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55

 Finally a city. The transition turned out to be tiring, so I decided to rest in the city for a day. 

            The town is small, but located on an important trade road, so many caravans stop here all the time. The walls are not high, but thick enough, they are more from robbers than enemies from abroad. 

            I decided to stay at the Prancing Pony Hotel, which is run by a young couple with a young son. I liked the hotel with a simple but interesting style. When I went inside, I was amazed: a simple house on the outside, unremarkable from the rest, inside looked like a marvelous garden. All the walls were covered with vines and, remarkably, with bunches of grapes. 

            At the entrance, a security guard stopped me and warned that it was possible to pick grapes, but only visitors to the establishment, and as much as they need for food now, cannot take grapes with them to their room and take them out of the hotel. A reasonable rule of thumb is to ensure that there is enough grapes for everyone, although they grow with the help of magic, they do not grow instantly.

            The next thing that impressed me the most was the cleanliness. The floor was made of white boards of a species of wood unknown to me, and none of those present spit on the floor, all the dirt brought on the shoes was carefully swept away by a pretty hostess with a surprisingly thoughtful face. 

            This whole picture impressed me so much that I didn’t even think about looking for other options, immediately paying for accommodation and three meals a day. It cost, to my surprise, it's not expensive at all - fifty silver, they gave me a discount of five silver for the mark of the killer of the undead, I didn’t even know that I had it, but, come on, the locals have amulets and see merit on this field.

            Until it got completely dark, I decided to look around the town, I liked Philost if I chose where to build a house, that house where you will return every time from anytravel, I would choose this city. It belonged to the type of city that, despite its rich history, remained clean, calm and lively. Walking along the street, I admired the amazing modeling on houses, monuments, made with such a careful approach that it seemed like a person was frozen. I was so carried away by the sightseeing that I got lost. I woke up from a culture shock in front of the gates of some building, there, behind a fence of forged metal rods, children, about seven years old, were practicing martial arts. Their teacher was an old man, it was amazing to look at his smooth movements. He danced and his dance was deadly beautiful. I’m so far from his skill that it’s hard to imagine, compared to him I’m a child. He let me watch them, and then he spoke. It was amazing, the man, who looked like a hundred years old, had a deep, young and strong voice:

What are you doing, young man? Come in, we don't keep guests at the door.

            I was confused, so I answered with a slight delay:

Sorry, but I wasn't invited. Passing through your city, I walked and admired the city, wandered here and was amazed by your skill.

- It's okay, an uninvited guest is not always unpleasant. I see no malice in your eyes, only the curiosity of a child. Come in, be a guest, now you are an invited guest.

- Thanks. May I know your name?

- My name is Dmitry, and you, young man?

- I'm Mirage. How long have you been into martial arts?

- All my life, martial arts are a relic of my family. We have been developing them for seventeen generations. A father teaches his son from the cradle. And, to forestall your question, during my youth I was traumatized and cannot have children, therefore, so that the knowledge of my ancestors is not lost, I work with children at school.

- School? So this is a school, but it seemed the house of a nobleman.

- This is the house of the nobleman, or rather, was. The previous mayor had no heirs, and he wrote a will, a school for poor children was created on the basis of his property.

- Noble act. Can I watch the workout?

- Of course, you can even participate.

- I'm honored.

            I have never had such a workout before. There were no ligament-tearing exercises or wild hand-and-foot swings. This workout was like a trance, we moved smoothly on the lawn without even realizing ourselves. It was a unity with the outside world. This action ended in about an hour and was marked by a new alert.

            “Received a new passive skill - Unity: level 1 of 10. You can enter a trance, which increases the speed of your actions. At the current level, you can only enter a trance with the help of a mentor."

            I did not expect this, to be honest, I started the training because of the interest and unusual style. But it dragged on. If I then have the opportunity to learn from Dmitry, I will come here. After training, we went to tea, where I met the guys. Our company was noisy and cheerful. In total, there were twenty-two people in the group: eighteen boys and four girls, and after all, the girls did not lag behind the guys in training, and it was the girl who came up to me first and asked to see the swords, which resulted in almost half an hour more fun while the guys examined my uniform. Immediately I met Dean, who, as it turned out, was the son of the owners of the Prancing Pony. Together with him we went back.

            Traveling through the city at night, fanned by a cool breeze, played out my appetite. Tea is tea, but after a long journey I want something more serious. Therefore, having handed over the boy to his parents, he went to the kitchen, where I got a delicious roast, which was immediately swept clean by me. The day turned out to be surprisingly long, and a stuffed belly only made me sleepy more, so, not paying attention to anything, I went to my room, where I immediately passed out.

            I was awakened by the ringing of bells, and it is worth noting that it was not a chime, but an alarm. 

            Having quickly dressed, I flew down the stairs to the first floor, where the hostess met me, clutching her son to her chest, and in sobs explained to me that there had been an attack by the undead. Literally an hour ago, the undead approached the walls, there was nothing unusual about it. The garrison successfully fought off the attack until IT arrived. Horde. Many thousands of the living dead walked non-stop from all sides. They were killed by the garrison, but they did not pay attention to the death of their comrades and walked over their corpses, and, worst of all, they walked in an organized manner, which means that they are controlled by the higher undead. The undead actually created a flyover of bodies around the entire perimeter of the city and everything goes to the walls. The magicians erect a teleport, but only the nobles of the city will get there, the teleport is old and will withstand only one massive crossing. At the end of the speech, she took my hand and, crying, asked for their lives. 

