Chapter 7:

Unplanned Rest in Otsev's Camp

When old Decurion Irchin first entered my tent, I immediately felt an intangible anxiety. He was like an executioner before an execution; he only comes once in a lifetime, and most often at the end of it. For his many years of service, he had never come to report on his own, and I had never had to summon him due to the lack of serious misdeeds in his squad. And now, he came in calm, I would even say peaceful. And yet, he had sensed three invisible arachnids in the camp.

To be frank, I myself had barely contained the impulse to attack the two stealthy saboteurs and had been right to do so. Who could have guessed that there would be a third one with a higher level of camouflage, which my own skills weren't enough to detect? But that wasn't what was important, because my defense could have withstood the attack; the problem wasn't that.

The old decurion came and calmly, as if at dinner with his family, told me the latest gossip from a distant kingdom. He reported some trifle not worth worrying about, that the spiders would come up from the catacombs 2 days earlier. Thousands, hundreds of thousands, when the flying creatures cover the sky so thickly that you can't see the light of a star—the mere thought of it sends a cold chill down my body. How does he remain calm in such a situation? Has he ceased to fear death? Although, why should I be surprised? The years are passing, and there aren't enough attribute points. In all his years of service, his reward was only two additional levels. Even an idiot would have guessed that none of the commanders wanted to invest in an old, experienced soldier, and with his 7 Intelligence points, even less so.

Of course, there was a temptation not to inform the other centurions about the information I had received. What if the old decurion had just lost his mind? His punishment would be, at most, the loss of his mission reward, which was not the same as what the Lord could do to me. On the other hand, over our many years of service, Decurion the Malicious and I had a certain reputation, not always positive, but still, a certain amount of credit was there. And if the old decurion hadn't made a mistake this time either, my reputation would become even higher, and sometimes that's more important than the ubiquitous SP.

The message was sent via the senior officers' internal communication. None of the centurions replied; they were all waiting for the Miliurion's reaction. It was his prerogative to react to a reconnaissance report. Of course, the report contained a lot of fabricated information to make our return to the main camp seem more justified. I had learned from the unpleasant experience that had happened many years ago. How everyone had laughed at the decurion, what they hadn't said about his premonitions. But of all the senior officers who had laughed at that battle, none of them survived the campaign. And even then, the junior officers were smart enough not to laugh at the old decurion.

And then, an hour later, an order came from Miliurion Tarak the Bloody.

"All reconnaissance companies are to prepare to end the mission and begin moving to the central camp."

That was good, of course, but the lack of clarification from the Miliurion led to some extremely unpleasant thoughts. He believed me too easily; I hadn't even used all the arguments I had. Did he know and not tell us? Very unpleasant thoughts, as was the whole situation in general. I didn't immediately pack up the camp for several reasons. First, the arachnid saboteurs; it was unknown what to expect from them. And second, not all of my search parties had returned to camp yet, and trying to get them back prematurely was too dangerous, in my opinion. Besides, according to the old decurion, we still had time.

That same evening, after waiting for the last squad to return and inventorying the trophies they had found, I ordered all the officers and mages to attend an urgent meeting in my tent. When the last officer closed the flap of the rather luxurious tent, I asked, "Decurion Irchin, what's the disposition of the saboteurs?"

Everyone began to exchange bewildered glances, completely not understanding what was happening.

"No change. Only the nearest invisible arachnid seems to have changed its posture. It must have crouched on its belly; its height above the floor is no more than two cubits," Irchin the Malicious replied.

"Listen up! Decurions, position your squads around the main tent. Kheshov, the sentries on the walls are on you. Bring all the warriors back to the center of the camp." After saying this, I dissolved into the air.

Three lightning bolts illuminated the evening twilight. The squads had only just begun to form a defensive ring, but I had already managed to gather experience from three charred corpses of the invisible arachnids and returned to my tent. They could handle things on their own from here. I only commanded, "Raise the barriers."

Chapter 7.1

Later that same evening

Thankfully, I had managed to rest a little after the previous battles. I wouldn't say I was completely exhausted, but I definitely had to run hard, unlike my squad. They were the ones who were more tired, morally speaking. But I still wanted to be full of strength for the upcoming battle. After all, it was unknown how many arachnid warriors the enemy had brought to attack Centurion Otsev's camp.

After the commander's order to raise the magical barriers, five minutes had already passed, and the bugs still hadn't shown themselves. It was strange; even the death of their infiltrators hadn't affected it at all. We all froze inside the camp. The outer edge of soldiers bristled with spears; the rest prepared their bows. One of the soldiers from the second squad even joked that we must have a stroke of luck sometime, and perhaps there weren't enough of those vile bug warriors for our camp. Of course, that young goblin didn't know that three high-level infiltrators had been in the camp all this time under invisibility. Otherwise, there wouldn't be a single smile on the faces of the recruits now.

