Bog Standard Isekai

They set off in the gray morning light, riding west back towards Arcaena's mainland, their backs to the colors of the rising sun. They passed fields of cut grain and green stalks that must've recently carried vegetables. The army had sent a few skimmers through the fields to check for anything left behind from the harvest, but from the empty sacks he saw them carrying, they weren't having any luck. Official source ıs novelfire(.)net

Cowl's pack held a week's worth of rations, but only according to the new portions the army had been giving out. In better times, that was about the amount they'd be eating in a day. Hopefully more supplies would arrive before they returned from this patrol.

They passed soldiers on foot, some in groups of hundreds, some as small as twenty. They spread out in every direction, hunting for remnants of the army. Their orders were surprisingly open-ended. Even though other Lances were given specific routes and coordinated carefully with each other, Brin's Lance had been set loose to do as Cid thought best. Some of the other Primes had plied Cid with questions about what he'd done to be granted so much leeway, and Cid deflected by telling all sorts of stories about their heroism, only slightly exaggerated.

The real reason was Brin. He could send Invisible Eyes out for miles and miles, and his Lance could respond to anything he found quicker than anyone. He absolutely was not supposed to let the enemy know that he was an [Illusionist], but he could subtly guide the Lance to the areas where they might do the most good.

"Where would you like to go?" Brin asked his Prime.

Cid squinted towards the horizon and said, "Now that the three armies have met at Arcaena, coordination has become much easier. And it isn't just Galan running around trying to keep everyone together anymore. There’s real cooperation. We had a representative from Lord Pomba's camp, a [Scout] leader to organize patrols."

"Oh? Did he know where all the action is going to be?" asked Brin.

"Better. He knew where your brother is going to be. Gerin. And your friend Zilly as well."

Brin bit his lip. "You don't have to do that. You've already completed my relationship quest."

"What are you talking about?" Cid shook his head. "We'll go find them if we can. In the meantime, keep your eyes in the air. If you see anyone that can use our assistance, we'll ride hard to help them."

The further they rode, the more the scattered bands from the army spread out until they were riding through the countryside with no one around for miles. Arcaena was a beautiful country. The rolling plains were dotted by green hills, abundant with clear streams and lakes and ponds. There were forests of white, thin-leaved trees that let sunlight cascade all the way down so that even if you stood under the thickest of the foliage it was only a light mesh against the sunlight. The forests were very manicured, in a way, with a complete lack of dead trees and little underbrush, as if an army of dryads were tending it for a garden. The fact that an actual army of undead was probably doing the labor couldn't fully defeat its appeal. The army had burned the land to clear it for their approach and to root out any hidden traps, but they couldn't burn the whole country and far away from the army, it was like the war had never happened.

It was also oddly empty. He didn't see any trace of land animals, and there were no fish in the streams. A few small birds crossed the sky here and there, but not enough to give them music. If the commanders hoped that the patrols would forage well enough to make up the lack in their supplies, they would be disappointed.

They found their first group of undead around noon the first day. The monsters were hiding underground for an ambush, completely hidden to Brin's Invisible Eyes, but Brych's nose left no doubt. They didn't spring up even when the Lance was right on top of them. Maybe they were smart enough to know they didn't have a chance against the Lance, because none of them moved until Brin started stabbing them through the ground with.

Eight undead soldiers erupted from the ground, carrying blacksteel weapons and looking much like the thin, mummified ones that had attacked Hammon's Bog.

"Stay back! Engage at full reach! We don't want to have to stop here to clean undead gunk out of our armor!" Brin shouted.

Even with those conditions, the Lance dispatched the undead with little trouble. For once, the [Knights] outnumbered the enemy, something they definitely weren't used to.

After another two hours of riding, another group of undead appeared, only this one had found one of the other patrols from the army. Twenty commoner soldiers had stumbled onto an equal force of undead, and were fighting carefully and defensively. It was a mark of how oddly intelligent undead soldiers could be that they didn't rush in as a zombie horde, and instead were maneuvering around to probe for weaknesses before engaging fully. The human soldiers would probably be able to hang on quite a while like this, only they didn't see the second patrol of another fifteen undead that were rapidly dashing towards them.

"I see some. Let's go!" Brin shouted, and put his horse into a gallop, trusting the rest to follow.

He guided his horse with one mind, while monitoring the soldiers with the other. They had a single [Warrior] with decent mail, but he didn't engage for fear of a level 30 undead soldier in full plate. Those were elites, and were more than a passing challenge even for Brin's men.

Before Brin could reach them, the second patrol of undead arrived and attacked. The humans weren't caught off guard, and turned half their men to protect their backs, but seeing death coming didn't always mean you could avoid it. Both groups of undead laid into them with a frenzy, finally acting like the zombies they were, and the humans fought desperately.

