. However, nothing had happened so far that deviated from their expectations. Everything was proceeding very smoothly.
"I'm glad they aren't NPCs who decided to stay behind and fight to the bitter end. In WSS-style games, there are many AIs that act based on pride or stubbornness, even when their thoughts aren't rational."
"Boss, why are we letting them get away? It's what Izam-san ordered, sure, but..."
"Wouldn't it have been better to kill them all? That NPC seemed stronger than us. What a waste, huh?"
"Does Izam-san plan to fight that person? Was a strong enemy needed to give Izam-san experience, or something?"
"..."
The instruction to spare the NPC in the enemy commander's position had come from Izam. That was why the members of 'Persona' had been reluctant. For them, who wanted a no-holds-barred fight to the death against a powerful enemy, sparing an obviously high-level NPC was equivalent to releasing prey they had finally caught.
Although they had arranged a battle through negotiations with the player known as 'Nightmare of the Northern Mountain,' every one of them still looked dissatisfied. Perhaps their reactions amused him, because Usuba chuckled.
"No, no, that's not it. Precisely because we're letting them escape, we'll be able to have more fun later. Now, let's withdraw quickly and move on to the next stage."
After brushing his companions off with that cryptic remark, Usuba leaped from the lookout tower to the outside of the fortress.
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We had charged in through the fortress gate, but we had already decided what to do after entering.
"Well then, we're going to pocket some things. Don't count on us—just keep fighting, okay?"
"I've got it when the time comes!"
Shiitake and Shichiko planned to collect any fortress supplies that might be useful while eliminating anyone who tried to needlessly damage them. We might run into other monster players, too, but we had been told to either eliminate them or flee if that happened.
Apparently, Izam-san didn't want to involve any more players in the plan. Not everyone was as eager to participate as we were, and if too many people got involved, there would be arguments over everyone's shares. I'm sure that wasn't his only reason, though. Not that I knew.
"Tch! Hah!"
"Hehe! I'll take this, okay?"
"Chomp."
We fought our way through the enemy alongside the Troll-heavy army. The soldiers were fairly high-level, so we never took unnecessary risks. But since we outnumbered them, we could also attack soldiers from the side while they were dealing with other monsters. Yeah. To put it bluntly, this was a bonus stage!
It wasn't that I had no aversion to killing NPCs, but if we didn't kill them, we'd be killed, so I wouldn't hesitate. The hostility they directed at us was genuine, and they would be killed by monsters other than us anyway, so what difference did it make? Besides, I had chosen a monster avatar because I wanted to experience a situation like this, even if only in a simulation. I had nothing to complain about Izam-san—only gratitude.
"Huh? Eiji, Moss-san. Wouldn't it be bad if we left that alone?"
"Hmm... Whoa. Those people are something else..."
"The ones at the front are samurai, I guess? They're probably players."
At the point Toji indicated, a group of people was charging into the monster horde with loud battle cries. The group at the front carried weapons ranging from swords to naginata, while their armor ranged from samurai armor to contemporary battlefield armor. The eras varied, but all their equipment had a Japanese style. They must have belonged to a clan of players who liked Japanese history.
That kind of thing looks nice, too. I liked shields large enough to hide my body, so I probably had no connection with a getup like that, though.
"Are they targeting that large Troll?"
"What else could it be? Maybe they plan to kill the boss and escape while everyone's distracted by the panic. I don't know."
Toji's guess was probably right. Though it could only happen once during this event, players could revive after dying, making them ideal rearguard troops. Izam-san had also said that if a player's role was to fight until death, they would struggle to the very end in order to earn the NPCs' goodwill.
"It was also bad if the number of monsters dropped too much, right?"
"Ah, right. Especially strong individuals who don't have any replacements—we're supposed to make sure they don't die."
"Then we have to interfere."
This had also been Izam-san's instruction. Our survival came first, but he wanted us to reduce the monster side's losses as much as possible. In that case, we needed to stop their momentum without taking unnecessary risks.
"Fighting them head-on is impossible. We definitely can't win."
"Then we'll have to use an indirect approach."
The group at the front was probably made up of high-level players. Our regular equipment would be another matter, but stopping them with the battered drop items we were wearing to blend in with the monsters was impossible.
"I thought of a brilliant plan."
"Whenever you make that face, you're thinking of something outrageous, aren't you?"
Toji's face twisted into a sly grin as they said that. Even though we'd only been partners for a short while, I knew Toji well enough. Toji was surely thinking of something truly nasty right now!
"But if it works, there'll be plenty in it for us, won't there?"
"...At least let me hear it?"
As I had expected, Toji's plan was absolutely terrible. However, neither Moss-san nor I could come up with an alternative, so we decided to carry it out. Oh, please let it work!