Chapter 105: Defense of Westram
Rex told Ji Tang everything he knew, including how he became the Lord of Westram and what tricks Lord Yang, who was suspected to be a Chinese compatriot, had done. Ji Tang knew it all.
Without the need for the expert group's think tank analysis, Ji Tang knew by instinct that Westram would have to fight sooner or later - the rentier class in any world would not be a good person. Lord Yang had torn a piece of meat from Lord Innadelli. Even if Lord Yang had endured it and did not attack at the time, he would still seek revenge later.
As for why Lord Yang was not worried about this matter at all and did not even bother to set up a border (?) sentry post or something to guard against it, Ji Tang could probably understand...
If Lord Nader was so angry that he sent people to Westham to burn, kill and loot, Lord Yang might have watched the fun with great interest with his hands in his pockets; just when he was worried about having no cheap way to win people's hearts, the biggest local feudal lord took the initiative to jump out as a villain and draw people's hatred, alienating himself from the people. What's the difference between this and someone giving you a pillow when you are sleepy?
Since Lord Inadli really did it, Ji Tang had no doubt that Lord Yang would learn from Liu Bei and pull the population of Westram back to the Exile Town... Only a fool would not pick up at least 10,000 people for free.
The current situation does not seem to be developing towards extremism. This group of armored cavalrymen are walking along the town road so openly and leisurely in broad daylight. The purpose of military deterrence should be greater than armed conflict.
But... Ji Tang is not optimistic that Lord Innadeli can achieve the goal of military deterrence.
He could see the flashy armor and handsome tall horses of those people from such a long distance, and using the players' logical thinking to understand this matter... that meant that the humanoid monsters that dropped equipment came to his door on their own.
Ji Tang cast an extremely sympathetic (gloating) look at this group of indigenous feudal armed forces from a distance, pulled Rex and quietly retreated.
Rex asked in confusion: "Shouldn't we hurry back to report the news?"
"Uh... no need, we just need to continue our research." Ji Tang lowered his head to glance at the system announcement that had just appeared on the information panel. It seemed that Lord Yang did not let the natives see this message.
Thinking about the private soldiers of the Kamoer nobles who were still working as coolies in the Desolate Stronghold, Ji Tang easily understood the intentions of Lord Yang, who was suspected to be a fellow Chinese...
"This?" Rex had a question mark on his forehead.
"Rex, remember that we have never seen this group of armed cavalry. These people have never been to Westram, and we know nothing about it." Ji Tang said seriously, "No matter who asks, remember to firmly deny it."
Rex: “???”
"Okay, let's continue our research and try to visit more villages today..."
When Ji Tang saw the armed cavalry that was suspected to be led by Innade, a prominent yellow message popped up on the information panel of all online players:
"【System Announcement】Westham Local Defense: Fifty-two illegally armed cavalrymen invaded Westham from the town road. Players please rush to the town hall to receive defense missions."
"Oh my god?! Monsters are attacking the city again?!" Qin Guan, who had PTSD from the weekend event dungeon, almost jumped up on the spot when he saw this system announcement.
"Isn't it broad daylight in the game now? How can monsters spawn in broad daylight?" He looked around nervously while giving me medicine.
Miaobishenghua held his forehead and said: "Calm down, both of you. Read the notice carefully. Where are the armed cavalry? They are humanoid monsters, not those weird monsters in Exile Town!"
Qin Guan & Give Me Medicine, these two brothers' eyes lit up instantly...
On another street, Brother Lahong, who was supervising dozens of prisoners cleaning the sewers, saw the announcement and shouted in ecstasy: "Armed cavalry! Humanoid monsters! Brothers, let's go and kill the monsters!"
"Wait, wait, don't all leave. This mission isn't finished yet!" Mingfeng Chunpu hurriedly grabbed Brother Lahong, "We need to leave some people here to watch over this place. If you fail the mission, your reputation will be deducted!"
