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Chapter 146 Curtaling Fool
🕑 Added 2023-05-19 14:31:16 +0000 UTCChapter 146 Curtaling Fool
"Relax. I knew that the city wasn't as defenseless as you thought. Unlike elves, humans often bolstered their cities so their nobles could sleep safely while their peasants fled to ours as refugees. Their city is walled," Lily said as she stood up, her determination evident. She followed her words with a jab at Alistar.
"Lord Alistar, I didn't know about high magic. However, do you think the leftover human refugees would defend us if high magic decided to judge us? They have been abandoned by the nobles. It is time for the nobles to do their duty and defend commoners from the undead," Lily said somewhat carelessly. Although her words didn't entirely make sense, her intent was clear for all to see, and the captains applauded.
"Hmm, certainly! The high magic would not judge us too harshly if that's the case. It is not just racial discrimination and difference if they even abandon their own kin. Good work, Lord Lily. How about it, Lord Ghander?"
"Good. About the beacons, we can build them without any problem. We can produce an extra five beacons in a week. Excellent. We will do as you said," Ghander nodded. But then Alistar posed the big question.
"Who will carry the beacon? Should we just hand it over to the human fort? It would serve us better against high magic if we let the humans do it themselves."
"Lily, I will have you and Lhorne ride to their castle. You will have to circle around a bit and enter from their back gate," Alistar said.
"Now that we think about it, it is weird that the letter said they were besieged. Lord Lily, do you know what it means?"
"Maybe it means what it means. Undead are simply waiting around the fort," Lily tilted her head. It sounded obvious, but what made them curious was that the undead never did these things. However, after seeing the undead retreat before, they were more inclined to...
"I see. I wish you well, then. Remember, your life and the lives of our soldiers are more important than theirs."
"Okay, I'm off then."
Lily raced together with Lhorne on horseback. Skirting outside the reminiscence before turning towards the human realm. Passing by a rural village, she marched to the border where her sentry was. Passing a small camp that had turned into a larger camp for all the refugees, she informed them of what to do with the prisoners.
The refugees were then handed over to a small group of tailfolk soldiers to be transported as labor to Edenthal. I was a little anxious about handling such a large number of humans at once. These guys were low-level workers. The most they could do was farming. Becoming hunters and guards was out of the question since they were humans. Politics and social culture also prevented them from working as servers in restaurants, and nobody would hire them. However, putting them all as farmers would steal jobs from our tailfolk farmers. But that's a problem for another time. Our job is to divert the undead away from the human fort.
The journey took almost a day and night. In the morning, we arrived at the back gate of the fort, and it was still shut. In the distance, the land had turned black, and even the grass withered before the black haze of undead corruption. Along the horizon, swarms of undead lingered, unlike humans who set up camps. A mixture of zombies, skeletons, and Vargmuth stood there menacingly.
As we approached the gate, it was opened reasonably quickly, and Isaac came out himself to welcome us. Several soldiers even cheered for us, grateful that we had come to save them, even though we were not actually going to provide much assistance.
"Greetings, Lord Lily. I didn't expect much, but you actually came," Isaac greeted us and guided us to his gaudy office inherited from the previous lord.
"Greetings, Lord Isaac. I see that the undead seem to laze around at the border of your fortress. That didn't happen to me a week ago," Lily tried to inject sarcasm into her words. Many lives were lost during the assault a week ago, and she was frustrated that she couldn't do anything. However, there stood the usual fort, pristine without a scratch on its walls. All they had to endure were regular attacks.
"They did attack, Lord Lily. However, we countered them with my arrows."
"I doubt zombies would flee simply from more arrows. We also had arrows and even bombs, but they didn't flee..."
"I see. We must have been fortunate since they only attacked us in small batches of two or three thousand undead."
"So, did you actually need help?" Lily asked, seemingly annoyed.
"Of course. We sent scouts, and there were a lot of these undead. We didn't think we could hold off these undead by ourselves, so we asked for your help. My mana arrows can explode in a small radius; however, there were limitations, and I couldn't hold out if they attacked us persistently."
"I see. Well, how about diverting some of the undead to the capital?" Lily smirked villainously. Her chin raised while her eyes looked down at Isaac.
"Ah! Is the thing to attract the undead done?"
"Yes. Here is a beacon. You can use it for your horse archer."
"Thank you!" Isaac accepted the beacon without hesitation, playing around with the arrow and the attached beacon with glee. "How do we turn it on?"
"By pressing this button here—" click—the sound of a button being pressed interrupted Lily before she could explain how to activate it.
Everyone froze at the sight of the glowstick attached to the arrow blinking, emitting a low humming noise. I couldn't blink, but I still watched in trepidation as the beacon was turned on by the fool before me.
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!!!" Lily screamed, abandoning all etiquette, and cursed. My tail also bristled as waves of fear engulfed me, imagining the consequences this buffoon had brought upon us.
"Eh? W-w-what do I do? You didn't tell me how to turn it on! I simply turned the stick here and there! I didn't mean to press any button!!" Isaac also screamed in panic.
"Get out! Right now! Where are your horse archers?!" Lily abandoned all decorum and screamed at anyone in her vicinity. However, before her panic reached others, an alarm from the sentry tower rang out, and she froze in fear as she looked toward it.
"Lord Isaac, numerous skeletons have broken their idle stance and are marching towards us!" A soldier, breathing raggedly, ran to us and hastily reported, kneeling on one knee. His voice quickened with every word, causing his breathing to become ragged.
"Where are the horses? We have a beacon to divert their attention! Call for someone who can do archery and horse riding!" Isaac screamed. However, his screams were drowned out by a roar from outside the fort.
They were coming.
