Chapter 87 Chapter 88 Green Skin Assault (Part 1)
Ji Ma stepped onto the spiraling stone staircase leading to the ground, leaving the dark dungeon behind. At the end of the staircase, she saw a familiar figure; George stood at the threshold, standing straight with his hands resting on his great sword. He looked like an executioner.
“Aren’t you supposed to be overseeing the battle on the city walls?”
“I can spare a little time,” George said. “The green skins haven’t attacked yet, but we don’t have much time.”
Ji Ma laughed and asked, “Can I assume you came here out of concern for my well-being?”
The voice from under the bucket helmet replied, “Yes.”
“That’s a boring answer,” Ji Ma said. “There’s no surprise in it.”
George felt a bit of a headache and didn’t want to get tangled up in flirting with Ji Ma. They walked side by side, and he asked, “Is your medicine effective?”
Ji Ma stopped and looked around. They were in the corridor with no one else around, and in the distance, the faint sounds of the green skins’ roars could be heard. Since they had cut down the fleeing soldiers last night, the whole green skin warband seemed to be celebrating, always shouting and yelling.
“It’s useless, and yet it is useful,” Ji Ma said. “He believes the medicine will work, and that makes it effective. I estimate that in a few days his vampire disease will be cured.”
George was silent for a moment and asked, “Is it the ‘Lie’ ability?”
“Yes. To defeat a lie, you have to use another lie.”
“Incredible, the truth fails at this moment,” George said. “Is this one of your new abilities, like the teleportation you used while sleeping yesterday?”
“George, why can’t you just pretend to be foolish?” Ji Ma shrugged her hands. “You’re a smart person and already know the answer, so don’t bring it into the open, okay?”
All along, Ji Ma had been trying to hide her extraordinary abilities. She didn’t want her unusual actions of writing explicit literature to raise George’s suspicions, but it was not just that…
“Ji Ma, you can trust me.”
“Try to empathize with a suspicious woman,” Ji Ma said. “Just consider it a serious case of persecution paranoia.”
“I’m glad that you are willing to expose your abilities for the sake of others’ lives.”
“If it weren’t for the fact that I know you can only tell the truth, I would have thought you were talking nonsense,” Ji Ma muttered, looking at George’s bucket helmet. “George, take off your helmet.”
George took off the bucket helmet, revealing his handsome face and asked, “What’s the matter?”
Ji Ma stared into his azure eyes, a question lingering in her mind.
‘If, I mean if, one day I become the Demon King, but I promise that my relationship with you will remain the same, would you hold your sword against me?’
This question choked in her throat. She opened her mouth, about to speak, but reason prevailed.
To ask a question that already had an answer would only put her in more danger afterward; her primary goal now was still to deceive George.
She said, “George, I want to say, look, I’ve made such a big sacrifice, there should be some kind of reward. Please don’t say that being able to save thousands of innocent lives in the city is the greatest reward.”
George had a knowing look on his face. He said, “Well, at least it shows you’re starting to be willing to do good things. You can make a request of me.”
Ji Ma gleefully said, “Then I’ll save it. You owe me a promise, a man’s promise.”
George instinctively suspected Ji Ma was up to something again, but he just smiled and said, “Alright.”
Afterward, he hurriedly threw himself into organizing the city defense. With nothing else to do, Ji Ma followed along, thinking to find an opportunity to increase her favorability.
Since the chaotic escape incident last night, the guard’s numbers had become even more insufficient.
After a headcount, there were only a thousand guards left, half of whom were farmers recruited as archers. They obeyed their lord’s orders and came with their own bows and arrows, so their weapons were naturally jumbled. Many of them carried bows that had been passed down through generations, and most of them only used these old bows when hunting rabbits.
Because the law only allowed peasants to hunt rabbits legally.
They hardly counted as soldiers; malnourished and short in stature, most of them were not even as tall as Ji Ma. When George stood in front of them, it was as if he had entered a land of dwarves. The weapons at their waists were also a mixed bag—short swords, axes for chopping trees, and Ji Ma even saw one guy with a butcher’s knife.
Looking at their uninterested expressions, poor equipment, and visibly low morale, Ji Ma suspected that if a single big brute of an orc suddenly appeared, shouting and waving their weapons at them, this group of people would be scared out of their wits, and the number of casualties from trampling would likely exceed those killed by the orc.
George offered some encouragement, spouting grand statements about the innocent people in the city facing a tide of blood if the city fell, and how it was their duty to defend their homes, and how fear was the greatest enemy.
The farmers’ archers responded flatly, or rather they didn’t react at all, their dark faces staring silently at George, who looked like a giant of steel, without uttering a word.
Ji Ma tugged at George’s cloak and whispered a few words to him: “Just say that the goblins are shorter, weaker, and have worse bows than they do. When the fight starts, they only need to shoot against the goblin archers. In close combat, you can handle them as long as they just aim their bows in your direction.”
“But goblin archers might not be weaker than they are.”
“Why do you always like to speak the harsh truth?”
In the end, George rephrased his words, emphasizing that they only needed to draw their bows from the back, and the farmers cheered with delight.
The remaining infantry was in a relatively better situation, but it was just relative. With nearly four hundred infantrymen, they wore cheap chainmail that was rusty, poorly maintained, and had small coverage, able to protect only their torsos. Even this crude armor was only equipped by the front line.
