Chapter 1080 - 514

"This is truly..." Blais’s mouth hung open, speechless for a long time.

The tragic scene before his eyes and the small scale of the town created an indescribable contrast, making one feel a counterintuitive sense of absurdity. This was especially true since Blais had just walked out of the town’s clinic. From his observations there, he knew the casualties in the city didn’t seem too high. Of course, he couldn’t rule out the possibility that there were more wounded in other treatment areas, and perhaps the clinic he happened to visit just had the fewest casualties.

"It’s unbelievable, isn’t it? How many casualties do you think there were in last night’s battle?" Vera asked.

Blais looked at the thousands of monster corpses outside the city and cautiously gave a number. Even then, he was lowballing it. "Two hundred?"

If he hadn’t already lowered his expectations and only looked at the battlefield before him, he would have guessed several hundred. Even with the advantage of the city walls and fortifications, two hundred would still be considered an extremely healthy casualty ratio.

"Wrong. I asked around, and only twenty-seven people were injured, with three dead."

"Are you sure?" Blais’s eyes widened.

This number was far, far better than his most optimistic estimate. To be honest, he completely couldn’t understand how such low casualty numbers were possible. Twenty-seven injured and three dead was practically zero sacrifice. No wonder the patrolling soldiers around them looked so calm right after a massive battle. But how did they manage this? Even if the commander named Gauss was incredibly powerful, he was still just one person. As long as the monster horde swarmed forward, relying on their numerical advantage, they should easily be able to cause double or triple-digit fatalities, right?

"I don’t know either, but there’s no reason for the others to lie to us," Vera shook her head. Moreover, the high-spirited fighting intent on the others’ faces and their reverence when talking about Gauss were impossible to fake.

Not long after, two other Knights came over to regroup with them. The group of four stood on the city wall for a while.

A sudden commotion broke out in the distance. They turned their heads and saw a figure with a billowing robe slowly descending onto a faraway bunker under the sunlight. Faint cheers of "Lord Gauss" could be heard carried by the wind. The four exchanged glances and unanimously began walking toward the source.

Gauss floated down slowly, waving to greet the enthusiastic soldiers and Adventurers around him. "Keep up the good work. Don’t mind me."

If his reputation in Warren Castle before the war broke out was perhaps only a three or four out of ten, it had now soared to a nine, or even a nine-and-a-half. From the elderly to toddlers who had just started forming memories, everyone knew his stories, and almost all public opinion of him was overwhelmingly positive. It was said that when children hiding in houses played pretend, their favorite character to roleplay was the Adventurer Gauss, while the most unpopular character was a goblin. The reason was simply that one of Gauss’s nicknames was the Goblin Slayer.

In truth, young children probably didn’t even know what a goblin looked like. However, they followed a very simple logic: since Commander Gauss was a great hero, the monsters he constantly killed must naturally be the most heinous and wicked creatures. Since Gauss’s prestige among civilians was already this prominent, one could only imagine his status in the hearts of the combat personnel.

Entering the command room, Gauss casually picked up the battle report compiled by Ivan to review it.

For the most part, Ivan and Luna handled everything in a well-organized manner. Ivan, in particular, had almost entirely transitioned into a secretarial, civilian role; his original apothecary duties had been handed over to new members.

Gauss quickly flipped through the stack of documents in his hands, soon gaining a clear understanding of all the recent events in the city, big and small. Overall, nothing urgent happened last night. The only thing worth noting was that a few monsters that fell into the moat happened to find an iron grate belonging to a long-abandoned sewer. Although it had been sealed shut, they still managed to break in by digging through the nearby riverbank. Fortunately, when they burst out from the sewer exit, they were quickly spotted by soldiers on the city’s watchtowers, who immediately summoned combat personnel to exterminate them before they could cause further damage.

Ivan had already ordered inspections of the other sewer exits, set up early warning Arrays nearby, and reinforced patrols in the corresponding areas. Gauss had no objections to his handling of the situation. No town in the world could be completely watertight. Manpower and strength were limited, so they could only focus on the major threats and let minor issues slide.

As for last night’s casualty ratio of twenty-seven injured and three dead, Gauss wasn’t too surprised. Casualties remained at this extremely low level almost every day. On the surface, it seemed unreasonable, but in places others couldn’t see, many factors worked together to make it highly logical in his eyes.

First of all, his own prowess went without saying—his strength made him an unparalleled opponent even among Extraordinary Demons. Compared to other combatants at the Extraordinary Level, Gauss had superior endurance and could sustain high-intensity combat for extended periods. He also possessed extremely fast flight capabilities, which provided a solid foundation for him to sweep away monsters and support his teammates. He acted like a giant filter covering the outside of Warren Castle, preemptively clipping the wings of any potential threat to the town. What slipped through the net were only insignificant, low-level monsters. Though they appeared numerous, without a boss to lead them, they were nothing more than a disorganized mob.

While the Red Dragon Team wasn’t particularly large in number, they were a force of elites. They boasted double-digit Master Level combatants and triple-digit Elite Level Professionals at levels four and five. This allowed them to quickly crush low-level grunts and lower-tier elite monsters. Furthermore, Gauss’s "Mark of the Leader" Profession specialty and "Heartstring" Racial Talent were nothing to scoff at; they provided massive combat buffs to his team members.

Added to this were the numerous fearless clay creatures slaughtering monsters outside the city, and the Red Dragon Hephaestus raining down continuous flames from the sky—who could now be considered half an Extraordinary Creature. Most crucially, there was an inconspicuous "Extraordinary Creature" secretly protecting humanity in the dark of the night. Even if a few monsters did slip through the net, Slime Eden could suppress them instantly.

These layered protective nets had long made Warren Castle utterly impenetrable, resulting in casualty numbers that seemed incredibly "unreasonable."

After reviewing the battle report documents, Gauss moved on to check the Monster Atlas in his Adventurer’s Handbook.

"Total Monsters Killed: 132,115."

The total number of monsters killed had reached a staggering one hundred and thirty thousand. Over the past few days of fighting, the accumulated kills had climbed by ten to twenty thousand. Part of this came from Gauss’s own hands; when he hunted Commander Level entities, he would conveniently slaughter the surrounding ring of low-tier monsters. The other part came from team contributions.

As the Red Dragon Team grew in number, the quality of their strength gradually rose as well. Combined with the team buffs from "Mark of the Leader" and "Heartstring," the once negligible kill contributions could no longer be ignored. Gauss even felt that the proportion of kills contributed by the team surpassed his own personal count.

While the power of a large-scale team might not be as outstanding as imagined when facing high-end battles, its role in prolonged, large-scale campaigns was highly prominent. If he hadn’t brought along this elite team of five hundred, no matter how strong Gauss was alone, Warren Castle on this wasteland would probably have been overrun several times already. It was like mutually assured destruction with nuclear weapons. He could indeed kill any monster he saw in a short amount of time, but while the beast tide suffered rapid attrition, it could also rely on its overwhelming numerical advantage to capture the town.

Gauss glanced at the other values in the atlas.

The Ordinary Monsters atlas entries had reached 174 types, while the elite atlas entries stood at 78 types. These numbers were equally impressive. In the blink of an eye, the entry counts for these two categories seemed poised to approach the 200 and 100 milestones, respectively.

This was the benefit of unlocking a new map.