Chapter 86.1: Grand Show On The Street
October 30, 3:30 a.m., Earth time. Concurrently six in the morning on the 28th day of the 7th month, OtherWorld time.
The darkest hour before dawn had finally passed. On the town's main street, the owner of the inn nearest to the alley cautiously pulled back the corner of the curtain and warily peered outside.
This family-run inn, occupying only a fraction of the street frontage, was a two-story building with nine cramped rooms, each barely larger than the restroom of a club. Of course, the accommodations were quite cheap, costing only 10 copper coins a night. This also included the homemade black bread breakfast by Mrs. Doyle and fresh milk brought in daily by the Doyles' son-in-law.
The inn run by the Doyle couple in a place like Weisshem catered primarily to a single clientele. All of the rooms were rented on a weekly basis by prostitutes or gigolos who had been cast out of the upscale clubs. These guests were allowed to bring their clients back to spend the night, and the Doyles didn't charge extra, but of course, there wasn't a second complimentary breakfast either.
Starting at around five in the early morning, the commotion outside on the main street alarmed the Doyles. The intermittent screams from the neighboring club, especially, nearly gave Mrs. Doyle a heart attack.
The six long-term lodgers were equally frightened. Someone among their group mustered the courage to open a window and look outside. When groups of skeletons were seen entering and leaving the neighboring Lover Club, their anxiety escalated. No one dared to stay alone, so everyone crowded into the Doyles' room.
As Mr. Doyle pulled back the curtain slightly, the six huddling tenants craned their necks, just like Mrs. Doyle. The street outside seemed relatively calm, much unlike the chaos caused by marauder raids in the past.
However, the Doyle couple and their six tenants, who could see the street clearly under the morning sunlight, didn't feel the slightest bit reassured. Instead, their faces grew even paler.
In the entire inn, only the room of the Doyles had a street view. Under the 7th month's brilliant sunlight, over a dozen undead, clad in scale armor with knives at their waists and carrying bags of various sizes, were passing by the window.
Mr. Doyle trembled and let go, turning his head back stiffly, terror written all over his face. The expressions of the others were no different from his.
Although no one said a thing, everyone in the room knew that the others were surely thinking the same thing—why were those scary undead still here when night had already passed?!
All creatures of darkness would surely retreat in the light of day—wasn't it always put this way whether it was in the bedtime stories for children or in the epic novels that adults read?!
"O' Lady Gold Coin…" Mrs. Doyle raised a trembling hand to cover her face. "What are we to do? What are we going to do? Dear, Chris will be coming to deliver the milk soon. What are we going to do?"
Chris was Mrs. Doyle and Mr. Doyle's son-in-law, who reared some cows and sheep in the countryside. Each morning, he would ride the tricycle he bought in Indahl into the town to deliver milk.
Mr. Doyle shook his head helplessly. Then, reluctantly, he leaned closer to the window once more and gently lifted the corner of the curtain.
The bunch of skeletons from earlier hadn't gone far. They were gathered at the corner of the streets, heads bobbing as if they were in discussion.
Mr. Doyle clutched his chest in agony.
O' Lady Gold Coin, if this is a nightmare, please let me wake up from it quickly!
Mr. Doyle prayed desperately in his heart, but alas… it seemed as if the Lady he believed in was determined to screw with him. Mr. Doyle heard a series of rapid and chaotic rattling, and even more undead entered his field of vision.
Mr. Doyle's vision turned black, and he collapsed.
"Dear?!" Mrs. Doyle exclaimed in panic.
Blossoming Strokes raised her head, glancing at the drab two-story building with no signboards, which only had a partial frontage facing the street. Then, she turned to Qin Guan and asked, "Are there NPCs inside as well?"
"Yes, but we can't enter," Qin Guan replied. "Not just here. There are also several street-facing buildings with people inside that we are unable to enter. It's likely that those are residences of civilians unrelated to our siege quest."
Blossoming Strokes nodded. "Probably."
After the assault team she was in had secured the militia headquarters, their next targets were the town hall and the sheriff's office. The town hall was relatively easy to find, though it took some time before locating the sheriff's office that was hidden among a row of houses. During this period, the assault team encountered situations where the system issued red warnings when they attempted to forcefully enter residential buildings.
Players were generally understanding in this sort of situation and wouldn't have doubts. The dwellings where zombie NPCs and advanced NPCs lived couldn't be forcefully entered either, so they had gotten used to it.
Unceasing Entropy's team was slightly faster and waiting at the street corner. When she saw Blossoming Strokes, Unceasing Entropy waved and called out, "Sis Blossom, how do we divide out the [Capture Enemies] quest?"
