Chapter 174 Dangerous Zombies
As Jin crossed the Second Gate and entered the inner courtyard of the Subterranean Fortress of the Roleplaying Minotaurs. The zombies were fighting wildly against the preliminary line of defence to prevent them from attacking Jin from the back.
Although Jin hadn't equipped the zombies since there were at least a thousand of them, he had actually enhanced them with an equipment card called 'Elementary Element Roulette' as well as an 'I am the Alpha V1.0' enhancement card.
With the 'Elementary Element Roulette' card, each zombie summoned out would have a chance to become an elemental zombie, either Fire, Ice, Poison or Thunder. Poison had the highest probability of appearing, which was followed by ice, fire and lastly thunder since it boasted the highest elemental damage. The probability for a zombie to become an elemental zombie was at a ratio of 1 out of every 50 zombies.
Jin figured this 'equipment' card was one of the better options available for the zombies, as well as the other potential 'horde' troops he might get. Sure, the zombies would still be in melee but at the very least their bites, claws, and grabs would contain a slight elemental discharge. It's like a very, very, very weak version of "Burning Hands" or "Icy Touch".
Hence, even though the attacks contained very little elemental discharge damage, quantity made up for the quality of their attacks. However, these elemental discharges were considered a magical enhancement, similar to a temporary inscription. After a certain amount of attacks, the element within the zombie would be fully discharged and they would be turned back into a normal zombie once again. The element within those zombies would also disappear if they were unsummoned by Jin.
In addition to the elemental zombies, the 'I am the Alpha V1.0' enhancement card would buff a zombie to become an alpha zombie. This kind of zombies had developed below average intelligence along with the ability to command the other mindless zombies to perform certain tasks. Of course, the buff was an extremely rare occurrence and the chance of an alpha zombie appearing was extremely low, probably at a ratio of 1 out of a few hundreds of zombies.
However, having even just one alpha zombie helped Jin a lot because the zombies could now move around effectively as a group and maximise their advantage in numbers. Unfortunately, similar to the elementary element roulette, the intelligence of the alpha zombie would disappear if they were killed or unsummoned, which Jin thought was a pity.
He noticed that the increase in intelligence also created a sort of personality for the zombie commanding them. Hence, Jin did what he could by asking the System to tag and document the behaviour of every zombie that had their intelligence enhanced. This way, Jin would later have the opportunity to properly develop that particular zombie into a stronger entity. Peppers casually gave her comment during the equipment phase earlier in the morning, saying that an Undead Lich would be a good addition to the team but that it also required a lot of spiritual force enhancement for a zombie to develop into a lich from scratch.
In any case, there was currently an alpha zombie fighting amidst the regular zombies right inside the outer perimeters of the second gate. This particular alpha zombie called himself Derek. The orders were simple, kill everything on sight which Derek had reaffirmed by commanding waves of zombies to flood up the First Gate walls and disrupt the Cowboy Minotaurs.
On the walls of the First Gate, the zombies actually fought against the real mean looking minotaurs that didn't have costumes on. They were considered as the outcasts of the fortress as they found the whole costume roleplaying to be ridiculous. However, they had made a pact with their lord Moloch, hence they could not break the pact unless they were killed at least once on duty. Oh oops? Reincarnated again and the pact still hadn't been broken? Back to square one.
Then what about that particular statement that said they had the ability to break off the pact, which was written in the contract that they signed with Lord Moloch? Written in slightly smaller yet permeable ink was a subclause that the breakage of the pact would only happen if you were killed by a strand of human hair without any magic imbued into it and in your last breath you had to shout "DAYUM!". It was only then that the minotaur was allowed to die and be free.
Those minotaurs who downright refused to wear the costumes were so naïve to believe that all they needed to do was to die crazily a few times that they rushed to their deaths again and again and again. During the process though, they somehow became fanatics of seeking their own death and unknowingly became part of the roleplay squad.
Simply because of this mentality in their minds, they always tried to die in the ugliest way possible. Some of the Fanatic Minotaurs would let themselves get beaten and eaten by the zombies until they were captured by the System via Jin's new capture module installed in his phone. Anything that came from his phone could capture a monster once it had been beaten into submission. Hence, his bellators and monsters were no exception.
Meanwhile, some of the Fanatic Minotaurs fought valiantly like how they were originally designed and protected their fortress… but they went a little overboard. A Fanatic Minotaur was seen holding onto some ballista arrows while throwing them with such strength that it seemed to be an actual ballista, perhaps even faster than one! The only downside to this method was its short range compared to an actual ballista. It was due to the fact that a ballista required time to reload. When he thought of this, the minotaur came up with the idea that throwing the arrows would be a much more efficient way to kill the zombies.
One minotaur even picked the entire bombard up and used it as a portable cannon, managing to kill many zombies whilst his other Fanatic Minotaur buddy reloaded the bombard by stuffing the multiple cannonballs manually. The only downside of this was that the minotaur was a little too close to the parapet of the fortress wall and the knockback made him fall to the ground and die.
Cause of death? Its horns went straight through the ground, causing it to be stuck. Then, the amount of force with which it entered the ground broke its neck, which led to its unfortunate death. Meanwhile, its buddy, who had been reloading cannonballs, took the large iron balls and smashed them through the sea of zombies until he ran out of balls to throw.
On another part of the wall, the Cowboy Minotaurs were putting up a decent fight. Their use of lassos and revolvers made it appear as if they were herding cattle. The fight almost went their way until Derek the alpha zombie managed to gather a group of poison zombies. He used the normal zombies as 'human' shields to protect the group until they were able to get close and poison the Cowboy Minotaurs.
There were other elemental zombies around and Derek made sure that they were protected by a sufficient amount of undead so that their lives would not be wasted and their attacks would always strike true.
The zombie horde eventually managed to prevent the preliminary line from backstabbing Jin since he had rushed in to battle… almost too quickly! He and his werebeasts were about to face some terrifying foes.
The Battle Maid Minotaurs.
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