“Hey Sain, what is going on? Why did we just accept a Guild Quest?” Miriel asked not sure on the message she and the others just received. Unknown to them, all players in the town and area nearby also got a quest to aid in the defence of town.

“....”

Sain was looking at the dead knight. There were bite marks everywhere and he most likely died of bleeding rather than anything else. However there were no fatal wounds which contributed to this fact as well...

“Sain?” Miriel was a bit worried that he was going off in his own world again. Focusing too much was a problem itself. Suddenly there was a call from Eden to him.

Eden: I accepted the quest so don't worry. Guild-masters have that power. Reinforcement will come in five days, the person is called Alice. Make sure to use everything and everyone to defend the town and lead them if possible.

“....”

Sain was thinking of what Eden just said when...

Eden: Another thing is...

“Sain?” Miriel called again cutting off what Eden said though Sain could figure out what the message was.

“Yeah...what?” Sain focused suddenly on Miriel's voice and noticed that they were getting a lot of stares here and there. To the side there was an elderly man that was most likely the elder and leader of this town.

“Are you the town elder?” Sain asked.

The man nodded and said, “I am and you have just accepted, no were obligated to accept the request from that knight. What is going on?”

Sain took a breath in and summarised what he knew so far which wasn't much.

“Basically there will be an attack on this town in three days. The foes are unknown...but from the wound of this man there are many humanoid creatures...goblins, imps perhaps? The time period of these attacks are unknown but my Guildmaster had told me that reinforcement will come in five days.”

“Five days?!” the elder exclaimed, “And what will we do in the two days we are attacked?!”

“Well there are around...how many people in this town?”

“Population is 1000. With you freemen it increases to 2000.”

“Well we have 2000 people to work on defences. The three days will be spent reinforcing the town as much as possible. Other than that, there should be people who should scout out and find whatever killed this knight...I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Right then...” the elder turned to several people and in a hurried voice started talking rapidly on what is to be done. After a minute the elder turned back on Sain and then asked, “Will you be leading the defence then?” in a hopeful voice.

Sain nodded and said, “Yes, my Guildmaster ordered me to” while holding up the black emblem that made the elder's eyes widened to the point where one might mistake him for a strange monster.

The elder naturally knew of Independent Guilds, who didn't but not many knew that the black emblem was one of a S rank Independent Guild, the highest order. But at the same time the elder sensed that the group's strength was not of one that level.

“Are you not...” the elder tried to say but could not in case of offending them.

“A bit too weak?” Sain let out a small laugh, “Yes, we are just recruits at this point. The reinforcement person will be much stronger and will help when he or she comes.”

With this the elder sighed in relief.

“By the way, I want to know the size of this town and places where we can cut off defending as well. Food supply and water supply is also something we need to keep track of as well and there should be a request to a nearby towns and villages for reinforcement and shelter as well.”

“Ah...of course” the elder almost bowed to Sain while leading him to the town hall.

Meanwhile behind Sain and not taking part in the actions...

“Man Sain really changes when he gets command of other people doesn't he?” said Lyndis always amused on how Sain can turn from one face to another to help people on coping with the situation.

“Please don't remind me of that. Remember the dungeon raids from a while back....I feared that he almost turned back into 'commander' mode for a while” sighed Shadow.

“Well at least he is focusing on something that matter now instead of...” said Miriel though she cut off mid way.

“What path to take?” Raven added.

The rest nodded in agreement. While Sain did not notice it, he was actually quite picky and would over think things too much especially under stress. This continued to increased until one of them actually had to drag Sain out of that state to make sure he was on track on what he was suppose to be doing.

It was one of the strange things about Sain that they noticed.

xXx

“First of all cut off these parts of the city” Sain pointed at the map of the town. Moonight Town was a fairly large place to defend but had proper walls though not that thick and high.

The area where Sain pointed at were outskirts which were added and made it so that the walls had were to be modified to accumulate them as well. There were some murmurs about this but it was generally accepted.

However Sain continued on looking at the map which had details on buildings and what they did as well.

“Is there anything wrong?” the elder asked.

“....”

Sain ignored him focusing elsewhere on where to cut off next. There were around 400 buildings in the town and only 30-40 of them were stores and other essential places and those were located quite a far a part from each other. The houses don't matter to Sain at all, they can be rebuilt easily.

“Make the main defence around these area...” Sain moved his fingers around most of those buildings that he found to be important and more to the point sturdy enough to deal with the damage.

“My God! You cut the town in half with that! Whatever that comes will lie waste to our homes...our...”

