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

  She grabbed the bag, cast an uncertain glance at me, and sprinted back to the shaman’s private quarters. Considering that her room adjoined her father’s, she definitely had items to take with her. Of course, I was planning to check her bag later, and she probably knew it. But could she resist taking an item that she’d kept hidden from me? I doubted it. I wasn’t watching her too closely so she’d let her guard down, but I noted that she’s thrown one of the ‘useless’ decorative figurines into her bag as she left the room.

  “I’m ready.” Rebecca threw me an anxious look and hid the bag under her clothes, as if afraid that I’d take away her present. She was justified in thinking that, but I planned to do so later.

  “Well then, let’s go,” I nodded and headed for the stairs.

  * * *

  The meeting hall and the chief’s quarters were located on the third floor, and since the latter were open, I decided to take a look.

  “Well...” I drawled. “Although your chief didn’t live in abject poverty, there’s nothing worth taking.”

  Should I pull the carpets off the walls? Or throw the statues of ‘beautiful goblin women’ into my bag? Or gather the beautiful and expensive, but clearly non-System weaponry? Or this carved stone table?

  “There are hiding recesses here, right?”

  “A chief doesn’t need hiding places. The treasure chamber is in here, but it has been sealed,” the girl pointed to a small stone door. “It can’t be opened without a key.”

  A treasure chamber sounded promising, but one shouldn’t get too greedy. Especially when the treasure was behind a stone door. I knocked on it. A thick door, judging by the sound. Plus, grabbing some trinkets as the first person there was one thing, but removing strategically important supplies was another thing. No preliminary agreements would save me in this case.

  “Where could the key be?” I couldn’t resist asking as I studied the door. There was no traditional keyhole but I found a round indentation. Even my weak magical abilities were enough to notice that it was glowing slightly. An artifact?

  “Hard to know,” Reb shrugged. “The chief should have left the seal with his deputy when leaving the fortress, but he might not have. Perhaps the seal is in this room?”

  I looked around again, trying to imagine where I’d hide a key if I was a goblin. If I could find the seal, open the treasury, remove the most valuable items... This wasn’t the time for fantasies… and when had I become so greedy?

  “What’s in there?” I pulled back a drape and found another small door behind it.

  Thank you, intuition. The door wasn’t locked but it led to a typical medieval toilet, consisting of a small stone cabin that projected beyond the fortress walls. The goblins were using the moat in place of a cesspit. I checked the hole but of course the seal wasn’t there.

  “Alright, forget it,” I sighed. To compensate for my disappointment, I threw some random knickknack into my bag. “Anything interesting below?”

  “The captains’ chambers, the armory and storage rooms. The latter are also sealed but there were several seals, so perhaps some of the officers have them.”

  I grimaced. Ultimately, a locked door didn’t mean much if the fortress was in your hands. If we couldn’t find the seals, we would simply break down the door. Or even the wall, which would be easier. A storage chamber protected by an impressive door often had walls that were one-brick thick and could be shattered by a few strikes with a pick axe. Surely there was at least one pick axe in this fortress?

  “Be quiet for a sec,” I raised my hand and listened. “Is it just me or can you hear knocking?”

  I could hear a thudding sound coming from downstairs. It seemed that the players had reached the keep, which I had prudently shut behind me, concerned about a possible visit from the surviving defenders, and were now trying to get inside. “It’s a shame but we’ll have to stop at that. Come, show me where would be a good spot to spend the night. Oh, can you give me your bag? You’ll get in back later.”

  The goblin girl’s eyes grew moist but she handed the bag over. Ha. It was like taking candy from a baby.

  * * *

  One of the Alliance objectives was to prevent pillaging of the fortress. After all, if we were planning to hold it for eight days, we needed the supplies inside. The resources had to ensure everyone’s survival, rather than disappearing into the bags of the greedier players. Such as me.

  “Who’s there?” I shouted as I approached the shuddering door. “I’m coming, just give me a moment!”

  The thudding stopped and I threw back the bolt. Judging by the force, the door would have only lasted another five minutes. I went out into the street and found many familiar faces. Officially, my role was to help in capturing the fortress and not to stuff my own bag.

  “I’m glad that you succeeded,” Qing Long stepped forward. “Is anyone else there? Any goblins?”

  The man didn’t ask me why I hadn’t waited for them by the gates as previously agreed. His gaze slid indifferently over my bag.

  “I didn’t see any,” I shrugged. “Perhaps they’re hiding somewhere but I didn’t get a chance to check all the rooms. Most of the doors are locked, possibly from the inside. In addition, the portals opened very chaotically at the start, so it may be that some of the players were teleported inside. We’ll have to see. There is one goblin, though...”

  I dropped my hand to the goblin girl’s shoulder and dragged her closer, letting the others see her. Reb tried to jerk away from my hand, but then froze in fright.

  “A captive?” Qing Long asked coldly, as if drawing a blade across her throat.

  “A female captive,” I corrected him. “Her name is Reb and she is under my protection. Dmitry, please look after her. She’s the daughter of the local shaman and will help us understand certain matters.”

