The farmland surrounding the village was now filled with armed villagers gathering in preparation for the battle. There were about three hundred in total: the village’s main fighting force, the elite hunting party; the guards, which consisted of reformed bandits; a handful of villagers with military experience; a few adventurers who’d made the village their base of operations; and a few ordinary villagers. Well, they would’ve been “ordinary” if you didn’t consider their recently acquired combat-type Gifts.
Still, most of them hadn’t ever experienced real combat and could probably count on one hand the number of times they’d even held a weapon. They trembled near the rear, desperately hoping this would pass without a battle as they murmured among themselves.
“Are we really gonna make it? I mean, we’re up against actual trained soldiers!”
“I-I doubt they’ll make it past the maze of walls, but still...”
“But what if we do have to fight? Ugh, my stomach’s acting up again...”
Unfortunately, their hopes were soon shattered.
“They’re here?!”
“Wait, they actually made it through the maze?!”
There were reportedly five thousand soldiers among the enemy forces, and although that number had been whittled to fewer than five hundred, they still outnumbered the villagers. Worse, the majority were cavalry.
“Chaaaarge!” the enemy commander shouted.
“What?!”
The boy leading the attack sent a wave of fear through our ranks.
Even the least experienced one in the group could tell he was on another level. He was a monster, plain and simple, and they could feel the intensity of his fighting spirit, rage, and bloodlust emanating from him. It was so intimidating that their legs started trembling.
“Th-That’s gotta be him! Lord Raoul, the one with the Sword Mastery Gift!”
“N-No way! There’s no way we can beat him! How the hell are we supposed to fight that thing?!”
The enemy soldiers charged forward, spurred on by their leader’s war cry, and regained their momentum with terrifying speed.
A few villagers finally broke and started running in the other direction, but then the enemy suddenly vanished.
“Huh?!”
The villagers realized the enemies had fallen into a giant moat. Baffled, the villagers wondered if the moat had always been there. They stood there dumbfounded as the elven archers opened fire.
The enemy soldiers were forced to abandon their horses and started struggling to get out of the water, but their numbers had dropped significantly.
But it was still an even match. Relieved, the villagers scrambled to ready their weapons.
“H-Here they come! For real this time!”
“Guess we’ve got no choice but to fight!”
Roooooooooar!!!
“Now what?!”
“Wait, is that a dragon?!”
A massive dragon let out an earthshaking roar as it plowed through the enemy soldiers so forcefully that it sent even the most heavily armored men flying through the air.
The villagers stared in disbelief and started murmuring among themselves.
“Do we even need to fight at this point?”
Meanwhile, Raoul’s eyes widened as the enormous creature barreled through his troops.
“A-A dragon?!” he said.
But when he looked closer, he realized no scales were covering the dragon’s body. Its hide looked more like bark, with leaves and branches sprouting all over. It was a plant-type monster mimicking a dragon.
A tree dragon.
Still, it was huge. Its trunk alone had to have been over ten meters wide, and it was easily over fifty meters in length. It was every bit as imposing as the real, fire-breathing thing, and it had just slammed right into the flank of Raoul’s army.
“Arrghhhh!”
His soldiers flew through the air like scraps of paper. Not even the seasoned veterans knew what to do against a rampaging tree dragon.
Raoul skidded to a halt, his eyes locked on the chaos unfolding behind him. “What the hell is happening?!”
They were surrounded by towering walls. How in the world had a tree dragon gotten here? It should’ve been impossible!
“Don’t tell me they have a Gifted monster tamer among them?! Tch! Fine, that makes it easier on us, then! Troops, ignore the dragon and charge their base!”
He figured it would be faster to take down whoever was controlling the monster than to deal with the dragon itself.
The tree dragon was still rampaging through the rear line, but Raoul and about a hundred of his vanguard soldiers made it through untouched. And those weren’t just any soldiers—they were his elite force. They hadn’t lost their nerve even after everything that’d happened.
“Raaaaaah!”
They slammed into the villagers like a crashing wave. A single villager stepped in front of Raoul, raising a massive shield. Although tall and well-built, he was clearly still a kid, around the same age as Raoul.
“Get out of my way! I’ll cut you down and that oversized shield too, with one swing of my sword!”
Sick of being humiliated, Raoul was desperate to turn the tide in their favor. He trembled with rage as he prepared to launch his most powerful strike.
But then, at the same time, the boy rushed forward with his shield raised.
Raoul gasped, not expecting his sudden move. He reacted faster than most would have, but not fast enough. The boy’s shield surged forward before Raoul could initiate his swing.
“Shield Bash!” the villager cried out, sending Raoul flying.
“Arghh!” Raoul shouted.
“Lord Raoul?!” his entourage cried out, coming to a dead stop. They were stunned that their commander had been launched clean off his feet and flung back into their lines.
He was no ordinary leader. Raoul had the Sword Mastery Gift, and his strength on the battlefield was legendary. He alone had buoyed his elite troops’ morale through this unprecedented conflict. If it hadn’t been for him, their resolve would’ve broken long ago.
And now a single enemy soldier had just walloped their commander off his feet. They began to panic.
Raoul slowly picked himself up off the ground, struggling to understand what had just happened. “N-No way! How could that’ve happened to me?!” he groaned.
Then, as if waiting for that exact moment, Luke, the enemy commander, gave his order.
“Everyone ready? Chaaaarge!”
“Raaaaah!”
The villagers surged forward with a thunderous battle cry, slamming into their stunned enemies.
“F-Fight back! Push them back!” Raoul shouted desperately, but it was too late. The two forces had already clashed. The enemy had three hundred, and his forces were down to barely a hundred. Still, his ranks consisted solely of veterans and warriors with real combat experience, most of whom had combat-type Gifts. Even if they’d been caught off guard, surely they’d never fall to a hastily put-together militia of immigrants and misfits.
Or so he thought.
“Argh...” one soldier yelled.
“Nooo!” another one bellowed.
“Wh-What the hell?! They’re too strong! Nngh!”
Raoul’s army was getting crushed, and it wasn’t just because of the villagers’ numerical superiority. Raoul’s soldiers were getting overwhelmed even in one-on-one duels.
“You’re fighting me on equal footing, and I have a Gift! Who the hell are you people?! Are you master warriors who have been hiding in the wilderness this whole time or something?!”
“Nah, we’re just regular villagers.”
“But there’s no way some backwater hicks can be this strong!”
Even Raoul’s Gifted soldiers were struggling to hold their ground, which shocked the villagers.
“Wait a second... These guys are pretty weak!”
It wasn’t just the ones with combat experience who held their own; everyone did, even the villagers who’d never fought before. Some even managed to take down seasoned, combat-Gifted enemy soldiers.
“Maybe we are stronger!”
“Yeah! We can totally do this!”
“Hell yeah! We got this, guys!”
Even the villagers who’d been seconds away from a full-on rout had completely shaken off their fear. Was it because of their Gifts?
Whatever the case, the villagers practically buzzed with excitement as they cut down enemy after enemy. The dwarven weapons and gear had given them a huge advantage, but that wasn’t all.
Their mayor, Luke, had activated a new skill called Villager Boost.