Log Horizon - Volume 9 - Chapter 3.5

5 
Two days later, the fighting began. 
Led by Zhu Huan, the ninety-six legion raid members thickly encircled Tonnesgrave and attacked the gnolls. 
From their scout reports, the legion raid knew the gnolls had vast numbers. There were ten thousand of them assembled there, at the very least. In terms of numeric fighting power, there was more than a hundredfold difference between them. 
However, a hundredfold difference in fighting power didn’t mean that a hundred monsters could attack a single Adventurer at once. In fact, the gnolls encircled the ruins as if trying to protect them, taking up positions on the opposite side of the structure from Zhu Huan’s legion raid. 
That meant the gnolls weren’t making full use of their numbers. All Zhu Huan’s unit had to do was fight the several hundred gnolls that surrounded them, and an encirclement on that level wouldn’t be enough to stop them. The gnolls’ individual fighting power was far below that of each assembled Adventurer. 
A song welled up from within the unit. 
It was Nocturne of Meditation. 
In this land, the song was called “Ying Shi Ye Qu.” Ordinarily, the melody the Bard was playing had the effect of recovering—albeit gradually—MP, which wouldn’t normally recover during battle. It was slow, but in protracted combat, the accumulated recovery amount meant a lot. It was a strategic special skill. 
Additionally, the green light of Pulse Recovery, the Druid spell, was visible here and there within the unit. 
In terms of the relationship between HP recovery amounts and MP consumption, it was more efficient for each of the Recovery classes to use their unique recovery technique—in other words, Reactive Heal, Damage Interception, and Pulse Recovery—instead of instant recovery spells. In particular, while a Druid’s Pulse Recovery couldn’t recover instantly, it was a convenient spell that continued to recover HP for a set amount of time. 
As these two points show, when putting together this legion raid, Zhu Huan had emphasized continuous combat ability over instant offensive ability. If the enemies were gnolls, they’d be able to consign them to oblivion without maintaining vast attack power. 
On the contrary, it was more likely that they’d use their numbers to surround the legion raid and wear them out by force. 
There was a rear guard unit stationed three kilometers behind the Ruined Colonnade, but Zhu Huan thought they’d be able to settle this with the ninety-six members of this large unit. 
“Unit Three is exhausted. Pull them back to the inside! Right wing, switch! Unit One, advance!!” 
He issued orders loudly, in a voice that was hoarse and roughened from living in the wilderness, but still full of dignity. The unit advanced in response, slashing through the gnolls. 
In battles like this one, Swashbucklers and Taomancers were the leading players. Since their attacks pulled in the beings around them, they were able to suppress monsters on broad planes, instead of merely at points. 
Lightning Nebula, a Taomancer wide-range spell, struck the gnolls. Electricity writhed, shining bluish-purple, gleaming like a nebula as it closed a dozen or so foul dog-headed monsters inside itself. 
Coolly ignoring the gnoll screams that welled up all around them, four Swashbucklers leapt from the left and right of the unit, walking in a manner that looked like something out of a classical Chinese opera. Every time the twin swords they held flickered left or right, gnolls that’d been bound by the lightning fell comedically. 
The swordsmen’s dance of blood went on, and when space opened up in front of the unit, the heavily armored suppression unit made up of Guardians immediately filled the gap. The Swashbuckler class was specially designed for offense. Before they could sustain needless damage, the unit took them back in, in preparation for the next attack. 
The unit advanced steadily toward the center of the ruins, using tactics that, while plain, were true to the basics. 
“One hour since combat began, hmm?” Zhu Huan muttered. 
In his mind, having his unit wipe out the gnolls had never been an option. 
After all, there were more than ten thousand of the creatures, possibly even twenty thousand. If he decided to, he didn’t think it would be impossible to destroy them, but it would take far too much work, and it wasn’t realistic. 
The gnolls looked like they’d encircled Tonnesgrave with a formation that was several rows deep. They were also camped on the other side of the ruins, opposite the north side, where Zhu Huan and his army had launched their attack. He really didn’t feel like running an operation to annihilate them after they’d mustered all those backup forces as well. 
Zhu Huan’s instincts told him it was better to aim for the center of the ruins. 
What was this gnoll army, anyway? 
In terms of typical gnoll behavior, he knew they formed packs, but these numbers were abnormal. 
Something—probably a raid quest or some similar event—had happened among them. That something had assembled them and was keeping them together. 
And there was no doubt that the Black Dragon mentioned in the report was somehow connected to that something. 
Zhu Huan thought that the key to unlocking those mysteries had to be in the center of the Ruined Colonnade that the gnoll forces had surrounded. 
“Rear rank Taomancers! Crush the enemy on top of the hill ahead of you! Open fire!!” 
Even if there were several tens of thousands of gnolls, if the Adventurers were simply punching at right angles through a balanced defensive net, they probably wouldn’t encounter even a thousand of them. As a matter of fact, the Lelang Wolf Cavalry was currently tearing through that net. 
But something was wrong. 
The first ones to notice the initial signs were the Swashbucklers who’d carved their way into their foe’s ranks. The special skill Green Mountain Wind had expanded the Swashbucklers’ swords; their offensive abilities were no different than normal, but the attack range was wider, and when they swung, they pulled in the surrounding monsters as well. The way they slipped into the enemy’s dense ranks maximized the damage being inflicted. 
The four Swashbucklers, running to provide support attacks for their Taomancer allies, increased the damage by making their range attacks overlap, and they’d succeeded in turning the area in front of the unit into a killing field. 