“We do not have enough numbers to defend everything. Rather than a large loose defence, it is much better to have a smaller and tight formation where any sudden surprises won't in the end cause the fall of this town!” Sain was acting slightly aggressive to the elder of this town and the others who were present here which were the owners of the stores and representatives of the rest of the townsfolk.

There was many chatter about how Sain was insane and that they should kick him out. But in the end none of that happened since they knew that Sain had a commission, a Guild Quest to protect this place which meant that the Kingdom at least felt that it was not proper for this place to fall.

“Anyway there are many things to do. First of all is to make a general outline on where the defences will be. This will be the task of the first day. The second day will be spent reinforcing these outlines and the third when the attack will happen will be making any last second acts” Sain said at once in the end.

“And what of the supplies?” the elder asked as well wanting him to know enough not for the blame to fall on him, the elder.

“How much do you have?”

“It is nearing winter so supplies are higher than normal. We have enough for a month normally but in a siege...around a week at most?”

“Good enough though there will be a need to gather more after this, I think the Kingdom will supply this town a bit after this so no one starves to death” said Sain.

The Kingdom's number one policy was to make a world without starvation. As such there was an extreme amount of food being produced every moment on all corners of the place. And as a result the food prices have dropped and the demand of cooks has increased at the same time.

It was a good time to be a cook in the game.

“Anyway for the materials needed to build the defences...” Sain muttered. He did not like this part of the plan. From what he saw there was no nearby quarry and the forest was already on the decline.

“We will need to take it from the town itself” he sighed saying this. There was some face of shock on the elder but he accepted it quickly.

He had drew out an outline of the plan and gave it to Miriel to give to the other players. The area in which they had to protect was around 30% smaller than the actual town itself. This was mainly due to some essential buildings that need to be protected were spread out too much so he couldn't help it.

Furthermore with this decrease in area needing to protect, the actual length of the defences would be halved and as a result the density of the defence would be twice as normal than before as well. However even if they can't get to that extent, there will be less time spent on creating and reinforcing walls through the town and more time for other tasks as well.

“Next is the alignment of the defences...there are a thousand NPCs here and a thousand players as well...can you gather some people that can lead them?” Sain asked. The elder nodded and the next minute some people appeared.

From how he felt of them, they were around the same level as him, near the top in this town where most of the monsters were around the level 70-120 range.

“Does anyone know the rough estimate on the players class and levels?” Sain asked them.

Several of them shook their heads but there was thankfully one that nodded and said, “Of the thousand players, around 50 are level 150, 150 are around level 100 and the 800 left are under or equal to level 80. Half of the players are of the common warrior or melee class, a third are mages, the rest are archers or other classes.”

Sain nodded to these words, it would be useful to know who he can send to their deaths without much impact. Other than that, of the NPCs, only around 200 of them were guards of around level 100 as well which meant he had 1100 people to use and 900 people to protect which is quite the number.

“Anyway...” Sain started to speak of what is to be done with the formation.

“Don't station anyone yet but understand that there needs to be at least 10 people at each joint in between buildings. First start gathering wood and stone and stack them to make a small wall on these lines” he said.

“Yes!”

A person ran to follow those instructions.

“At these points should the wood and stone will be placed first in order to quickly construct the walls later on. Move quickly since we only have three days to complete everything!”

Soon enough the whole place was running with activity where both players and NPCs ran around the place to close up houses and lock doors.

Pieces of stone were being stacked up each other in between buildings to make walls while people hurried left and right on gathering wood and other materials they can use to make the walls seem a bit higher and a bit thicker.

Meanwhile Sain was rapidly giving orders...

“Group over there! Focus on making the walls thicker not taller! It will fall down on us if it is too high! You over there! Put those chairs back! They are too weak to be part of the wall! What the hell happened here?! Why are there no defence here! There is a great gaping hole in the middle of our defences here!”

The power of nagging was extremely effective in making people move a bit faster. To help Sain, Miriel did the same on another section of the defences however the rest of the group did not have much to do in their roles.

“Oh yeah” Sain said suddenly as if he remembered their existence again, “Shadow, Lyndis and Serena. Will you three head out and scout to see what the enemy is looking like. The moment you see them, come back here and report what they look like and what their numbers are about as well.”

“Right” Shadow nodded along with Lyndis and Serena pleased since they did not have to stack up pieces of furniture anymore. At the same time Sain had Raven help out with the constructions of the make shift walls.

Upon looking at him, he noticed that the areas in which Raven was working at had a higher number of females there...whether it would be NPCs or players and that production was strangely higher there as well...

“Don't tell me...” Sain muttered.

He sent Raven to another area and the work of that area he was in plummeted while the area he was sent to sudden was faster than before. It looked like where ever Raven went, women followed and seeing a large amount of women, the men would naturally work harder than before.

