City of the Undead (In the System Book #2): LitRPG Series Read online

  City of the Undead

  by Peter Zhgulyov

  In the System

  Book 2

  Published by Magic Dome Books

  in collaboration with

  1C-Publishing

  In the System

  Book #2: City of the Undead

  Copyright © Peter Zhgulyov 2021

  English translation copyright © Sofia Gutkin 2021

  Cover Art © Vladimir Manyukhin 2021

  Published by Magic Dome Books in collaboration with 1C Publishing, 2021

  All Rights Reserved

  ISBN: 978-80-7619-221-8

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the shop and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is entirely a work of fiction. Any correlation with real people or events is coincidental.

  New and upcoming releases from

  Magic Dome Books!

  If you like our books and want to keep reading, download our FREE Publisher's Catalog, a must-read for any LitRPG fan which lists some of the finest works in the genre:

  Tales of Wonder and Adventure: The Best of LitRPG, Fantasy and Sci-Fi (Publisher's Catalog)

  Table of Contents:

  Chapter 1. The Trojan Horse

  Chapter 2. Storming the Fortress.

  Interlude. The Chosen One.

  Chapter 3. The Horde

  Chapter 4. Deja Vu

  Chapter 5. Negotiations

  Chapter 6. The Noblest Art

  Chapter 7. Truth and Lies

  Chapter 8. Duels

  Interlude. The Will to Live

  Appendix No. 1. Character Table

  Chapter 9. Farming

  Chapter 10. The Rain

  Chapter 11. The Choice

  Chapter 12. The Dead Sorceress

  Appendix No. 2. Character Table

  Chapter 13. Discoveries and Disappointments

  Chapter 14. Legion

  Appendix No. 3. Character Table

  Chapter 15. The Agreement

  Chapter 16. The Beacon

  Interlude. The Fortress

  Chapter 17. The Healing

  Chapter 18. Shiva

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1. The Trojan Horse

  THE VICTORY, ODDLY ENOUGH, now put our Alliance at risk. The huge number of wounded bound us hand and foot. We couldn’t leave them, as it would be a terrible blow to morale, and we couldn’t drag them along with us. Even if yesterday’s city folk agreed to carry all those not long for this world on their backs, it would be pointless. Thus weighed down, it would only be a matter of time before the goblins caught up to us. As soon as the flush of victory subsided, everyone else would become aware of the situation. What would they do? It was a rhetorical question.

  The choice was simple, really, either we captured the fortress or we had to abandon most of the wounded. We could also finish them off, which was more rational. And that was likely to be the beginning of the end. All that effort spent on uniting players would be wasted in one fell swoop. The Alliance would break up into small bands and disperse, no longer posing any danger to the goblins. What then? Flee further into the city? Hunt the undead? I may have been able to delude myself before, but the encounter with the Bone Horror clearly showed that the undead were much more dangerous than the goblins in some instances.

  Capturing the fortress gave us a chance to avoid this depressing scenario and hold out until the end of the time limit set by the System. Of course, a few hundred players couldn’t defend the walls, but the divine weapons received by the high priests had one typical feature — the ability to set up a beacon. Although its power wasn’t enough to forcibly attract players, future waves would have a choice between landing in a random spot or in a specific area. By installing a beacon in the fortress, we’d be able to receive fresh reinforcements every day, and holding the fortress would no longer be a problem. Of course, the goblin army would come after us, but what could they really do? The goblins were intending to hunt down scattered players, not lay siege to their own fortress. Even if they built a battering ram and scaling ladders, it would take time.

  This would also solve the supply issue. The fortress was bound to have a decent store of food, water, and everything else. If it was meant to serve hundreds of goblins for many months, it would be enough for the players to last eight days until the deadline. Naturally, there was the matter of experience, but I could think about that later, if we were successful. As selfish as it sounded, we could definitely last my three remaining days there, and it was too early to look further ahead.

  Right now, we were separated from this enticing future by the high walls of the same fortress and the remains of the garrison. Although we had wiped out most of the goblins, some had managed to escape and had likely returned to the stronghold. In addition to the warriors, the fortress was bound to contain low-level servants who might take up arms in this instance. There may be up to a hundred defenders in total, a decent number if we had decided to storm the fort. In the end, we were going to find ourselves in much the same situation as the goblins, if we managed to capture the fortress.

  Naturally, no one suggested storming the walls directly, which would be suicide. More political than literal suicide, since the players were likely to just tell us to get stuffed. No, the only chance of success was a ruse de guerre. We needed to do everything quickly, before the players realized the gravity of our situation. Before the goblin army reached the fortress. And most importantly, before the second player wave arrived. In other words, the plan’s key feature was speed, and time was running out.

