Chapter 9: One Hundred 3-Star Sentinels! Next Stop: the Goblin Tribe!

Heavy, steady clangs of metal echoed through the death mist.

One towering figure after another slowly emerged from the darkness.

They looked completely different from the Undead Spearmen.

Every undead warrior stood over two meters tall.

Their entire bodies were encased in thick black plate armor, with only two pale, icy soul flames visible through the slits of their visors.

Each held a massive square shield taller than a man in its left hand.

In its right was a broad, serrated sword designed for tearing through armor.

One hundred Undead Sentinels marched out of the formation and assembled into four square formations before John.

John opened the status panel of the Sentinel standing at the front.

[Unit: Undead Sentinel]

[Tier: 3-Star]

[Level: Lv.1]

[HP: 500]

[Attack: 50]

[Defense: 10]

[Trait: Undead Body — Immune to mind-affecting magic, feels no pain, and never tires.]

[Skill: Iron Wall — Lv.1]

[Active Effect: Grants Super Armor, making the unit immune to knockback and launch effects while reducing all Physical and Magic Damage taken by 20%.]

[Duration: 10 seconds]

[Cooldown: 20 seconds]

The moment John saw the stats, he knew he’d made the right choice.

Ten times the HP of an Undead Spearman.

And five times the other basic stats.

But the most important part was the active skill—

Iron Wall.

Super Armor.

Plus twenty percent damage reduction.

That meant once one hundred Undead Sentinels raised their massive shields, activated Iron Wall, and formed a moving wall across the front line...

the Spearmen behind them could thrust through the gaps with their bone spears.

Just like that, John already had the beginnings of a proper offensive and defensive formation.

What had happened during the battle against the Boarfolk Chieftain—where one charge had shattered dozens of Spearmen—

would no longer happen so easily.

"That thousand Gold was worth every coin."

John nodded in satisfaction.

With a wave of his hand, he formally assigned the heavily armored unit to his core fighting force.

Just then—

the holographic map in front of him trembled.

To the southwest, deep within an area still covered by fog, an unusually bright dark-gold symbol suddenly appeared.

A system notification followed.

[WARNING: Scouting Squad Three has discovered a Special Resource Node eighteen kilometers southwest of your territory!]

[Discovered: Lv.1 Small Gold Vein!]

John’s expression sharpened.

His consciousness immediately sank into Shared Vision.

On Godfall Continent, basic resource nodes came in two categories.

The first were the exposed deposits his Spearmen had already been mining along the way.

Aside from the very first one they had discovered, most of those were one-time resources.

Once mined dry, they disappeared permanently.

But the second category—

was veins.

Once depleted, a resource vein would regenerate every twenty-four hours.

In other words, as long as John controlled one, his territory would gain a stable long-term source of resources.

He would no longer need to constantly split up his troops and search all over the map.

The first regenerating vein his scouts had discovered earlier had already been marked as well.

Detailed information appeared before him.

[Name: Small Gold Vein]

[Level: Lv.1]

[Reserves: 500/500 units]

[Maximum Miners: 50]

[Mining Efficiency: 1 unit/person/hour]

[Respawn Cycle: Restores to full capacity 24 hours after depletion.]

[Occupying Force: Blackclaw Goblin Tribe]

Beyond a chaotic field of broken stones stood a massive, weathered rocky hill.

A wide fissure opened at the entrance to a mine beneath it.

Hundreds of crude, low-roofed huts had been thrown together around the mine using dead branches and loose stones.

Small green-skinned creatures scurried throughout the settlement in groups.

They stood barely a meter tall.

Their skin was gray-green.

Their ears were oversized.

Their chins were sharp.

And in their hands were crude stone axes, shortbows, rusted iron daggers, and other makeshift weapons.

A rough estimate put their numbers at over three hundred.

John focused on one of them.

[Wild Monster: Blackclaw Goblin]

[Faction: Goblin]

[Tier: 1-Star]

[Level: Lv.2]

[HP: 120]

[Attack: 25]

[Defense: 3]

[Skills: Poisoned Arrow, Cunning Encirclement]

A little over three hundred Level 2, 1-Star monsters.

Their stats were even worse than the Boarfolk.

John didn’t hesitate.

"Entire army, move out."

"Destination: the rocky flats to the southwest."

...

At the Blackclaw Goblin settlement—

a small goblin with pheasant feathers stuck into its head rubbed its eyes in disbelief.

When it finally realized what the terrifying formation advancing toward the camp actually was—

the bone whistle in its hand slipped free.

Clatter.

"GAH! GAGU!"

A shrill cry echoed across the settlement.

More than three hundred Blackclaw Goblins who had been tearing apart raw meat or sharpening stone axes all turned at once.

A second later—

the green-skinned creatures finally reacted.

They grabbed crude shortbows and rusted daggers, screaming over one another as they poured from their huts.

John stood at the rear of the formation.

"Advance in formation."

The Undead Sentinels at the front stepped forward as one.

BOOM!

Their massive shields slammed into the ground, sending up clouds of dust.

A scattering of bone arrows fired by the goblin archers struck the black plate armor with a series of metallic clinks.

They bounced off without leaving so much as a mark.

-2!

-3!

-1!

The scattered chip damage was practically meaningless.

The goblins had never seen anything like these fully armored monsters.

The fastest goblin warriors charged first.

They hadn’t even had time to swing their stone axes when the massive shields slammed into them.

BANG!

Bones cracked.

Flesh burst.

Several green-skinned goblins were sent flying meters through the air before crashing motionless into piles of rubble.

Then the Spearmen moved.

One thousand pale bone spears thrust forward through the gaps between the shields.

Pshk! Pshk! Pshk!

The dense sounds of piercing flesh merged into one.

Gray-green blood sprayed across the dirt.

More than a hundred goblins in the front ranks were turned into pincushions before they could even touch the enemy.

The goblins in the rear broke instantly.

Weapons slipped from their hands.

They turned and fled toward the depths of the mine.

The Undead Spearmen showed no hesitation whatsoever.

The formation simply kept advancing.

Bone spears rose and fell.

Again.

And again.

Mercilessly harvesting the surviving Blackclaw Goblins.

Three minutes later—

silence returned to the camp.

[Your army has slain Blackclaw Goblin — 1-Star ×320.]

[EXP +320]

[Gold +320]

[You have successfully occupied Small Gold Vein — Lv.1!]

[Battlefield looting complete.]

[Obtained: Food ×320]

[Obtained: Common Blueprint — Standard House Blueprint ×1]

John walked forward and picked up the blueprint floating in midair.

[Item: Standard House Blueprint]

[Quality: Common]

[Construction Cost: 50 Wood, 30 Stone per house]

[Capacity: Houses up to 5 subjects.]

[Effect: Increases subject Loyalty and slightly improves Stamina recovery.]

John put the blueprint away.

Under the construction rules of Godfall Continent, territory buildings like these could not be constructed by military units.

Only native residents could build them.

"Not bad."

John smiled faintly.

"Now everyone can finally have a roof over their heads."

He opened the holographic territory map.

By now, the scouting squads had cleared almost all the fog of war within twenty kilometers.

Red and white markers covered the map.

Wolf dens.

Territories occupied by rabid hyenas.

Scattered surface iron deposits.

Logging sites.

And more.

When it came to pioneering efficiency, an undead army that never tired, never feared death, and obeyed every command without question...

was practically unbeatable.