Chapter 121: Rejecting Friendly Forces
Lakeside Village is a small village built on the higher slopes north of Horseshoe Lake.
This village, with only more than 50 households, is an extremely poor area even by the standards of this dimension - there is not a single decent building in the entire village, and even the village chief's house is just a slightly larger thatched house with an earthen wall that can accommodate a family and even raise two pigs and a few chickens.
Most of the villagers could not afford two sets of decent clothes. When the elderly and young men went out to work, they always had a piece of rag wrapped around their waists. Children always ran around the village naked. Women often did housework and twisted hemp thread at home with the only bed sheet at home...
There is a water source nearby and the straight-line distance from the town is no more than 30 kilometers, but it is still so poor. There are two reasons for this.
The first point is the failure of management by higher authorities and town-level administrative units.
None of the successive mayors of Westham had ever given a second glance to the remote villages more than 15 kilometers away from the town, which could not even supply fresh vegetables to the town; except when tax agents were sent out to collect taxes in the autumn every year or when the lords needed laborers to fight territory wars, these lords had never remembered that there were such breathing two-legged livestock in their own territories.
Secondly, there is no aristocratic manor within ten miles of this village.
Horseshoe Lake is too close to the Sorenson Mountains. The nobles believe that investing in a manor farm in such a place is a high-risk business. Even though Horseshoe Lake has the advantage of abundant water resources, no noble is willing to buy the land nearby.
In other words, the people of Lakeside Village couldn't even afford the most basic roads and water conservancy projects... When the nobles' manors and farms were enclosed in some places, they would at least build a gravel or loess road that could accommodate horse-drawn carriages, and build a few irrigation canals.
Clearly alive but seemingly transparent, the backwardness of Lakeside Village is completely imaginable...
The villagers can only cultivate the land on the west side of Horseshoe Lake that can be irrigated directly with water. The output from the land is not only difficult to cash out due to transportation problems, but every autumn harvest season the villagers have to go out to deliver the tax grain to the town. After all the hassles, every household is considered lucky if they can save enough money for salt next year.
In addition to inconvenient transportation and lack of farmland and water conservancy support, Lakeside Village has a bigger problem: it is far away from densely populated areas.
Monsters and demons are rarely seen, not as exaggerated as those in the Tarantan Wasteland; but there are many wild beasts. Wolves, wild boars, monkeys, foxes, weasels and other wild beasts that destroy crops and even threaten the safety of villagers appear extremely frequently. The villagers have to work in groups even when they go out of the village to work in the farmland not far away.
Of course, this relatively special living environment is not all bad. At least the atmosphere in Lakeside Village is more united than in other villages.
The village chief, Sharp, who is in his early forties but looks like he is already sixty, sat up on a pile of hay covered with linen, covering the wound on his forehead that was smeared with wood ash.
Village chief Sharp's house was considered spacious among the villagers, but with a family of five, two pigs and a flock of chickens, there was not much space to step on, not to mention the so-called personal space - as soon as he stood up, all the family members sleeping on the same haystack woke up.
"Father, does your wound hurt again?" The voice of the grown-up son of Sharp Village came from the direction of the couple's "bed" separated by a curtain.
There was no light in the room, only a small piece of moonlight coming through the bamboo curtain blocking the door. In such a dim environment, Village Chief Sharp, who had night blindness, naturally couldn't see anything clearly; but after all, he had lived in this room for many years and was very familiar with the environment. Even if he couldn't see, he could vaguely feel it: "I'm fine...Is Billy back?"
There was no sound from the eldest son, probably because he didn't know how to answer.
Village Chief Sharp was waiting for his daughter to get married and was sleeping against the wall, close to Village Chief Sharp. After the old father asked twice, he couldn't bear it and said, "Don't worry, Dad. My brother and I will go to see Billy after dawn."
Village Chief Sharp sighed.
He and his eldest son had both been dragged out and beaten by those brutal mercenaries, and knew how rude those people were to them.
Billy was his youngest son, the last thought left to him by his deceased wife. Village Chief Sharp inevitably spoiled him a little and usually just let him look after the cows in the village, so he didn't suffer much... Village Chief Sharp didn't even dare to tell his own children, for he was worried that Billy would not be able to withstand the beating and reveal the secret that everyone had kept.
"Why is there so much noise outside?" Village Chief Sharp asked, "Are those people causing trouble again?"