Brother Lahong slapped his head and quickly pointed to a few people who had not changed their jobs or had poor equipment to watch the scene, and asked Shenxue, who was addicted to learning, to go offline and call for help.
The Blood Alliance was busily calling for people to form a group, and the individual players who were doing quests in Exile Town and Desolate Stronghold were not idle either; except for players like Ou Yan who were determined not to give any attention to group quests, even casual players like Mr. Yuchi and Miss Liu Meng were rushing to the teleportation point.
In less than half an hour (in the alien world), more than 260 undead were crowded in the spacious courtyard of Westram Town Hall, more than during the expedition...
It is only 11 o'clock in the other world at this moment, which is 6 o'clock in the morning on Earth on weekends. There are so many players actively logging in at this weird time. The reason is of course... all the players have suffered from equipment drops for a long time.
There are only two relatively stable ways to obtain equipment in this game. One is to use copper coins to buy blank novice equipment from weapon merchants/armor merchants, and the other is to use territory reputation and materials to exchange blank/excellent equipment from the Undead Chamber of Commerce.
No equipment will be dropped when you kill monsters. Be it the Spider's Lair, the Poison Mist Swamp, or the wild monsters outside the Desolate Stronghold, they can only drop materials no matter how you kill them.
Players are really tired of criticizing this kind of annoying setting...
So far, there is only one way for players to successfully obtain equipment other than the above two methods: robbing humanoid monsters.
An NPC that is attackable, hostile , and wearing equipment is seen as a mobile equipment display stand by the players.
Previously, many players wandered around the streets of Westram, which were full of NPCs. Not all of them were looking to trigger hidden quests. Many players actually hoped to run into monsters that they could rob...
When most of the online players had gathered, the door of the town hall opened. Yang Qiu, who in the eyes of the players had the title of "Undead Race Resurrection Instructor·Lord Tarantan·Yang" on his head, walked out with a serious face.
"The enemy has invaded our territory. Fifty-two ill-intentioned armed knights are approaching our town. My undead friends, I need you to take the initiative to intercept the enemy and protect the people of this land."
After just saying a few lines to cope with the plot, Yang Qiu skillfully gave the players a task:
"The Defense of Westram"
"The evil Lord Innadri attempted to threaten the peace of Westram by secretly mobilizing the city's defense forces, which were supposed to protect the city, and tricked these soldiers into pointing their spears at the people."
"Go east along the town road and meet the invading enemy."
"One: Successfully defeat the Innadri City Defense Team. Each participating player will receive 300 points of territory reputation."
"Two: For every city defense soldier captured, the captor will receive 200 points of territory reputation."
"Three: Every time a city defense soldier is successfully killed, the killer will lose 50 points of territory reputation."
"Four: For every warhorse successfully captured and handed over to the Westram Town Hall, the captor will receive 100 points of territory reputation."
"The death penalty will be cancelled during the territory defense war. All players who die in the defense war can be resurrected immediately."
When the players saw the defense missions pop up on their respective panels, Lord Yang, who didn't care at all about issuing the missions, stood in front of them and started to complain without any hesitation:
"Holy crap, there's actually a reputation deduction for completing quests?!"
"Are you crazy? What if the NPC wants to run away?!"
"I've already handed in the mount I captured during the last expedition, and now you're here again! Can't you just keep it for yourself?"
"Keep your mount! I insist on keeping your mount! Is it reasonable to release only one undead horse a month? Our knights don't even have mounts, so they are nothing but feather knights!"
Yang Qiu completely ignored the surging public opinion of the players and waved his hand passionately like an emotionless NPC: "Let's go, Undead Warriors! For Westram! For Tarantan!"
The players left cursing...
Before, when the undead were teleported to the town hall compound, it did not attract the attention of the townspeople. The main reason was that there were not many households around the town hall, and the walls of the town hall compound were high enough.
All of a sudden, more than two hundred and almost three hundred undead rushed out from the town hall courtyard and passed through the town in a mighty procession. The impact was huge - almost wherever the large group of players ran, panicked screams could be heard.
