Chapter 35 The Storm begins

People didn’t immediately get back to whatever they were doing. I looked at the still-growing crowd, who kept asking the same questions as they joined. ‘What’s happening?’ ‘Where’d the mayor go?’ ‘What should we do?’ I ignored them as I felt the situation was odd. I went to get my wives and bring them into the city for now because I felt that something was off.

I could feel it in the air; something big was about to happen. Silk whispered to me while the crowd was still talking to each other. “What’s going on?” “Bandits attacked the connecting town. The mayor went to see if he could help with about twenty other men.” My gut was telling me we were missing the entire story. The murmuring of the crowd was quickly covered up by screams coming from the nearby forest.

This was a trap! I barely got the thought out before one of the strongest adventurers still left behind cried out in pain. The man who showed up injured and covered in blood had sneak-attacked the adventurer with an axe, almost killing him in a single blow. His life hung in the balance of how quickly he could be healed, but at the moment, we couldn’t focus on him. My brain ran through plans as fast as it could. The smirking bandit raised his hands as if that would stop the dozens of attacks from landing on him.

He was turned into paste from the combined assault of attacks. My eyes widened as I looked back towards the gate opening that led into the forest where they were coming from, and I saw them. I could only see a few, but the noise they made there was clearly more. All of us looked on in shock and confusion as I heard them try to attack my bees and magified cows. A loud set of bawking let me know they also destroyed the chicken coop.

They trampled the few crops that I had left up, hoping to get a final yield before the first frost. Most of us sat stunned at the sneak attack, some didn’t. Leaf moved at a speed a common class could never reach as she made her way up the wall protecting the town. It was normal wood with the tops sharpened, but anyone with the grace and dexterity she had wouldn’t find it much effort to climb and vault over it. She stood in between the points as she looked out over the crowd, a bow appeared in her hand a moment later.

The wall was only there to wrangle the monster breaks to a single point; if they actively attacked the wall, it would be destroyed quickly, as it was only normal wood. Bandits shouldn’t have that same lemming mentality, yet there they were, rushing directly into a chokepoint instead of battering down the walls. She sat atop the village wall and fired at them before they even made it to the gate, which Delilah was now closing.

I snapped out of my bystander mode as I yelled. “Bandits!? Why are we just standing around? Get any weapons you can find to help defend the village!” It still wasn’t good. The mayor took most of the able-bodied men in the village with him, and most of the people who lived in this town went into the dungeon every day to get the money to live. It meant that out of the hundred or so members of the village, only twenty or thirty of us could fight while the rest were gone or civilians/children.

Leaf emptied her quiver just as the gate closed. It had bought us enough time to prepare, at least instead of just being overwhelmed from the start. If these morons didn’t yell out before they charged, we might have not even noticed until they were in the village already. Thank god they were dumb. They made it to the gate, and I could see it bulge inward as Delilah held it by herself. Some of the adventurers moved to hold it as well, but it was a losing battle.

We needed to take the fight to them before they overwhelmed us. Bandits were very similar to goblins in terms of how they fought. They overwhelmed their target with numbers rather than outsmarting or outfighting them. The dozen or so casualties Leaf might have caused were only a drop in the bucket. As they held the gate, I finally heard the telltale sound of an axe hitting wood.

I doubted their equipment was as good as mine, so it could take minutes before they broke through, but it would be sooner rather than later. I didn’t know what skills the bandits had, but some of the bandits might have some that help break through a village's defenses. For a brief moment, I stopped again as I remembered something extremely important. “Delilah, go finish our project!”

Her head snapped up. “It’s not ready, I’ve only done the frame!” I knew that. “Better trying to activate it now than after we’re dead.” Her face became resolute as she rushed off, and I took her place on the door. We were just stalling until everyone was ready. Thankfully, I had my axe for cutting wood, so I was at least armed. A bandit’s axe broke through the door right next to my head as I instinctively moved away from it. Tems was there a moment later, her arm reaching through the hole as her dagger pierced the bandit's throat.

The door slowly started to disintegrate around me as I had to avoid attacks while also holding the door now. As I held for long enough, most people were now armed at least. Swords and spears stabbed through the gaps the bandits made and right into the bandits. A half dozen were dead before Leaf ran over and climbed the wall again, pelting the few with arrows as the wall and gate finally came down.

The higher-level adventurers were the first to greet the bandits. Each was skilled enough to fight against five, but for every skilled adventurer, there were ten bandits. We were slowly pushed back, not much in terms of casualties, but their sheer numbers had begun wearing us down. At that moment, the blacksmith's building exploded as the metal golem I wanted made burst out.

It had been a communal effort by using all the cores the mayor had gathered over the years to make; it was more the villages than mine, but I just felt it was one more step to protecting myself and the people I cared for. I just wish we had another week or two to perfect it. One lucky strike, and the core would shatter. It moved faster than my golems did, and my eyes widened as I remembered them, yelling out.

“Golems, help!” I didn’t have much hope for them. They were now slightly stronger than the goblins, but they would still lose to a bandit. That was if they didn’t tip themselves over before the fight even started. They had gotten walking down, but hadn’t gotten used to running or fighting yet. I still hoped it made some difference. The iron golem had no such problems with running as it closed the distance and waded into the bandits, as the adventurers parted to make room.

Each swing of its sword cleaved off an arm or into the head of a bandit, as we had enough room to breathe. Only now did I see Tems and Silk at the front of the line doing more work than any other two adventurers of the group. Cherry hung back with the rest of the weaker women, the biggest difference was that she was lobbing spells into the group. Each spell exploded, killing one bandit while burning the rest close by. I watched a ball of flame hit a bandit, scorching him down to bone before it exploded, igniting the clothes of the nearby bandits.

Someone finally got in a lucky hit; the exposed core of the golem shattered before the golem exploded like a bomb. The golem waded deep into the cluster of bandits, the explosion killing more than ten, possibly bringing the golem to the second-highest number of bandit deaths, just behind Leaf. We now had the room to breathe as our numbers started to even out. I heard Cherry’s mother gasp before she exclaimed. “Clive!?”