Chapter 350. Undead Disposal.

  My preparations began with activating my new weapon, the Ghost Archer’s Crossbow. The crossbow appeared, a translucent image of a weapon that floated just above my right shoulder. I could feel a connection with it, and I willed it a bit higher so it wouldn’t get in the way or distract me. It only had five shots, but from the original description, it should be accurate enough for what I needed against the undead.

  The 25-mana cost for the crossbow was hefty, but even with the reduced regeneration brought about by the necrotic energy permeating this world, I would be fine. Next up, I cast Duplicate on the drone. I had a feeling the undead wouldn’t be able to crack through its armor and having two of them was probably the way to go.

  Once the two drones were up and running, I activated Rodney’s Bag of Beasts. Fingers crossed, I reached in and pulled out an honest to goodness panther with sleek, black fur, and an impressive set of teeth and claws. Finally, after rats and small harmless animals only seen on Animal Planet, I had something that should hold its own in a fight. Targeting the nearest foes, the panther sprinted toward the undead in the distance.

  Before the panther drew their attention, I also activated the Portal of the Cackle and watched as the first gnoll emerged and charged after the much faster panther. There was also the pouch with the hydra teeth, but there was only a single tooth inside, the others still hadn’t regenerated after I used them all to help Silas. Still, every minion counted we were facing off against over 200 foes, far more than the contract had stated, so I activated the tooth.

  Unlike the monstrous creature with multiple heads, the single tooth only summoned a hydra the size of a large dog with a single head. Still, it had a mouth full of deadly teeth, and thick scales to protect it. Lumbering off after the panther and the gnolls, the hydra joined the fight. Having seen a menagerie of living creatures heading toward them, the undead walking their endless circles in the field finally reacted.

  As one, the swarm of undead turned toward the panther and other creatures strung out behind it. Shambling forward at a sedate, but inexorable pace, the undead moved toward the living flesh. I thanked the system that they weren’t the fast undead from some of the movies I’d seen. A horde of slow shamblers was fine with me.

  “We’ll let the others soften them up, then engage at range. Use your grenades, then the plasma beams when they get closer,” I ordered my team. I could command them with a thought, but I found that, sometimes, it just felt better to give the orders verbally.

  Both drones rotated their grenade launchers toward the horde, which were a few hundred yards away still. Elida had her sling, but none of our weapons were in range yet. I sent a mental reminder for them to go for head shots if possible. Grenades were a different story, and I had high hopes they would blast a good chunk of our foes apart, leaving them perhaps still animated, but much less of a threat.

  In the distance, the puma jumped high and hit the lead zombie in the chest. This zombie looked like it had been partially burnt, maybe in the fire that consumed the field and village. The clothes on the right side of its body were just singed remnants, and its flesh on that side was also blackened and sloughing off.

  Unfortunately for my puma, which landed in a flurry of claws and bites, the burnt flesh did little to dissuade the zombie from tearing and biting at the large cat. The puma wasn’t intelligent enough for me to have it target the zombie’s head, so all I could do was watch as it clawed the zombie’s flesh, but in return was bitten and torn apart by the undead. In a puff of mana vapor, the puma was gone.

  Right on the heels of the puma was the first of ten gnolls. The gnolls summoned by the portal were unarmored and only held simple weapons, most spawning with hand axes or shortswords. Despite their poor gear and tier zero, rank five stats, the gnolls were able to receive limited commands. I ordered them to go for the head, which is exactly what they did.

  At first, the gnolls held out well enough, another arriving every 30 seconds, and the hydra soon joining them in the fight. The first gnoll, armed with a hand axe slammed it into the head of the zombie that had killed the puma. That did the job, and the zombie collapsed in a heap. One after another, the zombies fell, but I couldn’t get the gnolls to back away after each kill, and the undead began to encircle them.

  The gnolls and hydra were unable to defend themselves on all sides and my small army of minions dissipated back into mana vapor. If the zombies were angered by their meal disappearing, they showed no signs, and instead, shambled their way toward the only living things in sight, me, Elida, and the rifleman.

  I was pretty sure the drones, with their mechanical bodies, weren’t going to be on the menu, so I ordered them forward to engage the zombie horde. They would stay just within range of our healing magic, but the gap would give me and Elida some time to react if things went sideways. The drones opened up with their grenade launchers, and high explosive rounds began to blast into the ranks of undead.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  I felt a bit of relief as each grenade did its work, the fragments killing many of my enemies outright as they pierced through undead skulls. Others had limbs or parts of their bodies removed and would fall behind the horde, becoming easy targets if we could deal with the main force of undead.

