Listening to the crying children, praying villagers and the wounded screams of pain, Allen looked at this scene of his cramped Monastery with a heavy frown.
'The undead crave the living and seek out larger groups, my fortifications would easily have defended against the small number of zombies that would have show up for just me. But with all of these people...They are basically ringing the damn dinner bell!"
With all other sources of life within the Land of Dead gone, Allens Monastery was sure to draw the heavy attention of zombies!
Once things had calmed down sufficiently enough, the village Chief came over to Allen.
"Thank you for graciously taking us in, your highness. We are eternally grateful!" The old man bowed generously.
"You should be grateful! Now ask those villagers to help build up the barricade outside and don't filling the large gap in the front!" Despite the harsh nature in his tone, the chiefs smiled in relief as he quickly order the villages about.
Allen was trying his best to emulate the meanness of the real imperial, but was failing miserably.
The real Imperial Prince was a complete scumbag that psychically and verbally abused people, he never would have accepted these villagers into the Monastery. Anybody who was close to the real Prince would immediately sense the night and day difference, but Allen refused to let these people die or just to convince others he was the real Prince.
"How many zombies are there?" Allen said as most of the men began exiting the monastery under the village chiefs order, and began building up the barricades.
"T-there were about 200 of them that attacked our village....But I saw a zombiefied rupert in the attack, he was the Village Chief of the Alm's Village...."
'Not only has Gril's village been destroyed but another one as well? That's around 600 people dead and going by the zombie corruption rates in the land of the Dead, about half of them must've turned already with the rest slowly being corrupted. Add in the straggler undead that inhabit the edges of the land of dead. It's best to prepare for the worst and expect 400-500 zombie to attack us!'
"Imperial Prince... we implore you to please contact the Imperial Palace for help."
"What are you talking about, didn't you say all of the messenger men disappeared when you try to ask for help? Why would I be any different from me?"
"I've heard rumors that the Holy army could send messages via prayer! C-cant you just pray and they'll come to save us?"
'I sometimes forget how little these villagers know about Divinity and worldly affairs, it's honestly best that I was reborn here as I was just as ignorant about that stuff as them, giving me time to read and adapt.'
"Conversation via prayer, I've read about that in one of the monastery books, its supposedly a high class support magic. Talented Priests spend decades learning just this one spell for long range communication, of course I wouldn't waste my time learning it as I'd usually have my servants do it for me!"
The village chief and the villages faces fell into despair at their last hope being shattered.
Looking at their solemn despair ridden faces, Allen started to worry. It would be absolutely terrible for him if they already accepted their deaths and internally gave up. He knew he had to do something!
Dragging a crate to the center of the room, Allen stood atop of it and activated his ability [Horrifying Howl]
"Silence." Allen's divine impowered voice rang out about all others as his authoritative and soothing voice calmed them down.
"We will soon be attacked by hordes of the undead, they will try to break through our barricades and kill you and your loved ones. But I won't let them! We just need to survive three days before the paladins check up on us, so harden yours hearts as these few days are going to be hell."
Allen lied about the number or days it will take the paladins to arrive, but he made up a number for the people to hold onto and hope on. He figured thay despite being banished, he was an imperial prince and they'd eventually have to check up on him after the three Villages have gone silent.
Looking at the hope return to the villagers faces, Allen knew that his speech had worked for now but didn't feel much pride in it convincing them.
He was sure that even if he talked about stupid nonsense, his Divine impowered voice would sooth the minds of the frightened villagers.
With more vigor in the villagers step, Allen began commanding them to build up the simple rock barricade and sharpen thick branches of wood to make wooden spears. With the barricade up, a long distance weapon like spears would be perfect to fight the mindless zombies.
The men tirelessly slaved away at their tasks, straining muscles and accidentally cutting themselves. Thankfully Grill still had some of that Holy water from the [Puddle of Poison], just a table spoon of it and the villagers minor cuts and fatigue went away!
Under the efforts of dozens of men, the monastery was quickly turned into a makeshift fortress.
-----
'If shit really hits the fan, I can climb up to rafters and bust through the decaying roof. I doubt zombies can climb to the roof, and even if they could, i can easily outrun them.'
While Allen wanted to help these villagers survived, he'd be stupid not to have an escape strategy for if the Monastery gets overran.
As he came up with the escape strategy, Allen was using a coarse stone to somewhat sharpen the edge of his shovel for the upcoming battle.
With the glow of the moon and the little lantern next to him, Allen was about to move onto a finer stone to polish the edges of his shovel when the faint breeze blew through his window carrying a scent that made his face recoiled in surprise.
"Everyone waking up! We are under attack!!!" Allen's loud voice reverberateed through the monastery and immediately awoke all of the restless Villagers.
The villagers immediately began equipping there tools and homemade weapons for battle as Allen began putting on multiple layers of spare priest clothes. For simple zombies, thick layers of clothes would be enough to stop a bite, he just has to make sure he isn't bitten in the face or hands.
With the shovel resting on his shoulders, Allen walked outside and was surprised to see that the zombies hadn't even appeared in view yet. His sense of smell was so powerful, he detected the undead by just the faintest of scent of demonic energy carried by the wind!
As he look back at the rather well-built men gathering in front of the monastery, he counted that there was 35 men in total. Each one was armed with farming tools, logging axes, saws, or hunting bows and arrows.
They ranged from late teen to early forties and were all built rather sturdily, perhaps owing to the fact that they were farmers, woodsmen, or hunters during their daily lives.
The looks on their faces weren't good, they were internally wondering if they could survive this or if they had a better chance of escaping alone.
'These guys lose their nerves so easily, well they can't use Divine prayer so I guess it makes sense they are afraid. I really need their help though, this Monastery is my only home in this world and I don't want to lose it!'
Standing in the only gap on the barricade that allowed the men to exit for building material, Allen pointed his shovel at men and spoke as valiantly as he could muster.
"Take a look behind you! If you fall here, then your wives, children, friend and family will also die! You don't have the comfort to think about anything else other than protecting them! Prepare yourself, for we are their last line of defense!"
Using his [Horrifying Howl] ability to impowered his voice with Divinity, the farmers suddenly found themselves well uo with courage and all yelled out a war cry.
Just as their yells died down, another scent hit Allen's face beside the demonic energy that first gained his attention, that was the scent of decay and rotting meat!
Shambling out of of the shadowy woods was a densely packed horde of hundreds of zombies, all barring down on the monastery!
"What the hell..." Allen and the other farmers looked at this scene in utter shock.
Allen had been on the cautious side and heavily rounded up when estimating the amount of zombies, and yet he was still underestimated! He could see at least 800 zombies in front of him and more were crawling out of the woods, there had to be over 1000 in total!
'A-atleast I can't see any animal type zombies mixed in, that's something at least...'
"Fear not, my plan will work!" Allen yelled out as he could see some of the men immediately beging losing their nerves at the sight of the overwhelming amount of zombies.
With the zombies nearing his home and all the innocent villagers, Allen slammed his shovel into the ground.
[Puddle of Poison!]
[Divine Puddle has been summoned]