Chapter 238: The Battle of Sotimi (1/2)

Groff Compton was the captain of a Silver Eagle Duchy’s border patrol, in charge of a dozen border patrolmen who guarded the frontier at Sotimi.

He was a graduate of Valla Empire’s knight academy. Although being the second son of a baron meant he was not inheriting his father’s title, he was at least appointed a minor official of the White Quill Guards, slowly accumulating achievement in his rise as a noble.

However, soon after he graduated as a training knight, his family was the victim of reprisals for picking the wrong side in an imperial political struggle and after their supporters were taken out of the equation, leaving the whole family in deteriorating fortunes.

Groff was naturally targeted in revenge—not only was he denied his place amongst the White Quills, he was directly dismissed from the imperial army and thrown to the remote reaches of the North.

If Horan, the Crownless King of the North didn’t offer a little help out of nostalgia for the old days and appoint Groff border patrol captain, he might still be wasting his youth amongst the dregs of the military.

It was out of the gratitude towards Duke Horan that Groff was one of the few border patrol captains at Sotimi who wasn’t scared out of his wits at the sight of zombies and immediately ordered his men to retreat.

Even though the zombies had long since destroyed their stronghold, he was still leading his squad to repel the undead, doing all he could to keep the monsters here instead of allowing them to reach Tunaya.

***

The truth was that the zombie rampage at Sotimi didn’t catch much attention from the start—after all, the Valley of the Tragic Dead that was famous across the whole continent for supposedly having the largest numbers of undead was sitting on another side of the North.

Though Sotimi was quite far from the Valley of the Tragic Dead, it was not impossible for zombies to go the distance to come here out from that place.

Since these inferior undead didn’t need to feed and had no self-awareness at all, it was normal for them to flock together out of instincts and reach Sotimi by coincidence.

The other border patrol captains were completely unconcerned, however, and simply sent out some of their men, assuming that they would suffice for wiping them out.

As a result, those men never returned.

Realizing that something wasn’t right, the captains immediately reported back to Tunaya while working hard to repel the growing number of zombies.

It was after fighting those monsters that the captains realized that these were not the weak undead creatures they had fought before. These zombies were incredibly strong and possessed durable bodies, and they would never stop moving unless their heads were cut off or their skulls split apart.

And if they killed or injured anyone—even their closest comrades, their victims would soon become another monster just like them and start attacking the patrolmen.

With hot weapons barely catching on and no accompanying mages, the warriors could only engage the enemy in close quarters. Besides, they were fighting with too much restraint since they were cautious not to get hurt, and unable to use the advantage they had as fighters.

Even the sacred corps of the Brilliant White Church couldn’t turn the tides at the border.

As casualties mounted while the enemies grew in number, most of the other border patrol captains were left shaken and attempted to retreat.

It was therefore a pity that the zombies were only too adept at swarming and killing prey that had lost the will to fight, and the horde soon flooded and killed the border patrols attempting to escape, and much earlier than the other patrols standing their ground and continuing to fight…

At first, Groff imagined that he would ultimately be surrounded and devoured by the zombies just like his men and be reduced to pieces.

But he unexpectedly encountered a turn of the tide yesterday.