The Rise Of A Porter

"Did you get it?" Arnold asked once again to confirm whether Talos got his instructions clearly or not. The instructions Arnold had given them weren't hard to remember. Executing them, however, was entirely a different matter. 

"Yes, master." Talos replied, "It's not much big of a task. I just have to randomly ask for the safe word whenever I feel you're behaving suspiciously. However, I'm not a fan of what we'll have to do if you answer wrong. Do we really have to ex-"

"I know you're not comfortable in doing what I asked. But it's what we'll have to do until System-sama finds the answers I'm looking for." Arnold sighed.

Arnold knew that the request he had made was a bit painful for his summons to execute. But the situation demanded such strict measures to be enforced in place. He did not like asking his summons to do something so extreme. But after seeing the consequences of what could happen first-hand, Arnold did not want to take any risks regarding the matter and had to ask his summons for help. However, he wasn't done yet. There was another thing he had to take care of.

"Natasha, in case I go berserk, you'll have to be the one to knock me out or at least invade my mind and influence my decision before I do something catastrophic." Arnold requested the succubus. 

Natasha didn't say a word but nodded quietly. The instructions he had given them previously was already a bit too much for her to handle and now this. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. On one hand, it showed how much Arnold trusted them and on the other, she knew they would hate themselves for following their master's orders.

Furthermore, Arnold had already asked System-sama to seal his inventory so that he could not access his weapons. He could, however, access the non-lethal items from his storage. In case there was a need for him to do so. Arnold did so because he realised that just instructing his summons to not abide by his rules wasn't enough. His weapons themselves were enough to destroy half of Asia.

While Arnold was giving Talos and Natasha instructions on what to do, in case he lost control over his body, Kang You and his warriors rolled in where Arnold's flight was supposed to land. They had grown concerned as they had lost all contact with Xiaofan and everyone else. And thus had no news whatsoever of what Xiaofan had done. He just assumed the worst and thought the Minotaurs had managed to get past them and attacked Xiaofan and company.

Their assumptions got even worse when they reached the location and saw a variety of monsters had gathered up a lot of civilians. Even though there were no minotaurs in sight, Kang You feared that maybe another dungeon breakout had occurred there in his absence. They had already lost most of Wuhan to monsters and could not afford to lose any more area. 

Seeing no other way, his warriors prepared themselves for combat. The hundred of them were drastically outnumbered by more than four thousand enemies. Yet they steeled their resolve and charged in. But before Kang and his warriors could slay even a single undead, Yu Zhung used his sword's slash ability to stop them.

"As usual, you don't think before you act, Master You." Yu Zhung smiled before sheathing his sword.

"Master Zhung! Fret not, you're not alone anymore. We'll fight till our last breath!!!" Kang You roared and his warriors followed his example. Their voice was filled with misplaced courage.

"Master You, before you do anything, just look around you. Do these monsters look like mindless beings to you?" Yu Zhung once again tried to make Kang You realise that the monsters there were no threat to him or his people. In fact, they were the ones protecting them.

"What in the heavens name is going on here?" Kang You mumbled when he saw that the people were in no danger from the monsters.

However, before anyone could answer Kang You, he realised what was going on by himself. He might not have recognised the monsters there, but he recognised the automatons. They were the same ones whom he had seen working in Deathless' mansion when he first visited him. He then changed his question to Yu Zhung.

"Are they all..." 

"Yeah, I know it's unbelievable but all of these creatures do Deathless' bidding. You can say that they are his summons." Yu Zhung replied proudly as if those summons were not Arnold's but his.

"Crazy..." One of Kang You's trained warriors let out a nervous chuckle. Followed by a few others.

They have heard about summoners who could summons up to fifty monsters. But even doing that often completely dried them of mana. That was why summoners were often treated as support units rather than full fledged mages. And what they were seeing right now completely defied everything they had learned as warriors. 

It was a well-known fact that Deathless could summon beings to aid him in battle, but they had never thought even in their most thoughtless dreams that he could summon an entire army to help him out. Just by looking at the monsters, they could tell that the so-called warriors were weaker than most of them. Hell, even someone like Yu Zhung was weaker than quite a few of the summons.

"Do we even need to support that guy to get rid of the minotaurs, now that we have seen this?" Kang You's right-hand man asked him.

It was true that they had gathered there in order to support Deathless and help him clear out the dungeon as soon as possible. But in front of his army, they were not much more important than a bunch of porters. On second thought, they were more qualified to be the porter's assistant if anything.

"I don't think so..." Kang You whispered back. "But before making any decisions we should have a chat with Lord Deathless first- What the hell have you chained Xiaofan for!!!" Kang You pushed Yu Zhung aside and rushed to the place where Xiaofan had been chained along with the assassins she had hired to kill Arnold and Yu Zhung, "What is the meaning of this, Master Zhung!? And who are these people next to her?"

"That's what I'd like to know as well." Arnold's voice resounded in Kang You's ears, "Also, I'm kind of experiencing mild headache so, could you keep your voice down a bit?"