Chương 35: A Stray Hero

The minotaur's paralyzing roar wears off just in time for me to dodge a bolt of lightning that comes flying at me. As if the thing wasn't bad enough, it can shoot fucking lightning?! Really wish I had some sort of attack spell right about now.

"You may not, but I, Dovey, the mighty dove, do!" Dovey says, before diving in towards the minotaur. Sighing, I charge in as well just as Dovey lands a clean cut with a blade of air. Unfortunately, minotaurs are not simple creatures. At least, by knowledge, the more you hurt them, the angrier they get. Trust me, you do not want to be anywhere near a fully enraged minotaur. So when the minotaur only starts charging at me faster, I start to panic. Thwap. An arrow buries itself deep into the minotaur's chest.

I turn to look up at the wall to see a bunch of people gathered there, one clearly the ranger that fired the arrow. A man jumps down from the wall, and lands with an explosion of dust. Before I can blink, he launches forward, sword outstretched. With a quick leap into the air, he does a spin that I am not sure was necessary for anything but dramatics. With the satisfying crack of bone being cut like paper, he removes one of the minotaur's arms. Not wanting to waste the opportunity, I take out its left leg.

The minotaur collapses onto the ground, and I feel a bit of mana gather around me. Instinctually, I dodge away just as a column of light descends down, incinerating the remaining health of the monster.

'Ding', You have slain [Lesser Minotaur - Level 31]. Earned experience split amongst contributors.

'Ding', Magic Smith has advanced to level 24. Stat points distributed.

'Ding', Dovey has advanced to level 28. Stat points distributed.

'Ding', Spirit Mage has advanced to level 22. Stat points distributed. I fall down right onto my ass. Completely exhausted from what must've been at least a day, maybe two of fighting. Yet, I have finally made it. The swordsman walks over towards me, dipping his head.

"Yo, hero. Funny seeing you here."

"Have we met before?" I ask, the guy seems vaguely familiar.

"I was uh, visiting Lord Cathartic, and happened to see you pass by…" The guy says awkwardly.

"Sorry 'bout not warning ya. Name's Pol, by the by." He offers me a hand, and I accept it. I am not going to fault a guy for looking out for himself, this is just that sorta world. I Identify Pol, as one does. [Swordsman - Level 42]"Thanks for the assist, then, Pol. And to your friends up above." I gesture towards the wall.

"Now, I need to see the one in charge around these parts. It is kinda urgent, hero stuff, you know." At that moment, Dovey lands on my shoulder, having finished surveying the area for danger.

"No monsters for several klicks, master. Seems the weaker are staying away from whatever that barrier is." Pol blinks at Dovey for a second, before shrugging. Perhaps talking doves aren't all that uncommon. I bet there are like, normal beast tamers and stuff that have talking animals.

"Yeah, a neat little device. Keeps the nasty buggers from assaulting us night and day. Now, Sir Hero, do you have a way to get up there?" I get up off my ass, and dust myself off. My resources are all quite low, but thanks to Luma being inside my phylactery, my spirit should be enough. I jog over to the wall, and then activate Plane Step. It feels a bit weird to step upwards like this, but I manage it on the first try, and appear on top of the wall.

"Woah, you have a teleportation skill at such a low level? Lucky bastard." I turn to my left and see a ranger woman standing there. The one that fired the arrow, no doubt. She is level forty three, probably in the same party as Pol. Speaking of him, he lands right next to me, having jumped up the entire wall like it was barely there. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"Lauri, this is a hero. Do be careful with that crude mouth of yours." Pol chastises her.

"Pfft, he doesn't seem to care." She smiles at me, "Right?"

"Ha, if anything it's nice. The whole everyone-worships-you does start to get old quite quickly."

"See that Pol?" Lauri taunts, "You need to get that stick outa your ass."

"But the covenant…"

"If the hero here says not to be formal. I am pretty sure the covenant won't mind." Lauri counters, and turns towards me.

"So, I heard ya wanted to meet with our leader? Do be warned, she can be a bit strange."

"Yeah, I have some skills that could help-" I start, but get cut off.

"Say no more!" Lauri says and then grabs my hand, dragging me towards the barrier. We slip through without any fanfare, apparently it only blocks and deters beings containing malice. A clever and quite useful trick that I will have to learn someday. As I am led to a small tent, I pull Dovey back into the phylactery. Much to his disappointment of course. But he does need rest after so long fighting while corporeal.