  For this reason, only an ‘elite’ squad, consisting of several dozen players, had moved out in the direction the fortress. The main force would arrive later.

  * * *

  Just an hour of jogging, sometimes switching to a fast walk, made me to appreciate how sensible it had been to raise my Stamina to ten. A pace that would have exhausted me yesterday now made me feel like I could run like this forever. Until it got dark, at least...

  I hence gave up on the idea of learning horse-riding. What was the point if I was my own horse? Instead, I invested the points I had gained into Minor Magical Ability, increasing it to Level 2 (6/120). It meant +1 to Wisdom, after all. The Skald card looked pretty useless, but it didn’t require any points, so I didn’t see a reason in discarding it.

  Would you like to learn the Skald skill?

  Yes/No

  I confirmed my choice and was plunged into the rich world of local folklore. I could summarize goblin poetry as simply ‘describe what you see’. As in skaldic poetry, there was no place for make believe, with poems serving as a way to report things the skald had witnessed. The verse content wasn’t chosen but was dictated by reality. Artistic meaning was theoretically absent, since it equated to a lie, but... The truth, as always, was in the eye of the beholder. Any event could be described in a way that was favorable to you, and in this regard, the goblins’ attempts to denigrate their opponents appeared quite naive.

  Out of curiosity, I tried to follow tradition and immediately composed a vísa to reflect my new reality.

  Brave warriors heading to the evil goblins’ fortress,

  To perform a mighty deed or else prove worthless.

  Only the horse is bound to survive,

  Unless I kill i
t myself.

  “What a load of garbage,” I said with some satisfaction. Hmm... It seemed that I had awakened my inner literary critic rather than a skald. The card hadn’t actually bestowed me with poetic talent — perhaps you couldn’t awaken something that never existed in the first place? Unless we were talking about corpses and necromancy, of course. Well, back to today’s agenda.

  “How long before you’d come back to life as a ghoul after you were killed, Chuchuk[1]?”

  The horse trotting beside me aimed its teeth in my direction, and I gave the reins a warning tug. Chuchuk had taken an immediate dislike to me and showed it in every possible way, constantly trying to kick, bite or ‘accidentally’ bump into me. I returned in kind, smacking him in response, and had even come up with a new name in a fit of inspiration. It was perfect.

  “Perhaps my poetic gift isn’t so bad after all?”

  The horse, unsurprisingly, didn’t reply. Despite all the horses we had captured, we still didn’t have a cavalry. Some of the players could ride, but the goblin horses simply ignored the usual commands. Without the skills or knowledge, they could only be used as pack animals, or as walking canned food. Some of the animals were calmer, but I had no choice in this instance. Chuchuk carried his master on his back, and I doubted the goblins would believe the upcoming performance if the corpse was to return to the fortress on a different horse. It hadn’t been easy to recreate the horse + rider + his possessions ensemble.

  Seriously, the Skald skill was useful after all. I now had knowledge not only of the rules of versification, but also of goblin culture, history, customs, mythology, and heaven knows what else. Strangely, it was all very unstructured, fragmented, and required reflection — the opposite of basic cards. I had a suspicion that the System had created the card right on the spot, due to the action of the Duelist skill. All this knowledge would be very useful if I was planning to infiltrate the goblin society as a spy.

  “We’ve never seen a black man in these parts!” I chuckled, remembering an old joke about an American secret agent abandoned in the USSR. It wasn’t very politically correct by today’s standards. Should I tell it to Bill? However, while I could afford to have some fun, most had much lower Stamina, and many were already gasping for air. At least a dozen volunteers had completely fallen behind... Not right now, perhaps.

  I looked around me, monitoring the situation as I ran. Even the fragmented knowledge allowed me to see the surrounding ruins in a different light. It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen it all before, and yet... The size really blew my mind. Not so long ago by historical standards, the Celestial City of Sar was the capital of a huge and powerful Empire, easily comparable to Rome at its peak. Millions of goblins had lived in the city only a few decades ago. To appreciate the scale of the disaster, one simply had to remember that the army coming for us only had about ten thousand soldiers. The garrison in the sole fortress did not exceed three hundred soldiers. Even though, as pretentious as it sounded, the fate of the world was being decided right here.

  I was less concerned with the disaster itself than with a much more practical question. What had happened to the townspeople? The fragments popping up in my head spoke of a “great battle”, “rivers of blood”, and “mountains of corpses”, which was far from encouraging. The streets were generally clear of bones, which suggested that the townspeople had left. While most of the undead had headed to the center of the city. How many Bone Horrors might be lurking there? Could we come across even more dangerous creatures? In contrast, our problems with the goblins might be nothing more than child’s play.

