Night had fallen without any incident or sign of the stampede. His initial anxiety over the matter was very slowly being replaced with annoyance over waiting this long. He spent some of that time trying to doze in and out with mixed success. Just the anticipation of what was to come and wanting to keep an ear open for any kind of sign of the buffalo didn't exactly result in very restful sleep. He just hoped the stampede would show up soon so he didn't end up burning himself out just by waiting.

  Eventually night itself passed by and it was early dawn when Quill started to think to himself that perhaps he should just go back out and start laying more traps. But naturally that was when his ears pick up on the faintest of explosions off in the distance. He was a little surprised that even with his enhanced hearing he could barely make out the exploding sounds. Had he really gone that far with making his traps? Not that he was complaining, hopefully he wouldn’t even need to do anything if that were the case.

  Either way he quickly mounted the Scorpion while issuing orders from his system menu to have all but four of the original automaton guardians to head over to the wall as soon as possible. Leaving one of the e-grade Guardians at each of his structures and one more by the border with the sharks and crabs. He naturally left his F-grade one still in the teleporter building but issued another order that should anybody teleport in the building they were to immediately be sent over to him if they were in fighting condition and at least grade F. Everyone else should be sent to the castle walls

  He quickly loaded up the first few bolts for his scorpion before looking off in the distance, only to then kick himself over not testing the things range. He then proceeded to unload his bolts with the explosive jelly and loaded up a single regular bolt before pivoting the Scorpion towards the ocean and fired it.

  He watched that thing sore off into the distance further than he would have ever thought possible. He safely concluded that the moment he started seeing the faint explosions and perhaps a bit of a dust cloud from the Stampede he could probably start firing. Good thing he stocked up on a lot of bolts.

  “Yeah, good thing you did because you'll probably miss most of them.”

  “You are being oddly pessimistic about this. Are you just bitter that I'm not trying to go out in the middle of all of those traps and fight them in close combat?”

  “It would be a lot more entertaining on my end. Can't you think about how it feels for me to just sit there and watch you shoot off in the air. Can't even see the effects of when you would hypothetically hit them. Can't even see what the traps are doing to your Buffalo either.”

  “Boohoo, cry Me a river. This is much safer and I will not risk myself unnecessarily.” he replied.

  At this point all of the automatons he had ordered to come here had arrived. After some brief thinking he decided to have them jump down and stand in front of the wall. It might not have made sense before the system had been introduced. But he was pretty sure these armored knights were way sturdier than his actual makeshift wall. However he did tell them not to venture very far as he didn't want them getting caught in his little surprise in front of the wall either.

  With that taken care of he quickly turned his attention off to the horizon as he readied up his scorpion. It only took a few more minutes but he started to see the faint explosions in the air and a massive wall of Buffalo getting either thrown off the cliffs, launched into the air by an explosion, or seemingly just disappearing when they fell into one of his pit traps or trenches.

  He didn't think those pit traps or trenches would be deep enough to kill many of them but he did hope they were deep enough to prevent them from escaping. He also added a lot of pointy spikes in all of his lethal ones so hopefully it would be enough to damage if not outright kill those who found themselves falling into those traps.

  He did check the quest and hoped that it would give him some kind of indication of what percentage he was in killing the buffalo but it gave him nothing so he would assume he'd have to play it sort of by ear.

  He was a little disappointed that the wall of Buffalo was ever so slowly getting closer instead of turning around and fleeing but he knew that was a fool's hope. So without further ado he tilted his scorpion higher in the air and launched his first Bolt, proceeded to watch it soar into the sky, and land far off in the distance but still nowhere close to where the buffalo were.

  “You couldn't even hit the traps that you laid down. The traps where you had to be careful where you stepped because you put so many across so much surface space. My love, I am fully certain you are cursed to never hit anything worth a damn. If gravity wasn’t a thing I am pretty sure you would miss the ground”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Quill's eye twitched a little in agitation as the distance he could fire his scorpion bolts clearly wasn't as far as he thought or perhaps the buffalo were further than he initially expected. But that was fine he now knew the exact distance his scorpion could hit and so he waited.

  Eventually a few of the leading buffaloes passed the bolt but he wanted to wait until more of the main herd came into range so he didn't actually have to worry about aiming from this distance. It didn't take long though before the full wall came in and he started firing his bolts with the explosive jelly lit up.

