Chương 239: Reborn as the Dragon — Chapter 239 - The Laughable First Fortress

Not all players were focused on dungeons and so-called golden gear. The players from Sakura Island No. 10 Starter Town were like that. Maybe they had seen the information on the world channel, too. They had only glanced at it and moved on. Because they were about to do something with a better return than any dungeon. Invade the kingdom of the natives of this other world. They had now reached the area near Anlius First Fortress, 736 kilometers from the Anlius Capital.

It was called a fortress, but in truth it was just a dilapidated stretch of wall running for several hundred meters. As the Kingdom of Aulist's first line of defense, it connected to the cliffs on both sides. But if you walked to the points where it joined the cliffs, you could still see narrow gaps wide enough for one or two people to squeeze through. The wall was only about five meters high, pitted and riddled with holes.

Oda Tanefeed didn't know how a trash defensive system and a trash country like this had managed to survive in this world. It didn't fit the jungle law of survival of the fittest. Anlius simply didn't deserve to occupy such a huge stretch of land on the peninsula! Rather than letting this weak Kingdom of Anlius keep wasting precious resources, it would be better to hand this land over to them, the Sakura Players, to manage. Only the Sakura Players could uncover the true value of this land.

If there wasn't a crime, they could always fabricate one. Oda Tanefeed led the massive player army straight to the foot of the fortress, with no intention of hiding at all. No matter how useless they usually were, the Anlius soldiers stationed on the wall still had eyes. The light at dusk wasn't very bright, but the dense mass of trembling figures was still clearly visible. The soldiers, who had been half-asleep a moment ago, snapped awake at once.

"What are you?!" One Anlius garrison soldier walked to the edge of the wall and shouted down at the Sakura Players below.

"This is Anlius First Fortress. Unrelated people are forbidden to approach. If you keep coming closer, it will be treated as a provocation to the dignity of Anlius, and we have the right to attack you!" Anlius's border defense system had long since rotted to the core. If a commander with even a little common sense had seen so many unfamiliar forces approaching, he would already have started organizing defenses. But the Anlius garrison commander was still shouting warnings.

"Attack? Ridiculous. With just this trash, you can't stop the march of the great Sakura warriors!" Oda Tanefeed snorted coldly and kept leading the player army forward, not even bothering to look at the commander shouting from the wall like a madman. Seeing that the approaching human soldiers were stubbornly refusing to stop, the garrison commander finally panicked. He had already guessed they meant to attack the fortress. This was no longer the time to hesitate.

But since becoming garrison commander, he had never fought a single battle. Even his current position had been bought for him by his father from a border noble. What to do now, what orders he should give, he had no idea. He was completely lost. It wasn't until a soldier who had been waiting for the commander's orders finally couldn't hold back and loosed an arrow at the army drawing closer below the wall that the commander came to his senses. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen.

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"Right, arrows... All units, loose arrows! Quickly! Shoot them hard!" There was no organization, no discipline. The arrows came sporadically, one wave after another, unable to form anything like a proper volley, let alone harm the higher-level, better-equipped players. The warrior players only needed to raise their shields. They didn't even need the mages or priests to put up barriers.

"Damn it! Who shoots arrows like this? Everyone, volley fire! Keep your timing synced! Shooting like this can't form proper damage, and you won't suppress the enemy's advance at all!" The garrison commander raged on the wall. The soldiers, who lacked any real combat training, were just as frightened. Faced with the coming siege, some with weak nerves were already thinking about turning and running. One soldier's hand shook while drawing his bow, and the arrow nearly flew straight into the commander's backside.

Oda Tanefeed silently watched the situation on the wall. His pride and confidence had already risen to the peak. If he couldn't take down a wall like this, he might as well go plant potatoes in a village or commit seppuku in front of His Majesty the Emperor. In this world, the Sakura Players didn't have guns or cannons yet, but the mages' Fireblast, Thunderblast, and Wind Blade spells could perfectly replace firearms.

