With the battlefield effectively transformed into a giant Dungeons and Dragons playing matt, the battle began.

Prayer of Azaron

Class skill bonuses *22%

Reaction time *2

Constinution +2

Strength +2

I wanted to check my ISW to see what exactly this had done, but one of the water zombies crawled into mele range, and I was forced to deal with it first.

“I hope one of them called the military.” The spearman next to me spoke.

I glanced at them, unsure if they were talking to me, and watched as they impaled a zombie before hitting another one with the corpse still attached to their weapon.

“What?” They looked up at me. “I ain’t no cop. Can throw a stab, sure-” A creature grabbed their leg and they bashed its head in with the pommel of their spear. “But I like living, you know?”

“I can relate to the sentiment.” I agreed, kicking another one of the crawling corpses away from me, and kneeling over to stab it.

Truth be told, this was not the ideal type of battle for me. Not that any type of battle was truly fit for a city girl like –

A square lit up orange a few meters ahead of me. At that same moment, a lightning bolt flashed by my head, zapping and paralysing the group of monsters located on and near it.

“Sword, finish them!” That same male voice called out from the backlines. “And activate your buffs, for heaven’s sake!”

“Sir, yes sir.” I sarcastically muttered as I rushed forward, almost reaching the waterfront.

I pierced a zombie in the head, another in between its shoulder blades, and stumped on one’s head, although the latter proved to be the least efficient of the three attacks.

Skill activation override - Rwen Samine

Accept

Decline

“What-”

I did not have time to finish my question, as a creature dug its rotten teeth into my leg.

Luck – 4

Effects of poison negated.

I stabbed the damned creature before accepting the skill override. I didn’t know what exactly it did, but I could make an educated guess. And sure enough, my own status window flashed before my eyes. Except it was all scrambled, like the image of an old TV. Rows and columns moved around – I had to take my eyes away from the semi-transparent screen to focus on two more creatures approaching me. Once I pierced their skulls, following in the footsteps of that spearman, I finally spared some attention to the system notifications.

Skill override successful.

Item effects unaffected.

Laura Emilie Geneviève Dubois de la Sablonnière

S

Courier

Social stealth adept

Luck

55/100

MP

9/100

Strength

15 = 11+ 2 (item effect : blade of Namura) +2 (Prayer of Azaron)

Dexterity

18 = 11 + 6 (class benefit) + 1 (Black Square White Square)

Constitution

12 = 8 + 2 (item effect : blade of Namura) +2 (Prayer of Azaron)

Intelligence

14

Wisdom

10 = 13 – 3(unexpected side-effect)

Charisma

14 = 11 +3 (Black Square White Square)

Skills in effect

Passive skills not displayed

Starlight

Blade of Namura damage + 2%

Damage type bludgeoning or piercing or radiant

Radiant

Black Square White Square

Dexterity +1

Charisma +3

Area: Battlefield A1 (Dynamic Focal Onset: Rwen Samine)

Weapon damage

Blade of Namura

Base

20 (core inactive)

Buffs

2%

Double damage against undead.

+9

Total

30

Unarmed strike

Base

4

Buffs

0%

+1

Total

5

Other Effects

Linear Battle Focus

Whisper of Protection

Incoming damage reduced by 30%

“Sword can you not focus for two bloody minutes?!” Rwen’s voice yelled at me once more.

I had frozen in place, trying to process what it was I was looking at. I knew that now was not the time, but I could not remember anything of the sort from the original novel. I wondered if the change in my status window was the result of a skill, or if it could always do that. Afterall, the information it displayed now was just as if not more useful than –

Luck - 4

“Fuck.” I swore, snapping back to reality from the pain of another pair of sharp and rotting jaws biting into my leg.

I sliced the creature’s head clean off, before focusing back on the battlefield.

And that wasn’t a second too early it seemed, as the spearman near me yelped in pain as a zombie that had somehow risen on its legs bit down their arm. I dashed towards my fellow fighter, slicing the monster’s head off, right through its lower jaw.

“You alright?” I asked.

Not waiting for a response, I turned away, piercing another monster's skull with my blade.

“I’ll live.” The spearman replied, with clear notes of pain in their voice. “How about we work together? I lift ‘em, you stab them?”

“Yes!” I exclaimed all too eagerly.

Although my muscles and bones did not feel the pain of having to periodically bend over to get rid of the crawling monsters, the trousers I had decided to wear that day sure did, as they were now more monster brains and rotten blood than fabric.