There was some noise from the eldest son's side, and Village Chief Sharp seemed to hear this steady eldest son excitedly getting up, moving too much and pulling his wound, causing him to gasp in pain, and being blamed by his daughter-in-law.
"Father, there were ghosts in the village before dark!" In the darkness, Village Chief Sharp heard his son's voice, unable to suppress his excitement. "There are many ghosts wearing clothes and holding weapons that we saw when we entered the town. They walked around the village and went to the camps of those people's carriages and horses!"
"Really?" Village Chief Sharp also became excited. "Gods, Lady Gold Coin, has Mr. Rex sent someone to rescue us?"
"It's true. I saw it too, father." The daughter's voice also rang out. "There were so many of them, more than those who robbed us. Those people were scared. Once the undead left, they didn't dare to stay in the village and all hid back in their camps."
"Gone? The undead are gone?!" Village chief Sharp's heart almost stopped at the news.
"Don't worry, father. They probably haven't left yet. It's just that they haven't made a move yet." The eldest son said excitedly, "As soon as it got dark, there was a noise coming from the camp. Many people were screaming, but you fell asleep and didn't hear it."
"So that's how it is, so that's how it is...May the Gold Coin Lady bless you!" Village Chief Sharp became excited again.
After learning that there was cheap cloth in the town, he was able to organize the villagers to raise funds and buy new cloth for every household. He was also able to anticipate the risks when being targeted by the Sokre people and instruct the villagers in advance to speak with one voice. This village chief Sharp certainly has his own wisdom and courage.
After listening to the faint commotion and screams for a while, Village Chief Sharp thought for a while and quickly made a decision that surprised his two children and one daughter-in-law: "We can't just sit there and wait. We must let Mr. Rex see our determination. Since Mr. Rex's undead are helping us deal with the enemy, we should also do our part."
The very proactive village chief Sharp immediately forced himself to get up, called his son and strong daughter-in-law, asked his daughter to look after the house, and ran to each household with a torch to call for help.
Such a loud noise came from the carriage and horse camp not far away , and the villagers were awakened long ago, but they didn't dare to go out to check. The bravest ones only dared to look out from their doorsteps.
Village chief Sharp came to the door and told the male head of the family what happened. The villagers, who were already very angry, immediately joined the team with farm tools such as hoes, sickles, and pitchforks.
Village Chief Sharp was definitely considered a smart man among the lower-class peasants in this world, but he had not received a decent education and had no experience in planning incidents, so he was not very careful in his actions. He did not notice anything wrong when there were suddenly many torches moving around in the dark village...
Fortunately, the Sokri people, who were exhausted by the harassment of the undead, had no time to care about them at all.
Not long after the fight began, the experienced mercenaries discovered that the undead on the opposite side were very vulnerable - as long as they hit the torso or head of the undead with heavier weapons such as hammers and axes, they would be turned into white light and disappear.
But... this doesn't help.
No matter how many undead they killed, the number of undead screaming and rushing towards the chariot and horse defense line would never decrease.
Big Adam stood on a truck full of garlic, swinging his sledgehammer and knocking away another undead that tried to break through him.
The undead let out a strange cry of "WAYAKAKAKA" and flew backwards. Before it turned into white light and disappeared, it raised its middle finger towards the big guy Adam.
Adam was breathing heavily, and had no energy to pay attention to the undead that was trying to provoke him before dying. He continued to swing the hammer at the next one.
The undead that came up this time was very agile and dodged several times before being hit, then disappeared with a strange cry of “WAKA”.
Another undead fills the position...
Adam couldn't remember how many undead he had killed. He only knew that the hammer in his hand was getting heavier and heavier, and each attack became more and more difficult.
His lips seemed a little dehydrated and breathing became difficult, and his lungs felt like they were going to explode when he inhaled; Adam knew that his physical strength had reached its limit and he needed to stop and catch his breath. Otherwise, even if these undead stopped attacking him, he would be exhausted to death.
After repelling another ferocious undead, Adam couldn't help but divert his attention slightly and look around, hoping to get help.
Then Adam discovered that... Brother Jack on his left was panting even more exaggeratedly than him, and the greatsword warrior Kordo on his right couldn't even stand on his own, with half of his body leaning on the frame...
While Adam was distracted , the cunning undead seemed to have discovered his weakness, and two of them rushed towards him.
