Chapter 454 Getting Ready for War

After Lyra, Daniela, and even Marek continued to address the people of Valenhart, the entire city soon came under their control

Thousands of the kingdom’s soldiers were captured overpowered by the might and numbers of the newly named liberation army.

Of course, this operation did not end perfectly as some of the kingdom’s troops managed to flee the city, and plenty fought to their last breath bringing the casualties up to a few hundred on both sides.

Albeit this was an acceptable number, since they had taken over an entire city in one fell swoop.

Though wrestling control of the city away from the king was only the first and easiest step.

Now the liberation needed to first, get all of the city’s functions under control and make sure that they delivered on their promises to make the people’s lives better..

Luckily, with the mountains of support Lyra and Daniela received, along with Volos’ knowledge, they were quickly able to have the city fully up and functioning again.

The people no longer needed to worry about the mandatory curfew that had been in place during the kingdom’s occupation and were able to walk the streets without fear of being accosted by soldiers.

Though in the first few days there was certainly confusion, especially as trade goods came in from many different sources, expecting to find things as usual when they were far from it.

Fortunately for these traders, the liberation did not seize their goods or people, and even paid for the items they had been transporting before letting them go on their way.

Still these surprised merchants only lasted for a few days as quickly the kingdom set up blockades on the river preventing anyone from approaching Valenhart from three of the four cardinal directions.

However, from the north they were unable to control the river which actually began in Borealia and flowed down into Tralenstein.

This meant that Marcus’ days as a cargo plane had finally ended, as Borealia was now able to send ships and caravans across the part of the border which was now controlled by the liberation army.

Quickly, huge stores of food, clothing, and other necessities were delivered to Valenhart and the entire region by Borealia, all in agreement to the contract that Marek had signed with the king.

Yet, this was only the beginning, as soon weapons and armaments began to arrive as well, and the city and surrounding towns were equipped with dozens more mana cannons, and the walls were reinforced by magical formations powered by newly acquired mana furnaces.

Magic wands containing even tier three spells were disrupted among the troops of the liberation army, and quickly the preparations for war were well underway.

…

“Our scouts have just spotted the kingdom’s army leaving from the capital. As we suspected, Cibor is leading them personally, and they have left only the bare minimum of troops necessary to protect the city.” Kazimir said reading out the report he had just received a few moments ago to the rest of the liberation captains.

It had been around a week since they had taken over the Augustyn Dutchy, and naturally the kingdom was not going to let them do as they pleased.

“How many troops do they have?” Marek asked with a serious expression on his face.

Sighing Kazimir said, “They are sending two hundred thousand, though from the intel we have gathered, around a third of these people were conscripted not long ago, and are mostly just being used as cannon fodder.”

The room went silent for a moment since in total the liberation army only had around eighty  thousand actual members, and only around half of them were currently in the Augustyn Dutchy.

“Hmph, while their numbers are great, if most of their troops are greenhorns they will not be much of a threat. What we need to really worry about are the strongest fighters and we should be able to match them in that regard.” Francis said with confidence.

Shaking his head, Marek said, “No, we cannot disregard any of these troops. We will already just barely be able to take on their strongest fighters, so it will come down to numbers and strategy in the end.”

The captains continued to bicker amongst each other on the best course of action, until Marcus raised his hand to get everyone’s attention.

“Why do we not just bombard them while they are on the move. We can just cast high tier spells and unleash powerful mana attacks from afar and wipe out most of their troops.”

However, as Marcus said this all of the other captains looked at him as if he was stupid and realized he was not versed in the ways of war.

And speaking up to correct him before anyone else did so more harshly, Lyra said, “Jed, that way of fighting would require us to have someone far stronger than our enemies. Large armies are always wary and on the look out for powerful traps of ranged attacks from high level combatants. They will have their own powerful mages and fighters positioned with their lower-level troops to defend them against such attacks. Not to mention that they will have mobile strongholds with them that create a barrier around most of the troops, preventing ranged attacks from passing through it. And even if someone did successfully unleash a powerful attack and wipe out a bunch of troops, all of the kingdom’s strongest would flock right towards the source and deal with it.”

Hearing this Marcus lowered his head a bit embarrassed since he had just said something that everyone else knew was obviously wrong.

To be fair though, Marcus had never fought in a war against other people, and his only real experience with a large battlefield was against the ice ants that were wiped out in the way he suggested.

Yet, after Marcus, someone else suggested something even more radical, as Argus stood up and said, “Why do we not just abandon the city and attack the capital instead.”