The Rise of the Black Plain

"Other than that, most of the enemies that were scattered around the local coast in warships were killed, and we got seven more ships for the Black Plain Army fleet."

Previously 17 warships had come to this city under Angela's command. But with the three that had sunk and the ten ships left behind by the Brown family fugitives, now this organization of Minos had 26 warships, counting the two that had stayed on the naval base!

Most of those in this city were damaged and would need to undergo rigorous maintenance. But that in itself was already very good since buying warships in this region was very difficult.

At the very least, repairing them would be many times cheaper and easier to do than buying new or even used ones!

Consequently, this was good news for young Stuart's army.

"So, now we have 24 ships here, eh? How is their situation? How do our soldiers intend to deal with the malfunctioning ones?" Angela asked this right after hearing such a thing.

She knew little about ships, even though she was the fleet leader that started the local attacks. However, she had seen earlier that several ships were damaged, precisely in those compartments most needed for navigation.

And since they were supposed to leave this place in a short time, she couldn't help but question that.

"More than half of the ships have damaged power arrays, but getting these ships off the local coast is not difficult. As long as we have enough men to provide manual force, we can slowly get those ships to the naval base."

"And the soldiers at the naval base have planned just that. In addition, some of the soldiers who were previously at the secret base in this city will accompany our fleet and provide that service."

"As for the other ships in good condition, they will travel at low speed so that the group will travel in a defensive formation."

Those 24 ships were battle-scarred and could be attacked by groups of bandits or pirates traveling through the region. But that would only have a reasonable chance of happening if they traveled separately or in small groups.

Once they all traveled in a defensive formation, they would be safe even if part of them were partially destroyed. After all, it would take a lot of courage to challenge such a fleet, even for high-level regional forces!

Even the regional royal families only had a few dozen warships, and they would rarely sail together.

That way, the 'new' warships acquired were practically guaranteed to arrive at the naval base without any problems following such a plan.

"Hmm, I see..." 

After seeing that Angela had nothing more to talk about, then Eduard took the turn and asked. "Sergeant, what about the collected items? Are we done with that?"

They just needed to sort that out and finish specific preparations to leave this city. So, Eduard was anxious to know about that.

As for the greed that he indeed had, well, today, neither he nor any other soldier was thinking about the crystals they typically earned in situations like this. 

That was because this was a direct army action against a large group, with vast investments in traps, something that had cost a few million low-grade crystals!

Consequently, the items obtained today would all be passed on to the Dry City government.

The soldier then answered without delay. "We collected a lot of items today."

"There were almost 16,000 spatial rings, in which we found more than 45 million low-grade crystals and about 14 thousand medium-grade crystals."

"In addition, we were able to get 70 thousand copies of Blue-grade techniques, 193 of Black-grade ones, and 210 thousand resources, including pills, arrays, artifacts, and medicines of low classification."

"We have not yet been able to analyze these resources to say the rank of all of them. But regarding the pills, practically all of them are grade-2. Whereas the other resources should be grade-1 for the most part."

That was a logical thing to expect. After all, while artifacts produced by grade-2 blacksmiths were relatively uncommon to see in the region, arrays of that classification were quite expensive. 

Therefore, it was expected that most of these items would be of lower classification, grade-1.

As for pills, they were undoubtedly the most affordable resources among the three leading spiritual professions. So, considering that most of the dead enemies were at least at the 5th stage, grade-2 pills should be the most common to be found in the rings left behind by those dead people here in Maritime City.

"Well, that will help us cover today's human and financial losses and even invest in new soldiers..." Angela said in a low voice as she finally remembered an important detail, but somewhat secondary to her.

She hadn't been in Dry City that long, so this problem didn't always immediately come to her mind without her making an effort or thinking about something related.

"Do you have the casualty numbers among the local citizens? Are there many wounded leaving toward Dry City?" She asked calmly, looking into the eyes of that middle-aged soldier.

He then shook his head in denial. "We don't have the numbers regarding that. But since most of the local population had joined the war effort program, we believe the casualty numbers are between 10 and 20 thousand people."

"And our comrades have already started taking the wounded to Dry City. As for their numbers, they were already over 5,000 when I received the last update." 

"I see..." She commented, understanding the general situation in Maritime City at the moment. "Let's try to get out of here before dawn."

"I want every single soldier to be out of the city by sunrise, as well as the locals. So, make that clear to them."

"They won't want to be here when we leave..."

"As for those casualties, those who are not so badly wounded and can't get places on the carriages that are going to Dry City, send them on the warships that are going to the naval base."

"We'll find a way to send them from that place to Dry City after that."

"OK!" After saying this, that Sergeant rushed to make the necessary preparations for Angela's plans to be carried out successfully.

On the other hand, those two Spiritual Kings remained sitting in that same place as before, talking while resting from the previous battles.

"Eduard, when this is over, you will go to the naval base with that fleet, and I will go to Dry City."

"Oh? Don't you think that place has enough protection already?" He asked, not understanding why the two of them were not going back to Dry City together.

"I think that after this action today, it won't be long before King Brown himself shows his face in Dry City." She commented on this with a solemn expression on her face. "But to face him, we will probably need the strongest in the headquarters, or things will develop terribly..."

"As such, I believe you should go to that place to replace Celeste. As soon as she finishes her rest, I believe Minos will call her to Dry City."

"So, that's it..."

...

While the two Black Plain Army experts discussed future problems, some cargo ships were racing north, hundreds of kilometers north of the coast of Maritime City.

Such ships were precisely part of those that had fled earlier from the coast of that city when their crews had seen the beginning of the conflict started by Angela.

But even though they had left at the beginning of it all, those people had not been far enough away from that area not to see the shocking event around that city!

Not only had they seen the explosion of the five Brown family ships and the beginning of the naval warfare, but also the mighty explosions in the Maritime City.

One of them had been so powerful and shocking that each of those people had realized that such an explosion had been many times more powerful than the explosion of those warships!

And having witnessed it, the most intelligent people there understood what had happened in that place, why naval warfare had suddenly started.

That was evidently sabotage of some enemy organization of House Brown!

Anyway, while these ships were on their way, in one of the cabins of one of them, some people were sitting in silence, thinking about what they had witnessed and what they should do. 

Someone there then said. "Captain, what should we do now? We saw the Collins family ships bombarding the Brown family fleet...."