However— 
Their swords’ agile dance was blocked by gnolls they could have sworn had been lying on the ground. Hairy hands they knew they’d already defeated caught the Swashbucklers’ wrists. 
A young dwarf Swashbuckler with a boyish face choked back a scream. 
Even if this was a subjugation battle in which they were sowing damage across a wide range, that didn’t mean they weren’t checking the creatures’ HP. Gnolls the Swashbuckler was sure he’d finished off had gotten up again. In fact, the monsters’ arms were shredded, and he could see pale viscera through the gaps in their broken scale armor. 
Still, what really terrified the boy wasn’t their grotesque figures. It was their status displays. 

The displays were blinking, cycling back and forth between GNOLL: WARRIOR and GNOLL: DARKMANCER. Even the monsters’ HP values wavered in time with the blinking. To the boy, they seemed to be supernatural creatures. 
They really were ghoulish demons. 
“Gsshara!” 
With an indescribable cry that had blood-tinged saliva in it, the gnoll bit the boy’s ankle. It was Blood-Starved Bite, an attack method specific to gnolls. Even as he felt the fangs sink into the tendon in his ankle, the boy desperately swung his sword, bringing the blade down on the thing’s neck. 
But its HP didn’t fall. 
The gnoll didn’t die. 
Of course it didn’t. Its HP was at zero already; it couldn’t fall any farther. In spite of that, an instant after the attack, the figure on its status bar rebounded, and the thing glared resentfully up at the boy with dull, yellow eyes. 
The pain was akin to being squeezed in a red-hot vice, and the boy panicked. 
He swung his sword again and again. 
“Hghk! Hghhhk!!” 
Stifling screams in his throat, he kept on hitting it as if he were running it over with a car, and as a result, the gnoll finally fell silent. A Druid he knew came running over, looked at him, then cast Pulse Recovery. 
The spell healed the wound on his ankle as they watched, but the boy’s expression was still taut, as if he was about to burst into tears. 
The actual damage hadn’t been enough to put his life in danger. 
Instead of damage to his HP, the boy had been harmed by a colder terror—as if wind had blown into him and chilled his heart. 
Similar confusion was occurring all across the battlefield. 
Gnolls stood up, even though fighters could have sworn they were dead. Gnolls the army had assumed to be magic users began brandishing axes. Gnolls that had been swinging swords cast magic spells. 
But no matter what petty tricks they used, in the end, gnolls were just gnolls. 
If dealt with calmly, they were no match for the Lelang Wolf Cavalry, and as a matter of fact, even in the midst of this confusion, damage to the guild hadn’t increased explosively. 
However, the irrational phenomenon whipped up a primitive terror in the hearts of the Adventurers. 
The Catastrophe had been an unfair disaster. No reason or explanation had been given for it. One day, out of the blue, they’d been plucked from their familiar homes on Earth and flung into this other world. At present, when they had no prospects of finding a way to return, it was safe to say that they’d been exiled. 
Under those terrifying circumstances, the Adventurers had managed not to fall into the worst possible panic because, although this might be another world, it bore a very strong resemblance to the world of the Elder Tales game they knew. 
What did it mean to “strongly resemble a game”? 
It meant that there were certain set rules, ones that were comprehensible. 
It was possible to decipher this other world using the game rules and common sense— the principles—that they’d picked up during their days of playing Elder Tales. 
Just the existence of those principles meant their knowledge was valid here. It led them to hope that “Someday, this will make sense.” That was precisely what had allowed the Adventurers to get by in this strange, stress-filled other world. 
However, the demons in front of them flew in the face of the system they believed in, the Elder Tales game system. 
HP was stamina, the power to exist. If that value hit zero, you went down. 
That was the rule, or it should have been. 
Special abilities, skills, or the circumstances of an event might recover a creature’s HP and revive it. However, statuses must not be chaotic, and multiple classes must never be displayed by turns. Those phenomena violated the rules, and they seemed to predict the breakdown of the Elder Tales system. 
The panic that awareness triggered among the Adventurers was quiet, but its roots ran deep. 
If they acknowledged what they just observed, they would lose the rules they’d believed in up until now. Specifically, this world would truly become irrational nonsense. Humans couldn’t handle a world that was consistently impossible to understand. 
“Withdraw the Swashbucklers! Summoners! Hit the front line with close combat types, and hurry!!” 
Zhu Huan, astutely picking up on the mood, rapped out new orders. 
The enemy’s attacks weren’t ferocious. For a short amount of time, it would be possible even for summoned creatures with combat abilities inferior to the Adventurers’ to hold the front line. 
The panic was bound to subside eventually. However, in order for that to happen, they’d need a little time. 
If they were hit with an additional shock now, the front line might collapse. However, conversely, if they got through this situation, they’d be able to compensate for practically any loss. 
The Wolf Cavalry still had sufficient combat resources and spare fighting strength; they didn’t have to win right now. The best course was to stick to defense and let the unit recover from its mental disturbance. 
Zhu Huan had gotten questionable reports from his scouting units, but he hadn’t expected an occult phenomenon like this one. Wiping a spot of bloody sludge off his Three Kingdoms–style armor, Zhu Huan continued issuing stern orders. 
Right now, the most important thing was to raise his voice and inspire his troops. 
Zhu Huan’s instincts told him that commanding was more important than personal bravery at this point, and in order to reassure his subordinates, he kept calling out in a voice so full of confidence that it seemed he understood everything. 
However, even Zhu Huan’s voice was drowned out by the sound of the Black Dragon’s wings.