Golden Experience

Chapter 76: “Bonus Stage Redux”

They finished making the entrance to the underground water vein before the event began. They were also able to widen the opening to be as big as the cave itself.

“With a hole this wide, it should be able to fit tons of people at the same time. Allllll riiiiight! Let’s go, everyone!”

“Wait; it would be best to wear a mantle. It would be bothersome if the sun were to rise while you were out. The spartoi would only become somewhat sluggish, but you have not become a daywalker yet. You may not be able to find a roof under which to recuperate every day. In particular, since you do not plan ahead, I cannot help but envision you crumbling into dust in the middle of the wasteland.”

As Blanc accepted the mantle from the count, she could almost taste the pathetic tears she was shedding in her mind as she found out how little he trusted her. But now, she could say that her preparations were perfect!

“Okay, time to go! The event lasts one we… ten days, so after taking out the first town, I’ll hit the road and see how many more human cities I can smash up over the next ten days!”

“Indeed. Remember to be careful of the sun.”

“The way you say that is like telling me to look both ways before crossing the street or something.”

That evening, as soon as the sun set, Blanc set out in high spirits. Her first stop: a human city.

“Now that I think about it, I guess this’ll be the first time I run into people on the human side, right? Since I’m gonna try to kill everyone I meet, I think I’ve also become pretty monster-like, haven’t I!”

The mormos flanking her smiled helplessly. When the count and butler weren’t around, Blanc shot up to the top of the dunce rankings and the mormos were now at the bottom, so they calmed down considerably.

The group exited through the cave entrance that the spartoi had created then followed the river downstream. The ones in charge of the spartoi squad were the original three spartoi. They were the ones who had been given names, so Blanc gave them the reins. In addition, since they were the first, Blanc had been more gung-ho about investing XP into them, so their stats were also higher than all the others.

Spartoi didn’t get fatigued, so they didn’t need to take breaks. They didn’t require food either, so they also didn’t produce excrement. They didn’t even need equipment to weather the elements. They had minimal gear; more accurately, they were as naked as could be. Therefore, their marching speed was extraordinary. As a result, the journey was as smooth as could be, and before long they spotted a city in the distance.

The event should have begun that morning in the game. In other words, it had been a bit over half a day since starting. However, the town seemed quiet, and there were no lights to be seen. It didn’t seem like any other monsters had attacked it. The fact that there were no lights meant that in order to save on fuel, the residents had simply developed a habit of going to sleep as soon as it got dark outside.

Just as the count said, this city didn’t have anything protecting it like a wall. Blanc saw a single dim light up in the air, which must have been from a guard tower or something of the sort. As they got closer, she also occasionally saw lights moving in the city, which were probably guards on night patrol.

Since Blanc just let her forces continue to leisurely approach the city, she saw the light at the top of the wooden structure she assumed was a patrol tower begin to move around frantically. Soon after, a bell rang out, and the lights inside the city started to gather at the edge of the city in Blanc’s direction. It appeared that they had been spotted.

“Well, we’ve got a huge group of red skeletons here heading for the city, so of course they’d notice…”

The mormos looked at Blanc with eyes filled with pity.

“Don’t look at me like that! Come on, could we really have done anything about this? It was completely unavoidable, seriously!”

What she said wasn’t complete nonsense; the humans had a completely unobstructed view of the riverbank, and there weren’t many ways for Blanc’s forces to have stayed hidden while marching.

“Putting us aside, couldn’t the spartoi have marched in the river? Since they were originally lizardmen, that should have been doable…”

“…Ah.”

But it was already too late now. Carmine, the one who spoke up, only seemed to have realized it just then anyway, so this wasn’t only Blanc’s blunder. Had that capable butler been here, he most certainly would have interjected with a “if I may be so bold” before they reached the town.

“The butler isn’t here right now, leave him out of this!”

“I didn’t even say anything!!!”

Blanc and her followers could more or less understand each other without speaking a single word. That’s because when the mormos had still been bats, they all had spent so much time communicating nonverbally. Now that they could converse, though, it seemed that there wasn’t really all that much merit to it.

