Four hours, this, of course, is not a complete rest, but at least it turned out to freshen up a little, otherwise, in fact, a day on your feet fogs up your mind. He called Dmitry, found out which of those present was more respected, and on his advice he called three more. I need people who can be senior in my absence, and for this I need to explain what I want from them and what the plan is all the same. I had a conversation with Dmitry, because I know him better.

- So what did you think, Mirage?

- A little about the situation: the streets are clogged with undead, I did not find the living from the word at all. Apparently we are the only ones in this city. Now about the main thing: while reading a book about the undead, I found an interesting fact - after death, the bodies of the undead are burned, as they burn well, like an oiled rag. There are thousands of bodies here, outside the walls of the city they lie in a dense ring to the very walls, and in the city itself, although not so many, but almost a dense carpet along all the streets. The city is mostly wooden, and the stone houses have wooden roofs and ceilings. I want to set fire to the city. The general temperature and flame should be enough to incinerate their army. Your task will be to wait out everything in the dungeon, it lasts more than one and a half kilometers, which means that you will have enough air volume in order to wait out what will be happening from above. You can't wait in the building, you'll fry here, and the air will burn out in a moment. So let's all get down and wait for me. Yes, just a moment, I'm not sure I'll be back before the fire starts, so if I don't get back today, don't panic. I'll come as soon as the fire subsides, and if I'm gone for three days, get out and move to the nearest city, but not earlier than in three days. 

- In principle, everything is clear, there seems to be no other way out. 

- Then let's get started.

            The redeployment took almost an hour, the aisle is not wide enough for a crowd to enter, and we have, among other things, small children. Finally, everyone crossed, just in case, he checked the building and, making sure that it was empty, closed the door, just in case, smearing the seam with clay. The way I seeped through the crowd is a separate story, full of pain, despair and kicks in the ribs. Finally, he reached the line where the soldiers were standing, and Dmitry was next to them.

- Come on, Mirage, good luck.

- You speak in such a voice as if you are burying me, everything will be fine.

- I believe. Take care.

- And you yourself, just ask, do not let anyone to the exit, neither to one nor to the other, or you will die. If you have to, maim or kill, but don't let him.

- Yes, I myself understand what will turn out, do not worry, no one will open these doors for three days.

            Having hugged one last time, I overcame the traps and quietly left. Nothing has changed on the street, the same inanimate statues. He carefully closed the door and again smeared the seams with pre-stored clay. I climb up the wall and back to the city wall, I can't be in the city during the fire, I'll be stupidly fried. I got to the wall, but, bad luck, a breeze picked up, it can interfere with the implementation of the plan, I had to meditate for almost an hour in invis with a book in my hands, yeah, so I'll waste time, my characteristics are already ten levels behind mine current level. I never achieved an increase in characteristics, but at least I gained additional knowledge, this time, as an exception, about botany. Weed may come in handy in the future, I don’t know why, but the sixth sense directly yells what needs to be learned, and I used to trust intuition. Moreover, intuition is a subconscious chain of conclusions without explicit reflection. Well, while I was thinking, the wind calmed down, and this should be used, since there is no information about the duration of the calm. 

            He took out the scrolls and began to cast clouds, One dense over the town hall, all the rest in a uniform layer over the city and as high as possible. After everything was distributed, it rained chemicals on the city, it turned out even better than I thought, direct jets hit the city, instantly covering everything with a film from the composition. Due to the height, the drops broke on the surface and created a suspension almost to the third floor. Part of the liquid also leaked into the creatures, since most of them could not boast of the integrity of their bodies. The time for fireballs has come, the downpour has not yet stopped, and I have already begun to launch fireballs in an arc, on the line of their movement they ignite still flying jets. Launching them on the sides, got down from the wall and, having called the camel, threw it into a gallop, bending around the city at ninety degrees, there he repeated the operation, thus creating a common front, Another quarter of the circle, and increased coverage, when I got to the last point, my help was no longer needed, the city was on fire. My eyes were eclipsed by the flying lines of the logs, which actually drove me crazy, there was so much information in them that the brain literally boiled, by an effort of will I removed all notifications, climbed down from the fortress wall and, climbing onto a cattle, launched a fireball into a pile of corpses, which was an overpass for the attackers, as I said, the dead undead burned like butter, and the fire instantly spread in a ring around the city. I, on the same will, drove to the nearest forest and, climbing onto a fork in the branches of a tree, passed out. that the brain literally began to boil, by an effort of will removed all notifications, got down from the fortress wall and, climbing onto the cattle, launched a fireball into a pile of corpses, which was a flyover for the attackers, as I said, the dead undead burned like oil, and the fire instantly spread into a ring around the city. I, on the same will, drove to the nearest forest and, climbing onto a fork in the branches of a tree, passed out. that the brain literally began to boil, by an effort of will removed all notifications, got down from the fortress wall and, climbing onto the cattle, launched a fireball into a pile of corpses, which was a flyover for the attackers, as I said, the dead undead burned like oil, and the fire instantly spread into a ring around the city. I, on the same will, drove to the nearest forest and, climbing onto a fork in the branches of a tree, passed out.