Adam roared, and swung his heavy hammer with both hands in anger...
"No, no, this won't work! Damn it, why can't all these undead be killed?! Why on earth is this? "
The brothers were caught in a tough battle, and Captain Ken, who was personally commanding the front line, naturally knew it clearly.
In the first ten minutes, everyone was able to handle it with ease.
Although a few unlucky guys were dragged away by the undead due to their carelessness, which scared the weak guys in the caravan, this situation of people being kidnapped in public was quickly curbed after Kane discovered in time that the undead with shields could cast mental magic similar to immobilization, and asked everyone to kill those undead first.
What follows is an increasingly tense and protracted battle...
It can't be considered a stalemate. As long as the defending side occupies the high ground and prevents the undead from rushing onto the truck, there will be almost no casualties on their side - the attack power of the undead is not worth mentioning. Even if they are cut by steel knives, the damage is lower than that caused by the mercenaries' usual internal fights.
The more troublesome thing is the undead holding a strange long sword - Captain Ken has never seen that kind of fancy and exaggerated weapon before (Yang Qiu had it specially customized by a manufacturer of COS props, after all, it is going to be sold at a sky-high price), and it was also luxuriously enchanted with fire, and the wounds of those who were hit would be burned.
After several people were burned in succession, Captain Kane urgently mobilized all the rangers to focus on the undead holding this weapon and prevent them from getting close to the defense line. This also resolved the problem - the weapon, which is bright red in color and covered with flowing red light, is quite conspicuous and not easy to miss.
Ken thought he had handled the situation well and thought victory was just a matter of time... then he found out he was wrong.
It wasn't that there was a problem with his tactical arrangement, but that he had no idea about the number of undead - no matter how many undead he killed, the number of undead that kept rushing to attack the circular defense line of the chariot and horse formation remained the same!
However, after just one hour, the people who had taken two or three turns to rest began to become exhausted, but the undead were still alive and well, and their numbers did not decrease at all!
"Shouldn't the dark creatures need to return to the dimensional demon world to recover after being dispersed? How on earth do these undead souls manage to replenish so quickly?"
Captain Ken anxiously trotted along the entire defense line and discovered that both his own people and those in the caravan were clearly showing signs of fatigue, and the undead's offensive was no different from before. Cold sweat kept pouring down his forehead.
No, it’s different from before.
At the beginning, the undead attacked the defense line in a chaotic and disorderly manner, but now, they are not doing that. They seem to have an excellent commander controlling the offensive. They no longer rush around in a swarm, but attack the defenders on each truck in a rhythmic manner, as if they are queuing, maintaining an endless offensive... as if they are intentionally draining the defenders' strength!
Captain Ken, who was shocked by this, could not hide his fear on his face.
These undead seem to... understand their own strengths and weaknesses!
Captain Ken stopped and looked towards the northern defense line facing the cornfield with a cold sweat.
Standing in the way were his reliable deputy, the big guy Adam, his brother Jack who had extraordinary endurance, and the greatsword fighter Korudo.
Seeing this, Captain Ken felt his heart tremble...
The big guy Adam's movements of swinging the sledgehammer became quite slow, and he missed several times before he was able to barely repel the undead that had boarded the car.
Brother Jack was already exhausted, and he cursed the caravan thugs who had just been rotated out to rest, urging them to switch quickly.
Korudo was on the verge of collapse, and was being dragged down by several undead spirits holding his arms and legs...
"stop!!"
Ken's eyes were bloodshot, he drew his sword and rushed over quickly, jumped onto the truck and swung his sword to fight back the ferocious undead, and snatched Korudo back.
"Come up quickly and exchange!" After taking the man back, Ken roared angrily at the caravan thugs who were resting at the back of the car.
"For the sake of the gods, we only rested for less than ten minutes!" The caravan thugs, who were panting, were also very angry, but they did not disobey the order. They picked up their weapons while cursing and forced themselves to stand up.
Ken carried Korudo to a place inside the camp to rest. Just as he settled him down, he heard the screams of Jack's brother.
He looked up suddenly... Captain Ken felt cold all over as he saw Brother Jack being carried away by at least six or seven undeads holding him by the waist and legs...
"Help! Help!" Captain Ken was so anxious that tears came out of his eyes, and he ran with a sword in hand.
