[The Black Star rises and covers the sun.]
[Darkness shrouds the primordial light]
[And a new truth shall be established upon this land.]
[Praise]
[The great Golden King.]
[The god who shall be born anew.]
[Praise.]
[Praise.]
Alex frowned at the narration text that kept obstructing his vision no matter how many times he dismissed it.
Roughly interpreted, it meant the damned first wave was about to begin.
The Black Star, also known as the Monster Wave.
It was an event consisting of three stages that appeared only with extremely low probability.
During the Black Star, waves of monsters would pour in, and failing to defend against them meant immediate annihilation.
That was why Alex had dealt with the Siren beforehand.
The monsters appearing in a Black Star event differed depending on when it occurred, so if he had been late dealing with the Siren, a swarm of Sirens would probably have attacked instead.
Name: Ret
Traits: Group Living, Poisoning Chance 10%
A rat-shaped Magical Beast with developed gills adapted for aquatic life.
They travel in swarms of hundreds. Each individual has little attack power, but they are venomous, and repeated bites can become life-threatening.
Just as Alex had intended, Rets had appeared in this wave instead of Sirens.
They were Magical Beasts that literally looked like filthy rats.
Their defense was weak, but they were not to be underestimated.
Facing a swarming Magical Beast like this head-on would be an incredibly stupid choice.
Even counting the mages stationed atop the wall, their entire force amounted to exactly fifty people.
What people like them needed most was a barricade.
“So damn annoying.... Paul! Hurry up!”
After irritably waving his hands through the air and completely dismissing the narration and System windows, Alex shouted.
An answer immediately came from the wall above his head.
“Rushing me will only make it harder...!”
Paul had never imagined that a simple assignment to defend the city would involve something like this.
Of course, because this was Carcosa, he had expected Magical Beasts to pop out from time to time.
But he had assumed it would remain within reasonable limits, and he had also been certain he would not die.
After all, no matter how infamous Carcosa was, it had survived without being destroyed until now.
He had accepted the Guild Alliance's offer and come here under the assumption that at least a minimum level of safety would be guaranteed.
“Damn it. Someone of my caliber, stuck doing this in a place like....”
Paul complained about the attack by Magical Beasts he had never seen before, but there was nowhere for him to run.
He had already signed a contract notarized by the Guild Alliance.
Even if he fled, he would only lose all credibility for breaching the contract and eventually starve to death.
He had no choice but to fight.
“What are you doing?!”
Growing anxious herself, Aroha grabbed Paul's arm and shook him, urging him on.
The mounting pressure from every direction only drove Paul deeper into his obsessive thoughts.
Himself, capable of doing nothing but trembling.
The hideous Magical Beasts.
The surroundings swallowed by darkness.
‘I can't.... I can't do this.’
It was ugly.
There was nothing beautiful about any of it.
Mana had already begun moving around Paul, but the formulas were arranging themselves into complete disorder.
His anxiety flaring up again, Paul dragged a hand down his face and stared forward once more.
Because the Lord's castle itself stood higher than the surrounding terrain, Paul could see especially far from his position atop the wall.
“....”
Red torches burned here and there amid the unnatural darkness created by the Black Star.
The soft, rat-like Magical Beasts flooding through the gaps between the buildings of the Old Quarter possessed neither reason nor intelligence.
They trampled and bit at one another as they charged forward, their eyes gleaming scarlet.
The sight of hundreds of grotesque Magical Beasts rushing toward them was so bizarre it hardly seemed real.
“Paul! What are you doing?!”
At Alex's second shout, Paul's hand shot out reflexively.
The mana, trembling as wildly as Paul's unstable mind, rapidly intertwined.
For an instant, a viciously cold wind swept past everyone, sharp enough to sting their cheeks.
“...Whoa.”
A short exclamation of disbelief and amazement escaped Aroha as she watched Paul anxiously.
The freezing wind driven forward by his hand had transformed directly into a massive wall of ice.
The suddenly formed ice encased the monsters at the front and fused them into a single mass.
It blocked more than half of the Old Quarter alley, and the slippery ice made it difficult for the Magical Beasts to climb over it.
“It worked!”
“Woooah!”
“There's a wall!”
Separate from the cheers of the Dark Elves and guards below, Aroha felt goosebumps rise across her skin.
