The first near-dead stretched its hand towards me and lost it, and then its head. The next one was crawling towards Lynch, and jumping on the undead's back, I finished what I had started.
"Well done, kid!" The big guy smiled approvingly and patted me on the shoulder.
"Maybe he is," Viziliy grimaced, "but such experiments could have been postponed until tomorrow, and today we could have just leveled up."
"Don't grumble," Lynch grinned. "At what age did you kill your first undead? At eight?"
"Don't make things up... At ten. Alright, go finish off the cows. And when you level up, don't show it."
He said the last phrase in a whisper so Lynch wouldn't hear.
[You killed an undead cow of the 9th level.]
[Congratulations, you've reached the 3rd level!]
[Your endurance has increased!]
[You receive one skill point.]
[You killed an undead cow of the 9th level.]
[You killed an undead cow of the 9th level.]
It's generally clear why the local ragamuffins grow in levels so slowly...
To level up from second to third, I had to kill fourteen rather agile 6th level undead and one cow. Maybe even more than one, as it's unclear how much experience transferred from the previous level to this one, and from this one to the next. And this is with a 100% buff from being a transmigrator. Thanks to the system for sending me Viziliy. Or me to him... It's still unclear at this point.
"Let's go!"
Viziliy started climbing the hill again.
"I'm hungry!" Lynch whined.
"It'll start getting dark soon!" the old man threw over his shoulder. "That's when we'll eat."
We continued our genocide of the undead. After I cut down two on my own, Viziliy stopped being overly cautious, and things went faster. Once he aggroed five at once, but we managed even with them, without resorting to Lynch's help.
"Still no fourth?" the old man whispered during a ten-minute rest after another skirmish.
"Not yet," I answered quietly.
"Should be close." He looked at the darkening sky. "When you get it, let me know."
I really hoped he was right, as it was becoming increasingly difficult to raise my right arm.
It took five more undead, the last of which I couldn't even cut down with the first strike. Finally!
[Congratulations! You've reached the 4th level!]
[Your strength and endurance have increased!]
[You receive one skill point.]
Hmm. First strength, then endurance, now both. I wonder if this is a double bonus or if they just increased a little bit now?
I couldn't assess the changes in my body at the moment, as I could barely hold the sword. Realizing this, I put it in my inventory and nodded to Viziliy.
"That's it, the kid's dead," the old man stated.
"Did he get third?" Lynch worried.
"Yes," I nodded tiredly.
"Well done!" The big guy beamed with a satisfied smile. "Tomorrow you'll be fourth! Just don't tell the youth in the village. They'll burst with envy."
"That's for sure... And they'll start wearing out my doorstep asking me to level them up too."
"Well, here's a relative, a blood relation..."
"What a relation..." Viziliy winked at me. "Look, they're literally the spitting image of each other."
"Yeah, there's something there," Lynch nodded intensively. "The eyes are similar, the noses..."
Chatting, we quickly moved away from the fortress that had given me two levels. Tomorrow should give at least as much!
***
By nightfall, we had moved at least five kilometers away from the cursed place.
"They shouldn't crawl this far," Viziliy said, not very confidently. "We could, of course, trudge on, but then we'd have to sleep in the field... And here's a convenient grove."
"What's wrong with the field?" I clarified, dropping my bag and stretching out on the grass.
"Visible from all sides," the old man explained, not even calling me a fool. Maybe he finally understood my attitude after today? Although more likely he was just tired.
We didn't light a fire, but I didn't care. I had never tasted such delicious cold, tough food, and while biting off a piece of pie, I even accidentally bit my finger.
"Good thing I took extra," Viziliy noted, watching me.
"Well, when leveling up, the body restructures," Lynch interjected, chewing a piece of meat, "so it demands good grub. Too bad there's no beer. From personal experience, it goes down really well at such moments."
Yes, I certainly wouldn't refuse a beer right now, especially since I had gained not one level, as the big guy thinks, but two.
Viziliy handed our companion a wineskin:
"Here, drink this! Just the thing for a good sleep."
"Oh, your signature brew!"