Apparently, during my squad's time in the camp, they had managed to greatly exaggerate the past events. But he was wrong. The bugs had simply been gathering their forces for a single massive strike. The camp was located on the territory of a large mansion, surrounded by a higher stone fence than the ones nearby. Therefore, we were now separated by at least a hundred paces from the nearest walls or building ruins. And inside the magical barrier were no less than seventy goblins.

A living wave of spiders rushed toward us from all sides. It might have seemed like it, but in my personal experience, there were no less than five hundred worker spiders. They started shooting without a command as soon as the first ones appeared over the walls. While the soldiers were sending arrow after arrow, the decurions were giving commands to the mages on when to use powerful spells. In my squad, Leur's Fireball skill had already been used, and he was completely focused on maintaining the magical barrier. His lightning strike would only be a waste of mana, killing at best two, or maybe three bugs running close to each other.

The first three fireballs flew. Huge crowds of densely packed spiders were torn to pieces, an even larger part of them burst into flames like candles, but the more experienced decurions held back that weapon for truly dangerous opponents. And they didn't have to wait long for them.

The first bugs were only just reaching the surface of the barrier and were already getting struck by our spears when large arachnid warriors and defenders, at least twenty of them, began to break through the wall and the main gate. And this was truly the moment to use powerful spells.

Fireballs rushed toward the new enemies while they were still moving in a tight group, passing through the gate. A flash, a second flash, and a wave of fire covered the large spiders. Weaker warriors were seriously damaged, but of the seven arachnid defenders, only one was completely killed by a direct hit. Yes, a couple of warriors were also seriously wounded, but the survivors rushed toward us with even greater fury. With every breath, the number of spiders hitting the magical barrier grew.

Wielding their spears, the goblins simply couldn't keep up with this living wave. The bugs didn't stop chirping loudly, and even when wounded, they cried out even louder. At some point, I felt blood running from my ears, but there was no time to check. I had long since stopped shooting my bow; it was a huge stroke of luck to kill a spider with one arrow, but piercing its cephalothorax with a powerful spear strike was quite a normal thing to do, especially when you were standing safely inside a magical barrier, and only stupidity could make you leave its confines. Which one of the soldiers from the first squad had shown a minute earlier, not letting go of his spear, which got stuck in the spider's body. It only took a moment; he leaned forward from the inertia, and the arachnids didn't miss their chance, instantly pulling him toward them. He was even lucky; in such a mess, he died almost instantly. In another situation, they could have wounded him and then eaten him alive.

It seemed that we were about to be crushed by the sheer mass of them; in some places, the spiders were lying in three layers, their dead bodies pressed against the barrier, and it was hard to tell where an arachnid was deliberately attacking the magical barrier and where it was thrashing in a death throe. But all our worries and fears took a back seat when Kheshov, our zealous quartermaster, who was standing a little higher, screamed so hysterically and loudly that everyone understood that a problem had arrived in comparison to which all the previous ones were simply the babbling of a drooling infant.

"Mister Otsev, sir, sir, sir," he screamed hysterically, bursting into the Centurion's tent.

To his credit, he left the tent very gracefully. He tumbled head over heels through the flap. But he still got what he wanted. The Centurion came out after him. But I only noticed it fleetingly, out of the corner of my eye, because my hands were constantly stabbing the living mass in front of me, and my eyes were looking at the right flank, because I had no choice but to look.

An Arachnid Tyrant, D-rank, level 4, three times my height. It was truly a bug, with a huge body, a powerful cephalothorax the size of a good direwolf, and the sharpest chelicerae, each no less than my height in length. Now was the moment when none of our weapons could even scratch its carapace, which was proven by a mage from the eighth squad who had held back until the last moment and hadn't used his Fireball. Yes, the explosion was good, but only a bright red dent the size of an adult goblin's head was left on the carapace. The Tyrant didn't even slow its pace.

The only thing that comforted me, to be honest, was that it was one of the few D-rank arachnids that lacked the Intelligence attribute. It was like a combat animal capable of only following commands. It was definitely not worth expecting it to use D-rank skills. And this was the only thing that kept the goblins in formation and prevented them from running away like a crowd of lunatics. Of course, the surrounding horde of smaller arachnids also prevented them from doing so.