Many of them wore only thick padded armor—similar to quilted clothing. Nearly half wore helmets, each carrying a shield that bore the emblem of the Drew family. Their weapons and equipment all came from the Drew armory, so they were somewhat uniform.
The most elite part of the entire garrison was the retinue directly under Drew, numbering over a hundred. Each had a horse; the mounted retinue had iron helmets, long chainmail coats, and spears, making their equipment rather lavish, although their horses were leaner than the one Ji Ma used for traveling.
The commanders of the mounted retinue were five attendants, destined to be future nobles sent by other noble families to learn knightly skills under Drew. They wore well-crafted armor, fully ironclad, dressed in plate armor, and some even wore full plate, topped with boar-faced helmets. Their warhorses were large and well-built, carrying a shield in one hand and a lance in the other.
The only problem was that they completely rejected George’s commands.
George ordered them to dismount and act as a reserve force on the city walls to block any potential breaches.
“Sir George,” an attendant said without raising his visor. “We are better suited for cavalry combat; we have our own plans for how to fight.”
“Fighting alongside me will better showcase your courage,” George replied. “Unified combat is how we achieve victory.”
“Just a reminder, while we share noble blood, you have not been recognized by the kingdom and are not a knight of the realm. The only knight of the realm is currently locked in your dungeon, and you are not our lord.” The would-be knight said, “So, in every respect, you lack the authority to command us.”
George helplessly closed his mouth, hoping Drew would recover soon.
Ji Ma stood beside George, her hand reaching into her clothing to touch the sleeping pills before she felt relieved. With those sleeping pills, she could simply gulp some down and make a run for it if things went south.
She believed that when the city fell, George would definitely be too busy saving countless lives to pay attention to her.
At that moment, a rhythmic yet chaotic sound echoed from outside the city walls, which could only be described as war drums.
A deep, beastly roar erupted: “Waghhhh!”
Ji Ma’s eardrums trembled. She covered her ears with both hands to shield herself from the roar of war.
George immediately ran toward the city walls, and Ji Ma followed. They passed a group of sturdy men below the walls, freshly recruited by George, armed with an abundance of weapons, including hay forks, flails, and stones.
Ji Ma even saw a boy about a dozen years old, holding a logging axe, his face still covered in fuzz, hugging the axe with trembling arms.
Ji Ma turned her head, not wanting to see any more, following George as they climbed the narrow stone stairs up to the city walls.
On the city wall stood a line of farmer archers, their bows trembling.
The green skins were assaulting the city. They were numerous; looking down from the walls, it seemed as if the ground was covered in green mushrooms.
A group of green skin boys vigorously waved their machetes above their heads. Although they were poorly equipped, wearing only stripped beast skins and showing off their strong green muscles, each green skin was tall, almost matching George in armor. Each of their arm muscles was as thick as Ji Ma’s waist.
Among the green skin boys, the big green skins were even more robust, towering over the boys by half a head, wearing the best armor they had stolen, their mouths open wide, baring snow-white fangs, shouting at the city walls: “Waghhh.”
In an instant, every brick on the wall trembled.
The panicked farmers shot their bows, but the arrows landed softly at the feet of the nearest green skin boy, triggering a round of laughter among the greens.
“Calm down! Calm down!” George shouted. “They’re just a bunch of mindless beasts; discipline and courage are enough to defeat them!”
Ji Ma muttered softly, “But they lack both.”
“Our city walls have a moat! Along with the walls, we can crush this pack of beasts.”
The farmers’ morale stabilized a bit.
However, it didn’t take long before they saw a path open in the green skin army. A large number of goblins, carrying bags of dirt nearly the same size as themselves, were crying and rushing toward the moat, driven by the green skins.
Another large group of goblins cheered, holding crude bows and following behind.
“Fire! Don’t let them fill the moat!”
The farmer archers pulled back their bows and shot, a rain of arrows tumbling down like spring rain, continuous yet feeble, evenly distributed among the scattered goblins, and their lethality was surprisingly low. Only about seven or eight unfortunate goblins let out a yelp and fell to the ground.
The goblins drew their short bows and shot back at the farmer archers; at one point, arrows flew like locusts, half of them striking the walls, while the other half hit their companions filling the ground in front.
“Wahh!”
One unfortunate goblin jumped up, covering its backside.
Ji Ma remained motionless, ignoring the arrows, counting that eleven goblins had been hit, a higher tally than the achievements of the farmer archers.
But that didn’t prevent the farmer archers from being scared and hiding behind the battlements, or simply shooting into the sky.
They were utterly helpless to stop the green skins from filling the dirt.
George shook his head and turned to Ji Ma, saying, “I’m going down alone.”
With that, he leaped down from the city wall, and before he even landed, the goblins wailed and abandoned their bags of dirt, fleeing backward.
George raised his sword and chased after the goblins. At that moment, the ground shook.
Ji Ma watched clearly from the city wall. The war chief roared as a group of big brute orcs surged toward George, their heavy footsteps shaking the ground beneath.
Even George didn’t have confidence in diving into a pile of orcs and fighting the war chief, thinking he could come back out. Helpless, he bent his knees and jumped back onto the wall.
The filling of soil continued for two days, blocking the upper stream and drying up the water in the moat.