Lynch happily grabbed it and put his lips to the neck.
If I'm not mistaken, today it's more signature than usual. It's unlikely that the kind grandpa forgot that he was going to mix something into the drink.
"Great!" The big guy burped loudly and handed me the wineskin. "Here, try it!"
"It's too early for him!" Viziliy intercepted the container, confirming my suspicions. "But Lynch is right: eat your fill. You'll need strength tomorrow."
"Who's on first watch?" the big guy yawned widely.
"You sleep first. Ilya and I will chat, and then we'll wake you up."
"Alright!"
Lynch stretched and fell onto the grass like a sack of potatoes.
"Didn't overdo it?" I worried.
"What's going to happen to him?" the old man grinned and turned to me. Despite the darkness, I could see him well enough in the light of the two moons. "Ready?"
"Yes!"
"Then listen."
***
First came a brief excursion into history and geography.
The empire I had found myself in was called Shrinant. And it couldn't be said that it was an example of an ideal state. Rather the opposite.
A standard feudal society where the rich oppress the poor, but this part wasn't a surprise. What surprised me much more was that, despite the difficult geographical position, the leadership repeatedly behaved like assholes.
Having a huge territory teeming with aggressive orcs nearby, they managed to quarrel with all powerful neighbors except for hobbits and dwarves. The latter simply didn't care about the inadequacy of the emperor and his entourage for the simple reason that they had hefty profits from trade and production.
And it happened like this...
About twenty years ago, the orcs gathered under the wing of some super-duper unifier-dominator leader.
Usually, scattered tribes simultaneously attacked Shrinant and the kingdom of Zirania, which was on the other side of the orc lands. The result, of course, was so-so. Some people would be taken into slavery, something would be burned, while losing many of their own people. In general, the usual fantasy scuffle without any prospects.
But the super-duper dominator didn't scatter his forces and directed his armada only at Shrinant. He directed it precisely and began to win.
The Emperor got nervous and called out to all the then-still allies (his dad was also a woodpecker, but a bit smarter than his son and hadn't completely fallen out with them yet). The hobbits gathered a small army. The elves reluctantly sent some number of mages. The dwarves sold heavy equipment at a discount and even allocated several thousand fighters to escort it. The Ziranians helped the most, of course, as they were to be next in case of unfavorable outcomes for Shrinant.
In general, they somehow gathered, gave battle to the orcs, and even managed to win with a fairly solid advantage. Then came the liberation war, which smoothly transitioned into a war of conquest.
They passed through a large chunk of orc territory and ran into a river, behind which the failed dominator had managed to escape with the remnants of his army.
The Emperor wanted to ford the river and keep pushing. An understandable and natural desire. However, he didn't want to pay for the previous help rendered and had the stupidity to ditch the hobbits along the way. The others found out about this and decided to clarify the situation before they were thrown into the assault.
In short, word by word, and a battle between allies was only miraculously avoided. After a week of arguing, everyone left the army's position except for the Shrinants and Ziranians. By this time, the Emperor had completely lost his mind, and he considered all the military victories of recent months exclusively his own merit.
In short, they crossed the river, and two days later they returned, only with half the composition.
That's how the war ended. Since then, the elves have practically severed relations with the Empire. Their representatives remained only in embassies and mage guilds of the three largest cities. There's a shaky neutrality with the Ziranians, which is becoming more tense as the orcs restore their population and gradually recapture the lands between the two empires.
They didn't ditch the dwarves, as they initially didn't give much, and trade with them wasn't interrupted. The hobbits sulked for about ten years, but they too are slowly starting to appear, as Shrinant is the largest neighbor and main buyer of their agricultural products.
In general, in case of a conflict, which according to Viziliy was not far off, hardly anyone would stand up for Shrinant.
It's not to say that I liked getting acquainted with the geographical and political structure of this world. On the other hand, what else was there to expect? What's the point of throwing transmigrators into a greenhouse environment where everyone is well-fed, lying on the grass around the clock, sniffing flowers and admiring the stars?.. Hardcore and difficulty are our everything!
"Continue."