Ch 48

  Matt sprinted with caution, ensuring he didn't move too swiftly as he attempted to lure more and more monsters toward him. This task was easier said than done, as not all monsters shared the same running speed. While they wouldn't fight each other during his run, it didn't guarantee they would stay clustered together. To mitigate this issue, Matt adopted a zigzag pattern in his running. This strategy came to him from recalling a random fact from his childhood days of watching the Discovery Channel. He remembered something about how gazelles evaded cheetahs by constantly changing direction, preventing their predators from reaching top speed.

  This tactic seemed to work well until Matt adjusted his route to head back towards the fort, with approximately 20 monsters in pursuit. Suddenly, he felt a sharp pop in his left leg, and it was as if all stability vanished from that limb. He had to push through the searing pain as he limped back towards the fort, knowing that stopping to let it heal wasn't an option. Even with his regenerative abilities, Matt understood that stopping meant certain death. His only hope lay in reaching his companions. Now, he struggled just to stay ahead of any monsters, and running in a zigzag was no longer feasible. To make matters worse, he found himself attracting even more monsters than he had intended, and there was nothing he could do to prevent it.

  In this dire state, Matt continued his desperate run towards his allies, constantly reinjuring his leg with each step but refusing to stop. It wasn't until he entered the outer wall of the fort that he veered away from his comrades, leading over a quarter of the monsters deeper into the fort and away from the group. These were mostly the faster monsters, and Matt hoped he could maintain their pace long enough to complete a lap. His goal was to buy his friends enough time to deal with the monsters they were currently facing.

  Greg frowned as he saw Matt returning—clearly injured and burdened with far too many monsters. The six creatures airborne were already more than Greg felt confident handling, so he immediately cast his spell to push them back the moment they came within range. This spell created a brief pause, leaving the monsters awkwardly suspended in midair before they could recover, and it allowed Yumiko to seize the opportunity by launching a perfectly timed arrow at one of them.

  Both of the other archers had missed that window, but it was fortunate since, unlike them, Yumiko effectively had an endless supply of arrows. Thanks to her magical quiver, which could conjure arrows from any rocks and bits of wood placed within it, she could only enter battle carrying ten arrows at a time—its limits clearly defined. It would have been ideal if the quiver could replenish arrows faster, but every arrow it produced disintegrated after two minutes outside its protective confines.

  Greg longed for the luxury of spending months unraveling the myriad intricacies of the system that now dictated their lives. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a game where he could restart and endlessly tweak his build until he became overpowered. He had to make do with the scraps of information at hand and confront the challenges head-on. At least his prized ring from the dungeon—a truly perfect fit—had proven to be a major asset by greatly reducing the cost of his spells. With it, he was able to muster a full fifteen gusts per hour; the first repulsed the aerial monsters, while the second nearly sent them crashing to the ground.

  After that, he commanded the rocks to fly, and a satisfied smile spread across his face as he witnessed the plan working far better than he had hoped. Yet, the threat was far from over. Matt had planned to bring back thirty monsters, but from Greg’s viewpoint, they looked more like a hundred. With only about forty of the creatures following Matt closely, roughly sixty remained for their group of eighteen to contend with. Fortunately, at least half of these monsters were large enough to be effectively targeted by rocks and arrows raining down from above, even as the intensity of the battle escalated. All the while, Greg continued to cast gust after gust to delay the inevitable overrunning of Emily’s group.

  Emily wanted to scream at Matt for what he had left them to deal with, as she concentrated on calling out when the smaller monsters were about to slip through the front ranks. Rose, Zara, and Eleanor were all busy dealing with the larger ones and couldn’t even defend themselves from the smaller enemies. Thankfully, they had been able to avoid disaster between Greg’s powerful gusts and the frantic attacks from the second line of their defense. Still, she wanted to understand what had gone wrong with Matt’s plans that had resulted in such a poor outcome. She occasionally lunged forward with her staff to push a rat or rabbit back, her frustration simmering beneath the surface. He had clearly been injured, but why hadn’t he healed enough to escape this horde and start over?

  Unfortunately, she didn’t have the time to piece together the obvious clues as she struggled to keep up with the pace of the battle. It reminded her more of the first floor in the dungeon than anything else. However, unlike the dungeon, they didn’t have Matt, and they were constantly forced to retreat as those on the wall did their best to rain rocks down on only the monsters. If she had been able to think things through, she wouldn’t have been caught off guard when she heard a disturbance behind her five minutes into the fight. By that point, she had almost reached the first point of the star fort, beyond the starting point of her group’s defense. With the chaos around her truly becoming a relentless cacophony of growls, shouts, and the clash of weapons echoing through the air Emily readied herself for even more of a struggle.