Her knowledge of basic magical theory was still limited, but even she understood what this sight meant.
At first glance, ice seemed like a single element.
In reality, it was extremely complicated.
‘You have to control water, wind, and light at the same time....’
Summon water, use wind to guide its direction and shape, then block light to achieve instantaneous cooling.
Aroha had confidence in her own talent, and she was not unintelligent, so she understood the theory.
But even after understanding it, the most she had managed was creating soft hail from moisture in the air.
‘And he succeeded... while this unstable?’
Frankly, no matter how much she studied, Aroha was not confident she would ever be able to use all three elements simultaneously.
While Aroha marveled at Paul's unexpected level of skill, Alex felt chills for an entirely different reason.
‘That's twice as big as I expected...?’
The ice wall created with Freeze was far larger than Alex had anticipated.
That meant Paul was stronger than expected.
It also meant he was correspondingly worse at controlling his output.
Even in the original game, Paul had been one of the hardest characters to handle relative to his performance.
‘With Paul's psychological problems, it'll be difficult for him to perform properly at this point in time.’
One slight miscalculation and this was exactly the sort of thing that could sweep away their allies along with the enemy.
For now, Alex decided to save the unpredictable trump card named Paul for later.
“That's enough! Good job! Now don't do anything else!”
Alex shifted his gaze farther into the distance again.
Most of the Old Quarter alleys leading toward the Lord's castle were now blocked by ice barricades.
Only a handful of routes remained open to the monsters.
All they had to do now was block and defend those remaining alleys.
With things arranged this way, even dozens of people could stop the Magical Beasts no matter how numerous they were.
“Elizabeth! Kora!”
This time, Alex called two names.
Kora was one of the Dark Elf warriors, the one with gray hair tied into a short ponytail.
He was a fairly useful fighter who had endured being struck by Argos's steel wings during the previous battle against the Siren.
Name: Kora
Affiliation: Dark Elf
Special Note: Sensory Block
Skill: Spear Throw
Moreover, now that they had entered a cooperative relationship and Alex could view his Status Window, Kora's abilities were actually familiar to him.
In the game, they had all simply been called ‘Barbarian Warriors,’ but occasionally there had been tanks who refused to go down no matter how many times they were attacked.
Unless their limbs were torn off during battle or they were killed outright, they felt no impact from any attack.
“I'm counting on you.”
At Alex's words, Elizabeth stretched until her bones cracked, then gave Kora a few encouraging pats on the shoulder.
Just as they had agreed beforehand, the two began moving together with surprisingly smooth coordination.
THUD—!
The Defense skill Elizabeth had obtained after defeating Argos activated around her.
At the same time, she charged forward and slammed her shield into dozens of Rets at once with a heavy impact, knocking them back.
Kora then used the shaft of his spear to sweep the fallen Rets toward one side.
Watching the two move swiftly, Alex carefully assessed the situation.
As expected.
As predicted.
As planned.
For everything to unfold exactly as intended, he could not relax for even an instant.
“My Lord, but... is there really a reason we need to confront them here?”
Alex briefly glanced back at the question.
It was the very first guard he had hired.
His talkative son, Tommy, had left quite an impression, and the guard himself had been present at quite a few important moments.
His name was....
‘Was it Bane?’
Alex answered while continuing to watch the battlefield.
From the guard's perspective, it probably did seem unnecessary for the Lord and the soldiers themselves to stand outside the wall.
But Alex had already experienced this event dozens of times.
“Of course there is. We have to protect what's inside the castle.”
Thanks to the barricades, these pathetic Magical Beasts might not pose much danger to able-bodied adults.
An attack from a Ret could usually be countered as long as they shook it off before it managed to bite properly.
But for the old and weak, one unlucky bite and even the resulting infection could kill them.
That was the kind of damned world this game had become.
“Anything that wants into my city has to go through me first.”
At Alex's answer, Guard Bane stared at his back for a long time.
[Loyalty has increased slightly.]
Suddenly, a chaotic and unfamiliar clattering sound erupted nearby.
The Magical Beasts Elizabeth and Kora had been herding had fallen into the trap they had dug in advance.
“It worked!”
“Success!”
Alex gave a brief smile at the cheers of the Dark Elves, who had been watching tensely.
He knew very well from personal experience.