  When the horde walked out of the blast zone, I estimated that between the gnolls and grenades, we had culled fifty or so undead. Next up were the plasma beams. Brilliant light lanced out from each drone, burning through the ranks of undead. The first few seconds, the beams cut zombies in half, up to two ranks behind the lead monsters. My drones then adjusted their fire, sweeping through the enemy at head height.

  It was only ten seconds of fire, but at the end of it, the plasma beams had done even better than the grenades, and about half the horde was now down, or incapacitated to some degree. Crafting crossbows for their smaller pair of arms to manipulate, the pair of drones began an accurate ranged fire with the weapons. I dropped a Health Bloom over the pair, my healing magic allowing them to replenish the material in their bodies that they were using to create ammunition.

  The rifleman was also in action now and round after round banged out of his weapon. Initially, head shots were few, but the rifleman’s accuracy would improve as the range shortened. He had his pouch of fifty cartridges and the weapon’s slow rate of fire would make that last him for some time.

  Just before the undead reached melee range with the drones, I activated the version of the plasma weapon that I’d gained from the Summoner’s Share ability. My beam was less powerful, and difficult to aim, but I managed to take down a solid half-dozen foes. There was no plasma weapon appearing on my shoulder like what was mounted on the drones. Instead, my beam just originated from above my head and targeted where I looked.

  My Ghost Archer Crossbow also began to fire, loosing a bolt every few seconds. Unlike my aim, the ghostly force animating the crossbow was an expert, and every one of its five bolts were head shots. As the last bolt fired, the crossbow fell to the ground next to me and slowly dissipated. I had a moment of worry as it disappeared, but I could feel it was still there, in my pack, and would be ready for me to call upon it again once its power was restored.

  Elida began to fire sling stones, and the drones reabsorbed their crossbows and generated maces for their pair of smaller hands to wield. The zombies completely ignored the drones, which were now tearing through the surviving undead like a walking blender. Each of their four arms were deadly weapons, and a kick from the drone could shatter the chest of any zombie it struck.

  Despite the devastation my drones were causing, the zombies didn’t veer from their target, slowly closing the gap between us. I fired off all ten charges in my magic missile wand, landing three killing blows and doing minor damage with the other hits. As the distance closed to twenty feet, I ordered Elida and the rifleman to pull back. We were easily able to outpace the undead, and I led them around the edge of the forest, keeping safely out of range while the drones did most of the heavy lifting.

  Ten minutes after the fight began, the last zombie was down and the drones were walking among the fallen, ensuring none were still functional. With the threat dealt with, I headed toward the center of the field to see what had attracted the undead’s attention. It was a lump of burnt, and mostly melted metal. The overall shape was a barrel-like cylinder.

  A strange, green slime leaked from the side of the object, and I made sure not to get too close to it. I was at a loss as to what the object was, but then I spotted something interesting. A panel was attached to the bottom of the object, and it was only partially melted. I could only make out a bit of what it said, with the Linguistic Adaptation Interface translating what I could see.

  …containment cylinder reentry module…2-4-5 Triox…

  That made no sense, but maybe the necromancer would figure it out when he finally got around to visiting the site. What intrigued me was that this was called a reentry module. Had this been a satellite in orbit over this world? I could imagine a satellite slowly orbiting for centuries after a world was integrated, and being at the edge of the atmosphere, maybe it took longer for the mana to degrade it.

  Whatever the thing was, it wasn’t my problem anymore. In the distance, Cavendar shouted and waved. When I approached, he backed away, clearly not wanting to get too close, he shouted toward me.

  “Stay back, I don’t want to risk being infected. The pyre is just inside the tree line, next to the road we arrived on,” Cavendar shouted, pointing toward the edge of the forest, where I could make out several skeletal undead unloading wood from the back of a wagon. When one wagon was unloaded, the skeletons broke vehicle apart, using the wood to grow the size of the pyre.

  It took another hour, and a half-dozen wagon loads of wood, before the skeletons were done. As the last of the pyre was completed, the skeletons climbed to the top of the pyre and dumped buckets of lamp oil onto the wood. All at once, the skeletons collapsed atop the pyre, whatever necromantic energy Rodnix used to animate them had been cut off. I took that as a sign we were supposed to torch the skeletal remains, as well as those of the zombies.

  My two drones, along with Elida and the rifleman were given the unenviable task of dragging the remains to the pyre. My minions would disappear into mana vapor at the end of this, and I wasn’t willing to risk getting infected with whatever crud had plagued these undead. My team worked efficiently, and I unsummoned them once the last undead was stacked high atop the pyre, and my drones had used their plasma beams to ignite it.

  As the flames roared high into the twilight, a system prompt appeared.

  You have successfully completed your contracted summoning. Your summoner has added an additional reward.

  You have been awarded 19 Experience.

  You may collect your rewards at Somhagen Exports.