The Legend of William Oh-Chapter 208: Just Like Fishing

“They started it.” Bee said, hands held up in faux innocence as will observed the scorched-out building.

“They started the fire?” Will asked.

“Yeah, one of them slammed into the lamp and FWOOSH!”

“Why did he slam into the lamp?” Will asked, already knowing the answer.

“Dunno.” Bee shrugged, averting her eyes.

Will tousled her hair in the way he knew she didn’t like. The tiny thief crossed her arms and pouted but didn’t say anything, because she knew she messed up.

“Well, it’s fine, they got the message.” Will said, releasing Bee’s head.

And the house was made of stone so there was no structural damage. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

Will turned his attention from the aftermath of yesterday’s intervention and made his way to the main square of the Stronghold, where he himself had nearly been executed only a few short years ago.

Even now, Will still felt weird assembling everyone there to address the Stronghold in the same place he’d almost died, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. it was the best place to address a large crowd.

Besides it’s not like anyone who was there is still alive.

Will made his way to the back of the stage, where Anna straightened his collar and wiped some soot off his face before ushering him onstage, grabbing Bee as she tried to follow him.

Will trotted up the stairs and stood in front of the hunters.

They were a stoic bunch, with hollow cheeks and unflinching stares.

“Good morning gentlemen. I’d like to thank all of you for volunteering to help hunting the worm that’s been eating away at our stores.”

“The plan is going to require a fair amount of precision and a damn lot of footwork on your part, so get sit down and get comfortable. Anna made bread and gravy for everyone here. It’ll give you the energy you need to make this happen. Anna?”

There were excited murmurs among the crowd as a platoon of Anna materialized and began passing out the very last of Will’s stores of flour.

They didn’t need to know that. As long as they killed the damn thing, they would recover.

Map.

Will created the largest physical copy of his map that he had ever created, nearly fifteen feet on a side.

Ria held the map up behind Will straight up and down like a tapestry, so everyone could see.

Over the course of owning the map, Will had become adept in using the legend and the labelling feature to modify the look of the map.

“This is where we’re at right now.” Will said, pointing at the Stronghold, making it pulse with light.

There was a hushed murmur as the map shifted in front of them, changing focus to the east.

“Every hunting team that has tried to track the worms back to their source has lost their target when the worm inevitably scatter in every direction.

Will made dotted lines detailing the direction these teams had been travelling, then an X where their prey scattered

“If you’re paying close attention,” Will said, “You’ll notice that you can draw a perfect circle between these places where our hunters lost the worms.”

Will did so, creating a large circle connecting all the dots.

“This tells me that whatever is controlling this worm has a detection radius of about three miles.” Will made a blinking dot in the center of the circle. “It’s smart. Smart enough to understand when its offshoots are being followed and instruct them to scatter, but not smart enough to understand that we can discern its location with this information.”

“Here’s the plan:” Will said. “We’re going to form a wall of men-“

“Hey!” a singular knot of leathery grandmas glared at Will from near the center of the crowd.

“-and women, and drive this thing north into this valley,” Will said without missing a beat, showing the route he wanted them to take.

“This thing has an aversion to being discovered, so once people start getting close, It’ll start moving away from them.”

“It’s lazy though, and doesn’t seem to like moving, so I think we can pinpoint where it’ll be if our human wall forms a chevron, like so-“ Will showed it on the map, looking like a flattened V pushing the dot upwards.

“If everything goes right, the Raid Boss will settle about three miles north of this bottom point here, in this valley.”

“Why there!?” one of the men in the back shouted, having already inhaled his bread and gravy.

“Because that’s where our nukers are going to be on top of this mountain, about three and a half miles away.” Will said, creating a second chevron on the mountain.

“From that vantage point, they should be able to observe the entire valley. I’ll be handing out range enhancing Kit, so they can pummel the thing if it slips away and tries to escape.

“They aren’t gonna be the killing blow?” One of the Climbers asked, belatedly raising his hand after he spoke.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“It’s a Raid Boss,” Will said, scanning the crowd. “I want those Sacrifices, and I want them whole.”

There was some low muttering among the crowd.

“Where are you gonna be?” another Climber asked.

Will made a dot on the southern chevron, then moved it up north to catch up with the raid boss.

“Right here. On top of the damn thing.”

“Are you saying you’re gonna have our nukers rain fire and lightning down on top of you while you fight this thing?”

“That is exactly what I want, yes.” Will said. “Don’t worry about me. There’s nothing the Nukers could do that would actually harm me.”

“God-damn.” Will heard one of the Climbers mutter and tried not to smile.

“Alright, up against the back wall, you’ll see nine Ria with numbered signs. Nine squads for the south group assemble over there. I want people light on their feet. Each squad gets a Ria to help coordinate their spacing. Sort yourselves.

As people started moving, Will raised his voice above the murmur.

“We only have seven Nukers capable of striking out at that range, so each of you form a group to support you! Take the slowpokes along with a Ria to coordinate your positions!

Once everybody’s formed up,

let Ria know. We’re going to march you out like so:”

Will demonstrated on the map, where the southern group would swing wide around to the south, the north group mirroring their movements, adding over five miles to their trek in order to give Attrition the proper distance.

“The faster southern group will arrive first, then when the slowpokes give us the signal, we’ll start pushing Attrition up.” Will said, scanning the milling crowd as they began sorting themselves out.

They might seem unruly, but they were veterans of a hundred battles, and when it came time to organize, they did so with haste.

Will glanced up at the sun.

Not even noon yet. I’m impressed.

