The World of Tactics

Chapter Twenty-Two VIII: Dire Homecoming

"Something is wrong with Sir Roylis Smith. I knew that Sir Roylis Smith had sent his son to be trained at the capital barrack. On the other hand, Sir Roylis Smith also had some soldiers escort Mistress Lily while Mistress Lily visited her family. It was only a few days, but this is not right. Why is Mistress Lily, Young Master Hugo, and Miss Savannah already escorted back? The soldiers escorting back seem unusually quiet and silent. That is not right, I fear that something had happened to Sir Roylis Smith.

I already had my guesses, but that night. I finally knew the truth when I secretly followed Sir Roylis Smith. At first, I had thought that Sir Roylis Smith had been mad and insane to do such a thing to his family. No, this is not Sir Roylis Smith. From my observation, Sir Roylis Smith had not even taken any meals nor were drinking any water. Even during simple inspection, Sir Rylis Smith had over sighted many important inspections, and voice has no doubt changed over time. This is no longer Sir Roylis Smith."

Some time later...

"Hear me, soldiers. We have a mission and that is to safely rescue Mistress Lily, Young Master Hugo, and Miss Savannah. We need careful planning and do not let your façade slip. I had already sent a message to the capital. Once they are here, we will cooperate to take down the fake Sir Roylis Smith. Stick to the plans." Said by Froggers.

---

The pain that streamed from his eye was more intense than any of the pain that he had encountered since. One throbs coming from the left eye and his facial feature twitched heavily. Even though he felt that he had suffered no damage, the sword blade was too frighteningly accurate. He touched his left eyes in pain and almost staggered down. Once he got back, he stared at the bone walker in front of him and gritted his teeth in pain. He posed himself for a stab. Maybe, just maybe, at this time he was angered from the intensive pain caused by the seventh bone walker to realize anything.

His stab actually contains a slight power that was much different than anything. He angrily stab at the same left eye socket of the bone walker. The moment his counter attack connected, he had done a shockingly critical hit. Even he was slightly paused at the huge red negative number that came on top of the seventh bone walker's head. The red negative number was negative fifty one. He was a bit speechless at this outcome and temporarily forgets the throbbing pains that were coming from his left eye (John Smith, EXP +45x2, Level Up).

Only when he saw that his level had increased by one did he feel the pain coming back from his left eye. He rubs his eye a few times before allocating two points into his skill stat and one point into his speed stat. The reason that he allocated two points into his skill was because of his eye that was throbbing the moment that he was trying to increase his speed stat until it maxed out. However, the pain was throbbing and his finger accidentally shakes and presses on twice on the skill stat due to the quick reflexes. Only when he came back to himself did he notice that he had made a mistake and steadily allocate the last point into his speed stat. Otherwise, his speed stat would have been maxed out already. Thinking about it a second later, he felt that it was fine since he was going to develop his skill stat afterward anyway.

The eighth bone walker moved to where the seventh bone walker just died and attacked him. This time, he made sure that his shield is in front of his eye level and ready for any incoming attacks. He did not want to experience that horrible pain again. Even now, his left eye was still flowing with watery tears. His left eye sight is now slightly blurred due to the tears. He had the itch to rub it again, but he just could not because the rusty sword of the bone walker was already closing in. As expected, the eighth bone walker had the same idea as the seventh bone walker and aimed for his head. Specifically, his eyes. He blocked the sword attack clumsily with his shield.

The outcome of covering his eyesight was a s***h on his stomach which deals no damage to him whatsoever. Even the bone walker could still do feint attacks, he was a bit embarrassed. Bit once, shy twice. That was the situation that he was in previously and had fallen for the feint attack of the bone walker. He did not mind since he did not suffer any damage at all. He was happy with that outcome and began his counter attack. He attacks twice and succeeds in both counter attacks which deals seventeen damages each. A total of thirty four damages which left the eight bone walker hanging with only five health points left (John Smith, EXP+20x2).

He had hoped that the last turn was the last enemy's reinforcement, but with the incoming reinforcement at every turn, he had expected that there would be more enemies reinforcing by the end of the turns and he was right. To the north edge of the map were six strangely large figures that were coming in union. When the mist cleared away, he finally saw the six bloated figures. His heart jumps as the six figures were at least one and a half head taller than Lawrence. Their size is quite intimidating and disgusting. He looked at the six figures' status screen. The status screen reads:

[Name: Froggers][Race: Zombie [Human] (Grade 2)][Level: 33/33][Rank: 3][HP: 29/29-33/33-43/43] +4 +10

[STR: 8(20) / [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][][][][][][][][][][][][] ] +1

[MAG: 1(10) / [1][][][][][][][][][] ] +1

[SKL: 9(20) / [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][][][][][][][][][][][] ] +1

[SPD: 7(20) / [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][][][][][][][][][][][][][] ] +1 -2

[LCK: 1(20) / [1][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] ] +1

[DEF: 10(20) / [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] [9][10] [][][][][][][][][][] ] +1 +2

[RES: 1(10) / [1][][][][][][][][][] ] +1

[Hidden: [CON: 10][MOV: 5][SKILL: [Zombie Turning][Darkness Gift][Rotten Body][Corpse Poison]][EXP: --/100][WEA: Innate D]]

[Corpse Claws (Corpse Poison): Might +3, Hit +80, Crit+5, Weight=0, Durability: N/A]

[Corpse Fangs (Corpse Poison): Might +2, Hit +65, Crit+5, Weight=0, Durability: N/A]

[Zombie Turning - Turns into a zombie. All stat -1. All growth rates -5. Max level -5.]

