WarbyPicus
patreon
Weeaboo Chapter 63- Fury of the March
🕑 Added 2024-05-15 16:00:16 +0000 UTCThe giant beasts roared back, outraged by Versai’s proud defiance. Not so proud that they wouldn’t gang up on her, though. One from each side, and the middle one charged straight ahead. Ready to tear her into at least three pieces.
Fair enough. She was madder than them, and aimed to leave them in even more pieces. She didn’t even wait for the Revels to finish casting.
“VERMIN!” She yelled, launching herself shield first at the center monster. She moved through the air so fast, she looked like a blur. It had to be some kind of magic, because the enormous hand just whiffed when it moved to block her. She shield bashed the ugly thing and put it on the ground. Since it was heading down anyway, she tagged along. Landing iron-boots first on its neck.
The other two monsters were a single step away. They were big, but they were plenty quick. They would be on her in a second. Versai flipped her grip on her sword. One second was plenty long enough.
Who’d have thought an aristocrat would give someone the Trotsky treatment?
Versai put her boot on the monster’s throat and started stabbing straight down. Her hand was a blur, stabbing faster and faster. Her bright steel blade was a blur, then a single solid line of steel, tearing open a hole, then widening it. Then deepening it. Faster and faster and faster, the hole in the horror’s neck spread from the size of a few finger’s width, to a fist, to a leg. By the time the monster managed to get a paw up and try to defend itself, Versai could have lodged her shield in there. She jumped clear of the body, painted black in her enemy’s blood.
The monsters came in swinging, forcing her to move, dodging their stomps and swipes. I was worried about the lack of space to move around in, but I needn’t have bothered. She was using the monster’s own enormous size against them. She quickly moved to stack them up, using the one in front to block the ones in back.
I was surprised to see the monster with a hole in its neck standing up. Blood was pouring out, spraying out in firehose blasts, but it stood. Some dreadful vitality was driving it on. It wasn’t healing, but it would bring my soldiers down to Hell with it when it died. I felt it’s hate, ravenous, unending hate, when we locked eyes.
It would have to die mad. Madame unleashed the Final Revel. I watched its eyes lose focus. The hate was still there, deepening as it lost itself inside whatever magical fog it was trapped in. The hate was simply useless now. I welcomed it. The more it hated me, the less it noticed the corrosion around the wound. The way the Final Revel weakened that savage vitality. The less it noticed its steps slowing. Those gushers of blood weakening and thinning.
Spin and spin on the carousel. Spin and spin, lost in the lights and noise. Lost until you can’t see anything at all, ever again. The monster fell with a dull thud. Its staring, hateful eyes soon covered by the severed hand of its comrade.
Versai wasn’t staring the monsters down. She was taking them apart. The revels slowed them to a crawl. Not only were they no longer pressing forward, they weren’t able to keep track of Versai. They thrashed wildly. Slamming against each other. Ripping each other. Providing Versai with the most marvelous dummies for her new exploit.
I had noticed that the character sheets had a speed rating for the Awakened Souls, but not an attack speed. Versai couldn’t see her own sheet, but she had long ago figured out the gist. She could only ever run so fast, but she could attack as fast as she pleased.
Did you know that your arms are, in many ways, the least important muscles in a swordfight? It’s like boxing, apparently. It’s about the back and the all important legs. Get your weight behind the blow, that’s where the damage comes from. The arms help, but mainly, they are there to steer. It was news to me. Versai apparently learned it before she could read.
It wouldn’t have occurred to me to find a movement speed glitch in the form of endless assault. It was blindingly obvious to Versai. An “attack” could consist of one, or even several, steps. So as long as you were really attacking, those steps were covered by “attack speed” and not by “speed.” The actual limit was, therefore, Versai’s ability to process what she was seeing, and the system insisting that attacks be launched at valid targets.
She was quick to begin with. She became impossibly fast, quickly. The system required a target be valid, not that you actually hit it. She looked like a lunatic, violently thrashing the air. At least, while I was still able to see her. As she understood the exploit more and more, I started losing sight of her.
Jets of blood sprayed from arteries in the legs. Joints were severed and fell without anyone seeing who did it. Tendons cut and snapped like steel cables, thrashing around inside the monsters. I couldn’t imagine the kind of pain they were in. She was moving faster than my eyes could follow now. Hacking away at them. Retreating with a defensive chop, advancing with a cut. Faster and faster.
She wasn’t the girl who left Gradden March. Wasn’t even the woman who died in the Queen’s Guards. She was in a doll body, same as me. Versai didn’t get tired. Her hands didn’t tremble with fatigue. Sweat didn’t get in her eyes. Her lungs never burned with a need for air, for a single breath. She could put all that fury and horror and endless brutality on the edge of her blade.
That hand went flying off like it was getting miles on the company’s dime. By the time it hit the dying monster’s face, the opposite foot was missing. Gashes as long as my forearm had opened up across the femoral arteries in the legs. The utter shower of blood reminded me of those ads for fancy homes, with shower heads on both walls as well as directly above.
It was an absurd thought, but when Versai briefly stopped to line up on the third and final monster, I couldn’t find her fit at all funny. She looked like Carrie was about to light up the party. She had more blood on her outside than most people had on their insides. Then she vanished from my sight, and the butchery began again.
She worked it from the ankles up. Hack through on one side, then kick off the calf to hack into the other side. Up and over to pop off the knee, then kick off the thigh to hack open the other one. A slash across the gut when it tried to rise up, spilling out fire-hose guts and stinking black bile. Chopping off fingers when they reached out to crush her. Taking an eye that dared to glare at her.