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  Matt wanted to curse under his breath as he caught sight of Emily’s back while he turned once more. The scene before him was one of raw desperation: roughly 40 monsters were still battling the group ahead. Just then, Greg sent a gust of wind behind him and called out, “Start emptying your storage behind you!”

  In that momentary feeling of relief from continuous running, Matt smiled briefly before quickly zoning in on the space where he had haphazardly tossed one boulder after another. He barely paid attention to what he grabbed, focusing instead on entering and leaving the area as quickly as possible. As a result, he ended up grabbing the largest items he could reach—rocks and logs—that miraculously formed a massive pile.

  “That should be enough for now,” Greg called out. “Help finish off the group in front!”

  Without needing to hear another word, Matt slipped past Emily’s group and engaged the monsters on the front line. Despite his left leg still troubling him, he drew his throwing knives and hurled them with deadly precision, quickly dispatching four monsters as the blades embedded deep into their skulls. Then, with a pair of swift slashing motions using his remaining knives, he inflicted several wounds on each monster that neared him. This, however, put him directly in their line of fire, and amidst the chaos, he suffered many bites, scratches, and even had a monster’s horn impale his gut. Yet, even as their focus shifted onto him, he managed to hold his ground until the fight gradually dwindled.

  “I only have one gust left, and there are still about a dozen monsters trying to clear the pile of rubble,” Greg shouted, gasping as he did so.

  Sighing deeply, Matt turned to assess his battered comrades, all looking far worse for wear. Frowning at his aching leg, he made a snap decision and declared, “Let me heal all of you. I think that if the eight of you are in peak condition, you have better odds of keeping anyone from dying than if we fight as we are.”

  “Are you saying that you’re not going to fight?” Steve snapped in an accusatory tone. “After you brought this mess down on us, you’re just going to—”

  “My leg isn’t healing as it should,” Matt interjected firmly. “If you all hadn’t taken care of most of the bigger monsters on that end, that last fight would have ended in my death. It’s better for me to tend to all your minor injuries from the back than to risk being torn apart by the strongest group I helped bring in.”

  Matt could tell that Steve and a few others were less than pleased with him, yet they all still allowed him to treat their injuries. Through Rose, Eleanor, and Zara, he saw guilt shining in their eyes, a shared look of remorse since all of them were more than just lightly injured. Still, all things considered, Matt managed to keep his footing as he prioritized staunching any bleeding before letting his natural regeneration take over. This was all happening just after he had healed Emily—the one with the smallest injuries—when the first monster emerged from a mound of rubble. It was a wolf, soon accompanied by eight more of its kind and a scattering of other monsters, each poised to kill. Fortunately, that was when Greg unleashed his final gust of wind before exhausting the skills use for the time being, sending the creatures tumbling forward rather than back down the rubble.

  Rose, Eleanor, and especially Zara reacted instantly; together they dispatched four wolves, which made the battle feel much more balanced. Meanwhile, Matt maintained his focus. When the opportune moment came, he flung his last two knives, gritting his teeth through the pain that each throw caused him. Somehow, the fight ended without any losses, and Matt allowed himself a brief sigh of relief as notifications began to stream in. After all his effort, however, he grumbled about only receiving 25 experience points—it just didn’t seem worth all that work. Around him, cheers erupted from half of the level 2s celebrating their rise to level 3, while a few others complained about being just under 100 points short of leveling up. Yet Matt paid no mind, sitting down to focus on healing as the others recovered from the battle.

  It was about an hour later, when Matt finally felt his leg was back in working order, that he began returning the rubble to his spatial storage room. In that moment, he recalled the crystal ball that had been lingering in the room. As if responding to his silent command, it rose from its retracted position at the center—a spot it had hidden when he wasn’t thinking of it. For a moment, Matt wondered if it had been obscured by a boulder or something similar before the fight, as his hand reached out. As soon as he touched it, a menu popped up on its smooth surface.

  Tomb of the Restless Defenders Fort's menu:

  Repair fort?

  Redesign fort?

  Destroy fort?

  Staring at the three options, Matt almost smacked himself before he selected the repair option. After which the screen updated with a new message.

  Current condition of fort: 62% intact.

  Insufficient materials detected within the fort to complete full repairs.

  To fully repair the fort, a sufficient amount of stone, wood, and smelted iron must be brought within its walls.

  Would you like to start repairs anyway using the materials on hand?

  Warning: Once started, repairs can’t be stopped until complete and all sources of raw materials brought within will be diverted to this cause until finished.