"What kind of bullshit plot is this? Aren't we here to perform a defense mission? Not only do the NPCs not line up to see us off, but they also treat us like the plague gods?" Some players were unhappy when they saw the "real-time animation" of civilian NPCs screaming and fleeing like crazy several times.
"Who cares? The farewell party won't give you any extra reputation." Some players didn't care at all.
"At least give me some positive encouragement. I can at least get a thank you from the NPC when I run errands for him in Jiansan!"
When the players were clamoring and rushing out of the town as if they were going to a market, the city defense cavalry from Innadri was less than ten kilometers away from Westram in a straight line.
The captain of this cavalry unit was named Wagner Pitt, a knight in his forties.
Wagner Peter was not a Rhine native. When he was young, he was a squire of a city defense knight. Because the knight he served died accidentally in an assassination and failed to cultivate an heir, he was fortunately granted the title of the Bartles family as a foreigner and became a legitimate family knight.
But this family knighthood was the pinnacle of Wagner Peter's life - after all, he was not a Rhineman, and even though he had lived in Innadri for many years, married and had children, he still found it difficult to be valued by the Bartles family; at this age he was still just the lowest-ranking non-commissioned officer in the city defense army, serving as the most basic team leader.
The regular army of a large local city like Naderi has a retirement system. If one cannot obtain the rank of lieutenant before the age of fifty, he or she will be arranged to retire when he or she reaches the age. Not only will there be no hope of career advancement, but the income will also decline significantly.
Wagner Pitt knew very well why this mission fell on him... The captain was not sure whether the black magician who supported the new lord of Westham was still in Westham. He was reluctant to let more promising young people take risks, so he thought of him who was waiting to retire.
No one would like to be treated as an abandoned pawn. But Wagner Pitt had no choice. He knew very well that if he dared to disobey orders, the commander would force him to retire early without hesitation.
When leaving the city, Wagner even thought about whether to take a risk and go to the city lord's mansion without permission to file a complaint with the captain who had long disliked him - the Third wanted to demonstrate the strength of the city defense army and intimidate the disobedient illegitimate lord, but the captain disagreed and only asked his team to come and investigate.
Thinking that the Third Generation valued the Captain much more than himself, who might not even remember his name... Wagner gave up the idea dejectedly.
If he really took the risk and tried to create discord between the Third Generation and the Captain, he himself would definitely not have a good ending.
When Wagner was distracted, his servant, a young man with ambition always shining in his eyes, rode his horse forward a few steps and came to his side.
"Wagner, are we going directly to the town of Westham?" the young servant asked with sharp eyes.
"This is the order from His Excellency the Commander." Wagner said coldly.
The attendant that Wagner valued was a foreigner like him, but... after the regiment commander planned to let him stay in the position of squad leader and retire, he forced this Rhine man in.
Wagner could guess the captain's intention with his knees - when he retired at the age of 25, his title of knight of the Bartles family would be taken over by the young man arranged by the captain.
The Bartles family had not expanded the family knights for many years, and the title of each family knight was very valuable... Not only could they get a small fiefdom and subjects, but they also received generous non-commissioned officer salaries from the city defense forces.
"It's good to go to town. I've heard so many rumors about Westerham recently. I can't wait to see what Westerham looks like now." The young servant didn't care about Wagner's attitude and laughed ostentatiously. "I don't know what happened to those women I met when I came here with the gentlemen from the city hall last time. It would be a pity if such high-quality goods died."
Wagner's face showed no expression, but another servant who had served him for many years frowned and showed dissatisfaction.
None of the forty-nine cavalrymen who were traveling with him said a word, but just rode their horses forward in silence... These soldiers also knew that the flamboyant young man would replace Wagner in a few years at most, and they did not want to offend him.
It was noon when the sun was at its hottest, and there were hardly any pedestrians on the town road. Occasionally, farmers who were returning home to escape the heat would see the group of fully armed cavalrymen coming up the road and would hurriedly look for places to hide, fearing that they would do something wrong and offend these samurai masters.
