White Raven City was the closest city to the southwest among the six towns of the Northern Region. Warren, the mayor of the city, was a vassal of the Bretton family. His father was the captain of the Guard that protected Lolo's great-grandfather. Warren had received the news that the monsters had crossed the border, but he did not pay much attention to it. Firstly, he heard that the monsters did not attack the cities along the way, and secondly, the Margan Desert was very far away from the Northern Region. There were two small towns in the Morton Duchy less than sixty kilometers south of White Raven City. If the monsters did appear, the two small towns would be the first to receive the news.
However, the situation suddenly changed four days ago. In just one night, all the clergymen and sorcerers in the city had disappeared. The church and the Sorcerer Association's base were completely empty. The knights of the Temple of Light were the last to leave. The official statement was that they were going to Morton for a secret mission, but Warren still sensed something unusual.
Two days later, Warren received an urgent letter from Ancer, requesting that White Raven City enter the first level of emergency alert, gather all the armed forces in the city, and evacuate the civilians as soon as possible.
Warren's heart was full of doubts. If not for the fact that the letter had Ancer's personal seal and the seal was still intact, Warren would have thought that someone had stolen or forged the letter. White Raven City was currently peaceful, and there were no signs of danger at all. The two small towns of Morton, thirty miles away, were also peaceful. At noon, there were even merchants transporting goods from those towns.
Warren could not imagine where the so-called "enemies" in the letter would come from.
However, as a soldier, Warren made the necessary preparations after receiving Ancer's urgent letter. He mobilized the guards and the militia, hired a large number of adventurers from the Adventurers Guild, and even forcibly recruited the guards of some minor nobles. Warren did everything he could. However, there were about a hundred thousand civilians in White Raven City and the nearby villages. Most of them cursed when they received the order to evacuate.
Many of them had never left White Raven City since they were born. Their ancestors had lived here for generations, and once they lost everything, they would have to start all over again. Therefore, as soon as they received the order to evacuate, some people protested outside Warren's residence, while others expressed their willingness to join the guards, as long as their families did not have to leave.
The evacuation plan did not go well from the very beginning. Warren's political skills were average, but his army was well-trained, and he could basically carry out his orders. However, this time, no matter how hard his subordinates tried, the residents of White Raven City seemed to be determined to stay. By the second night, only one-third of the city's population had been evacuated, and many of them had gone to seek refuge with their relatives in the villages outside the city.
Warren knew that desperate times called for desperate measures, so he sent a small team of scouts to persuade the villagers to move to the northeast. If necessary, they could even use some violent means. However, the scouts were obviously not as familiar with the terrain as the villagers who had lived in the area for a long time. Every village would send three or four scouts to keep watch. When the scouts saw the army coming from afar, they would inform the villagers to hide in the woods. After the army left, everyone would return to the village and live as usual.
In this way, the scouts that Warren sent out would not be of much use.
As the deadline in the letter approached, Warren had been busy for the past two days. Standing on the city wall and looking at the crowd outside the city gate, Warren felt more and more uneasy. He had lost count of the number of times he had asked the people around him how long it would take for the evacuation to be completed.
The plump security guard wiped the sweat off his forehead. He wanted to say something, but he did not say it.
Warren frowned. "Baron Hollins, if you have something to say, just say it."
"At this speed, let alone two days, it will be impossible to evacuate everyone in twenty days," Hollins said with a bitter smile. He was the person in charge of the evacuation of the civilians, so he knew the situation in White Raven City best. "Most people don't believe the guards. They say that danger will come to White Raven City. Unless we use extreme violence, it will be difficult to drive the rest of the people away. Oh, right. What did Lord Ancel say? Where did the enemy come from?"
Warren took the note from the White Raven's leg and handed it to the security guard. The latter took a look at it, and his expression changed drastically. His hand holding the note trembled. "The monsters in the Margan Desert are targeting the north. How … How is this possible?"
"Do you know why this note was only delivered to me today?" Warren was surprisingly calm at this moment.
Hollins was not as stupid as he looked. Otherwise, he would not have been able to hold the position of White Raven City's security guard for eight years. He quickly thought of something, and his expression became even more worried. "Is Lord Ancel afraid that we will abandon the city and run away?"
Ordinary people with families could not run far in two days, but for rulers like Warren and Hollins, they still had a chance to run away. Especially since the two cities of the Morton Duchy were not far from White Raven City, if they were determined to run away, Ancel could not do anything about it.
Therefore, in the first letter he sent to Warren, he did not specify who the enemy was. It was not until two days later that the second White Raven brought the truth. By then, it was too late for Warren to run away.
The commander of the garrison was Warren's former assistant. After Warren became the castellan, he naturally took over the garrison of White Raven City. However, military affairs were usually handled by the Holy Knights of the Temple. Now that the Church had left, the military power of White Raven City had fallen into Warren's hands. At this moment, Warren quickly walked up the stone steps and reported to the castellan without even bothering to salute him. "Castellan, we lost contact with two villages after sunrise. It's been half a magic hour."
Hollins sucked in a breath of cold air. "So fast? Those monsters, they … they're already here?! "
Warren was concerned about something else. "Which two villages?"
"The westernmost villages of Halster and Link," the commander replied.
"West?" This time, Warren's expression changed. Even if there were enemies, he had always thought that they would come from the south because the roads in the south were convenient for the army to advance. White Raven City was the closest city to the south of the Northern Region, so its strategic location was very important. In the past, when other kingdoms wanted to attack the Northern Region, they had to first conquer White Raven City as a bridgehead. Warren's previous series of arrangements were mostly made to deal with enemies coming from the south.
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