Sain smiled seeing this thinking on how to use this to increase work on certain areas...there are still a lot of gaps here and there and all of them needs to be filled in...

xXx

Shadow was moving with Lyndis and Serena through the forest in the general direction in which the knight came from. It had been around half a day or so since they started running and even Serena kept up with Shadow who was clearly faster than the other two. He had to slow down a lot to allow them to follow as well.

He felt that it was quite annoying that he was being dragged down now.

'Why did Sain send them with me as well?' he wondered though he half thought that Sain only did that to make sure that he would not die a bad death due to a surprise attack. Soloing was such a thing and the most common reason for death were due to unexpected events.

“Did he come this way?” Lyndis questioned someone on the side of the road. It looked like a farmer that was taking a break from work.

“Yes, to that direction” he pointed while Lyndis thanked her.

There were some reports by the people that lived by the road where he came from and Shadow was increasingly worried that it was close to the mines where they originally were to go.

Deciding to at least discuss it Shadow asked, “What are the chance the enemy came from those mines?”

While still running Lyndis responded with a question herself, “Which mines?”

“The Magitite one. The one we were suppose to go to” he responded. Lyndis took a moment to think about it and then said, “There is a good chance...I remember the map and there is only one mine in this direction.”

“Great, now we have to go through monsters to complete that quest as well. We better not get a third quest to do as well” Shadow said in a annoyed tone. Getting multiple quests was a stressful thing especially if they were closely related to each other.

Even worse if the quests conflicted with each other, the punishment for failing a quest is always worse than the rewards that it could give. This was why people don't accept any and all quests that they come through.

“Haha” Lyndis let out an amused laugh to this while Serena looked calm for the most part.

While thinking of this, Shadow using his 'Pin-point hearing' and 'Hearing' skills, he heard some rustling that was not natural at all. He stopped and motioned for the others to do so as well.

“Hold up” he said trying to listen on what kind of creature could make these sounds.

“Enemies?” Lyndis asked again while Serena was alert for them. Shadow shook his heads since if they were then they would be attacked already.

“Don't know yet...going to check it out. Make sure you are prepared to run like hell though” Shadow advised the two as he left. Hearing one nearby, Shadow moved and saw what was around.

“The hell is this?” he said out loud shocked by mistake.

“GOOOOOOORRRR!!!”

Due to Shadow talking, the creature which looked like a zombie in all aspects though red in colour charged at him. He looked to see that there were countless other lines of them as well. They numbered at least in the hundreds if not thousands.

'This is bad Sain...we are completely outnumbered here...' he thought deciding to retreating immediately.

Rushing back he found that Lyndis and Serena were also under attack as well.

'This is bad!'

Leaping off a tree he dashed using 'Burst Speed' and stabbed through one of these creatures through the back using both his weapons at hand and killed it sliding to kill another two quickly as well. From how easily they died they were quite weak to them but their numbers were a problem.

“We running away now” he said really not liking the idea that they are being surrounded by what seems to be fast zombies. To this, Lyndis cut down a few more of those creatures and said, “Damn I was finally getting into this battle and...Serena hurry up with that spell!”

“R-Right!” Serena was a bit startled by Lyndis' reaction at the creatures' appearance but immediately chanted, “The shadows lie deep into the darkness of light and beyond. The hunter of day becomes the hunted at night and the hunter of twilight hunts them both. Blessing of Invisible Torments.”

The effects of 'stealth' appeared for both Lyndis and Serena but not Shadow since his skill with 'stealth' was higher than what the buff gave him.

“Let's go” he said to the two already running away from a horde of make shift zombies...though he felt that they weren't zombies at all. Zombies feared holy light and fire but didn't even flinch at Lyndis' fire skills...else their brains might have rotted early.

“What are you doing commanding me?” Lyndis asked in a coyed tone to Shadow bushing his arm a bit.

“....”

Though she switched back immediately seeing Shadow's expression, “Would you rather run away now or continue staring at me?” she asked though when one of those creatures came near her sword arm flashed and the creature was cut in half instantly.

Seeing this kind of thing, Shadow snapped back to normal and then sighed and then said, “Let's get to Sain so he can handle all of this own his own.”

As such the three ran away from a horde of enemies quite easily without much effort.

xXx

Another half a day passed since the three came back to Moonight town and immediately they saw the difference from it was the previous day. Passing through the gate there were countless people moving about doing something though Lyndis really did not care what.

What she knew was that they needed to know that the number of enemies were high, really high and that chances are, they will lose sooner rather than later at this rate. Getting to Sain was easy, just a few words on the guy who is shouting commands at everyone else pointed them in the right direction.