Although the range of these spells wasn't as far as modern guns, the Anlius soldiers only had those few bows and arrows. They didn't even have a proper mage corps.

"Mage players, don't attack the wall. Attack the soldiers on top of the wall directly. There are only so many of them. Kill them and we can occupy the fortress!" With both manpower and firepower so unequal, the war became almost absurdly simple. The Anlius wall had all kinds of rolling stones and logs, and even dozens of ballistae. They were all decent defensive tools. But the logs and stones couldn't reach the mages. The ballistae could hit the mages, but there was still a wall of warriors in front of them.

The Anlius soldiers had no way to deal with the Sakura Players' mage team at all. Casualties started mounting under the Sakura mages' bombardment. The defending soldiers didn't even dare show their heads, let alone organize any effective counterattack. They threw off their helmets and armor, couldn't even hold their weapons steady, and crouched trembling in the corners. Their lips kept moving, muttering the names of gods one after another. The Goddess of Harvest. The Goddess of Life. The Goddess of Earth.

Even the God of Death. Flames spread across the wall. They followed the lamp oil that had been spilled on the parapet, raging in all directions and devouring the unmanned ballistae and logs. The fire kept growing, but there wasn't even anyone there to put it out. The garrison commander had already run off the moment he saw the situation turning bad. The fortress's entire defense system collapsed completely after just one round of spell volleys from the Sakura mages.

Seeing this, the smile on Oda Tanefeed's face grew even more twisted and terrifying.

"Their archers are useless now. Warrior players, move up, assault, get onto the wall."

"Anyone who blocks the great Sakura campaign will lie beneath our blades!" An undefended wall wasn't hard to climb. Not to mention this was an otherworld with superhuman power. Warriors with powerful physiques didn't even need grappling hooks. With just the momentum of their sprint and the force from their legs, they could scale the wall in a few leaps. The top of the wall was a disaster. From time to time, Fireblast fireballs exploded nearby, sending searing waves of heat through the air.

The soldiers who could run had already fled. The rest had long since gone limp with fear. They were collapsed in the corners, wailing, shields raised over their bodies, each one looking like a lamb waiting to be slaughtered. Faced with soldiers who couldn't resist at all, the Sakura warrior players held their longswords in their hands, yet hesitated to bring them down.

"What are you doing?!" An angry roar came from behind them.

"You pity the enemy? A bunch of trash, idiots. What you're doing now doesn't deserve to be called the Emperor's warriors!" Spit flew everywhere, splattering onto the faces of several warrior players.

"But... we've never killed anyone before. We've always been fighting monsters. To suddenly do this..." Oda Tanefeed knew this kind of thing had to be done step by step. He pulled the speaking warrior player over to the Anlius soldier in front of him and wrapped his hand around the one holding the longsword.

"Look carefully. The human in front of you has a health bar. He has an information panel. He's not real. No matter how real his expression looks right now, he's just a game character!"

"Is it hard to kill a game character?"

"Do you need to hesitate?!" Oda Tanefeed's roar made the Sakura players' eardrums buzz. The warrior's lips trembled. He was at a loss. The Anlius soldier before him was on his knees, begging desperately, his face full of despair. He could even clearly see the blood vessels throbbing in the soldier's neck. His head felt dizzy. Then a tremendous force came through his hand. It was Oda Tanefeed, forcing him to bring the sword down. Sshk. The sharp blade pierced the skin. Blood sprayed.

The head thudded to the ground, then rolled in little circles to the corner of the wall. The headless body spurted blood and slumped weakly to the ground.

"Is killing hard?" Oda Tanefeed asked in the Sakura player's ear, like a demon murmuring.

"No. It's simple. You just swing the sword. That's all." The Sakura player stumbled back two steps in a daze. He looked down at the bloodstained sword in his hand, then at the headless corpse. His heart lurched. Something, as if a switch had just been flipped, suddenly opened inside him. Even though he was still only a middle school boy. ➤ Next: The Fall of the First Fortress