Episode 182. Expunged(2)
“Who are those idiots? Are they faces I haven’t seen before?”
“I don’t know.”
A shabby restaurant in a rural village.
When farmers who stopped by for lunch asked the owner, he answered by shaking his head.
In a corner of the restaurant, a man in a rag was devouring soup and bread, and a female was munching on his arm.
“Where do these people come from?”
“······.”
The man makes eye contact for a moment and then fixes his eyes on the food again.
The eyes looked like they had no will to answer at all.
As he got angry and tried to approach, the owner stopped him.
“It’s okay. Even if I asked about cancer, he didn’t answer. It won’t cause any problems, so let’s leave it alone.
“Do you have money to pay for food?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why did you give me food?”
“Can’t you see the sword sheath on that guy’s waist? “The cost of food isn’t more expensive than my life.”
“······.”
I guessed it as soon as I saw it.
That guy has gone as far as he can go.
There was no one more scary in the world than a guy who had nothing to lose.
No good will come if you touch it for no reason.
It would be best if you could give him some food and send him away quietly.
The farmer agreed to the owner’s words and sat down.
‘What are these people doing?’
The farmer, who was observing the behavior of the man and woman, felt his doubts growing.
This area is full of undead legions.
This is a land that was repeatedly taken over and over again by the undead army.
Of course, the solid siege had never been breached for the past year, so it was always under the occupation of the Allied Forces.
A dangerous area where it would not be surprising if it were taken over by the undead army at any time.
It was truly rare for a stranger to come to such a place.
‘Does that mean it has become that much safer?’
Recently, I heard that the defense line has become more solid thanks to the opening of the floodgates and the river water rising.
Are those who heard the news migrating?
It was at that moment when I suddenly had that thought.
“I have something to spread! Everyone, come out to the square!”
“······?”
Bang!
The door opened roughly and a guard wearing a helmet shouted.
The farmers put down their spoons while eating and just stared at the guard in silence.
The security guard was quite embarrassed as not a single person seemed to have any intention of standing up.
“What are you doing? “Didn’t you hear me?”
“Are you a rookie? Why are you so rude?”
“Why do the guards come out so forcefully against good farmers?”
“If you’re going to summon them, tell them a reason and bring them together.”
The security guard blushed at the farmers’ indifferent attitude.
He hesitated for a moment.
The guard parted his lips and spoke in a trembling voice.
“The undead army crossed the river…”
At his words, the farmers’ expressions hardened.
And then they did so without any hesitation or hesitation.
I grabbed my farming tools and jumped up.
.
.
.
“The enemy is advancing by crossing the river. It will likely be 6 hours before we reach the nearest village.”
“6 hours…”
Jill bit her fingernails and tapped the map.
6 hours.
There wasn’t enough time.
The Frost Lord was dispatched as soon as he heard that the enemy had crossed the river, but there were more than 12 hours left until his arrival.
By the time she arrived, not only had all the villages in front of her been devastated, but she might even have had her second line of defense breached.
If even the second line of defense is breached…
‘It’s a catastrophe!’
The disaster Luna had predicted.
A future could unfold where the entire world was covered by legions of undead.
The entire 1st Fleet was immediately dispatched, but due to the slow nature of airships, their joining would be delayed.
In the end, the fastest ones are the land units and the frost lords…Perhaps we should abandon even the second line of defense and establish a third line of defense.
Jill looked at the powerful river as a candidate for the third line of defense and pondered.
“No······.”
It was a defense line that would abandon more than half of the southern continent.
At this rate, the former capital of the Holy Kingdom, Cologne, Basel, and even the former Elvengard site would all fall into enemy hands, and Petersburg would be besieged.
The alliance would suffer a devastating blow that would be tantamount to dissolution.
We must hold out at the second line of defense at all costs.
But even so.
It was still a choice to leave tens of thousands of civilians living between the first and second lines of defense to die.
Even knowing that this was the best option, Jill’s heart burned as she made the decision.
“Saintess! The farmers have volunteered to defend!”
“What? Withdraw them immediately! The enemy will devour them and infect them, and then take their weapons and become even stronger!”
“They understand that, but they say they will fight with only spears and farm tools that are not at risk of being captured. They say their main goal is to buy time for their families to evacuate······.”
“······!”
Jill’s eyes widened at the unexpected news.
Knowing that they would die.
Knowing that they would not be able to rest even after they died.
And yet, they would go into battle with poor weapons so that the enemy’s strength would not increase.
“How can they······.”
Jill swallowed her words before she could finish them.
How could they make such a choice?
The answer was simple.
Only for the sake of their families.
They were doing this to buy time until their wives and children could safely evacuate to a safe place.
Jill felt infinite respect for those who had made such a decision in such a short time.
