Chapter 12: Snowfield White Dragon
The sunlight was as brilliant as gold, shining down on the icy stone path.
The three of them stood in the middle of the road in front of the tower, and around them, soldiers and civilians had gradually gathered to watch. Among them, some clever ones realized that two of the people in the conversation were their direct superiors, so after a short while, the crowd dispersed, and everyone simply went back to their own work.
Kili's tone was not heavy, seeming to be merely a straightforward inquiry. After all, a girl who appeared to be in her teens posed no real threat and required no special vigilance from him. At most, he was a little curious about what this child, who had been following them all along, actually wanted.
But clearly, the other person had a different opinion.
"Wait!"
As a mage, even if he was old, Feng's perception and memory were still a level above Kili's, who was a warrior. He frowned, his golden eyes flickering with surprise: "Silver-rank? A Silver-rank at such a young age... Indeed, Kili, take a closer look at the style of her clothes!"
Since she hadn't planned on hiding anyway, the silver-haired girl was not actually surprised to be discovered.
But after hearing this, not only Kili but even Ying herself was taken aback. This Divine Mechanism young lady subconsciously turned sideways to examine her own attire—a white, double-breasted military-style dress coat for women. It was neither ostentatious nor tacky, with nothing strange about it. It was very ordinary.
Yet after a careful look, Kili seemed to have indeed noticed something. He nodded thoughtfully and said, "You're right, I overlooked it... The design style is almost identical."
What is wrong with these two people?)
Ying frowned, unable to figure out what they were trying to do. At first, it was just the masked warrior asking why she was following them. How did the topic suddenly jump to clothing design?
She was now almost unable to resist revealing her identity to prove that she, too, was loyal to that same Lord of Moldavia—though it would expose the fact that she was lost, which was a bit embarrassing.
"Cough..."
After a moment of silence, Feng let out a light cough and walked up to Ying. He bent down slightly to look the silver-haired girl in the eye: "May I ask, what is your relationship with Mr. Amos?"
"Mr. Amos? You mean Fan?"
After saying this instinctively, Ying immediately understood the reason for their earlier discussion about clothing style—unless a Divine Mechanism's clothes were deliberately altered, once their magical power manifested, the outfit would always appear in a fixed style. The design was very uniform, almost identical.
If one had seen it long enough to be familiar, it wouldn't be difficult to notice that the uniform she was wearing was the same style as the older generation of Divine Mechanisms.
"Indeed."
Although he didn't get a formal answer, the result was the same. The white-haired mage nodded, looking quite satisfied with his own discernment: "Whether it's Fan, or the old master's father's butler De, the design of the Moldavia family's butler uniform has never changed, even when it's adapted into women's clothing."
"A butler family that has served the Radcliffe family for generations... and this generation is actually female." The half-elf warrior also understood the reason Ying was following them: "You must be here to see the young master as well. Let's go together."
This group seemed to have a slightly subtle misunderstanding about the existence of Divine Mechanisms.
Ying sighed, yet felt a subtle sense of relief. She nodded and said softly, "Alright."
—Meeting Hall, a few minutes later.
"Regarding this Black Tide invasion, due to the appearance of a Gold-rank Mammoth Giant Beast, more than a quarter of the fortress wall facing the Black Forest collapsed. It is now being urgently repaired through the petrification spells of elemental mages. According to a temporary tally and battlefield cleanup report, seven knights died in action, one hundred and thirty-one soldiers were killed, and nearly seven hundred were wounded."
The white-haired mage held several hastily written reports in his hands, which he had compiled while sending Zolgen for treatment. Since the entire fortress had just over two thousand professional soldiers, the statistics were not difficult to compile. So, while the report might not guarantee absolute accuracy, the general numbers wouldn't differ much.
"Because when the wall was breached, a few frenzied beasts broke into the fortress, causing some civilian injuries. Fortunately, no one lost their lives."
