Chapter 422 - 358: walls
Honestly what made me have slow updates was university and the worry of my mother’s health. However this time is probably the most depressing time of my life. My mum died. I don’t even know how to express myself. So updates may be slower but I’ll try.
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"Please, do you know where I could get some food? Me and my friends are starving, and we don’t know what to do. Apparently our currency doesn’t work in this world."
The girl asking stood at the front of a street stall with a group of people behind her, all of them holding onto each other’s sleeves like they’d been told not to get separated and had taken it seriously.
From their clothes it was clear they were from that other world. It wasn’t just the currency. Their coats were stitched too neatly, the fabric even, machine-made not like the hand stitched clothes of the common people.
"Well, you can head to the church of light and peace," the stall owner said, wiping his hands on his apron. "They’re providing alms to survivors and refugees, so you can go there and they’ll help you get settled in. I see you recently entered the city."he added looking up at them
"Yeah, we’re running away from those monsters," The girl stated nervously.
"Oh, that’s good, at least you were able to survive. So just go there, and they’ll help you out." He said pouting to the direction of the church.
"Thank you very much." The group stated together before moving forward. The stall owner watched them go until they turned the corner.
"Third group this morning," he said.
His neighbour at the next stall was already packing crates. "Fourth. You missed one while you were hauling water."
"Well," the stall owner said, "looking at the way things are, everyone’s on edge. These strange monsters, these new foreigners, and people who hold prejudice against the former heroes, though really, they can’t be considered heroes anymore. Still, it doesn’t change the hearts of the people who’ve read the history, and what these people did to our worlds."
"Fair. It’s honestly understandable." His neighbour dropped a crate lid shut. "However, I feel like people shouldn’t dwell on this too much, and should just focus on reinforcing the walls and protecting each other."
"Yeah."
"Yeah."
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"How is the situation?" A knight commander asked.
"Well, so far we’ve only had twenty casualties, and I think that’s honestly better than the previous week." A soldier answered.
"Twenty casualties, dead or alive?" The commander asked raising an eyebrow.
"Dead, sir," the soldier said. "That’s all from the last attack."
The commander didn’t answer straight away. He put both hands flat on the table and looked at the map on it, and at the pins in the map, and at the section of the eastern line where there were no pins left to move.
"Understood."
"So, sir, what do we do?"
"We’ll need to send word to the city lord. The walls are starting to crumble." He straightened up. "I’m hoping those Academy students get here soon."
"Yeah, from the call we got, they said someone would come help reinforce our walls. I’m really hoping that’s true." The soldier said scratching his head and staring at the barren land before the city walls and some meters away was a thick luscious green forest.
"Would we need to escort them or something?" The soldier asked curiously.
"I hear we should." The commander picked up one of the pins and turned it over between his fingers. "Students. They’re sending us students."
"Better than nothing, sir."
"That’s what worries me. It means somebody up there did the maths and decided nothing was the other option."
"Well every continent has been busy, so we’d be lucky to get actual holy knights to help us." The soldier answered.
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The man they called the barrier keeper stood on the eastern wall with his arms crossed, in heavy bronze-coloured armour with the city insignia across the back, and stared at the stone wall touching it for a long time without moving.
Forty feet high. He’d been proud of that number once. Forty feet, and even then it wasn’t high enough to keep out the smaller monsters, the ones that climbed. Twenty feet thick, and it was developing holes anyway, big ones, the kind you could put a cart through if you cleared the rubble first.
He ran his hand along a crack that hadn’t been there last month.
Then his eyes went wide and he pulled his hand back like the stone had bitten him.
At first this had just been a normal city. He’d built the walls to protect them from demi-humans and the other races, because in this world humans and the other races were not on friendly terms. Some countries managed it. Not this one. Here everyone kept their distance and built their own bases and looked after their own people, and that was simply how things were done.
Then the world convergence event happened, and now his city was full of every race and every kind of people were there. A lot of people weren’t happy about it, howver they kept quiet, because the demi-humans and the foreigners were the ones out there helping fight the plant monsters, and it’s difficult to complain about someone who is currently bleeding on your behalf.
He looked at the crack again, and then at the next one along, and then at the one after that.
At first he thought they were just damaged but as he looked a bit more closer there was a pattern.
"Get me the commander Titan," he said to a soldier next to him and the soldier scurried off.
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Meru, Marsh and Coco stood on the wall above the Western gate, looking down at what was left of the plant monsters in the field.
Meru and Marsh were elves of Aurianna’s church. Coco the cat girl had come with them. She was the one who had been saved by Alex the priest and asked to join Aurianna’s church. They were going around selling healing potions and were currently stuck here because of those monsters. Even though they could kill themselves and teleport back to the church they had a feeling during these two months since their master’s aura diminished if they dared to die they may not revive so they didn’t dare to gamble their lives so recklessly.
"Won’t the city get overrun immediately if a humanoid one arrives?" a soldier asked.
"Humanoid plant monster," another soldier said. "What is that?"
"Just listen and go, alright?" Coco said, without turning around.
The soldiers went.
"That thing," Coco said, once they were gone. "This whole plant monster business has been suspicious from the start. They don’t look like random monster attacks. They are attacking certain points of the city walls to probably bring it down.".
"You’ve been saying that for a week," Meru said.
"I’ve been saying it for a week because it keeps being true for a week." Coco huffed.