Chương 41

John and the team had hurried back to the Haven. Going in there — after Lotheriel had made Alice a villain, after elevating her as a hero — had not been that pleasant. But Langdon, the other SSS ranker, had quelled everybody's spirits, explaining logically how the elf was just trying to manipulate them. To some — since they were mostly Americans in the Haven — he had said that the elf was Fox News; to others, he compared it to CNN. That simple comparison had worked just like magic.

Plus, the people had been pretty open to receiving all the cat women and men, since they looked like statuesque heroes, every single last one of them. Not one of them was below six feet tall. And some of the men were six-eight, even seven feet. The crafters also went crazy when they received all the materials from John around midday. And they were working nonstop to outfit everybody before sundown. Langdon had brought many warriors, around five hundred, all of them above level ten.

And each and every last one of them was following his lead without a peep. Langdon had briefly spoken with John about how to arrange the upcoming battle. And John had also told Langdon much about what had really transpired, and about the Lance of the Hero. Then Langdon had gone up to the walls after meeting with John and Father Okonkwo and implementing the Fortress Upgrade, which turned the Holy City into something much like an ancient Troy, with walls forty feet tall and fifteen feet wide.

Ballistas and longbows had appeared all across the walls, to the joy of the defenders. Now Langdon had finished the last preparations and was gathering everybody for the last meal before the battle. He had told John and the others — who had already gone out a few times to kill more gnolls, to have Regulus and Zosma level up a bit more — to rest. There would be plenty of levels to go around during the battle.

"You convinced a lot of women to pick up a bow and learn the Bow Mastery skill in a matter of hours," Langdon said.

"I tried telling them that it would be very convenient if they did, but I couldn't really convince them," he told Tina.

"Speeches about being a warrior don't work on people who aren't warriors," Tina smiled.

"So, when I went to them — and to some older women as well — I told them, look: we have to protect our own. And I told them that I understand how scared they are. Some of those who didn't wanna fight were just breaking down. I couldn't convince them all. But most, if you talk to them calmly and listen to them, are willing to commit to a lot. You approached them a little too harshly. But at least now we have stocked walls, and — other than kids below twelve — literally everybody is ready to fight."

"Well, that's more than I could have asked for." Langdon smiled.

"You are a wonderful, wonderful people manager."

"Well, I was the HR manager." Tina smiled at Langdon.

"It shows. You must have been a very capable one." Then Langdon blushed a little and said, "Where's John?"

"He said he was going to train a little before battle. But there's a training courtyard, right?" Tina said. And they took a few turns and ended up in an arena-like building that Father Okonkwo had purchased with community points, for people to have a space to exercise with weapons. In the middle of the arena, with a crowd of spectators, there was John, shadow boxing — or, well, shadow spearing. He was moving fluidly, twirling the spear, slashing at the air.

He looked completely oblivious to the crowd that was watching him. He was just fully absorbed in his routine.

"Can I ask," Langdon said, "would you mind shedding some light on John? He said to me that he really wants to take down Bryce because she is a traitor to the human race and that kind of stuff, but he looked a little dull when he was saying that. If I look at him now, he looks like a goddamn war machine instead." Tina looked around and then said in a low voice, "John is… When I interviewed John for his position, he said he wished to make a difference in the world.

Mind you, we have— well, had an HVAC company that made HVAC systems for offices. And I've heard John multiple times say that he wanted to do meaningful work, and that he wanted to find this or that, and whatever. But if I have to be honest with you, John really enjoyed designing HVAC systems. I've never seen anybody that entranced in his job just for the sake of pipes and stuff like that."

"Well, that's HR's dream, right?"

"More like HR's nightmare." Tina smiled.

"John… Let me put it like this. John always had to find an excuse for liking his job. I don't think he even himself ever realized just how much he simply enjoyed the engineering part. He was just so engrossed in it. He got mad at clients who wanted to half-ass some things. He wasn't that inflexible, mind you, but you could see that he just liked doing what he does. If I have to be honest, I don't think he ever really wanted a higher purpose. I think he just enjoyed his work, and that's why he kept working there.

But something in the way that maybe his family is — of which I know very little — meant he always had to sort of justify liking something, instead of just saying, yeah, I like this. I like doing this. For example: I like managing people. It makes me feel good. That's it. I do it for me. I don't do it for anyone else. I just like being around people, being immersed. You know, the little tingle of finding someone good at their job, helping them make their job easier. It gives me a thrill.

And John had the same thrill for his job, but he was always a little ashamed about it. Now, look at him." Langdon was indeed looking at John.

