Chapter 617 The Northern Bulwark
After a quick rest in the sleeping capsule, Jin woke up to check the status of the Farming World. The Dungeon Supplier needed to know if he could utilise any additional monsters for the raid in Giant World.
That was because it was the first place he had in mind for new allies. He kept it from Peppers for now since her intention was to obliterate the entire city into dust.
That would be madness, but so was coordinating a search and rescue operation, in addition to the intent of defeating the reigning Salamander family. If all else fails, at the very least he would still have the Salamanders in the worst outcome possible.
Jin invited Gold to give him a debrief and the latest development was that he had managed to evacuate most of the towns they had liberated to the Trading Town of Wecha, the place where the three goblins had a massive fight against the Demon Rats.
This was because Town Wecha was the biggest and had the most defensive features a town could have. Not to mention it was the closest to the seaports where the remaining Northern Military forces were guarding.
The liberation of Wecha had led to the remaining general in charge of defences convinced to aid the townfolks. Silver, Gold's cousin, was the diplomat to make it happen. While he might not be a very good fighter and a bad temper to top it off, his tongue was as silver as it could be.
He not only convinced the remaining Northern General, Matt Umiterus, to send its military forces to Wecha, Silver had also given him an open channel to the Southern Stars Organisation and Western Skies.
With the two other organisations done scouting and sabotage missions respectively, they had provided the information for the general to organise his troops. They hoped that bigger raid attempts could be executed in the areas near the seaports so they might have a safer perimeter.
Silver and Meomi subsequently discussed with the two other organisations on hiring more of their members, but also came with a cost to borne. Fortunately, General Matt also being the remaining official representative of the Northern Kingdom, he had agreed to take on the expenses.
Silver did not know how the situation would pan out at first, but according to his soldiers, General Matt was considered as the few sensible and honourable general as well as an incredibly lucky chap.
Because of his budding talents, the newly appointed young general was being sent to Western Region for a military training exercise which none of the Northern Generals liked.
They felt that the Western Military was too …wilful in nature. They did not have the rigidness of the Northern Military, but the bilateral military exercise had to be participated as a show of friendship between the two regions.
Thus, they made the general Matt to go instead.
Little did they knew, the young general was able to accommodate to the Western Military attitudes and even became drinking buddies with the top brass of the Western Military.
That was why when the Western Skies recognised that General Matt was in the negotiation table, the adventurer's guild agreed too readily to provide assistance to him. (The head of the adventurer's guild was one of the Top Brass and was all the more happy to aid Matt compared to any other Northern Generals.)
But that was the only easy part General Matt had. For the past months, he had been struggling against the Demon Rats the day he returned to the Northern Kingdom. He and his army fought bit by bit, inch by inch to get back a seaport town.
Some of the veteran soldiers even recalled that the fight started off the shores when the rats attempted to swim and board their ships. Subsequently, the other seaports were liberated by using the various surprise tactics he learnt from the Western Military.
It was through his valiant efforts it was able to secure the seaports days after it was dominated by the Demon Rats. By denying the Demon Rats the seaports, General Matt was able to contain the Demon Rat infestation within the Northern Region.
And for that reason alone, the remaining townsfolk in the seaport worked hard to support the defending army.
Trade might have been reduced, but having a sea trade route meant that food and replenishment of armaments were available …just at a higher cost. Yet, the other regions knew the implications of this untold horror after General Matt gave the other region's representatives a glimpse of the grim reality. Consequently, they lowered the cost of trading essential food and arms while some trade companies even donated for free to aid their cause.
The only thing the other regions did not offer was manpower as they too were busy shoring up their costal and sea defences. Patrols were done regularly in their oceanic borders, in case the Demon Rats learn how to swim. Some of the Western Military wanted to send their men, but their government was quick to shoot that down. (That was mainly the reason why Silver initially used organisations as a proxy to reach to them. Soldiers of fortune were still better than no soldiers aiding the North.)
Ironically, not one of the region ever thought of conquering the Northern Region. Perhaps they were scared of the unknown, or maybe they wanted the Northern Region to be entirely infested with Demon Rats without any Northerners left.
If not for the fact that General Matt needed to protect the remaining free Northerners, he would have personally sailed a ship towards each kingdom and punch the leaders for being such heartless cowards.
However, all these constant doubts and worries were being washed away with the tide of good news from Silver. As Gold and the other monsters had previously raided foodstuff and armaments from the various towns, the army in the seaports was restocked with adequate supplies. The gold they stole were also given to General Matt as a supplement to his war chest.
Townfolks from the evacuated areas were also inspired to join General Matt's army, the Northern Bulwark, thus replenishing the manpower to train new recruits as well to fill in miscellaneous jobs like logistics and administration.
In return, the Northern Bulwark extended their defensive borders to Wecha though General Matt was extremely apprehensive about stretching his forces too thin. But he had to show his gratitude in some way or another.
Silver laughed and told him not to worry.
True enough, days after the agreement, ships mysteriously appeared to the various seaports carrying the Dark Templars' insignia. Dark Templar Commander Zieg introduced himself to General Matt and told him that the Eastern Dark Templars would be helping the Northern Bulwark in exchange for authority to operate on its own. They even passed on more foodstuff and supplies to the Northern Bulwark before marching on.
At first General Matt was worried that these zealots would be a hindrance to the Northern Region future, but he figured that was a problem for a later date. The Northern Bulwark agreed, and the first place the Dark Templars went was officially reinforcing Wecha.
By then, most of the townfolks had already acknowledged them as their saviours and protectors since they were also the ones who escorted them during the evacuation. (Just not officially.)
Jin was impressed by Gold and his teams' work and felt that the evacuation was a decent tactic to stall time against the Demon Rat armies. However, he was saddened that the Demon Rats could potentially utilise the resources left behind in those deserted towns.
"Some of the citizens stayed back to gather whatever valuable resources they could find and pass it to the respective evacuation teams. After which, we used those metal carriages erm …Jeeps to send them back to their groups." Gold explained that he had already thought of that.
"While we gave the impression that we are going to burn them underground, we actually teleport the goods and supplies to Commander Zieg as teleported the ships from the Eastern Regions to the seas of the Northern Region to make our actions more believable. System nearly killed us for using so many resources with the portal efforts."
"That's great to hear!" Jin replied knowing that all did not go to waste.
"And Boss …you should have already known that Peppers will not give a pass to such sweet, vulnerable targets when their armies reached the towns for a pit stop." Gold said with a smirk on his face.
"You don't mean?" Jin started to chuckle a little.
"Let's just say Ayse had a wonderful field experiment with Peppers." Gold winked at him and continued to debrief Jin the finer details of his report.