“Well, either way, they’ve already spotted us, so it doesn’t matter! All right, you lot! Take care of ’em!”^[1]

This was one of those famous lines Blanc really wanted to say once in her life. Normally, she would never be in a situation where she could say something like that in such a brazen manner, so getting to do it here was truly exhilarating.

At Blanc’s order, the spartoi began to run toward the city. The patrol squad milled about in confusion, uncertain if they should flee or intercept, whether they should prioritize defending or retreating. It seemed that these guards weren’t terribly experienced.

“This really is like a beginner level. Doesn’t it look like we’ll win even without any kind of plan?”

“If you had a plan, then it would have been best if you had explained it before you ordered the charge…”

“Nah, I didn’t have one, that’s why I was like ‘phew!’”

“…”

Blanc and the mormos left the fighting to the spartoi and just observed. Since it would be catastrophic if by some freak accident Blanc were to die, the mormos, the count, and even the butler urged her to never engage directly in combat. The mormos had also determined that the spartoi by themselves would already be more than sufficient to destroy a city of this size, so they didn’t intend to lift a finger.

“Ooh, I’m getting good XP from this. They’re all so weak, so I wonder why? Isn’t this more than I get from lizardmen? Could this be like a bonus stage?”

Broadly speaking, Blanc’s guess wasn’t actually wrong. First, she was getting bonus XP from the event. Second, since human races tended to be equipped with weapons or farming tools, that also made them worth a bit more XP. So for monster players, this invasion event could really be considered a kind of freebie.

In the previous battle royale event, almost no players with monster races had participated. The main reason why was timing; there hadn’t been that much time since the game’s official launch, and monster players had an exceptionally difficult early game compared to human races. They were almost always completely surrounded by enemies, and unlike the inns in a town, safe zones in the wild didn’t come with a convenient signboard. Even the lucky ones who could establish a base and start earning XP didn’t have a way to sell materials or buy new equipment in order to strengthen themselves materially. These demerits were offset by their starting bonus XP, but even after factoring that in, it would be difficult to outpace human-race players who were able to progress much more efficiently.

Since the event type had been changed in a rush, the players who had chosen to be monsters felt resignation, since there was nothing they could do about it, but also more than a little dissatisfaction. This was partially offset by the battle royale awarding no XP and participants not receiving much in terms of item rewards, though, so there wasn’t very much outspoken criticism online.

Partially as a result of that lingering sense of discontent, the underlying goal of this event was to get all players to participate, which was how this large-scale battle was conceived. But it wasn’t just that any player could join, they were essentially forced to, given that the event affected the entire world. To compensate for that, the death penalty was changed for the event so players wouldn’t lose XP.

NPCs couldn’t tell monster players apart from regular monsters, so those players could blend in during invasions to kill as many NPC residents as they could to earn XP. Townsfolk didn’t have equipment so they were worth less XP than a soldier was, but the human races tended to be less belligerent, so individuals were generally weaker than monsters of an equivalent rank. It was somewhat balanced, in other words. As far as the soldiers went, players who had farmed a bit of experience in the early game could grind town guards for XP with no problem. Since this doubled as a way to obtain weapons and armor, many players proactively looked for soldiers to kill.

However, if they participated in a poorly planned invasion of a walled city, it was possible they would encounter well-geared players who had sided with the defenders. These players were much stronger than the average town guard was. What was most important for a monster player during this event was to ascertain whether a city was likely to have any player defenders, and thus how to go about grinding XP in the most efficient way possible.

That said, Blanc didn’t need to worry about any of that given the city she was assaulting. There was no city wall, so she didn’t need to consider siege tactics. There were nearly no players, so there was no chance of a stunning reversal. The biggest threat was the town guard, but as she had already seen, they were already faltering to the spartoi’s fierce attack.

Just as Blanc said, it was a bonus stage.

^[1]: ????? ????????A famous catchphrase by the Yatterman villain Doronjo. Still gets referenced occasionally.

/watch?v=KxccZJ8qL8U