  How dangerous was the city center? The goblins had repeatedly sent missions to the temple, but they had all returned empty-handed, after suffering heavy losses. More often than not, they didn’t come back at all. I suspected that even the natives themselves didn’t know what was going on in the seventh circle.

  I looked to my right, at the wall. Another question that kept nagging me was why the capital of a powerful Empire needed so many walls. Rome, for example, had built a single wall closer to their fall, and even then, just the one. Sar had seven(!) such circles and, judging by the size and solidity, the goblins took them more than seriously. According to the legends, the gods themselves had had a hand in creating these walls, but only in the sense of laying the first stone and giving the workers their blessing to continue. No one would expend so much effort “just in case”. Even the fact that the city was ultimately stormed didn’t provide an answer. It was unlikely that the walls had originally been created against invasions from other worlds.

  “We’re almost there,” Dmitry broke the silence as a gap suddenly appeared in the wall. It wasn’t easy for him, either. “Did they use howitzer here or something?”

  “Magic, more likely,” I said, inspecting the aftermath of an ancient battle. I had to admit, it looked quite... impressive. Almost nothing remained of the gate marked on the map. A section of the wall, several dozen meters long, looked like it had been demolished by a blow from a huge fist, seemingly coming from inside the city. The stone blocks had flown hundreds of meters into the air, leaving massive holes in the surrounding house walls or demolishing them completely. There wasn’t a single undamaged house nearby.

  “We better hurry. The sun is already high,” Michigan said and glanced up, as if he didn’t have a System timer.

  “It’s too late to hurry,” I shook my head. “There are ten minutes to go. We’re not going to make it.”

  “We will,” Michigan disagreed. “Quel promised to hold back the next wave of players a little. But his power is limited, so we have about an hour.”

  I said nothing, but took note of both the negotiations and the fact that the gods could interfere in the System. Shift the deadline, at least... another headache, given their ‘friendly’ attitude to me. It left me wondering whether the deceased Jack had shared information about me with his patron. I certainly hoped not.

  “We shall wait here. We cannot go any further as we may be spotted by the goblins,” Qing Long said, showing no signs of fatigue. “If you do not return in half an hour, we will assume that you have successfully gotten inside and will take up position to attack. We will launch an attack as soon as you open the gates. If the gates do not open in two hours, we will assume you are dead and proceed with the backup plan.”

  There won’t even be anyone to blame. We had discussed numerous ideas during the brainstorming session, but none of them could guarantee success. So, it fell to me to choose the ‘suicide’ option, as one who would be directly involved. Now, it remained to be seen whether the many hours we’d spent playing computer games would pay off. Where else could I have gotten the idea of infiltrating guarded facilities? Pity you couldn’t press Save in the real world. You couldn’t, right? System?

  Error 404 (51%)! Ability not found. Please check the Server connection and try again.

  I took the horse’s reins again and slipped into Invisibility. I was essentially alone from this moment on. The Swordsman was moving somewhere nearby, but we couldn’t see each other anymore. I certainly couldn’t spot any traces of him, no matter how hard I tried. His ability wasn’t the classic invisibility, but rather a way to divert attention, which worked even better in this situation.

  Although it was said that the fortress protected the gaps in the wall, it was located slightly to the side, so we had to walk for about ten minutes. However, there was no chance of getting lost. Clouds of smoke rose above the keep, and the wind carried the specific smells of manure, food, smoke, and the goblins themselves... Unlike the dead city, the fortress still held the spark of life.

  Hard to say what the function of the fortress would have been in the center of the city. A shelter? A monastery? A storage facility? Or simply a prison? In any case, the attackers hadn’t been very interested in it, so the fortress had sustained little damage. The goblins had later used this to their advantage, occupying the convenient defense post.

  The fortress had a classic rectangular sh
ape and looked quite impressive, with high stone walls, four flat-roofed towers at each corner with ballistae, a gate tower, a wide moat and iron-bound gates. The fortifications looked very promising, so that we had a real chance of holding it, no matter how many goblins gathered beneath the walls.

  The goblins hadn’t destroyed the bridge, likely because they hadn’t believed a siege was possible and to avoid the hassle of rebuilding it later. It may seem silly, but it was worth remembering that their army would be approaching in a few hours. What could a few hundred players do against the fortress walls? They had clearly underestimated us, and this increased our chances. Or did I just need to believe that?

  The mana crystal in my palm crumbled to dust, which I then poured into a pouch. The paved road allowed me to move without leaving any tracks, and the sound of my footsteps was muffled by the rags I had wrapped around my boots. Nevertheless, I had already developed a peculiar habit to watch every step I took: don’t land in the mud, don’t trample the flower poking out between the stones, don’t kick any pebbles... There were goblins on the battlements, and I was assuming they had perfect eyesight and already knew about invisibility. This was the weak point in our plan. One of many, frankly.