“Yo Sain” she said waving her hand to him, “Got the news for you on the enemy~ though you won't like it.”

Sain hearing this placed whatever he was doing down and then started to listen on what Lyndis, Shadow and Serena experienced.

“Basically there are zombies” Lyndis explained with Sain raising his eyebrow at the explanation. He looked to Shadow for a better report.

“There are really zombies...though the fast kind....and I'm not exactly sure if they are zombies” Shadow said by Sain prompting him to which irritated Lyndis a bit, “They are around level 70-100 in range and there are around...a few hundred to thousands.”

“Are you sure?” Sain asked.

“Well we were being surrounded by then but I am sure there are lots and lots of them that this” he pointed to the walls, “Won't last that long.”

“....”

“Anyway, we can probably deal with that later...” Sain said, “I want you guys to rest than help with some work tomorrow.”

With that, the first day to the attack ended.

xXx

The second and frankly even third day was also similar in what happened during the first day as well. Some people gathered things to use. Some people built the shabby looking walls that would collapse in minutes and some people still lazed around seeing what could happen.

And eventually the third day ended....with the enemy coming.

A total of 1100 people were stationed at the make shift walls that were quickly made in a day and reinforced in the next two. The time was about dusk which meant that they only had an hour left of light before the night completely sinks in, which also means that their enemy will be stronger by 50% as well.

“Mages and archers prepare to attack...” Sain said holding his hand out to fire his magic as well. Next to him were Miriel, Lyndis and Serena who all could use ranged attacked. Nearby were also Shadow and Raven who were prepared to fight as well.

This was just the usual for them, a battle with this level of intensity.

”GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!!”

“GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOR!!!”

“GUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRR!!!”

The sounds of the enemies screaming while charging made some people take a step back instinctively. However the group did not since they had seem much more powerful foes and seen things that made them truly despair.

Compared to that, this is a piece of cake.

“Attack!” Sain ordered.

Suddenly, hundreds of attacks flew from the town and to the fast zombie like creatures that ran at them.

Bang Bang Bang Bang....!

Whether it was magic attack or arrows, they ripped through the zombies like they were paper. Blood spattered everywhere though it was hard to tell since the level of light was too low. After the first wave of attacks from the defenders, the zombies stood straight up and began to charge again.

Then the second wave of ranged attacks happened and the same thing happened again though the number of enemies steadily decreased.

“Hey...did zombies always revive like that and were this hard press to kill?” Shadow asked Raven. Raven looked at the zombies and shook his head. Something was wrong.

Passing through the parts of the town which they had abandoned, the onslaught of ranged attacks stopped to not further damage the town. Now the battle would go through on the make shift walls.

“Come on” Sain said brining the group with them to fight. Their role as well as the other players that were high level enough was to sweep the enemies from the walls as much as possible in a circle fashion around the place where they were attacking. With 50 players at that point, there were around 10 groups in total that would do this.

“The Night calls! The night that exist from the genesis of all creation pulls from the strength of all and no creature! Let the night shine darkly on you and being great strength to battle any and all evil! Blessing of Strengthened Night” Serena chanted.

Party has been buffed by 'Blessing of Strengthened Night'

All stats +10%

The Blessing of Strengthened Night was a spell that allowed the stats of anyone in the night or dungeon to have their stats boosted by 10%. While was not to compare to the 50% bonus monsters had, it was useful enough to offset the balance.

Seeing this, Sain started to chant his buffs onto the group as well.

“Let strength gather and become the wind! Swift Legs! Let strength gather and become the wind! Swift Legs! Let strength gather and become the wind! Swift Legs! Let strength gather and become the wind! Swift Legs! Let strength gather and become the wind! Swift Legs! Let strength gather and become the wind! Swift Legs!”

Party has been buffed by 'Swift Legs'

Agility +90

“Melody of Agility! Melody of Strength” Miriel further chanted as well.

Party has been buffed by 'Melody of Sound'

Agility increased by 50% for 10 minutes

Strength increased by 50% for 10 minutes

With 'Melody of Sound' increasing to the Intermediate levels, several things changed in the spell. The first was that Miriel now had the option of using two songs at once which capped the stat bonus to 50% and the second was that she was able to also give resistance to certain elements as well though there was no need for that here.

Running quickly they soon found their first battle for the night at least.

It was a fairly large group of around 20 of those zombies. They were rapidly breaking through the wall and there was no one defending at all! Were some of these people idiots? Even though there were more than one layer of walls, having a gap in one was a bad idea.

Either way, they had to eliminate the enemy in the end.

