The day before…

"Thank you, Your Majesty. This is what we need."

I said, looking at the model of the city and at the same time decided to ask.

"If possible, can you find out the approximate number of the enemy?"

"More than three thousand people."

Said an old man dressed in armor decorated with patterns.

"We have less than five hundred people, and most of them are holding a spear in their hands for the first time.

"No chance."

Will commented standing to the side with his arms crossed over his chest.

One can argue for a long time about Will’s competence in military matters, but he was right in his conclusions. With this balance of power, even we will hardly be able to destroy at least a thousand of them. There may not be enough ammunition, mines and explosives, and this is provided that they are used wisely, placed in places where the enemy is most concentrated.

"And that's just the cultists, right?"

I asked Draun Rudrin, to which the king nodded in the affirmative.

"This is bad."

This means there will be even more of them.

I guessed, realizing how deplorable the current situation is.

Looking at the layout of the city, I was looking for a way to delay the enemy as long as possible. However, looking at all this, I could only sigh dejectedly. We will not hold back the enemy’s onslaught even if we put every child in this city under the spear. And the king is unlikely to approve of this; in fact, he also will not approve of escaping from the city in order to gather more forces and regroup to recapture the city.

According to him, the loss of the capital is equivalent to the loss of the crown. No one wants to go to fight for a king without possessions, power and gold. That is why the city must survive at any cost, otherwise any other struggle will be in vain.

"Can I ask you a question?"

The old man, whose name was Krezhd Fayun, asked.

"What can you do?"

"So how do we fight?"

I clarified and he nodded.

I did not hide our methods of warfare and told him everything as it is:

"We prefer to keep our distance from our enemies and shoot them."

"This is all?"

"Did you expect something more?"

Krezhd, hearing my words, clicked his tongue and turned to the king.

"Your Majesty, we are wasting time here. How do we know whether their help will be significant or not?

Draun Rudrin, looking at me, nodded in agreement, thereby perfectly making it clear that he was of the same opinion as his military adviser. Although we are soldiers from a completely different era, we knew exactly how people of the current one fight. Swords, spears, shields, cavalry, these are all ancient weapons of warfare, face to face, which people on Earth abandoned more than two and a half thousand years ago, preferring to fight from afar, sometimes without even seeing the enemy directly and not even against him, but against his means of struggle and defense."

With our limited capabilities, the most we can achieve is to shoot the crowd, blow up the crowd and eliminate the enemy commander, but this is as long as we have explosives and ammunition. We need to think outside the box for ourselves and outside the box for the natives to understand what needs to be done that will help us all crush the enemy, who greatly outnumbers us in numbers and the quality of training of his soldiers.

Continuing to look at the layout of the capital, I see the possibility of erecting barricades between the narrow streets, throwing stones and arrows at enemies from the walls, dousing some open areas of the city with oil and setting them on fire the moment the enemy is there; arrange a sortie and provoke some of the opponents into a premature attack, driving them... into the killbox.

And this is an idea.

"I have some idea, but it does not guarantee us complete victory, it will only give us time.”

"It’s interesting to hear what you came up with that will help us gain time.”

Said Krezhd, and meanwhile I pointed my finger at the model of the castle.

"We will drive the enemy into a trap, into a crossfire zone or what we call a killbox. Place archers and crossbowmen here, here and here, build a labyrinth of barricades, completely surround this area and all you have to do is endlessly water their arrows and bolts until the courtyard is littered with the corpses of enemy soldiers."

"Hmm~..."

The old man thought, looking at the model of the castle.

"It will really help to buy time, but the main question is: how do we win?”

"This is where our troops come in.”

"What?"

The natives were surprised.

They looked at each other after hearing my words, and the palace hall was literally drowned in whispers. Among those present at the council was one on whom we relied heavily on the outcome of the battle, and I called this man to the table:

"Ripun, you got a vision from the future this morning, didn’t you?”

The orange-eyed native nodded, and Krezhd hastened to express his doubts.

"Wait! What does that mean?! He can see the future?"

"Only the one where I die."

Ripun clarified and shared his prediction with everyone.

"In the morning I saw an unlived life in which the city would fall. I told Boris about the prediction, and he decided to call his masters for help.”

"And what?"

Pronounced by Krezhd.

"Does help come in your dream?”