Blossoming Strokes gave a nod to Ji Tang at the side and asked, "What do you think?"
"The battle results of each team vary, but everyone contributed to the mission, and no one slacked off. If we follow the previous temporary arrangement of assigning the spoils according to team performance, I'm afraid it would lead to disputes," Unceasing Entropy calmly stated.
Blossoming Strokes paused to think, then nodded.
This issue indeed gave Blossoming Strokes some headache… In this game with only 300 players, the concept of replacing players if they couldn't work together didn't exist. If internal conflicts among players arose due to disputes over the loot distribution, rallying the teams for future large-scale quests would be challenging.
Not going into detail, the assault team had first taken down 141 NPCs at the militia headquarters, then raided the town hall and the sheriff's office. On top of that, they had also intercepted three militia teams returning from patrol outside of town. All in all, they had captured between 300 to 400 NPCs.
If rewards were distributed according to results and the majority were going to the assault team, it certainly wouldn't sit well with others. Everyone had pretended to be ghosts—to scare, restrain, and capture NPCs—and no one wanted to hear nonsense about who worked harder or who sacrificed more!
"Let's divide it equally," Ji Tang suggested. "Whether it's the capture quest, rescue quest, or loot. Let's pool everything and distribute it evenly among everyone. This way, there would be fewer objections."
"Mm," Blossoming Strokes acknowledged, though she didn't sound fully on board. She had considered this approach before, but it was really challenging to implement.
Ji Tang knew what Blossoming Strokes was worrying about and thus said, "It's okay. If anyone feels that their contributions are more significant and disagree with the distribution, they can be put on a blacklist, and they won't be included in future large-scale missions. We will also notify all players who participated in the quest so that everyone knows why this person was excluded."
Blossoming Strokes and Unceasing Entropy fell silent, then nodded in agreement.
Indeed, unity was paramount with such a small number of players. Similarly, with fewer players, those who aimed to grab more for themselves would find it challenging to survive because they couldn't just move elsewhere after each time they attempted it.
With the distribution method established, Blossoming Strokes, who held the position of raid group leader, sent a notice in the group channel. She instructed each team to calculate their "battle achievements" and arranged for some players to return to camp and notify the NPCs for settlement.
This group notification system, which could only be used by players with leader privileges in the group, was temporarily added after the "Town Siege" began. The damned developers had even specified via an in-game announcement that due to server load limitations, the "group notification" function would only be available during the Town Siege quest and would be disabled after the event ended.
This seemingly convenient temporary feature still drove players to complain and grumble—if the server capacity wasn't sufficient, couldn't other useless unused maps just be closed?! Instead of improving the in-game chat, the devs added a bunch of wilderness maps that consumed resources. Did the devs have something wrong in their heads?!
Elsewhere, Hal left Finley to watch over the camp while he, Tuttle, and Jerome set off at daybreak to the outskirts of Weisshem.
After intense discussions, Hal had given up on the idea of having the undead cause trouble for Yang. Instead, he was now concerned with whether this ragtag group of undead would be wiped out recklessly during the attack.
There were still dozens of tricycles parked in the camp, and if all the undead were killed, they would lack the manpower to bring all these vehicles back.
As for taking the cargo on the tricycles and running away, Hal abandoned it as soon as it crossed his mind. He still had many comrades stuck back in Taranthan, and Tuttle, Finley, and Jerome might go against him if he decided to do so.
But when they saw the town gate… the former bandits were at a loss for words.
The gates of Weisshem certainly weren't as magnificent as those of large cities. It was just two sections of walls with a passage in the middle that could accommodate three carriages side by side. Normally, the town gate was wide open, and the iron gates affixed to the walls on both sides would only be pulled together and closed when the marauders or bandits raided.
As for curfews… these things didn't exist here. Weisshem's economy depended on nighttime activities, so any sheriff's officer that proposed strict curfews would likely be ousted.
Right now, when the morning sun shone brightly… several undead stood brazenly in front of Weisshem's town gates.
And other than that, several dozen men in militia uniforms were lined up by the walls, looking dejected…
Hal, who had been worried that the undead might be completely wiped out, suddenly felt an inexplicable anger rising within him.
Weisshem's militia consisted of several hundred, and with the help of enforcers from various brothels, at least a thousand able-bodied men could be mustered!
How could so many people let just over two hundred undead conquer the town overnight, and even let the town gate be claimed?!
Are they all fools? Even a thousand pigs can't all be caught by the undead in a single night!!
Utterly shameful! Bringing disgrace to humans!
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