“Magic Arrows!” Ten bright arrows appeared and fired hitting several of the zombies killing most of them. Lyndis proceeded by charging in and cutting most of them to pieces finishing the battle.

Surprised at the quickness of the battle Lyndis said, “That was easy...”

It was then that Shadow patted Sain on the shoulder and recommended, “We should split up to cover more grounds.”

“...Fine. Since they are kinda weak it should be fine. Just don't die” Sain said letting the others do their own thing for the moment. Right now he needed to find the idiots that ran from their post.

xXx

Serena was now on her own running away from around five of those zombie like creatures on her own. If anyone else were with her, she would be able to cast her spells more freely, but at the same time that was unnecessary since she was over 50 levels above these creatures.

The difference in strength was already enough with her who did not have good close combat skills at all compared to the others.

“Leaf Cutter!” She turned and pointed her staff at the zombies causing leaves to cut through their flesh.

Even though her power was more than enough to take them out, some of them still revived like there was a necromancer nearby acting.

'Is there one...? They don't seem weak to holy light at all...' Serena thought grimly. Perhaps they were a different type of monster that was related to zombies to look enough like them but different enough that they had some differences.

Serena had heard that some zombies did not fear holy light but perished to them easily nonetheless. Unfortunately none of them in the group could use it so they had to resort to their own devises.

Out of everyone, Lyndis probably had the easiest time since with her sword skills plus fire skills, she was extremely good at getting rid of them.

Serena continued on using 'Leaf Cutter' on the enemies that continue to increase as she ran passed them. As she went, she notice that there were still people on those walls that Sain ordered them to make fighting. AS the zombies climbed up they stabbed and kicked them down.

“Grow Root!” she chanted seeing that one place was having a problem causing roots to appear and drag the enemy down to the ground where she used 'Leaf Cutter' several times to dispatch them in the end.

Bang!

You took 311 damage

There was a sudden pain to her back as something bit down on her...hard.

“Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!” Serena started panicking at the pain.

'Ow ow ow ow, it hurts!' she thought while at the same time casting 'Blood Burst' as well causing the red orb to fly around all over the place. At the same time she used that iron claw on her right arm and crush whatever was biting into her.

And after 10 seconds...

BANG!

A large number of things exploded into pieces, mainly the zombies and thankfully none of the humans. Her attacker went into pieces as well while she rubbed the part where she was bit. She hoped that she wouldn't turn as well.

Seeing this and healing herself using 'Health Restoration', she sighed seeing that she was still unable to be cool at those moments.

“I wonder when I can get stronger...” she said lonely into the night. She wished she had someone to talk to at this moment, even Shadow.

xXx

And so the night passed and the third day since they were at this town with battles still going on on all sides. Some of the walls as Sain expected were broken through and clumps of players had to move there to stop the waves of zombies that seemed endless from breaking through.

From this night along around 200 people died on their side while the 'death' counter for the enemy was more than double. This would be wonderful in normal circumstances but the enemy numbers seemed to be endless with the zombies appearing even in day unaffected by it.

“They broke through the wall!” someone shouted to Sain. He was currently behind the defences feeling that it was better to receive reports and command others when he wasn't being attacked.

Hearing this Sain had to make a choice. If everyone retreated now, then the situation would be the same as always. However if he moved to block the breach then the death counter will rise. They still had another whole day to survive before reinforcement comes from the guild.

And another thing is that task from Eden as well.

Sain thought of his group and then decided immediately, “Send some people to block it up! Make sure nothing gets through!” he shouted.

“Yes sir!” the people replied quite like soldiers to a senior officer. It was strange how the game made it so rankings between people were easier to see than in reality. People were easily made to believe in his words and followed his orders.

Or was this the effects of the leadership stat being higher than before or his title?

A swarm of around 30 players went to fill in the gap where the hole was. These player were quite low levelled in his eyes, only around 80 in range and could only be used to stall. He also thought he saw a couple of level 150s running around nearby slaughtering the zombies as well.

Things seemed to be all right.

“Smoke?”

Sain looked to see that there was a strange series of smoke coming from all areas where the defences were at to the forest itself. He wondered what was going on and went to the closest place and found that the zombies were smoking.

He grinned a little seeing this.

Was the sun causing them damage as well? This means that they would retreat right? However it was none of those and they still continued to attack and at the same time focused on certain paths more than others.

He took out a map of the defences which also detailed the number of people at each location based off the reports that he was getting from some people he 'friend' to contact each other better.

“Move 5 people from your area to the area a bit north” he said continuing to message other players as well to do the same. In total there were around 40 small groups he had to manage though most of them did their own thing unless Sain had something for them to do.