“Rescue as many people as possible who are evacuating to the second line of defense. And then······. I will find out the names of each and every person who went to the battlefield and congratulate them.”
Thanks to them, we have bought time.
We may be able to block what would have spread to millions of people with just a few thousand.
Jill began to have such hope.
.
.
.
“······.”
A wagon heading for the battlefield.
The interior was filled with a cold silence.
Farmers clutching farm tools and makeshift spears that they had brought with them.
On one side, someone was writing letters to their families on behalf of these blind people.
On the other side, letters were being collected.
All of them had grim faces.
“But what the hell are they?”
“I don’t know······.”
“Why did these foreigners come all the way here······.”
A man and a girl sitting in the wagon.
The farmers glanced at them and tilted their heads.
They were sacrificing their lives to protect their families, but what about them?
They had been warned several times that they were going to die, but they had insisted on following them, so they had reluctantly brought them along, but it was a behavior they could not understand.
Shouldn’t the girl at least be evacuated?
The farmers thought about it, but they couldn’t bring themselves to do it when they saw the girl clinging to the man’s arm like a piece of gum.
It wasn’t that they hadn’t thought about forcibly dropping her off and sending her to the rear.
However, every time they approached her, the girl’s red eyes made the farmers feel as if their blood was boiling.
An instinctive fear.
They didn’t know what it was, but it was clear that the girl was the natural enemy of the human race.
“We’re here! Everyone get off!”
The carriage came to a stop.
The door of the cargo hold opened, and the farmers’ boots stepped into the mud, scattering mud here and there.
When they came out, they saw farmers getting out of dozens of carriages that had stopped, each carrying a weapon.
They all looked like they had just come from work.
They exchanged glances and bit their lips as they moved forward.
What lay before them was a muddy field where their feet sank in after the rain.It was the worst place to work.
But it was the best place to hold back the enemy.
“Reinforcements!”
In front, the workers who had arrived earlier were already waiting, having dug a trench.
The peasants rushed over to join them and shook hands.
“I was worried you wouldn’t come. The enemy will be here in less than an hour······.”
“The traffic was bad, so we were a little late. This is······. Did you build a defensive line?”
“Yes. It’s shabby, but it’s something······.”
“It’s much better than nothing.”
There was quite a lot built for it to be shabby.
Deep pits, palisades, and trenches dug in layers.
This should hold them off for at least two hours.
The peasants’ faces began to brighten.
“The operation is simple. What do we know, who can’t even read or write and have to have someone else write our letters? First, burn them in front. Second, fight them with spears in the back. That’s all.”
The village chief, who was in charge of the command, shouted in front of the lined-up peasant army.
They had never fought in their lives, let alone held a weapon.
They didn’t know anything about tactics, and even if they did, there was no way they could use them in the field.
So the simplest thing was the best.
There were no complicated orders to follow.
A simple plan was presented that could be successfully carried out as long as everyone didn’t panic and run away.
“Everyone who volunteered for the first trench, cover your entire body with mud! If you don’t want to burn to death!”
The first trench.
The trench in front of the deep pit was intended to stop the enemy’s advance as much as possible.
It wouldn’t take long for the enemy to fall into the pit and crawl over each other’s heads to get out.
However, if they filled the pit with oil and set it on fire when the enemy crawled out, they could buy a lot of time.
They would resist by burning the enemy, and if the enemy crossed the pit, they would retreat.
“When you retreat to the second trench, hold the palisade firmly and the rest of you stab the enemy trying to break the palisade!”
Then they would resist in the second trench, which was full of palisades.
If they broke through there, they would fight to the last man in the third trench.
“In the last third trench······. Fight until you die! That’s all!”
There was nothing after that.
They could only pray that they had bought enough time and that they would be slaughtered by the undead army and become part of them.
The peasants who received the order moved to their positions one by one.
Some sat in the trench and prayed, making the sign of the cross.
Some were holding hammers and driving the palisades deeper into the ground.
Still others were covering their entire bodies with mud and holding torches to watch the front.
Among them were guards who had taken off all their armor and expensive weapons and joined them.
“What’s this?”
“······?”
Then someone tilted their head.
The village chief silenced everyone and put his ear to the ground.
“······!”
Thump, thump, thump.
His expression hardened at the vibrations that came without any regularity.
Soon the vibrations grew louder.
The noise became so loud that it was no longer necessary to put his ear to the ground.
“They’re coming!”
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At that cry, everyone stood up and turned their eyes to the front.
They could see a silhouette of something moving in the forest.
At one point, hideous figures emerged from the grass.
“What the hell is that······!”
There was one with two torsos on one lower body.
There was one with four arms, each holding four swords.
There was one running with an ax and no head.
The undead, each carrying heavy armor and weapons, ran at a speed that no human could possibly match.
Each undead was as powerful as a knight.However, the number of legions covering the horizon was approaching 10,000 at first glance.
