章 68: Chapter 68. Tough times
POV: Bobby
Things are going bad, I knew a leader would rise to lead the monsters, but I didn't expect it to be so bad.
Isn't the Sandstone Kingdom supposed to deal with all of this?
Why are we the ones to suffer first?
And where is the hero prophesied by the system?
The Pope was suspiciously missing from the big party when the big announcement was made, and after the 'incident,' no one heard anything else from him.
Speaking about the party, it was a disaster, to say the least. After the Sultan's death, everything went bad, or more exactly after Trader died true chaos began.
It saddens me just to think about the incident, he was right in front of me when the sword cut him.
But as always, Trader doesn't know how to live quietly even in his death.
Before he took his final breath he managed to kill one of the killers and let all of us see the true killer.
A Pillager.
That means the accusations from the Princess's party were most likely right.
Right then and there, everyone split into three sides.
The one for the princess side that had most of the nobles, all looking with fear and hatred towards the prince.
The neutral party, where our group and a few other nobles stayed looking for what was about to happen.
And the rest were on the Prince's side. Surprisingly, on his side were only big Nobles, so it was actually an even playing field.
Looks like the Prince wasn't the only one to meddle with the forbidden knowledge.
This wasn't even the worst part, I've seen him loot Traders body and it was not pleasant sight to see.
I was ready to throw a hand at him, but the guards already surrounded him.
We were forced to stay there for two whole weeks!
Nobody was allowed to leave, neutral or otherwise.
They tried to resolve this as civil as possible, they went to court, and they pleaded their cases but there was no progress on any side.
The princess had the majority of the votes in any case, but even with the help of the 'Knights of the People' they couldn't overwhelm the people with the most equipped soldiers.
They had enchanted diamond armor and tools.
Only our group had anything similar, but we were overwhelmed in numbers anyway.
As for why they didn't just overwhelm the other party with their strength?
That's a difficult topic to understand, but from what we got it's because the leader of the Knights of the People, Aisha, has dangerous information that can throw the whole nation into chaos.
This is why our Princess Elizabeth is still staying. She kind of hopes everything will go bad and finds out what's so secret about those people with enchanted diamond pickaxes have.
I do have a suspicion that is related with what Trader told me about breaking the obsidian block, but I don't want to get more attention here than we already have.
Everyone was tense as we were on guard, some of them tried to get Elizabeth on their side but they were all turned down.
Then things got worse, not for this nation but for our nation. We got a message that said our nation was attacked by an army of zombies.
Three villages were already destroyed, and a monster five blocks tall was leading them all.
We left this political struggle to save our own nation. They tried to stop us, but we were done playing nice so we got out after a few swings.
A few days later we finally got home, another village was attacked, we also found out that whenever an attack came a few zombies would yell at the people to run.
They were infected people who still had their sanity. It never happened before so we were taken by surprise, it seemed the big monster had control over their bodies but not their mind.
Maybe we can still save them with the cure from Trader?
Unfortunately, I don't remember what potion you needed before you fed the Golden Apple.
But I remembered that Froggy escaped with Trader, and he didn't come back to the palace or hear from him.
So I told Princess Elizabeth about my idea and she agreed to it.
It took two whole weeks to find him, and that only happened because he decided to give himself in, only if I came personality after him.
While the looks were unique, it was hard to find him once he drank the invisible potion. Only after he found some rumors that Trader was dead did he give himself in.
Once we met, he asked if it was true, and unfortunately, I had to confirm the bad news.
He broke down crying, he told me that he didn't have anyone to call a friend for years, only to meet him and bound over their shared prison.
It was a rough time for me as well, but I've had my share of crying for the past few weeks, it was more bearable now.
We talked a lot after, I told him about my life and how I found Trader while he told me about his life and how he found Trader.
We both laughed at how he always makes a memorable entrance, and we can say an exit as well.
After things calmed down, I asked if he wanted to come to the castle where he would be safe and taken care of.
He seems to hesitate at that suggestion, and I completely understand it. He only had bad memories of such places.
But in the end, he accepted, and even now remembers what he said.
"I accept your offer, not because I'll still be hunted soon, I can live in isolation no problem. I'm coming with you because Trader trusted you, Trader trusted you so much that when we got back you would've been the first person to contact. And I trust his judgment, so I'll trust you."
Even in his death, Trader managed to help me somehow.
Princess Elizabeth was ecstatic to find out that Froggy is with us now. Now that she has a master on her side the throne will be hers, unless something else happened.
Of course, I made sure that Froggy would be treated right and wouldn't be feeling like a prisoner.
We prepared the cure, tried to capture the zombified people and we finally got one of the speaking zombies.
To cure him we needed to feed him two golden apples and a lot more time than the others. But in the end, it was all worth it, we found out what happened.
The zombie Lord is sent by the Void to take over the world, he has control over the zombies and only them. He has great regeneration and fire doesn't burn him, he can break blocks and his army is immune to the sun.
The worst of them all is that he can create zombies himself from the common people but they keep their intelligence when they're a monster. They have the same personalities as when their alive and all hate the Zombie Lord with great passion.
But nobody can fight against his will, so they can only follow his orders.
The more we heard about him, the scarier he was.
But while he was all that, he wasn't invincible. There was a way to weaken him, but it wasn't something we liked to hear.
His control over the army was limited by the power he had. The more power he used for his army, the less he had for himself.
