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Not touching the cost to get them here. They had already learned that new players expected respect and praise without backing. Honestly, for the first two weeks, they were just a bother.

After that, well... After that, they started to understand their position.

By Judith\'s suggestion, they had created an internal ranking system. Players would fight one another in arenas and determine the strongest. Elizabeth herself wasn\'t able to claim one of the top spots. Her focus was, after all, on being a healer and support—after her role as the guild leader.

The Flaming Hearts securely held the rest of the spots. They had even placed Eldrian at number 1 without him knowing. However, to challenge him, you needed to reach second place first. Until now, there had been no case of anyone coming close to second place.

\'Well, considering how Eldrian handled Judith, I doubt even everyone working together could pose a danger to him... But his strength alone isn\'t enough to support and manage a fort. Well, I guess that\'s why I\'m here. He does like dumping things onto others to manage...\' Elizabeth sighed.

\'I don\'t think Kynigo is at the point of collapse,\' Elizabeth thought, shifting her focus away from the abnormality that was Eldrian to the city where their base was forcefully being built in, thanks to said abnormality.

Kynigo currently lacked experienced soldiers, owing to all their losses in the previous fights. But they still had plenty of inexperienced hands.

If it was a question of numbers, the city could provide thanks to the Diades refugees. Sadly, numbers meant little when magic was part of the equation.

It was like trying to win a fight with swords when guns existed. To stand a chance, you needed guns. Or rather, you needed soldiers of the same Tier as your opponent, or the damage that those few higher Tiered could cause would be catastrophic.

\'If Eldrian is right, and this isn\'t an army of the undead, but rather just the undead wandering or migrating into Kynigo... It would be good practice, I\'ll admit. Undead are tricky to fight, but as long as the flow of the battle is controlled, it shouldn\'t be too dangerous.\'

\'If managed, it can be great training. And because of their peculiarities, it can work as a way for us to refine the newbies that join the guild.\' Elizabeth was doing her best to convince herself that it was not all bad.

\'Of course, this all only focused on the western part of the region. There is an entire eastern part that we have yet to touch upon.\'

Luckily, the Verleuo Fort had not been targeted in previous attacks nor during the long siege. While it had been isolated, it had not fallen and the commander of the fort had actually saved most of the citizens of the nearby villages and towns.

\'There are mostly plains between it and Pyknos though... Granted, to the centaurs, this is a benefit. But there is too much land to patrol and protect.\'

Even if a line was drawn from fort to fort, it still meant abandoned the entire southern region. However, Elizabeth saw no other possibility. After the last attack, there were no villages past the forts.

Losing the land would suck and be a mental blow, but it wouldn\'t be a hit to Kynigo\'s economy. All villages and towns that have been reclaimed are behind this arbitrary line. Farming and husbandry had started again, and most mines had been reclaimed.

Kynigo\'s situation finally seemed stable.

Elizabeth knew all this thanks to a few players who had been stationed in the city to maintain intelligence. Silver had actually volunteered for this, wishing to help those from Diades settle in as fast as possible.

In their migration, she had grown quite close to a number of the Diades\' citizens.

Eldrian, on the other hand, did not think of all these things. His focus was rather on the undead and the encroaching. Which, as its namesake suggests, has been encroaching into the region.

\'That is another matter. From Ilpas\'s notes, I think it is similar to the corruption in the forest. But we found the source of the forest\'s corruption and are still clueless about the source of the encroaching. Not even Ilpas had a clue, at least not in any notes I have seen...\'

\'At the bare minimum, we will need to find a way to prevent its expansion or we will lose land to the land itself...\' Strangely, Eldrian didn\'t feel too worried. He felt he would be able to do something should the time come.

According to Eldrian\'s map, the encroaching had expanded by about ten kilometers since he returned to ANW. Swallowing an entire mountain range at the far southern end of the region.

Thinking of all this, Eldrian couldn\'t answer Elizabeth\'s question with certainty. He felt they had a chance at success. Especially since it appeared that the undead were migrating instead of attacking.

But it would not be long before the invasion starts anew. Until one of the many undead kings brought an army to their doorsteps. Or a devil takes control, or a demon rampage, or the orcs relaunch their assault...

There certainly wouldn\'t be enough time for the kingdom to recover before something major happened again. Northernian and the undead\'s movements there was a perfect example.

\'Luckily the undead and orc invasion didn\'t happen at the same time... No, I guess they did... I just happened to be in the way of the undead and thanks to circumstances, I had some really strong dwarves supporting me. They basically stopped the undead in their tracks.\'

Eldrian still could not understand why the dwarves didn\'t help more. Sure, it wasn\'t their kingdom, but helping the kingdom of Taurus didn\'t hurt them. In fact, it would help them a great deal.

\'Well, I shouldn\'t be spiteful. I should just be glad that they did help and that it gave me time to grow. I doubt I can fight any higher undead in Tier 6 and win, but I will be able to stall them and I certainly will be able to retreat.\'

But even that wasn\'t enough. \'Pelaros mentioned Kynigo has around 2 000 Tier 5—combatants... Yeah, calling them soldiers is wrong. And it might sound like a grand number, but considering we won\'t see much of an increase for years... we are fighting a war of attrition, that\'s for sure.\'

\'Of the two thousand, around thousand must remain to ensure the city had enough security. Technically, each fort can be given 250 then, but Pyknos requires more and the line between Verleuo is too long. So we will need a large portion to patrol to ensure sufficient strength...\' Eldrian\'s thoughts started to wander.

There was so much to think of, and honestly, he just wanted to drop it all and focus on training and his experiments. But he couldn\'t.

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