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I had Letina, Michelle, and Cloud return home and take refuge with their families.

If they found out about Michelle’s Gift they would have sent her to the battlefield, so I plotted to beat them to the punch and hide her in advance.

As for me, I pretended to return home, but used the illusion ring to disguise myself as a plain-looking Adventurer, and returned back to the Guild.

In the biggest room in the Adventurer’s Guild… That is, the hall, they carried a long desk, turning it into an impromptu conference room.

There were about 50 Adventurers and staff members there, as well as Cortina and Mateus.

“Um, Lady Cortina. Where is Lord Maxwell?”
“If you’re looking for the old man, he was called to the United Alliance of the north this morning, so he went to the capital, Tryad.”
“T-Then we should use the Guild’s contact network and get in touch—!”
“I leave that to you. If that old man comes back, things will change for the better in one go.”
“U-Understood! Um, what about Lord Lyell and Lady Maria, or Lord Gadius?”
“It’s still impossible for Maria to step into the battlefield. Her condition is still not perfect. Lyell can’t leave the north at present, either.”

There was still that organisation scheming to summon Devils in the northern parts. Lyell was actively going after them in the United Alliance to sever their supply of sacrifices. Gadius was the same.

Only Maxwell could move right now.

Hearing Cortina’s words, the Guild staff started running around once again. Then, she once again laid her eyes on the map spread on the desk, and asked for the information.

The Guild Master answered her question binding the collected information to a file.

“There is no mistake that Lord has appeared, right?”
“Yes, otherwise we cannot explain how over 200 goblins could spawn.”
“The place is about a five days of walk from here to the north… There’s a river on the west side, but other than that it’s all forest. Quite troublesome.”
“But wouldn’t that delay their attack as well?”
“Goblin Lord is like a queen bee. It can make its underlings do the unreasonable. In the worst case, they can show up here in three days.”
“Three days!?”

There wouldn’t be time to even lay traps and ambush them like that. If possible, an all-out battle with Goblins in the forest had to be avoided.

“How many enemies are there?”
“The follow-up scout has arrived after that. We are using familiars to monitor them now. They managed to count their numbers better this time, and it appears that there are about 350 of them.”
“What about our combat power?”
“About 50 people have answered the urgent summons of the Guild. There’s 50 more gate guards.”
“Isn’t that a little too few?”

Even if Raum was in the western countryside, it was still the capital. It was a little too few for there to only be 50ish Adventurers present there.

Plus, there should’ve been more gate guards too.

“That is because to handle Goblins, they have to be at least third rank…”
“What if you include rank two?”
“It would add a hundred more Adventurers to the count.”
“So we’d still be about half their count…”

Against 350 monsters, there would be 150 Adventurers and 50 guards. It wasn’t exactly as low as half of their count, but still low enough. When it came to field battles in forests where it was hard to play with strategies, numbers were everything. This wasn’t enough to stop the monsters’ advance.

“What about the castle’s chivalric order? They should have about 300 there, right?”
“Marquis Lichtenberg declared that knights are there to protect the country and the nobles, and dispatched them to guard the noble district.”
“He what? That bald geezer…”
“And, commoners have been forbidden from entering the noble district too…”
“Where else can the citizens take shelter then!?”

Cortina slammed her fist on the desk in anger.

Like the city walls, the area where the nobles lived was enclosed with walls. With both the city and noble district wall in the place, the enemy couldn’t overcome it, Goblin Lord or not.

But that was only if you didn’t factor in the harm that would come to the citizens. If the citizens had no shelter, just breaking through the rampant would be the end. What awaited beyond that was the trampling of the powerless citizens.

Each Goblin was individually nothing much. But the story was different when it came to Goblins led by a Lord.

They followed the Lord while ignoring the danger to their lives, just like worker bees. In other words, they were quite like death soldiers. Against such enemies, you wouldn’t be able to avoid victims even if you managed to make up the numbers.

“Should I just go and kill that old b̲a̲s̲t̲a̲r̲d̲…”
“P-Please wait. In exchange, Marquis Yowi accepted the plea for shelter!”
“Marquis Yowi? Ah, Letina’s family…”
“He declared that he would use Marquis household carriages and shelter the refugees in his garden.”
“If it’s Marquis carriages, no one should complain about letting them inside the noble district, huh. But—that’s still a small consolation.”
“Yes, we are grateful for his kindness, but we can only fit a thousand people there at most…”
“It can’t be helped. Let us evacuate people to the Magic and Adventurer academies too. If we cram them, we should accommodate 4-5 thousand of them there. There are fences there too, so it should serve as a line of defense.”

Pointing to the academies to the eastern side of the city, Cortina issued the instructions.

Both of the academies were wider than some noble mansions, so you could accommodate quite a lot of people there. Even so, it couldn’t accommodate all of the citizens.

“That would still only amount to one third of the entire population…”
“Have the Adventurers under rank two along with the guards to take the refugees to the southern side and guard them there. We could buy some time like that.”
“Guard over ten thousand citizens with not even 200 people!?”
“I know how it sounds. But it’s still better than leaving them defenseless.”
“That…Is true…”

Cortina thought with a finger to her jaw. At this rate, damages to the citizens couldn’t be avoided. They would be able to repel them, but not without spilling the blood of the citizens in the process.

“There are limits to how much the town walls can guard.”
“But we don’t have any other options, do we?”
“If only we could use the chivalric order… No, we have to make the first move here. That is the only way to avoid harm to the citizens.”

If they could use those 300 knights, it could have been more than an equal fight. However, since their main force has been snatched away, the disadvantages we had were undeniable. Much less when guards and newbie Adventurers were all busy trying to protect the citizens.

With the main force of 50 Adventurers, they had to defeat seven times that number of Goblins. Cortina made a choice to take on such a reckless action.