307 Chapter 307: New Threats (1/2)
”A…red Gyaragon?” Dong Fang Yue Chu spluttered, stupefied by the monster's sudden appearance. ”I've never heard of a red Gyaragon before!”
”It must be a shiny monster!” Harrison Reed exclaimed without thinking. I gave him a dry stare. Really now? A ”shiny” monster? What was this? A Nintendo game? I was pretty sure we didn't get to capture these monsters in hi-tech balls and use them for battles.
”Interesting. It must be the alpha of the pack.” Adam Lacroix was completely unperturbed, and he was musing to himself for some reason.
”I'll take care of that,” Lilith said, somewhat confidently. She glanced at Adam. ”Mr. Adam, I'll trouble you to handle the rest of the Gyaragons.”
Adam bowed. ”Consider it done, my lady.”
”The rest of you, please back Adam up.” Lilith turned to instruct the Hell's Hound mercenaries. Then she paused and considered for a moment before glancing in our direction. ”Colonel Kell, if you don't mind, I would like you to split up half of your forces and send them with my friends to help with the evacuation of Troy City.”
”Understood, ma'am.” A grizzled man of about forty nodded, his steel-flinted eyes hard and cold. He turned and barked out a few orders to his mercenaries, and a company filed up to join us. Lilith then turned toward us.
”Don't waste too much time dally about here. Hurry up and go!”
With that, she was gone, taking off on Kagutsuchi, with her Hellfire Bear tailing them both to engage the red Gyaragon in the center of the Behemoth swarm. I exchanged a glance with my friends, and then we took off in another direction and headed straight for the city. The mercenaries followed closely, covering our advance with their mana rifles.
Swiping the screen of my smartphone, I called Troy.
”Come on, answer, Troy,” I grumbled. ”Where are you?”
”Shouldn't we be evacuating the people here?” Dong Fang Yue Chu asked, confused. I glanced at him and nodded.
”Yeah. But from Troy's reports, it seems that he has gathered the majority of them somewhere, but he needs more manpower to serve as escorts for…” I consulted the secondary holographic screen that my smartphone projected. ”Three thousand people?!”
”What the fuck?! That's a lot!” Theodore exclaimed, shocked. The mercenaries who were following us exchanged several worried looks. I didn't blame them. It was going to be a tall order for less than fifty of us to escort three thousand civilians.
But we had to try.
”What about the people still in the buildings?” Harrison glanced at the smoking and crumbling skyscrapers around us. It was hard to tell, with all the fumes and destruction, if there was still anybody inside there. And if Troy wanted me to nuke the city, it was going to be diffult to avoid collateral damage with civilians still in there.
”If they see us and join us, we'll protect them. Otherwise, they're on their own. We'll have to link up with Troy King's forces first.” The leader of the mercenaries spoke up. As he did so, I noticed an update to the mission directive.
Oh, so we weren't going to nuke the city after all. The higher-ups had specifically sent me a high-priority order instructing me not to unleash my strategic-scale spell on Troy City. They didn't want to sacrifice the civilians and abandon the city. They wanted to save it.
Even now, they were pouring more of their military forces into the city to exterminate the monsters and quarantine it. They weren't taking the nuclear option, after all. Not when there was a chance that civilians might still be inside the city.
”That makes sense,” Theodore pointed out when he noticed me reading the updated directive. ”They didn't abandon Jing Tian City and nuke it to oblivion when the monsters invaded it. Why would they do that for Troy City?”
Because it wasn't the protagonist's city, and so nobody cares what happened to a random city that had never been mentioned until just a few chapters ago?
”Pick up the call, Troy,” I hissed irritably, checking my smartphone and seeing that it was still trying to connect to him. Fortunately, it didn't take too long, and I heard a click before the screen transformed into Troy's face.
”Richie? That you?”
”Yeah! Where are you? We've reached the city.” I consulted the secondary screen. ”You said you have about three thousand civilians following you right now, but you didn't specify the location.”
”Ah, my bad. That's because we're constantly on the move. These bastards keep chasing us, and there's way too many of them to fight off.” there was an inhuman shriek off-screen, and then desperate gunfire and lots of shouting. Troy glanced to the side, his brow furrowing, and then he turned back to me. ”I'll send you the coordinates by text…and if we move, I'll send you the new coordinates. But we shouldn't be too far from the old ones if that happens, so just proceed to wherever I send you first.”
That made sense. Unless the civilians could fly or teleport, there was no way such a massive group of people could move so quickly. Combat mages and professional paramilitary soldiers would be able to catch up in no time at all.
”On the double!” the mercenary leader shouted. From his epaulets, I was able to guess that he was a lieutenant. They had received the coordinates that Troy had just publically posted on the network for all friendly forces.
”The other forces will arrive in about two hours, huh?” Harrison murmured to himself darkly. ”Until then, we're on our own.”
”Why are they taking so long?” Yue Chu whined. ”They should hurry up and fly here already!”
”We are fast because there's so few of us, and we don't need much preparation,” I informed him. ”But large-scale military mobilizations are a different matter. Logistics, getting whatever vehicles available to move thousands of men, arming all of them with thousands of weapons – unlike us, who have our own personal weapons – establishing supply lines, a chain of command, especially when different regiments are participating, and recalling soldiers from exercises, leave or training…there's a lot of preparation that needs to be done before you can send an entire army to fight. It's not as easy as receiving the order and then rushing here immediately. They have to all report to camp first, organize their equipment, and wait for transports. And the officers also have to draw up strategies, coordinate their efforts, and…”
”Okay, I get it. I get it!” Yue Chu held up both hands to cut off my rambling. Then he stared at me suspiciously. ”Why do you know so much about military stuff?”
”I thought it was pretty obvious,” Theodore rumbled.
”Me too,” Harrison added. Yue Chu paled considerably as he glanced from him to Theodore to me.
”You guys…”
”Contact!” one of the mercenaries yelled, and gunfire erupted explosively. The four of us spun around to engage the enemy, and I caught sight of fleeting specters emerging from behind debris and collapsed buildings.
An eerie howl burst out from one of them, the sonic assault flooring a couple of mercenaries. Their comrades opened fire upon the offending ghost, but it raised its seemingly intangible arms and constructed a sound wall that vibrated intensely to halt the mana bullets in their tracks.
”Banshees!” Harrison hissed, identifying the rank C monsters immediately. I nodded, even as I summoned Orion and prepared to launch a volley of arrows at the incoming spectral creatures. The soldiers, undaunted by the first failure of their attack, continued to pepper the Banshee, and eventually its sound barrier couldn't hold up against so many mana bullets and collapsed. Its body riddle with lethal rounds, it dropped onto the ground.