Sain had to move some people from one area to another while still considering the lowered defences as well. Another two hours passed and the strange smoke that came from the zombies stopped which was worrying and relieving at the same time.

Worrying since it may be that something just finished and relieving for it ended and there was nothing to do to stop it now but to focus on other tasks.

“Cough” someone near Sain suddenly spat out blood.

“....!”

There was surprise on everyone's face since they did not realise he was hurt...no he was not hurt at all. He was someone with Sain and a few others that were telling commands to everyone else. Feeling that something was wrong and connecting it to that smoke the zombies made, Sain stepped back and held onto his spear.

“Cough Cough Cough” the coughing and spitting of blood continued rapidly until his skin turned red...like the colour of those zombies.

Eventually blood seeped through his eyes, nose and ears as well and his hair fell out as well as he let out a roar.

“OOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGG!!!”

With skin burnt red, a player, a person turned into the enemy.

“Kill him now! Don't get covered by his blood!” Sain realised it was about to attack someone and they needed to act now. Sain fired off his 'Magic Arrows' but the player turned player dodged them all.

'It's fast!'

Switching strategy, he chanted, “Mana Bolts!” and fired off 28 mana bolts based off the skill proficiency he had with the spell so far.

Bang Bang Bang...!

Most of the magical projectiles much to his surprise missed though there were some that hit it's limbs but never it's main body at all. The creature jumped up high onto the roof just as the other players realised it was there.

Thankfully there was a good archer that sniped it down hitting it's leg dropping it onto the ground where a dozen or so warriors hacked and slashed at it until it died.

“Fueee....” Sain took a deep breath in as things were about to become even more troublesome than before.

xXx

And Sain's hunch was correct for the most part. The 'infection' was indeed troubling as how they got it or how or why each person transform into a stronger version of the zombies that require at least a dozen people to take out at a time was unknown.

Right now it was the afternoon and the onslaught of the zombie attack was slowing down so the players and guards took turns to a break.

Right now Sain was with the rest of the group. Most of them looked fine though Serena's outfit was kinda broken here and there as if she decided to fight using that iron claw of hers.

“So how was everyone's day.”

“Fine” Shadow replied.

“Okay” said Miriel.

Raven nodded.

“F-Fine” Serena responded as well.

“Perfect!” Lyndis was gleaming.

“....”

The rest of the group save Lyndis sighed thinking on how this person could get along with any situation she was in.

“Anyway we need to make sure this town exist by the time of tomorrow where someone from the guild by the name of Alice appears to help us” he said to the others, “though it will be more difficult since players are turning into those zombies as well...”

“Rather than zombies aren't they more like infected people?” Shadow pondered aloud, “Perhaps there is a way to 'cure' them.”

Miriel shook her head and said, “Doubt it. If it could be done so easily then there would be a spell for that. I never seem a zombie reversal spell ever though there were rumours of one before.”

Looking interested at such a spell Serena asked, “Could it exist?”

However Miriel still said, “It's a rumour and most rumours are false though there are some that are true, we don't know if it is true...perhaps Viv who has lots of magical knowledge in all areas might know.”

“Back to the point, there is a good chance that we...well I need to transfer some people to the residents in case one of them turns...there are around 50 people defending them after all” he said with a sigh. This was becoming more and more troublesome as it went on. To think he would be forced into this kind of situation.

One where he had to defend else he would fail the Guild Quest.

One where he couldn't attack to end the Guild Quest as well.

It was a stalemate which he couldn't resolve at his level which was, to Sain's knowledge, why Eden sent reinforcement to them by the names of another member. Seeing this side of Sain, Miriel frowned and tried encouraging him...though she was not sure on how to.

“You can't do everything by yourself. You have to depend on us as well” she said though she would have rather say for him to depend on her particularly.

Lyndis seemed to agree and said, “Yep! You can't work alone all the time on this. More people means more ideas and more viewpoints to this as well.”

Surprisingly enough Raven said his own words of advise, “Don't stress, be calm” which wasn't much but for Raven who rarely talked unless it was important, it was quite significant to Sain since he knew the intentions of Raven a tiny bit better than the others.

After a few moments of no one speaking and the mood going no where else escaping right now, Shadow spoke.

“Have we spoken that the Magitite mines might be the source of this invasion?”

“No” Sain was quite surprise that Shadow would mention that. From what he knew, this and that were two separate issues that he had to deal with. He looked to Lyndis and Serena who confirmed this by nodding.

“So...in the end we have to go there?” Sain wondered.

“I think so since those zombie creatures were coming from the mine's direction and there was nothing else there at all” he continued to say, “Plus for some reason I feel that the ones that came to attack are weaker than the ones at the mines...”

