Loser System and Berserker Me

Chapter 135: A Slave No More

?My host!!!?

System 12345 spent some time reading the details of the capture targets before picking out what it believed to be an ideal target.

?Doo doo doot doo doo!!! Asudo~?

System 12345 sent a portrait over. It was a ‘young woman’ with adorable dimples, wearing a flower wreath on her head.

?This femme fatale is different from the ones before. This is the classical character who stumbles into all sorts of tragedies, a beautiful trap! Ehehehe!?

Had it been in the past, System 12345 definitely wouldn’t have brought this character up as a capture target, but its host this time didn’t seem to be bothered by whether the capture target was a man or a woman…

He takes them down all the same!

?Asudo sees himself a man in his heart, but as an archmage’s disciple, he has no choice but to don a woman’s clothes.?

System 12345 chuckled under its breath.

?My host, since you’re already building a harem, why don’t you catch 'em all? Making a trap realize his innermost wish to be a woman… don’t you think that will be interesting??

?My host, find a chance to feed him that medicine, then crush her will with your indomitable strength and make her submit! Make her realize that her wits and wisdom are futile in the face of absolute tyranny!?

?No matter how sharp-witted and flexible she is, it crumbles before assault! Her glib tongue won’t save her here. Tears of humiliation brim in her eyes as you pierce through her defenses and corner her into submission… Ah!?

?Cough cough, cough cough!?

Realizing that its imagination had gone overboard, System 12345 quickly reeled itself back in to issue the mission.

?Conquest Target: Asudo?

?Description: My clothes might be unusual, but I really am a man!?

?Requirement: Achieve a loyalty of 100?

?Reward: Heart of Sentimentality. This is a unique item that can imbue special properties to an item. Perhaps you can build a divine artifact out of it??

It also indicated Asudo’s whereabouts on the minimap, as well as inconspicuous locations suited for assaulting and educating the femme fatale…

…

In Shule, two teams wielding torches gathered together.

“Abbot Palkyi!” Zeng Lu greeted him with a bow.

“Thank you.”

Abbot Palkyi had spirited eyes as he moved prayer beads in his hand. He seemed to be glowing in a Buddhist light, and he was accompanied by many armed samaneras.

“Benefactor, please dispense with the ceremony. Today’s feat is the Buddha’s will too.”

Both sides nodded. They first gathered their troops together before dispatching them to the key Tibetans’ outposts to continue their attack.

…

Several attacks later, Zeng Lu, with a bloody sword in grasp, asked in confusion, “Abbot Palkyi, there’s something amiss about the Tibetans’ defense…”

“I feel the same too.” Abbot Palkyi nodded.

Some of the less important outposts had brittle defense; those were overrun with a single charge. However, the more important outposts were heavily defended; they remained unfazed no matter how they were attacked.

Take the city gates for example, their defenses remained impregnable despite not having erected the barriers.

Of course, crucial infrastructure was bound to be heavily defended, and rebels like them weren’t armed well enough to face a proper army in a direct confrontation, but…

It felt like they were being strung along.

If that’s the case… could it be that the Tibetans were prepared for their attack?

They knew that we would cause trouble tonight and made preparations in advance. They are waiting for us to reveal ourselves, and everything that has happened today is just a trap they have laid to hunt us down.

Zeng Lu and Abbot Palkyi came to the same conclusion, but neither dared to voice it aloud. They were reluctant to consider that possibility.

For more than a decade, they had schemed to restore Great Tang’s borders. Was it all going to be popped like a transient bubble?

That was not an outcome they could accept.

“Let’s attack the City Lord Manor!”

The two of them decided after a moment of thought. They figured that regardless of whether it was a trap or not, it would be their victory if they breached the City Lord Manor.

“My thoughts exactly.” Zeng Lu nodded. He raised his sword and roared with an old but passionate voice, “Brothers, follow me! We shall raze down the City Lord Manor and kill those reprehensible barbarians who trample on us!”

But when the rebels reached the City Lord Manor, Zeng Lu’s heart skipped a beat.

A huge army was already gathered around the City Lord Manor.

There were forbidding forest snipers, heavy-armored Tibetan soldiers, black-robed mages, and imposing war slaves who were armed from head to toe, revealing only their eyes…

“…” The rebels were intimidated.

They were familiar with the war slaves’ might. The City Lord Manor would be terribly difficult to siege under their guard. They would have to suffer heavy casualties to make their way in.

This made them hesitate.

“Hmph!”

The armored vice city lord walked up onto one of the sentry towers and immediately recognized the two rebel leaders. He looked at Zeng Lu and shouted, “Bunakpa! We have treated you well, but this is how you repay us? Listen up! We have known about your rebellion all along, and it is doomed to end in failure! Now…

“You bunch of people are birds trapped in a cage, wild pigs inside a pit! Lay down your weapons and surrender right away, and I might spare you darned slaves out of generosity on my part!”

“Fuck you!” Zeng Lu’s heart had chilled at the sight of the vice city lord, but the latter’s words agitated him. “Who is Bunakpa?! I am Zeng Lu, a Han man!”

The old man glared at the Tibetans with a savage face and reddened eyes. “Who are you calling slaves? What gives you barbarians the right to trample on us?!”

His words evoked unity among the rebels, who had gotten flustered at the sight of the army before them. They glared at the enemy with hateful eyes.

The Tibetans had always been impartial to the foreign races living under their rule; they wouldn’t shy away from exerting utmost tyranny on you because you were from a certain race or tribe.

“…” The vice city lord sensed that he had done something dumb, seeing how his words had only riled up the rebels, raising their morale and fighting will.

Thus, he quickly turned to Abbot Palkyi and roared, “Abbot, our empire has always respected you. We even conferred you the title of a scholar! Yet, you fanned your believers into staging a rebellion! You ungrateful bastard!”

Abbot Palkyi didn’t answer the question. Instead, he turned to one of the one-eyed samaneras and asked, “How did you lose your eye?”

The samanera clenched his jaws and replied, “I merely glanced at a Tibetan while herding my sheep, and they dug out my eye saying that I have tainted their eyes. If not for you pleading on my behalf, I would have lost both eyes!”

Abbot Palkyi turned to another one-armed samanera and asked, “How did you lose your arm?”

The samanera’s nose twitched, looking almost like an angry rabbit. “I merely whipped a cow, and the patriarch immediately chopped it off under the claims that I have spoiled his property.”

Abbot Palkyi turned to one of the younger samaneras. There was no need for him to ask the same question.

The samanera burst into tears and cried, “My parents had gotten old. The barbarians said that they were no longer useful, so they dragged them and buried them alive!”

Those words riled up the crowd.

Abbot Palkyi turned back to the vice city lord and said, “Such is the suffering. What wrong have they done to deserve such tyranny?!”

He placed his hands together and chanted, “Amithabha.”

Feeling the nearly tangible anger in the air, reminiscent of a volcano on the verge of eruption, Zeng Lu raised his sword up high. “Brothers, charge with me! Kill those barbarians!”

“CHARGE!!!”

The rebels charged toward the City Lord Manor with utmost rage.