Chapter 195 - A Marsh Battle - II (1/2)
Kiriti was appalled at the outcome. He and the other members of the guild had expected there to be a number of beasts that would attack them and prepared for it, but never expected that their own efforts would be responsible for injuring their forces to the largest amount. The barrels used to explode the place was supposed to make the attack easy, but it ended up having the opposite result.
Notification began to sound in everyone's ears that their companions were dying within seconds. The explosions followed by the roars and growls of the beasts which ran towards them were frightening enough. The following announcements that their companions were dying at such fast rate was just demoralizing.
Some of the long-distance attackers started to release their attack continuously at the incoming horde. Almost blanketing their teammates with their attacks along with the beasts in panic. This was all before the really strong beasts like the langstonia joined the fight.
The langstonia were similar to gharials with large snout, scales and strong tail. The distinguishing feature was that they had for thick 3 feet long legs that allowed them to move at higher speeds and they could also jump a couple of metres high to land on their prey. They were like the Salamandrids, but they didn't cause any fire damage on touch and had low magical defence. When they joined the fray, even the guardians who had most defence were mauled by the beasts.
Luckily, the numbers of these langstonia were very low. The bomb barrels were mainly aimed to fall amidst the langstonia, and they received the worst damage of all during those explosions which killed more than half of the langstonia. The surviving ones were also low in health and crippled which made it easier for the players to kill them.
The ones in charge of the mission like Kiriti and the other were trying their best to command the groups to fortify their defences and attack the approaching monsters. It was a panic scenario, but within half a minute or so, most of the players realized that their best option was to stay together and fight against the horde of beasts.
After a few minutes of fighting, the situation slowly subsided. The beasts have all been dispersed or killed, but the casualties among the players weren't low either. Apart from the independent players a number of the players from the Raiders and Ronins both died. They lost over 50% of their force and this wasn't even the main reason for them having gathered these many players.
Balthazar had stayed away from most of the fight. As the barrels were thrown, he went into stealth and sneaked off to the side and up a tree when the others were focused on the fight ahead. He covered himself with a shield and safe from the poison shower he expected. Luckily, he wasn't even range of the area where the poisonous chunks of toad showered the players.
To avoid any damage, he chose his targets selectively and used his crossbow to attack for the first half to get a little bit of experience and he only came down after he noticed that the beasts were diverging into the forest. The explosion had startled the beasts very much that all the surviving beasts ran away from those spots resulting in a stamped. As the players began to kill more of the beasts, the beasts slowly ran away to the sides in directions which were safe.
Balthazar also moved to the side in the direction that the beasts were running away. This was the best time for him to attack isolated monsters and gather their carcasses. By the time, the panic subsided, he was already had a few samples, but he also lost his disguise. In the confused struggle between the beasts and players, he had attempted to kill a langstonia which caused him some damage. So, he stayed away from the others in stealth till the cooldown of the disguise skill is cleared.
They managed to successfully clear the beasts surrounding the advanced party, but all of them were hesitant to proceed further in the marsh. They didn't think they had enough chance to survive the situation ahead. Karma was the most adamant as it was his quest that had brought them to the marsh in the first place. He argued that all their effort would be in vain if they didn't proceed. He also told them that a loss in experience isn't much as they had earned quite a bit of experience during the previous blasts and following charge by the beasts. In fact, all of them crossed into level 16 during the explosions.
In five minutes, they had decided to move forward along with the advanced party. The independent players who just joined for the money that the guild promised, didn't want to move forward towards the centre of the marsh but rather continued hunting at this region where they had a decent chance of increasing their experience. But knowing that they would get the pay only if they completed their objective or died during it, they continued to move forward under the hopes that they would get a chance to improve their experience more.
Still, there were few who decided that they didn't want the remuneration provided by the guild and separated as they felt it a waste to throw their lives away by going deeper into the marshlands. These players accounted for about 15% of the remaining. Usually, the guilds would kill them if they left the mission, but they left them alone as they had already lost quite a few numbers and felt it was detrimental to their mission if they lost more in a fight. They only had thoughts to deal with the deserters later if possible.
Though they had a decent increase in experience, the number of useful parts of the beast that were found was very low. The place where the explosions took place was filled with burnt up carcasses of beasts which were of no use to anyone. This is the reason using barrels of gunpowder as bombs was considered useless by players in his previous life. It was a common consensus that it wasn't worth the price.
As they had started moving before the cooldown of his disguise skill, Balthazar had decided to join the players who stayed back. Puba had already died as he was on the front lines during the stampede. So, he directly informed Kiriti who kicked him out of the group and warned that they would open fire if he pursued them. Kiriti was a careful person who had doubts against all the better players that joined their group. He had a few assassins covering their rear just to be careful.
Balthazar didn't immediately pursue the group into the depths of the marshlands as he believed that they would be on the lookout for pursuers. He would have definitely put someone to check the rear if he was in their situation. Still, it wouldn't be that hard to follow them from a distance. He had a scope which he could use to extend his vision range and it wasn't hard to follow the trail of a group as large as them.
Though the water which was a foot high will eliminate most signs of fighting like blood, flesh and broken branches, he could still move in the area without much issue in stealth. He also had experience in tracking in his past life and it was much easier to track such a large group from a long distance. Apart from being in stealth, he could also breath underwater courtesy of the goggles that he received at the BlackRock town.
Though he only joined them to make his travel easier at the beginning, he was currently curious to know what would cause a guild to make such huge movements. After he saw the advanced party and the shield in which they were hiding, it was clear that the guild had found something useful or a quest to find some ruins or important place. So, he had decided to pursue them.
The explosions had caused the surround beasts to keep away from them and the pace of the party was much faster than it was before due to the lack of beasts. There were some occasional langstonia which cause a few problems, but the large firepower generated by all those players together cleared off the beasts in no time.
As he was following them, he noticed a few players that were covering their rear. He began to spread the venom he got from the toads on some of his arrows as a precaution and increased the distance between them. It wasn't a problem to him as he had the a very high perception and a scope. So, it wasn't hard for him. He also had a nighthawk as a pet which he could use to scout the areas if he lost track of them, but that was a last resort. Being a town on the border of the fae region, the players had a habit of being guarded against aerial surveillance.