novelhk Chapter 80 Requires Reimbursement
Chapter 80 Requires Reimbursement
Archer Village, on the outskirts of town.
On the abandoned farmland covering the hillsides, herds of armored pigs were rooting around and munching on withered grass roots.
The newbies in the second closed beta arrived at the defense line carrying shovels. In the eyes of these money-grubbing players, what lay ahead was nothing but a field of daily wages and massive amounts of experience points.
"Brothers, it's all money! Let's go!"
"Don't rush! Form a team first. I heard there's an experience bonus for team play."
Several newbies, eager to steal monsters, charged ahead, yelling as they brandished sharpened wooden clubs. The leader leaped high into the air, using the momentum of his descent to smash his club hard against the armored boar's spine.
Bang! Wood chips fly everywhere!
A piercing cracking sound rang out. The wrist-thick wooden stick snapped instantly, the recoil sending the barbs piercing the man's hand, while the armored boar's tough armor didn't even leave a white mark.
"Damn it! That was definitely a miss. I put all my attribute points into Strength, and my accuracy isn't good enough!"
The provoked beast paid no heed to any of that. Without pausing, it stomped its powerful hind legs on the ground, turned around, and charged straight at you like a fully armed chariot.
boom!
With a dull thud of flesh colliding, the vanguard was sent flying three or four meters into the air. Accompanied by a crisp cracking sound of bones breaking, he crashed heavily into a trash can like a tattered sack.
In a typical online game, this would probably just result in red damage numbers floating above someone's head. But this incredibly realistic feedback system made the wounded player cough up blood on the spot after landing.
"How could this happen? Did you see how it hit me?"
The poor little player rolled his eyes, trying to recall what had just happened.
Seeing this, the other newbies rushed over and tried to lift him out of the trash can.
"Don't move! It's broken..." His spine was completely fractured, and he declined his companion's offer of help.
"I forgot to adjust my pain level, it hurts too much, please restore it, bro!"
Without hesitation, his teammate raised a shovel and shoveled it at his neck, then scooped up the half-bag of dry rations that had fallen to the ground: "The inheritance is mine now, consider it payment for sending you back to town."
On the high ground behind, Roasted Whole Lamb, the general contractor, looked at the unsuccessful front line with a furrowed brow.
Oh my god, we forgot to discuss disability compensation. I bet that poor newbie can't even afford 500 resurrection points.
However, there was something more important at hand. He tried to feel the tremors on the ground as the pigs charged, and his mind quickly constructed a rough calculation model.
Physical defenses are completely inadequate; conventional melee weapons cannot penetrate them. To inflict substantial damage, only significantly greater kinetic energy can be relied upon.
"Come back, everyone! Stop sending them!" the roasted whole lamb yelled, quickly changing tactics. "Send a few people to two teams! One team to the east, the other to the west!"
"White T-shirts don't offer much defense; the stat boost is negligible against a pig charging at you. Take them all off! Lighten your load!"
If a regular army were faced with such an outrageous order, it would have already caused an uproar.
Fortunately, these people are players, the Fourth Calamity who are pursuing the completion of the storyline, and they don't care about saving face at all.
If everyone is naked, then it's the same as no one being naked at all.
The men immediately stripped off the newbie outfits the system had given them and tossed them onto the edge of the field.
The irritable, naked men, wearing only shorts to cover their bodies, split into two groups and circled around to opposite ends of the vast farmland. They picked up mud and stones from the ground and threw them at the outer edges of the field, accompanied by strange shouts and provocative hip-swaying movements.
The already irritable temper of the Ironhide Pig was completely ignited.
The massive herd of pigs split in two, each targeting a different enemy on either side, and launched a mass charge from the edge of the farmland. The combined mass of dozens of heavily armored beasts shook the earth beneath their iron hooves.
The two groups of half-naked decoys turned and ran, gritting their teeth and sprinting in each other's direction.
Before this crazy clash began, the abandoned irrigation ditch that served as a shelter had actually been secretly modified by a few guys who knew a little about construction.
The silt at the bottom was removed, and the earthen walls on both sides were tamped down with shovels to ensure that the depth was just enough to allow an adult to lie down flat without being buried alive by the heavy corpse that collapsed above.
The distance between the two sides is rapidly closing.
Fifty meters.
Thirty meters.
ten meters.
Just as the two groups were about to collide and turn into a bloody mess, the whole roasted lamb standing on the high place blew the bone whistle in its mouth.
A sharp whistle pierced the sky.
In the same second, all the baits that were running wildly lunged forward in unison, landing firmly in the ditch in the middle of the farmland.
Having lost their target, the beast herds on the left and right were met with an irreversible and devastating collision.
A muffled thud tore through the plains as the two moving mountains of steel collided in the most primal way. The beasts at the center of the impact had their skulls crushed and shattered.
On the watchtower surrounding the farmland, Helina, the archer village's mentor, gripped her bowstring tightly. Half an hour earlier, when she saw these outsiders, not even wearing leather armor, attempting to provoke the entire armored boar herd, she almost thought they had all gone mad.
She had even ordered the archers accompanying her to prepare for a barrage of fire, in an attempt to save a few lives from the horde of beasts.
However, what was happening before his eyes caused this seasoned swordsman's mind to shut down.
She watched helplessly as the necks of the first few monsters in the front row snapped in the collision; the sound of breaking bones drowned out the wind and traveled clearly to the top of the tower.
The immense inertia caused the corpses to pile up into mounds, while the beast horde behind them, due to the chain reaction of collisions, completely descended into a state of violent chaos.
Monsters with broken legs, blind eyes, and internal bleeding from being knocked down by their own kind huddled together, completely losing their minds, and began to tear and trample each other in place.
The young militiamen behind Herina stared wide-eyed at the unbelievable scene before them. In the indigenous people's traditional beliefs, hunting was a ritual full of honor and martial virtue, requiring a fair fight with the prey. But the group of outsiders below, in a despicable yet efficient manner, had turned these monsters, which normally required several elite squads to barely hold off, into a pile of worthless rotten flesh.
For the thugs lurking at the bottom of the ditch, this was a hellish disaster.
Less than half a meter above their heads, heavy iron hooves pounded wildly. Warm, foul-smelling blood mixed with chunks of flesh rained down on their bare backs. If they raised their heads even slightly, their skulls would be crushed.
However, within this suffocating cage of flesh and blood, no fear of death could be heard.
Covered in mud and blood, the road-building pioneers, braving the falling debris, desperately shouted at the top of their lungs towards their boss on the distant high ground, trying to negotiate terms:
"Whole roasted lamb! The experiment was a success! At least fifty lambs were killed in that crash!"
The heavy hoof nearly grazed his scalp, but instead of flinching, he shouted even louder:
"But we can't get out now! We're about to be trampled into mincemeat! This has to be considered a full workers' compensation!"
"If you don't reimburse me for the credits I need to revive, I'll post about you online as soon as I log off!"
On the distant tower, Herina twitched her elven ears, clearly catching the roars coming from the bottom of the ravine. She had expected to hear pitiful wails and dying prayers. Instead, these blood-soaked, life-threatening creatures were actually bargaining with their leader, who was watching from the mound?
What kind of weirdos did this new archer bring over?
These refugees are not even afraid of death; their minds are filled with only a strange term called "work injury reimbursement."
This is so strange...