The Centurion lazily surveyed the scene, his gaze lingering on the Tyrant for only a moment. A predatory smile appeared on the Centurion's face. Mister Otsev ascended five cubits above the ground; his technological exosuit shimmered with force fields that were slightly visible in the evening twilight. Perhaps in another situation, the goblins would have opened their mouths in surprise and admiration, but there was only a quarter of the total volume of energy left in our defensive barriers at most, so only a few of the ordinary soldiers could appreciate the power and greatness of their commander.

The Centurion unhurriedly, I would even say lazily, formed a large ice spear, no smaller than a full-grown goblin, and it shot off at a tremendous speed directly into the arachnid tyrant's cephalothorax. The force of the blow was not only enough to pierce the carapace but also to completely embed the magical projectile in the giant's body. The bug stumbled and began to slow down. At that moment, the ice spear inside its cephalothorax exploded with a deafening crack. The giant's legs buckled, and the huge carcass fell to the ground, causing a distinct tremor under our feet. It also crushed several smaller spiders with its body.

Mister Otsev nodded to himself with satisfaction, and with a casual wave, he sent a dozen fireballs toward the arachnids that had swarmed around the barrier. A wall of fire engulfed everything around for several breaths. A huge number of spiders that had been burned alive were scattered around. Only a few of them continued to attack the magical defense. Under everyone's admiring gaze, the Centurion smoothly descended to the ground and returned to his tent. Quartermaster Kheshov broke into a scream.

"Glory to the Great Centurion Otsev!" he shouted joyfully.

All the goblins echoed him.

"Centurion Otsev, Centurion Otsev!" And in that shout was gratitude, happiness, and the fulfillment of a hope to survive.

At first, when the last resistance of the spiders was broken, joy filled the simple soldiers. But after just half an hour of monotonous work of cutting open the arachnids' bodies to get their expensive glands, many of them were literally turning their stomachs inside out. Especially that smell of burnt chitin, which not only caused nausea but also irritated the mucous membranes of the eyes, preventing them from doing their job carefully. And because of the high walls that surrounded the mansion, that stench didn't want to air out at all. I guess our equipment would reek of the nauseating, sweet smell of roasted spiders for more than a day.

We spent at least two more hours finishing off the wounded, collecting SP, and cutting out trophies. Many young goblins gained new levels. Even I had to deposit SP into the accumulator three times. In that mass of bodies, it was difficult not to run into a wounded one that wanted to bite off a bigger piece of you at the end of its life.

In the nightly chaos, it was impossible to track exactly who had collected how much SP, and I took full advantage of this. Each time I deposited experience into the accumulator, I left myself 20 SP. So when the camp was packed up and the idiots who had managed to get wounded were back on their feet, I had saved (60/180) SP. I liked the word "saved" much more than "stolen." It made me feel like a frugal host, not a cunning thief.

The rest of the way to the central camp was calm for me. But for the ordinary goblins, it was, of course, a little different. They stared intently into the darkness almost the entire way. And there was nothing surprising about that, especially for those who didn't understand tactics. For those cowards, the danger was quite real. But in reality, there was no reason to be nervous at all. If the arachnids had had more forces located close enough to our position, they would have definitely thrown them into the previous attack. I suspect that the spiders had been planning to attack the Centurion's camp either at night or in the morning, when the reconnaissance squads would have gone to search for bug clutches. But again, these were my speculations, which might have nothing in common with the thoughts and plans of the arachnids themselves.

However, during the night march, there were all sorts of conversations among the tired and quite frightened goblins. Of course, everyone was impressed by the ease with which Centurion Otsev instantly destroyed the arachnid tyrant and almost two hundred smaller spiders. But the junior officers already knew how much strength and energy he had spent on it. And he wouldn't be able to repeat something like that again anytime soon. After all, the internal magical reserve couldn't be filled quickly with ordinary mana crystals, especially one as large as Centurion Otsev's.

When we finally reached the central camp, where Miliurion Tarak the Bloody was located, we were very unpleasantly surprised that our company was the last to return. When we joined up with Zhurek's platoon, it turned out that seven companies were already standing there, even before their arrival. And that was very strange.

Of course, two companies were always located here for the safety of the Miliurion and the mission command. After all, only Tarak the Bloody could open the portal. It wasn't for nothing that this was a D-rank skill. But the decurions from the other companies, with nasty smirks, rushed to brag that they had returned to the central camp long ago.

"It's the commander's order; how are we to know the reasons?" the goblins repeated as if from a template, but you could understand them. Living under the protection of a large camp was not the same as wandering in search of loot deep in the ruins.

