Chapter 239: Expect The Worst

"Are you expecting another battle before the end of the Third Trial, Coordinator?" Sanchez asked.

Kalli shook her head. "No, I’m expecting that the trial will end early, and we need to be ready for whatever it throws at us in the fourth."

The Sergeant nodded. That made a lot of sense, but he was still more worried about the fallout of the last battle, and the reaction of the people to the loss of hundreds of their heroes in a single day.

Especially when they had been lost due to a trick of the System.

If they had been lost in the battle for the city, it would be one thing. But they had been swapped with Frost Giants, and had been lost as the invaders on the other side of a trial event.

That wasn’t supposed to happen.

The Frost Giants didn’t live anywhere near them, and they had no thoughts of expanding their territory that far. So, there was no real reason that they should have had to face each other.

But thanks to the System’s interference, they had gotten into a massive battle, with hundreds of heroes lost, and a moderately successful raid by the Assault Speeders on the Frost Giant city itself.

The monsters had defended their territory well, but the speeders had collapsed buildings, cut down thousands of residents who couldn’t use Ice Barriers, and set the city back weeks or months of development.

But what the Sergeant didn’t know was that the Frost Giants hadn’t built that city after arriving here. It had come with them, after they had been highly successful in the first trial.

Like the fleets of Kalka, they had gotten top-tier rewards, and that had granted them a whole city, their old hometown, brought to the mountains by the magic of the System. They could have chosen a new and advanced city, as the Kalkans had chosen advanced Arks to replace their ships. But the Frost Giants despised technology in most forms.

That sort of technological crutch, like the flying machines of the humans, was weakness in their eyes, a betrayal of the Titan Gods’ commandments to build your strength until you became invincible.

It didn’t stop them from understanding the dangers, though. The Assault Speeders which had rushed the city half an hour before noon had made certain of that.

Once the heroes of Marimgar had begun to regroup outside the city, the battle had begun to turn in their favour, and the first ranked Frost Giants began to realize that their position might have been much more tenuous than it appeared.

Sure, they were ahead of Marimgar on the System Rankings before the Third Trial, but Marimgar was not far behind, and their destructive capabilities were extremely high.

Which left the Frost Giants with the impression that their living conditions must be poor or their numbers low.

If they had that sort of destructive power and a whole city, surely they would have taken first place.

The survivors who returned to the Frost Giant city told horror stories of the Heroes of Marimgar, and the city itself. The fast attack vehicles, the artillery that could blast an entire patrol group from many kilometres away, and the flamethrowers that melted through frost magic in seconds.

Then, they learned of the horrors that the heroes of Marimgar had inflicted on the city when they were sent here.

Sure, many had been crushed beneath the might of the Frost Giants, but their ambush tactics were sneaky and underhanded, while their ranged attacks targeted everything in the city. Homes, schools, parks, warrior training grounds, the Lord’s keep.

Nothing had been spared.

So, the Frost Giants viewed the Heroes of Marimgar as merciless, and the Heroes of Marimgar viewed the Frost Giants as heartless monsters, and the enmity between the two top contenders of the Third Trial was firmly set.

{Final Challenge of the Third Trial is now over for the Heroes of Marimgar}

{Final Standings and rewards will be calculated at 12:00 on the 14th day of the Third Trial}

Kalli smiled as the System notified them of their current status. That meant that they had days to deal with the dead repair the city, and get everything back into properly functional order before the start of the Fourth Trial, while finalizing their production rates for the greenhouses, and their stores of other food products.

There was just one more thing that they intended to do.

"Well, after a short nap, I think that we will go do some night fishing. The runoff ponds in the greenhouses have plenty of kelp and algae growing in them, which are both great for making nutrient paste that nobody wants to eat.

However, they’re also great for feeding certain kinds of fish.

I say that we go catch some in the river, since we need freshwater fish, and stock up the greenhouses, so that we have a self replicating supply of protein that isn’t algae," Sanchez suggested.

Reggie gave him a red eyed sad smile. "Are you making plans to keep yourself busy so that you don’t break down?"

Sanchez patted him on the shoulder. "I’m making plans to keep us all busy so that nobody breaks down. If they have too much time alone to think about how wrong things could have gone, and the people we lost, it will just lower morale.

So, we will work, and we will pretend that everything is fine, and we will prepare for the next challenge that the System sends our way."

The Heroes nodded, and then turned to Kalli as one unit.

Sanchez gave her a slightly mocking salute, "We will be counting on you, Coordinator. You’re the only one who can do the repair work on the buildings, but the rest of us will do our best to upgrade the living conditions. Fish are a start, but stored food will help too.

If we harvest some of the crops that are ready, and put them into storage, the System will count it as extra, since the next seasonal crop will be growing by the end of the day.

There is probably going to be some sort of reward for public happiness too, and that means we need to get some decent food down to the basement for the Ark residents. If they’re in a good mood with a belly full of real food, we’re going to get a better score out of this trial."