"I think," Tina said, "John really enjoys this fighting. During that stronghold, you could really see how focused he was, how immersed in it he was."

"Because he's so interested in serving humanity?" Langdon asked, confused.

"No, no. None of that. You know, I actually have a degree in psychology. I was a therapist before HR."

"Oh," Langdon said, suddenly turning and frowning.

"And wait, why did you go into HR? That sounds way more interesting."

"Oh, it's not." Tina snorted.

"Listening to people complain all day? In therapy, you can't tell people to just do their homework. In an office corporate context, I can just tell someone, you just got to do your job properly. Your feelings don't matter." That gave Langdon whiplash.

"I didn't really take you for someone like that. HR had always seemed to me like someone trying their best to not tell people things," Langdon commented.

"Well, that's what I said, right? I'm not saying I could say that. I'm saying I would like, sometimes, to say to people: stop complaining and just go on with your life. Sometimes things suck, and the only thing that makes them unsuck is not changing your inner state — it's changing what's outside. If you live in a shitty house, yeah, sometimes you're gonna feel shitty. No one's a Buddha and super Zen. There are very few people who can be in a very shitty situation and be all happy.

If you got bills to pay, yeah, good luck not being stressed about that. But anyway, what I'm trying to say is, I think that John found something else that he enjoys." This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. They both turned to John, who was spinning his glaive, cutting the air, sweating profusely, but looking absolutely absorbed in it. Langdon adjusted his glasses as he looked at John and said, "I think so too."

I was standing on the walls with a large cache of spears beside me. Langdon stood close to me, and he looked far into the horizon. There was a very large expanse of undead marching toward us. They had lit torches all around the upgraded fortress, and Father Okonkwo was praying on his knees inside his house, amplifying the bonuses that all the defenders would benefit from during the battle. They extended even outside the walls, into the battlefield outside the Holy City.

We had about three thousand people capable of fighting. Whereas in front of us, there was an army twenty thousand strong. Most of them were undead, and weaker, one might argue, than the average human. But we were still outnumbered more than six to one. Even with the ballistas and the longbows that we had gotten, this was going to be a tough one.

"Twenty thousand looks scarier like this than it looks at a concert," Langdon suddenly commented, making me chuckle.

"If this was Drake, I would say, man, what a loser. He's really losing his shine. But having to kill twenty thousand? Well…" Langdon sighed. Behind him, there was Bluemont, wearing the ridiculous Friendship Sombrero. Apparently, the sombrero would be absorbed, but it would take twenty-four hours for its effect to pass permanently to Bluemont, and until then, he had to wear the out-of-place headdress on the walls. I turned to Bluemont and I asked, "Do you think we're gonna win?"

Bluemont was scribbling some numbers on paper.

"It is doable. You have enough weapons and ammunition. Depending on the type of undead that they are sporting with them, this could be easier than you think. If those undead are mostly zombies, they're just gonna meet a meat grinder. They're not gonna be able to do much."

"Okay. What's worse than zombies?" I asked.

"Jumping zombies, and running zombies, and casting zombies. If even one-tenth of those have fireball spells on them, this is gonna get ugly." I turned toward the marching army, and then I asked Langdon, "When do we start shooting them?"

"They're still out of range," Langdon commented briefly, adjusting his spectacles. For the umpteenth time, I said, "Okay, but at some point, we're gonna have to start shooting."

"I can see the range of the ballistas, John," he told me.

"Don't worry."

"All right. I trust you, but I'm still gonna worry."

"Just be ready. You're a fundamental part of our plan." The plan was pretty simple. We would unleash hell upon Bryce's soldiers. And then, as soon as their ranks broke from concentrated fire, I would jump into the fray, covered by some selected elite warriors, and carve a path — and Alice would reach Bryce, throw down the Duelist Glove, and kill her. And with Bryce down, all these undead, which were probably tethered to something on her person, would just die. I turned and looked at my elite team. It was my team.

There was Regulus, now wearing the pet armor that had dropped from the quest. It was honestly impressive. It was a thick alloy of steel and I don't know what, but it was incredibly light and incredibly thick. We had tested it several times, and it turned Regulus into a tank. Not like a video game tank, though. Like a military tank. And I wasn't even sure that an anti-tank mine would do anything to him. Then there was Zosma. She had gone hunting and climbed back up to level fifteen.

She wore a simple armor and did not look one bit worried about the mass of undead that was about to reach us. Hailey was wearing the Cloak of the Rotting Lich, which still stunk to high heaven despite her attempts at washing it with soap. Father Okonkwo had been able to purchase an actual industrial laundry machine when Hailey begged hard enough, but not even that thing had managed to take off the stench. Not completely, at least.