  Sure enough, they flew and landed within the mass of armor and flesh letting out their own little explosions as well. There was no need to hold back at this point and he just kept firing, aiming for different areas in the strip that seems to have a large congregation of the buffalo.

  As they were getting closer he also got to see his traps working far better than before. The air explosion traps he had by the cliff were constantly and repeatedly launching all the buffalo off the cliff and into the ocean. The explosive traps he had placed along the line of the forest erupted in fiery fury of various colors and artistic flair. Which of course launched many into the E-grade forest where there were several monsters slowly lining the forest edge, likely attracted to all of the noise that was happening.

  This all had the natural consequence of the buffalo on the sides desperately trying to push themselves into the center with the rest causing many to trip, stumble, or fall head first into the ground. Naturally his pit traps quickly filled up to the point where some of the traps were literally filled to the brim with the buffalo. Throw into the fact that he was firing explosive bolts into as many large clusters as he could find, it was total chaos.

  However as they got closer he had to start focusing his scorpion fire more and more to the side with the E-grade forest as opposed to the center due to the simple fact that the explosions didn't catch or kill as many as his pit traps, nor could they rearm themselves like his air traps and thus that side progressed further and further.

  In retrospect, that probably should have occurred to him. It especially pained him just to see a single buffalo trigger a fairly large explosion. Perhaps he should have tried to set those explosion traps to only activate after a certain amount of pressure had been applied to avoid that exact circumstance.

  He gave the command to five of his E-grade automatons to head over to meet the Buffalo as they approached. That side was quickly nearing the wall but he wasn't totally out of tricks yet.

  Soon the closest buffalo broke free of where the explosion traps ended and where his new trap began. He didn't want to add explosions or air traps near his wall in case he got caught in the crossfire. He also didn't make a pit or large trench because he was quite frankly exhausted with making them. Instead he smoothed out the ground before placing a low friction stone on top. He then covered up the entire surface with a very slippery substance that he could not for the life of him pronounce the name of. This meant he had created his own personal slip and slide. With multiple large containers underneath the stone that would routinely pour out the slippery substance via tube through small holes so it never ran out of the liquid.

  Sure enough, the moment the leading charging buffalo hit the slippery floor at what felt like 100 mph, it fell to the ground and zoomed forward right into the waiting blades of the automatons who quickly and mercilessly butchered the creature. They then tossed its remains into the e-grade zone where both the weasel and a few other very scary looking monsters were waiting to devour its parts.

  He quickly ordered two more automatons to head over to that side just as a safety precaution. Especially since the buffalo would soon recognize that side was now mostly safe.

  Throughout all of this, Quill was casting as many identifies as possible to as many buffalo as possible to see if he could pinpoint where the herd leader was. The quest stated that he needed to wipe out 60 to 70% but also kill the herd leader and if he couldn't manage that then he didn't know if the buffalo would just keep on charging. Sadly no luck yet so he kept firing his bolts towards clusters but also towards any Buffalo that seemed to be extra strong.

  He was quickly running out of bolts at this rate though and again he cursed how they were just way too many of these buffalo. He knew there were a lot because of his previous experience but there was certainly a difference between hearing them running while you're swimming in the ocean and watching the bastards charge directly at you.

  The buffalo were also starting to stream towards the safer side area where all the traps had been used up which consequently had a bunch of the buffalo getting knocked into the E-grade zone and into the claws or jaws of various waiting monsters on the side. So small blessings.

  He grabbed his remaining bolts with some manifested arms and loaded them up into the scorpion before firing all of them in the distance instead of towards the ones that were closer. It was a long shot but he had kind of hoped that maybe he would get lucky and score a magical hit on the herd leader but no such luck.

  “Alright. So you are now completely out of bolts and out of options what you going to do now?” She had an unbearably smug tone to her voice because she knew there was only one thing he really could do. It was a shame all of the thundering hooves and loud noises from the buffalo couldn't drown out her voice from inside his head.

  Instead of dignifying her with response he jumped down over the wall and onto the ground. He then ordered the D-grade automaton and four of the E grades to follow him before manifesting a pillar underneath all of their feet and curving it slightly so it launched them over the grease trap and onto the other side. Obviously making sure to aim their descent towards a safe zone where his pit traps weren't located.

  Due to the teleporter building, his territory had expanded even further and thus allowed his automatons to operate within this area. He then quickly barked out an order to run interference and kill as many as they could within this area whilst avoiding his traps. As for what he was going to do? He was going to go try and find the herd leader. And that meant venturing out into the Stampede.