Frostbound [LitRPG Apocalypse]

Maeve

Lakeshore

And so the show ends, she thought, staring down at Victor's headless body. From the start, she had known the outcome of this particular story. She'd seen the Baron fight on more occasions than Victor had.

While he was holed up in his mockery of a City, Maeve had been at the Gathering, witnessed the thousands who stood against the Orcs, and been a part of that battle. She'd seen the single-handed efficiency one man and his hammer could cause during a battle.

She'd witnessed it once already when he slaughtered droves of demons and somehow blew up a convergence portal. She'd seen it during the test.

Seeing it for the third time didn't disappoint.

She collapsed the spyglass and hummed in thought. With Victor dead, the battle would soon be over. Maeve wasn't sure what they were going to do with the survivors or civilians, but she didn't want to chance getting caught, and if she was being honest, she didn't much care.

The frigid winds nipped at her exposed skin, and she pulled her dark cloak a little tighter. The battle in the center of the city had made the entire City ten degrees colder it felt like, even though it was already stupidly cold. How anyone could live up here was beyond her.

The shadows were carefully wrapped around her, and she knew no one could have spotted her, but she couldn't shake the feeling of being watched. Or if not watched, noticed.

Her stealth felt secure, and her skills were working fine, but for some reason...

She'd promised Him her presence wouldn't be noticed, so she made her exit now, before breaking her promise. There were a few things she had wanted to grab, but all of that went out of the window when Victor had fled. If he'd stayed at the wall, she could have looted his office easily.

Him dragging the Baron directly toward it made that plan go up in smoke.

Still, it wasn't a total loss. Victor had done as He predicted. He'd used [Demon Fire], and there were enough clues left that his past actions would be revealed. Him being the Demon Summoner would spread.

And it would look like he was working alone. Any interactions were done solely in person and with Victor only. With him dead, no one else knew, and no one else could find out. Even if the Necromancer in the South came, the secret died with Victor.

The Northern Cities were already suspicious of what was going on, and countermeasures were already in place. New Ottawa had spread those formations, and nearly every other city in the region had adopted them.

The coverage they were getting made it difficult to continue operations in the area. Which made the loss of Victor... not that much of a loss. They would have noticed soon, if not already.

Guiding him into poking the bear was just a cherry on top. He suspected the reaction would be swift and disproportionate, but now they knew.

Time to get out of this frozen wasteland.

Chris

Getting patched up was never fun, but it took away most of the pain. I forced Anders to come with me and finally see to the knife in his back. When asked, he happily relayed the story of getting stabbed.

Of the powerful auras I had felt in the city before the battle, it seemed like the offending Rogue Anders spoke of was the dormant, hard-to-notice one I had barely felt. The bloody one was the Berserker I killed, and the fire one was the Leader.

I don't even know his name.

Still, Anders had taken the Rogue, Abigail had taken a particularly powerful D-rank Mage, and Hal had a sniper duel with a Ranger up until Rachel ended it. Those weren't the only D-ranks, but those were the notable ones.

And now they were dead.

The first aid tent was relatively light with occupants, which was a good sign, and based on what I could see, our losses looked minimal. They weren't zero, as I noticed a few of our own lying still among the snow, but it was few and far between.

When Elliot and Hal finally came back with a head count, I couldn't help but be surprised.

47.

Less than 50. I knew that no matter what the number was, if it wasn't zero, I shouldn't be happy with it, but it was hard not to be. We charged a fortified settlement, defended with siege weapons, and had nearly two thousand defenders.

47 was as good a number as I figured we were going to get, even if we did the whole thing over again.

Shots that hit just right or catching an unlucky stray could have accounted for a lot more.

Seeing to their preservation and transport was going to be a lot easier than the last time, when there were hundreds. A runner was sent ahead back to Frostheim to give the families prior warning, and they were given a touch of ice to see them right.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Lakeshore's dead were dealt with more difficulty. For that, we needed to first get the help of the civilians who were overly frightened of us for some reason. They visibly flinched whenever they were approached, and the sight of me made them extremely fearful.

"Chris, why don't you and I go discuss other things and leave them to Sophia and Grace?" Abigail said, noticing that my presence wasn't helping.

"Fine," I huffed. It didn't feel very good to be looked at like the boogie man. I wasn't even covered in blood anymore, either. Plus, I'd been healed of the worst burns leaving only a slight pink tint to my skin.

Abigail directed me toward the center of the city, and I did my best to blunt the cold for her. It wasn't perfect, but it was blunted enough that she could take care of the rest.

"How long will this last?" She said, staring out over the sea of snow. The same snow brought from the lands of Eternal Winter.

"I'm not sure," I answered uncertainly, "I didn't expect this to happen in the first place."

"What did happen? I could feel it from the walls."

"I was in the middle of fighting him, fire was everywhere, and I thought, 'why not open the rift to snuff it out', only it was much, much bigger than expected." I described. "Then I had to use it a second time when he used some kind of demon fire. The flames were black and burned like no other. All his normal flames were hot and singed my skin, but they couldn't burn me like that did."

Abigail's eyes went wide. "Demon fire? He was the cause?"