Even more surprising to hear, is that it takes a lot of his power to maintain control over the smart zombies.
That's why he always has ten smart zombies, never more, never less.
So theoretically, now he was at his weakest that he's allowing himself to be, and if we kill his army slowly were only getting him back to his peak strength.
And his army is a nightmare to deal with already, I don't want to know how an unstoppable five-block monster can destroy a nation if he's at his full strength.
In the end, we're at a stalemate, we can't kill too many of his zombies because he's going to get stronger. We can't do anything about it either because he's just going to fake over the nation slowly while growing his army.
And we were like that for a few weeks, we evacuated every village that was in his path, and tried to rescue any zombie villagers to cure them without killing the normal zombie.
It was a brutal time, but with the help of the smart zombies we managed to keep our losses at a minimum.
To get help from a monster to fight against a monster. What has the world become?
In the end, the Zombie Lord caught up with our ways and put a tighter leash on the smart zombies so they couldn't help us anymore, they could actually do more damage now.
It's such a shame that noble people like them, who refused to be cured help out the ones that don't have a choice.
And now they're forced to watch village after village taken over.
I was distracted with helping brewing potions to help with the war, that was until I got the message.
It was a normal book brought by my friend Toby, he was worried about all the rumors about the Zombie Lord.
So he checked my village if it was doing ok, only to get a package to deliver to me from Trader.
He didn't check the content since Trader's death was not known publicly yet.
After assuring me that the army of zombies wouldn't be coming towards that side of the kingdom, he thanked me and wished me luck.
Not knowing that he left a bomb in my hands.
With trembling hands, I read the contents of the book.
And the more I read it, the more riled up I was.
This person tried to interpenetrate my dead friend for who knows what reason!
But one small part of me was still hopeful, I mean if there's one person who managed to cheat even death, it would be Trader. He knows too much not to have a way out of this.
That was a small part, a part that didn't want to accept the truth.
Another part was also confused. Whoever wrote this book had a weird name, it was all question marks.
How can you even do that?
You can't force the system to lie for you.
Even the Piligers who they're whole lives fighting against the system can't do this.
So who is this person and why did they send me this message?
I threw it into a chest and tried to forget about it. There's no point in telling Froggy about this, we don't need to be sad people in such an important time.
It was time to fight against the Zombie Lord himself.
His next attack would be a big one, a noble settlement not a normal village.
This time he had to fight against a proper wall, five blocks tall at least, people with good armor and training, and a final fortress to conquer.
The plan was simple, evacuate everyone from the town and leave the gates open.
The army will come, enter the gates, and search through the empty houses.
Zombie Lord will be suspicious, but he'll understand what happened when he sees that everyone is bunkered at the fortress's attention as a last defense.
More zombies will get through the gates, and well close the entrance when everyone gets inside.
Then the real plan will start.
The evacuation was a success, the army came and they followed the exact steps we expected.
That was the last report we got before losing contact with the attack squad.
Over 100 men died in that battle, we didn't know how did that happen, we only knew we lost the fight.
A week later, while we tried to send spies to see what happened, a smart zombie managed to tell us the events.
The plan went perfectly, the invisible people threw a debuff potion over the Zombie Lord, and he was greatly weakened, arrows with healing effects were shot at him, the Knights attacked him with the sword, and he was screaming in pain, wounds stayed on his body until suddenly he healed up like it was nothing.
After he yelled something about the true power of the Void he attacked everyone.
For the first time, the smart zombies felt that their in control of their bodies, and the army started to catch on fire since it was day.
The Zombie Lord called back its blessing killing everyone in that fortress and leaving no witness.
After he was done, he forced his power back over the army, it was mostly gone with a few exceptions.
After such heavy losses, the Zombie Lord decided to grow his army back before going to attack the small villages around the border of the Kingdome.
This was devastating news, the Sandstone Kingdom hadn't solved their ruler problem yet, and the Coral Kingdom didn't see this as their problem.
And worst of all, there's a high chance my village will be soon consumed by the zombie army.
I'm ashamed to do this, but I have to use the knowledge that can put others in danger as well.
I'll have to get help from the tribe in the Nether, they're not limited by the system so they can craft overpowered items without us paying the outrageous prices of the Coral Kingdome.
Princes Elizabeth has enough trust in me that she 'showed' me the true place where the alchemy ingredients came from.
I had to act shocked when I first went there, which was weird, but I also managed to fabricate a way to meet with the newfound tribe that I totally did not have a connection to.
I visited a few times, and then I told Princes Elizabeth about how they could help us. Of course, after she took an oath to trade with them and not take them as slaves.
She agreed, and I went to do the 'deal' It was more of a formality until I heard Undying saying something that shocked me to the core.
"So did you get Trader's letter in the end?"
"What do you mean?"
"Oh so you didn't get it, I thought Toby sent it to you by now."
"Are you telling me that message was from Trader!?"
"Yeah, he's been here a few weeks ago saying that he's not ready to meet you yet or something like that."
He was actually alive!
I can't believe this, but why didn't he come to me?
I'm so happy to hear this, and so mad at the same time.
"Where is he right now?"
"He's at his base, I can bring you there if you want to."
"Yes, as soon as possible."
We both got out of the house and were ready to leave only to see two people in golden armor standing and speaking with one of the piglins.
One was a female by the shape of their armor, but the other one with the back at me, was him.
"Trader is that you!?"
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