Chapter 110 – Ranged Weapons, why they suck.
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"I'll tag along with them for a bit but I'll probably separate at some point so don't include me in any planning, free-roaming around because there's something else going on."

"Of course, there's a preliminary report that you might want to check out" Bane points on table to a spot closer to the border not far from where Drakon is.

"Anything else to go on?"

"Nothing solid. Murmurs are that some residents got lost trying to come here..."

"Ah" Jack nods, understanding the situation. Anyone caught up in this sort of night with the fog and demon invasion is not going to fare too well.

Bane passes him two crystals, "Break one if you need assistance, we'll send out a squad quickly."

"Understood, anything else?"

"No Lord, I haven't been debriefed from the squads sent to the city yet so I'm unable to speak much further."

"Good job then, I look forward to hearing your thoughts after."

"Of course My Lord."

Jack looks over the table one last time as his pupils turn bright for a moment. Leaving towards the door he entered the second floor where someone is waiting for him.

"Lord, we're about ready but we'll need to get some more weapons for you" the simple-looking attendant says.

"Good idea. Lead the way."

The attendant nods and goes down the narrow stairs, Jack follows them quickly as they round a corner on the busy floor and enter the armoury. All the weapons lined up are pristine and shiny as if they've been polished, Jack inspects one sword when he hears lots of movement behind him. He turns around and several people are standing there with weapons; spears, swords, crossbows, bolts, talisman paper, metal plates, daggers. There are things that he cannot even identify.

"All of that?"

"Yes, Lord."

"Well, I guess I can just store them" Jack takes some of the weapons and places them on his body, he'll need several spears and the crossbow to try out. He stores the swords in the storage ring while taking the initial one aside. He has the village sword by his side but Xueli is still asleep, meaning it can only be used for a single slash.

The attendants finish fitting him and scurry off, Jack feels much heavier with all the crossbow gear on yet he doesn't let it slow him down as the first attendant comes forward quickly, "Come on lord, running late."

"Go."

Jack follows the attendant, the crossbow taking a few steps to adjust before he's able to move about. Bunny dash will be an issue with this gear, but it's easy enough to store it quickly, it's just hard to set up initially. The attendant exits the building and exits into a small courtyard where several squads are ready waiting. Several people notice Jack as he comes in, but he says a few quiet words without causing too much fuss. The captains are saying the last words.

"Alright people, we're going to scout out some areas and come back. Simple stuff that anyone could do and you have all been drilling for some time. If you see anything more than insects, then we're to come back. Do not be a hero, Lord doesn't want to see heroics, he wants to see you safe."

"Protect our home and protect the lord's land."

"Protect our land!"

...

The people cheer in a combination for a few things as they rush out, Jack smiles and shakes his head as he runs after the group. One of the captains catches up to Jack and speaks to him, "Lord, will you make your presence more known?"

"We'll see how it goes, I'd rather be low-key but if it helps morale."

"Well let us hope we don't have a need for that. The route is mostly clear as I ran it only 6 minutes ago. The large insects can't get through the net but there are various smaller ones that slip through, we're not even able to identify some of them."

"Ah well, you'll have to be careful then, I know how hard the centipedes and millipedes are."

"The centipedes that were on a rampage earlier, we weren't even able to stop them so it's fortunate Lord was there at the time. We'll feel much assured about this operation's success with Lord around."

"No problem, let's go."

They approach the other side of the barrier, the captain runs ahead as the troops hit the barrier. Jack exits through instantly as is hit by an instant stench.

He looks around and spots dead insects everywhere, there are flying insects and crawling insects. Most of them aren't very big but there's piles of them everywhere, *splat splat*

Some more insect bodies hit the ground as a few troops look at it, the captains yell, "It's what the barrier does, it acts like a giant beacon but also kills them."

"Ah like a bug zapper..." Jack mutters, yet looking around no one reacted. He strangely is missing having someone around to talk to about this stuff that he knows. He has spent a lot of time in the game lately and barely talked to anyone outside in sometime. He pushes those thoughts out of mind and thinks about his tasks. One of them was to get massive piles of bodies and his thoughts whirl after seeing that enormous pile of insect bodies outside the barrier.

The soldiers have moved on while Jack collects piles of the insect bodies, there's a small mountain of them near the barrier that cannot be burnt. He catches up after collecting everything he can, not enough to satisfy his needs, but there's always what's coming up as he comes across some rear guards. They let Jack pass ensuring that he's ok; guarding, protecting the rear in case something sneaks up.