“Ah······.”
“You can’t even buy time…?”
The farmers were shocked by this.
I can’t stop that.
He will jump over a fairly deep hole in an instant, and break through a wooden fence with a single sword.
All I could see was a future where even if 15 people attacked at once, they would be cut down and killed in an instant.
“Don’t be scared! It’s too late to run away anyway! Getting hit in the back of the head while running away would be a real death, but if we can hold off here for even a minute, it’s our victory! Didn’t you guys come here prepared to die anyway?”
“······!”
The village chief picked up the torch and stepped forward.
The operation is simple anyway, so there is no major difficulty in carrying it out even if the commander dies.
If I’m going to fight, I’ll die at the front, inspiring my comrades.
“I will follow!”
“I’ll go to the first trench too!”
“No, you can’t come too many, you guys.”
As the village head gritted his teeth and stepped forward, the farmers’ spirit began to build.
There is no dog death.
Everyone here dies meaningfully.
Although they had never received military training.
Before we knew it, the farmers were settling down in an orderly manner.
The vibrations echoing as the enemies ran across the field had grown to become as big as an earthquake.
No one was afraid or preparing to run away.
“······?”
It was a moment when everyone was holding their weapons, gritting their teeth, and waiting for death.
Someone stood up and started moving forward.
Male and female.
They were quiet the whole time.
“Even if a person is born with a destiny and cannot decide how to live, shouldn’t he decide for himself how to die?”
“What?”
“I will admit it. You guys are ‘real humans.’”
“What do you mean?”
Two people moving forward while stepping through the mud.
Eyes that show no trace of tension or fear.
However, no determination could be found in his eyes.
An expression that can only be seen in ordinary everyday life.
In the case of females, it is an expression that shows no emotion at all.
It is clear that he has gone crazy.
Everyone thought so.
“Oh, hey…!”
The man passed his first trench and stepped into the deep pit.
However, instead of going down, the man and woman move forward while treading in the air.
The farmers lost their minds at this.
From this point on, it is already beyond the scope of farmers’ understanding.
Superman.
It was clear that he was the type of person called that.
hehehe…”
Before he knew it, thousands of undead troops had approached 200 meters away, but the man just laughed.
He slowly drew out a sword and raised it.
It was a strange sword, all black from the blade to the tang.
“What are you going to do by yourself?!”
Certainly, I heard that a superhuman like the Frost Lord could fight an undead army single-handedly.
But that’s only when fighting in favorable terrain.
It was clear that no matter how strong a superhuman was, if he fought on a wide plain against thousands of undead, he would soon be surrounded and slaughtered.
Losing such a superman would be a much greater loss than losing hundreds of farmers.
Even though they knew all this, the farmers somehow felt that the heavy sense of responsibility and crisis that had settled in their hearts was gradually fading away.
For some unknown reason, I was getting a sense of security from that man who came out alone holding a sword.
“Dacian style Oui.”
The man’s feet slid backwards, leaving marks in the mud.
Then the man grabbed the sword with both hands, pulled it back, and prepared to swing.
The female who had been with him the whole time had already fallen behind.
“Keeek!!!”In no time, the undead army was 100 meters away!
The moment they were so close that they could count the number of dots on each other’s faces.
The man’s sword, filled with determination, struck.
“Crescent Moon!”
Clack clack clack!
A white sword energy in the shape of a crescent moon extended silently.
The sword energy instantly covered the undead army and extended, cleanly cutting everything it touched.
All that could be heard was the eerie sound of the undead horde being effortlessly sliced apart.
Although its sharpness had dulled considerably by the time it reached the end of the line.
In the wake of the sword energy, the undead were grotesquely strewn about, their upper and lower bodies separated.
Before a scene that resembled a field of dismembered corpses.
The peasants stood rooted to the spot, their mouths agape.
“Kyaaah!!!”
The undead writhed, letting out bizarre screams.
Their severed upper and lower bodies reattached, and one by one, they stood up again and began to run.
The peasants’ faces turned ashen once more.
But the man snorted as if he had expected this and once again assumed a cutting stance.
“If they don’t die from one cut, I’ll just keep cutting until they do. Dakia-ryu secret technique······.”
The undead army of thousands had completely revived.
Before them, they ran, making the ground tremble with their deafening roar.
The man smiled grimly and swung his sword.
But this time, the peasants couldn’t tell which direction he had cut in.
“Iron-Blooded Storm Slash!”
A white net filled their field of vision.
Only then did the peasants realize.
The man had not swung his sword in ‘any direction’.
He had swung it in ‘all directions’.
The net of sword energy swept over them.
The screams of the undead army being torn apart by it echoed loudly, then gradually subsided.
The magic that had escaped from the destroyed undead soon formed a thick black fog.
he became op in 10 years