Joshua sat on a bench in the meeting room. He took the reports Feng handed him, flipped through them for a moment, and then asked with some confusion: "When I arrived, I happened to see the giant beast ramming the wall, so I'm not very familiar with the situation before that. But just looking at the numbers, this loss seems rather small, which doesn't seem to match the previous tense situation."
When he first saw the wall collapse, he thought at least a thousand people would die. That's why he dove straight down and used forceful methods to kill the Gold-rank Mammoth Giant Beast as quickly as possible through brute force. Otherwise, he could have fought a delaying battle, found its weakness, and then delivered a killing blow, which would have been much easier than relying purely on raw strength.
"If we look purely at the casualty numbers, facing a siege of fifty thousand frenzied beasts and losing only this many people, it can indeed be considered a small loss."
Kili, standing to the side, took over the conversation. He shook his head. This half-elf warrior had been on the front lines the whole time and understood the real situation: "Magical beasts don't have many siege methods. Aside from brute force, they can at most climb the walls endlessly and pile up corpses. Our walls and fortresses are mostly protected by T-shaped structures, so against this kind of opponent, we should theoretically have an absolute advantage."
"But in reality, even though we had an absolute defensive advantage, with even over a hundred Silver-rank warriors sweeping back and forth to clear the monsters climbing the walls, we still lost all our satellite fortresses under the frenzied and self-sacrificing attacks of the beasts. We also lost a large amount of supplies and heavy equipment. The number of enchanted arrows and alchemical products consumed during the fortress's defensive battle was incalculable. Plus, the enemy had Gold-rank magical beasts. If the young master hadn't arrived in time, I'm afraid there wouldn't have been a few living people left in the entire fortress."
This was indeed not an exaggeration. If Joshua hadn't arrived in time, the unopposed Mammoth Giant Beast would have been able to destroy the entire fortress.
Fortunately, humans were best at using tools to create advantages for themselves. With two thousand regular soldiers plus the usual militia training units, they were more than enough for just defending the city. Although the fifty thousand frenzied beasts were numerous, they couldn't storm the walls that quickly in a short time.
And when the Mammoth Giant Beast charged, it didn't care whether it was trampling magical beasts or humans into pulp under its feet. So after the wall breach appeared, not many beasts dared to rush forward directly. Within a few seconds, Joshua descended from the sky, killed this Gold-rank magical beast, and scared off the entire beast horde.
From this perspective, the small loss was indeed quite normal. But as Kili said, the consumption of enchanted arrows and alchemical cannonballs was a huge expense. Joshua was now starting to worry whether Moldavia could afford this money.
And regardless, many people had died for this, losses that could have been avoided.
This world, which seemed both similar and different from a game, was undoubtedly real. Death was death, and life was only once.
But perhaps that was precisely why one wanted to pursue something.
"Thank you both for your reports."
Putting away the hastily written reports in his hand and handing them to Ying, who stood behind him, the thoughtful Joshua said to the two, "Although some information is still incomplete, I can see that you two are very busy. So I won't say much more. Feng, give me a formal document in a few days. That's all for today."
"Yes, my lord!"
Before leaving, Feng seemed to have something to say but hesitated. Finally, after Kili opened the meeting room door, he spoke up.
"It might be my imagination," the old mage said. "The aura of that thing you took out of the Mammoth Giant Beast, young master... I feel like I've sensed it somewhere before."
"Feng, are you sure?"
He had actually sensed the aura of the Abyss Derivative before?
Hearing this, Joshua, who had been lost in thought, immediately became serious. He even took out the silver egg-shaped object, still curled up into a ball, from his pocket and handed it to the other man: "Take another look. Think carefully. Where did you sense this aura?"
"White Dragon."
Taking the silver egg transformed from the Abyss Derivative, the white-haired mage scanned it with his spiritual perception and then said with absolute certainty: "A few months ago, I sensed a similar fluctuation from that group of white dragons in the snowfield."