"From what I gather. We'll need to take a look around for other signs and interrogate a few people to confirm, but I'm certain it was him." I said. "Hal did say the city felt weird, maybe that was it?"

"I'll take care of it." Abigail nodded.

"Good." I said, knowing she would be up to the task, "What I suspect was the Leader's manor burned down, so you won't find much there. It's under all this somewhere." I waved at the mountain of snow.

"You said the Rift was bigger? How much bigger? Why was it bigger?"

"If only I knew," I shrugged, "I figured it was maybe the mana in the air or the dungeon being beneath me, but I'm not sure."

Abigail nodded absently and went back to looking at the destruction. "Can you make it go away?"

"Not that I know of," I said after a bit of thought, "The only way I figure is to open the rift back up and throw it all back through, but I don't think that would work. For one, the wind howls when it escapes, making throwing anything back through difficult, and two, it would probably only make the problem worse."

"Can't you... I don't know, grind it up?"

"And what, make more snow?"

Her shoulders dropped, and she went back to thinking.

"I could maybe compact it down so it's not so widespread, but what would be the point?" I pointed out.

"What do you mean 'What would be the point'?" Her eyes turned to mine accusingly.

I raised an eyebrow, "We can't stay here forever. As soon as we smooth things out and gather up, I plan on leaving. A week or two at the most."

"No, we can't just leave–"

I interrupted, "Abigail, the Wall has a gaping hole in it, half the buildings are destroyed, and most of the center is covered in snow only a few can traverse. Not to mention that a sizable portion of the city is now dead." The combined death toll of both the soldiers and innocents caught in the cross fire was... large.

My fight with the Leader was more destructive than I thought.

"What about the civilians?" She peered intently at me with a hint of disapproval.

"We'll do what we can, but I doubt many will want to come back to Frostheim after we..." I waved my hand at the toppled buildings and dead bodies, "did that. We can't even support them all anyway. We have the food and supplies for our own city and maybe a couple thousand more, not nearly six thousand people."

Frostheim was still growing and had just over 30,000 people, and if we added everyone here and brought them back with us, that would be an increase of 26%. We didn't have the food, supplies, the room, or the houses for it.

"Chris, you dullard, why would we move them?" Abigail asked, "This city has everything they need. Houses, food, supplies."

"You forget the part where they have none of that." I said, "We destroyed a good number of houses, so some will be without. I'm pretty sure the granary burned down while I was fighting the Mage, and several warehouses are no longer standing. Hal's still working on getting a full report, but from what I already know, it won't be good. Especially with Winter not even half done."

"We also didn't come here to conquer it," I added.

"We could fix up some of the city and make it livable with the manpower we have easily." She was hanging on to her idea.

"Sure, but that doesn't fix the food problem, and hunting won't work either for a city of this size. Not even eating the dungeon monsters would, as there simply isn't enough."

"We could ration to extend the supply, and running the dungeon every hour on the hour will go a long way." Her grip tightened.

"And what of protection?" I asked, "The Settlement Wave has to come at some point, and with their army in ruins, what happens then? Everyone we've seen so far is suspiciously under leveled, and this has to be at least a Small City, not some easy wave the Villages get."

"We could protect them."

"That would mean claiming the pylon, and if we do that, their Waves will come at the same time as Frostheim, Frostfall, and Snowbrook." After Samuel's successful year, another had bought a pylon and went out and forged their own Settlement. At this rate, all our villages would have snow, frost, or ice in the name it felt like.

"We have the strength to spare. Especially if you and the family play more of a part during the waves." She wasn't giving up.

"Abigail, it would stretch us too far, deplete our resources, and we wouldn't get anything of value in return. From the looks of things, this city isn't full of delvers, and the ones it did have fought and died, so our tax revenue will be low, and that's after spending money restoring the city. We'd have to split our construction efforts, and so many other things." I sighed. "It's not worth it."

Abigail's face stiffened, "We did this, now we have to undo it."

"We have to do no such thing." I rebutted, "They brought this upon themselves. We do not have to bend over backwards to fix it."

"They didn't," She waved at the frightened civilians poking out, or at least the bravest of the bunch. "Those who, as you claimed, 'brought it upon themself' are now dead."

I looked out at a litany of scared faces. Tears in some and fear in others, but all were leaning towards hopeless and downtrodden. My own arguments felt like sand in my mouth, even though it was the logical choice.

'You know what the right thing to do is.' I could almost hear my father's voice saying what I knew he would in this situation.

"You're right," I sighed, knowing this was about to become a huge headache, "We take those we can back to Frostheim, ask Ashton to take some, and that should make those that stay manageable. We'll need to find someone to make Mayor eventually. Find all the Chefs or Cooks with [Purify Meat] or [Eliminate Contaminants], we'll need to start stocking up now."

Abigail smiled, "I'll have Jon looking for cheap grain to source and send someone to Marcus to see if he has any surplus he's willing to sell. I heard the Heartlands Alliance has a lot, so maybe we can have him act as a relay, since our Pylon can't reach that far."

She was already off in her own head, planning out what everything would require.

I need to find a messenger. Phillip needs to come fix what I broke.

I could already tell this trip was going to last a lot longer than I first planned. We'd be able to send most of the army home, and I hoped my presence wouldn't be needed here for the entire time.