            Judging by the timer, I woke up after an hour and a half. I already felt much better. I think my condition was affected by lack of sleep and the sudden appearance of logs in large numbers. The city was still on fire, but the logs no longer pestered, only from time to time there was a notification about the death of a wight of the seventh rank of one hundred and fifty levels. To understand everything that happened, I collected the logs into statistics, but even so it turned out to be too cumbersome. Then I rotated simply by rank.

            The rank system was as follows: from the first to the seventh, and the higher, the stronger the undead were. In addition to ranks, they also differed in type - the simplest skeletons, followed by zombies, above the dead and ghouls, engravers above them, then the Bone Dragon (in the entire history of the world it was only mentioned once in legends) and, finally, the Lich. A lich is the soul of a necromancer, brought back to life through a posthumous spell or outside help, they are reasonable, but embittered and hate the living. The most powerful death mages with a huge supply of mana.

Some crazy numbers came out, but still:

"Zombie: 

Level 1 - 10 457

2 levels - 7 465 

3 levels - 4 986

4 levels - 1 840

Level 5 - 384

Level 6 - 120

Level 7 - 73

Wights: 

Level 1 - 769

2 levels - 342

3 levels - 245

4 levels - 365

Level 5 - 145

Level 6 - 47

Level 7 - 12"

            The numbers are just terrible, for all this carnage I got one hundred and ninety-eighth level.

            And some achievements:

 "Undead Slayer Level 2. You have destroyed 1000 representatives of the undead. Reward: +10% damage to undead."

“Undead Slayer Level 3. You have destroyed 5000 representatives of the undead. Reward: +15% damage to undead."

"Undead Slayer Level 4. You have destroyed 10,000 undead. Reward: +20% damage to undead."

"Undead Slayer Level 5. You have destroyed 20,000 undead. Reward: +25% damage to undead."

            Total came out seventy-five percent of the additional damage. The figure is just crazy, and I almost closed the "Undead Killer" achievement tree, more precisely, as almost the last, sixth achievement will be after the destruction of fifty thousand, which, in my opinion, is almost unrealistic. 

            Having sorted out the logs a little, I sat down to have lunch. The city will burn for a long time, I don’t see the point in hunting in the forests after the undead have passed there. It remains only to wait, read and sleep.

            The city burned for another day and a half, during which time I was able to raise the intelligence by one, after about twelve hours of fire, three notifications about the death of engravers of the two hundred and fiftyth level came. Which threw me another nine levels. 

            The end of the fire was marked by fanfare and a series of messages:

            “You single-handedly killed the raid boss - Lich Destroyer. +7% damage bonus with all weapon types, can be activated on a group like an aura."

            “You killed an enemy 40 levels higher than you, David and Goliath achievement obtained, reward: strength +30. Achievement reward can be frozen, freeze? Not really"

            “You killed an enemy 50 levels higher than you, David and Goliath achievement obtained, reward: strength +40. Achievement reward can be frozen, freeze? Not really"

            “You killed an enemy 100 levels higher than you, David and Goliath achievement obtained, reward: strength +50. Achievement reward can be frozen, freeze? Not really"

            “You killed an enemy 250 levels higher than you, David and Goliath achievement obtained, reward: strength +100. Achievement reward can be frozen, freeze? Not really"

            I already forgot about this achievement, but how it shot. I thought I couldn't do it anymore. But now the finish line is clearly, logically, the next milestone of five hundred levels, and this is already such a monster that you can only extinguish with a top raid. I think only a percentage increase in damage helped me here, and then he burned in it for a day and a half, and this is a magician with pumped intelligence, not physique! 

            Also, with his death, another thirty-four levels dripped, and now a beautiful two hundred and fifty-first level flaunted next to my name, most importantly, do not forget that the characteristics are still at the sixty-eighth lvl.

            "You single-handedly completed the Undead Attack event, preventing the extermination of many lives, the reward is increasing the reputation with the state of Lemrado to friendliness, Now access to the ruler's palace is open"

            “Did you single-handedly complete the Undead Assault event using a non-trivial method, reward: +50 wisdom points, freeze? Not really"

            As before, I press "yes", the same message pops up, although stop, there is a difference. 