There was a scream, a furious outraged shouted at the top of a sweet voice, from the depths of strong lungs. A silver blurr ringed the monster’s neck. Once, twice, three times and the giant’s hideous head went spinning off, skidding along the cobblestones as celebratory jets of blood sprayed from the monster's neck. In death, the monster was convinced- the victor deserved her laurels.
Versa stood on top of the mutilated head. The blood slicked sword raised over her head as the gore slid off her.
“VERSAI FERCH GRADDEN HAS PROVEN HER VALOR! WHO DARES DISAGREE?!” Sebastian roared from the rooftop.
“GLORY! GLORY! GLORY!”
The whole street was shouting. I was shouting. Madame and the Blue Roses were shouting. Osain was crying, that slime was crying and screaming “GLORY!” at the top of his lungs. The crossbows couldn’t seem to shoot fast enough, the cannons fired, all were screaming out in triumph.
The monsters kept coming, a boiling hoard of them, and not a single damn person minded. Send more. Send lots more. Send all you have. The Floating Quarter was waiting for them. Versai stood under the cheers, sword raised. Her face had some indescribable emotion. Vindication? Relief? Wonder?
What would it be like, to be a champion, to be the Queen’s Bodyguard, then get mobbed by weaklings over and over again? To be brutalized and dissected by animals you could kill with a casual backhand, all because of the poor luck or poor leadership of people not fit to carry your shoes? What would it do to your mind?
What would it be like to prove them all wrong? To stand on that stage. To stand under those lights, weapon in hand, and prove to everyone that you are strong. That your life wasn’t a lie. What would it be like to prove to yourself that you took a beating, but weren’t beaten?
I don’t know. I’ll never know. That stage is reserved for heroes. But I can set that stage. I can sweep the floor and hang the lights. I have that power. I can cheer from the side. I have that much dignity.
The insane self esteem of a weeb. It wasn’t much. But so what? I wasn’t worth much. But I had heroes to look up to. Why would I look away? That really would be too poor.
“GLORY! GLORY! GLORY!”
Wasn’t I yelling right along with them? Welcoming my hero home, back to the battlement.
The hoards of regular and armored monsters were stuck winding between the walls as my ranged units gave them hell. Miyuki seemed to be aiming for a high score on how many she could nail together with one shot. Sebastian didn’t let up for even a second, and it wasn’t long until the Mikas were back up and at it. Still, in these numbers, some did reach the front lines.
The militia immediately showed why they were worth the money. Disciplined ranks of spears jabbed forward, killing the monsters and forcing them back. Forcing them to climb a growing mountain of corpses, backed by the portioned up remains of the giants and the skewered Wall Breakers.
We were swimming in guts by the end of it. I hope Gradden March had good storm drains, because all the blood would be testing it hard. It was savage. It was bloody. It was a triumph.
“Miyuki, any more incoming?”
“Miyuki sees only the slain!”
I smiled fiercely. No system pop up. “Madame’s Regulars, Rakim, get out there and make repairs. Improve what you can. This ain’t over yet!”
“My God. All these years, I’ve been damning ap Gradden as a butcher and a careless lord. But if this is what he’s been fighting out in the Iron Hills…” Madame’s voice trailed off. “Well, I’m never apologizing to that man, but I certainly understand him better.”
“Looking at the numbers, this might count as a skirmish or platoon level engagement.” Versai sounded detached. “In practice, though, Father doesn’t engage the monsters in any numbers smaller than a company. They are just too fast, and it's too easy for a unit to be surrounded and overwhelmed. Never heard about giant monsters before, but that doesn’t mean much.”
“How many types of monsters are there?”
“Nobody knows. The base monsters never change, but you do see other varieties come and go. Generally, they get stronger the better you defend against them. We don’t know where they come from, either.” Sebastian materialized next to me. I didn’t jump. It was a jolt at most.
“Nobody knows?”
“Not like we haven’t been searching and trying to find out.”
“And those… Dyn Hunllef?
“We battled the monsters for more than ten years before we confirmed they existed. It was two more years before we managed to capture one, and it died on the spot.” Sebastian’s voice was hard. “I, myself, have been on operations against them. A dreadful foe.”
“What do they look like?”
“Smaller than a regular monster, bigger than the infiltrator.” Sebastian spread his hands helplessly. “No two have looked quite alike.”
“Well that’s alarming.”
“Mmm. Not what concerns me, though.”
“Oh?”
“We still haven’t a single clue as to why it’s happening.”
I looked down the corpse-strewn street. There was a flash of light, and suddenly, it was clean. Just that simple. Bodies gone, glory gone, money in the pocket, get ready to do it all again. And again. And again.
Comments
Matthew Dauber
Missed a notif for 62 but goddamn these chapters hit
Deathly_God
Nothing is over until Miyuki "Best Girl"-chan says the wave is over!
JTP
Looks like the Weeaboo is the one committing the atrocities, so far...
Ryan Naquin
I feel this is appropriate to this story so I think it should be P.P.S. (Post Post Script) Not P.S.S.
T E Low
My gut feel is that the Necromancer and his hot relative are on their side. The residents of Gradden March are getting resurrected (or sustained or held in some sort of suspended animation?) by Necro-lad. P.S. ALL THAT BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! P.S.S. Miyuki-chan... 😍
