A Rattling Monster

Silence follows that sentence. The man that was asking me to come inside is confounded. I bet he doesn't expect that someone will totally disregard the words of his leader and say that he will kill them in broad daylight. And the bandits holding the shields neither. But fortunately for me, my skeletons warriors have no thoughts like that, preventing them to do their job. The moment number one say my sentence, they immediately try to hack the shield wall in pieces. And that small period where the humans are not concentrated enough is sufficient.

Two are already dead and another one is injured. The two remaining are now under the assault of my entire army. Blood is spilled on the ground and nothing that they are doing is preventing more to come. A few seconds later, five dead bodies are laying on the ground, their shield broken and their leather armors are torn apart. The five bandits were clearly abandoned by the rest of the gang. The door is now closed and I can see some movements near the different windows. The glass is broken, letting the crossbows take its place and granting a direct vision for the magicians hiding inside.

As for the crowd, after the first casualty, everyone has fled. Beggars, passer-by, members of the others gangs or even the guards. What will happen here and right now is the problem of Shadow and his problem alone? As for helping him or warning the guard? Well, the guards have seen what happen and decided it was not their business, so that solution is not possible anymore. And helping a soon to be a dead man, that brings no profits or anything. Only a lot of danger, because I am now officially a magician capable of destroying bolts with my mind alone. And it is just the first thing that they have seen me doing.

But now, I am facing a fortress, with a locked door and a garrison. Seeing the fact that number one is incapable of breaking in, I am forced to make another move. Good thing that this house was quite far from my weapons stash, that way, I still have enough mana to cast some spells. I lightly approach the door and inspect it. It is not a usual door, it was reinforced with many iron nails and a reinforced plank of woods. Only with a real battering ram can it be taken down with conventional means. Otherwise, it is just wasting the energy of the assailants. But that's nothing to me. But before this, I knock three times on the door, like I am a guest wanting to enter. I expected an answer or a reaction but was disappointed. Nothing came out.

But before melting it and getting completely exposed to anything behind it, I cast [Nightfall] on the door. And finally, after using it a lot recently, the spell gains another level. I still haven't see the limits of it, and still don't really know what will be improved. But the joy of getting something better is still present.

TCHONG

Oh, someone releases a bolt. Too bad, the door is strong enough to not even move after that. So, piercing it and hitting me is even less realistic. But I guess that he thought the sudden shadows that appeared have removed the sturdy door. That's not the case but I still have to be careful about a sudden reaction like that. I ask my four skeletons warriors to step aside and don't be on the trajectory of whatever will come out of the house. Then, I release my acid once again melting a door. This time, however, it is barely a second longer than my usual melting. That makes sense, normally the front door is the strongest and I never really entered a building by its main entrance. Those not so sweet memories of eating wood and digging into a weak wooden wall. Blargh. Just thinking of that makes me taste that horrible thing again.

By now, the door is already gone and I just need to prepare my next step. And no matter how I call Oslo, that lazy god doesn't answer me.

(I can hear you, but like I said I take my holidays and that means today, except the location of the house, you have no help from me. You know I still have a planet to manage and something have been done that I need to fix. And I trust you to not die, maybe not succeed, but you are the most cowardly Hero of the universe. So good luck.)

Can I at least know how many people are inside? No? Just an approximation? God of Holidays? Apparently, he doesn't even bother to answer now. That means something quite big happened on Forslo. I wonder what, I just hope that will not make him any weaker than he already is. If I lost my godly detection and tracking device, the road will be a lot harder than I supposed. And now I am kind of blind and in front of a little army, I have no idea how I should kill it. God of Betrayal, that what his name is.

The funny thing is the lack of counterattack coming from the bandit den. I mean, I know they have magicians, and I know that they have a huge firepower, just thinking about the number of spells they threw at me back at Ronta. So why, inside Atria, I have never seen a magician attack. They only defend themselves, mostly with their magic shields. One of the reason could have been that they never saw me, and during my night assault, it was true. But today, I was clearly alone and in front of them, so why no one threw a fireball at me or even something weaker? Just a simple spell, but nothing was cast. Maybe there is a rule saying that nothing harmful should be provoked by a magician, or maybe they are hunted by the authorities and if they cast something, they will be found.

Such a rule would make sense, especially in a fantasy world. You can't expect to have a standard and civilized society without some basic rules preventing accidents. Like a magician losing control of his spell and devastating an entire district. But the people still fear the might of a magician, seeing how everyone quickly get away the moment they realized that I was one. That probably means that if the spells created by a magician are accurate and doesn't hurt some innocents, the guards will maybe close their eyes. Well, that's good for me, I never miss a single spell. But for the others, in such a restricted environment, inside a house, and with more bandits than enemies, they have to be careful. And therefore, will rely more on the crossbows that are extremely good short to mid-range weapons instead of the unreliable magic.

If only I had Oslo, I wouldn't have to think about such things. Now, it has been twenty seconds since I melted the door, and I can hear behind the wall of shadows someone talking. Not to me, but to the others. I can't really understand what he is saying. But I still don't know what is behind my spell. So let's create another shadow. I create a silhouette with [Nightfall] that looks like me. And then, I move it behind the wall that I created.

THONG TCHONG TLOUNG

Wow. Looking at all the bolts stuck on the ground behind me, I would say at least twelve, no thirteen people fired. And maybe some didn't, but now it's time for me to enter before they reload. That's the main issue with such weapons, very good penetration, dealing a lot of injuries to his target, accurate at a close distance, but unreliable past a point and slow to reload. I activate my aura and enter, asking all my skeletons to follow my lead. Only number one is inside my aura, but my control over it is increasing, I think. I really have to train that. What I see in front of me in a very long corridor, with multiple bandits, protected by many open doors and reversed table. Only a few are still targeting me, the rest are desperately trying to reload. Near two groups, I can see the particles meaning a shield is surrounding them. The magicians are not in sight, and the man that talked to me before is in one of the groups.

At my arrival, everyone stops for a fraction of second, looking at me. They still are trying to figure out whether or not I am another of those shadows, a doppelganger without substance. Only after seeing my skeletons appearance and them breaking the weak walls inside the house, do they realize the true threat is near them. As for me, since there is no danger, I cancel my aura. No need to waste any mana. Seeing two big holes inside the walls at my flank, I know that my undead servants have infiltrated the house and are no longer an easy target for the crossbows. As for me, I stay here, capturing all their attention, diverting them from the undead. I see some of the closest criminals drop their weapons and unsheathe their swords. Now the true battle is starting.