  * * *

  “Alf!” I called out to one of my fighters. “Did you manage to finish anyone off?”

  “As if.” He shrugged in irritation. “By the time the gates opened, nearly all the goblins were dead.”

  I understood his irritation, for the longer he waited, the harder it would be to obtain the necessary experience points. When would he get another chance like this?

  “Then take Cúchulainn, find a rope and descend into the moat. One of the players might have survived. See if you can help them.”

  “It’s about sixteen meters to the bottom,” Alf noted. “Even if someone survived, I won’t be able to help them.”

  True enough. They’d have sustained the kind of injuries a plaster wouldn’t fix. We needed a modern hospital with an ICU and trained physicians. Or magic. Since we had neither and were unlikely to obtain them in the near future, finishing off the injured would be a kindness. Not that the System cared if killing an ally had been motivated by mercy. However, that wasn’t what I meant.

  “Just check the moat.” I repeated, and added quietly. “There might be some living goblins down there. You need to get the minimum required experience, right? And don’t be greedy. If you can, try to help Nick out, too. Will you manage?” I handed him a System arrow. Another unobvious use. Even if a goblin was near death, they didn’t have to drag him back here. It was enough to shoot him, then place the body into the bag without touching the arrow. The canned source of points would then be ready.

  “Sure,” Alf smiled. “We’ll be careful. Thanks.”

  * * *

  Storming the fortress had cost us dearly, despite our advantage in numbers. Dozens of dead lay beside the gates, with the remaining players looking askance but not even trying to shift the bodies. They hadn’t forgotten to rob them though, so the corpses had neither bags nor weapons. The wounded had been dragged closer to the wall, where they were receiving basic first aid. I spotted Lisa among the volunteers and nodded to her, but didn’t leave straightaway.

  Even though the fortress had fallen, the battle wasn’t over yet. The next step, integrating the newbies into the Alliance, lay ahead of us. While the newcom
ers wandered around the fortress, all asking the same questions, the players from the first wave took up key positions, subtly pushing the newbies aside. The towers, gates, walls, and entrance to the keep.

  “Attention, everyone! My name’s Bill Michigan and I’m the Head Priest of Quetzalcoatl,” the Swordsman proclaimed, having ascended the steps of the keep. “I would like to thank everyone who came to our aid. We would not have managed to capture this fortress without you! I know that many of you are disoriented and don’t understand what’s happening, but I’m ready to answer all your questions. At least the ones I know the answer to.”

  His words quickly attracted attention and people began to gather around the makeshift tribune. Qing Long had initially planned to deliver this speech, but we’d had to quickly tweak our plan due to Quetzalcoatl’s actions. After all, the Chinese man wasn’t a priest yet.

  “What the hell is going on here, anyway?” someone expressed the most burning question. A question that every new player has asked themselves at one time or another.

  “Patience,” the Swordsman smiled. “Let’s wait another minute until everyone has gathered.”

  It wasn’t just about our audience. We needed time for the main force to reach the fortress, after all, the supply train couldn’t move as fast as the assault forces. We had to stop the new arrivals from forming groups, from wandering off or looting the fortress. To identify potential leaders, too. Things were going well so far. The news that one could obtain answers here spread quickly, and most players soon gathered around the tribune. The only people missing were the wounded, who couldn’t get around independently.

  “So, is everyone here? Then let’s begin.”

  I stood a bit to the side, monitoring the situation. I wasn’t going to hear anything new, so I was more interested in the people. Most of the second wave players stood alone, but some were already clustering in small groups. Standing apart from everyone else was a large group of people I could only describe describe as hobos. They had appeared from inside the fortress and headed directly for the corpses, brazenly taking items that the nobody else had wanted, such as shoes and clothes. The dead no longer had any cards but some of these miserable-looking individuals didn’t mind taking a goblin weapon.

  Level 1 and a wretched appearance... The System confirmed my suspicions by labeling them as Heroes, people who had failed the last mission. One of the plans we’d discussed involved freeing and arming them, but compared to one thousand players from the second wave, a few dozen imprisoned slaves presented little interest. Except as a propaganda tool, I suppose.

  Now that the fortress had been captured, the Heroes would be more of a hindrance than a help. Who knew what kind of stunt they could pull, seeing as they couldn’t return home? I spotted Qing Long also eyeing the Heroes. He probably also considered them a hazard and had dispatched his people to watch our ‘weakest link’. Interestingly, one of the women stripping the corpses looked slightly familiar.

  Diva. Player. Level 2

  Not a Hero? Unlike the rest of the crowd, she looked like she’d been captured by the goblins only recently. She met my gaze for a second, then turned away. No, we couldn’t have known each other.

  “Then you just used us to capture the fortress?” someone shouted from the crowd. Had they only realized this now? I turned my attention back to the speaker. It looked like things were getting interesting.

  “No need to yell,” the Swordsman smiled with the teeth of a shark. “One at a time, please. You there, good fellow. You wanted to say something?”

