Free Web NovelChapter 224: Aftermath
"Among the city’s various defence forces, 149 deaths had been confirmed, with another 300 or so seriously injured. Over 1,000 others have suffered injuries but are still combat capable. As for the casualties among non-combatants, it’s still too early to tell," Walter Thompson reported as he stood inside the main hall of the Herald City Garrison, his old brow wrinkling further as he followed up, "As grim as those numbers are, they’re only likely to climb as the night goes on."
Hearing these figures, the entire room became gloomier.
Between the garrison, city watch, private guards, and militia, roughly 4,000 people had participated in the battle for Herald City tonight; yet now, over 10% had either been killed or incapacitated.
For a single engagement where their side had the defender’s advantage, it was a shockingly high rate of attrition.
As the leader of the human forces, Celestina felt particularly troubled with these statistics; however, after ruminating on the subject for a while, she realized that these kinds of casualties were probably what she should have expected from the start.
The defence forces here were a complete mish-mash with little to no training in group combat. There was also no clear chain of command, so for most of the battle, no one had been giving out orders, leading to everyone fighting independently.
On top of all that, unlike a typical Beast Tide which only charged forward and trampled everything in its path, this one was directed by a cunning leader that employed clever strategy.
When all this was taken into account, suffering just 11% losses was far from the worst-case scenario.
In fact, had Celestina and several Spirit Initiates not happened to be nearby in Redwood Town and quickly arrived to assist, Herald City would most likely have been overrun tonight, resulting in at least 100 times the casualties among both soldiers and civilians.
Taking a deep breath, Celestina sighed and turned to the others gathered in the hall, "What’s the status of our military supplies?"
Stepping forward, Sasha reported concisely, "Most of the defenders used personal equipment, so armour and melee weapons are temporarily not an issue. As for maintenance, the smiths in the city should be sufficient for the moment. We’re still taking inventory in regards to arrows, but we estimate about 100,000 were fired tonight, which is less than 10% of our total supply."
This was undoubtedly good news, but it still failed to bring any relief to the faces of the leaders gathered together for this meeting.
The reason for this was simple, the Mortal Realm defenders might be the bulwark against the tide, but without the Spirit Realm Cultivators at full strength, stopping another attack would be impossible.
Understanding this, Celestina turned to Commander Hughes and silently prompted him to speak. freewēbnoveℓ.com
Knowing what the General wanted, Oliver stepped forward professionally and reported, "None of the Spirit Initiates sustained any serious wounds, though Commander Clark is current unconscious from Internal Qi overdraft."
This wasn’t surprising, seeing how Vanessa was forced to repel the enemy’s air unit all on her own. It was already a miracle she hadn’t died, so just passing out from exhaustion could be considered quite good.
However, Commander Hughes wasn’t finished. With a knitted brow, he continued, "Regarding armour and weapons... that’s another story."
It had been 8 days since Celestina and most of the Spirit Initiate Commanders had arrived in Redwood Town, and since then, they had constantly been engaged in intense fighting.
Just tonight, multiple Spirit Realm Cultivators had launched a pre-emptive strike against the stampede, fought a defensive battle outside the city, then had to hold the city walls against wave after wave of frenzied beasts.
Needless to say, the blades of their weapons had become bent and chipped, and they were running extremely low on projectiles. Even Celestina’s obsidian spear, which was a High-Rank Grade 2 Spirit Weapon, required straightening and sharpening after all the abuse it had seen these past few days.
The problem was, there was no forge in Herald City capable of repairing true Spirit Weapons, nor any smiths with the required skill to perform proper maintenance on them. There was also no way for them to re-stock their all-important arrows and javelins, much less specialty Spirit Weapons like Firestorm Arrows.
To be blunt, the situation wasn’t good.
Although Spirit Realm Cultivators boasted significant combat capabilities even when bare-handed, they obviously couldn’t perform at their peak without sufficient supplies and properly maintained weapons.
There was no need to say any of this out loud, of course, as everyone in the room either was a Spirit Initiate themselves, or was a leader experienced enough to understand the kind of dilemma Herald City’s defence was facing.
Choosing not to dwell on things she could do nothing about, Celestina turned next to the City Lord’s representative, Arnold Baker.
The actual City Lord, Count Richard Baker, was currently recovering from ’grievous wounds suffered in battle’, or so the public was told.
