Golden Experience

Just a bit ago, Blanc had obtained three mormos and three spartoi, and the count tried to persuade her to attack a city.

Oh right, that sounds fun! she had thought for a second, but then immediately changed her mind. Blanc didn’t know how many times she had died because of naive thoughts like that. It wouldn’t hurt to be just a little more careful this time. Plus, there was one thing different from back when she was a skeleton: Blanc’s life was no longer just her own. She now had followers. What the count had said was that if the master, Blanc, died, then her followers would also die. She didn’t know if they would then respawn along with her, but she couldn’t bring herself to try and see what would happen.

Just a bit more; just a little bit more; just in case; just in case for the previous just in case. This was how she slowly, slooooowly gathered XP and strengthened her followers, rinse and repeat, and at some point she had added another thirty spartoi to her forces. She had gotten scolded by the count for that, but since they seemed to get along with his zombies, they all ended up patrolling the castle together.

Blanc didn’t create any more mormos aside from her original three, but the count followed in Blanc’s footsteps and [Subordinated] some bats from somewhere. Now, he had a handsome butler who always served at his side; this was the mormo that the count had reincarnated. This butler was insanely capable, so much more so than Blanc that it made Azalea and the other girls look like dunces. In combat, they were all about equally powerful, but when it came to their ability as servants, the mormo girls tried hard to take care of Blanc, but the butler would usually anticipate her needs and have everything prepared before they even got started. Plus, since the butler was the count’s follower, he only ever served Blanc after his master’s needs were already completely fulfilled.

Then, he would always drop this stinger: “Even though you three were also here.”

Whenever that happened, the three girls would grind their teeth, frustrated, then take over Blanc’s bed and cry into her pillows.

The days passed uneventfully as Blanc focused on steadily strengthening her forces until she received the event notification and snapped out of her XP-earning fugue.

Plus, this event was going to be an invasion, a large-scale battle between monsters attacking cities and humans defending them. This was the ideal push Blanc needed to muster up the will to go a-conquering.

“Coach! I’m gonna attack a city, so gimme some pointers!”

“Your spontaneity is at full strength, I see! Attacking a city, is it? Hmm, ‘pointers’…”

“Oh, well, it was the first suggestion you gave me, and I know I’ve been dragging my feet on it, but I’m finally ready to give it a shot!”

“Nay, for those of us with eternal life, time holds no meaning, but… If you are to march on a city, I take it you will be bringing those spartoi?”

“Yeah, probs. This’s why I made a lot more friends, after all.”

At that, the count tapped his finger on his well-chiseled chin and fell into thought. It was quite a rare thing to see him do.

“Is there something bad about that?”

“There is nothing quite ‘bad,’ but… I am sure you have also realized—or, well, it is very possible you have not, but this castle is high up in altitude, in the so-called highlands. There is a city that shares these highlands with us, but it was destroyed when this area became raised, so only those ruins remain and there is no point in assaulting it. Therefore you would naturally target a city in the lower world instead, but I want to know how you will get all those spartoi to the lower world.”

Blanc quickly realized, Oh, this is some kind of backstory, so she decided not to pay too much attention and just waited for the count to finish his explanation. The count was also expecting Blanc to reply, but after realizing she was spacing out and thus wasn’t likely to respond, he gave a deep sigh and continued on.

“Here now. You know the water vein underneath the castle, correct? There is a river that goes through a wasteland in the lower world. The water vein is its source; it flows underground through cracks in the rocks and into that river. This is how you can get outside.”

If what the count said was true, then why did the lizardmen get stronger the further she went downstream from the underground lake? Blanc had been pretty certain that it was because they had moved from the outside to the underground caves, and the weaker ones were forced to settle deeper into the caves, but apparently she had been wrong.

When she asked the count about this, apparently they had already been living there long before he found out about them. Since the only sources of food around the underground lake were little bits of moss and some small fish, there just wasn’t enough to sustain lizardmen. Sometimes larger fish would swim upstream through the cracks in the rock and reach the underground caves, so that’s why all the stronger lizardmen hogged the spots downstream.