The caravan thugs knew that if the mercenaries suffered too much loss, they would suffer the consequences, so they climbed onto the car with great effort and tried to stop them...
Then two of the caravan's thugs were also dragged away.
It seemed that dragging away four people in one breath gave the undead confidence. More undead poured into the gap exposed by the trapped Jack brothers. Some of them cheered "WAYAKAAAA" and rushed into the camp, running towards the caravan thugs who had retreated to rest, while others attacked the big guy Adam nearby, trying to make the gap bigger .
Ken was almost going crazy. He rushed over and hacked at the intruding undead. He then shouted at the top of his lungs to call the mercenaries and thugs who had recovered a little strength to fill the gap...
Finally, this line of defense was secured. Captain Ken, who was sweating profusely, had no time to breathe a sigh of relief before he was shocked to see... a fire dragon made of torches running towards this side from the direction of the village.
"How ridiculous - these damn rednecks!" Captain Ken cursed in despair.
The players also saw the huge group of villagers rushing over, and their reactions were completely different from the mercenaries: "Holy crap! Are they here to steal the monsters?!"
"Are you kidding me? The enemy is about to pile up our bodies and then let our friendly forces come to steal the credit. When will this idiot planner ever behave like a human being?"
The Entropy Buzeng and Miaobishenghua, who were in charge of the battlefields on the left and right wings respectively, also discovered the villager team that wanted to "steal monsters". They both issued the order to attack without hesitation: "The enemy's troops are almost exhausted, prepare for the attack!"
"Don't grab the equipment during the attack. We'll distribute it all after the battle. It's useless to grab it now!"
"Everyone, put the nylon restraints on your arms and tie up one by one!"
Miaobishenghua ran around to arrange the attack team, and yelled to his friends: "Vanilla! Is the CD ready? If it's ready, hurry up and get some people!"
“Right away!”
Qin Guan, who had been squatting in the back and not participating in the battle, took a look at his equipment skills. When he saw the countdown reached 20 seconds, he stood up and typed in the team channel: "Has anyone at the resurrection point joined the group? Pull them in immediately!"
The game "Alien World" has not yet opened the friend list and instant remote voice chat, and the chat panel only has system prompts and team/team channels .
Fortunately, there is a team channel that allows remote online communication, which is sufficient for now.
Qin Guan, who was holding the Book of the Dead, led the team alone. The team leader asked the players who died and returned to the city to take it. The players who died and returned were pulled into the team by the player with the team leader authority. When the 100-second summon CD of Qin Guan's Book of the Dead was restored, the whole team was pulled over...
With such an infinite summoning trick in place, it is naturally impossible for these Sokri people to kill all the undead - unless they dare to risk the loss of the camp and rush out to catch Qin Guan and kill him.
Not to mention whether Ken, who is in the light, can find Qin Guan, who is hiding in the darkness in the distance and trying to pull people away, even if he finds him, he has the courage to fight to the death and take the initiative to attack, but the possibility of success is not great... Qin Guan's warriors are not very good, so it is still no problem for him to escape.
Not to mention how desperate the Sokri people would be when the undead surged towards the defense line like a tide, Wagner, whose feet were numb from squatting, was numb anyway.
Wagner had originally wanted to wait for the Undead to engage in a fight with the enemy, then find an opportunity to join the battlefield and create a breakthrough point to break through the defense line, but he never expected that they would not have any chance to appear at all...
Obviously, he underestimated the terrifying extent of the undead, who were immortal and could be replenished quickly.
After just one hour of watching, Wagner couldn't think of a way to break the deadlock. He even vaguely felt that even if the Knights of the Blazing Sun Church came, they would be defeated...
"Fortunately, Yang only has these three hundred undead... With such a small number, we can't cause any bigger trouble." Wagner could only comfort himself in this way.
Wagner looked at the approaching group of villagers with a complicated expression. He couldn't just watch these civilians who were not as strong as the undead and not as immortal as the undead to participate in the war. He silently led his men out of the bushes.
A player who had just returned to the battlefield looked back inadvertently and saw more than 20 big men coming out of the bushes, and his body was shocked.
"Damn, there are friendly soldiers here who want to steal monsters!" The player pointed at Wagner and others and shouted.
"Again?!"
"What the hell are these NPCs doing? Can't I just focus on killing monsters in peace?"
"Why are the NPCs in this game so unconscious!"
Wagner:"……"