Feeling the cold gaze of the Marquess fall on him, Arnold unconsciously straightened his back as he spoke up before even being asked, "The refugee situation is under control for the moment. We’ve had reports of arguments and scuffles, but most of the peasants are just glad to be alive right now."
"What about the long-term situation?" Celestina questioned pointedly.
Wincing, Arnold Baker reluctantly continued, "Meat is not an issue, but even if we immediately institute strict rationing, our grain supply will last at most... half a month."
"Half a month!? How could you possibly have just half a month’s worth of grain reserves!?" Celestina finally couldn’t contain herself anymore and furiously shouted, pounding her fist onto the expensive table before her and shattering it as she launched into a curse filled tirade.
Even if this outburst was neither dignified, nor useful in this situation, Celestina’s outrage was perfectly understandable.
Herald City was located in one of the most fertile places in the entire Rockwell Kingdom and was surrounded by vast stretches of excellent farmland. The idea that near the end of the fall harvest season it only had enough grain in storage to feeds its original population of 30,000 for a month and a half, was absolutely outrageous.
Celestina had seen how poorly managed Herald City was, and how corrupt the local ruling class had become, but she hadn’t expected that even grain reserves, which should have been extremely cheap and abundant here, would be a critical issue.
For contrast, Misty City, which was under Celestina’s direct jurisdiction, always kept a year’s worth of food for its 150,000 residents in storage, and it was a commercial and military settlement, not an agricultural one!
Even a small place like Redwood Town had a 6 months reserve of food for its population when Celestina arrived 9 days ago.
The others in the room, most of whom were not locals, or at least not involved in the city’s administration, also wore looks that ranged from astonishment to anger when they heard this.
Arnold Baker, as the real administrator of Herald City, was well aware of how ludicrous the grain situation was, and much of it was truly his fault, so he offered no arguments or excuse as Celestina was lambasting him, keeping his head lowered in hopes it would all soon be over.
Finally, 5 minutes later, Celestina managed to reign in her fury.
She could have gone on cursing for much, much longer as there was a lot she still wanted to say, but she knew that now wasn’t the time.
She had already ’dealt’ with the Baker Family Patriarch, and without a royal decree, there was nothing more she could do to punish a Count-Rank noble family without causing problems for herself, so she forced down her anger and focused back on dealing with the many problems before her.
Seeing the Marquess barely manage to compose herself, no one wanted to be the first to speak up and upset her again, but someone had to keep the meeting moving, so as the least likely to be yelled at, Sasha sighed and continued, "The food situation is certainly a major concern, but shelter is also a critical problem we need to address."
Listening to her granddaughter bring up this subject, Celestina unconsciously began rubbing her temples to sooth her headache.
Simply put, there was no way for a city of 30,000 to suddenly be able to house an additional 70,000 people.
Just putting a roof over every person’s head was an onerous task, and even if they managed to accomplish that, there was more to making a city livable than simply protecting people from the elements.
The lack of sewage infrastructure alone would soon lead to massive amounts of squalor, resulting in disease running rampant, eventually causing many, many more deaths.
Solving any one of these issues alone would be challenging, much less all of them all at once, and that wasn’t even taking into account the main issue.
The Beast Tide might have withdrawn, but that was just a temporary retreat. Once it had regrouped, it would undoubtedly attack the city again.
Even if we manage to push the enemy back again, this city is already doomed, Celestina quickly concluded.
If Herald City had an efficient and effective administration, with ample war material and fully stocked warehouses of food, it might have been possible to shelter all the civilian refugees long enough for reinforcements and aid to arrive from the rest of the kingdom.
Then, with enough troops and sufficient supplies, the surrounding region could be secured and reconstruction efforts could begin in the spring, but the situation in Herald City was basically the complete opposite.
Poverty, rot, and social upheaval were the norm here before the explosion in the Great Western Forest, and they had only gotten worse since then.
Having just organized and executed one mass evacuation, Celestina wasn’t exactly thrilled by the prospect of having to do so again on a much larger scale, but that was looking more and more like the only option available.
Resigning herself to the reality before her, Celestina was about to ask how many boats and carriages were still available in the city when suddenly, she whipped her head to the west and gasped.
Just now, she felt something akin to a sharp wind brush past her, one that carried with it an intense chill that sent shivers up her spine; however, Celestina knew that what she felt was no mere breeze.