Will joined the first southern squad and in just a few minutes they were underway.

The southern squads, Will among them, were primarily warriors and scouts, and they blazed across the arid scrublands at a leisurely forty miles per hour, arriving at their destination flanking Attrition about twelve minutes later.

They arranged themselves in the chevron, with Will tweaking their positioning on the map through Ria, then he repeated the process when the North crew arrived at their destination.

Their chevron was a little messier, because finding a spot on the mountainside with good line of sight was more important than a perfect formation. As long as it was vaguely concave, that was good enough for Will.

Once everyone was in position, Will got everyone moving.

They started marching forward, moseying at a leisurely pace, slow enough to nudge Attrition north without startling it.

Here comes the real test, Will thought as the two prongs of the chevron intersected Attrition’s detection radius.

If the worm was smart enough to guess Will’s game, it would dart to the side, under or around, and be back to square one.

Here’s hoping it’s just dumb and lazy enough to let itself get herded around. It wasn’t smart enough to think in the abstract when it came to narrowing down its position, so Will had his fingers crossed.

…Unless it’s smart enough to use that as a trap.

…I really hope that’s not the case.

If it was a trap, Will would be walking straight into it, being in the center of the formation.

Will kept his attention on his hearing, trying to be the first to spot the tell-tale sounds of the worm moving through the earth.

Nothing.

So it’s either moving ahead of us, or it’s lying in wait.

Two hours later, Will got the answer when the ground underneath the squad to the east of him exploded upward, sending a half-dozen Climbers tumbling into the sky.

Dozens of eel-like appendages, each longer than Will’s tower was tall, snapped up into the air with deceptive speed, jaw-like protrusions snatching the Climbers out of the air before retracting back underground with squirmy slickness.

Will grabbed himself with Phantom Hand and whipped towards the East, putting the speed of everyone save teleporters to shame, and nearly breaking his neck with the sudden acceleration.

Homeland Advantage.

212 charges remaining.

Will knew that if he allowed Attrition to get away here, it wouldn’t resurface anywhere they could find it. It had seen a wall of Climbers heading towards it and had decided to change it’s tactics on the spot…

Which meant it knew what they were trying to do.

I guess we’re doing this by force.

Will arrived at the explosion, dodging shrapnel and arriving before the eel-like mouths had fully retreated back into the earth.

Will glanced down into the pit and locked eyes with…something. An inky black darkness dwelling underneath the dry earth, bloated with stolen food of five thousand people.

Floor-wide Alert!

The Raid Boss, Attrition has been engaged on the 10th Floor!

Attrition is a mutated Ink Eel from the 13th Floor that made it’s way down to the 10th. Like any other 13th floor monster, it has natural poisons while being highly resistant itself.

Over it’s long life, it has created several natural Abilities, and learned to avoid humans.

Bounty: 60000 Ten pieces, 5,000,000XP, to be shared among the Parties that claim the bounty.

An instant later, the earth around Attrition exploded into sticky foam.

Will shielded his eyes and when he cleared them, Attrition was long gone, disappeared under the surface…

But there was a trail of foam rising up to the surface, pointing east.

“I’ll try and push it back west, Ria, keep the line organized, get ready to push it north and don’t let it go under you!” Will shouted to Ria as he sped past her.

“HOW!?” Ria demanded as Will shot past.

“I’m sure you’ll figure something out!” Will shot back.

Her reply was lost in the wind as Will pounced on the trail of foam, but she didn’t look happy.

I can’t let it get outside the range of homeland Advantage. It’ s like a fish on a hook. I’ve got to give it just enough slack to not break the line, let it tire itself out before reeling it in.

Will flung himself far ahead of the trail of bubbles and let himself go with Phantom hand, hovering in place midair with Aspect, cocking his head as he listened to the bubbles forming underground.

You’re fast, but I’m faster…

There.

Will flung a Blessed Steel spike with Phantom Hand, imbuing it with Hammer of God.

The spike burned through the air, shooting down into the ground and burying itself thirty feet underground.

A bolt of lightning smashed into the earth and Will began to run through the air, keeping his gaze on the trail of foam.

The trail of foam took a sharp turn as the Raid boss seemingly noticed that Will was ahead of him, and correctly deduced that Will was the bigger threat.

The trail of foam sped back towards the line of Climbers, likely intending to dive underneath it.

“YEEEHAAAAW!”

A half-dozen Bee erupted from Ria as the raid boss passed underneath them, turning into some kind of half-mermaid, quarter crab-thing, with fins for feet and barbed protrusions where their hands used to be.

The Bees dove straight into the foamy mess as the raid boss easily slipped past the southern cordon.

A moment later, Attrition broke the surface, half a dozen Bee dug into its back like ticks, their fins widened out to catching the bubbles and drag it back up to the surface.

“HEAVE!” Bee shouted, yanking the creature to the left.

The raid boss juked hard, seemingly twisting its spine beyond the breaking point, leaping into the air and thrashing violently in an attempt to get away from the barbs digging into its skin.

Will grabbed his tomahawk and flew himself over at full speed, streaking through the air with his axe out, drawing a long line of blood along the monster’s side.

Noxious fumes immediately began to roll off the slimy black creature as its blood was exposed to air.

Will slammed himself directly into the wound, ignoring the poison and lodging his axe into the wound to give himself a foothold on the monster, copying Bee’s tactic.

In the chaos, Bee met his gaze with the most carefree smile he’d ever seen on Brianna’s repressed frustration.

“It’s just like fishing!” Bee shouted an instant before the creature dove back underground and the world became foam.