"I don’t know yet. Apparently I will remain alive, but I don’t know the outcome of the future in which I survive, only the one in which I die.”

"What kind of dirty words am I hearing?"

The old man spoke displeasedly.

"See the future? No one knows the future except Sod! You're either a deceiver or...!"

"Heretic."

Ripun finished with an indifferent look at the old man.

"You are telling me this for the third time, and I will tell you for sure that I am not a heretic, because I never worshiped Sod. I am a servant of Hippolytus, I believe in the Great Mother. Our beliefs and yours are not the same, but this is not a reason to start doubting right now.» How dare you.» "

"How dare you?!"

The military adviser became angry, grinning his face.

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"Enough."

Draun raised his palm to calm the old man.

"I think we should try it, but I want some guarantee that it will work."

I didn't know what to answer to this.

I can’t even imagine what guarantees he would need for him to believe that Ripun’s predictions are real.

"Your Majesty,"

Fred suddenly intervened.

"I...uh, a doctor in this detachment and I can confirm that he is a real prophet. He once saved our lives with his warning. On the way to Ran, he told us about the arrival of an army of cultists led by a certain Swidok in the village.”

"Swidok?"

The king raised an eyebrow.

At that moment, one of his servants whispered something in his ear, after which the king nodded in agreement.

"Well, now I believe you. What do you need to call your friends for help?"

I turned towards Granid, who was standing aside and listening to our meeting. He seemed to sleep standing up and showed no interest in the war as such. It seems his plan to save the kingdom was to push his problems onto us, for which we are very "grateful” to him.

Deciding to leave the old wizard alone, I decided to answer the king in my own words:

"I was thinking about raising our... artifact into the sky to call for help and then they will arrive.”

"Will they arrive?"

Krezhd asked.

"Who? Are there wyvern riders in your Republic?"

No idea who they are.

I didn't say it out loud and answered somewhat evasively.

"Something like that, but they're very specific."

"It's clear."

The old man spoke, and then the man who was hiding his face under a black hood added his word.

"How are you going to defeat Swidok?"

Krezhd looked askance at this man and was in no hurry to interrupt my answer to the question. It seems that this old man did not know that this Swidok was very dangerous, but this man in a black robe was well aware of it. It was interesting to find out who it was, since he was here and could just come up and whisper in the king’s ear.

"I was hoping to buy time before reinforcements arrived."

I answered honestly, almost throwing up my hands.

"I can lure her to the gate and detonate the explosives. If possible, we will bury her under the rubble."

"Which is unlikely to happen."

The king commented.

"That also takes time, doesn’t it?”

"For this we need dielectrics."

From my answer, everyone opened their mouths in misunderstanding.

Well, of course they didn't understand.

I thought about it and decided to clarify:

"Do you have cross-shaped cages made of iron bars?"

"Of course there are, but why do you need them?”

Krezhd did not understand and I hastened to answer.

"If I’m not mistaken, then this Swidok uses a concentrated charge of "electricity”. With the help of magic, she learned to control it, directing it in the desired direction. Since this is "electricity”, it can be directed and isolated using special materials. Using iron the rods can capture the charge and direct it, and using, for example, rubber to insulate. Although I don’t think you have rubber, you need something else to protect yourself from the effects of "electricity.”

"Boris,

Fred turned to me.

"You can use resin to cover yourself with it from head to toe, especially wipe your hands, and then the electric charge will not fry the body. You can also cover the beams in the grip areas with a layer of glass if protection with resins turns out to be ineffective.”

"Can you do that?"

I asked Krezhd, who in turn just nodded.

"Yes."

He said, moving away from the model and beginning to give orders to the guards to the side.

At that moment the king turned to me:

"You have no idea who Swidok is, right?”

I nodded in response, and the man hiding his face under the hood answered me:

"This is «Legend of the World», a fallen hero of the past who sold her soul to a demon. She is over seven centuries old, and she is the most dangerous person in the world."

To be honest, hearing this was new and I wanted to find out everything I could about her. Most likely, additional information about her will help us defeat her.

"And how did she distinguish herself so much that she deserved to be called a «legend of the world»?”

"She fought for our country in Hel. King Darg "The Warlike" sent an army to support the church in its next crusade against the demons. We, in turn, heard stories about a lady of noble blood who swept away enemies with her sword. They say that she was so It is beautiful that roses bloomed in the red desert, and in one battle she was able to defeat the demonic baron of the path of wrath, Marzok. However, her story ended tragically in the gorge, and the heroine disappeared, most likely she was then taken prisoner by the church. Darg message from demons... with the head of Swidok."