[Darkness Gift - Instantly levels up by ten, cannot exceed limit. Health points +10. All stat +1. All growth rates -5. One time only.]

[Rotten Body - Defense +2. Speed -2. Health points +4. Constitution +2.]

[Corpse Poison - Inflicts corpse poison to target if target suffers more than zero damage. Once poisoned, apply 3 poison turn counts. Target -3HP per turn. If at any point or turn, a target dies due to corpse poison or dies with corpse poison on the turn counts. Automatically turns the target into a zombie.]

All six of the zombie's health points ridiculously exceed forty points. The most concerning thing that he spotted was the corpse poison skill that the zombie had. He had re-read it over a few times to ensure some accuracy. According to the corpse poison skill, as long as the zombie were able to inflict any damage that is higher than zero. Then the person that got damage would be poisoned with corpse poison that would deal three damage each turn. Not only that, if that person who got poisoned with the corpse poison died due to the poison or not will automatically turn into a zombie. It was a frightening skill when a zombie could limitlessly turn others into zombies as well. Once an infection starts, it would rapidly encroach the whole land.

[Player's Turn][6].

This time, he had to completely ensure that Dork is not attacked by any of the zombies because Dork's health points are very low and with the damages at every turn for turns. Dork would become a frightening zombie that could use magic and magic is not something that their low magic resistance could deal with. That means that a zombified Dork could easily inflict him with the corpse poison skill. It was terrible when his thought got to that point. He took a glance at Dork's position and secretly calculated where Dork could avoid being attacked by a zombie. He sighs that he did not bring any of the healing pills packed in this battle. He had first initially thought that the battle would quickly end, but the interference of the enemies' reinforcement was the cause of this whole mess.

In any case, he felt lucky that he had increased his defense to the max. The same goes for Goon and Uzi. Just to be sure, he had checked the highest might out of the zombies and found out that the highest only had eleven might in total, strength stat plus the zombies' highest innate weapon's might. He also turned his gaze toward Lawrence and saw that Lawrence already had ten defense. On the off chance, he also looks at Lawrence current item slots. He had forgotten Lawrence actually had a land lizard's defense ring that increased defense by one point. Lawrence has enough to survive and will suffer no damage from any undead monster within the battlefield. This means that he has one less to worry about.

He did a quick planning and decided to create a choke point at the bottom right corner of the map. This would ensure that Dork would not be attacked and that Dork could easily attack from two square range with a fireball spell. This would allow Dork to at least gain experience with ease. Likewise, he plans on letting Lawrence handle most of the undead monsters which would allow Lawrence to grow stronger. This was a chance that is hard to find. As for him, he was already extremely strong. Even till now, he had never lost any health points at all during this battle. However, doing so would elongate the battle. He was fine with that though because he wanted Lawrence to grow stronger anyway.

He decided that he must be the first to move and he moved directly south adjacent to the sixth bone walker which was also south adjacent to Lawrence. Before even attacking, he had already changed from his bronze lance to his iron lance. The bronze lance only had one durability left and would break with a single attack. However, he would need to attack twice in order to completely finish off the sixth bone walker and that was the reason why he needed to change weapon. Otherwise, he would have continued to use his bronze lance.

The battle outcome was plain obvious, two iron lance stabs and the sixth bone walker was sent to the thereafter (John Smith, EXP+45x2 (90), Level Up). He made sure that the throbbing of his eyes fades away first before quickly allocating two points into his speed stat and then allocate the last point into his skill stat.

He had to deal with the sixth bone walker because he needs to open up a square gap so that Lawrence could move in to attack the eighth bone monster. This would allow Lawrence to take care of the eighth bone monster if Goon's and Uzi's attacks were to miss twice. By his estimation, even the eighth bone walker also dodges Lawrence's attack. Dork will only have to face the eighth bone walker. Even then, Dork defense is not low that would die in one or two attacks. He had already calculated it and Dork would only lose three health points from the bout against the eighth bone walker. It was 'safe' enough for Dork and would allow their formation to dramatically complete at the bottom corner.

[Froggers - A soldier under Sir Roylis Smith. He was once a soldier under Sir Roylis Smith and was the first one to follow Sir Roylis Smith since the war started. He had almost died in the war once, but because his luck was good. He manages to survive after Sir Roylis Smith appears in battle. Ever since then, he did not hesitate to follow Sir Roylis Smith into any battle, even battles where there was no chance of getting out alive. He had, many times, witnessed Sir Roylis Smith fought against the opposing side's higher promotion enemies to a stand still. It was an incredible experience for the young Froggers back then. However, he had fallen during the start of the turbulence and turned into a zombie.]