“Well, even I do not know why those reptiles developed that kind of classist society. Either way, you are the one who turned the healthiest of the lizards into your red skeletons, so there is little value in expressing curiosity now.”

Yeah, he wasn’t wrong about that. However, if going through the underground water vein didn’t end up working, then they had no way to get down to the surface. Wondering what she should do, Blanc crossed her arms and groaned.

“If I may be so bold, I would like to offer a proposal.”

The butler at the count’s side stepped forward and bowed.

“What is it? You may speak.”

“Thank you, my lord. With Mistress Blanc’s power, I had the foolish idea that her magic prowess could be used to widen the cavern running alongside the underground water vein. Is this paltry suggestion of any use?”

True, with Blanc’s stats, it would be easy to tear down some stone walls. However, if she used too much force, it could cause a cave-in, which would be a huge pain.

“It is of some worth… However, it is also risky. If you would like to attempt it, then your mormo followers should be the one to execute it.”

“Or like, if we had pickaxes, we could just throw a bunch of people into it and dig our way outta there.”

She proposed using pure manpower instead, but in reality the caves only had enough room for a few spartoi to excavate at the same time. Humans would get tired, so they would have to be switched out periodically, but undead didn’t feel fatigue, so that part would be unnecessary.

“Pickaxes? I see. If we have an excess of laborers, then simply digging would be the best solution.”

“Do you have any pickaxes?”

“What foolishness are you spouting? Your spartoi have claws that are far harder than iron.”

Oh, right. Spartoi were actually pretty high-ranked undead, after all. Blanc found the spartoi who were talking to the zombies in the castle—or at least it just looked like they were talking; in actuality, none of them should be capable of speaking, so she had no idea what they did together—and ordered them to go underground, find where the water was flowing out of the caves, and expand the hole. It’d be nice to just make it really wide, but there wasn’t that much time until the event started. For the time being, she decided that a human-sized hole was good enough, and anything bigger than that was icing.

“So is that the wasteland? Will I find a city if I go out there?”

“If you travel along the river, you should come upon one. There are no monster territories in this wasteland, no forces for humans to fear. If I had to name something, then there is my castle, but before now there was no passage to the lower world from it. Therefore, this city does not have a wall, at least not like the ones around cities that are founded near monster territories. It is a base that is easy to assault and hard to defend, essentially. Well, if you only plan to destroy it, then it is convenient for you that it is difficult to defend.”

“Gotcha! Nice! If there aren’t any monster territories nearby, then there shouldn’t be anyone used to fighting monsters like play— uhh, I mean, sellswords I think they’re called?— people like that there, so this’ll be perfect as a tutorial!”

“A too— what? No, I care not. If that is your target, then the spartoi should… hm, you do not need this many. You should be able to claim victory with just a few spartoi.”

“They’re the just in case for the just in case! If we’re so much stronger than they are, then there’s no way I’d die, right?!”

“If I may be so bold, those words would have been better left unspoken…” the butler lamented.

[Developer]

: wouldnt it have been better if we set up at the start that pcs got inventories and npcs didnt?

[Developer Support AI]: PCs were given the same basic structure as the NPCs that already existed within the game to minimize the introduction of bugs, so changing that would have meant that we would be unable to release the game. It is also unrealistic to apply a patch to the billions of existing NPCs.

[Developer]: you got a point…i think

[Developer Support AI]: However, if this was explained to the playerbase, then the number of NPCs capable of using inventories would increase. If any of them were to travel into the world, there is a possibility that it could cause an inventory pandemic, so this information should be concealed as much as possible.

[Developer]: we shoulda just changed the specs

[Developer Support AI]: That would be illogical.

[Developer]: you just dont wanna do it cuz its a pain, right?

[Developer Support AI]: Self-diagnostic results: Emotive fluctuation values are within the permissible range.

[Developer]: you jus thought it was a pain in the ass, didnt you!!!

This has been the Useless Unit.

TL notes:

Yes, the chapter title is (probably) a Smash reference. ブラン参戦 —> Blanc Joins the Battle

I’m not 100% sure what the last bit is, maybe the author addressing that short story from the last chapter and the comments they got from it?