Chapter 66: Gate Of Althoff

The morning after the Beast Tide, Althoff was quieter than Raymond had ever heard it.

Not peaceful, exactly, because there was nothing peaceful about the northern half of the town looking as though an army had marched through it, but quiet in the exhausted way that followed something terrible finally ending.

Sections of the outer wall had collapsed completely, several streets were buried beneath broken timber and stone, and hundreds of Magic Beast carcasses still covered the snow outside the northern defenses.

Inside the town, the damage became worse the closer one moved toward the districts where the second wave had broken through.

Houses had been smashed apart, barricades reduced to splinters, paving stones torn from the ground, and the entire intersection where the Blackstone Ursar had fought the Silver Knights looked as though someone had deliberately tried to destroy every building around it.

The Gold Rank beast itself was still there, although a team of butchers, hunters, and Knights had already begun dismantling the enormous carcass under strict supervision. Raymond had no idea what the hide, claws, bones, armored plates, and Mana Core of a Gold Rank Magic Beast were worth, but considering how much trouble the bastard had caused before dying, he intended to extract value from every last piece of it.

Raymond spent most of that morning walking through the damaged districts with Boris, Marianne, and Lily while receiving reports from every department that still existed after the battle.

The granaries had survived untouched, which was probably the most important news considering the number of people Althoff now had to feed through winter.

The water supply remained secure, the livestock had suffered almost no losses after being moved near the castle, and none of the civilian shelters had been breached.

The casualty report was harder to hear. Four defenders had died during the battle, twenty-seven had suffered wounds serious enough to remove them from active duty, and dozens more had cuts, bruises, sprains, minor fractures, or exhaustion severe enough that Marianne had ordered them to rest whether they liked it or not.

Several summoned Knights had also been injured, although none had died.

Raymond had asked Lily to read the report twice, then taken the ledger from her and stared at the four names longer than necessary until Boris finally noticed what he was doing.

"You’re looking at that page like there’s another version of yesterday where nobody dies," the captain said as they walked along the damaged northern wall.

Raymond didn’t look up immediately as he replied, "There usually is. Better barricade placement, faster withdrawal, different positioning. Somewhere in there was probably a decision that gets those four men home alive."

Boris was silent for a moment before shaking his head. "Maybe. Or maybe there was another decision that got forty killed instead. A Beast Tide that size should have buried this town, my Lord. Four men died making sure nearly two thousand people woke up this morning. You can hate that number all you want, but don’t make their deaths smaller by acting as though the battle wasn’t a victory because you couldn’t make the number zero."

Raymond finally looked toward him and found Boris wearing the same stubborn expression he usually wore whenever he believed his lord was being unreasonable.

The captain looked terrible himself, with one forearm wrapped in bandages and a split across his lower lip, yet he had apparently decided injuries didn’t count if he could still walk. Raymond closed the ledger and handed it back to Lily before sighing.

"You’ve become annoyingly wise for a man who once participated in a mutiny against me." Boris immediately frowned. "I did not participate in the mutiny."

Raymond stared at him. "You were standing beside armed men threatening my authority."

Boris considered that before replying, "I was reconsidering my employment under unusually tense circumstances."

Raymond raised an eyebrow. "With a sword."

Boris shrugged."The workplace environment was poor."

Raymond couldn’t stop the laugh that escaped him, and even Marianne smiled while Lily looked between the two men with the deeply disappointed expression of a ten-year-old who had somehow become more responsible than both of them.

The laughter didn’t erase the four names, but it made carrying them easier, and Raymond eventually returned his attention to the work ahead.

The dead had to be buried, the wounded treated, the wall repaired, the carcasses processed, damaged homes inspected, and defensive patrols maintained because the Beast Tide might have broken apart, but winter was nowhere near finished.

What Raymond didn’t realize was that Althoff’s survival had already become the most important piece of news traveling through northern Zulor.

The first indication came that afternoon when Boris’s patrols returned with three travelers they had encountered on the southern road. Two were wagon merchants who had abandoned their original route after the migration blocked the eastern roads, while the third was a courier trying to determine which settlements still existed.

All three had heard stories about Althoff from different sources, and by the time those stories reached Raymond, they had already become ridiculous.

One version claimed House Althoff had killed ten thousand Magic Beasts without losing a single soldier. Another claimed Raymond had personally fought the Gold Rank beast and torn out its Mana Core with his bare hands.

The third was somehow worse, because according to that story, the Goddess of Life had descended over Althoff during the battle and summoned divine warriors from the heavens to destroy the Beast Tide.

Raymond nearly inhaled his coffee when Lily read that part of the report in his office. "No. Absolutely not. We are killing that version immediately."

Lily blinked at him from across the desk. "How, my Lord?"

Raymond opened his mouth confidently before realizing he had absolutely no answer.

Boris, sitting near the fireplace while reviewing patrol reports, made the mistake of snorting.

Raymond pointed at him. "Don’t start."

Boris raised both hands innocently. "I didn’t say anything."

Raymond narrowed his eyes. "Your face said enough."

Boris finally gave up trying not to laugh. "We all already believe that you are the chosen servant of the Goddess Of Life, and then five Silver Knights nobody remembers seeing before suddenly joined the battle when a Gold Rank beast appeared. What exactly did you expect them to think?"

Raymond leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. "I expected people to mind their own business."

Marianne, who had entered midway through the conversation carrying medical reports, calmly replied, "I don’t believe miracles generally encourage that, my Lord."

Raymond looked at her in betrayal. "Not you too."