"Head? So she died? Wait... but how?"

"She did not die, but swore allegiance to the demon and became a demoness. What we received from her was only her old shell. So she made it clear to us that she was abandoning everything human in favor of her sinful thoughts.”

"This is weird."

I thought, remembering the description of Swidok’s appearance.

"Isn't she a young woman with yellow hair and red eyes?"

The king and the man in the hood looked at each other, and Krezhd answered us directly:

"No. Most likely this is her new body. She has taken over the body of an innocent girl and is using her as a container for her vicious soul."

"Or maybe she's obsessed with Swidok."

The man in the robe said without showing us his face.

"Since Swidok became a demoness, the girl she possessed..."

"Apparently this is the one we were thinking about."

The king finished speaking and after speaking, he only glanced sideways at us.

He won't tell us...

I guessed it, realizing that the issue with Swidok did not concern us.

The next moment the man in the hood added his word:

"Still, you should know. Emitting lightning or whatever you call it «elec-tri-ci-ty» is not the only thing Swidok can do. She was a powerful sorceress and studied golem magic at the academy.”

"And what is this?”

I sincerely did not understand.

"The magic of commanding man-made dolls is a very useful, but difficult magic to master. We don’t know for sure, but perhaps after turning into a demoness, she can now raise the dead.”

Of course, we learned a lot of new things about her, but alas, nothing useful that would help us somehow defeat her.

"Pha~!"

Fred couldn't help but laugh, but shut his mouth in time, shaking his head from side to side.

"Do you see anything funny in this?"

Krezhd said angrily.

Fred shook his head and replied:

"No. It's just hard to imagine how someone could be brought back to life."

"Not to bring back to life, but to turn the bodies of the dead into puppets. This is the most insane and immoral desecration of life in the whole world. The souls of the deceased will never rest while their bodies are played with like toys.”

And it’s still hard to imagine that one could see the living dead, like... zombies.

"We got distracted..."

The king said, coughing several times.

"We haven't finished planning the city's defense."

"Really."

I agreed, returning my attention to the layout of the city and saw something interesting, pointing my finger at it.

"What is this?"

"This?"

Draun took a closer look and answered.

"This is a temple building, a place of prayer for parishioners.”

"And opposite it is the square."

I said, having already chosen a place to land one of the shuttles.

The shuttles are quite huge in size and can accommodate up to five hundred crew members. I don’t know exactly how many people General Zeonid will send us, if at all, but still, if this happens, the area in front of the temple will be an ideal landing spot. Moreover, at least one shuttle must descend into the city in order to immediately begin patrolling the city.

"We need to clear the area."

I said this and immediately received an objection from Krezhd.

"What? Why do you need this? The Holy Virgin Martyr Rozkrina Square is a place of worship on the day of the lunar ablution, this place cannot be desecrated!"

"It is necessary."

I said sternly.

"Otherwise, my people will not be able to get to the city in time. We need a place where they can land, preferably where there is as much space as possible."

"Well, no."

Krezhd shook his head.

"No? Well, okay, let these «wy-ve-rns» crush a couple of dozen houses in the city where people will be hiding."

Krezhd tsked, but in the end agreed.

"Okay. We will clear the square, but know that the parishioners will obviously not be delighted with this. Moreover, there are probably a lot of people gathered there now. They are praying to Sod for protection in front of the Rozkrina statue.”

"Is there a statue there?"

I clarified, but looking at the layout I didn’t see it.

"Yes. She's standing here."

The king pointed out and immediately understood what I meant.

"It needs to be removed, right?"

I nodded.

"It won't be long until the battle comes to an end."

"Your Majesty,"

Krezhd turned to the king.

"This is madness! We risk that because of their whim there will be a rebellion in the middle of the city! Believers will be able to endure being driven from places of prayer, but to remove the statue... no. They will never agree to this. The people will not stand up either to defend the crown without a king."

"Boris, you heard everything perfectly well, what do you say?”

The king asked me, and I could only sigh.

"Damn... they're going to land on houses."

"Okay, OKAY."

The old man grumbled.

"I'll think of something, just don't destroy our city."

"Fine."

I nodded and did not keep my promise.