I do let Luma out, and she stretches very cutely out on my shoulder, before nipping my ear and settling in my hood. Her healing aura does help to slowly regenerate my health, which is good, as I am completely out of health potions. The whole thing is quick and happens in the time before Lauri pulls me inside the tent.

"Chief, we got a stray hero here. Says he needs you for something or other to help end this thing." A short woman in a black cloak is inspecting a map. She turns around with a sigh.

"Really Lauri? Another stray?" When her eyes meet mine, she freezes as she takes in my visage. A moment of silence passes as she takes me in, I can feel an identify scan me, but to no avail of course. Interestingly enough, my own identify also fails.

"Oh, a stray hero. Well okay then, guess this one is fine."

"Pleasure to meet ya." I say, starting off with a classic greeting.

"A guy out at the border wall thingy told me that you could help. You see, I have a skill that gives me a shitton of information, and the ability to issue commands. The problem is, I got no clue how to use that effectively."

"Hmm." The woman says.

"Well, ain't that something. Dontcha worry, little hero. Carla's got you covered in the telling people what the fuck to do department." She smiles at me in a way that I am not certain I like. But oh well, based on the notes scattered around, and the rest of the camp, she seems to know what she is doing.

"You sure, we are talking about coordinating the entire city at once…" I ask, just to make sure. Carla suddenly appears before me. Too close, I can smell the alcohol on her breath.

"Boyo, I have done far more magnificent things. I used to be a general for the council's army, you know. Defending a city is peanuts compared to that."

"I see. Well then, here goes nothing." I reach out towards Spirit Hero's Divine Aura. I expected something fancy to happen, but a simple screen appears in front of me. It has a ton of options, from 'incursion status', to 'display projection.' There is also an option to activate the stat bonus, but I hold off on that. It could be dangerous to suddenly jump people's power up without warning. Naturally, I click the display projection option.

Suddenly, the entire room brightens as a semi-transparent image of the entire city of Blackharbor appears. The area for a few kilometers around is also included. The detail is creepy. Like, we can see a group of people sitting against a tree eating lunch just outside the city. I also notice a few dozen people glowing more brightly near the center of the city. They must be the most powerful, and seem to be holding their own in the middle.

One of them moves quite like how Calder did during the prison escape, so I guess that must be him. The map doesn't give a full display of every monster. But It gives general danger zones, with projected level ranges even. Most of the first three rings are above level sixty, with the fourth and fifth being in the forties and fifties. The sixth is mostly in the thirties, which is not unmanageable for me. At least, now that I have Luxmore and Dovey.

I haven't even used the buffing part of Luxmore yet, as I haven't really found it necessary. Still, I don't want to go it alone. My mind struggles to process just the sheer amount of information displayed before us. This is a kind of intelligence that any commander would bargain with some otherworldly entity to obtain. I guess this is what a divine tier power looks like. It is definitely worthy of the classification, that is for sure.

"Woah!" Lauri exclaims, "Look Pol, it's our favourite tavern!" She gestures to a random building.

"It hasn't been destroyed yet, maybe we will be able to go back sooner than we thought." Of course, the moment she says that, a bolt of lightning strikes the building. It is flattened, and replaced with a cluster of very not nice looking monsters. She frowns and Pol places a hand on her shoulder in consolation. Turning back around, Carla wipes off her map. Somehow, it is odd, like the ink she is using is only temporary? Probably some strange runic magic.

She quickly begins scribbling, constantly referencing the city. I can see the cogs turning in her head, and I notice a surge of mana wash over her. Oh right, there must be classes focused around commanding people. I take a peek at the stuff that she is drawing, but can only make a bit of sense out of it. Seems like she is devising a way to organize the city into groups. Have them move in formations and stuff, to make a push to secure land. I notice a few points that are clearly chokeholds around the city's wall.

Which makes sense, the first objective that my interface tells me to do is to contain the surge. Lauri pulls up a chair and motions for me to sit down. I do, and then an attendant hands me a cup of tea. Something tells me this is going to take a while. Which is fine, planning such a large counter-offensive is supposed to be slow. Wouldn't want her to make a mistake and miss something critical, after all. Though I have quite a bit of faith that she will do the best she can, of course.