What looked especially strange was that some companies had been standing for almost a week, waiting for the portal to open and for the march back to our home world, Asshor. But these were the affairs of the senior officers. We had completed our task. Let Centurion Otsev worry about the rest.

We hadn't even had time to settle into our tents to rest after the night's flight when the signal to prepare for our return to our home world, Asshor, sounded over the camp. Strangely enough, only the Lord's army officers called my homeland that. For ordinary people, it was more common to call their home world "home" or "homeland." There was a feeling of coziness and security in that word. And in principle, ordinary people didn't often think about traveling through the infinity between stars. The inhabitants of cities or farmers in villages would never understand how small and insignificant Asshor was in the truly boundless rainbow of worlds. Maybe it was even for the best; the country bumpkins shouldn't know about all the dangers that lie in wait for goblins in the dark corners of even our world.

The transition was mundane. It was as if we weren't running away, having tucked our tails between our legs prematurely, but imagining ourselves as victors, marching in this world as if in a parade, with the arachnids bowing their heads at our feet. It was irritating; I wanted to stop everyone and make them wait another day here, then the officers' faces would look more natural. The horror and pain of being eaten alive would suit the faces of these aristocrats much more. But this was just fatigue and maybe senile irritability speaking in me. The main thing was that I was leaving this cursed place, and the fact that no goblin would ever thank the old decurion was something you get used to over the years. May Great Anteros be their judge.

Lost in these thoughts, it was my squad's turn to enter the portal. The mirror-like haze I saw had long since stopped causing youthful delight. Our belongings had been collected, as had our tents and other gear. In wide rows of ten goblins, we entered the molten silver. A moment, and the darkness of this unfriendly world of Pakkot was replaced by the bright light of a star from my native home. It's always like that when you return; something pleasant spreads through your soul. And even the years can't change that. I wouldn't say that my world is better than others, but I guess it all depends on where you were born. Everything is familiar and known, which brings peace to the soul.

But we weren't allowed to admire it. The portal took us to the fortress courtyard, and each company went to turn in the weapons and equipment that had been issued, unless it belonged to the fighter personally. I only owned a medium armor and a short F-rank system sword. Even after many years of service, I hadn't managed to acquire a Bag of Holding. The loot from the mission had long been in the hands of the senior officers. Now the Miliurion's accountants would check the reports of the centurions and decurions, compare them with the loot that had arrived at the warehouses, and submit the table with the percentage due to each officer for Miliurion Tarak the Bloody to sign. We were sent to the barracks to sleep and eat until the next morning.

Chapter 7.2

The next morning, Miliurion Tarak the Bloody's office

The master of the office was glumly flipping through the report of the past mission. The loot standards had, of course, been met, but there wasn't much to boast about to the Lord. Unfortunately, no rich trophies had been found in the world of Pakkot for a long time.

On a huge table made of expensive plastic, fit for an orc 8 cubits tall, was a virtual screen. The displayed tables flashed, replacing each other, obeying the movement of the Miliurion's eyes. He had forgotten how long ago he had bought the living computer in one of the distant worlds. This brainchild of technomagical intelligence saved him a lot of time, and he didn't even regret the large amount of SP he had spent on it. In some system worlds, they were also called AIs. But the name wasn't important.

This semi-intelligent being scanned information in the office from almost any medium and systematized it into Tarak the Bloody's personal archive. And most importantly, it could provide forecasts and analysis, which very often helped the Miliurion out. Having lived for more than a hundred years, he had learned to appreciate the inventions of other worlds, which sometimes more than paid for the money spent on them. His technomagical exosuit had served him for at least fifty years and was the pinnacle of scientific thought of some distant world. It had saved his life more than once in the most unexpected and difficult situations. Or the combat assault droids.

Remembering them, Tarak the Bloody's mood worsened again. The merchant had cheated him badly then, and there was no chance of punishing the dishonest dealer in the near future. Returning to the reports, he confirmed and, in some places, clarified the quality and quantity of loot from individual decurions. And then he got to the reward tables of the 7th Company.

"They've gone completely insane," he said maliciously, continuing to open more complete information about the resources obtained. "Although the loot is certainly worthy. More than 2,000 arachnid eggs, 23 units of E-rank system objects, and all of these are the trophies of one old decurion. And also a personal bonus for bravery from the Lurion of 10 SP and from the Centurion of 20 SP."

As a result, Decurion Irchin the Malicious was personally credited with 128 SP. And this was despite the fact that the average reward for a decurion on this mission ranged from 5 to 20 SP at best. And then there were these personal bonuses.

"They've started a new fad. Rewarding small things with three years' salary for a junior officer," Tarak the Bloody growled irritably.