524 Thrud Castle

Having endured and defended the stonewalls that separated the kingdom of humanity from the deadlands, many knights, soldiers, mercenaries and volunteers were now licking their wounds, as the dekans retreated like clockwork. Attacking at dawn, before retreating at sunset, regardless of their success or losses.

With a repeating such as this, the humans now split into two groups, as one would engage in protracted warfare, the other would rebuild and reinforce the structures, walls, siege-weapons and gates during the night.

Rosemi de Lumix, as regent and commander of the military-alliance, had been surviving on only a couple of hours of sleep per cycle. As she was often sought for, for approval and for ideas and suggestions.

Refusing to relax, the strong-headed woman silently consumed her meal whilst continuously imbuing her eyes with mana, gazing out and scanning the horizon beyond, even if her ocean-blue eyes were greatly sore and aching. Believing the repeated pattern to be a ploy, a stratagem to place her army into a sense of relief, she refused to slip up as she imagined dekan-reinforcements surging forth whilst her men were most relaxed and resting.

Miku, who was equally dressed within Trichia's typical uniform, wrapped the woman's torso with an overcoat. It was only after the warmth the thick-fur coat provided, warmed her bones did Rosemi realized how much she was neglecting herself, as the responsibility and pressure to perform was certainly heavy.

"You should relax a bit, rest your eyes. They won't be attacking until sunrise." Also gazing out into the darkness, scanning and finding only a few lingering dekans who were slowly dragging corpses away to eat, she sniffled her nose as Mimi climbed the stairs with a tray of hot tea, to warm the bones.

"How do you know? What if it's all a trick, to catch us off-guard?"

"Well~ Lucky for you, the snake's head was cut-off cleanly. I know this because I confirmed its death with my own eyes and hands after all..."

Recalling the report she had received, which outlined her father's survival and safe-return back, although having lost 3/4 of his cavalry-knights, Rosemi nodded as she accepted a cup of tea. Whilst Miku's reasoning was sound, and logical, as the dekans did in fact appear to be headless as they repeated the same strategies over and over, as if they were just headbutting the stonewalls on repeat until a different result occurred. 

Rosemi also knew just how easily it was to find and replace commanders, generals and captains. And it was only a matter of time before the dekan army did exactly that.

The saving grace here, was that the society the dekans lived in was one of strict adherence to hierarchy. Being a species that believed itself supreme, to be the reaper upon fields of battle, their generals and their egos placed them into a position of belief that victory was guaranteed. Being unable to predict two borderline suicidal units to literally dive into a deep-sea of blue, they created no contingencies or back-up inheritance of command.

With the sacrifice of thousands of cavalry-elites, and Miku's companions, their small team of brains was evidently assassinated. Thus, the dekan-army were now simply repeating the orders they had received prior, until a new general or noble-being was placed. Due to dekan-doctrine stating that regardless of who died, only dishonour, exile and death awaited those who ran and retreated. With such strong and strict militant-rules in place, they couldn't even send a messenger back to request the appointing of a new head.

Whilst this was great for the allied-forces, it didn't change the fact that the dekans were now charging in and assaulting their defence with their evolved-members. Which were basically nightmares for the soldiers who weren't able to utilize mana.

..

Down within the makeshift open-space canteen-area, Gary, Oliver and Lucas's party were eating up their oatmeal with a small cup of watered down beer. Gary, who was much better off from his adventurer counterparts chugged his drink down as he sighed in relief. Having survived another day, with a good stock of potions available to him, he felt somewhat better about his predicament when comparing himself to the members of Lucas's team. Who by now, were quite the mess as their gears were filled with impact-scars, missing-fragments and torn chain-mail.

Lucas, who hadn't touched his drink yet, pounded his fist into the wooden-bench he sat upon.

"Damnit! These lizard-cunts are using us as food and training. We're practically sitting-ducks, waiting upon the walls for them to attack us, whilst the weaker of their lot drag away the corpses of our armies..." 

Not having the luxury of a proper-bath, Lucy's usual blonde hair now appeared dark and dirty. The young-woman took a good gulp of her drink before biting her lower lip in frustration, as she agreed with her brother's statement.

Concerning their revised battle-strategies, now that they weren't facing the usual blue-faced humanoids but their evolved counterparts.

Mimi and Marvin recalled how they were literally surrounding and ganging up on one, whilst the levies, volunteers and soldiers were forced to act as cannon-fodder. Delaying and buying time for them, as they delivered cut after cut upon the tough-thick skin that protected the dekan-body.

It was only Gary, who could find the correct term to coin them as he recalled battle-plans and phrases Asai had once taught him.

"Bloody-tanks..."

Hearing quite the commotion, the group looked on over towards the south. Another injection of fresh-faces was entering the stone-keep, evidently elven as their armours and swords easily gave them away. At the very fore, stood a familiar face, an elf who had a deep-scar crossing from one ear to the other, and missing his left-arm in its entirety.

The elf caught sight of the group he had gotten to know, as they had shared and experienced a few battles together already.

"Jin? What are you doing here?" 

Waving with his one good arm, Jin ignored protocol and hopped on over towards them, planting himself between Lucy and Mimi before gesturing to another elf to follow along.

"I'm here for more glorious battle of course, a little paper-cut wound won't be deterring me from doing what I love after all!"

The group of humans couldn't help but look at the loose flap of cloth, the sleeve that housed no left-arm. "A paper cut wound?" They collectively thought.

"And this here is sir knight Leslie."

Leslie, who had already completed the easy mission of escorting Chloe Bedevere and Violet to Par'Talucca, had long since returned tot he kingdom, as such, he now found himself sent to Thrud as reinforcement.

With the lack of ass, boobs and women in general to step on him, Leslie weakly waved at the lot before searching for booze.

Ignoring the lacklustre greeting from the masochist-elf, the humans raised their cups of watered-down beer and toasted.

"To sir Jin!"

""Honour and glory, to knight Jin!""

Anything to lighten the mood, as the battle-junkie elven-swordsman began to throw question after question, seeking battle-stories to update himself of Thrud's current condition.

Cutting the elf's enthusiasm short, three elven swordsman approached the lot. Whilst clearly elven, due to their clearly pointy and long ears, they wore Trichia's uniform under a steel-breastplate each.

Lottie, Ethan and Fox, the three trainees once lectured and coached by Asai himself were now there to prove themselves. Having received training from two distinctively-different schools, the three young elves were now greatly eager to become battle-hardened. Breathing a second wind into the camp as more lively faces entered the defence.