The inside walls of a Dark Elf trap were unexpectedly smooth and vertical, making them extremely difficult to escape from.
On top of that, Alex had filled this one with oil.
The seemingly endless swarm of Rets possessed exactly one weakness.
‘Fire.’
In the game, the first wave of the Black Star was difficult to stop even with more than two hundred troops.
But using fire changed the situation completely.
Most routes through the Old Quarter had been sealed, and the few alleys the Rets could still enter contained oil traps.
And if they set those on fire?
There would be no need for the soldiers to fight the Rets directly.
They only had to shove them inside.
“Aroha!”
At Alex's signal, Aroha activated her magic again.
Small fireballs resembling fluttering butterflies shot through the air like a meteor shower.
The trap filled with oil and Rets became a massive pit of fire, illuminating the darkness.
Alex began walking toward it first, and Bane, who had been watching him, reflexively followed.
“Everyone, follow His Lordship!”
WAAAAAH-!
The sudden roar behind him caught Alex off guard for the briefest moment.
But he did not stop.
His sword swept through three soft-bodied Magical Beasts at once.
The wall was their final line of defense.
For the Magical Beasts to cross it, there were many thresholds they would first have to overcome.
***
“Uaaah!”
Elizabeth came charging in from somewhere with yet another group of Rets and used her overwhelming strength to force them into the burning pit.
There was no way mere Rets could overcome Elizabeth when she possessed both Berserk and a defensive skill.
“Haa....”
Alex finally caught his breath and looked around.
The incineration of the Rets seemed to be nearing its end.
Realizing there were no more enemies nearby, Elizabeth lowered her shield and wiped away her sweat.
The soldiers and Dark Elves were all drenched in sweat after fighting so close to the flames.
“My Lord, I think we've cleaned them all up.”
The heavy armor was uncomfortable, but Elizabeth knew the situation was not completely over yet.
Alex had already explained exactly what would happen today and what her role in the battle would be.
Without giving it much thought, she used the charred spine of a Ret as a hairpin and twisted her long hair up.
Alex wiped away the sweat running down his chin and nodded.
“Yeah. It's about time we sent the signal.”
At Alex's words, Elizabeth took the bow and arrow from her back.
She drew the bowstring and aimed toward the eastern sky, where the Black Star hung in the distance.
FWEEEEEE-
The signal arrow shot into the sky with a piercing whistle.
Even the screams of the Rets thrashing to their deaths inside the burning pit were beginning to die down.
The first wave, which had a clear countermeasure, had gone relatively smoothly.
[Will you resist?]
[Do you believe you can defy the raging current?]
At that moment, narration announcing the beginning of the second wave began appearing.
Alex frowned at the System windows, nearly indistinguishable from curses, appearing once again.
This was not a game anymore, where health and Status Effects were reduced to simple numbers.
Alex was looking at soldiers made flesh and blood right in front of him.
A few of them, apparently unlucky, were already showing symptoms of poisoning and vomiting.
‘Should I pull the poisoned ones back?’
But there was another reason Alex had forced as many people as possible into a single battlefield, making even that a difficult decision.
[Submit.]
[Before your own powerlessness]
[And the great will]
[Submit.]
Alex had seen those story messages countless times, but today they looked particularly horrific.
The narration urging him to give up almost felt as though it had seen directly through the dilemma in his mind.
Of course, it only disgusted him.
He had not the slightest intention of kneeling before some mechanical text like that.
He had not even revealed a quarter of the plan he had prepared.
New messages began appearing over the cursed story text.
[50 or more allies have been deployed in a single battle.]
[Loyalty has reached 50%.]
[Divinity responds to the wills of many.]
[New Skill Acquired!]
The corners of Alex's lips rose again as he saw the System window he had been waiting for.
He knew every skill the protagonist could obtain and every condition required to acquire them.
No matter how badly the game's original progression became twisted, Alex was confident he could resolve things to some extent.
He had experienced the possibilities that made up this world hundreds of times.
He would always remain one move ahead.
[Oath of Loyalty Lv.1]
[Allied combatants share one of the Lord's skills, each receiving 1/50 of its effect.]
[Duration: 30 minutes]
[Cooldown: 24 hours]
It was the first command skill he had obtained not as a Paladin, but as a Lord.
The real battle began now.