“That sounds interesting but there is a chance that something else is involved instead as well” Miriel pointed out, “Perhaps there is a necromancer summoning them though whether it's in the mines or nearby is questionable.”

“True” Shadow had to agree there. All he and the two who went with him knew was that there was an army of them stationed there.

Bang! BANG! BOOM! BANG!

“What's that noise?” frowning Sain asked looking around what was going on. Soon enough a person, an NPC guard from what Sain could tell ran to him huffing and puffing.

“What is it?” Sain asked immediately seeing the dire face he was putting on.

“Those creatures...ha....ha...”

The guard looked as if some tragic scene struck him and could not continue for a few more seconds but in the end said, “They are appearing in the residents!”

“What?!” Sain was surprised. They were the furthest from the battle and that strange smoke that Sain believed to be the source of the 'infection'. However how did some of the residents that were furthest away get 'infected'?

With a click of his tongue he immediately contacted some people and then rapidly sent for some people to come over to see what was going on at the heart of the town.

“Let's go” he said to the others to which they silently followed feeling grim on what they would see. Some minutes passed with the group and the NPC guard running pass escaping residents that could not fight.

“GOOOOOOORRRRRR!” there was a scream coming from one of those zombie creatures. From sight alone there were at least a dozen of them but there could be more.

“Magic Arrows!” chanted Sain shooting down the first one he saw. The others also acted when they saw the scene as well. Lyndis, Raven and Shadow all charged at once with great speed, Shadow was even running up a wall to dodge the people.

“Burst Speed! Backstab!” Shadow shouted slicing one of the zombies into pieces.

“Double Strike!” Raven struck twice and created two holes where he stabbed with his spear.

“Speed Strike!” Lyndis ran up and rapidly cut down one of the zombies as well.

With Miriel, Serena and Sain using ranged attacks as well, the situation was quickly resolved for now as the creatures that were certainly not zombies but looked liked one were all killed by them. Looking more at the scene, Sain noticed that there was a large amount of blood coming from one building...

“....”

Walking over he almost opened the door when-

BANG!

Bursting Will has activated +17% to all stats

With that message coming out, the door burst open and something hit Sain back which caused him to fly back to the other building across the street. Taking some damage which was his arm twisting in a weird way which he immediately healed himself he watched as the others went to attack this creature as well.

Shadow and Lyndis leaped at it at the same time.

BANG BANG!

And at the same time they were both hit away like him. But unlike him they were not taken by surprise and thus landed perfectly on the ground.

“That was surprising” said Lyndis a bit curious of the creature that deflected both of them.

“It's coming” said Shadow holding both of his weapons prepared to defend.

The creature walked out in the day. The foul smell that came from it could be smelt from a long distance away, Sain felt like vomiting a bit smelling this and pinched his nose. He looked over to Serena to see that Miriel was getting her away from it.

“Looks likes it will be only us four for now...” Sain sighed seeing that Serena cannot deal with the smell that well. Even so he watched the creature that managed to deal this amount of damage to them walk out in the light.

“What the hell is that?!” the NPC guard that was with them exclaimed in fright.

Sain frowned. That thing looks similar to the meat monster that they met in the laboratory before. It was as if it absorbed bodies and became bigger. It had four legs, seven arms and two heads and was red in colour.

You could see it's veins clearly as well and there was a distinct rotting smell to it as well. Plus it feels powerful at the same time.

“Raven will tank while the rest of us will try to take it down as fast as possible” said Sain though at the same time worried that more of them will appear.

“Right” replied Raven raising his shield and heading in front of this creature. For a moment the creature disappeared for a split second before appearing in front of Raven.

'It's fast!' Sain exclaimed in his thoughts again. Before he had his suspicions but now it was clearly stronger than normal. From it's speed alone, Sain judged it to be around level 180 which was within their capabilities to deal with it.

“Wolf Summoning!” chanted Sain summoning Luna into the battle as well.

[Maste-this smell...why do you always summon me when the enemy smells this bad?]

“No time to chat, help Raven” ordered Sain seeing that Raven was being pushed back easily in terms of pure strength alone. The creature was hitting Raven with several of it's arms and Raven was continuously retreating while blocking unable to attack.

To his side were Lyndis and Shadow who were trying to attack but at the same time can't since the creature's counter attacking skills were really good.

[Understood]

Luna bared his fangs and leaped to bite off one of the arms of the creature. Seeing this, Sain was quite surprised at Luna. From what he remembered, Luna was 30 levels below them and yet he was able to harm something 30 levels above them, 60 levels above him so easily.

'Looks like Luna is quite powerful for his level as well...' Sain thought though at the same time firing off 'Magic Arrows' to take down the creature.