She said it was getting better, but I suspected that it was magical stench and she was just getting used to the terrible smell. Marcus now stood at seven feet tall, and his body was swelling with muscle. I had spent the Corporate Training on him, and it had apparently changed his race. I had apologized for that when I saw him grow and literally rip his pants like the Hulk, but he had just looked at himself and said, "Man, it was always so hard to put on muscle. Don't apologize, John.

I always wanted to play in the NBA. Look at me, dude. I'm a freak." But he meant it in a positive way. I had loaded my satchel — the four battle-retrievable slots — with potions and the glove, and spent the 24 points on Dexterity. The lance gave me enough Strength, and I felt that what I really lacked so far was Dexterity. Alice had not just apologized to everybody.

After I showed them what had really happened in the dungeon — how she had essentially saved us against the vampire, and how valiantly she had fought — she had earned respect from many. And Langdon had still ordered those not fighting to spend all their mana charging Alice's guns. They were an incredible asset. We had a moment also with Francis, one of the top dogs in the Holy City, who had previously treated Alice like a goddess descended on Earth. And he had apologized to me. Apparently, he was Alice's friend.

And he wasn't hating on Alice. But at the very least, I had the support of the whole Haven now. Regulus and Zosma's subjects — their tribe — were all wielding longbows, apparently all of them proficient with those weapons. They had spoken to Langdon and said that their tribe would first shoot from the walls, and then protect the humans if the zombies made it either inside or up the walls, allowing the weaker ones to retreat.

That made me think that if I hadn't saved Zosma, I would have been in a world of pain right now. This battle might well have been impossible without Regulus and her. But even with them, I wasn't liking our chances. Come on, John, I told myself. No negativity. It's just getting Alice to Bryce. Throw the glove. I looked at the cache of spears and then at the many mana potions right beside them. And I smiled. Langdon was one devious motherfucker.

Dusk turned to evening, and I could now clearly see a few giant undead — probably twelve feet tall — advancing among the ranks of our enemies. Langdon patted my shoulder.

"Still too far for the ballista. But how do you feel about it?"

"I think I'm good," I said. General Skullthrax had left the banquet from yesterday and was now in the war room with all his generals, with every single important person in the Sorvos Empire — and, most importantly, the high priest of Anubis. Their god. They were looking at this from the undead army's POV. They couldn't look at what was happening inside the fortress. The System had harshly forbidden it.

"Your Majesty, our Lord has sacrificed many resources for them to get the mounds." The mounds were the giants. They were aggregates of hundreds of zombies, fused and compacted until they became terrifying creatures — on average, level twenty. These ones were level fifteen. They were the shock troops that they were gonna use to allow the rest of their army to climb up the walls, and there were a couple dozen of them. It was an overwhelming show of force.

Whatever they got from the Haven — even if they got defensive siege machines like ballistas, or maybe even the stronger trebuchets — a Corpse Mound could easily take several of those shots. General Skullthrax was very pleased with what they had managed to prepare for this battle. They were a hundred percent going to win, since they had managed to sneak in Corpse Mounds. He wondered how Anubis had managed to do that.

"Your Unholiness." General Skullthrax nodded at the high priest, an instrumental piece of his ascent to his current position.

"I shall come pray with you later in the cathedral."

"Our Lord would like for you to pray with the blood — through the blood, through the sacrifice of the blood of our enemies, Skullthrax. This Diver John has gone unpunished long enough."

"John will perish tonight, Your Unholiness," General Skullthrax said, balling a fist.

"Nothing, and I mean nothing, is gonna save him from our troops. And the woman who joined us is one of the strongest SSS rankers on their entire planet. He will die like a dog, and his carcass will be consumed by her." The high priest nodded and started spreading a mephitic incense that made even the undead Death Knights sneeze a couple of times. Finally, he saw that the Corpse Mounds were about to start their charge.

The zombies were opening up their ranks for the giants to come forward — and then one of the Corpse Mounds suddenly exploded. General Skullthrax, who had been sitting and looking at the map of the terrain, immediately shot up.

"What was that?" Everybody in the room was slack-jawed as they saw the upper half of the Corpse Mound completely blown up, and the lower half fall back, crushing dozens of their other undead below its weight. There was a spear stuck where the explosion had started — a spear that, for one instant before it hit the Corpse Mound, had shone bright as a falling star. And then, in front of the entire war room, the spear vanished.