Chapter 14 - Slaughter
Chapter 14 - Slaughter
It didn't take Draco long to reach the battlefront. In front of him stood a ravaged wasteland that had still smoking pits of charred human remains and scavengers fighting over scraps.
It was a truly horrible sight that would have most heaving. The smell alone was traumatizing, reeking of pain and suffering as well as rotten meat and discharged bowels. This was the true smell of war, not the glorious idealizations in media.
The AI of Boundless had done an impeccable job recreating this based on its information network alone. Draco was hard, but he didn't stand there and sniff, thinking something retarded like 'ahh, smells like home'. He shook his head and walked away without commenting or acknowledging the dreary atmosphere. It was what it was. Besides, his mission here was inevitably going to make things far worse, not better.
Draco walked along a tarnished pathway, approaching a small forward camp where the actual fighting force of the outpost resided. Unlike typical wars where battles were spread over different areas, this conflict had itself limited to one single battlefront for both sides. After all, there were various other forces spread across this golden land and these parties were one of the least ranked… on both sides.
Arriving there, Draco noticed a few haphazard tents sprawled in what he assumed to be an attempt at a campground. Frowning, he entered the area, noticing the lack of enthusiasm as well as the fecal smell.
"Huh, who're you?" A voice called out lethargically
.
Draco turned to see a young guy with cuts and bruises all over his face watching him warily. It seemed he was wondering how someone could walk into their camp so easily when he wasn't one of them. In Draco's opinion, he found it hard to imagine why the indigenes hadn't managed to wipe these people out.
"Name's Drake. Anguis and co sent me here to do some killing on your behalf." Draco replied with a smile.
Unlike the others at the outpost who felt like their lives had lighted up, this guy simply scoffed and looked away.
"Knock yourself out, mate. Just make sure to leave something behind so your loved ones can bury something," He stated while limping off.
Draco frowned at this. Not due to the rudeness, but to the fact that this fellow was so disillusioned that even a reasonably strong cavalry couldn't spark even a bit of hope in him. Draco had seen bits and pieces of the no man's land, so he had a good grasp of the fighting going on.
It was pretty equal… to the point where just one little push could upset the balance and led to a victory. He could very well be that push and yet…
Draco felt that something was off. Had something changed between the time he left the outpost and his arrival here? One must know that it took him less than half an hour to get here with his speed and his blink ability.
No, the time interval was too short and from the sluggishness of the whole fighting force, he'd get very little out of them. Then again, his mission was to kill as many as he could here, so talking to a bunch of broken soldiers wouldn't help.
With that in mind, he blinked away, heading towards the source of the conflict itself. Upon arrival, Draco noticed he was standing atop a small hill that overlooked the current battle.
In total, he could see a few hundred fighters on each side currently stuck in a stalemate. The warriors stood back while the archers fired out potshots every now and then. It looked more like a war from the 20th century than a medieval one in terms of intent.
Clearly, both sides had skirmished with each other to the point where the loss of life outweighed the possible gain. Instead, they keep on the ruse of conflict while maintaining a casual stalemate.
Draco observed for a few more minutes before shaking his head. While he could easily dive in a slaughter quite literally every combatant on the indigenes side, he'd be doing very little in the end. The guild fighters could make a push for more territory but Draco knew that the indigenes hadn't even showed half of their fighting force.
That was why he offered his mercenary services only to the guild outpost. Still, even though he identified this problem, he wasn't going to do anything to stop it. As a profiteer of this war, he'd be a fool to bring it to an end so soon.
Draco activated the War Monger ability from the Fire of War as well as Dragons Force from the Dragon Soul. He felt his power rise exponentially to the point where he felt his human skin would rip like a piece of paper if it climbed any higher.
With a deep breath, he blinked right into the middle of the indigenes and let out a smile.
"Who are you??" An enemy combatant shrieked with alarm, bringing all attention toward Draco.
"Name's Drake, as is D for Death," With that corny line, Draco began a massacre.
He started with the archers.
As they were the ranged warriors of the battlefield, they posed the most danger in any war effort. Normally, such a position would be reserved for healers, but this particular guild outpost as well as the native's hamlet weren't equipped with such forces. Those were only transferred to the higher tier bases.
Draco was efficient in his killing. He didn't go for fancy beheadings, or running through his enemies. He simply swiped his blade along their throats and left them to die in the dirt before moving towards another.
"What are you all waiting for?? Kill him!" one of them cried out, instantly garnering a response from those gathered.
While he might be fast, the fellow was clearly an idiot for jumping right into the midst of enemies. Since he was brave enough to do so as well as the fact that he had killed a few of them, he could forget about leaving this battlefield with his life!
The remaining archers began to retreat using their allies as shields. The warriors on the field were split into three categories. The tanks, the close combat fighters and the archers. Similar to the lack of clerics, magic based and even rarer classes were absent.