            “A new task is available to you: Saving the life of a family. Save Dean and his mother. Reward - 300 gold, increase in reputation with the owners of the Prancing Pony and the inhabitants of the city - depending on your actions. Accept: Yes/No"

            I click on the consent and I see another alert:

            “You are in the zone of a local event - Attack of the Undead. While you are in the local event zone, all quests that have a limited time to complete are suspended without imposing penalties. Will you dare to challenge the forces that can nullify you?!”

            It doesn't get any easier from time to time. If the developers wrote that there is the possibility of resetting, then it really is. This means that the undead can just kill again and again until you become the first level and fly away to the starting location. For a second, I had the lousy thought of going into invisibility and saving my ass, but after looking at Dean and his mother, I shook off my hesitation. What's the point of living like cattle? We must at least try to save them! I give a sharp command to rise and raise funds. I order you to take the cooks, and let them load themselves with food as much as possible. Despite the panic, they completed the task quickly, the cooks barely moved from the supplies loaded on their shoulders, but, clenching their teeth, they carried. I took exactly to overload, almost three hundred kilograms came out, which was a little shocking to the cooks, given that they carried half as much and barely moved. Thanks for training Sergei. 

            I decided to go to Dmitry, the school used to be apart and has thick and strong walls. In addition, there is Dmitry and, possibly, other teachers. 

            We reached the mansion without incident, the garrison still holding back the undead. Dmitry met us at the entrance, only now not in a white tunic, but in combat leather armor with metal inserts, the armor resembled that of a samurai, with the exception of the helmet, the helmet was of a more oriental type. As it turned out, I'm not the only one so smart, all the students with their families and even some neighbors pulled up to the school. Dimitri introduced me to a man dressed as a guard. As it turned out, some of those who came know how to hold weapons in their hands, but there are no leaders there. Dmitry does not have time to do everything, he stands at the entrance and performs two functions at once: to warn of the approaching undead and sends messengers to all his friends in order to make at least the appearance of defense, that we will fight back, he himself does not believe, but to surrender without a fight contrary to his nature.

            Going inside, I saw chaos, women are crying, children are screaming, men are trying to calm them down, and this is at best, and someone is lamenting almost louder than children. In this state, they cannot survive, I understand that they are experiencing one of the most terrible moments of their lives, when all their usual existence collapses, and the world is falling from under their feet, but this is not possible, you will have to help Mikhail. I found a higher place, it turned out to be some kind of barrels, climbed in and barked with all my strength, adding a little ultrasound, however, I didn’t turn on the mask with burning eyes, otherwise they would be mistaken for undead, right here the skates would be discarded:

- SILENT!

            And wow, it worked, the whole hall calmed down, only here and there sobs were sometimes heard. After waiting for the attention to focus on me, he continued.

- There is no point in crying and lamenting. Especially for men. Therefore, get together and think about how to survive, cry later when our families are saved. 

- But how can we survive? We are not soldiers, we don't know how to fight, we don't even have a commander!

            At the end of his speech, the man who spoke came down to scream. Questions are certainly good, but I give them slack or show that I doubt my words, and I will no longer occupy their attention.

- Who knows how to hold a weapon, go to the entrance arch, masons, come to my right hand, carpenters to my left, the rest are in front of me.

            As they wandered around the building, trying to figure out who was who, I thought about the best way to organize everything. They seem to stand up and watch.

- Women, everyone who has children over seven years old, break up in threes, go home within a radius of half a kilometer, collect everything edible and take it here, take older children to help. There will not be much food, perhaps there will be a long isolation from the outside world. Therefore, the emphasis is on long-term and nutritious food. Bricklayers, you have the most difficult part of the job, you have to lay all the windows, all the doors. It doesn't matter if it's the ground floor or the roof, all holes must be filled. Except for one, it must be disguised at the level of the third floor, I will make sorties through it. Take all the other men, just leave a dozen for the carpenters, let them carry mortar and stones for you. Carpenters, you take the rest to help you, your task is to strengthen the fresh masonry until dry and collect firewood, no one can find wood better than you. Is everything clear to everyone? Get started.

            Fortunately, there were no questions, I already improvise on the go. Although one more thought appeared along the way, I recalled one bricklayer and ordered to lay a wide chimney, and then make a branched intricate network of small chimneys, so, of course, Santa Claus with gifts would not get to us, but the ghouls would definitely not get through the chimney . Only the warriors remained, they have the most difficult part of the work.

- Fighters, you won't have to carry logs, but you may need more. If the masons do not have time to lay the main passage, then our task will be to detain the ghouls and give them time.

            After the whole speech, Dmitry approached with a quiet thank you. It was difficult for him to command people, especially those whom he loved. According to him, he is a good warrior, but he is not a boss.

            Now we were left with almost the most difficult thing - waiting to the sound of the alarm and hoping that we would have enough time to prepare, otherwise our position would be unenviable.