  “You just used all of us!” the player repeated. He sounded much less confident, however.

  “That’s exactly what we did. We used you to attack from the inside. So?”

  “That’s... That’s not right. That’s despicable!”

  “You’re right, but that’s life. We had to capture the fortress or die. If you don’t like it, you can take enough food to last you three days and try to survive outside these walls.”

  “But I’ll die! You said there were goblins, and, whatcha call it, the undead!” The guy seemed to doubt the existence of the living dead, unlike the goblins. He’d seen the latter for himself and was genuinely afraid of them.

  “You see? By using you, we have also saved your life. We’ve wiped out almost the entire garrison. If you, with such an advantage in numbers, couldn’t even deal with the staff, why prolong the torment?”

  The other guy opened his mouth to retort but then shrank back, trying to hide in the crowd. Not because he was a coward, but because a loner can’t fight against an organized group.

  “That’s how things stand! I’ve told you everything. Now you are invited to either join our Alliance by accepting its rules, or leave the fortress. You need to do this before the goblins arrive.”

  Wasn’t it a bit early for an ultimatum? As it turned out, the timing was perfect. I turned my head, watching people streaming through the open gates. The belated first wave players had finally reached the fortress. We were sure to strike a deal now.

  * * *

  I sat on the bench with my legs stretched out, looking up at the sky and indulging in the seventh deadly sin, sloth. A few well-deserved minutes of rest before getting back to business. Endless as the... Ocean? Space? Möbius strip? No, that wasn’t it. The right simile refused to be found. I’m a poor skald.

  “How did it go?” I asked, turning my head.

  The pair sent to ‘clean up’ the moat had finally returned, looking tired. I couldn’t see any wounds, however. Alf was limping slightly, but he had injured his leg in the last battle. It wasn’t anything serious since he’d managed to reach the fortress as part of the assault group.

  “Not bad, but could have gone better,” Cúchulainn said grimly, sitting down beside me. “We had a competitor. One of the goblins could still fight.”

  Alf took a seat next to his friend. They got along well, despite the significant age gap of about ten years.

  “Well, since you’re here, I’m guessing he still lost?” I inquired.

  Cúchulainn shrugged. “A weakling. Level 4 but he didn’t know how to run or swing a sword. It wasn’t hard to kill him.”

  It wasn’t hard if you were prepared to kill. Many players went into battle thinking they were ready, and then died without delivering a single blow. Or because they’d hesitated, even for a second. Goblins didn’t forgive such mistakes.

  “Well done,” I said. It would have been pretty pathetic if two of them couldn’t handle one goblin, but still, this was their first blood. Although only one person would have gotten the experience points.

  “Thank you,” the ‘Irish’ Belarusian nodded grimly. “The problem was that the goblin had been doing the very thing we’d come for. He was finishing off the wounded.”

  “I hope he hadn’t kill everyone there. Did Alf get anything?”

  “I did,” the wizard smiled crookedly. The role of executioner was clearly not to his liking. “The goblin hadn’t touched his own kin, so I gained some experience, too. And... here. I think we did it.”

  Alf handed me a thick bundle containing an arrow. This was even better than dragging back the entire body. If my theory was correct, it could act as a storage container for experience points.

  “By the way, how did the goblin end up there in the first place? Did he climb down the rope?”

  “No, and that’s the problem,” Cúchulainn said, frowning again. “There might be a crawlway down there. I wouldn’t even call it a secret passage because it’s too narrow, but a goblin can squeeze through.”

  I shuddered. Our plan to capture the fortress had been a gamble, and one of its weaknesses was the possibility of such a secret passage. We had questioned the prisoners about whether one existed, and they all claimed to know nothing about it, and yet... Ignorance didn’t guarantee that there wasn’t such a passage. It only allowed us to hope. Hope that the goblins on the outside didn’t know about its existence. However, hope was too fragile to rely on when it came
to my life. To all our lives. “Come on,” I sighed and stood up. “I’ve got to see it for myself.”

  As if waiting for this dramatic moment, the clouds covered the sun. If I’d been a superstitious man, I’d have thought it was a bad sign.

  * * *

  Well, I saw it. The question was, what was I supposed to do about it? The crawlway opened into the moat quite far from the gate and was indeed very cramped. I wouldn’t have climbed into it voluntarily. My companions seemed to take the same view. We need someone small, someone we didn’t mind sacrificing.

  I looked at the goblin’s body, noting the rough gray clothing and the dirty fingernails. Clearly one of the servants, not even a warrior. He’d climbed out of the hole, looked around, and decided to take the chance. That was a mistake. He could have stayed hidden in the hole, waited until nightfall, and quietly escaped. Remembering a girl whose throat had been slashed, I didn’t feel much sympathy for the dead creature. “I don’t feel sorry for anyone,” I whispered. “Not you, nor me, nor him...” Not even her, by and large. The more time passed, the more indifferent I felt about the corpses, and the dead girl would have sustained numerous broken bones after such a fall. Bad luck, what could I say?