The first man fell to an undead axe, then he saw a man take a spear to the shin and fall forward, to be pulled behind the undead line and stabbed. A third died from a sword thrust.

Then the Lance was there. Technically, they were supposed to dismount before engaging, but there wasn't time, and the knights charged through the undead. They split in half so that they'd be able to crush both undead patrols at once, and Brin felt the satisfying jarring force of his spear stabbing through undead flesh.

After the first pass, they stopped, leapt off their horses, and dashed in to take down the stragglers. Govannon ignored his assigned place to rush straight towards the strongest undead. It surprised him, quicker than he expected, and scored the first blow. He scraped his blacksteel sword across Govannon's breastplate, drawing a line of magical sparks. Govannon fought back, and engaged the armored soldier in a long, drawn out duel.

Brin summoned a second glass spear and let it fly alongside him as he stabbed his way through the other undead. He burned extra mana in his impatience, and was always surprised when an undead managed to block or parry one of his swings. He used to be so afraid of these things, why was he now surprised when they weren't complete pushovers?

The Lance made short work of the rest of the undead, until all that was left was Govannon locked in struggle against the elite. The elite who was now lower level than him. The undead moved like it also had [Blade Mastery], quick despite the heavy blacksteel, and the armor was strong enough to hold up against his axe. At least he was using the axe this time, but he hadn't yet managed to puncture the plate with its spike.

Meredydd moved to help, but Brin stopped him with an outstretched hand. "Let him finish it."

Maybe if Govannon killed the undead on his own, he'd get the armor-piercing Skill they were hoping for.

The duel stretched on for two more minutes. On a battlefield, two minutes was an eternity, and Brin felt his anxiety rise. This wasn't a safe duel. That thing really wanted to kill his man. Should he really be risking this?

Marksi broke first. He darted over, hopped onto the undead's back, wriggled his arm through the gap between the helm and backplate, and clawed out the back of the undead's neck. It stumbled to its knees, and Govannon made a big show about being the one to finish it off.

Marksi hopped away, shaking his head at all the silly humans.

"Nicely done, buddy!" Brin said, and Marksi pretended to ignore the compliment, though his coloration started to shift rapidly and Brin could hear him purring softly.

Cid spoke with the leader of the soldiers while they tended their wounds and gathered their dead. They wouldn't be continuing with their patrol, not after three casualties, so they would gather up the enemy's weapons and armor and head back. He offered Cid a cut of the loot, which Cid refused. Blacksteel wasn't worth much because of the weight. Cowl was the only one who could really use that armor, and his current set was much better.

The Lance didn't stay too long. They ate a quick lunch, barely a snack, cleaned the undead blood of themselves, and tended the horses. Even after a short gallop like this, they made sure to check the horses thoroughly for any sign of strain or injury. With everything looking clear again, they set off.

It was only twenty minutes before Brin saw another ambush. This was larger in scale. A group of forty soldiers, wearing Prinnash's colors, had positioned themselves at the top of a grassy hill. They were set upon by a group of a hundred undead led by twenty human soldiers, complete with a caster who threw balls of penetrating flame. More bands of undead, ten here and fifteen there, were springing from the ground and converging on the location. They'd be overrun before Brin's Lance could get there.

He was starting to understand Grimwalt's plan here. The regular soldiers weren't actually expected to find and destroy Arcaena's army. They were bait. They'd draw out and expose the enemy, die, and then the more mobile [Knights] would rush over and avenge them.

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Luckily, Brin's Lance wasn't the only one in range. A much more experienced Lance from the Order of the Verdant Fern was in the area, though they hadn't noticed the conflict yet, despite having a [Watchful Knight] of their own. Brin magnified the sounds of shouting and clashing steel, and their [Watchful Knight] perked up his ears. Soon, the knights in green were rushing towards the area.

These were veterans, most of them at level 40 with the lowest at 35. They were older, too, in their mid twenties and thirties, and experience meant more than levels sometimes.

Brin's own Lance spurred their horses onward, figuratively speaking of course. These horses didn't need crude spurs to give it their all.

Despite their haste, the Prinnashians took heavy losses. These were no bumbling zombies; they fought in perfect coordination with their human masters, who were themselves high level. The higher elevation gave the Prinnashians the upper hand in the beginning, and they made the enemy pay the butcher's bill just to get up the hill, but once they were there it was the end; there was nowhere to run to.

Brin watched the last Prinnashian die with a gurgling scream. The Verdant Ferns were still three minutes away, and his own Lance was ten.

Before either got there, another force arrived. These were clad in shining blue and tore into the undead with no warning. Spells slammed against their shields and were deflected. Black spears and swords could not penetrate. Undead fell to scything blades.

Brin thought that another group of [Knights] had arrived and was racking his brain to remember all the Orders who wore blue.

He slowed his horse. "Those aren't [Knights]."