The spearman proceeded with their plan. They impaled one of the zombies on their weapon and used it to somehow sweep up a few more. I dashed around, piercing through or slicing off their heads, not leaving them the chance to hit the ground again. But I started to miss more and more of them, and I quickly understood that this was not a sustainable battle strategy.

Constitution - 3

A notification screen appeared before me, the second I slowed down to catch my breath.

“You okay?” The spearman asked in between two pants.

I gave them a thumbs up in response, as I myself tried to catch my breath, as I leaned onto my knees. It seemed the exercise had been equally exhausting for both of us. But, it had worked, as there were hardly any zombies left around us, and the one that were left had enough intelligence to start crawling back to where they had come from.

“I wonder what Etienne, and the rest has been doing,” I spoke as I finally caught my breath and turned around to face the rest of the group.

They were doing quite poorly.

It appeared that a wave of water zombies had crawled from a different part of the waterfront, and, ignoring the spearman and me completely had headed right for our support group.

The person with the rainbow beanie who’d given me that buff earlier was hiding behind Etienne, while he was zapping at the monsters that approached them. The telepath had resorted to using pieces of a broken wooden bench, which had likely not been in that state before the start of the battle, to create a spikey shield, while they too did their best to hide away from the monsters.

The guy who’d transformed this plaza into a literal battlefield seemed to be the only one unaffected, as he yelled and gestured away orders at the group. Except, I couldn’t hear him. I tapped my ear with the palm of my hand, then clicked my fingers in front of it to check, but I could hear that just fine. The words said by the spearman right after only confirmed that my hearing was not at fault here:

“I don’t think any of them called the police. Let alone the military.”

“My phone’s dead.” I distantly replied. “We should go help.”

“But their squares are lit up orange.” The spearman replied.

I snapped my head towards them, as they did the same. We had come to the same realization at the same time. We could not move unless Rwen ordered us to.

“Did you accept that skill override?” I asked.

“Yes. You too?”

I nodded, as my face twisted into an expression of fear.

“Fuck.” The spearman swore, hitting their weapon against the ground to accentuate their point. “So, what now?”

“I don’t know…”

This shouldn’t even have been possible. I had ‘mind stop’ after all. But perhaps it didn’t work because I had authorized that skill.

“That’s one OP skill.” I muttered, as I headed over to a nearby monster.

Having nothing better I could physically do, I followed that ever-present compulsion at the back of my mind, as I bent over, and stabbed a monster that had been crawling away right through its head. It wiggled a bit under my blade, still trying to reach the water in its post-mortem spasm.

“Yes? Hello. There is a monster attack at the Jean-Paul 2 plaza.”

I turned around to see the spearman with a flip phone to their ear.

“Well it’s mostly taken care of,” they continued “but a group of four people are still in the minds of battle.” They paused, no doubt listening to a response form the other end of the call. “No, we can’t,” they replied after a while, “one of them has used a paralyzing skill. Consensually, yes.” They paused once again. “Okay. We’ll wait.”

“How long?” I asked, as they closed their phone and put it away.

“A few minutes. You know you don’t get anything from finishing ‘em off, right?”

“I know.” I replied, nodding in agreement, not quite sure myself why I was doing this.

The spearman shrugged, and made their opinion on the matter clear when their weapon suddenly faded away from their hands.

I glanced back at the group at the other end of the plaza, which I still could not force myself to approach. They seemed to be holding up well enough, all things considered. When my attention returned to the waterfront, all the zombies on my side of the battlefield were completely gone, and the red grid had itself started to slowly fade away.

As I spun around once more, I saw several military 4x4 rolling up by the other group.

I watched as they took care of the remaining zombies with the best guns modern technology had to offer. One of them healed the telekenisyst, and once the action died down, two of them grabbed Rwen by the shoulders, and dragged him away to their car.

Linear Battle Focus no longer active

Suddenly, all sound around me returned. I winced at the unexpected sensation, having not realized just how quiet it had gotten in the past few minutes.

“Lou!” The telekinesis called out.

“I’m fine! How are you?” The spearman yelled in response.

“I think the spell is off now.” I told them, before rushing in that direction myself.

Traitor’s lament +

Whisper of Protection no longer active

Black Square White Square no longer active

Prayer of Azaron no longer active

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” I swore.

But it was already too late. I had taken my eyes off Etienne for just a second, to read and dismiss these notifications, but he had already vanished somewhere. I wasn’t even surprised, or disappointed. Somehow, this seemed a very ‘him’ thing to do, and I wasn’t sure if it was his work, the cops which he too was not fond of, or the conversation we had had earlier.