Novel Full Chapter 571 - Swamped
"We've managed to repair the gate and also install enough cannons to secure the entire inner city. The special cannon dubbed 'heavenly annihilation' has been stored atop one of the magic towers. It will be able to support any side of the city from there." Jannet said.
She was now the most senior commander. Evale was still recovering and not able to do much more than sit in these meetings and offer her advice. Due to her condition and what she was still going through emotionally, she had also decided to support Eldrian as the acting mayor.
"What about the outer wall and fields?" Eldrian asked.
"We've yet to get to it. We must first address the losses we have suffered, and celebrate our victory. For now, we have kept our dead intact through cooling them as you suggested, but we cannot delay this any longer."
"Thank you, Jannet. Will you be willing to organize everything?" Eldrian's asked. He was currently in his mansion's reception hall with all the nobles of the city, and the few army leaders that were left.
Almost everyone in the room was a centaur, there were only two demi-humans and then Elizabeth who had been sitting in on the meetings as the Chosen's representative and leader. Eldrian had decided quickly that he could not represent them properly and that Elizabeth would do a better job.
Jannet became slightly flustered by the question but quickly recovered and said that she would be right on it. Smiling in return, Eldrian laid back in his chair.
The losses this time around were simply too much. Eldrian had finally managed to refine the map's functions. He was now able to have people actually classified by their profession and also to exclude animals from the enemy list.
Sure, people with certain talents or items will be able to hide from the map. But it allowed him to grasp the bigger picture far better than he would have been able otherwise. And it had shown him just how bad things were.
The reports had only confirmed this later on.
Of the forty thousand soldiers and militia who had stood on the walls and throughout the city, only twelve thousand were left. And the casualties among the citizens weren't much better. The undead had sent a number of smaller units of lower undead into the city to cause havoc.
The people had all been gathered in the noble district but the soldiers responsible for keeping them safe couldn't keep up with the number of attacks.
Of the six hundred thousand odd people in the city, nearly fifty thousand had died from these attacks.
Managing this had been a big part of Eldrian's thoughts. He had told the soldiers to store the deceased in storehouses where mages would summon ice to cool the entire building. It was temporary and couldn't last for long. So it truly was time to proceed with saying goodbye to the deceased.
Eldrian understood well that he was not the true mayor. As such he hadn't tried anything strange, regardless, it was strange that the king hadn't sent anyone to relieve him of his temporary position.
Whether this was because the king thought he was fit for the position, or because there was none other available Eldrian didn't know. He didn't care much either, now that he had settled into his role.
"Evale, what about Trowcrawling?"
"It's been devastated, but luckily most of the citizens had made it into the city before everything happened." This of course had been done when the undead first managed to take the forest.
The undead hadn't all stayed in the forest, in fact, there were still a large number of smaller hordes of a few hundred to a few thousand in number that needed to be cleaned up.
It was these wandering hordes that made it impossible to transport food through waggon, and doing so through teleportation was simply far too expensive. Luckily, the player's market system was nice in that it was possible to set any price above 1 silver for the goods.
Thus an entire player's inventory of 3x3x3 (27m cubed) could be filled with food at the cost of just 1 silver.
"Can we start sending people back to Trowcrawling?" Eldrian asked.
"No, the undead hordes still roaming the plains will cause significant damage. Most are also too concerned of a repeat attack, we must first secure the surrounding areas and gain the people's trust."
Eldrian sighed, that was easier said than done. The remaining undead came to about a total of fifty thousand. The city simply didn't have the means to finish them off.
Eldrian nodded, "I do not plan to force people to move to live there. I more want to start cultivating fields, as many as we can. We've managed to survive, but it might not continue so for long. The kingdom is in tough times and food is short everywhere. We can't keep importing from the capital."
"Indeed." Myropsis stepped up, she had also gone along with the arrangement without complaint. Actually, it was more like she had added even more flames to get Eldrian stuck as the mayor. Allowing her to focus on what was important, or that was her plan for once things settled down.
"The nobles have already started complaining, wanting to raise prices. They're mad for thinking of profits in times like these."
"It's natural," Eldrian replied, knowing that there would always be those too greedy to see common sense. "We've also started importing from the Chosen again, we should be able to stabilize until the first crops can grow, but... Replacing the lost animals will be another story."
There was simply too much to think of when managing a city. Eldrian was overwhelmed just trying to ensure that no one would end up starving. Which was placing a massive burden on the city's finances. Luckily, a few of the kinder nobles had stepped up to offer their assistance.
"I've reached out to a few of the further nearby villages. Some had not been destroyed, it seems that the undead had focused more on the city and the immediate area." One of these nobles replied, she was Sanja and she had been constantly helping in distributing the food throughout the city and calming the peoples' worry.
"Thank you Sanja, that is good to hear."
She nodded and quickly explained that she should be able to gather enough animals to restart a herd in a week.
"What of Pelaros's condition?" One of the not so helpful nobles asked, his name was Skara.
"His condition is still slowly worsening. I'm afraid that most of the medicinal plants required to heal him are Rank 3, some are even rank 4." Eldrian replied.
"How do we know you aren't trying to kill the mayor by making it harder than it is?!" Skara shouted, a few supportive voices following.
Eldrian did not bother to answer them, instead, he simply indicated to Itireae who he had managed to convince to join this meeting. He had constantly been questioned and he knew nothing he said would change their minds. It was better if the healer could clarify things. And clarify she did.
Seeing Itireae kicking Skara's butt for daring to question her skills felt great and it shut down any opposition. At least for this meeting.
AN: A big thank you to everyone who continues to read and support the story on WN.