Chapter 441 (1/2)

Chapter 441: 441

Aegir POV–

「Bwrwrwr…… Muu, bwrbwr . 」

Celia shakes her head, flinging the water droplets trickling down her bangs away .

However, the endlessly falling raindrops quickly soak the cute Celia from head to toe .

A downpour started immediately after the cannon battle the other day, equally drenching the enemy and ally alike .

It wasn’t heavy enough to be considered a storm . And it didn’t seem like it would continue forever .

Still, the intermittent wet weather that already lasted for three days thoroughly showered the bodies of every soldier and left puddles on the ground .

「Why don’t you put on your hood?」

I suggest to Celia .

「I can’t worsen my field of view in front of the enemy . It would be bad if we got ambushed!」

Celia retorts as she shakes her head again .

「How cute, but if you catch a cold, your tumtum won’t be feeling so good . 」

「Wah, don’t say something so weird!」

I s.h.i.+ft my attention from Celia, who turns her back to me with a soft ‘hmp’, to Myla .

Myla hastily removes the hood she was wearing . Why? Having it on is a smart thing to do .

「Muu……」

Myla wipes the raindrops running along her face with her left hand .

That gesture coupled with her wet hair made her look extra gorgeous, contrasting the cute Celia, although I don’t favor one over the other .

Somehow, my s.e.xual cravings are being stirred .

I s.h.i.+ft my gaze again, this time to Pipi .

「This rain, I’m sick of it . 」

Pipi is sitting beside Pochi, rubbing a brush against its scales dully .

Pochi growls in content and spreads its wings to s.h.i.+eld Pipi from getting wet .

Such a touching scene disperses the rising l.u.s.t within me .

「Pochi stinks more from the rain . ……ah, there’s mold on its scales . 」

Pochi whines sadly .

「In any case, you can’t avoid getting wet . Just hold your positions――」

I say as I s.h.i.+ft my gaze to Tristan .

「I agree with that notion . 」

Tristan isn’t wearing a hood . No, he doesn’t need to .

He’s sitting on a wooden bench with an opened cloth umbrella positioned over his head and squeezed under his armpit, all while drinking tea and reading a book .

「If enough guards have been stationed, the others can rest in a better environ―― ow! Why am I being kicked!?」

I switch over to Leopolt when I see Celia punish Tristan .

I happen to catch a glimpse of a ball of muscles bathing in the rain naked, but it’s probably my imagination .

That guy is also staring straight ahead without a hood on .

He isn’t shaking like Celia and he isn’t wiping his face like Myla either .

The way he looks with the rain dripping along his short hair and down his face like he doesn’t care is――――

「More than cold-hearted, it’s creepy……almost to the point of being idiotic . 」

When Leopolt heard me speak, only his eyeb.a.l.l.s rolled in my direction .

His gaze was not directed at Trisnia, where the enemy was, or our allies being hit by the rain .

It was directed at an open spot in the air…… I a.s.sume it’s because he was gauging the severity of the rain .

「It’s still going . 」

「Since the rain started, it has stopped five times in the span of ten hours and has continued for a total of 60 hours . 」

I don’t know that much detail .

「For this season…… isn’t it rare?」

「Yes . The river coast region, including Trisnia, gets a certain amount of precipitation during the summer season . Depending on the year, there might be enough to cause a natural disaster such as a flood, however……」

「It doesn’t look like this is too much rain . 」

The current rainfall is not exactly a torrential downpour .

With that said, it must be raining harder near the water source around the mountain range, as the level of water in the river is gradually increasing……

「What hurts is that we can’t use cannons . 」

The one area we have the enemy crushed in is the firepower of our cannons .

The gunpowder required to fire those cannons has become moist from the rain and water entering the barrels of the cannons makes it extremely dangerous for us to use .

If we have to fight with ballistae, catapults and close combat, we’ll inevitably be at a disadvantage .

「There’s also the problem of the walls . It’s the reason for such a heated debate in the war council . 」

Erich’s staff officers pulled out a map of the city and are still arguing over what to do .

I can’t blame them for getting fl.u.s.tered, since the supposedly weak Trisnia walls repelled a battering ram .

Considering the six month period the city was occupied, it’s unthinkable for the entire wall to be rebuilt .

The shape is exactly the same, so it must be impossible .

「Did they use magic?」

I don’t know any powerful magic that could be so convenient .

The walls are st.u.r.dy and the harbor is sealed tightly .

Currently, our only way through is the dwarven cannon, and even that is rendered unavailable due to the rain .

「We have no other option except to revise our plan under the a.s.sumption that the walls are fortified . 」

I can’t help smiling after the very typical Leopolt answer .

It doesn’t matter if the enemy rapidly renovated their walls or whether they fortified the walls with an unknown magic or whether some kind of hidden power was unleashed . If the premise changes, then we’ll just have to amend the condition and rethink our strategy . We can mull over the “why” and “how” after the fact .

「We have a plan?」

Leopolt nods slightly .

Then he points to our bored ally fleet, going back and forth .

「The water in the river is rising . Let us draw in our fleet to a safe stream . 」

His suggestion was simply an evacuation plan for our fleet, unrelated to any kind of bold measure .

A Few Hours Later .

「Put your back into it――!」

「Do it perpendicular to the current! How can you expect to pull it when it’s diagonal!?」

s.h.i.+p after s.h.i.+p gets dragged from the large North Teries river to a smaller, nameless river .

It’s difficult for a combat vessel to enter a small stream on its own, so soldiers tug on ropes hanging from the deck to transport the s.h.i.+ps from one coast to another at a turtle’s pace .

「Keep your oars shallow but quick . If you thrust it all the way to the bottom, they’ll break!」

「Drop off any food or water . If the s.h.i.+p’s too heavy, the bilge will sc.r.a.pe against the ground!」

While the river’s size is small, it is at the terminating point of the North Teries and it has extra water from the rain, so the width is at least several meters .

To begin with, this wouldn’t work if not for the increased water level .

「Hey…… why go through all this trouble? Wouldn’t it better to let them wait in some cove for the water to rise? The enemy shouldn’t have a capable fleet anymore . 」