"What? What's going on? Are we too late?" Cid said, slowing his horse alongside him.

"Another group got there first. I don't recognize them," said Brin.

"Who?" Cid demanded.

"Never mind. We can figure it out when we get there," said Brin. He pushed his horse back into a gallop.

"Who got there first?" Cid demanded.

Brin didn't answer, because that's what he would like to know. If they were attacking Arcaena's forces that meant they were on his side, but he didn't recognize their odd armor. They were all leaning forward as if this were an Order of hunchbacks, and they didn't ride horses. Their mounts were as armored as they were, but they were round like giant beetles. Their only other distinguishing feature were their horns. Or maybe tusks? They had long curved tusks like an elephant’s, only they were golden and looked metallic.

Oh, he knew what this was. Some kind of Mental Manipulation was trying to force him to stop looking too closely at the riders. This wasn't even close to the spell of Arcaena's capital, though, so with a bit of concentration he broke through.

These were not human. The riders had round black heads with antennae peeking through blue armor. Not armor. Shells. Carapace.

"Who is it? Who did you see? [Inspect], them, damnit!" shouted Cid.

"Good idea," said Brin.

???

"I just get question marks," said Brin. That was odd. [Inspect] always gave him something. Even if a high-leveled person turned their [Hide Status] all the way up, the System would at least verify that he was looking at a human figure. This was totally different.

"Halt!" Cid said. He slowed his horse to a complete stop.

"What are you doing?" Brin asked. "We need to get over there."

"What direction did they come from?" Cid asked.

"I didn't see them arrive!" Brin said. "They just appeared. They charged onto the hilltop like... like..."

"What direction, Brin?"

Brin thought for a moment. "They came from the east."

"We're turning around," said Cid.

"There are other [Knights] on the way to them. If we work together–"

"We're leaving. That's an order," Cid said calmly.

"You heard him! Turn it around! Ride!" Brin shouted at the Lance, pushing down his desire to argue. They galloped back the way they'd come, though internally he felt betrayed. This Lance that had defended Canibri was going to flee from a bunch of weird bugs? They weren't even outnumbered. There were only fifteen of the armored freaks. Together with the other Lance they'd have the advantage. What could make Cid so fearful?

He'd already connected the dots. There was only one thing this could be, the so-called "strangers from the east". The Easterlings that Lothar was always raving about.

He rode hard, but his Invisible Eyes kept an eye on the group behind him. The Easterlings began to slaughter undead and humans alike.

They had four arms, none as long as a human's, and held scythe-like weapons. Only, when they swung they could decapitate an undead from ten feet away. All Brin could see was a quick distortion in the air, like a fast-moving thread, and then an undead's head would fall to the ground.

One Easterling held an orb and a spear. The spear was awkward in his grip, they didn't have great body-types for swinging freely. But when he stabbed, the speartip would seem to curve through a portal in reality and stab from an unpredictable angle. No, not unpredictable. The east. No matter what direction he was stabbing from, the hit would always land on the east.

Brin created shouts of "Easterlings! Run!" into the shouts of the dying Arcaeneans to see if the Verdants Ferns would flee.

To his surprise, they did. Their Prime riding in front abruptly veered off course and turned his Lance to ride the other direction.

The Easterlings cut down the last of the ambushing Arcaeneans, cutting down the humans who tried to flee with barely a flick of their wrists. When a second group of ten undead arrived, the Easterlings cut them down before a single one could even make it to the base of the hill.

Brin told himself that his [Knights] would've slaughtered those Arceneans just as easily, but he knew that if it had been his Lance that had arrived first, it would have taken at least a little bit of trouble. Nothing like that contemptuous slaughter.

The Easterling with the orb raised it high and it emitted a piercing blue light. Then the Easterlings moved. They launched forward as if they'd all simultaneously been stung by a bee, launching forward into... it was hard for Brin to watch. He was seeing them go in a direction that didn't actually exist. They were going... and then they were there. They came from the east, straight into the path of the feeling [Knights] of the Order of the Verdant Fern.

The men in green didn't waver. Their highest leveled [Knight] used [Knight's Charge] the second they were in sight. He leapt off his horse and flew through the air like a bullet, sword forward.

There was a clang, and Brin watched, stunned, as an Easterling caught the [Knight's] blade in the crook of its scythe.

Then the Easterling stood up. Before, it'd sort of looked a little silly, like a pill-bug riding a beetle, but now it was clear that wasn’t their normal form. They’d been relaxing; they hadn’t taken Arcaena’s force seriously at all.

Now it expanded and unfolded, revealing long spindly limbs and rose to seven feet of height, towering over the [Knight]. It swung down with its scythe and blasted him away from the monster's mount to slam into the ground.

Two more [Knight's] used their charge Skill to take his place, and both of these cut into the Easterling with greater effect, gouging deep wounds that spilled yellow fluid. Several more Easterlings leapt towards them, driving the [Knights] back and saving their comrade's life.