“Watch out!” Sain shouted seeing the creature changed targets from Raven to Lyndis.

Bang!

Raven pushed Lyndis aside and took the hit instead. Sain watched his health do down to near critical level as he looked to be broken at any time. Anger boiled up in him as he saw Raven like that.

“Compress Magic Mastery Release! Boost!”

Compressed Magic Mastery has been released. Magic Strength +420%

Boost has been activated. All stats, effects and consumption will double

Effects of the 'Mark of the Serpent' is now active. 'All Knowing Eyes' is now active.

“Magic Arrows!” he chanted loudly and ten 'Magic Arrows' formed around him.

However the size of the 'Magic Arrows' were extremely large as if it was an entirely different spell itself. Before his 'Magic Arrow' spell would form one the size of a regular arrow but now it was at least 10 times larger than before...and even more powerful.

“DIE!” he shouted firing them off at the creature.

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!!!!

All ten attack hit the creature at frightening speed. Ten large holes appeared that were so large that it was now more empty space than flesh to before it was hit.

The creature died on the spot like that and the effects of 'Compressed Magic Mastery' and 'Boost' faded away.

“Ha...ha...ha...” Sain was panting hard. It has been a while since he used 'Boost' in a battle.

The power of 'Boost' was the power of the 'Mark' itself unsealed to the first stage according to what Eden said.

It's power to what Sain knew were of two things.

The first was the power that actively came from the 'Mark' itself. His one was called 'All Knowing Eyes' which allowed him to see the strengths and weaknesses of all things. Miriel's one was called 'Living Ice', Lyndis was called 'Genesis Flame', Serena was called 'Sage Mode', Raven was called 'Gravity Force' and Shadow was called 'Real Illusion'.

The second was a passive effects of using the 'Mark'. Basically it doubled the user's stats, any effects on them at the cost of the consumption of health, mana and stamina when using skills and spells to double.

In this state as well, the group found that their personalities differed a bit though that is another story.

Sain looked sadly at Raven who while not expressing anything on his as usual was in extreme pain. Due to the backlash of using 'Boost' as well as his too low ability to heal, he was unable to relieve Raven of this pain.

Raven had some broken bones that Sain couldn't heal right now. When he was hit head by the creature, his spear arm was twisted strangely and one of his legs wasn't working anymore when he was hit while pushing Lyndis aside.

Soon enough by Lyndis, Miriel and Serena came back seeing that the enemy was defeated and Raven was injured.

“Raven!” Serena shouted shocked, her healer face was back on, “Moderate Health Regeneration!” she chanted while next using 'Health Restoration' and 'Minor Health Regeneration' at the same time to quickly heal him.

Meanwhile Miriel looked at Sain and realised he had used 'Boost' again.

“Sain!” She shouted at him, “What the hell are you thinking?!”

“....”

Sain could only look away in shame.

“Don't you dare look away from me right now!” she pulled his face to face hers and continued in anger, “YOU were the one who said to not use 'Boost' like that! So WHY are YOU the one using it the most?!”

Sain could see the anger in her eyes. However he could only say, “I guess I lost my cool for a bit” with a wry smile on his face.

SLAP!

Pain centred at his cheek could be felt. Miriel had slapped him and she was extremely angry right now. He noticed that there were some tears coming out though not to the point it could be noticeable to anyone else.

Before he knew it he placed his hand wiping the tear away gently saying, “Sorry” to her. The two looked at each other for a few more seconds undisturbed-

“Cough.”

And then the moment was disturbed by Lyndis not wanting to be in this sickening sweet mood that Sain and Miriel were creating. The two looked away from each other after realising how close they were....

Miriel was the first to speak saying, “Anyway don't lose your cool anymore. Raven had been injured worse than that in the past and so have the rest of us. So why in the last six months have you lost your cool more than the year previous to that altogether?”

“....”

Sain looked at the dead creature and then soon after got a series of messages from many players on what to do. It looked like there were more of those strong creatures appearing all over the place.

“No time for that, we need to move out quickly” he said after the near spamming...no at this point, it could be called spamming.

“Let me guess” Miriel said though she didn't even pause to say, “More of those things?”

“More or less” Sain responded as well as sending some of the stronger players by message to help them deal with this.

The group set out to deal with this issue, where people turned into monsters.

Onwards?PreviousExitNext

Author's Notes:

- Words Count: 8400~

- I wrote 16 pages yesterday and only 4 pages today....there seems to be something wrong with this.

- Anyway second chapter of the volume. This part of the volume will end next chapter though I'm thinking of making the volume follow a chain quest line starting of the quests they got.