In fact, they all possessed average classes and less health than a Private Rank monster. How could they resist a monster like Draco? He weaved through them like a fish in a pond, the color of blood and the screams of men the only indication of his trail across the battlefield.
This made the hearts of the people on the side of the guild freeze in fear. They had been fighting here for more than a few months, so both sides knew the strength of each other very well.
They didn't even doubt that should Draco turn on them, they'd all be wiped out to a man! A full rout!
They didn't know why he was fighting the enemy on their behalf as well. A person of his level of power should have been strongly advertised to them by the guild and their own forward camp in order to boost morale.
The inability to discern his goals scared them the more.
The last archer was a relatively attractive female with a good body. When she saw all her comrades die in less time than it takes for water to boil, her confidence shattered as she panicked.
The moment she saw Draco turn toward her and advance forward, she ripped her shirt open and tore her pants down.
"P-P-Please… big brother, this little one is a very humble and attractive girl. I am willing to w-w-warm your bed if you let me live," She proposed while her legs trembled violently from fear.
Draco paused and pondered. He had to give it to her, her body was quite desirable. She had large b.r.e.a.s.ts that didn't seem to want to obey gravity as well as a small waist that funneled out into wide h.i.p.s. Without even having to look behind her, it was obvious her peach would be larger than he could hold in both his hands.
Some of the male onlookers on the guild's side felt a bubble of jealousy sprout in them. Unlike Draco, they all knew the female who had thrown away her dignity for her life. She was a popular member of the indigenes force and the daughter of a high ranking chief in their society, so her beauty and talent were obvious to see.
Even on the battlefield, she was arguably one of the best archers and had taken quite a few lives. It could be seen that the only thing limiting her was the hamlet she was sent to.
While the others were gritting their teeth from jealousy, Draco narrowed his eyes. Unlike the others who were easily tricked, he knew the indigenes much better than these fighters. They were far more crafty and combat capable than the guild troops thought.
There were other women in the archer squad he had vanquished but all of them had fallen with hate on their faces and unwillingness in their hearts. Not for a second did they stop to demean themselves like this just to live on.
Draco kept his guard up.
That was when he noticed a sharp wind coming behind, from his left. Laughing coldly, Draco blinked behind the crafty girl and observed as a sharp arrow coated with something dark black pierced someone else.
Almost instantly, the fellow screamed and felt his blood and organs melt into waste. Every onlooker took in a cold breath as they came to the same realization as Draco.
The baring of tits was all a ploy!
But no one was more shocked than the girl. She had signaled to one of her lackeys to shoot at Draco with a crossbow while he was distracted by her voluptuous assets.
Yet not only did he resist the prize before him, he even avoided the ambush she prepared! Right now, he was standing barely an arm's length behind her with a mocking expression on his face.
What a joke!
If Draco could even resist the charms of a legitimate half-succubus like Zaine, what right did this nameless woman have to seduce him? She was a hundred years too young to think everyone thought with their genitals.
She turned around with a fearful expression on her face. The difference between before and now was that this countenance was genuine.
"B-Big… B-Brother… That…That was…" She stammered while sweating buckets.
Draco made a calming gesture and smiled at her.
"Shh, don't worry. I'm not going to kill you."
She sighed while giving him a grateful expression.
"Thank you, you won't regret it."
Draco nodded and made a swift side step.
"I did say I won't kill you, but your own man seems to have a different idea."
In his place, a second arrow coated with poison traveled ferociously and plunged into the chest of the woman. She stared at it disbelievingly, before screeching in agony as she rapidly turned into a puddle of waste beneath Draco.
Draco sighed in his heart. Truly, nothing was worse than having a teammate who was a pig headed fool. The onlookers sucked in a cold breath from the uproarious events that had occurred since this mysterious fellow jumped into the fray.
With the death of the female, that was the last of the archers gone for the enemy. Even if Draco left the battlefield, the guild troops would be able to rout majority of the enemy.
But Anguis had casually agreed to Draco's price per kill, probably thinking that he wouldn't do much, maybe kill one or two important characters and leave the rest to his own troops.
Since the chicken had put its head on the block for chopping, why should Draco deny it the sweet release of death?
Thinking like that, his body swiveled towards the remaining warriors and tanks who were all sweating buckets. They were plunged so far into the depths of fear that even their characteristic rowdy nature couldn't bring them out.
To them, Draco had shifted from the form of a handsome rogue to a devil with horns and a tail. If someone told them right now that Draco was just a normal warrior with a bit of skill, they'd probably cut the person up themselves.
Draco twirled his blades and jumped into the group of enemies before him, resuming a cold hearted slaughter that would make most vomit in disgust. Unlike before where he could vanquish the relatively low defense archers with a single cut, he had to actively dismember these fighters in order to take them down.