The difference between professionals and ordinary people is greater than the difference between species. The scorching sun that can dehydrate ordinary people is nothing to the cavalrymen who have received professional-level training. Even if they are wearing heavy armor and are tightly wrapped, no one will sweat for it.
Amid the unbridled shouting of the young, the team leader Wagner shook the reins slightly in annoyance and took the lead in bypassing the low hill next to the town road.
Then, Wagner saw... on the other side of the hill, a long group of undead scattered all over the road.
Players: “What the hell?!”
Wagner: "Enemy!!"
Wagner quickly stopped his horse and drew his sword.
There are mountains on one side and farmland on the other side of the town road, so the view is quite wide.
The undead were in very scattered formation, with some less than a hundred meters away from the road bend and some at least three hundred meters away. Wagner estimated the number of these undead, and the difference of at least five times in numbers between the two sides made him make an instant judgment: he could not wait for these undead to gather into an army, he had to seize the initiative!
So Wagner shouted "Follow me" and rushed out bravely.
I don't know if the undead also wanted to take the initiative like Wagner did. These undead, who were scattered and had no formation at all, also made strange noises like "WAKAKAKA" and "YAWAKAKAKA" and rushed towards the cavalry excitedly...
A few seconds later, the two sides who were charging at each other collided with each other.
The "vanguard" of the Undead, which had no formation at all, was instantly crushed by the heavily armored cavalry riding on tall horses...
There was no scene of skeletal equipment flying around. In the instant of collision, the damage caused by the heavy cavalry exceeded the upper limit of the players' health bars (damage limit), and they directly turned into white light and disappeared (forced death, summoned away instantly)...
The soldiers only felt a slight collision, and then found that the undead they had collided with had miraculously disappeared. They were so shocked that they kept looking back.
The players were also shocked when their eyes suddenly went dark and then bright, and they found themselves on the teleportation platform of Westram Town Hall.
"F-F--! I'm dead already?!"
"I rely on instant kills? What the hell is this?"
"I shouldn't have followed you! It's really stupid for infantry to charge against cavalry!!"
"I have to go to the battlefield again!"
The players once again left the town hall, cursing...
About five kilometers away, on the temporary battlefield.
"Those idiots are all dead!"
"Don't give me any shit! Get out of the way! Get out of the way!"
After seeing more than 20 of their companions being killed instantly, the remaining players, no matter how dumb they were, knew they couldn’t use their faces to catch the horseshoes, so they fled madly to both sides of the road...
Fortunately, when the players were on the road, their formation was always in a long snake formation that would drive any commander crazy, and the formation was extremely scattered. In addition, the skeletons were light and flexible, and it was especially easy for them to escape, so the charge launched by the heavy cavalry simply did not achieve any results.
The horses under the heavy armored cavalry were not purebred horses, but lizard horses with lizard bloodlines. This kind of horse was tall and strong, with strong load-bearing and endurance, which could meet the needs of heavy armored cavalry with equipment weighing more than 300 kilograms. It could also make multiple short-distance sprints in a short period of time, allowing the bulky heavy armored cavalry to launch multiple rounds of charges in a short period of time.
They rushed out more than 200 meters and completely broke up the formation of the undead. Under the command of the old captain Wagner Pitt, this warlike cavalry team reorganized in just a few seconds and turned around.
Wagner raised his sword again, but failed to call for a charge immediately.
There are no more undead on the road. These wretched guys have either run to the hills or to the farmlands.
Wagner Pitt was a bit upset at the time...
The heavy cavalry, including the horse and the man, weighed more than half a ton. It was okay on the town roads that had been compacted and paved with gravel, but the horses' legs could easily get stuck in the softer ground of the farmland.
Wagner was hesitating whether to change tactics, but the undead rushed towards them again...
"Hurry! Attack the monster while its charge cooldown is running out!"
"What a small monster, you are so showy! Die now!"