            "You single-handedly completed the Undead Assault event using a non-trivial method, reward: +15 Wits"

            And finally, a sad message.

            “Local event - Undead attack, over. All quests with a limited time to complete have been resumed"

            To begin with, I decided to go to the town hall, to miss a drop from such a boss, this is a crime. He climbed over the wall, sank to the ground and drowned in the vile slurry, the stench was utter, sorry, I didn’t think about this problem in advance, but apparently I have to endure nothing to do, but it was impossible to move in the slurry, I had to climb on the burnt walls, there were no roofs , but better than in that abomination. He moved slowly, in some places the walls were collapsed, somewhere he fell off, because of which he had to cling with gloves. Once it almost fell asleep with a landslide, but, reacting in time, jumped over the street. However, after three hours, wasted mana potion and soiled clothes, I reached the town hall. 

            I entered the town hall with some trepidation, the first thing that greeted me was the bodies of the engravers, from them I got a rare set for a level 250 tank in the form of a helmet, cuirass and shield. I took it, albeit an overload, but I don’t seem to have to fight. I moved on, around only charred corridors and halls, a dying building, as if weeping with smudges of stone and metal, it seemed to be hot here, very hot. When he reached the main hall, he saw Lich, he was pressed by some kind of stone, and he, unable to get out, burned down. I took a drop from him, got the Heart of the Lich. It is a huge mana reservoir, so huge that it can be compared to a level ten castle vault, but more importantly, it is unparalleled in that it is able to accumulate mana on its own, while the castle vaults were replenished manually by mages draining mana. 

            It is much more difficult to jump with an overload, so I had to trudge through the vile slurry, which strove to stick my legs to the paving stones. The journey lasted even longer than the walls, almost five hours. Why I didn’t think of calling a camel, I can’t imagine, apparently, the blinkered consciousness that it was impossible to ride around the city had an effect. 

            Having reached the secret passage, I faced a new problem, the stone was swollen, and it was not possible to open the door, only there are people inside who trusted me. The decision came somehow by itself, since it’s impossible from this side, maybe it’s worth trying on the other side? This time I summoned a camel and rode in literally ten minutes. Here I was lucky: from the huge temperature, the fresh masonry burst, and I was able to simply scatter stones from the doorway. 

I open the door, and then one of the guards almost impales me on a spear, as I later found out, he, you see, did not expect me from this passage and decided that the zombies had broken through. He did not harm me, I managed to dodge, but the poor fellow almost slaughtered. While we were sorting things out, the people had already smashed that I had returned. Therefore, all that remained for me was to shout as loudly as possible so that everyone would go back into the house.

            Everyone got out quickly, curiosity drove. In the meantime, everyone was leaving, I was feverishly choosing words for a speech, well, I’m not a speaker, but I’ll have to speak. Here comes the last person, and it is none other than Dmitry, he comes up and somehow hugs like a brother, it is immediately clear that the person is sincerely glad that I survived.

- Thank you, Dmitry, I'm glad to see you too.

            And much louder, for everyone.

- Dear friends, I am sincerely glad that we all survived. You have a long journey to another city, and I have a journey further. Unfortunately, I am limited by the time frame and have to move forward. I'll leave you some gold, Dimitri will divide it fairly. The only thing I ask you, please, do not mention my name anywhere, I do not need extra attention.

            Taking an empty sack, I took away a thousand gold coins and gave it to Dmitry to share. While everyone was approaching for gold, the mistress of the former Prancing Pony approached me and held out a bag with a smile:

- Thank you Mirage, you kept your promise and saved us, this is your reward.

- It's not worth it, mistress, you need it more, you still have to settle in a new place. Come to Dmitry, there is a share for you too.

            “You completed the task: Saving the life of a family. Reward: reputation with all rescued - superiority. 

            He moved away from the mistress, looked around at the humming crowd, rejoicing in life and the opportunity to start life in a new place. Quietly slipped into invisibility and left, my timer ticking off the last minutes, a little away from the school, called a camel and left the city, illuminated by the setting sun. More adventures lie ahead.

Characteristics at the end of chapter 17:

Level - 251 

Life 6800/6800

Energy 218/218

Manna 385/385

Strength - 61 (270 frozen stat points)

Agility - 70 (15 frozen stat points)

Intelligence - 78 (15 frozen stat points)

Wisdom - 64 (65 frozen stat points)

Constitution - 68 (15 stat points frozen)

Free Attribute Points: 1255

Secondary characteristics:

Wits - 17

Skills:

Chains of Frost rank 8

Fade into the shadows rank 48