Hands, feet, torsos, heads. Each of these parts that denoted a section of the human body became decorations on the earth, as if someone had neatly split them apart in order to place them properly. Liters of blood splashed around, enough to form a pool that little children could play in.
It took just ten minutes to turn the situation around for the guild. Ten minutes to change the landscape of the area permanently. Ten minutes to reap over 200 lives.
One term popped up in the heads of the guild troops spectating the events.
God of Death.
A being sent from the ethereal to collect the lives of the living without much resistance. Such a description fit the scenario before them perfectly.
Draco felt a golden glow surround him as he leveled up from the kills. Since he had been at 0% of level 10 prior to all this, he calculated that he had gained somewhere around 178% experience points. Meaning he was now at 78% of level 11.
Normally, he'd get a lot more but the AI of Boundless cut down rewards gained from killing NPCs. No monetary or item gain and only 50% the typical experience gained after a successful kill. Obviously, the intent was to prevent madmen who seemed to think that killing NPCs was faster than killing monsters.
Not only that, most of the combatants here were barely qualified to call themselves rank 1 adventurers. Most of them were still at rank 0 and the tier difference for experience as well as rewards was steep.
Draco wiped the blood off his swords and sheathed them in the ether. Fortunately for early Boundless players, the AI was trying to keep things easy by introducing the playerbase to combat and exploration so that they could get a rudimentary grasp over the fundamentals. Things like sheathes, hygiene, sleep and food weren't a problem yet.
In a few months, all that would change, but that wasn't Draco's issue. He had done his part for the guild and now it was time to reap the rewards.
With that in mind, he turned to the guild troops with an expectant look. Unlike the praise and respect he thought he'd received, he was instead treated to fearful expressions, shaky legs and crying females.
Draco was flabbergasted. Did he look like a monster that took pleasure in killing everything he could see? What Draco didn't know was that his presence was too sudden. While they held the hope that Draco was sent from the outpost, most doubted it. Why would someone of Draco's strength bother to help their shitty outpost when there were countless other ones with better resources and remunerative abilities?
Draco shook his head and blinked into their midst. Before any of them could even scream in fear, he grabbed onto a random youth who was a rank 0 spearman and smiled at him amiably.
What would normally put the hearts of others at ease only served to make the fellow feel that his ancestors had graced him with dogshit luck. Of all the people this monster could pick to torture, why was it him?
What even infuriated the poor fellow was the look of relief on the other's faces. They weren't even trying to change his fate, opting to wait and see what would happen.
Draco waited for a bit before disappearing from view suddenly, shocking everyone remaining. This was primarily because the lad he was holding onto went along with him.
.....
"Brother, maybe you were a bit too rash to send Lord Drake into the battlefield." Sasha nagged with a worried expression.
"Sasha, he's a warrior stronger than all of us put together. He'll be fine. It'd probably be insulting to use him for meager scouting jobs like we do for the other two," Anguis responded with a patient sigh.
"I know but… sigh."
Tony had a dark look on his face as he listened to Sasha's worries. Everyone in the outpost knew Sasha and felt something for her. For some, it was an older sister feeling, some felt like she was their chipper and cute younger sister. But for Tony, Sasha felt like his soulmate and he had done everything to show his value to her as a partner… only to be treated purely as a friend.
This would normally be manageable as he'd be able to turn her around with constant effort and invested time, but then the handsome rogue Drake had to appear and steal her breath away.
That was why Tony had antagonized him. He didn't think of anything foolish like killing Drake because he wasn't a killer and he knew he couldn't manage such a thing anyway.
At best, he could find some way to scare him off or incriminate him with something that would make Sasha hate him.
While Tony's mind began working rapidly, two forms suddenly appeared in the planning room, one handsome rogue with a wide smile and a traumatized youth who looked like he had seen it all.
Sasha was naturally the first to acknowledge Draco with a bright smile. "Lord Drake!"
Draco nodded towards Sasha. He had a good feeling about this girl and her feeling were obvious, so he felt the need to treat her well. Even though this bastard was an evil bloke, he had some humanity left.
"Drake, you're back so soon. Did you desert the battlefield? No, if you did you wouldn't return here, would you?" Anguis asked with a thoughtful frown.
"Brother!!" Sasha chided while whacking his shoulder.
Draco laughed internally. Anguis' blunt mouth always preceded him. Instead of replying, he turned to the fellow beside him and made a gesture similar to 'the stage is yours'.
Instantly, Anguis felt his heart clench as a bad premonition landed upon him. He instantly felt the overwhelming urge to prevent that youth from speaking.
The youth's next words caused him to spit blood and faint.
"Um... this fellow here killed all the enemies on the battlefield in less than 15 minutes."