The open plains have a few scattered soldiers as they slowly close the gap before everyone is accounted for, they're approaching the first important site on the short yet dangerous trip, Jack crests a small hill and looks ahead.

He spots a few soldiers fighting several ants, their weapons white in contrast to the black ants with red markings on them.

"It seems the ants have become demonified, well I hope it doesn't spread further. The normal ones are dangerous enough unchecked and there's so many nearby."

The ants are killed with a few easy swipes of the weapon as the soldiers proceed forward and intercept a few more ants, they each fight over the kill to claim credit. Jack walks up to the captain nearby who gives him a quiet explanation, "hazing, they need to get cut on something alive, usually it's ants but now they're like this."

Jack nods and leaves them. The soldiers won't be much longer, as there's few of them in this batch heading to the designated location.

He nears the first forest area and hears some noises, *CLANK*.

His footsteps hurry yet he's held back by the crossbow weighing down his back, he tosses up internally whether to drop it but when he doesn't hear much more than clanks indicating that the situation is somewhat steady.

Jack chooses to just hurry his steps and comes across the first soldier who is in a bitter struggle with an ant. This one is larger and more ferocious, as its colour is more vibrant than the last several. Jack places his hand on the crossbow, but the ant is struck down by the soldier.

Jack doesn't let this delay his footsteps as he continues on as he soldier fixes himself up, *shing shing*

A small group of trees has three soldiers fighting between killing some ants and flying insects, two of them hold large shields overhead blocking the flying insects that hover overhead in a blur. Jack stops for a moment to focus on them, he cannot get a good look at the flying insects and he places his hand on the crossbow but the flying insects make a mad dash forward.

*THUNK THUNK*

The flying insects make contact with the shields overhead, Jack brings out the crossbow from his back but the soldiers behind holding spears stab forward piercing the insects expertly through their thorax. Jack nods at this as he places the crossbow away again.

The ants on the ground are killed quickly by spears, their bodies lay twitching on the ground giving Jack a strange satisfaction internally as these are his soldiers that were doing this. They might not be aware they're being watched by their leader, but they're proud to do their duty for him.

Jack has a strange smile as he moves onto the next noise, he doesn't want to be delayed too much but as he come across the next area, he cannot help but be delayed as these soldiers are facing against even an enemy he would have an issue with killing quickly, the shield-bearers out front glow as they intercept the strike from the large creature opposing them.

Archers in the fire back several shots off, but they bounce off the armoured exterior of the large insect.

Jack pulls out his crossbow and quickly loads a bolt, the drawstring comes back as his aim is shaky. He aims for a weak point around the head of the creature; he fires a bolt that misses its target.

He quickly loads up several more bolts and loses them, they fire into the target but don't embed deep enough to cause any damage.

A few soldiers have noticed the extra bolts in the skin of the creature but they're not able to say much between the dodging of the creature's attacks, the shield bearers are able to withstand most attacks yet that doesn't mean they're going to be stupid and stand there waiting for an attack to land on them. The advanced spearmen move in to stab it backwards, but it's like toothpicks against a snake.

The creature is gigantic and well armoured.

Jack slows his breath as his eyes shimmer, various colours shimmer in his eyes as he takes aim with the crossbow.

His eyes squint, his hand is steady.

*SHINK*

A crossbow bolt is away, but he's not done as his eyes quickly move onto the next target as the crossbow loads the next bolt.

*SHINK*

Several more successive bolts go off in quick succession, these movements are rapid as it's a constant stream of bolts hitting the side of the creature. It tries to release a cry of agony with each piercing hit on its weak points but they're too quick as it finds several veins pierced while some bolts are lodged in important places for the armour to bunch up limiting its movement. The creature tries to wail but several more bolts arrive at its newly exposed underside.

The soldiers before the creature notice the change and charge in, finishing off the creature. They don't notice that it was nearly killed by the crossbow bolt.

Jack's eyes settle down as he stores away the crossbow, he mutters to himself, "It's not satisfying using distance weapons plus I can't aim for shit. It feels weird using that system to aim for me... I'll try not to use it because my spear skills at decent enough, besides ranged weapons don't work in this world very well...." his voice trails off as he turns around. The body of this creature isn't good to transfer yet, it's too large without damaging the passage. There are still limits for physical goods...

He travels along the pathway and comes across another group of soldiers, he pulls out the crossbow this time to repeat what he did last time when a hand approaches his arm.

 

Wee.

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