Wagner didn't understand what the undead were shouting "YAWAKAKAKA" meant. Seeing that the undead had returned to the road, he led the charge again without hesitation.
The player who rushed to the front fell to the ground.
"What a lunatic!" Qin Guan, who had returned to the Westram teleportation point, threw the weapon in his hand to the ground in anger, "Here comes a humanoid monster wearing full armor and riding a horse, and the charge CD is not yet up! Is this idiot planner here to organize an event to show his kindness or to mess with the players!!"
"You still expect the planner to give you warmth? It's good enough that you don't feed SHI." He cursed as he gave me medicine, "Let's go, Vanilla, hurry up and run to the battlefield!"
"Here it comes!" Qin Guan quickly picked up the weapon.
On the town road, after several rounds of charging back and forth, the number of undead was greatly reduced, and was no longer much more than the heavy armored cavalry.
Wagner ordered the cavalry to stop and rest on the side close to the farmland. The heavy cavalry, including himself, were in good condition, but the ground lizard horses were already panting and needed to rest.
"Nothing more than that!" Zhang Yang's attendant seemed to have recovered from the shock he felt when he first saw the large group of undead. In order to hide his shame, he deliberately spoke loudly, "I thought the army of undead that scared the original baron away was so terrifying, but it turns out they are just some broken bones that cannot even be touched!"
Wagner ignored this guy who seemed to be a distant relative of the regiment commander and looked up at the hill across the road.
The remaining undead souls all fled to the top of the hill, but they did not escape from their sight. They were now piled up on the hill, staring at them arrogantly from a distance.
They didn't give up, Wagner could feel their hostility... they seemed to be burning with anger.
"If we're not on flat ground... we really have no way to deal with these undead." Wagner frowned. These undead were very agile, at least in terms of speed they were very close to the walkers he had seen. If he didn't fight on flat ground, he had no confidence that he could get rid of or destroy these guys.
What made Wagner even more uneasy was that although they had clearly killed at least two hundred undead in several charges, there was not a single bone or debris to be seen on the road.
"...Have we really wiped out those undead?" Wagner once again looked at the gravel road surface with only countless overlapping horseshoe prints, his brows furrowed.
Wagner was puzzled when he suddenly heard a commotion in the queue.
"What's the matter!" Wagner immediately turned around and shouted.
"Captain! More undead are coming!" A team member pointed to one end of the road with a pale face.
Wagner turned to look... and sure enough, on the road in the direction of Westram, another large group of undead were running towards this side in a long snake formation.
"Line up!" Wagner shouted without hesitation, "Get ready to charge!"
This experienced junior non-commissioned officer knew very well that when facing strange enemies like the undead, he must not give the soldiers any extra time to think and must let them quickly get into the rhythm of battle - this was also the main reason why he immediately led the charge after seeing the undead.
This round of fighting was more difficult than the previous one - the undead this time were more agile than the previous batch and knew how to avoid the cavalry's head-on charge.
They would also stick to the soldiers relentlessly and fearlessly, wielding all kinds of weapons and chopping at their full-body armor, making it clang.
What was even more troublesome was that when the heavy cavalry was fighting with the incoming undead, the undead that had run to the hill also rushed down, causing considerable trouble to the soldiers.
After destroying some of the undead and driving the rest back to the mountain, Wagner was fine, but many soldiers showed signs of fatigue and began to pant.
Wagner observed the morale of his men, then looked up at the undead on the mountain.
According to intelligence obtained by the city defense forces, there are not many undead in Westram, and the townspeople have only seen a few hundred at most.
"It's almost the same number we killed just now." Wagner thought about it and decided to take the team away and lure the undead on the mountain down to kill them.
So he led the heavy cavalry in the direction of Westram.
The undead on the mountain really came down the mountain and followed.
Wagner waited until the undead were far enough away from the hill that was in the way, and raised his sword: "Ready—"
"Captain! Look over there!" a team member shouted in horror.
Wagner's heart skipped a beat and he turned his head quickly.
From the direction of Westram, another large group of undead came running...
