Chapter 238: A Brutal Trade

While Sanchez and the others rallied their troops for a counteroffensive, the heroes left in Marimgar were fighting hard to eliminate the Frost Giants who had been sent to them.

The {Air Defence Battery} emplacements had devastated their forces closer than the horizon, and the heroes were teaming up to deal with larger groups of Frost Giants, with an emphasis on ranged attacks from outside their magical range.

The Ice Spikes were deadly, but they had a very limited range, compared to a Pulse Cannon.

Circling the Frost Giants with speeders and pummelling them with Pulse Cannon fire was the most effective method that they had found so far. The Frost Giants could hold out for a while, but they didn’t have an effective response for longer ranged attacks, and they couldn’t fly.

Long ranged attacks from the city had triggered them to charge the walls, which led to the proper battle that the heroes of Marimgar had gotten used to.

But further out, it was still a game of luring and taunting the giants until they were exhausted to death.

Kalli checked her watch, and counted down the minutes until they reached noon.

There was no guarantee that they would all swap back when the noon timer struck, they could be stuck with these Frost Giants until one side took massive casualties. But every hero in the city was hoping that there wasn’t much time left before they could see their friends again.

The minutes counted down to noon, and Kalli began to realize that they were not going to get to the eighty percent elimination rate that would end the trial early.

They were going to have to hope that the heroes they lost would be sent home at noon, or that they were somewhere that they could get back from on their own. If they weren’t, and they were simply ejected to fifty kilometres from wherever they were sent, Marimgar was in deep trouble.

Then, the clock struck noon, and the System sent them another message.

{Special Trial Event Over} Victor: Marimgar

Every Frost Giant on the battlefield, living or dead, vanished, and the courtyard around the Hall of Heroes was suddenly full of heroes, vehicles, and bodies.

"Quick, someone check for survivors among the wounded. See if we can save them, or get them to resurrect at the pod."

The healers rushed to the downed heroes, then slowly shook their heads.

Most of these heroes had been dead for hours, lost in the first few attacks after they arrived. Once the heroes had time to organize and begin to form larger groups, their casualty rate plummeted, and there were very few permanent deaths.

The time to bring the heroes back had passed.

"How bad is it?" Kalli asked as she stepped out to greet the returning heroes, ready to provide supplies.

Sergeant Sanchez sighed and shook his head.

"Out of fifteen hundred heroes that were transferred, we lost nearly three hundred. Most were unfortunately from the newest heroes, who were not in organized groups when they were transferred.

Other groups suffered partial casualties, but it looks like two thirds of the losses happened with members of the supply runners and the air defence gunners.

How bad was the fight inside the city?"

"Only two groups of Frost Giants appeared inside the city, under thirty Giants in total. The rest appeared outside the walls. So, the fight inside the walls wasn’t bad. The city itself weakened them, and we stopped the rest before too many lives were lost.

There is a fair bit of property damage, but I will repair that later today."

Then Kalli turned to the rows of dead that the heroes were organizing. Marimgar didn’t have a proper cemetery, but the tradition here was to cremate, and place a memorial plaque for them at the family home.

That didn’t really exist right now either.

Putting up plaques on the rooms of the deceased heroes would just be macabre for the ones who moved in after them, and Kalli was going to have to come up with something.

A scene from her home world came to mind.

It was called the "Wall of Heroes", members of the planetary defence force who were lost in battle. It was in the military academy, where new soldiers were trained, to serve as a reminder of the cost of service.

She could do the same thing here.

Either along the inside of the actual academy walls, or as a freestanding memorial plaque for the heroes that they had lost. Both would be suitable for memorializing the lost defenders of Marimgar, but Kalli didn’t want to make that decision on her own.

And certainly not right now, while the bodies were still laid on the lawn, thawing from the frozen conditions of the Frost Giants’ enclave.

Kalli addressed the heroes with a low voice, but strong enough to carry through the crowd.

"I will take care of the deceased. If you can bring them into the storage room for now, that will be fine. We can gather tomorrow to decide what our next course of action is.

This is the first time that we’ve lost a significant number of people since the First Trial, and the residents are going to need some sort of closure. So many of the ones who were lost were common workers until a few days ago, and that will hit them differently."

Sanchez and the special forces team nodded. "We will take care of moving them once everyone has been checked to see if they can be resurrected.

Everyone else can turn in the gear for repair, and get the vehicles resupplied in case there is another attack. We didn’t lose our tinkers, did we?"

Lillian shook her head. "No, I can see them at the edge of the crowd. But we did lose some of the skilled repair people. I think that they might have been grabbed out of their workshops during the trade."

Sanchez nodded. "Then I will apologize to the tinkers, but we need these speeders and the flight suits back up to full capacity as soon as possible."