The scene exploded into the madness of high-level combat. Skills rent the earth, weapons clashed with shockwaves that flattened the grass. The Easterlings and the [Knights] both moved with speeds that were hard to follow, their movements so elegant that they might have been choreographed dancers. The clash of weapons landed like strikes of thunder, and sometimes when the Easterlings swung their scythes they made a sharp crack by breaking the sound barrier.

Two lancers charged with thrusts that would've cracked mountains, and the first Easterling was felled. Ten Easterlings broke off of their own battles and swarmed the two. One of them pulled back in time while the other was covered with stabbing and slashing monsters until his armor broke apart.

Was that the first time he'd seen a [Knight] die? He couldn't remember another, now that he thought of it. It probably wouldn't be the last.

Had Cid made the right call? Should they really be fleeing? It was a close fight, which meant that another ten [Knights], even though they were younger, might have made the difference. Cid wasn't watching the fight the way he was; he didn't have all the information.

"They've caught the other Lance. It's an even fight so far," said Brin.

"The best we can do for them is to keep running," said Cid. "We'll see our share soon enough."

It turned out to be prophetic. The orb-wielder motioned to five of his bugmen, and they all broke off from the action and drove their mounts away from the fighting, giving some much-needed breathing room to the embattled [Knights].

The five Easterlings rode north and then... they were moving from the east, a dozen miles away from where they'd started, straight into the path of Brin's Lance.

"[Knight's Charge]. Push through. Brin, I'll trust you to make your own way," said Cid.

Brin projected the Orders to the rest of the Lance, and then waited for the perfect moment. He'd already been charging his glass. Rather than chance losing his Bog Standard spear, he'd pumped half of his mana pool into the shield glass. So far he hadn't found the limit to the amount of mana it could hold, but it drained fast if he left it without using it.

"My spear is the signal!" Brin shouted. Then he roared in the Language to put in the finishing touches. "<Piercing shells and smash bugs. Painful, soaring eruption. Fire!>"

His spear slammed into the lead Easterling, flinging him from his mount and taking an arm off at the shoulder. Marksi roared <Laser> and blasted another of the Easterlings, though much of the beam was dispersed against the polished shell.

The men [Charged]. They each aimed to get one good hit, though many of them could only reach the hard shell of the monstrous mounts. Brin hoped to see terrible wounds on his enemies, enough to justify turning around and finishing them off, but none of the mounts were hurt enough to stop them and only Hedrek and Meredydd had managed a strike against the riders. Both of them were blocked.

The Lance kept riding, pushing onward towards escape.

Main: Run knightsCharge.exe

Task Manager: Activating

This was one of the battle plans Brin had worked out. All it did was make it look like he was charging together with his Lance, while making the real him invisible. He was pleased with how easy the Lightmind made this; using directed threads to give commands to the Lightmind was basically redundant.

The Easterlings didn't seem to notice his deception. Brin was tempted to try to attack them himself, since they couldn't seem to sense them, but that was dumb. Just because they couldn't see him when they didn't suspect a trick didn't mean there was nothing they could do when they were actually on the lookout for an [Illusionist].

He did go so far as to fetch his glass. He found it embedded in a tree, blackened and bloody, but thank Solia, it still reacted to his magic just as easily as before.

To his surprise, he saw the wounded Easterling was still there. He lurched in the direction of his fellows, but he was mountless and draining a lot of fluid. They'd left it behind.

As he passed, he chanced a spear thrust from horseback, empowered by as much glass magic as he could summon at the last moment. It felt like stabbing a stone, but this spear had been built to penetrate things harder than stone. With a crack, he stabbed the creature through the back. It fell.

You have defeated: Click Rider [18]

Due to level disparity, experience has been reduced.

Level up! 43 -> 44

+5 Strength +1 Dexterity, +2 Vitality, +2 Magic, +3 Mental Control, +1 Will, +2 free attributes.

Like vampires, these were another unfair kind of creature that fought well above its level.

After a mile, the Easterlings stopped their pursuit of the Lance and veered off. The [Knights] of the Verdant Fern killed two more Easterlings and lost one of their own before the strange creatures broke away.

Out of nowhere, they ceased fighting, bowed to the [Knights], and retracted back into their shells. It was strange and alien, but the [Knights] seemed to be expecting it because they made no move to stop the Easterlings when they retrieved their weapons, the corpses of their fallen, returned to their mounts, and departed. Brin couldn't tell what direction they went, only that he knew they were no longer within range of his eyes.

He caught up with his Lance soon after, and together, they returned to an Order.

They'd been given a week's rations with the hope that they'd find a way to stay out even longer than that. For their first patrol, they hadn't even lasted a single day. He hoped their next patrol would go better.