Chapter 281 Help is on the way?

Lys cut down another monster and felt the cold pull of absorption run up his arm. After finishing with his side somewhat, he finally spoke without looking away from the next wave already pushing through the gate.

“I don’t think we’re going to last much longer like this.” His voice was rough, practical.

“Look at the gate. Nothing’s changed. Those women from earlier must still not have figured out a way to seal the gate. And if the guild doesn’t know what’s happening on this side, they’re not going to send anyone, too. Sooner or later, someone from us needs to go back and tell them. Right now they might still be completely in the dark about this side’s breach.”

Elara drove a scavenged shaft through a golem’s chest, twisted, and let the body fall. She reset her stance, the faint blue shimmer of body-enchantment still clinging unevenly to her arms.

“Huh, what are you talking about? Didn’t I tell you already? I already sent Mitsu,” she said.

The words landed in the middle of the fighting like a stone dropped into still water.

Mira’s next swing faltered. She kicked a thrashing lizard-thing away from her legs and spun toward her mother, red hair whipping across her face.

“What? When did you do that?” Frustration sharpened every syllable of hers. “I thought we were really on our own out here!”

Elara finished another creature with a short, efficient thrust and glanced over her shoulder. There was no defensiveness in her expression.

“Sorry. None of you asked, so I guessed I told you all already. That’s why I didn’t mention it again.” She turned back to the line. “When I felt the monsters here might’ve really breached, I told her to run for the guild hall and not stop for anything. She’s fast when she needs to be. Likely have reached there already.”

Lys blocked a lunging bipedal lizard with the flat of CorpseSlayer, then took its head on the return cut. The system notification flickered and vanished at the edge of his vision.

“So Mitsu really has stepped forward, huh?”

Elara misread the quiet weight under the words. She thought he was simply confirming that help was on the way.

“Yes,” she answered.

“Help should be coming. Don’t worry too much. Just hold until they get here.”

Lys stepped forward to meet the next cluster of monsters.

In front of him, the line of creatures stretched back toward the broken gate without any sign of thinning. Behind him he could still hear Mira’s irritated breathing and the uneven pulse of whatever was left of Selene’s strength. Her radiance beacon was barely there.

He killed one more, then another, and stood for half a second facing the dense wall of monsters still pouring through the breach.

“Well,” he said, almost to himself, “I just hope Mitsu returns with help before we’re all dead.”

Saying the last piece, he stepped forward. In front, there was almost an army of monsters, waiting for him to serve as his exp.

***

When Mitsu entered the guild hall, she found it was almost empty.

She still pushed the heavy door open with both hands and stepped inside, breathing hard from running here. The run from the western side of the village had left her lungs burning and a stitch sharp under her ribs. She never was the type to run like this. Being an introverted girl, always doing light work, made her stamina hit rock bottom.

And there was the matter with the members of Veyne House. They always spoiled her too much, trying to give her easy work to keep her busy, but also not make her exhausted.

So, it was obvious her thin dress would be damp with sweat with just this small exercise.

Though she had never stepped in this guild, from others she knew the main floor of this guild usually held clusters of adventurers, loud voices, and the constant scrape of chairs.

But now, finding none of that, being inside this quiet room felt way too wrong. A few oil lamps still burned along the walls, but most of the tables were bare. Papers lay scattered across the reception counter in front. A single mug of some beverage sat cold, forgotten near the edge.

For a moment Mitsu simply stood there, chest rising and falling, unsure who to speak to.

Then she saw her.

A woman in the guild’s dark-green staff cloak was bent over the far end of the counter, sorting a thick bundle of papers with quick, irritated motions. Her hair was pulled back in a messy knot, and there were ink stains on the side of one hand. She did not look up when the door closed behind Mitsu.

Mitsu crossed the floor on quiet feet and stopped a short distance away from the counter.

“Excuse me…”

The staff member did not react. She flipped another page, muttered something under her breath, and reached for a stamp.

Mitsu swallowed and tried again, a little louder.

“Excuse me. Please. The western gate….”

The woman’s head finally lifted. Her eyes passed over Mitsu’s face without recognition, the distracted glance of someone who had already dealt with too many interruptions tonight. Then the words registered.

Western gate.

The entire bundle of papers slipped from her hands.

Sheets fanned out across the counter and spilled onto the floor in a wide, fluttering arc. The sound they made seemed too loud in the empty hall. The staff member stared at Mitsu for a full second, face draining of color.

“What did you just say?”

Mitsu flinched at the sudden intensity coming off the woman but forced herself to keep talking. Her voice stayed soft, the way it always did when she was nervous, but the words came out steady now, with urgency.

“I said, Monsters are coming through the western gate. A lot of them. The wall must be broken or something. People are fighting there right now. You might know them, Lysander Veyne and Mira and Lady Selene… and others, are fighting those things. And I was sent to get them help. Please. Do something.”

The staff member was already moving. She stepped over the fallen papers without looking down and headed straight for the main doors, boots striking the floor hard.

Mitsu dropped to her knees on instinct and began gathering the scattered sheets, stacking them as neatly as her shaking hands allowed. It felt wrong to leave them. Paperwork was important. People working with her father got in trouble all the time for losing documents. The man looked angry all the time when stuff like that happened. So, from that experience, she had learned to never leave paper on the ground. This is the easiest way to lose important documents, she knew. Though she never got to do any paperwork herself in her whole life, being in a shitty situation all this time, one after another.

“Girl.”

Mitsu looked up.

The staff member had stopped at the threshold and was staring back at her with something between disbelief and urgency.

“What are you doing? Leave those. Do papers matter right now? Come with me.”

Mitsu blinked, still holding a half-gathered stack. “Come with you? Where? Can’t you just… send some fighters to help them fight off monsters or something? That’s why I came. To ask for help.”

The woman let out a short, humorless breath and shoved the door open wider. Night air rushed in.

“I would send, if only there were any fighters left to send. Do you see anyone here? Every last one of them is at the eastern gate, girl. That’s where the main assault is. So, we’ve got nothing in reserve.”

She jerked her head toward the dark street outside. “So, if you need help to send at the western gate, we have to go to the eastern gate first. And after arriving there, you’re going to tell the people in charge exactly what you just told me. Now get up from there. Why are you still sitting there like a fool?”

Mitsu hesitated only a fraction of a second. The papers slipped from her fingers and scattered again across the floor. She pushed herself to her feet and followed the staff member out into the night.

The guild hall’s door swung shut behind them. Together they ran toward the eastern wall, where the heavier noise of battle was already waiting for Mitsu.